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Possible Duplicate:
Select/Delete with Sublist elements?
I need help in filtering long lists of x,y coordinates.Lets use the following list as an example:
I need to filter out all the data points for which x<10. Therefore once the filtering is complete the new list should be:
Please help.Thank you!
share|improve this question
marked as duplicate by Mr.Wizard Dec 20 '12 at 9:20
Have a look at Select or Cases or DeleteCases. – b.gatessucks Dec 20 '12 at 8:32
Possible duplicate: mathematica.stackexchange.com/q/2486/121 (I'll let others decide.) – Mr.Wizard Dec 20 '12 at 8:48
@Mr.Wizard I´d say no duplicate here but I have the feeling there is one out there (did not find it yet). – Yves Klett Dec 20 '12 at 8:57
@Yves anyone who reads and understands the answers to the linked question will immediately know how to solve this one. On that basis I think it is a duplicate. – Mr.Wizard Dec 20 '12 at 8:59
@Yves I just closed this based on Raghav's comment below. Please let me know if you find a more appropriate duplicate. If you disagree with the closure vote to re-open; I will not overrule that. – Mr.Wizard Dec 20 '12 at 9:22
1 Answer 1
up vote 5 down vote accepted
list = {{3, 5}, {7, 6}, {15, 6}, {23, 123}}
DeleteCases[list, {x_, _} /; x < 10]
DeleteCases[list, {_?(# < 10 &), _}]
Cases[list, {x_, _} /; x >= 10]
Cases[list, {_?(# >= 10 &), _}]
Select[list, First[#] >= 10 &]
Pick[list, First[#] >= 10 & /@ list]
list /. {x_, _} /; x < 10 :> Sequence[]
list /. {_?(# < 10 &), _} :> Sequence[]
(* {{15, 6}, {23, 123}} *)
share|improve this answer
kguler, I'm certain this question is a duplicate. Please consider applying your effort to find the original, rather than posting an answer. Of course if you are unable to find the original (even if you know it's out there somewhere) go ahead and answer. – Mr.Wizard Dec 20 '12 at 8:37
The "duplicate" I found is linked above. I posted my own answer, and voted for yours, as I suppose it could be argued that it is not a duplicate. Nevertheless I think it is, but I didn't want to cast a binding vote. – Mr.Wizard Dec 20 '12 at 8:52
Mr.W I too was certain that we have seen this question before, and did spend more time to search than to type the answer:), But to my surprise, in my search with the keywords Cases, Select, Pick the Q/A's I found were all related to more complex cases than this one or had some "more advanced" elements. Somehow, I missed the Q/A you linked to. – kguler Dec 20 '12 at 9:05
Thank you for your help! I tried searching for similar posts but I could not find one. @Mr.Wizard I saw your link and understood how to solve my own problem so thank you for that. – Raghav Dec 20 '12 at 9:15
@Raghav welcome to Mathematica.SE. You're welcome. Based on your recognition that the answer to the linked question were sufficient for you to solve your problem I am going to close your question as a duplicate. Please do not look upon this as anything other than a housekeeping measure, which it is. Thank you for trying to find a similar question before posting one of your own; I know that is often not easy (Google sometimes helps). – Mr.Wizard Dec 20 '12 at 9:20
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Drexel dragonThe Math ForumDonate to the Math Forum
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Pentcho Valev
Posts: 3,243
Registered: 12/13/04
Posted: Mar 26, 2013 11:01 AM
It seems the official end of Divine Albert's Divine Theory is imminent - hints are seen all over the place:
"The Crazy Drama of Physics (...) Now when a new scientific development comes along, it's as though terms like "light" and "speed" and "time" are characters in a long-running foreign soap opera. They all have complicated backstories, and the multiple costume changes don't help. At first, "time" was just a simple campesino, but then - twist! - it's revealed that "time" and "space," who we thought was a swashbuckling bandito, are the same person, except then - twist! - it turns out that maybe they're twins, and because one of them was in a spaceship for a while during the third season, now the one that stayed behind and inherited the contessa's fortune is older than he is. (...) If you've managed to wrap your mind around that - the idea that the past, present, and future all exist at once and are therefore immutable and hence there are no surprises and also, by the way, logically no free will - welcome to the current episode, in which we posit that - twist! - time does exist. Lee Smolin's 'Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe' claims that now is real, the future hasn't happened yet, and there are genuinely new things under the sun. The contessa and her daughter weren't blackmailing the duke at all, or at least, not with the secret we thought he had. The duke's mad wife was the sane one the whole time."
Needless to say, the transition to the "current episode, in which we posit that - twist! - time does exist" is essentially a transition from Einstein's 1905 false light postulate to the variable speed of light (c'=c+v) predicted by Newton's emission theory of light.
Just in case some Einsteinian needs reassurance:
Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice - Dance of the Blessed Spirits
Pentcho Valev
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Panasonic ET LAA310 - Projector lamp - UHM - 200 Watt - for PT AE7000U, AT5000E
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Eating Offal and Loving It: New Zealand's Wildfoods Festival
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I don't know if I'd be brave enough to eat most of what's on offer at New Zealand's annual Wildfoods Festival, but I'd love to watch other people try. Vendors from all over the country come together to sell people dishes that might seem more at home on an episode of Fear Factor, like wasp larvae icecream, giant horrible bugs called wekas, live grubs, scorpions (raw or cooked), pickled slugs, worm sushi, grasshopper, crickets, beetles, ostrich sandwiches, and craziest of all, horse semen shots with a Red Bull chaser. If the latter offering sounds stomach-turning to you, the vendor, interviewed here in Stuff Magazine, assures us it's safe: "We're getting the semen in the same way breeders do, using an artificial vagina and storing it in the formula they use. It will be like a milkshake." To make it more palatable, some of the shots are flavored, and horse-racing fans can sometimes request the, er, product of a particular horse.
Festival organizers put together this rather entertaining highlight reel of people downing revolting things:
If all that sounds tempting, you can attend next year's festival on March 10th, 2012 in the South Island town of Hokitika.
March 31, 2011 - 3:42am
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\centerline{\bf Idle by the Thames} \medskip \noindent On April 5th--7th I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on \sgml\ organised by the AGOCG (Advisory Group on Computer Graphics). The reason for the workshop ran thus: now that \sgml\ has adopted CGM (Common Graphics Metafile) as its method of incorporating graphics, is there a case for promoting \sgml\ as the medium of document interchange among the graphics community. Keen readers will notice a flaw here straightaway: CGM is in no way a part of \sgml: on the other hand, CALS (Computer-aided Acquisition and Logistic Support) does embrace both CGM and \sgml\ -- and group 4 fax, and IGES. True, it is possible to include CGM as a `Notation'. A `Notation' is a bit like a |\special|. You can include anything you like, but whether anything sensible happens to it is another matter altogether. As I've suggested elsewhere, in the \TeX\ world we've been electronically interchanging documents for quite some time. And since I'm quite convinced that \TeX\ is a whole lot better at graphics than we admit, I thought that it might be helpful to contribute something about \TeX\ and\slash or graphics. (`Share experiences' as someone said at the workshop: something to do with changing a light bulb I think.) The workshop was attended my three main groups: those presenting papers, who notionally had some grasp of \sgml\ (this included me, so the grasp could be tenuous); a clutch of University Computer Centre people who mostly didn't know a document type from its declaration (probably there for the experience); and the Rutherford boys and girls. This last group requires a bit of explanation: the workshop was held at the delightful Cosener's Hall in Abingdon. Cosener's is owned\slash used by Rutherford Labs as a sort of residential\slash conference place. It is really delightful with an excellent conference area, and electronic gadgetry so advanced no-one could work it (but no email access: I was quite twitchy after three days -- just like caffeine deprivation). Essentially it is an outpost of Rutherford. The papers were, on the whole, good. Easily the best was Tim Niblett's from the Turing Institute in Glasgow (`\sgml\ and Programmed Documents'). I also found Angela Scheller's paper (`Experience with \sgml\ in the real World') very useful, since she was discussing the {\sc Daphne} project. {\sc Daphne} (Document Application Processing in a Heterogeneous Network Environment) uses \TeX\ as its formatter. Hers was the only paper which demonstrated that you could do anything with \sgml\ and CGM graphics (on her own very particular installation). That's not quite fair, since David Duce and Ruth Kidd of Rutherford did something similar (`The {\sc Daphne} Document Types and AGOCG'), but had to email it to Angela to be processed. Obviously there was a very heavy diet of \sgml. Paul Ellison waded us through the murky depths of what was happening with standards, and all the associated standards like DSSSL, SPDL, etc, etc (`\sgml\ and related Information Standards'). It was a rich diet of acronymns. Martin Bryan exposed us to `Using the full power of \sgml', an awesome prospect. Two things surprised me from the beginning. First was the general low level of understanding of what was in the various standards -- what they were for. Although all the papers were available at least a few days in advance, they had almost all been written for \sgml\ literate audiences. First mistake. The second surprise was the readiness with which standards were accepted as `a good thing'. There was a conviction that only ISO standards could be considered. This left \PS\ in an interesting position, although we were assured that the SPDL (Standard Page Description Language) would look a lot like \PS, though without the programmability or the fonts (what's left?). People seemed happy to accept assurances that there would one day be suitable software to allow \sgml\ to be input painlessly across a wide range of platforms; that one day there would be suitable formatters linked to the \sgml\ to allow you to see what had been input to \sgml; and that one day there would be enough DTDs (Document Type Definitions: broadly analagous to \LaTeX\ styles) to suit a reasonable range of needs. The workshop convenor, Anne Mumford, made it clear from the start that we were supposed to work for our living and make some recommendations about electronic document interchange. Most of the papers and discussion addressed this in a general way (although I would argue that only three of the dozen or so invited papers even {\it considered\/} graphics at all -- mine, and the two {\sc Daphne} papers). I had understood the `community' to be the academic\slash research community (hence the inclusion, for example, of Lou Burnard and TEI -- the Text Encoding Initiative). However, it never did become very clear exactly who the `community' were supposed to be. To focus our minds, Anne had distributed a list of `discussion topics': \item{\rtr}what requirements does the community have for document exchange? \item{\rtr}what are the target systems? \item{\rtr}what document types meed to be defined for the community? \item{\rtr}what software can we use today? \item{\rtr}what software do we need to have available if \sgml\ is to be a successful form of document interchange? \item{\rtr}what support is needed in the community if we are to move to use \sgml? \item{\rtr}writing funding proposals for the community for work to get \sgml\ in use. \noindent It was fairly clear from these topics that at best we could bring in a verdict of `not proven' for \sgml's suitability, but there was no way we could reject it entirely. The whole jury was biassed towards one view point. To ensure `evenhandedness', an extra speaker (Ian Campbell-Smith of ICL) was shipped in at the last minute to tell us something about ODA (note that the `O' now implies `Open', not `Office' as it once did). But eventually, when the work came to be done, these topics were laid aside and the real reason for the workshop appeared. The participants were broken into three groups. I should have sensed something was wrong when two of the groups were to be chaired by Rutherford people (the other by the convenor): I definitely realised that we had been railroaded when a revised sheet of topics appeared to be considered by each group. True, these revised topics could be considered to have arisen during the course of the workshop: however they were not logical outgrowths of either the explicit purpose of the workshop, nor of the main direction of discussion. So replace those discussion topics given above with: \noindent ``AGOCG wishes to distribute: \item{\rtr}viewgraphs \item{\rtr}teaching material \item{\rtr}manuals \noindent to University sites in a form where they can incorporate it into local teaching material and documentation. \item{\rtr}is \sgml\ the right protocol to use? \item{\rtr}if so, are the {\sc Daphne} DTDs a good starting point? \item{\rtr}if so, what changes are needed? \item{\rtr}are there commercial offerings we should consider? \item{\rtr}what utilities related to the \sgml\ system are needed? \item{\rtr}should the UK academic community develop its own software? \item{\rtr}how should what AGOCG does be influenced by other requirements? \item{\rtr}if we target for {\tt troff} and \TeX\ is that sufficient?'' \noindent If the conclusions had been pre-empted before, they were even more constrained now! As Bob Hopgood of Rutherford explained, the question {\it he} wanted answered could be summarised `how can Rutherford best distribute the GKS manual electronically'. That was why {\it he} had brought us together, and why {\it he} had had the workshop organised (the myth of ACOCG as an entity with any existence outside Hopgood was eliminated). Plain and simple. Had that been an explicit question from the outset we could have given him an answer on day one and then got down to something more interesting. Given Hopgood's position at Rutherford, the weighting of the workshop and its work groups towards Rutherford, and the master stroke of a piece of paper with specific questions, it was inevitable that it was difficult to restore the workshop to its apparent explicit purpose. An interesting by-product of the workshop was the prepared papers. They illustrated neatly the problem with systems which emphasise structure and virtually ignore formatting: they may have been logically structured, but in terms of document design they were almost uniformly appalling, and difficult to read: the typewriter conventions of underlining, no indentation on the first line of a paragraph, but an extra `line' between paragraphs, and so on were much in evidence. Even `standard' \LaTeX\ documents were starting to look well-designed by comparison. That does not mean the workshop was a waste of time. From my own point of view it helped me put straight my view of \TeX\ and graphics; it allowed me to raise the perennial question of the character corruption which occurs to file transfers which pass through the Rutherford Gateway (and to be told that it was because I was trying to pass `non-mail' characters through -- whatever that mumbo-jumbo means); it revealed the immense ignorance that persists about \sgml, ODA, \TeX, and practically everything else we've been doing for the last five to ten years. Yes it depressed me -- especially the ready adherence to tomorrow's software in preference to today's tested and available software. But the food was plentiful, the majority of the participants stimulating, and the surroundings extremely pleasant. If only it had been a bit more rigorous. Beware Rutherford Appleton Labs bearing gifts! \rightline{\sl \mwc} \bar\centerline{\bf Echoes} \smallskip \noindent The Displays Group of the BCS held a `State of the Art Seminar' on Systems Integration and Data Exchange on February 28th. This meeting examined some of the current range of `documentation' standards like \sgml, ODA, CGM, \PS\ and CALS. It was curious that this came so hot on the heels of the BCS Electronic Publishing Group's similar one day meeting. Much could be gained by a little more cooperation here. Nevertheless, outside the subject matter there was surprisingly little overlap. The speakers were different, and the audience was not the same as the EP one (except for me, I think). One of the things I found interesting was the re-usability of presentations. One of the major selling points for \sgml\ is that it allows the same information to be re-used in a number of forms. In fact, if you are not going to re-use the information, it becomes difficult to justify the added inconvenience of \sgml. Paul Ellison's talk was re-used at the AGOCG Workshop the following week; Alan Francis' presentation was a reworking of his Electronic Publishing talk at Durham last year (and at the AGOCG meeting I heard Lou Burnard re-present the paper he had given at the BCS ep meeting). It often helps to hear the same material again -- the army principle of `tell them what you're going to tell them; tell them it; and then tell them what it is they've just heard'. Even Heather Brown's talk reminded me of something I had once heard at another Displays Group meeting at Rutherford Labs. All a case of d\'j\`a \'ecout\'e. Anne Mumford (Integration and Exchange -- Restating the Case for Standards) introduced the day by making a case for standards. Here standards tend to be taken to mean `Standards, as agreed and ratified by national or international bodies'. Paul Ellison (\sgml\ and Related Information Standards) led us through the many-threaded path of `\sgml\ and Related Information Standards', and even treated us to his version of how Adobe was led to the sacrificial altar to place \PS\ `in the public domain'. I'd heard a rather different version, so it will be interesting to find out just what went on. There must be room for a book on Adobe, just like the clutch of books which have come out recently on Apple. It is difficult to get excited about the many standards and what seems like their interminably slow path to acceptance. One of Paul's claims was that math coding through \sgml\ would mean that the resultant formulas could be input to algebraic manipulation systems. This seemed such a very useful attribute that I contacted Barbara Beeton to see if she knew of any cases where this was done. She was unable to uncover anything. On the other hand, several systems, Mathematica included, output \TeX\ form formulas. This tendency to attribute to \sgml\ capabilities which only exist in theory does worry me. I would like to see something substantive. Heather Brown's talk (Structured Multimedia Documents and the Office ({\it sic\/}!) Document Architecture) was a very good overview of ODA -- easily the best I've heard so far. It is quite intriguing how both \sgml\ and ODA appear to be embracing `multimedia'. ODA almost offers something which I find quite interesting (something that \TeX\slash \LaTeX\ offers too, but have failed to point out to the world as a positive feature). An ODA document can be revisable or not: depending on what you ship, the recipient can change it and reformat it, or merely print it out (in \TeX\ terms you can send the marked up text, which is revisable, or the \dvi, which isn't). There are many documents which you do not wish to be changed. The ultimate non-revisable document must be the fax, but it's usually also unreadable. It seems to me that ODA is a little more realistic than \sgml\ in its world view. It at least acknowledges that there is a layout structure, as well as a logical one. Alan Francis discussed the many differences between CGM and \PS\ (CGM versus \PS\ -- Horses for Courses). It should come as no real surprise that they are trying to address slightly different issues, and that in different circumstances one is more applicable than the other. Since CGM isn't a programming language and doesn't address itself to font questions, it is a great deal simpler and more compact. Converting from CGM to \PS\ seems no great feat. CGM is undoubtedly an ideal way of encoding graphics for interchange. I note that there are some \dvi\ drivers which can accept included CGM, and also that Wilcox's Metaplot may also convert CGM to \MF. As usual, we're there, but we aren't jumping up and down about it. It seemed to me less a case of horses for courses than of trying to compare bicycles and fish. Jon Owen (Standards for Product Data Exchange and Conformance Testing) illustrated that exchanging CAD-CAM graphics and diagrams was certainly possible, but that you had to be very careful to establish just what it was you thought you were exchanging. The drawings didn't always contain all the information you expected: the old adage about what you see not being all there is, far less what you want, was brought home very clearly. In a multi-authored paper from Rutherford Labs, (Integration of Graphics and Communications in {\sc Argosi}: J Gollop, R Day, R Maybury \& D A Duce) Duce looked at {\sc Argosi}, a `European' project to transmit continuously updated information to selected points. {\sc Argosi} (Applications Related Graphics and OSI Standards Integration) is an Esprit project to advance the state of the art of communicating graphical information over international networks. The specific demonstrator application chosen is a prototype road freight scheduling system, calling on databases in nations represented in the project. The databases contain causes of delay which a freight scheduler needs to take into account when planning a Europe-wide journey. Lastly, Norman Harris of Procad described the CALS project (CALS -- the US Initiative). With the massive backing of the DoD (and now a number of other US Government agencies) CALS has lent massive legitimacy to \sgml, having `adopted' it as one of its many `standards'. I have a sneaky suspicion that CALS has managed to rescue \sgml\ from the doldrums. Harris described some of the original motivation and history of the iniative, covering TIMS and ATOS. As I have commented elsewhere, one of the curious by-products of CALS may be to save trees, since one objective is to reduce the paper flows between and within the contractors and the military. CALS will have a very wide effect: besides the US Armed Forces, other Armed Forces may adopt it; non-US aerospace and `defence' contractors will have to comply to tender for US contracts; some CALS specifications have been proposed as FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) for use throughout the US federal government. Some state governments (especially those like California and Washington with a large number of arms contractors) are likely to adopt it. CALS is not static, and the next stages include examination of other `interchange' formats and standards, like ODA/ODIF, SQL (Structured Query Language), and PDES (Product Data Exchange Specification). The absence of the last speaker meant that there was extra time for discussion. The printed version of this paper by Shiela Lewis (Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three) raised several interesting issues about conformance testing, chiefly in the context of the CALS Test Network. At a time when many vendors claim to adhere to various standards, it is valuable to see what mechanisms are being invoked to clarify what adherance means. She notes that `Conformance testing does not in any way prove the usability of the product, simply its ability to process code in the manner prescribed by the Standard'. An interesting programme which would have been a worthy BCS ep meeting -- it seems a great pity that there is not greater coordination between the groups. Calling it a `State of the Art Seminar' was very astute! It seemed a bit expensive to me, especially as there were no foreign speakers jetted in at enormous cost, and no lunch. BCS ep provides speakers of equivalent standard (sometimes the same ones!), and lunch. The only advantage that I would say this meeting had was the provision of the papers to all the participants. I have mixed feelings about this: on the one hand it is a real boon to the audience (and to a reviewer). On the other hand it puts sufficient extra work into the hands of the speakers that it might dissuade some of them from speaking at all. \rightline{\sl Malcolm Clark}
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Windows Live Messenger Activity SDK
The Windows Live Messenger Activity software development kit (SDK) contains technical information about how to develop and test single-user and multiuser applications by using the Activity object model. The SDK also provides detailed information about the Windows Live development and testing requirements that your Activity must meet, and how to increase the usage of your Windows Live Messenger Activity application.
