October 1, 2011 archive

Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

Regular Features-

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And these special features-

Please join us later tonight for the American League Playoffs Live Blog with pithy commentary by ek hornbeck.

The Stars Hollow Gazette

Cartnoon

This week’s episodes originally aired October 11, 2003.

The Green Loontern Episode 16, Season 1, Part 1

Today’s MLB Playoff coverage on The Stars Hollow Gazette starts at 2 pm ET.

On This Day In History October 1

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

October 1 is the 274th day of the year(275th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 91 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1946, 12 high-ranking Nazis are sentenced to death by the International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg. Among those condemned to death by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo and chief of the German air force; and Wilhelm Frick, minister of the interior. Seven others, including Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s former deputy, were given prison sentences ranging from 10 years to life. Three others were acquitted.

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military, held by the main victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany. The trials were held in the city of Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany, in 1945-46, at the Palace of Justice. The first and best known of these trials was the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which tried 22 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany. It was held from November 20, 1945 to October 1, 1946. The second set of trials of lesser war criminals was conducted under Control Council Law No. 10 at the US Nuremberg Military Tribunals (NMT); among them included the Doctors’ Trial and the Judges’ Trial.

The Main Trial

The International Military Tribunal was opened on October 18, 1945, in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg. The first session was presided over by the Soviet judge, Nikitchenko. The prosecution entered indictments against 24 major war criminals and six criminal organizations – the leadership of the Nazi party, the Schutzstaffel (SS) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Gestapo, the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the “General Staff and High Command,” comprising several categories of senior military officers.

The indictments were for:

  1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace

  2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace

  3. War crimes

  4. Crimes against humanity

Occupy Wall St. Livestream: Day 15

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

OccupyWallStreet

The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza 😉

Wall Street protesters march on police

More than 1,000 people marched past City Hall and arrived at a plaza outside police headquarters in the late afternoon. Some held banners criticizing police, while others chanted: “We are the 99 percent” and “The banks got bailed out, we got sold out.”

Workers from the financial district on their way home watched as the marchers passed, with some saying it was not obvious what outcome organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement wanted.

Police observed the march and kept protesters on the sidewalk, but no clashes were reported. Police said no arrests were made before the protest dispersed peaceably by 8 p.m. after the march.

AFL-CIO’s Trumka Hails Occupy Wall Street

by John Nichols

Declaring that “Wall Street’s out of control,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has embraced street protests such as the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations-and others like them that are planned for cities across the country.

Asked about the ongoing mass protest in New York’s financial district, which has begun to gain support from major unions, Trumka said Friday morning: “I think it’s a tactic and a valid tactic to call attention to a problem. Wall Street is out of control. We have three imbalances in this country-the imbalance between imports and exports, the imbalance between employer power and working power, and the imbalance between the real economy and the financial economy. We need to bring back balance to the financial economy, and calling attention to it and peacefully protesting is a very legitimate way of doing it.”

Hailing the power of street protests to shift the dialogue, Trumka said, “I think being in the streets and calling attention to issues is sometimes the only recourse you have because, God only knows, you can go to the Hill, and you can talk to a lot of people and see nothing ever happen…”

Late Night Karaoke

Random Japan

Photobucket

GOOD LOVIN’ GONE BAD

A 42-year-old man in Italy was charged with killing his 24-year-old girlfriend after binding her to her friend with rope after a night of clubbing. The trio was apparently “performing a Japanese sado-masochist technique known as shibari” when things went wrong and one of the girls suffocated.

A jeweler in Otsu put 14 small 0.01-carat diamonds on sale for ¥100 each to try to bring people into his store. It worked-over 20 people lined up in front of the shop before it opened.

A soccer game in the Belgian League was stopped when Japanese goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima took exception to opposing fans chanting “Kawashima, Fukushima.” An enraged Kawashima left the field in tears and later called the chants “unforgiveable.”

The lone surviving pine tree out of thousands on tsunami-hit Takata Matsubara beach in Iwate Prefecture is in failing health with dead buds, discolored pine cones, and brown leaves. Damaged roots are thought to be the cause and a hotter-than-hell summer didn’t help.

A small wooden boat with nine people on board was stopped by the Coast Guard in the Sea of Japan near the Noto Peninsula. One passenger told officers that the boat was from North Korea and they were trying to get to South Korea.

