A lovely treatise on the power of positive-sphincking.
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One more Halloween Post:
Jack Chick does Halloween. For all you Chick Tract fans out there.
Good thing I'm Jewish and don't believe in Satan. He looks mighty scary here.
Found on the robot filter.
| Scary | Halloween | Cartoons |
Sydney
Toy gun shuts down U.S. House office building
The incident began shortly after 1 p.m. when U.S. Capitol police noticed an image of what appeared to be a .38-caliber revolver on an X-ray machine at the building's south entrance.Police notified employees in the building that they were searching for a man and a woman who breached security. They said a man grabbed a backpack and ran off after the apparent revolver was detected.
After learning of the incident, two women who work in the office of Rep. John Shimkus, R-Illinois, came forward. Shimkus' office notified Capitol Police, according to a statement released by his office.
The women had placed bags containing Halloween costumes through the X-ray machine, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer told reporters shortly before 3 p.m.
The clothing and prop that triggered the situation was a costume of "Sydney," the character Jennifer Garner plays in ABC's "Alias."
Passenger's trunk sets off bomb scare: Wanted to look like 'Ghostbusters' characters
Items packed in a steamer trunk -- intended for Halloween costumes, said the trunk's owner -- set off airport explosive detection systems Thursday, causing a bomb scare and delays for passengers at West Palm Beach Airport in Florida.And of course...The steamer trunk was one of two pieces of luggage passenger Eric Valleca, a 28-year-old Florida resident, checked on a United flight from West Palm Beach to Chicago, airport officials said.
Officials said the trunk set off the alarm, and X-rays showed several suspicious items, including radios, distributor caps attached to wires, batteries, PVC pipe painted black, stereo speakers and an alarm clock.
Officials initially considered blowing the trunk up, but sent in a robot to take a closer look first.
Happy Halloween everyone!
| Halloween | Ghostbusters | Alias |
It turns out that the latest critic of Ariel Sharon's Palestinian policies is ... (drumroll please) ... the Israeli army chief .
[blatantly out of context excerpts below]
The chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces has added his voice to those criticizing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's hard-line policies for dealing with the Palestinians.
In a "background" briefing given to three of Israel's top political commentators, General Yaalon sought to describe an ongoing debate within Israel's military establishment over how to handle the conflict.
According to Nahum Barnea's account in the Wednesday edition of Yedioth Ahronoth, Yaalon said many officers favored easing a strict "closure" on the Palestinian territories because the restrictions ultimately exacerbate tensions
Yaalon also outlined the frustration that many senior officers apparently feel about the government's policy toward former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas stepped down in early September, saying he had been undermined by Israel and the government's call for the removal of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, which has served to reinforce the Palestinian leader's popularity among his people. The chief of staff also relayed criticism of the route planned for the "security barrier," which Israel is building to prevent terrorist attacks by walling in the Palestinians.
In Thursday's coverage of the controversy, military officers were quoted supporting Yaalon's view. "Yaalon felt a public duty to warn and to bring to the public's attention the sense that many commanders feel, which is that the IDF is putting the Palestinian people into a pressure cooker that is liable to blow up in our face," said one unnamed officer quoted in the Maariv daily.
Professor Van Creveld, author of a history of Israel's military, says Yaalon was not necessarily out of line in sharing his views. "I would be inclined to think it is rather the duty of the chief of staff to speak out," he says. "I'm a bit disappointed that he's done it only now."
[p.s. what's with LGF anyway ? They make Fox News look Fair and Balanced, and the last time I read it, it was nothing but radio call-in show style vitriol. I saw one article where people claimed that Jews were prohibited from getting security clearances in the US government (?!?). They love Boykin there, but ignore the fact that he thinks of America as a Christian nation. Basically, they think that Islam is the enemy and that any muslim is inherently a traitor. Sorry, I'm not going back to get the links to link this properly, I don't want to look at it any more.]
| Middle East | Palestine | LGF |
You may have wondered what idiots in the Fox legal department could have possibly allowed the filing of the amazingly stupid lawsuit against Al Franken's "Liars" book. But you would be unkind to wonder such a thing. After all, they have their hands full killing even stupider lawsuits. For example, how about the time Rupert Murdoch wanted to sue himself?
Continue reading "A Win-Win Lawsuit" » | Fox | Law |
I spent the next several hours believing I was actually going to jail. I knew this nation's draconian drug laws, and worse yet, the jocular, simian photo of George W. Bush was hanging on the wall of the customs lobby, lurching over me with his moron eyes. I looked at him and thought, 'you have done more blow than I will ever see in my lifetime, yet I am going to jail because I have kidney stones.'
| Security | Essays | George W. Bush | Cocaine |
Not to be outdone by Ennis, who's said that he thought this blog didn't have enough Farrelly Brothers style toilet humor and informed us all of the Colossal Colon Tour, I bring you -- Farts in the News!