Note The Windows Live Messenger Activity SDK is different from Live Connect. For information about Live Connect, see the Windows Live Developer Center.
This SDK contains the following topics:
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Muppet Wiki
Episode 136: Bright Ideas
27,102pages on
this wiki
Mopatop's Shop
Air Date
Written by Mille Buse
Director Dirk Campbell
Mopatop opens the episode by offering a Ting-a-Ling-a-Ling, a thing that goes ping or a door that goes ding.
Mrs. Flibbertigibbet comes into the shop in looking for an idea, Puppyduck asks her what idea she wants, and Mrs. Flibbertigibbet starts a song about every one having bright ideas except her. Puppyduck goes and takes a look in the bright ideas department, but unfortunately they are all out of bright ideas and the new delivery haven't arrived yet. So instead they go and look at some bright things, they find a bright hat, bright flower and a bright rainbow. Mrs. Flibbertigibbet likes all of the bright things, but they have not given her any bright ideas. Then a mole enters the shop he needs some help to give his mother her favorite Ice cream, Puppyduck finds a bucket filled with ice cream. However Mrs. Flibbertigibbet interrupts them, because she had an idea. She suggest that instead of the bucket then the ice should be in the bright cone shaped hat, the mole agrees with her and think that was a bright idea. Mrs. Flibbertigibbet are happy that she finally had her first bright idea, and then she is on a roll coming up with more bright ideas for the mole, using the bright items they found earlier.
Previous episode: Next episode:
The Do-What-I-Say Surprise Party
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Submitted by Sardunos 567d ago | videocast
Cocktail Time LIVE, Ep. 28 - "The Children Stole the C**ks"
4Player-"Happy New Year! This week Bob Webb and Chris Davis get ready to give Joseph Christ an intervention for his Planetside 2 addiction which has now consumed his life. The holiday break didn't help, when no other games were released to distract him, and now he's wallowing within Planetside 2 like a pig in filth. Other than that Bob is trying to 100% the PC version of Dark Souls, Chris goes through how many games he bought during the Steam Sale, Bobb talks about his friend who thought an old Japanese woman stole his bike, Bob and Chris talk about the innerworkings of PC's which bores Joseph who just decides to DANCE instead..." (Dark Souls, PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
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Submitted by john2 546d ago | video
New Videos Showcase The Technology Behind Square Enix’s “Agni’s Philosophy” Tech Demo
New videos from Square Enix's tech demo 'Agni's Philosophy' shows off the hair techniques that have been used to it (Next-Gen, PC, Square Enix)
Credit url: 4gamer.net
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Blastoise + 546d ago
Fantastic. What an incredible looking beard. Now make a decent game already
NukaCola + 546d ago
Yup, Square has no issues with visual phenomenons, but they have done poorly in the "gameplay/story/everythin g-else" department. I miss Squaresoft :'(
Ranma1 + 546d ago
Square Enix: "we can make cow sh*t look beautiful, but in the end its still cow sh*t and plays like cow sh*t"
#1.2 (Edited 546d ago ) | Agree(3) | Disagree(0) | Report | Reply
Irishguy95 + 546d ago
Shit off S-E/ You'll get no love from me until Versus gets what it deserves. Thank you for doing the exact opposite of your fans desires.
#2 (Edited 546d ago ) | Agree(4) | Disagree(4) | Report | Reply
kalkano + 546d ago
Nice graphics. Unfortunately, I have no faith in their ability to make a good game out of it. I expect to see Lightning mowing down enemies with an AK-47, in real-time. That's what Toriyama wants...
#3 (Edited 546d ago ) | Agree(6) | Disagree(3) | Report | Reply
Ultr + 546d ago
hahaha :D
iamtehpwn + 546d ago
I hope Square uses this technology to create an amazing Final Fantasy XV for next gen.
ZoyosJD + 546d ago
What's the point of showing off the game engine when they are going to keep it in-house only?
BTW, videos like this have been around nearly since they first showcased the demo.
Godmars290 + 546d ago
What's the point when they've already said they're not doing any big in-house projects you mean.
If they're keeping the engine in-house that means they'll be hiring outside teams who wont be familiar with it.
ZoyosJD + 545d ago
You missed the point.
Not currently, but they will be using it in-house only. They have stated this.
So, again: Why show off the capabilities of the engine when they are not going to make it available to any other developers?
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Grand Theft Auto V's script was 3500 pages Long
The Last Remnant and More Added to Humble Bundle
Start Making Games for the PS4
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Leslie Feeney in the US
1. #2,138,845 Leslie Easterling
2. #2,138,846 Leslie Eggleston
3. #2,138,847 Leslie Elliot
4. #2,138,848 Leslie Falk
5. #2,138,849 Leslie Feeney
6. #2,138,850 Leslie Fitzsimmons
7. #2,138,851 Leslie Flippen
8. #2,138,852 Leslie Frasier
9. #2,138,853 Leslie Fries
people in the U.S. have this name View Leslie Feeney on WhitePages Raquote
Meaning & Origins
154th in the U.S.
Irish: 1. reduced Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Fiannaidhe ‘descendant of Fiannaidhe ’, a byname meaning ‘warrior’, ‘champion’ (from fian ‘army’). 2. shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó Fidhne ‘descendant of Fidhne ’, a personal name probably derived from fiodh ‘wood’.
3,365th in the U.S.
Nicknames & variations
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BBC News
watch One-Minute World News
Last Updated: Friday, 12 May 2006, 14:54 GMT 15:54 UK
Kin search 'could trap criminals'
DNA molecule (BBC)
DNA techniques are getting ever more sophisticated
DNA from a crime scene cannot always be matched to a known individual in a database, but forensic investigators could identify close relatives.
To date, the controversial method has been tried in a small number of cases, sometimes to dramatic effect.
But the technique has the potential to be used much more widely, three US experts argue in the journal Science.
As DNA databases expand, policy makers need to consider the method's ethical and legal dimensions, they warn.
The offender may not be in the databank, but he may be the father or the son or the brother of someone who is
Frederick Bieber, Harvard Medical School
All humans have some genetic similarity, but close relatives have particular similarity because of their shared ancestry.
"Normally one would look for a perfect match between crime scene [DNA] evidence and a known offender in a database," co-author Frederick Bieber, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, US, told the Science In Action programme on the BBC World Service.
"Very close but not perfect matches might indicate, with some reliability, that crime scene evidence was derived from somebody very closely related to somebody in the databank.
Cardiff murder
Dr Bieber along with colleagues Charles Brenner and David Lazer carried out mathematical simulations to assess the potential of "kinship analysis" for identifying promising leads in forensic investigations.
"We simulated real families using the genetic frequencies of the markers used in forensic investigations throughout the world," Dr Bieber said.
"We asked the question mathematically, 'how often could you find a close relative - namely a parent, child or sibling - of the perpetrator of a crime?' Our data show that this would identify a close relative with a very high frequency."
Familial searching was crucial to police solving the 1988 murder of 16-year-old Lynette White in Cardiff, UK.
A search of the National DNA Database for a rare gene variant found in a specimen recovered from the crime scene identified a 14-year-old boy with a similar genetic profile.
System 'imbalance'
However, some researchers have expressed worries over how familial searching might be applied on a larger scale.
"My concern is that this evidence, if it ever comes to that, would be totally mishandled; and, in all likelihood, its value would be overstated by our forensic labs," commented Dr Laurence D Mueller, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Irvine.
"When you look through a database, one of the things people are concerned about is that you are comparing the genetic profile of thousands of people to the profile in an evidence sample.
"Just as it is more likely that you will win the lottery if you buy many tickets, people have been concerned that you're more likely to coincidentally find a match [with an innocent person] when you search a database."
The Science magazine authors themselves note that evidence of a DNA match can be misleading and does not necessarily prove guilt.
In addition, they say, this novel technique potentially amplifies existing disparities in the criminal justice system where arrests and convictions differ widely based on race, ethnicity, geographic location and social class.
DNA 'could predict your surname'
21 Feb 06 | Science/Nature
Two decades of DNA fingerprints
09 Sep 04 | Science/Nature
Life for Lynette White murder
04 Jul 03 | Wales
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/92807
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Hubble Camera Power Glitch Fixed, NASA Announces
Richard A. Lovett
for National Geographic News
June 30, 2006
The Hubble Space Telescope's newest ultra-high-resolution camera is back in business, NASA managers announced this afternoon.
A problem with the power supply had kicked the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) off-line on June 19.
Engineers with the Hubble project traced the problem to the instrument's power supply.
Switching to a backup system this morning solved the glitch, and astronomers will be able to restart their scientific observations on Sunday.
"This is the best possible news," Ed Ruitberg, deputy associate director for the astrophysics division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a press release.
On Hold
NASA announced the plan to switch to a backup system at a press briefing earlier this morning, calling the strategy the "best and safest" solution.
That's because there's not much that could have gone wrong even if the attempt had failed.
The ACS, installed in March 2002, includes three high-resolution detectors.
Only two, which function somewhat like wide-angle and zoom lenses, were directly affected by the power glitch.
The third detector, which looks at the universe in ultraviolet light, has different voltage needs and was unaffected.
The situation was comparable to having the power adapter for your laptop computer conk out, NASA scientists said at the press briefing.
Operations were suspended for all three detectors as the engineers sought the best way to fix the problem.
Meanwhile, astronomers who had hoped to be using the telescope had to have their work rescheduled.
"In any given week we may do one or two dozen observations" that had to be postponed, said Dave Leckrone, senior project scientist for the Hubble program.
But none of the lost observations involve critical "targets of opportunity" that won't be visible when the scientists get another chance, he added.
"Every observation lost because of the suspension will be rescheduled at a later date," Leckrone said.
In fact, he says, the switchover will give NASA a chance to improve the telescope's performance.
One of Hubble's sensors would produce even sharper data if its operating temperature were lowered by a few degrees.
But that would have required recalibrating the detector—a project that is enough of a hassle that the change hadn't been made.
Now the instrument will have to be recalibrated anyway, so the engineering team has the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
"We're getting a little bonus," Leckrone said.
Hubble's Future
Controversy erupted in 2003, when the crash of the space shuttle Columbia brought the shuttle program—and Hubble's regular maintenance—to an abrupt halt.
Hubble needs regular servicing missions, so grounding the shuttles put the telescope's future in jeopardy.
NASA reinitiated the shuttle program with the launch of Discovery last year, but a chunk of insulating foam just missed the craft's wing during liftoff, and the agency again grounded the fleet.
Analysts are keeping a close eye on Discovery's scheduled launch this weekend, which could prove whether the program is safe enough to continue (read "Discovery Mission Will Make or Break Shuttle's Future").
Meanwhile, the power-supply failure aboard Hubble raises questions about whether the telescope might need an additional shuttle-servicing mission.
Such a mission would be nice, if NASA's top officials decide to do it, says Jennifer Wiseman, a Hubble program scientist from NASA headquarters.
"But we've been working to allow [the Hubble Space Telescope] to operate in its current state for as long as possible," she said.
Hubble has had other problems over its lifetime that have been successfully fixed from the ground, the scientists point out.
The most notable of these was a glitch with the imaging spectrograph, which had to be switched to backup systems four years after it was installed in 1997.
That instrument continued to operate until 2004—well exceeding its five-year design life.
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Hard to stop. A mathematician has explained why volleyballs are prone to erratic movements at certain speeds.
Serving Up an Aerodynamic Crisis
Staff Writer
DAVIS, CALIFORNIA--Sometimes a softer touch pays off. Volleyball players often bash the ball to obtain the fastest possible serve. But slower serves can swerve unpredictably--by as much as a meter--and now a mathematician has explained why. The large, light volleyball routinely enters a curious aerodynamic state rarely seen with other balls.
The key factor is drag, and its effects depend on speed. When a ball moves through the air, a long tangle of swirling air trails behind it. At low speeds, this "turbulent wake" is large and drags on the ball. But if a ball moves faster than a certain speed, the size of the wake suddenly decreases and the drag plummets. The speed range in which this happens is known as the drag crisis, and balls moving in it can behave unpredictably. But in most sports the balls hurtle so fast that the drag crisis never comes into play.
Not so for volleyball, reports Thomas Cairns, a mathematician at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma who coached the women's volleyball team there for 17 years. Cairns and his students videotaped volleyballs launched from a serving machine and then analyzed their trajectories using a computer. In some serves the balls moved with top spin, in which the top of the ball rotates toward the oncoming air and the bottom rotates away from it. In those cases, the top of the ball effectively moved faster through the oncoming air than the bottom half did. In fact, sometimes the top of the ball moved fast enough relative to the air to avoid the drag crisis, while the bottom half moved so slow it dipped into it, he reported here 13 September at the 5th International Conference on the Engineering of Sports.
The unusual half-and-half state can reverse another key effect of spin--the aerodynamic lift force--which can make a ball swerve up or down, or side to side. In spite of its name, the lift ordinarily pushes a ball with top spin down, so that it sinks faster than a similar serve with no spin. But Cairns observed a serve with top spin that floated farther than a matching spinless serve. He also saw spinning serves that swerved to the "wrong" side and even a few serves that swerved first one way and then the other.
Certain players already take advantage of strange aerodynamic effects, too, says Rabindra Mehta, an aerodynamicist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "The men get up there and try to hit the ball as hard as they can," he says. "But if you watch the women, they hit it at about 15 meters per second, which is where this effect comes in."
Related Site
The 5th International Conference on the Engineering of Sport
Posted in Math
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Wednesday, March 9, 2011
If Movies Were Gluten-Free
The Oscars are just a week and a half behind us, which means I still have movies on my mind. More specifically, I now have a long list of DVDs to rent of great movies that I haven't yet seen. Every year, it seems, the Academy Awards remind me what terrible movie-goers Kelli and I can be. In the seven-plus years we've been married, we've averaged less than one trip to the movie theater per year. Perhaps it's time to re-start our Netflix membership... but I digress (as usual).
Over the years, more than a few great movies have featured food scenes that have become classic. Who can forget the plate of shared spaghetti and that slurped noodle leading to a kiss in Lady and the Tramp? Or that famous line from the Godfather: "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."
One of the ultimate food movie scenes (in a movie with several classic scenes) must be Meg Ryan as super-picky, compulsive and particular Sally ordering apple pie in When Harry Met Sally.