A capsule house designed in the 1960s by famed “Metabolist” architect Kisho Kurokawa was put on display in Roppongi.

Japanese teen actors Shota Sometani and Fumi Nikaido won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actor and actress at the Venice International Film Festival for their work in a movie called Himizu.

Another Japanese film, Kotoko, took home the festival’s Orizzonti award for “full-length feature films that reflect new trends in international film.”

The 13-year-old son of a Japanese banker killed in the World Trade Center attacks in 2001 gave an emotional speech at the Ground Zero ceremony in New York honoring the victims on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Two Russian bombers buzzed Japanese airspace, prompting Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura to send a protest to Moscow through diplomatic channels.

A 24-year-old Chiba man was arrested for stealing money from the bank account of a female university student and killing her by suffocating her with a plastic bag.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann: Worst Persons 9.29.2011

Worst Persons: Bill O’Reilly, Rep. Al Pscholka, Rep. Allen West

Find out why Bill O’Reilly is WORSE; Rep. Al Pscholka is WORSER; and Rep. Allen West is the WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD for Sept. 29, 2011.

Temporary problems and capitalism’s demise

  If you follow the financial news you will find it using temporary excuses for every set-back.

For instance, every year there will be several bad economics reports blamed on the weather. As if every winter storm is “unprecedented”.

 Likewise, all efforts by the government and Federal Reserve at fixing an economy are temporary as well. Which is all fine and dandy when the economy is suffering from something that is indeed temporary. Remember how 9/11 got blamed for a recession that was already 7 months old?

 But what if the problems with the economy are not temporary? What if they are structural?

How many years of extremely expensive “temporary fixes” must we endure before we take a good, hard look at the basic assumptions of the current economy? Two years? Three years?

 We are currently approaching the four years mark for “temporary” fixes in the credit markets with no end in sight.  

Schwarzenegger the Destroyer

If there is one thing that is certain the former Governator was all braun and no brains. Holding the office of the eighth largest economy in the world and treating it as an action movie. In his life it was a two hour thrill ride yet for the rest of us it was seven years of endless destruction and counting.

Popular Culture (Music): The Who. Odds and Sods Part I of II

Odds and Sods was the third “canonical” compilation album released by  The Who, released 19740928, almost exactly 37 years ago today.  

In the US the record was released by MCA, and in the UK by Track.   There is some discrepancy as to how the record charted, some references saying #10 and #15 in the UK and US, respectively, whilst others indicate #10 and #8.

This is one of my favorite records, since it contains material not previously released, some of which is amongst their best.  It also marked the final release of material that I consider “classic” Who, since the next studio album, The Who by Numbers, was a considerable departure from their old sound, a trend already started by Quadrophenia, discussed here and here.

All of the material was previously unreleased, except “I’m the Face” which we shall discuss in a bit.  None of the material on the record was specifically recorded for it, but rather were studio tapes recorded months to years before it was compiled and released.

Justice would be nice

I don’t normally cover stories about transpeople committing crimes.  I hope that is understandable.  I write so that maybe someday we’ll get equal rights.  I personally don’t think transpeople committing crimes advances that cause.  I don’t write about those incidences unless something else is involved in the story, like maltreatment by the police or while incarcerated.

This past week I took another look at one of those stories.  I think it warrants some commentary.

Crishaun (Cece) McDonald is a 23-year-old transwoman from Minneapolis.  She has been charged with second-degree murder in the June 5 stabbing death of Dean Schmitz, 47, of Richfield, outside of the Schooner Tavern in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis.

McDonald remains in jail in lieu of $150,000 bail. Because of his gender transition status, McDonald is being held in isolation for his own safety, said Tony Dulski, who looks after McDonald’s finances as a trustee and has visited him in jail.

Dulski said that McDonald is a man who is “in the process of becoming female,” receiving hormone treatment while living as a woman.

As a trustee and counselor, Dulski said, he helps McDonald handle his finances. McDonald, who attended Minneapolis Community and Technical College this past spring semester, receives Social Security disability payments because of emotional and mental difficulties tied to gender identity, Dulski added.

Don’t think we didn’t notice the use of the male pronouns.