Continue reading "Farts in the News!" » | Security | Toys | Dogs | Aristophanes | Dante | Chaucer |
Last January, right after the blogosphere laid Lott low, Ish turned its collective attention to fellow Mississippian Judge Charles Pickering. In these very pages he was called an "evil Maestro" and, more damning, "a little hard to deal with." So now Nat Hentoff at the Voice sticks up for Pickering, saying the case that has caused the most furor -- a cross-burning case -- isn't as bad as Pickering's opponents make it out to be. This is the 2nd of 3 articles by Hentoff on this subject; clearly he thinks Pickering's been railroaded. What do you think?
| Law |
If you've ever wondered how to get a lot of hits on your blog, look at blogdex, the daily index of what bloggers are linking to. Certain themes come up again and again. This story hits the blogdex trifecta: Microsoft-is-evil, MS-vs-Mac, and blogging itself. All it needs is for the RIAA to be suing this poor guy for sharing an MP3 that reveals information about a conspiracy behind the 9/11 attacks. And something about a new iPod.
| Microsoft | Apple |
Just another blog listing thing. Pay no attention.
The last of the League. Mr. Hyde turns out to be the most interesting character of this series. It's sort of a shame that Moore's ended the series, which was vastly fun. Maybe he'll write about the earlier incarnation of the League, with Lemuel Gulliver, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Doctor Syn, Fanny Hill, and Natty Bumppo?
| Alan Moore |
We all knew this was a factor but it's easy to forget how large a constituency white evangelicals are for Bush:
"white evangelicals accounted for about 40 percent of the votes that Mr. Bush received in the 2000 presidential election. In 2004, political analysts say, he is unlikely to be re-elected without the strong support of this constituency, which is predominately but not wholly Republican, and which in other years has thrown significant support to southern Democrats like Bill Clinton. Mr. Rove is now tending to the constituency with great care." [NYT on evangelicals and human rights in foreign policy]
| Wadministration | 2004 Election | Christian Evangelicals | Karl Rove |
So now, when you do a search on Amazon, you're not only searching titles, keywords, authors, etc., but the actual text of 120,000 books. For instance, search on "everett lane" and you'll find my name referenced in the acknowledgements of The Harvard Business School Guide to Careers in the Nonprofit Sector. (Also on page 660 of The Healthy Living Space: 70 Practical Ways to Detoxify the Body and Home -- apparently there's an Everett Lane in Mokena, IL, home of the Pure-Pro USA Corporation). There's a Wired article on it here. For some reason, the "Amazon Light" search tool (over there on the right -- see?) doesn't have this functionality yet, but we'll see if it gets upgraded.
They've just created the single largest searchable text index ever. Now that's cool.
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I can't believe no one has yet mentioned the appalling situation in Florida, where a vegetative woman's feeding tube was removed after a court found that she would have wanted to die (although she had no living will) but was then restored after Jeb Bush and the Legislature passed a law, tailored to this specific case, which allowed Bush to order the feeding resumed. The religious right is calling this obviously unconstitutional maneuver a victory over the tyranny of the courts. I don't know what to think about this one, except that I feel sorry for the woman.
| Right to Die | Jeb Bush |
Who wants to go to the Freakatorium ~ El Museo Loco?
| Land of the Lost |
Mixed media is often, well, a mixed bag, and this very-loosely-hung-together show was no exception. Stuff we liked: Ben Katchor's comics, narrated by Bill Irwin; a video by Douglas Aitken set to a languid cello-and-voice rendition of the VU's ''Heroin''; and two films (with music by Michael Gordon) by Bill Morrison -- one (City Walk) a trip through Brooklyn and into Manhattan (yes, Debbie, that was the Manhattan Bridge) as seen through a xerox machine, the other (Light is Calling) a gorgeous and haunting screening of a silent movie on decaying nitrate film (see pic below).
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What if the Marvelverse had happened in Europe in 1602? Gaiman is clearly having fun with this, although I really did need the annotations to understand who some of the (for me) more obscure Marvel characters' analogues were.
| Neil Gaiman | History |
I can't believe I'd never seen Kurosawa's masterpiece. Simply amazing in every frame.
Ha, ha.
| Malware |
Hitchens on the rush to canonize Mother Teresa. Hitchens (as usual) has an axe to grind, but that doesn't mean that he's wrong. The bits of his argument that can be confirmed are worrying.
| Religion |
Found on Done Deal: Script and Pitch Sales - Updated Daily
Title: Foundation
Log Line: The human race is put on autopilot by a scientist who has mathematically mapped out exactly how the world will run. However, the program goes awry with the arrival of an evil mutant bent on conquering the universe.