To the bewilderment of her waitress, she orders "apple pie a la mode... but I'd like the pie heated, and I don't want the ice cream on top. I want it on the side. And I'd like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream, but only if it's real. If it's out of a can, then nothing."
"Not even the pie?" responds the waitress.
"No, just the pie. But then not heated."
I like to think how that scene might have played out differently if Sally were gluten-free. I imagine it would have gone something like this:
"I'll have the apple pie a la mode... but only if the pie is gluten-free. Is the crust gluten-free? If not, I'll just have the apple pie filling, but only if it never touched the pie crust, and only if there's no flour mixed in with the apples. Do you use cornstarch? And please make sure to use a separate clean spoon to scoop the apples. Otherwise, I'll just have the ice cream. Do you happen to have dairy-free ice cream? Some people with gluten issues are also lactose intolerant, you know. On second thought, I'll just have a fruit cup."
What are some of your favorite classic movie food scenes? Extra credit: If the food - or the person eating it - isn't gluten-free, re-imagine how that scene might have been different, and leave it in the comments!
- Pete
Elizabeth said...
haha I love your remake of the scene!
peterbronski said...
Hi Elizabeth... Glad you enjoyed it!
Cheers, Pete
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The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia
Dendle, Peter, 1968- (Book - 2011 )
The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia
Item Details
McFarland Publishing
Zombies are cautionary forms of humankind's most universally cherished ideal--life after death. Often ragged, unkempt, ill-spoken, rotting individuals, zombies (or the post-dead) seem socially awkward in comparison to the more popular and more aristocratic, undead, like Count Dracula and his peers. And so, the humble zombie remains, for the most part, unappreciated and unacknowledged--until now. No longer will films devoted to them be buried in the last pages of horror movie guides. The exhumation of zombie films from obscurity is accomplished in terrifying detail in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia. The first exhaustive overview of the subject, this book evaluates over 200 movies from 16 countries over a 65-year period starting from the early 1930s. It mostly treats feature-length films, covering everything from large studio productions to backyard videography, but also touches on memorable episodes of television series and miscellaneous shorts. Lengthy entries point out interesting or innovative features of the zombie portrayal in each movie, while an introduction traces the evolution of the genre and interprets the broader significance of the zombie in contemporary Western mythology. Productions credits, a brief plot summary, and alternate titles accompany each entry.
Authors: Dendle, Peter, 1968-
Statement of Responsibility: Peter Dendle
Title: The zombie movie encyclopedia
Publisher: Jefferson, N.C. : Mcfarland, c2011
Characteristics: ix, 249 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Notes: "This persent work is a reprint of the illustrated case bound edition of The zombie movie encyclopedia, first published in 2001 by McFarland"--T.p. verso
Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-230) and index
Subject Headings: Zombie films History and criticism Zombie films Catalogs
Topical Term: Zombie films
Zombie films
ISBN: 9780786463671
Branch Call Number: 792.93 D
Research Call Number: MFLE 13-60
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Sandusky and Mad River Company
From Ohio History Central
Jump to: navigation, search
The Sandusky and Mad River Company was one of the first railroad companies in Ohio. Located in Sandusky, the company completed its first railroad line in 1838, connecting Sandusky with Bellevue, Ohio. In the next ten years, the company extended the line to Springfield, Ohio. The Springfield city government helped finance the Sandusky and Mad River Companys expenses by purchasing twenty-five thousand dollars in company stock. Many localities assisted railroads in this manner following the repeal of the Ohio Loan Law of 1837 in 1840. Many communities, especially those not connected to canals, did not want the railroads to bypass them. Sandusky was one of these communities. By the early 1850s, Sandusky had several railroad lines passing through the town, connecting its residents to Mansfield, Newark, Columbus, Springfield, and Cincinnati.
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Friday, June 25, 2004
This week's Photo Friday theme is clouds...
Okay. I appreciate that you're probably a more Advanced Being than I am, and most likely figured this one out a long time ago. Bear with me; I’m feeling a few cards short of a full deck and I still haven't quite got this time thing sussed. I don’t have an answer, just a couple of pointers, an indication that I was headed in a direction that wasn't taking me anywhere useful, and that maybe I should be looking somewhere else.
Time has been bugging me. There isn't enough of it and the amount of it that I spend on anything seems to be in inverse proportion to that thing's importance. Importance to me, that is. And yes, I know, that's a classic case of scarcity mentality, victim-hood, glass-half-empty and all that... But for better or worse that's the way I’ve been feeling. Trapping myself behind the bars of a schedule of my own making, restlessly pacing back and forth over the same worn out thought patterns, looking for a way out to the enticing but out of reach possibilities beyond. Nevertheless it didn't seem to make a lot of sense to the little rational corner of my mind that was monitoring things; surely I have a lot of choice about how I spend time? That set me thinking about choices, and a habitual desire to construct categories took hold.
These time choices seem to fall into three distinct groups. First, there’s the big life choices: how to earn a living, who to spend my life with, where to live. These are big time influencers in every way – directly or indirectly they account for sizeable chunks of time, they aren’t easy to alter if you want to adjust something, and even then changing them takes considerable time in itself. The knock-ons also account for a lot, like upkeep of a home or attending to children’s needs. There’s little scope for direct control of time spent on these activities without fundamental change to the core decisions, like changing job or moving house, or even changing partner.
Next on the list of time consumers come all the routine activities of living. Things like household chores, sleeping, washing, shopping, cooking, eating. Things that can be juggled with short term, but overall can’t be avoided long term. Not without unpleasant consequences anyway (hey, think of the time I could save by not showering…)
Finally there are elective activities. Things you do not because they have to be done, but because you want to do them for their own sake. That's both things done in bigger chunks of time - pre-planned activities which for me would be things like mountain walking - and things fitted into smaller chunks like reading, writing, engaging in dialogue, relaxing, thinking, blogging.
I’ve been finding that the first two categories have been eating all my time, with very little left for those things I want to do. So I keep circling round three states:
- frustration and angst because I want to change something but don’t know what;
- push through the immediate tasks in the hope of coming out the other side (but I never do);
- wondering whether maybe, on balance, I’d be better off believing that living without most of category 3 – the elective activities – is okay really, and so simply stop worrying about it.
Looking at those categories of time choices, I wondered how either to shift the balance by squeezing time out of one pot into another, or change the size of the pot altogether by changing the core decisions? Maybe simplify life by moving somewhere cheaper, closer to nature, getting a job that goes some way to fulfilling those personal, spiritual, needs that currently only get met through elective activities? But these aren’t decisions to be taken lightly; they affect other people in a big way too and in any case I’m not going to be able just to walk into a new job. Something along these lines may be possible, but not tomorrow. Or the day after.
So instead I tried some changes in routine, like cutting down on sleep, but that’s risky. I get very dysfunctional and cranky on anything less than 6 hours; 6 ½ hours is more like a realistic minimum, 7 is better still.
And although on days when I’m feeling particularly sorry for myself I get perilously close to convincing myself simply to abandon most of what I’m calling elective activities, the reality is that I’m not yet prepared to do that.
It crossed my mind that maybe I started looking from the wrong end of the scale. Looking at time in a macro way, starting with 24 hours and dividing it up. Looked at that way, it seems to be an obvious recipe for building in scarcity; dividing a finite resource into ever smaller pieces. But what happens if you start from the other end of the scale? Micro time? The seconds and the gaps between them?
I think... I THINK... that’s another way of saying it’s the classic case of being less about what you do and more about the way you do it. I was making a critical assumption - that the weekday hours between 7am and 7pm were pretty much written off as far as any worthwhile activity was concerned. Those hours – my best hours – have become a tunnel into which I rush headlong, charging through without looking left or right, looking only to that little pinprick of light at the end.
So juggling time perhaps isn’t the answer. I started out here talking about directions; I said I wasn't a very Advanced Being didn't I? So I’m afraid this piece doesn’t end with an answer, or even a proposition of one. I just have a feeling – nothing more – that there’s a better approach than trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot.
I had to laugh at myself this morning, having written most of that last night. I managed to get up an hour early by accident. Well, a 5 looks much like a 6 on a digital clock when you’re half asleep and haven’t got your glasses on. It wasn’t until I’d finished breakfast that I noticed the kitchen clock said 5.58. Doh!!
Friday, June 18, 2004
"Do the meanings of the heart swim in in the streams of our conversation, and do they matter most when they're glimpsed through deep water, and never caught?"
- Richard Bach, from "Running from Safety"
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
What happens in organisations
There was a time... when you could look at the world and see what was before your eyes - complexity, uncertainty, variety; a time when there were more questions than answers; when who you and I are was more important than what we do.
Always, you sought to know. But clarity is not often a feature of reality; haziness and uncertainty and boundaries that shift and spread and dissolve don't make for easy understanding; they are awkward to map onto the boxes you make to contain the functions we perform that together make up our daily business. So you built structures of clear divisions, drawing lines - I on this side, you on that; creating boxes; we agree to define and measure what passes between us. We measure and codify, we write down, we gather data, and we call it knowledge. And it's manipulation we call Management. Cost, profit, winners, losers, success, failure.
These categories and divisions and boxes - they're just models, for sure, but you needed them to perform this function you called management. You lived with them day by day, breathing them in and out; what started out modelling reality became reality. A world once characterised by questions and uncertainty became deconstructed, described, categorised, codified, and finally reconstructed. Where once curled and twisted an ephemeral wisp of inexactitude, there now stands a distinct, solid, hard-edged clarity of perception. The world of questions is now a set of answers; all answers are there to be found, and if they're not then it is surely the question that is at fault.
For a while, you lived with both, reality and the model side by side. But one day, you stepped inside your model, and were trapped as the balance altered subtly and the model became more real than the world it described.
Suppose I could turn this world of yours inside out? Suppose what you call hard information came to be understood as a mirage, or dispersed like the smoke? Suppose you could see it for what it is: a product only of your desire to capture and control; to be Master, to have certainty, believing all those things to equate to knowledge? Would you then remember the time when questions were more valuable than answers, the time when you could see the person standing before you, when you could hear what they said to you, without the frame of reference of your precious model?
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
[Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the author. Any resemblance to persons alive, dead, or in any imtermediate state, is entirely coincidental. Maybe.]
"A cynic is an idealist who made the mistake of translating his ideals into expectations."
- source unknown
You become who I think you are; I become who I think I ought to be; I appear to be who you think I am. Each locked into a narrow channel of expectation; a universe of possible selves abandoned, left weak without exercise, malnourished and shrivelled without nurture.
This mask has many makers; many hands have crafted and moulded, hacked and chipped it's form. Chief among them, perhaps, are my own. Some hands have worked with love for their creation, some with indifference towards it; some with enthusiasm for their work, some with derision for the result. Whether formed through caring or capriciousness, their creation remains artificial, unreal, alive only by virtue of the breath it sucks from the wearer.
Expectation sets a path from which I can no more stray than if my feet were manacled to a line that stretches it's length from horizon to horizon; birth to death. Sometimes I mourn, I grieve for the loss of who I might have been, had not Expectation dragged my soul down a path not of it's own choosing.
Be aware what you expect of others, you hold power over their very selves; beware what they expect of you, lest it come to pass.
Monday, June 07, 2004
On banana skins...
Years ago, I read this little story in one of those anecdote slots that Reader's Digest uses to fill up the white space at the end of it's articles:
From time to time, a man would wake up in the night with flashes of inspiration; great "A-Ha!" moments of insight; truths that could change his life for ever. He'd smile to himself with pleasure at the wonder he'd discovered, then with sleepy anticipation of how next day he'd build on this new learning, he'd go back to sleep.
Of course, by morning he'd always forgotten. The insight had dissolved into nothingness. Frustrated, he resolved to keep a pen and a notebook by the bed and next time one of these nocturnal revelations occurred, he'd be ready for it and write it down. And one night, sure enough, he awoke convinced he'd uncovered a deeply significant truth. So he wrote it down, and went back to sleep sure in the knowledge that that this time his piece of wisdom would not be lost.
In the morning, as soon as he awoke, he reached eagerly for his notebook. In it were scrawled just seven words: "The skin is tougher than the banana".
And there the anecdote ended. It's easy to dismiss it as just a mildly amusing story; something we can identify with perhaps, but not holding any great significance. I wonder though... It would seem this particular "insight" was a metaphor, but for what? I'm quite convinced that there's a huge, unconscious, non-verbal part of our intelligence that remains largely inaccessible to our rational, verbal, conscious minds. This part is a lot smarter than we might think. But we're not aware of it, because it finds it difficult to communicate with the verbal part of our reasoning, whose capacity for understanding is so limited by the constraints of language.
Just to be clear, this isn't quite the same thing as intuition. I believe that intuitive understanding is simply the same processes as rational, evaluative, logical, linear, understanding, but happening invisibly, and often very rapidly, just below the level of consciousness. So we know something without knowing why or how we know.
My guess is that the insights this guy was trying to capture were messages from the non-verbal part of his intelligence. Messages that could only be heard when the verbal part of his reasoning was stilled by drowsiness or sleep. But something was lost in the translation; language proved inadequate to contain the understanding, rather like those literal translations you used to see from Japanese instruction manuals.
I suppose meditation is also intended to still the incessant babble of this noisy verbal self. I have to admit I've rarely seriously attempted meditation, and by all accounts it's a skill that has to be learned, so it's hardly surprising that occasional attempts haven't got me very far. Maybe I should try properly. I'm convinced that this non-verbal part of intelligence has some messages it's desperate to get across.
Saturday, June 05, 2004
Great Gable from Wasdale Posted by Hello
I just discovered Photo Friday via Lorianne. I may add some more words to this later, but for now, since the topic this week is Landscape which covers about 95% of the photos I take, I thought I'd get in there while I could.
Later edit: More haste less speed... I've tweaked the curves a little as the original post was slightly washed out. Plus I think "Hello" uses too much compression. Next time round I'll link back to a better version. I shouldn't be such a perfectionist...
Even Later edit: Couldn't resist tweaking a little more... this (hopefully) better quality version
is just to satisfy me that I can get a moderately decent quality image posted.
Friday, June 04, 2004
Who are you?
It's never exactly a surprise when whiskey river comes up with something that hits you right between the eyes, and this is no exception, quoting from Yatri:
"...You sleep while thinking you are awake, even though you manage to be highly efficient at maintaining your life even while being asleep to your true surroundings.
You dream twenty-four hours a day regardless of what the real world is relaying to your senses.
Your thoughts are in perpetual motion but any openness to receive new experiences has been replaced by the closed mechanism of the mind which edits and re-edits the same past programs..."
Go read the rest...
Primary colours
This may not have been the view in London or Hertfordshire today, but cycling home, the greens and blues were as fresh and vibrant as they were here. I was going to try and say something pseudo-clever about associations, but hey... all I really wanted was an excuse to post a nice pic :-) Posted by Hello
Nothing new under the sun?
Although the term “Knowledge Management” may be a recent invention, Rob Paterson shows how the principle was working effectively long, long before the days of computers and databases. Perhaps, indeed, it was working a lot more effectively than today, since people rather than machines were at the heart of things.
“…Information is cold, based on a document, and contains only the narrow explicit. Personal advise is warm, based on a relationship, and contains the full tacit knowledge of the advisor. The interaction with information adds nothing to the whole. A conversation with an advisor teaches both more. Managing documents is a process of diminishing returns. Encouraging communities of interest appears to have no limit…”
“…I like the story of New Bedford in its heyday as a whaling port. It is for me the epitome of how best to set up the conditions for a true knowledge-based society. Whaling in the age of sail, as anyone who has read Moby Dick will recall, was a business that demanded many extreme skills: not the least of seamanship - being away for up to 3 years in the world's most challenging oceans. Whale hunting itself, the use of small boats, harpooning etc. Whale processing - imagine fooling around with a flensing knife? Finding whales was an art. The entire business aspects not the least chandelling and selling oil products into a global market. What was special about New Bedford?
"New Bedford today is a sad town but for well over 150 years, a very long time, it was arguably the wealthiest community in America. It had organized itself deliberately as a series of interlocking communities of practice…”
Read more of Rob’s post to find out just how this “series of interlocking communities of practice” worked…
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Would that all days could end like this...
(Just testing posting photos via Hello...) Posted by Hello
Is civilisation going forwards or backwards? It took a mighty long time to get going, largely I guess because our ancestors were just too darn busy with the business of staying alive to do very much else. But eventually "leisure" and "free time" appeared on the agenda, and those ancestors moved from occupying these times by picking fleas off each other to pondering the meaning of life. Well, maybe there were a few steps in between, but you get my drift. The point is, learning and development go hand-in-hand with leisure - time to play, to experiment; time to allow the mind to wander and make unexpected connections, to ask questions on whose answers survival doesn't immediately depend.
But modern life seems to be taking away this time for apparently aimless wandering of the mind and instead filling all of life with busy-ness. Do-do-do; achieve results; produce output. I've been caught up in that lately; experiencing a relentless drive for activity that seems to seize hold, enslaving the mind and killing creativity. Hence no posts here - not for want of desire, but I'd got caught up in a way of being that couldn't adapt to creativity in the limited time available between bouts of busy-ness.
Once I get wound into this way of being, it becomes near impossible to disengage. Teeth get clamped onto this distorted work ethic and wont let go. Even if I see no value in the activity; even if I could choose to do something different I get caught up in this busy-busy-busy way of being. I wonder if this is because somewhere along the line I have absorbed a notion that value and output are associated; if I produce no output, I have no value. Rational self sees the absurdity of that, yet feeling self can't escape that uncomfortable valuation.
I'm even trapped in that way of thinking right here and now; desperate to produce something to fill the space in this blog - and if I'm honest with myself, that's because doing so creates value in my own eyes and boosts self esteem.
Anyway, I'm straying from the point. It seems that cultural pressure for activity and output of tangible results is slowing considerably the pace of learning about anything other than producing more results, more output. Understanding better what it means to be human, how we fit into this amazing universe, how we relate to each other - these have all become sidelined beside the relentless drive for busy-ness.
The bottom line is that I'd like to see a world where being has as much value as doing - where people are appreciated for who they are just as much as for what they achieve. It's tempting to go further and place being above doing, but I think that may be swinging the pendulum too far the other way. Achievement still has value, but its not an exclusive deal. Who you are matters just as much as what you do.
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Only A Game Music
Back to Ireland by Irish Celtic Music (from Instrumental Irish Music)
Did Ziggy Marley’s flight to Kingston get hijacked to Galway?
Teddy Bear’s Picnic by Commodore Grand Orchestra (from The Romantic Age of the 1920′s, Master Classics Records, 2010)
Nothing says “romance” like picnics. And teddy bears.
Wow…no room for good music this week. Too much news!
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OU Kitniyot Kosher for Passover Supervision
March 10, 2010
Previously the OU has not issued Hashgacha for retail Kitniyos products for Pesach, despite requests to do so. This was avoided over the concern that different Pesach symbols might confuse consumers.
The OU has this year, on a limited basis, authorized the attached certification to appear on Kitniyos products:
OU Kitniyot
With an explanatory message:
“Acceptable for those who consume kitniyot on Passover.”
The symbol is presented in such manner so as to avoid any confusion and the packages will not indicate Kosher for Passover except as indicated.
This decision was taken at the urging of our Poskim, to benefit many Kitniyos consumers who relied on various assumptions (rather than actual Hashgacha) for Kitniyos Pesach products.
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Elizabeth Bramel
About Elizabeth Bramel
Elizabeth Bramel serves alongside her husband, Phil, in his role as Student Pastor at Grace Hills Church, a new church plant in northwest Arkansas. She's also a mom to four awesome red-headed sons. You can read more by Elizabeth at her blog, Unveiled.
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Friday, November 20, 2009
"Just Remember, Guys Are Not Complicated"
me: Are you awake?
Zen: I'm awake,
and YOU?
me: Yes, and kinda ick as well... I have issues, got time to chat?
Zen: Sure
me: OK, so here's the thing......
I'm dating a man who's just the sweetest thing ever....but.....there is one thing that bothers me. He has been separated from his wife for three years but still isn't divorced. I actually know her and she's a good girl, so it's not really about her,
and.....I'm not looking to get married, so it's not that either,
but....that breaks one of my most strictly held, can you pass this quiz, kind of rules. It's all in such sharp contrast, it makes me question my own criteria...perhaps rules really are made to be broken...... so...
If it doesn't really matter and I don't even know why I care, why does it annoy me?
Zen: 'Cuz it's a law?
me: Apparently, its legal to date while you're still married in the state of Ohio, nor is Ohio big on any other kind of binding arbitration.
Zen: What's the big deal, is he still sharing a house with her?
me: Nope, and they have no kids together...although he does have a step-daughter that he adores, and it makes me like him even more....
Zen: Maybe she just doesn't really understand him
me: Just hilarious Zen.....
Zen: Oh man there's still a lot of material there, you're not just going to quit on it are you?
me: no, actually, I'm not. but not because of whatever it is you're referring to
Zen: It's a triangle! Damn, I never knew he was juggling you and an Ex
or should I type "Ex"?
me: excuse me, but I AM NOT BEING "JUGGLED"
Zen: (I'm just smiling here, take it easy now. )
me: I worry that there is no greater afferdesiak than seeing someone that once loved you starting to love someone else, and if they were divorced, I probably wouldn't be thinking it
Zen: aphrodisiac?
me: ...yeah that
Zen: Right, the legal contract would keep him straight.
If only you had an Iron Clad agreement...
See if you can get him to sign something!
me: pffffttttt, you're making fun of me and I'm since there's no guarantees in life, his legal attachment to another woman doesn't matter?
Zen: I'm sure you could MAKE it matter, it seems like it's pissing you off, right?
me: Yes, but maybe I'm a drama queen
Zen: Mayhap, but everyone needs a hobby
Just remember guys are not complicated
me: Allegedly, but I'm rusty at this social drama
Exactly how are men not complicated?
because I always think they are
Zen: Most decisions can be made in under 15 minutes and they occur under the belly some where. They almost never bother with all that analyzing nonsense.
me: interesting........,
OK, zen, I gotta think about it
Zen: yes, women seem to do that alot more
me: Bliss is wasted on the ignorant
Zen: I never looked at it like that, I guess I'm not as aware as I thought.
have you seen the movie UP from pixar?
me: no, is it good
Zen: yes, you've got to see it. But it's kind of sad, definitely bittersweet
me: will it help me to understand men better?
Zen: no, not really...
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Where Do You Look?
There are three different kinds of people. Those who tend to look straight ahead, those that tend to look down at the ground, and those who are always looking up.
Most people are straight ahead lookers and seem like emotionally healthy people. I don't know nothing about no straight lookers.
Ground starers are very introspective. I'm a ground looker, and I bump into shit, (people, poles, etc.) on a regular basis. Sometimes I find money. If you're telling me a story, I look down to listen. Some people look down out of bad self esteem, shyness, or depression. Not me.
In my case, it's just bad ADD combined with thinking as a hobby. If I'm not looking at the ground when you talk to me, I'd be busy interrupting you to point out the pretty colors. Right when you think I got the point, someone in the distance will steal my attention back to some story I'm making up. You know my type. If someone does that to you all the time, demand they look at the ground while you talk to them.
The rarest of people are the sky gazers. Sky gazers are always searching. Searching for more. They seem acutely aware of how small they are compared to the rest of the universe. Their ability to think "outside the box" is off the chain because no one really knows what could be.
It's the sky gazers that are the dreamers and the poets. DaVinci was a sky gazer. I will remind myself to look up more often. It's probably easier to breath anyway.
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Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Eggs Benedict
(Paul Goyette)
Watching Celebrity Big Brother does have it's advantages, one of which being that I now know what "Eggs Benedict" actually consists of.
This is because apparently it is The Benny's favourite breakfast, so intrigued enough I do a bit of research on Wikipedia and apparently it it consists of:
"a dish consisting of two halves of an English muffin, usually topped with smoked bacon or ham (sometimes known as back bacon, which in America is called Canadian bacon), poached eggs, and the crucial ingredient, hollandaise sauce."
There's me thinking it was a bit more posh than that, but it has whetted my appetite now where having eggs benedict for breakfast has become one of my lifetime's ambitions. Incidentally there is allegedly now an Eggs Benedict XVI (after the Pope) only it's Sauerbraten or sausage and rye bread with the egg.
Sadly yours...
Andrew said...
Eggs Benedict XVI! I like that :-)
Paul Burgin said...
Coming from a humanist like you ;)
So do I actually, I am also emboldened to make my own version
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Mare Basalt
This igneous rock was collected from one of the darker areas on the moon known as mare. The mare formed billions of years ago. Large meteorites impacted the surface of the moon and broke up the crust. Later lavas formed by melting of rock within the moon due to the decay of radioactive elements. The broken crust under the big impact craters allowed the lava to come to the surface. Over time the craters came to be filled with lava flows. This basalt sample, estimated to be 3.7 billion years old, was collected by Apollo 17 astronauts.
Listen to caption: Real Audio MP3 Audio
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FSI Stanford, The Europe Center Workshop
Ulrich Baer - Professor of German and Comparative Literature, New York University; Vice Provost for Global Programs and Multiculturalism
Sonja Boos - Visiting Assistant Professor of German, Oberlin College & Conservatory
Stephan Braese - Professor of European Jewish Literature and Cultural History, RWTH Aachen University
Nir Evron - Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature, Stanford University
Amir Eshel - Charles Michael Chair in Jewish History and Culture; Director, Forum on Contemporary Europe, Stanford University
Barbara Hahn - Distinguished Professor of German, Vanderbilt University
Robert Harrison - Rosina Pierotti Professor of Italian Literature, Stanford University
Christine Ivanovic - Visiting Professor, Department of German Language and Literature, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, The University of Tokyo
Martin Klebes - Assistant Professor of German, University of Oregon
Eyal Peretz - Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Indiana University
Liliane Weissberg - Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor in the School of Arts and Sciences; Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of Pennsylvania
Thomas Wild - Berlin
Liliane Weissberg's talk, "Political Philosophy's Need for Literature" and Q&A session
Save audio to disk as "e6142-weissberg_liliane.MP3"
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
It seems to be lore that the perturbative expansion of quantum field theories is generally asymptotic. I have seen two arguments.
i)There is the Dyson instability argument as in QED, that is showing the partition function is nonanalytic around the expansion point, by analyzing the ground state or instantons or somesuch. This is a wonderful argument but it requires some non-trivial knowledge about the behavior of your QFT which may not be available.
ii) There is some attempt at a generic argument which merely counts the number of Feynmann diagrams at each order, says this grows like $n!$ where is $n$ is the order of the expansion. and so our series looks like $\sum n!\lambda^n$, which is asymptotic. This is of course wholly unsatisfactory since it ignores interference among the terms (even granting the presumption that all the diagrams are of the same order, which feels right). It is true the series is still asymptotic if we take the diagrams to have random phase, but this ignores the possibility of a more sinister conspiracy among the diagrams. And we know that diagrams love to conspire against us.
So is there any more wholesome treatment of the properties of the perturbative expansion of QFT? I came to thinking about this while considering the properties of various $1/N$ expansions so anything known in particular about these would be nice.
share|improve this question
It strongly depends on what you mean. For example, if your function is $(1+x)^{-2}$, its Taylor series has a finite convergence radius $x<1$, so no term-by-term summation works at large $x>>1$. But if you manage to guess this function right in the initial approximation (or sum up the Taylor terms into a finite formula $f=(1+x)^{-2}$), then the series asypmtoticity becomes irrelevant; nobody cares, the searched value can be calculated. Similarly for $exp(-C/g)$. If your initial approximation contains it right, there is no need to expand it in asymptotic series, and it may be still the same QFT. – Vladimir Kalitvianski Dec 13 '11 at 16:21
1 Answer 1
up vote 8 down vote accepted
You pretty much never expect a perturbation expansion of a generic theory to be convergent. There's a nice connection between the divergence of the perturbation expansion and nonperturbative effects (like instantons) leading to nonanalyticity at zero coupling (i.e., $e^{-C/g}$ effects). Mariño's notes here seem like a nice discussion with good references.
share|improve this answer
Thank you, that is an excellent set of notes. – BebopButUnsteady Dec 13 '11 at 20:50
Your Answer
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Sorry for inconvinience. This tournament was canceled
Playhem (Rooftop Bigboard, LLC), its parents, subsidiaries and their officers, employees, agents and assignees are not associated with, affiliated with, employed by, sponsored by, endorsed by, or connected in any other way with Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard, THQ, Take2 Interactive, SCEA, Microsoft Corporation, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Bungie, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., PlayStation 3 or any and all publishers and developer and/or any of their officers, employees, agents or assigns. The trademarks, logos, and service marks (collectively the "Trademarks") displayed on the Site, including the names of all games are registered and unregistered Trademarks of the owners, the Site and/or others. The names of games are used only for the purpose of identifying a particular owner’s game that may be played by participants.
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Meta Battle Subway PokeBase - Pokemon Q&A
How do you get beautifly in pokemon emerald?
1 vote
I know you use wurmple but I always get dustox.
asked Mar 31, 2011 by Duskull
3 Answers
2 votes
Some wurmples turn in to silcoon, and some turn into cascoon. cascoon evolves into dustox. silcoon evolves into beautifly. its a 50/50 chance if your going to get a silcoon or cascoon
answered Mar 31, 2011 by Josh
2 votes
Beautifly. Go to the petalburg woods and walk around until you see a silcoon. then use an exp. share and level it up to lvl 10.
answered Apr 1, 2011 by acoll1023
1 vote
You may meet Silcoon at Petalburg Woods (10%)
answered Mar 31, 2011 by DarthDestiny
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Politwoops Deleted Tweets from Politicians
Original Dutch version:
Pedro Pierluisi (D) @pedropierluisi
#Camuy, gracias por todo el cariño! Juntos seguimos haciendo más. http://t.co/6JW2LjK3
Screenshots of links in this tweet
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Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Early reviews of Brian Wilson's Gershwin album
I'm excited to hear this one.
Los Angeles Times
Next is a four-song medley from “Porgy & Bess,” through which Wilson colorfully weds instruments rarely combined by the classic pop singers who usually take on this stuff: twangy electric guitars next to atmospheric vibraphones, bass harmonica, banjo, trombone and baritone sax along with those tapestry-like vocal harmonies of his.
...The most radical re-invention may be “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” This ode to a classy and civil romantic farewell, once a sublime breakfast-table duet between Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, in Wilson’s hands becomes a musical joy ride down PCH with the top down, all sunny enthusiasm for the gifts given and received in this relationship.
New York Magazine:
Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin, may be the summer’s most stunning mash-up, a marriage of two of popular music’s most influential and well-loved composers—New York sophistication meets SoCal rapture—that casts both in a new light. Tackling everything from standards (“It Ain’t Necessarily So,” “Someone to Watch Over Me”) to little-known rarities, Wilson has created gorgeous and unexpected arrangements that strip away decades of familiarity. “They’re unlike anything I’ve heard before,” says Adam Gershwin, George and Ira’s great-nephew, who helps manage George’s estate. “But I would expect nothing less from Brian.”
1 comment:
Bellagio said...
The album is awesome. Never, ever expected anything this good.
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« Just a quick hello | Main | Who Has to Draw the Line? »
Friday, April 01, 2011
transparency & politics
To set the scene: Zoom in from Wisconsin to Governor Scott Walker's and the Wisconsin legislature's ultimately successful effort to radically scale back public sector collective bargaining rights. Shift to the popular response against that effort in Madison (and elsewhere in the state), and focus on the work of academics at UW-M like History professor William Cronon. Now, consider the latest iteration of this battle -- a state FOIA request filed by the state Republican Party and a libertarian think-tank seeking emails from Cronon:
Political payback against a state employee who had started a blog specifically to fight on behalf of organized public sector labor and who had published an op-ed in the New York Times? You betcha. It's part of a long though quite rich recent tradition of such uses, and it was apparently such a great idea that a parallel request has been made of professors at state universities in Michigan. I tend to view administrative procedures with a somewhat jaundiced eye, so let's start counting ironies here:
1. Party switch. Republicans and conservatives have historically disliked the federal FOIA. President Ford vetoed major amendments intended to tighten the statute after several narrowing judicial constructions; a Democratic-controlled Congress overrode. The state story is more complicated, and open government has a "good-government" aura about it that doesn't necessarily align with any particular party. But in the post-Nixon era, general ideals about the necessity of "transparency" have generally trended, and trended strongly, towards Democrats. Times do change, though. Nowadays, even Karl Rove loves the FOIA.
2. Ethical prison. Cronon and his supporters, including Paul Krugman, are boxed in: Their political and ethical commitments make them strong supporters of FOI laws and open government; they just don't like this request, because it's a form of harassment and political payback, a fishing expedition that may turn up nothing but that will certainly intimidate public employees' political activism.
3. The illusion of FOIAvoidance. The assumption by many of his supporters is that surely Cronon, a quite accomplished professor and all-around smart guy, conducted any overtly political email exchanges via his private email account. In fact, he's said that he has long conducted "private" email correspondence on his own computers and via private email accounts. That would, at least in theory, preclude them from UW's response to the request, no? No! Suppose the History Department decided to cancel a faculty meeting so that its faculty could attend an anti-Walker rally, but they all decided to use their gmail and yahoo! and g-d help us aol accounts to communicate with each other. Or worse, suppose Cronon simply forgot which email account and which computer he was using, and sent a clearly official, departmental email via his gmail account. Or suppose he did so intentionally. Surely at some point the law can't abide either malfeasant or nonfeasant efforts to avoid the law -- which are of course fairly common (hey, Sarah Palin did it!). In fact, there's a Wisconsin Attorney General opinion directly on point: it doesn't matter what email account a public official uses for "official business," it's all potentially subject to the FOI law. Does this mean all of Cronon's emails must be disclosed? No, but it does mean that the search for emails that are responsive to the request would need to include those from his private account as well.
4. The price of priceless administrative values. Which brings us to the sheer unfairness of this request, from Cronon's perspective. Unless he's willing to give over every email that is responsive to the request which he's sent from every account, then someone will have to review them to try to make the distinction between "official business" and non-OB, as well as perhaps redact portions of individual messages. (Thanks, libertarian think-tank and Republican Party, for increasing the taxpayers' tax burden with lots of attorneys' fees and busy bu-ro-cratic paperwork!) At the same time, it's nice to hear concerns about the compliance costs involved in responding to FOIA requests -- although, again, it's ironic to hear it coming from those who are complaining now. It was professor of Administrative Law (and soon to be DC Circuit Judge) Antonin Scalia who characterized the FOIA statute as “the Taj Mahal of the Doctrine of Unanticipated Consequences, the Sistine Chapel of Cost-Benefit Analysis Ignored” in a 1982 article in the Cato journal Regulation. Transparency advocates lobby heavily, and sometimes quite rightly, against high fees imposed for FOI requests. But someone's got to pay for this, and during times of economic crisis, compliance takes money and labor from something else that government employees might be doing. This is a worthwhile lesson for everyone -- recognize transparency's direct costs.