Writer: Jeff Vintar
Agent: William Morris Agency
Buyer: 20th Century Fox
Price: n/a
Genre: Science Fiction
Logged: 10/14/03
More: Writing assignment. Vintar will adapt from the classic book by Isaac Asimov. Created By’s Vince Gerardis will produce. Shekhar Kapur will direct. Vintar will write two screenplays that could be released as a single epic but will most likely become two films.
| Science Fiction |
Below we've been discussing the meaning of the word "terrorist" and when that word can be applied. (Right now, it seems that "Vork" is carrying the day as a neutral word to apply to a non-goverment person who is using violence and fear for political ends.) So it was interesting to read this in an article on Open Source and Linux called Pros, Priests and Zealots: The Three Faces of Linux. In it, Rob Enderle writes:
The Linux Zealots are similar to religious zealots and political extremists.Have we devolved this far -- that we cannot distinguish between a fan and a fanatic? (There's a great discussion of the distinction between the two in Spencer Holst's unfinished baseball epic The Institute of the Foul Ball). Whatever pro-Linuxers might write, I am hard pressed to think that any of them are Vorks.I have a hard time seeing the Zealots as any different from terrorists because of the nature of their threats. I expect one of them -- or perhaps a group of them -- will go too far at some point and do significant damage to the open-source movement, the ongoing litigation with SCO or their employers.
I strongly believe that if September 11th showed us anything, it was that zealots of any movement represent a huge risk to that movement because they do not consider the repercussions of their actions.
| Terrorism | Language | Vorks |
I'd heard of problems with the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain but this article about the geologic risks is pretty disturbing, especially this:
The potential for volcanism at Yucca Mountain remains a contentious issue as well. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission puts the probability for volcanism at the repository an order of magnitude higher than does DOE.Great, just what we need -- a radioactive volcano.
| Energy | Radioactive |
With the "exuberantly non-scientific" Weasel Poll!
| Polling |
Color scheme picker. For your website, not for your house.
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Talking Ann Coulter Action Figure! Listen to those sample phrases!
| Ann Coulter |
New links in our reciprocal link department: The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page, Frank's weekly essay on a Samuel Johnson quote, and his non-Johnson blog. Head on over and say hi to the neighbors. Our grand total of blog links is 31. Soon we shall control the blogosphere! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!
According to Oh Dog, You Sleuth!
It started out as an ordinary morning. I had to go to a recording session in the Graybar building. The engineer is somebody I've been working with a lot for the last year and he showed me a Simpson's t-shirt he just got. 'Oh, painfully lame,' I thought. And it must have translated on my expression cause then he upped the ante and said, 'Yeah, they're coming in right after you leave.'WHAT!?!
And then it turns out that this guy Bill records voices for The Simpsons. Mostly, the show is recorded in L.A., but whenever talent is in NY, they always go to Bill. So I'm freaking out rather seriously now. 'So is Julie Kavner about to walk through the door as I'm leaving?' I scream (I've wanted to be her best friend since the Tracy Ullman show). And he was like, no, no. They were just doing some guest appearance voices today: Thomas Pynchon.
And I'm like, Back the Fuck Up!
The Thomas Pynchon, author of 'Gravity's Rainbow', 'V', 'The Crying of Lot 49', who is never photographed, interviewed, etc. around whom an entire literary cult is formed?
Yes.
Found on Long story; short pier.
| Pynchon |
The Eater of Meaning is not only fun, it's a useful accessbility testing tool! Found on Sisyphus Shrugged.
| Accessibility |
| Salma Hayek | Unions | Rats | Balloons |
ashidomenyc: hey, what does c.b. mean when its used to refer to material in a document
ishbadiddle: i don't know
ishbadiddle: what's the context for "c.b."?
ashidomenyc: i'm reading this book on how tolkien created a new mythology based on the philology of words
ashidomenyc: (don't ask)
ashidomenyc: actually its cp. not cb
ishbadiddle: cf. means "compare"
ishbadiddle: cp. --> chapter?
ashidomenyc: ane every now and then he will write something like:
ashidomenyc: ... their most important title after 'king' is marshall, borrowed int English from French but going back to an unrecorded Germainic *marho-skalkoz, 'horse-servant' (and cp. the name of the hobbits' Hengest).
ashidomenyc: i'm pretty sure its not chapter
ashidomenyc: and somewhere there was a key but i can't seem to find it
ishbadiddle: you're sure it's not cf.?
ashidomenyc: yeah
ashidomenyc: i just looked at the book
ashidomenyc: and it appears a bit
ashidomenyc: i've been picking it up and putting it down often
ashidomenyc: but now i'm chugging through and i'm like, wait, i don't really understand that
ishbadiddle: google is coming up with some interesting ones
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Just so NS doesn't have a lock on posts on white terrorists, here's a post via This Modern World's blog, who cites "the story of a terrorist discovered to have
a bunker containing a cache of weapons and explosives worthy of an army: an anti-aircraft gun capable of firing 550 rounds per minute up to four miles away, machine guns, explosives, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and booby traps. Investigators also find pictures of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with scope cross-hairs drawn over them.But not to worry: he’s a white guy terrorist. Which is probably why news of his arrest hasn’t made it much beyond the Grand Rapids Press."