I thoroughly appreciate the difficult position that Professor Cronon finds himself in, especially as I am a public official in the state of Florida, which has arguably the most exacting sunshine laws in the country (enshrined in our state constitution no less) and where one of the key state supreme court decisions enforcing the open meeting act concerned a dean search at my law school (Wood v. Marston, 442 So. 2d 934 (Fla. 1983)). In fact, Cronon quite persuasively makes the case that many purely professional and academic tasks that he engages in cannot or at least should not be disclosed to the general public, whether to protect the privacy of communications with students (hello, FERPA, maybe!) or to protect the integrity of deliberative processes of the very distinguished academic collegial bodies of which he is a member. The problem, however, is that many government officials can and do make similar claims about their own work, as Jack Shafer of Slate has noted. Working at a flagship state university is an awe-inspiring experience, in some ways more rewarding than working at a school like Yale, which Cronon left to move to Madison. But engaging in the great land grant college project (itself made vulnerable by a waning commitment to public higher education by legislatures and governors like those who currently govern Wisconsin) makes one a public employee, for better and worse.
What's interesting about the dynamic of this dispute is that while we easily recognize the political uses of facially neutral procedural rules in rulemakings at the federal and state level, extending that insight to open government laws seems heretical. There is something about the ideal of transparency that leads people to think that its inevitable extension to almost everything public and governmental should be above the political fray. Hence Cronon's plaintive, understandable, but undoubtedly futile response to the requesters: For the good of the university and of higher education, please withdraw this request. If you follow any of the comment strings of newspaper and blog posts on this story, you will see one or more Republicans responding quite bluntly: It's the law, Cronon, and we're using it.
Posted by Mark Fenster on April 1, 2011 at 09:00 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Nice post, Mark. And, yes, there is an irony to the "party switch." (To absolve myself of defensive hypocrisy, I had earlier characterized the Walker FOIA request as inconsistent with conservatives’ frequently declared aversion to FOIA myself).
But, just to push back a wee bit in defense of my fellow conservatives... there is always a collective action problem pressing everyone towards hypocrisy on matters of individual rights like privacy. Few politically active folks are willing to engage in unilateral disarmament by forswearing weapons that their opponents use. I recall that Justice Brandeis had remarked that judicial activism was a bad thing but that, if conservatives were going to promote such activism to protect business, then he would do so for the sake of freedom of expression of individuals).
Posted by: Rick Hills | Apr 1, 2011 10:00:04 AM
Great post. I'm no FOIA expert, and thus blissfully not up to speed on its particulars. So what follows is really a policy argument, and thus perhaps of no interest. (And Mark, I don't mean to imply that you and I have any disagreement, this is just free-form pontificating.)
I'll assume FOIA covers Cronon's work emails (and even some/all of his private emails, as you suggest). Something about that strikes me as not right, and for reasons that have nothing to do with Cronon's politics. Statutes like FOIA make sense so that citizens can understand and police, via pulpit or political influence, the government's actions as sovereign. They make less sense when used to burden individuals whose entire relationship with the government is essentially an employment relationship.
Cronon does not, even indirectly, make policy for anything or anyone, adjudicate disputes, make appropriations, award contracts or grants, commit troops or state resources, or hold any regulatory power whatsoever. He's an employee who teaches students and produces scholarship (the latter of which, incidentally, absolutely does not represent the view of his employer). Certainly the acts of an employee necessarily reflect on the employer, particularly when the employer is the government, but so, in a similar sense, do the acts of anyone benefiting from government money, whether coming in the form of a wage or a tax break.
The benefit of transparency in Cronon's and similar cases seems small compared to the cost. Imagine if, tomorrow, thousands of FOIA requests were issued to obtain the emails of all public academics that referenced hot-button political words, "Obamacare," "Glenn Beck," "Libya," etc. Would we be better off? Enormous time would be wasted, and no doubt future "offstage" academic dialogue would be less frank. Which would be a significant loss, because clash, candor, devil's advocacy, and sloppy or impish exchanges -- which can look unserious, unprofessional, partisan, or incompetent when taken out of context in retrospect -- do much to drive clear thinking.
As for the argument that Cronon might have "misused" state resources by sending a few errant emails, it seems to me there are different ways to police such conduct than by making a vast swath of his correspondence public.
Posted by: Brendan Maher | Apr 1, 2011 10:14:31 AM
Rick: Thanks for the compliment (you too, Brendan). I agree entirely, and while I hate the really banal move of laughing at the hypocrisy of your opponents (another tendency shared by both sides), this is clearly an instance when both sides use these laws and norms strategically. That said, I really appreciate the fact that Cronon is thoroughly tied up in knots about it. His blog post (I link to it) is a really painful, though fighting, admission of the conflicted position he's in. I don't see Karl Rove or the Wisconsin Republican Party feeling so torn about their use of such tactics. Someone like Dick Cheney or Justice Scalia, who have and have articulated principled reasons for their transparency skepticism, might be in a similar position, though it's possible that a brilliant if flawed political operative like Cheney might just outsource his use of such tactics so he has plausible deniability. I dunno.
Brendan: Many of Cronon's UW emails might in fact not be subject to FOIA, even if they would be responsive to the request. That issue would require going much further into the weeds of state case law for me to answer, but he might still be able to protect personal emails or personal excerpts of emails sent from his work computer and work account. On the question of the relative value of disclosure in Cronon's case rather than, say, the head of an executive branch agency or an important legislator (assuming Wisconsin's law, unlike federal law, applies to the legislature): The problem Cronon faces is that the law makes no such distinction. And you can understand why, if the law's policy is to maximize disclosure. To open the door to independent, individualized judgments as to who makes policy or who makes more policy is to build in a level of indeterminacy that would be unmanageable, either judicially or in terms simply of compliance. Everyone would claim they're powerless and no one would comply. I sense that Cronon himself understands this.
Posted by: Mark Fenster | Apr 1, 2011 11:32:38 AM
Mark -- I accept you are right that the law makes no distinction, and certainly you are right that the difficulty of doing so is why Congress acted on the side of over-disclosure. But my intuition -- unleavened, of course, by something as trivial as knowledge of the actual text of FOIA or its legislative history -- is that ex ante line drawing is possible to exclude cases like Cronon's. He has no nexus whatsoever to actual policy-making or its implementation; he's not even a bureaucrat stamping forms.
Posted by: Brendan Maher | Apr 2, 2011 12:11:19 AM
Post a comment
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Psychology Wiki
Killer whales
34,135pages on
this wiki
Revision as of 23:25, September 8, 2012 by Dr Joe Kiff (Talk | contribs)
?Killer whale[1]
Conservation status: Data deficient[2]
Killerwhales jumping
Transient killer whales near Unimak Island, eastern Aleutian Islands, Alaska
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Cetacea
Suborder: Odontoceti
Family: Delphinidae
Genus: Orcinus
Fitzinger, 1860 [3]
Species: O. orca
Binomial name
Orcinus orca
(Linnaeus, 1758[4]
Orcinus orca range (in blue)
Orcinus orca range (in blue)
Orca gladiator
Taxonomy and evolutionEdit
File:Orcinus citoniensis.JPG
Orcinus orca is the only recognized extant species in the genus Orcinus, one of many animal species originally described by Linnaeus in 1758 in Systema Naturae.[8] Konrad Gessner wrote the first scientific description of a killer whale in his "Fish book" of 1558, based on examination of a dead stranded animal in the Bay of Greifswald that had attracted a great deal of local interest.[9]
Common namesEdit
English-speaking scientists most often use the term killer whale,[11] although the term orca is increasingly used. Killer whale advocates point out that it has a long heritage. Indeed, the genus name Orcinus means "of the kingdom of the dead",[11] or "belonging to Orcus."[12] Ancient Romans originally applied orca (plural orcae) to these animals, possibly borrowing it from the Greek ὄρυξ, which referred (among other things) to a whale species. Since the 1960s, orca has steadily grown in popularity; both names are now used. The term orca is preferred by some to avoid the negative connotations of "killer",[13] and because, being part of the family Delphinidae, the species is more closely related to other dolphins than to whales.[14]
They are sometimes referred to as blackfish, a name used for some whale species as well. Grampus is a former name for the species, but is now seldom used. This meaning of grampus should not be confused with the Grampus genus, whose only member is Risso's Dolphin.[15]
File:Killer Whale Types.jpg
File:Type C Orcas.jpg
File:Orca size-2.svg
File:Orca dorsalfin NOAA.JPG
Killer whales distinctively bear a black back, white chest and sides, and a white patch above and behind the eye. Calves are born with a yellowish or orange tint, which fades to white. Killer whales have a heavy and robust body with a large dorsal fin up to 2 metres (Template:Convert/ft)Template:Convert/test/A tall. Behind the fin, they have a dark grey "saddle patch" across the back. Antarctic killer whales may have pale grey to nearly white backs. Adult killer whales are very distinctive and are not usually confused with any other sea creature.[38] When seen from a distance, juveniles can be confused with other cetacean species such as the false killer whale or Risso's dolphin.[citation needed] The killer whale's teeth are very strong and covered in enamel. Its jaws are a powerful gripping apparatus, as the upper teeth fall into the gaps between the lower teeth when the mouth is closed. The front teeth are inclined slightly forward and outward, thus allowing the killer whale to withstand powerful jerking movements from its prey while the middle and back teeth hold it firmly in place.[39]
Killer whales are the largest extant members of the dolphin family. Males typically range from Template:Convert/to(-)Template:Convert/test/A long and weigh in excess of Template:Convert/tTemplate:Convert/test/A.[40] Females are smaller, generally ranging from Template:Convert/to(-)Template:Convert/test/A and weighing about Template:Convert/toTemplate:Convert/test/A.[40] The largest male killer whale on record was 9.8 metres (Template:Convert/ft)Template:Convert/test/A, weighing over Template:Convert/tTemplate:Convert/test/A, while the largest female was 8.5 metres (Template:Convert/ft)Template:Convert/test/A, weighing Template:Convert/tTemplate:Convert/test/A.[41] Calves at birth weigh about 180 kilograms (Template:Convert/LoffAonSoff)Template:Convert/test/A and are about 2.4 metres (Template:Convert/ft)Template:Convert/test/A long.[42][43] The killer whale's large size and strength make it among the fastest marine mammals, able to reach speeds in excess of Template:Convert/knTemplate:Convert/test/A.[44] The skeleton of the killer whale is of the typical delphinid structure but is more robust in all respects.[45] The killer whale's integument, unlike that of most other dolphin species, is characterised by a well-developed dermal layer with a dense network of fascicles of collagen fibers.[46]
Killer whale pectoral fins are large and rounded, resembling paddles. Males have significantly larger pectoral fins than females. At about 1.8 metres (Template:Convert/ft)Template:Convert/test/A the male's dorsal fin is more than twice the size of the female's and is more of a triangular shape—a tall, elongated isosceles triangle—whereas hers is shorter and more curved.[47] Males and females also have different patterns of black and white skin in the genital area.[48] Sexual dimorphism is also apparent in the skull; adult males have a longer lower jaw than females, and have a larger occipital crest.[46]
White killer whales occur sporadically among normal killer whales, but are rare. They have been spotted in the northern Bering Sea and around St. Lawrence Island, and near the Russian coast.[citation needed] In February 2008, a white killer whale was photographed Template:Convert/miTemplate:Convert/test/A off Kanaga Volcano.[50][51]
Life cycleEdit
File:Tysfjord orca 1.jpg
Female killer whales mature at around age 15. They then have periods of polyestrous cycling with non-cycling periods of between 3 and 16 months. Gestation varies from 15 to 18 months. Mothers calve, with usually a single offspring, about once every 5 years. In resident pods, birth occurs at any time of year, although winter is the most popular. Mortality is extremely high during the first six to seven months of life, when 37–50% of all calves die.[53] Weaning begins at about 12 months and completes by the age of two. According to observations in several regions, all male and female killer whale pod members participate in the care of the young.[54] Killer Whales and Pilot whales are the only species in which the females go through menopause and live for decades after they have finished breeding.[55] Killer whales are unique among cetaceans, as their heads become shorter as they age.[46]
Females breed until age 40, meaning that on average they raise five offspring. The lifespan of wild females averages 50 years, with a maximum of 80–90 years.[56] Males sexually mature at the age of 15 but do not typically reproduce until age 21. Wild males live around 29 years on average, with a maximum of 50–60 years.[56] One male, known as Old Tom, was reportedly spotted every winter between the 1840s and 1930 off New South Wales, Australia. This would have made him up to 90 years old. Examination of his teeth indicated he died around age 35,[57] but this method of age determination is now believed to be inaccurate for older animals.[58] One male well known to researchers in the Pacific Northwest called Ruffles (J1) was estimated to have been born in 1951, making him 59 years old when he died in 2010.[59] Captive killer whale lifespans are typically significantly shorter, usually less than 25 years; however, numerous individuals are alive in their thirties, and a few have reached their 40s. In many instances, the lifespans of killer whales depend on the will of the animal.[60][61]
Range and habitatEdit
File:Orca porpoising.jpg
Killer whales are found in all oceans and most seas. Due to their enormous range, numbers and density, distributional estimates are difficult to compare,[62] but they clearly prefer higher latitudes and coastal areas over pelagic environments.[63]
Migration patterns are poorly understood. Each summer, the same individuals appear off the coasts of British Columbia and Washington State. Despite decades of research, where these animals go for the rest of the year remains unknown. Transient pods have been sighted from southern Alaska to central California.[65] Resident killer whales sometimes travel as much as Template:Convert/kmTemplate:Convert/test/A in a day, but may be seen in a general area for a month or more. Resident killer whale pod ranges vary from Template:Convert/toTemplate:Convert/test/A.
Occasionally, killer whales swim into freshwater rivers. They have been documented Template:Convert/miTemplate:Convert/test/A up the Columbia River in the United States.[66][67] They have also been found in the Fraser River in Canada and the Horikawa River in Japan.[66]
Worldwide population estimates are uncertain, but recent consensus suggest an absolute minimum of 50,000.[2][23] Local estimates include roughly 25,000 in the Antarctic, 8,500 in the tropical Pacific, 2,250–2,700 off the cooler northeast Pacific and 500–1,500 off Norway.[68] Japan's Fisheries Agency estimated there were 2,321 killer whales in the seas around Japan.[69][70]
File:Orca Schaedel Senckenberg.jpg
Killer whales hunt varied prey; however, different populations/species tend to specialize and some can have a dramatic impact on certain preyed species.[71] For example, some populations in the Norwegian and Greenland sea specialize in herring and follow that fish's autumnal migration to the Norwegian coast. Other populations prey on seals. Salmon account for 96% of northeast Pacific residents' diet. 65% of them are large, fatty Chinook.[72] Chum salmon are also eaten, but smaller sockeye and pink salmon are not a significant food item.[73] Depletion of specific prey species in an area is therefore cause for concern for local populations, despite the high diversity of prey. On average, a killer whale eats 227 kilograms (Template:Convert/LoffAonSoff)Template:Convert/test/A each day.[74]
Because some killer whales prey on large whales and sharks, they are considered to be apex predators. They are sometimes called the wolves of the sea, because they hunt in groups like wolf packs.[75]
Fish and other cold-blooded preyEdit
Fish-eating killer whales prey on around 30 species of fish, particularly Chinook, salmon, herring, and tuna. In New Zealand, rays are killer whales' most frequent prey,[76] and they have also been observed hunting sharks (particularly makos, threshers and smooth hammerheads). Squid and sea turtles are also taken.[77]
File:Orca pod southern residents.jpg
While salmon are usually hunted by an individual or a small group of individuals, herring are often caught using carousel feeding: the killer whales force the herring into a tight ball by releasing bursts of bubbles or flashing their white undersides. They then slap the ball with their tail flukes, either stunning or killing up to 10–15 at a time. The herring are then eaten one at a time. Carousel feeding has only been documented in the Norwegian killer whale population and with some oceanic dolphin species.[78]
Killer whales can induce tonic immobility in sharks and rays by holding them upside down, rendering them helpless and incapable of injuring the whale. Some sharks suffocate within about 15 minutes while the whale holds them still, because these sharks need to move to breathe. In one incident filmed near the Farallon Islands, a female killed a Template:Convert/–Template:Convert/test/A long great white shark,[79] apparently after swimming with it upside-down in her mouth and inducing tonic immobility in it. She and another pod member ate the shark's liver and allowed the rest of the carcass to sink.[80]
In July 1992, two killer whales attacked, killed and fed on an Template:Convert/LoffAoffDbSonTemplate:Convert/test/A long whale shark, Rhincodon typus, in the waters off Bahia de los Angeles in Baja California.[81]
Mammal preyEdit
File:Sealions 300.jpg
Hunting large whales usually takes several hours. Killer whales generally choose to attack young or weak animals instead. However, a group of five or more may attack a healthy adult. When hunting a young whale, a group chases it and its mother until they wear out. Eventually they separate the pair and surround the calf, preventing it from surfacing to breathe, drowning it. Pods of female sperm whales sometimes protect themselves by forming a protective circle around their calves with their flukes facing outwards, using them to repel the attackers.[82] Rarely, large killer whale pods can overwhelm even adult female sperm whales. Adult bull sperm whales, which are large, powerful and aggressive when threatened, and fully-grown adult blue whales, who are possibly too large to overwhelm, are not believed to be predated by killer whales.[83]
Other marine mammal prey species include most species of seal, sea lion and fur seal. Walruses and sea otters are less frequently taken. Often, to avoid injury, killer whales disable their prey before killing and eating it. This may involve throwing it in the air, slapping it with their tails, ramming it, or breaching and landing on it.[84] Sea lions are killed by head-butting or after a stunning blow from a tail fluke. In the Aleutian Islands, a decline in sea otter populations in the 1990s was controversially attributed by some scientists to killer whale predation, although there is no direct evidence of this.[85] The decline of sea otters followed a decline in harbour seal and Steller sea lion populations, the killer whale's preferred prey,[Note 1][87] which in turn may be substitutes for their original prey, now decimated by industrial whaling.[88][89][90]
File:Orcas and penguins cropped.JPG
"Wave-hunting" killer whales spy-hop to locate Weddell seals, Ross seals, crabeater seals and leopard seals resting on ice floes and then swim in groups to create waves that wash over the floe. This washes the seal into the water where other killer whales lie in wait. [92][93]
Killer whales have also been observed preying on terrestrial mammals, such as deer and moose swimming between islands off the northwest coast of North America.[86] Killer whale cannibalism has also been reported based on analysis of stomach contents, but this is likely to be the result of scavenging remains dumped by whalers.[94] One killer whale was also attacked by its companions after being shot.[27] Although resident killer whales have never been observed to eat other marine mammals, they occasionally harass and kill porpoises and seals for no apparent reason.[95]
Killer whales in many areas prey on several bird species, including penguins, cormorants and gulls.[96] A captive killer whale at Marineland
1. redirect Template:Ambiguous link
discovered that it could regurgitate fish onto the surface, attracting sea gulls, and then eat the birds. Four other killer whales then learned to copy the behavior.[97]
File:Peeking Orca.jpg
Social structureEdit
Killer whales are notable for their complex societies. Only elephants and higher primates, such as humans, live in comparably complex social structures.[54] Due to orcas' complex social bonds and society, many marine experts have concerns about how humane it is to keep these animals in captive situations.[99] Resident killer whales in the eastern North Pacific have a particularly complex and stable social grouping system. Unlike any other mammal species whose social structure is known, residents live with their mothers for their entire lives. These societies are based on matrilines consisting of the matriarch and her descendants who form part of the line, as do their descendants. The average size of a matriline is 5.5 animals.[100]
Closely related matrilines form loose aggregations called pods, usually consisting of one to four matrilines. Unlike matrilines, pods may separate for weeks or months at a time.[100] DNA testing indicates that resident males nearly always mate with females from other pods.[101]
File:Orca 2.jpg
Clans are the next level of resident social structure, and are composed of pods with similar dialects and common but older maternal heritage. Clan ranges overlap, mingling pods from different clans.[100]
The final association layer, perhaps more arbitrarily defined than the familial groupings, is called the community and is defined as a set of clans that regularly commingle. Clans within a community do not share vocal patterns.[Note 2]
Transient pods are smaller than resident pods, typically consisting of an adult female and one or two of her offspring. Males typically maintain stronger relationships with their mothers than females. These bonds can extend well into adulthood. Unlike residents, extended or permanent separation of transient offspring from natal matrilines is common, with juveniles and adults of both sexes participating. Some males become “rovers” and do not form long-term associations, occasionally joining groups that contain reproductive females.[102] As in resident clans, transient community members share an acoustic repertoire, although regional differences in vocalizations have been noted.[103]
Multimedia relating to the Orca
See also: Whale song
Northeast Pacific resident groups tend to be much more vocal than transient groups in the same waters.[104] Residents feed primarily on salmon, whose hearing is too poor to detect killer whale calls at any relevant distance. Residents make sounds to identify themselves when they approach another marine mammal.
Transient are typically silent probably to avoid alerting their mammalian prey, all of whom have excellent underwater hearing.[104] They sometimes use a single click (called a cryptic click) rather than the long train of clicks observed in other populations.
All members of a resident pod use similar calls, known collectively as a dialect. Dialects are composed of specific numbers and types of discrete, repetitive calls. They are complex and stable over time. Call patterns and structure are distinctive within matrilines. Newborns produce calls similar to their mothers, but have a more limited repertoire.[103] Individuals likely learn their dialect through contact with their mother and other pod members.[105] For instance, family-specific calls have been observed more frequently in the days following a calf's birth, which may help the calf learn them.[106] Dialects are probably an important means of maintaining group identity and cohesiveness. Similarity in dialects likely reflects the degree of relatedness between pods, with variation building over time.[107]
Researchers have not determined whether calls have particular meanings or are associated with specific types of activity. Resident dialects contain 7–17 (mean = 11) distinctive call types. Transient dialects are much different, having only 4–6 discrete calls, none of which they share with residents. All members of the North American west coast transient community express the same basic dialect, although minor regional variation in call types is evident. Preliminary research indicates that offshore killer whales have group-specific dialects that are unlike those of residents and transients.[107]
Main article: Cetacean intelligence
Killer whales have the second-heaviest brains among marine mammals.[108] They can be trained in captivity and are often described as intelligent,[109][110] although defining and measuring "intelligence" is difficult in a species whose environment and behavioral strategies are very different from those of humans.[110]
File:Orca with iceball cropped.JPG
Craig Matkin[112]
In other anecdotes, researchers describe incidents in which wild killer whales playfully tease humans by repeatedly moving objects that the humans are trying to reach,[113] or suddenly start to toss around a chunk of ice after a human throws a snowball.[114]
File:TypeC orca cape.JPG
Like other animals at the highest trophic levels, the killer whale is particularly at risk of poisoning from accumulation of toxins, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).[116] European Harbour seals have problems in reproductive and immune functions associated with high levels of PCBs and related contaminants, and a survey off the Washington coast found that PCB levels in killer whales were higher than levels that had caused health problems in harbour seals.[116] Blubber samples in the Norwegian Arctic show higher levels of PCBs, pesticides and brominated flame-retardants than in polar bears. When food is scarce, killer whales metabolize blubber for energy, which increases pollutant concentrations.
File:Orca mother calf.JPG
In 2005, the United States government listed the southern resident community as an endangered population under the Endangered Species Act.[23] The southern resident community comprises three pods which live mostly in the Georgia and Haro Straits and Puget Sound in British Columbia and Washington. They do not breed outside of their community, which was once estimated at around 200 animals and later shrank to around 90.[118] In October 2008, the annual survey revealed that seven were missing and presumed dead, reducing the count to 83.[119] This is potentially the largest decline in the population in the past ten years. These deaths can be attributed to declines in chinook salmon.[119]
Noise from shipping, drilling, and other human activities is a significant concern in some key killer whale habitats, including Johnstone Strait and Haro Strait.[120] In the mid-1990s, loud underwater noises from salmon farms were used to deter seals. Killer whales also avoided the surrounding waters.[121] High-intensity sonar used by the Navy disturbs killer whales along with other marine mammals.[122] Killer whales are popular with whale watchers, which may stress the whales and alter their behavior, particularly if boats approach too closely or block their line of travel.[123]
The Exxon Valdez oil spill adversely affected killer whales in Prince William Sound and Alaska's Kenai Fjords region. Eleven members (about half) of one resident pod disappeared in the following year. The spill damaged salmon and other prey populations, which in turn damaged local killer whales. By 2009, scientists estimated the AT1 transient population (considered part of a larger population of 346 transients), numbered only 7 individuals and had not reproduced since the spill. This population is expected to die out.[124][125]
Relationship with humansEdit
Indigenous culturesEdit
File:Haida Jade.jpg
The indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast feature killer whales throughout their history, art, spirituality and religion. The Haida regarded killer whales as the most powerful animals in the ocean, and their mythology tells of killer whales living in houses and towns under the sea. According to these myths, killer whales took on human form when submerged, and humans who drowned went to live with them.[126] For the Kwakwaka'wakw, the killer whale was regarded as the ruler of the undersea world, with sea lions for slaves and dolphins for warriors.[126] In Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth mythology, killer whales may embody the souls of deceased chiefs.[126] The Tlingit of southeastern Alaska regarded the killer whale as custodian of the sea and a benefactor of humans.[127]
In the tales and beliefs of the Siberian Yupik people, killer whales are said to appear as wolves in winter, and wolves as killer whales in summer.[130][131][132][133] Killer whales are believed to assist their hunters in driving walrus.[134] Reverence is expressed in several forms: the boat represents the animal, and a wooden carving hung from the hunter's belt.[132] Small sacrifices such as tobacco are strewn into the sea for them.[134] Killer whales were believed to have helped the hunters even when in wolf guise, by forcing reindeer to allow themselves to be killed.[133]
"Killer" stereotypeEdit
Main article: Killer whale attacks on humans
In Western cultures, killer whales were historically feared as dangerous, savage predators.[135] The first written description of a killer whale was given by Pliny the Elder in circa AD 70, who wrote, "Orcas (the appearance of which no image can express, other than an enormous mass of savage flesh with teeth) are the enemy of [other whales]... they charge and pierce them like warships ramming."[136]
File:Whale of Greifswald from rear.JPG
There have been very few confirmed attacks on humans by wild killer whales, none of which has been fatal.[137] In one instance, killer whales tried to tip ice floes on which a dog team and photographer of the Terra Nova Expedition was standing.[138] There is speculation that the sled dogs' barking may have sounded enough like seal calls to trigger the killer whale's hunting curiosity. In the 1970s, a surfer in California was bitten, and in 2005 a boy in Alaska who was splashing in a region frequented by harbor seals was bumped by a killer whale that apparently misidentified him as prey.[139] Unlike wild killer whales, captive killer whales are reported to have made nearly two dozen attacks on humans since the 1970s, some of which have been fatal.[140][141]
Competition with fishermen also led to killer whales being regarded as pests. In the waters of the Pacific Northwest and Iceland, the shooting of killer whales was accepted and even encouraged by governments.[135] As an indication of the intensity of shooting that occurred until fairly recently, about 25% of the killer whales captured in Puget Sound for aquaria through 1970 bore bullet scars.[142] The U.S. Navy claimed to have deliberately killed hundreds of killer whales in Icelandic waters in 1956.[143][144]
Modern Western attitudesEdit
Western attitudes towards killer whales have changed dramatically in recent decades. In the mid 1960s and early 1970s, killer whales came to much greater public and scientific awareness, starting with the first live-capture and display of a killer whale known as Moby Doll, a resident that had been harpooned off Saturna Island in 1964.[135] So little was known at the time that it was nearly two months before the whale's keepers discovered what food (fish) it was willing to eat. To the surprise of those who saw him, Moby Doll was a docile, non-aggressive whale that made no attempts to attack humans.[145]
File:A73 whale transport.jpg
Between 1964 and 1976, 50 killer whales from the Pacific Northwest were captured for display in aquaria, and public interest in the animals grew. Millions of people became interested in killer whales after viewing them in captivity. In the 1970s, research pioneered by Michael Bigg led to the discovery of the species' complex social structure, its use of vocal communication, and its extraordinarily stable mother-offspring bonds. Through photo-identification techniques, individuals were named and tracked over decades.[146]
Bigg's techniques also revealed that the Pacific Northwest population was small—in the low hundreds rather than the thousands that had been previously assumed.[135] The Southern Resident community alone had lost 48 of its members to captivity; by 1976, only 80 remained.[147] In the Pacific Northwest, the species that had unthinkingly been targeted became a cultural icon within a few decades.[118]
The public's growing appreciation also led to growing opposition to whale–keeping in aquaria. Only one whale has been taken in North American waters since 1976. In recent years, the extent of the public's interest in killer whales has manifested itself in several high-profile efforts surrounding individuals. Following the success of the 1993 film Free Willy, the movie's captive star Keiko was returned to the coast of his native Iceland. In 2002, the orphan Springer was discovered in Puget Sound, Washington. She became the first whale to be successfully reintegrated into a wild pod after human intervention, crystallizing decades of research into the vocal behavior and social structure of the region's killer whales.[148] The saving of Springer raised hopes that another young killer whale named Luna who had become separated from his pod could be returned to it. However, his case was marked by controversy about whether and how to intervene, and in 2006 Luna was killed by a boat propeller.[149]
File:Killer Whale (Old Tom) and whalers.jpeg
The first records of commercial hunting of killer whales date to the 18th century in Japan. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the global whaling industry caught immense numbers of baleen and sperm whales, but largely ignored killer whales because of their limited amounts of recoverable oil, their smaller populations, and the difficulty of taking them.[101] Once the stocks of larger species were depleted, killer whales were targeted by commercial whalers in the mid-20th century. Between 1954 and 1997, Japan took 1,178 killer whales and Norway took 987.[150] Over 3,000 killer whales were taken by Soviet whalers,[151] including an Antarctic catch of 916 in 1979-80 alone, prompting the International Whaling Commission to recommend a ban on commercial hunting of the species pending further research.[150] Today, no country carries out a substantial hunt, although Indonesia and Greenland permit small subsistence hunts.
Killer whales have helped humans hunting other whales.[152] One well-known example was in Eden, Australia, including the male known as Old Tom. Whalers more often considered them a nuisance, however, as they would gather to scavenge meat from the whalers' catch.[152] Some populations, such as in Alaska's Prince William Sound, may have been reduced significantly by whalers shooting them in retaliation.[16]
Main article: Captive orcas
The killer whale's intelligence, trainability, striking appearance, playfulness in captivity and sheer size have made it a popular exhibit at aquariums and aquatic theme parks.[153] From 1976 to 1997, 55 whales were taken from the wild in Iceland, 19 from Japan, and three from Argentina. These figures exclude animals that died during capture.[153] Live captures fell dramatically in the 1990s, and by 1999, about 40% of the 48 animals on display in the world were captive–born.[153]
Organizations such as the World Society for the Protection of Animals and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society campaign against the practice of keeping them in captivity. In captivity they often develop pathologies, such as the dorsal fin collapse seen in 60–90% of captive males. Captives have vastly reduced life expectancies, on average only living into their 20s.[Note 3] In the wild, females who survive infancy live 50 years on average, and up to 70–80 years in rare cases. Wild males who survive infancy live 30 years on average, and up to 50–60 years.[154] Captivity usually bears little resemblance to wild habitat, and captive whales' social groups are foreign to those found in the wild. Critics claim that captive life is stressful due to these factors and the requirement to perform circus tricks that are not part of wild killer whale behavior.[155] Wild killer whales travel up to Template:Convert/kmTemplate:Convert/test/A each day, and critics say that the animals are too big and intelligent to be suitable for captivity.[109]
Captives occasionally act aggressively towards themselves, their tankmates, or humans, which critics say is a result of stress.[140][156][157] Tilikum, a captive killer whale born in the wild, has been involved in three fatalities including one in which he grabbed a trainer and pulled her underwater, eventually drowning her.[158] Experts are divided as to whether the injuries and deaths caused by captive killer whales have been accidents or deliberate attempts to cause harm.[158]
See alsoEdit
1. According to Baird,[86] killer whales prefer harbour seals to sea lions and porpoises in some areas.
2. In the northeast Pacific, three communities of fish-eating killer whales have been identified: the southern community (1 clan, 3 pods, 90 killer whales as of 2006), the northern community (3 clans, 16 pods, 214 killer whales as of 2000), and the south Alaskan community (2 clans, 11 pods, 211 killer whales as of 2000).
1. Template:MSW3 Cetacea
2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Template:IUCN2008
3. Orcinus Fitzinger, 1860 (TSN {{{ID}}}). Integrated Taxonomic Information System.
4. Orcinus orca (Linnaeus, 1758) (TSN {{{ID}}}). Integrated Taxonomic Information System.
5. Ford, Ellis & Balcomb 2000, p. 12
6. 6.0 6.1 Rendell, Luke, and Hal Whitehead (2001). Culture in whales and dolphins. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (2): 309–324.
7. 7.0 7.1 Carwardine 2001, p. 19
8. Template:La icon Linnaeus, C. (1758). Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I, 10th, Holmiae. (Laurentii Salvii).
9. 9.0 9.1 Zum Wal in der Marienkirche (in German). St. Mary's Church, Greifswald. Retrieved 2010-02-16
10. (1999). Phylogenetic relationships among the delphinid cetaceans based on full cytochrome b sequences. Marine Mammal Science 15 (3): 619-648.
11. 11.0 11.1 Ford, Ellis & Balcomb 2000, p. 69
12. Killer Whales. Scientific Classification,, September 23, 2010, Retrieved 2010-09-09.
13. Olsen, Ken. Orcas on the Edge – Killer: It’s a Name, Not an Accusation. National Wildlife Federation. January 10, 2006. Retrieved 2010-01-26.
17. 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 17.5 Pitman, Robert L. and Ensor, Paul (2003). Three forms of killer whales (Orcinus orca) in Antarctic waters. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 5 (2): 131–139.
18. (2006) Marine mammals: evolutionary biology, Academic Press.
19. 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 19.4 Carwardine 2001, pp. 40–47
20. Ford, Ellis & Balcomb 2000, p. 23
21. NMFS 2005, p. 24
22. Ford, Ellis & Balcomb 2000, p. 21
23. 23.0 23.1 23.2 23.3 Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) NOAA Fisheries, Office of Protected Resources. Retrieved 2010-03-14
24. NMFS 2005, p. 23
25. Heimlich & Boran 2001, p. 22
26. Chadwick, Douglas H. (April 2005). Investigating A Killer. National Geographic.
27. 27.0 27.1 (1991). A review of killer whale interactions with other marine mammals: predation to co-existence. Mammal Reviews 21 (4): 151–180.