Full story here. Using "Militia member" in the headline is pretty much akin to calling a suicide bomber a "militant" instead of a terrorist. Words count, kids.
| Vorks | Language | Race & Ethnicity |
According to Transparency International's International Corruption Perceptions Index, international perceptions of corruption in the US have worsened. Last year, we scored at 7.7 (on a scale of 1-10, with Finland at 9.7 and Bangladesh at 1.3), but this year we scored 7.5. The scores are based on surveys of business people, academics, and risk managers. But hey, we're in good company! According to the survey, Argentina, Belarus, Chile, Canada, Israel, Luxembourg, Poland, and Zimbabwe also got worse since last year. This year's most improved? Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Germany, Ireland, Malaysia, Norway, Tunisia -- and France.
From the robot filter comes the 50 CDs you're most likely to find in your used record store.
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Frank Bigelow: I want to report a murder.
Homicide Captain: Sit down. Where was this murder committed?
Frank Bigelow: San Francisco, last night.
Homicide Captain: Who was murdered?
Frank Bigelow: I was.
by Philip K. Dick. Fewer of his 'what does it mean to be human' stories, and a suprising number about the power of celebrity and advertising. There's a particularly hilarious story about time-travellers who go back to the 20th C to infiltrate a 'pre-cog' convention -- which is of course a convention of sci-fi writers. Would make a great script for those in on the joke.
| Science Fiction |
Excerpts from a wire service story about the Toledo Blade's series of stories on a particularly horrific set of war crimes in Vietnam.
A U.S. Army unit known as Tiger Force committed numerous war crimes during the Vietnam War, including killing scores of unarmed civilians, but an investigation was closed with no charges being brought, The [Toledo]Blade newspaper reported on Sunday.The Blade said it found the Army had investigated the unit for 4 1/2 years, and found 18 soldiers had committed war crimes. But the Army filed no charges, and allowed soldiers who were under suspicion of committing war crimes to resign.
The newspaper said the accusations against the unit included killing women and children, torturing prisoners and severing ears and scalps for souvenirs.
According to The Blade, two soldiers who tried to stop the atrocities were warned by their commanders to remain quiet before transferring to other units.
The Blade said the Army's Criminal Investigation Command refused to release thousands of records from the investigation It also said Army spokesman Joe Burlas could not explain why no charges were brought in the investigation.
Note that this unit was using terror as a political instrument, so we would have a different name for what they did if they had been a non-governmental group.
Also note that the Army has changed significantly since its low point in Vietnam. The Army is very proud of the distance they have come since then, and the changes they have made. However, I wish they would take a stronger stand against what happened, even if only for symbolic reasons. In cases like these, often you want to bring charges simply to name and shame the individuals involved, even if your ability to get a conviction is slim. It would also demonstrate clearly that this kind of behavior will never again be countenanced.
[I haven't read the investigation yet. If I get around to it soon, I might try to digest some of the more relevant parts]
| Vietnam | Counter-Insurgency |
From extra medium:
Three times a week, 48 weeks a year, a four-man team drives a huge yellow Hummer to a different location. It might be a college or high school campus, a major fraternity gathering, an NAACP event, MTV's Spring Break, or BET's Spring Bling: If lots of African-American teens will be there, the Hummer wants to be there, too.Spray-painted with patriotic images (a rippling American flag, a smiling white woman in a U.S. military officer's uniform), the yellow Hummer is the signature vehicle for the U.S. Army's "Taking It to the Streets" campaign, a hip-hop-flavored tour launched a year ago by Vital Marketing Group, the Army's African-American events marketing team. During these events, the Taking It to the Streets team lets possible recruits hang out in the Hummer, where they can try out the multimedia sound system or watch Army recruitment videos. The Army's team often throws contests, too: Which possible recruit can shoot the most baskets, do the most push-ups, go up the rock-climbing wall the fastest? The winners are awarded Army-branded trucker hats, throwback jerseys, wristbands and headbands. Want a customized dog tag? They've got a machine that makes them. Want to see what it's like to fly a plane? There's a flight simulator.
It's all to convince urban teens that the Army understands hip-hop culture: The Army knows you play basketball and wear jerseys, because the Army is down with the streets.
"You have to go where the target audience is," says Col. Thomas Nickerson, director of strategic outreach for the U.S. Army Accessions Command, who says that the Army just reached its recruitment goal of 100,200 enlistees this year. "Our research tells us that hip-hop and urban culture is a powerful influence in the lives of young Americans. We try to develop a bond with that audience. I wan