28. Bourton, Jody. Two killer whale types found in UK waters, Earth News, BBC, 2010-01-05. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
30. Ford, Ellis & Balcomb 2000, p. 27
32. (2010). Observations of a distinctive morphotype of killer whale (Orcinus orca), type D, from subantarctic waters. Polar Biology 34 (2): 303–306.
33. Rejcek, Peter The Antarctic Sun: News about Antarctica - Killer News. URL accessed on 2011-02-16.
35. (2008). Mitochondrial sequence divergence among Antarctic killer whale ecotypes is consistent with multiple species. Biology Letters 4 (4).
36. (2010). Complete mitochondrial genome phylogeographic analysis of killer whales (Orcinus orca) indicates multiple species. Genome Research 20 (7).
37. Schrope, Mark (15 February 2007). Food chains: Killer in the kelp. Nature 445 (7129): 703–705.
38. Carwardine 2001, p. 20
39. Heptner et al. 1996, p. 683
40. 40.0 40.1 Baird 2002
41. Killer Whales: Physical Characteristics. URL accessed on 2009-12-30.
44. Killer whale. Cetacean Research & Rescue Unit. Retrieved 2010-02-18
45. Heyning, J. E.; Dahlheim, M. E. (1988) Orcinus orca. Mammalian Species 304:1-9
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50. Mary Pemberton. Rare white killer whale spotted in Alaska, MSNBC, March 7, 2008
51. Rare White Killer Whale Spotted in Alaskan Waters From NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson, news release, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2008-03-06. Retrieved 2010-03-20
52. Carwardine 2001, pp. 30–32
53. NMFS 2005, p. 35
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55. What do Whales and Females have in Common?, Australian Geographic, June 30, 2010
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64. Kwan, Jennifer. Canada Finds Killer Whales Drawn to Warmer Arctic, Reuters, January 22, 2007. Retrieved 2010-01-26
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71. Virginia Morell (21 January 2011). Killer Whales Earn Their Name. Science 331 (6015): 274–276.
72. NMFS 2005, p. 18
73. Ford & Ellis 2006
74. Hughes, Catherine D.. National Geographic creature feature. URL accessed on 2007-07-25.
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77. NMFS 2005, p. 17
78. Similä, T. and Ugarte, F. (1993). Surface and underwater observations of cooperatively feeding killer whales. Can. J.Zool. 71 (8): 1494–1499.
79. Heithaus, Michael (2001). Predator–prey and competitive interactions between sharks (order Selachii) and dolphins (suborder Odontoceti): a review. Journal of Zoology 253: 53–68.
80. "Wild: The Whale That Ate Jaws." National Geographic Channel November 29, 2009. Retrieved 2010-01-03
81. O'Sullivan, J. B. (2000). American Elasmobranch Society 16th Annual Meeting, June 14–20, 2000. URL accessed on 2010-02-18.
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83. Estes, et al (2007). Whales, Whaling, and Ocean Ecosystems.
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85. Pinell, Nadine, et al. "Transient Killer Whales – Culprits in the Decline of Sea Otters in Western Alaska?" B.C. Cetacean Sightings Network, June 1, 2004. Retrieved 2010-03-13
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88. (2003). Sequential megafaunal collapse in the North Pacific Ocean: An ongoing legacy of industrial whaling?. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100 (21).
89. (2006). The sequential megafaunal collapse hypothesis: Testing with existing data. Progress in Oceanography.
90. (2009). Causes and consequences of marine mammal population declines in southwest Alaska: a food-web perspective. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364 (1524).
91. Carwardine 2001, p. 29
94. Baird 2002, p. 124
95. Ford, Ellis & Balcomb 2000, p. 19
96. Baird 2002, p. 14
97. includeonly>"Whale uses fish as bait to catch seagulls then shares strategy with fellow orcas", 2005-09-07. Retrieved on 2010-02-18.
98. Carwardine 2001, p. 64
99. Keep Whales Wild. Keep Whales Wild. URL accessed on 2011-02-16.
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105. Filatova, Olga A.; Fedutin, Ivan D.; Burdin, Alexandr M. and Hoyt, Erich (2007). The structure of the discrete call repertoire of killer whales Orcinus orca from Southeast Kamchatka. Bioacoustics 16: 261–280.
106. (2006). Vocal behaviour of resident killer whale matrilines with newborn calves: The role of family signatures. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 119 (1).
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109. 109.0 109.1 Associated Press. Whale Attack Renews Captive Animal Debate CBS News, March 1, 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-07
110. 110.0 110.1 Carwardine 2001, p. 67
111. Baird 2002, pp. 61–62
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113. (2005). Killer whale games. Blackfish Sounder 13.
115. Marino, Lori, et al. (May 5, 2007). Cetaceans Have Complex Brains for Complex Cognition. PLoS Biology 5 (e139): e139.
116. 116.0 116.1 Ford, Ellis & Balcomb 2000, p. 99
117. Ford, Ellis & Balcomb 2000, p. 98
118. 118.0 118.1 M. L. Lyke, Granny's Struggle: When Granny is gone, will her story be the last chapter?, Seattle Post Intelligencer, 2006-10-14
119. 119.0 119.1 Le Phuong. Researchers: 7 Orcas Missing from Puget Sound, Associated Press. USA Today, 2008-10-25
120. Ford, Ellis & Balcomb 2000, p. 100
121. Research on Orcas, Raincoast Research Society. Retrieved 2010-02-18
122. includeonly>McClure, Robert. "State expert urges Navy to stop sonar tests", Seattle Post Intelligencer, 2003-10-02. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
123. Williams, Rob (2002). Behavioural responses of male killer whales to a ‘leapfrogging’ vessel. Journal of Cetacean Resource Management 4 (3): 305–310.
124. Unique Killer-Whale Pod Doomed by Exxon Valdez | Wired Science. URL accessed on 2009-12-31.
125. Marine Ecology Progress Series 356:269. (PDF) URL accessed on 2009-12-31.
126. 126.0 126.1 126.2 Francis & Hewlett 2007, pp. 115–120
127. Ford, Ellis & Balcomb 2000, p. 11
129. Tuck, James A. (1971). An Archaic Cemetery at Port Au Choix, Newfoundland. American Antiquity 36 (3): 343–358.
132. 132.0 132.1 Духовная культура (Spiritual culture), subsection of Support for Siberian Indigenous Peoples Rights (Поддержка прав коренных народов Сибири) — see the section on Eskimos
133. 133.0 133.1 Vajda, Edward J Siberian Yupik (Eskimo). East Asian Studies.
134. 134.0 134.1 (Russian) Template:Cite serial A radio interview with Russian scientists about man and animal, examples taken especially from Asian Eskimos
135. 135.0 135.1 135.2 135.3 Obee & Ellis 1992, pp. Chapter 1
136. Gaius Plinius Secundus. Historia Naturalis 9.5.12 (Latin), in Bill Thayer's LacusCurtius: Into the Roman World. (See also an English translation by J. Bostock and H. T. Riley, 1855.) Retrieved 2010-02-19. [dead link]
137. includeonly>"Orca shares the waves with local surfer", 3 News, September 12, 2008. Retrieved on October 13, 2011.
138. Cherry-Garrard, Apsley (2004). The Worst Journey in the World:Antarctic 1910–1913, Globe Pequot.
139. The Associated Press. "Boy survives bump from killer whale." The Seattle Times, 2005-08-18. Retrieved 2010-01-03
140. 140.0 140.1 ABC News: Killer Whale Attacks SeaWorld Trainer. ABC News. URL accessed on 2010-01-03.
142. NMFS 2005, p. 41
144. (1956). Naval War Declared Against Killer Whales. The Science News-Letter 69 (24).
145. Francis & Hewlett 2007, pp. 58–59
146. Baird 2002, pp. 73–80
147. Heimlich & Boran 2001, p. 11
148. includeonly>"Orphaned orca's reunion with family celebrated", Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, July 13, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-11-06.
149. includeonly>McClure, Robert. "Luna the orca killed by tugboat", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Hearst Corporation, March 11, 2006. Retrieved on 2009-04-08.
150. 150.0 150.1 Obee & Ellis 1992, p. 34
151. Killer Whale, Bergen Museum. Retrieved 2010-01-26
152. 152.0 152.1 (2005). Killer whales and whaling: the scavenging hypothesis. Biology Letters 1 (4).
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154. Orcas. Humane Society of the United States. URL accessed on 2010-01-09.
155. Orcas in captivity. Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. URL accessed on 2010-01-26.
156. Hoyt, Erich (1992). The Performing Orca: Why the Show must Stop. Bath, U.K.: Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. Excerpt from Chapter 7 reprinted by PBS as background material for its Frontline report "A Whale of a Business", which originally aired on November 11, 1997. Retrieved 2010-02-19
157. includeonly>"Whale Kills a Trainer at SeaWorld", New York Times, 2010-02-24. Retrieved on 2010-02-25.
158. 158.0 158.1 Husna Haq. Sea World tragedy: How common are 'killer whale' attacks?, Christian Science Monitor, 2010-02-25. Retrieved 2010-02-26
Further readingEdit
• Kirkevold, B. C.; J. S. Lockard (1986). Behavioral Biology of Killer Whales, Alan R. Liss.
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Psychology Wiki
• (cur | prev) 18:50, August 28, 2011Dr Joe Kiff (Talk | contribs) . . (9,188 bytes) (+9,188) . . (Created page with "{{StatsPsy}} '''Multimethodology''', '''mixed methods research''', '''compatibility thesis''' or '''pragmatist paradigmis''' an approach to professional research that combine...")
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Dear Puppet Labs, I got your wishlist. Because you’ve been good this year, I tweeted my friend, Patrick Debois, and he created this comic just for you. — Santa
The 10th Annual VMworld US is next week and it’s going to be epic: 21,000 attendees, 350 in-depth sessions, 26 hands-on labs, and 275 sponsors and exhibitors.
What's service virtualization? It's the simulation of a complex application, database or other computing service in a testing environment.
Continuous delivery makes it possible to keep web apps updated and fresh. Increasingly, continuous delivery is also making it possible for manufacturers of hard goods to update their products, too.
Every operations veteran has at least one good story, usually of when things went terribly wrong, or when they were keeping a machine alive on a wing and a prayer. Here are some tales from the team at Puppet Labs.
Continuous delivery makes it feasible to introduce new features and functions quickly and reliably. It's also a competitive advantage.
While some argue about what a DevOps engineer is — and whether the title actually means anything — Bess Sadler has just hired one.
Happy "Monday-After-System Administrator Appreciation Day!" While our SysAdmin Appreciation Day GIF Contest is still going strong through midnight tonight, we're in the throes of celebrating our very own operations folks.
Companies that want to introduce new features to customers quickly are either already practicing continuous delivery or working towards it — or they should be.
Could DevOps ideas be the key to a happier, more productive working life? Here are some KPIs used by people who use DevOps practices.
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This On
1 13 LEGO STAR WARS, by Simon Beecroft. ($21.99 DK) An annotated visual dictionary.
3 17 SKIPPYJON JONES, LOST IN SPICE, written and illustrated by Judy Schachner. ($16.99 Dutton) The peppery red planet captures a cat’s fancy.
4 103 GALLOP!, written and illustrated by Rufus Butler Seder. ($12.95 Workman) Animals seem to move when you flip the page.
5 10 THE LION AND THE MOUSE, by Jerry Pinkney. ($16.99 Little, Brown) A fable of reciprocal kindness, redrawn.
6 43 LISTEN TO THE WIND: THE STORY OF DR. GREG AND "THREE CUPS OF TEA", by Greg Mortenson and Susan L. Roth. ($16.99 Dial) A school grows in Pakistan.
7 4 THE LITTLE PRINCE, written and illustrated by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. ($35 HMH) A pop-up edition.
8 10 NUBS, by Brian Dennis, Mary Nethery and Kirby Larson. ($17.99 Little, Brown Books for Young Readers) A wild dog in Iraq makes a friend for life.
9 9 OTIS, written and illustrated by Loren Long. ($17.99 Philomel) A frisky tractor befriends a calf.
10 2 14 COWS FOR AMERICA, by Carmen Agra Deedy with Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah. Illustrated by Thomas Gonzalez. ($17.95 Peachtree) Masai villagers in Kenya seek to comfort Americans after 9/11.
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To Kill A Mockingbird Quotable Quotes
10 terms by BayleyS
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Mr. Raymond
Because your'e children and you can understand it.
Mr. Raymond
...your pa's not a run-of -the-mill man, it'll take a few years for that to sink in-you haven't seen enough of the world yet
We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe...some people are gifted beyond the normal scope of most men
Reverend Sykes
Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'.
Scout (narrator)
The feeling grew...was exactly the same as...when the mockingbirds were still...
They've done it before and they did it tonight and they''ll do it again and when they do-seems only children weep.
Miss Maudie
Mr. Underwood's editorial
Mr. Underwood simply figured it was a sin to kill cripples...He likened Tom's death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds...
Scout (narrator)
Scout (narrator)
Thus began our longest journey togther.
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Tuesday, May 5, 2009
'Cleaning' is a Messy Movie
Sunshine Cleaning
Release: 03.13.09
Rated R
1 hour, 42 minutes
Second Run Seats
Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams, Serving Sara) lived the dream in high school; head cheerleader dating the quarterback Mac (Steve Zhan, Riding in Cars with Boys). Now she cleans up behind those living their dreams. She's taking realty classes which consist of secret rendezvous with the now married Mac at the Sleep-Eazy motel. Meanwhile, Rose leaves her son, Oscar (Jason Spevack, Hollywoodland), with her baby sis, Norah (Emily Blunt, Dan in Real Life), since it's one of the few jobs Norah doesn't completely screw up. With a passing comment by Mac and the urgent need to earn private-school tuition for Oscar, Rose decides to specialize her cleaning for the recently deceased. Enlisting her layabout sister, the backdoor business Sunshine Cleaning is born.
Did you catch all that? Rose is juggling a hustling father, a troubled sister, a bored child and a married boyfriend all while cleaning houses, working on a realty license and running an unlicensed bio-hazard removal business. Somewhere amid the frenzy she finds time to catch random television movie scenes to find her late mother's walk-on role as a waitress. Her plate is extremely full, which explains, but doesn't excuse, why all these plot strings don't get resolved by the film's end.
The death of their mother had a significant influence on the lives of Rose, Norah and their dad Joe (Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine). I can't say exactly how it affected dear old dad because Joe's story is only partially told. The trauma leads Norah to seek out a kindred spirit in Lynn (Mary Lynn Rasjskub, Mysterious Skin) with surprisingly contrary results. The effects on Rose isn't as apparent; she continually tries to attack her problems with a determinedly cheery outlook, though her facade appears on the verge of shattering with each breath.
The expressive faces of Amy Adams and Emily Blunt lift Sunshine Cleaning out of complete mediocrity. As my wife put it, I'd have hated to have been in drama class competing for lead roles against either of these two. The two actresses convey such convincing emotions that you want to cheer or cry with them, even if you're not sure what you're reacting to. Arkin gives a fun but all too brief turn as Joe. As Winston, the one-armed owner of a cleaning supply shop, Clifton Collins, Jr. (Traffic) is underused though he becomes an increasingly important part of the Lorkowskis' lives.
Dirty Undies
Even with the ladies cleaning up spattered human remains, director Christine Jeffs is careful to avoid showing anything worse than a few drying pools of blood. Rose's adulterous affair does provide a fair amount of flesh from Adams and Zhan, but the fun stuff is left up to your imagination.
The Money Shot
I give a standing ovation to casting director Avy Kaufman who couldn't have chosen a better cast of actors for the project. There's nothing particularly bad about Sunshine Cleaning; it's just that in this case, great performances in a mediocre story still results in a mediocre story.
Large Association of Movie Blogs
1. Thanks so much for following do you have a flag! I love Reel Whore!
2. Yes, we definitely have a collaboration on our hands. How best to execute? Just each do our posts and mention/link to the others'?
Whatcha think?
3. @flag: No problem and thank you. You're making me blush!
@Fletch: Easiest seems best. Post & Cross-link. Should we have some sort of catchy subtitle?
I can probably have mine up Tuesday. LAMMY voting is my priority this weekend!
4. How bout Wednesday? I anticipate Monday/Tuesday to keep me busy with those aforementioned LAMMYs.
Yes, catchy name. What that should be, I have no idea.
Let's see - you've got "Who's That Lady?," and I've got Familiar Face - Unknown Name, but the catch here is that we're tabbing two people from the same flick as the common link.
I gots to ponder on this. Will be in touch. Let me know if you come up with anything.
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Regular Show Wiki
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this wiki
Skips character
Biographical Information
Species: Yeti
Gender: Male
Hair color: White
Relatives: Quips (cousin)
Show Information
Voiced by: Mark Hamill
First appearance: "The Pilot (unofficial)
The Power (official)"
Latest appearance: "Thomas Fights Back"
Skips, formerly known as Walks, is a main character in Regular Show. He is a yeti who works at the park as a groundskeeper. He helps Benson a lot, and fixes many of the mistakes that Mordecai and Rigby make. He is very wise, and has a knowing of many things to those of the unknown, due to his past of immortality. Skips made his first appearance in the pilot. Skips is voiced by Mark Hamill.
Skips is a yeti (standing at 6'1") with yellow-ish eyes, wearing only jeans with a brown belt. He closely resembles a gorilla. He has large muscles and abs, though he has small hands. He has white hair all over his body except for his hands, feet, chest area and his face. It is also revealed that he lost some of his hair, so he made a combover.
Personality and Traits
He has an interesting and mysterious past due to his immortality. Everybody relies on him to solve supernatural problems, and he almost always has the answer. There have only been a few occasions where he didn't know what to do, such as in "Brain Eraser" when, although he knew how to delete Mordecai's memory of Pops' nudity, he didn't know how to exit the video tape. He also couldn't fix error 219 on Mordecai and Rigby's computer. In "Skunked", his best ideas (a shower and coffee) didn't work, and in "Sugar Rush" he said to give Pops more sugar to stop his sugar rush when this only made it worse. However, Rigby knew what to do by giving him the opposite of more sugar: Benson's whole wheat donut. Skips also admits that he doesn't know what's wrong with Rigby in "This Is My Jam ", and even goes so far as to give advice that indirectly worsens the situation.
Skips is often quiet and is one of the least vocal characters of the show, spending the majority of his spare time working out in the golf cart garage which doubles as his home. Despite his monotone expressions, he can be seen having a good time joking around, such as in "This Is My Jam", where he jokes with Mordecai and Rigby that he knew everything, though admits afterwards that he only knew about their plan because he was "on the can" while they were talking about it. Skips has great self-esteem and pride in his knowledge and strength, once going so far as to kill Rigby when he beat Skips at arm wrestling.
He is considerably friendly with the other groundskeepers, and seems to be good friends with Benson, convincing him to take a break in "Party Pete" due to the stress he was going through. Overall, he's always willing to assist anybody that needs him and his expertise, despite how annoyed with the situation he might be. Skips rarely ever walks or runs, but when he is punched in the face by the bouncer at Carrey O'Key's, he runs after his attacker, and throws him into a table, which breaks with the force of Carl/The Bouncer's weight and he walks while Benson is driving the cart to pull Rigby's head out of the black hole in "First Day".
Mordecai has a better relationship with Skips than Rigby does, and displays friendship and responsibility towards him. Mordecai always looks toward Skips for any help for any matter, with the presumption that Skips can fix anything with his seemingly infinite wisdom, except computers. In one instance, Mordecai voluntarily sacrifices the chocolate cake he and Rigby wanted so badly to save Skips from dying in the episode "Free Cake."
Skips behaves slightly more negatively toward Rigby, and as a result, less friendly. Skips knows that it's usually Rigby's fault for all sorts of horrible events that occur, but always remains patient enough to fix the problem and teach both him and Mordecai a lesson. Skips does not approve of Rigby's immature behavior, one time going as far as to kill him. Skips is shown to have a little bit of respect for Rigby, though, when he tries to bring back his life by winning an arm wrestling match and when he breaks his own hand so that Rigby could play in a video game tournament with Mordecai. He also gave Rigby advice on being truthful about cheating on a bet, and even in social outings with the other Park Employees.
Even though Skips is employed by Benson, the two are at least friends, if not good friends. As seen in "Meat Your Maker", Skips chugs soda while Benson and Pops cheer him on. Benson has the utmost respect for Skips, as he is a hard worker and very dependable. Benson left Skips in charge while he took the day off in "Party Pete" without realizing he was going to let Mordecai and Rigby have their party anyway.
Pops and Skips do not interact too much throughout the series. It is shown in "Skips vs. Technology" that he has known Pops as a child. Although they don't appear to hate each other, Skips, being deep and knowledgeable, may be bored with Pops' childish, overly free-spirited attitude. He warns Mordecai and Rigby not to teach him words he shouldn't use.
Hi Five Ghost
Skips and Hi Five Ghost are rarely seen interacting with one-another, though it can be assumed that the two like each other based on their friendly natures. Two notable interactions between the pair include Hi Five Ghost challenging Skips to an arm wrestling match in "Over the Top", and Skips and Hi Five Ghost going to prank the Rival Park in "Prankless".
Techmo is one of Skips' friends from the American Revolution. When Techmo lost his arm fighting, Skips gave him an arm made of wood.
Gary is Skips' friend and he is also the one who takes Skips to the Guardians of Eternal Youth in his El Camino. In "Skips' Story" they knew each other from high school, where he was then known as Gareth.
Guardians of Eternal Youth
The Guardians granted Skips his eternal youth, but only if he does his spirit dance every year on his birthday.
Love Interests
In Diary, it was revealed that Skips had a woman who used to skip with him every day, but he lost her due to her sacrificing herself to save him from Klorgbane. Because of this, he vowed to skip both night and day for the rest of his life, and he then changed his name from Walks to Skips.
Death is one of his eternal lifelong frenemies and threatens to tell the other park workers about his real name (Walks). Their long time rivalry could simply be because Death is the Grim Reaper, and therefore his job is to get people to pass on when their time comes. But since Skips struck a deal with the Guardians of Eternal Youth, who gave him immortality before his time came, Death hasn't been able to successfully perform his job with Skips, and therefore the seeds of their rivalry were planted. In "Exit 9B" he is shown helping Skips, so their rivalry might not be as fierce at first glance.
Klorgbane the Destroyer
Like Death, Klorgbane is one of Skips' enemies. Every 157 years, Skips must defeat Klorgbane or the world will end. In "Skips' Story", it is revealed that they knew each other from high school. Klorgbane was the school bully, and was responsible for Mona's death.
• Strength - Skips is best known among his friends for his superior strength (i.e. punching open a punching bag in "Over the Top"). It was also evidenced in "Death Punchies" that he accidentally sent Rigby to the hospital by punching him too hard. And in the episode Caveman, he was shown to hold his own against a couple of cavemen before being knocked unconscious.
• Skipping - Despite originally being named "Walks", Skips always skips, no exceptions. Hence, he changed his name to Skips. In the episode "Diary" it was revealed that he skips because he had a lover who skipped with him all the time. When he lost her he vowed to skip for the rest of his life so he could never forget the memories he had with her.
• Self-Esteem - Skips is very self-assured, always enjoying being praised by his friends. However, when he loses his standing as the best at something, Skips becomes upset, adopting a single-minded determination until he is able to prove himself.
• Eternal Youth - By being granted eternal youth by the Guardians of Eternal Youth, Skips is able to live indefinitely young in exchange for performing a spirit dance directed toward said guardians on his birthday.
• Knowledge - Due to Skips having immortality, he has seen many things in his past and has a strong knowledge of the unknown. He usually always has an answer to everything. However, in the episode "Sugar Rush", Skips said that eating more sugar will slow everything down, but it only ends up sending his friends to a higher sugar plain instead. When they eat the whole wheat donut, it saved them, and Rigby proved Skips wrong.
• Arm Wrestling- Skips is seen doing very well at arm wrestling in "Over The Top". He only lost to Rigby because he was cheating.
• Bass Guitar Player- As seen in "This Is My Jam", Skips knows how to play the electric bass guitar.
• Video games - Skips is an extremely adept gamer, playing with Mordecai in Video Game Wizards in a fighting games tournament in the place of Rigby. He performs with considerable technique and finesse, and upon being replaced by Rigby, leaves without arguing. When asked why, he expresses his gratefulness that Mordecai finally learned his lesson about gaming, and expressed that the game was "too easy anyway".
Skips-Themed Content
• Skips got his immortality because he was the only one who could defeat Klorgbane the Destroyer and Klorgbane would return every 157 years.
• Skips is the only main character to have five fingers, while others tend to only have four.
• It was revealed in the episode "Free Cake" that Skips has eternal youth, restored to him by the Guardians of Eternal Youth. This means that Skips is much older than the rest of the staff.
• Skips lives in the golf cart garage.
• Some people sometimes mistake Skips for a white gorilla, but it has been confirmed that he is actually a yeti.
• Skips is one of the few employees that Benson has not yelled at. The others being Pops and Thomas. Although, in Quips everyone (Mordecai, Rigby, Benson, Muscle Man, HFG, Pops) is mad at him because of his cousin's jokes for the first time.
• It is unknown why Skips chose to stay as a park worker for over 100 years instead of pursuing a different career.
• Skips will sometimes joke around with Mordecai and Rigby, as seen in the episode "This Is My Jam".
• In the episode "Jinx", he said that his mind is a "steel trap" when asked why he wasn't affected by a memory wipe that was applied to the rest of the park's staff and patrons.
• Hence his name, Skips almost always moves by "skipping" (due to him vowing to always skip when he lost his lover). However, in "Karaoke Video", he is seen running for the first time. He is also shown to walk in "Over The Top" after he destroys his punching bag and leaves his house.
• He kills Rigby in the episode "Over the Top", but wins him back from Death.
• Death states that he wants to take Skips' immortal soul.
• In "High Score", it was revealed that he has a bank account and a 401(k) retirement plan.
• In "Peeps", "Skips Strikes", and "Video Game Wizards", it is shown that Skips owns a blue Volkswagen Kombi.
• He broke his fingers twice: in "Video Game Wizards" and "Fists of Justice".
• Skips broke his leg in "Appreciation Day".and "Terror Tales of the Park II"
• Side from the fact that it was just part of Benson's story.
• In Project Exonaut, he, Mordecai, and Rigby have their own exosuits.
• In the music video I Get Around, it was shown that Skips has been working in the park since 1873.
• In the episode "Sugar Rush," Skips was wrong in solving a problem for the first time.
• In "Bald Spot", Skips reveals that he's bald and has a comb over to cover it. He also admits that it took him 400 years to get used to being bald.
• His full name may be Skips Quippenger, due to Quippenger being the last name of his cousin, Quips.
• Due the vast number of them, Skips was easily overpowered by Cavemen in the episode Caveman.
• In the episode Skips in the Saddle, it is revealed that the last time Skips went on a date was at least two hundred years ago.
• It is also revealed in Skips in the Saddle that Skips likes to go commando, even though he always seems to have pants on.
The gallery for Skips can be viewed here.
Main Characters of Regular Show
Mordecai character
Rigby character
Benson character
Pops character
Skips character
Reg muscleman
Reg highfiveghost
Muscle Man
Hi Five Ghost
Start a Discussion Discussions about Skips
• OH....
3 messages
• Butt2342 wrote:Um.... Human-looking skips?! Lol! : Look ath the picture
• I was Incorrect according to the new episode, "Skips' Story".
• how old is skips?
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• XxPaSsItOvEr420xX wrote:That's a good counter theory FirelordRoku. Plus, my math is terrible anyways, so I honestly don't know his exact age, ...
• skips must be over 300 years old, if he had a bald spot 400 years ago, thats a tell tale sign he was getting old by 1613! Plus how could sk...
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93054
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How to Get Rid of Sore Muscles
in Health · 0 comments
sore muscles
Not knowing how to get rid of sore muscles can be frustrating, especially if you try to function regularly while dealing with this pain. When you exercise, your muscles tear slightly, which causes pain in your muscles. This is how your body builds muscle, as your existing muscle must tear to facilitate this growth. If you want to eliminate the pain that you experience as quickly as possible, you can try a few different methods after every workout, depending on what works the best for you.
1. Stretch it Out
When you tear the fibers in your muscles, they not only get sore, they also swell up. Once this swelling occurs, the muscles get even sorer, making it vital that you decrease this swelling as quickly as possible. Stretching helps blood flow throughout your body, which loosens your muscles up and helps them to heal more rapidly. It might hurt to stretch after a workout at first, but it will make you feel better in the long run. If you can stretch your sore muscles for about 2 or 3 minutes each, you will feel better in no time at all.
2. Apply Heat
If you can apply heat to your muscles, it allows blood to flow more freely, which can increase oxygenation. The fast your blood flows, the more rapidly it pushes out the chemicals that can lead to muscle pain. You can apply heat through the use of a heating pad or a warm washcloth compress, depending on what you have around the house. You should apply heat in the first 24 hours after your workout, as this is when your body needs this additional blood flow. You should only apply heat for about 20 minutes at a time and do not apply it more than 8 times per day.
3. Ice Your Muscles
Icing your muscles can alleviate your pain quickly because it soothes the pain almost immediately. Unlike some cures, ice provides immediate benefits, which is why many athletes go with this method. The ice limits the inflammation present in your muscles, which is what causes this pain in the first place. All you have to do is wrap your sore muscles in a cloth with ice for about 20 minutes at a time. You do not want to go any longer than this because it could lead to frostbite. You should also give your muscles the chance to warm up to room temperature before reapplying any ice.
4. Get a Massage
If you know someone who can give you a massage, take advantage of it. Massages help ease your pain in two different ways, making it highly effective. A massage can ease severe muscle pain because it provides a gentle compression of the muscle. This helps with circulation and allows you to work any pain causing chemicals out of your body. Once the pain starts to subside, shaking the muscles during a massage can further improve this circulation. You should always get a massage from a trained professional, especially when dealing with severe pain.
5. Medication
Since inflammation is what leads to muscle pain, taking some anti-inflammatory medication can help immensely. Things like aspirin and ibuprofen block certain enzymes from traveling within your body, which reduces the amount of pain that you feel. Read the directions and never take more medication that the recommended dosage on the box, even if the pain does not decrease.
6. Cool Down
End your workout with a less intense exercise like running or stretching. This allows you to work the lactic acid out of your muscles, which can prevent you from getting as sore in the first place. You might be extremely tired after your workout, but a cool down period can definitely help you when dealing with muscle soreness. If you can fight through the fatigue and the soreness, staying active after your workout helps out considerably.
7. Get Some Rest
Your muscles need time to recover, so give your body some time to heal. Make sure that you get enough sleep every night to give your muscles a chance to regenerate themselves. Even keeping your upright as you sit or walk puts a strain on your body, so get some sleep to allow your body to recover.
8. Change Your Diet
Following the correct diet before your workout can help you reduce muscle pain. This diet should include plenty of protein and amino acids, as this is what your body relies on your cell regeneration. You should also eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, as they have the vitamins and nutrients needed to keep your body functioning at a high level.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93064
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07 April 2014
Ole Man Jones, Mushroom Huntin', Chianina Cattle, and Copyight in the Dirt
[This post about old farming practices somehow turned into one on copyright.]
Some days I think I learned everything I need to know about copyright on the farm.
Jones' Old Style Farm Techniques
As a kid, I never understood the way old man Jones* farmed south of town. His corn was never as green as that of his neighbors, it was always full of weeds, and the rows didn't even look really straight. When I asked Dad what was wrong, he said Jones was farming the way they did forty years ago and probably wasn't going to change. However, it was Jones' property and it was his to do with as he saw fit. The neighbors probably thought they could have "gotten more good out of that farm," and that Jones probably wasn't making any money off the land, but that didn't matter.
The neighbors had no right to it--even if they could utilize it in a better way. The amount of money he made was not the point. Jones paid his taxes and that was all that mattered.
Copyright works the same way--it's not about whether the writer is making money off the material he writes. The writer of the material can use it as they see fit--just like Jones did his farm.
Mushroom Huntin'
We'd occasionally go mushroom hunting when I was a kid. I never really liked morels, but that didn't matter, we went hunting for them anyway. I was always well-aware of the property line on west pasture, the back forty, and any other timber we had. Farm kids always know where the property line is--it was ingrained from childhood and from time spent fixing fence. And...no matter how many mushrooms you might see on the other side of the fence on the neighbor's property, you kept your rear on your own place. We weren't to go trespassing on the neighbor's property and we weren't to take anything off the neighbor's property--not even mushrooms they were just going to let die and would never notice.** We didn't want anyone trespassing on our place and we afforded others the same respect.
Copyright works the same way. You don't take what is not yours and tell others that it is. Of course you can use small amounts under "fair use," but you can't use larger amounts of someone else's material. I never thought to take just one mushroom under "fair use."
Chianina Cattle
Of course, the neighbor can't copyright ideas or facts. If he starts raising Chianina cattle and appears to be turning a profit, there's nothing to stop me from raising my own.
What Does This Have to Do With Copyright?
Of course, I cannot copyright specific facts about my ancestor, just like my neighbor can't stop me from raising Chianina cattle. But I do have copyright to creative material I write about my ancestor and I have a right to that material whether I make money from it or not, just like old man Jones was entitled to farm in a manner less productive than his neighbors. I also have the right not to have others steal my material, just like I wasn't supposed to take mushrooms off the neighbor's land.
The details of copyright may be a a little murky, but the essence of it--it's all right there, plain as dirt.
* name changed
** we were only allowed to go on the neighbor's property if one of the cows got out onto the neighbor's property and as soon as she was back in, you could be certain we'd be fixin' fence.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93067
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
The pathfinder rules skim a little over the idea of adding a monster to a party** and only say that a group of monster PC's should all have the same CR; this is somewhat harder to achieve in practice unless everyone plays the same race.
What is a good mechanic to ensure party balance when the players are playing a mixed bunch of CR creatures? For example a unicorn (CR 3) a Djinni (CR 5) and a Triton (CR 2) and possibly even a human (CR 1/2 ?)
** and I think include a typo, surely that 8 should be a 5 in the fifth paragraph?
Extra thought for the already excellent answers; for a CR 3 monster with a 4th level party the Monster (3) Class (1) counts it's monster levels as class levels for xp costs; so to get to Monster (3) Class (2) (ignoring bonus levels) it needs XP as if for Class (5)?
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I have no idea what the answer is to this one, but I am similarly interested in finding out. Good question! – Cat May 9 '12 at 11:05
2 Answers 2
up vote 5 down vote accepted
Leveling Curve
Let's look at the leveling curve first. The fifth paragraph isn't a typo. The leveling goes something like this:
4th: Minotaur (4), Barbarian (0)
5th: Minotaur (4), Barbarian (1)
6th: Minotaur (4), Barbarian (2)
6.5th: Minotaur (4), Barbarian (3)
7th: Minotaur (4), Barbarian (4)
8th: Minotaur (4), Barbarian (5)
9th: Minotaur (4), Barbarian (6)
9.5th: Minotaur (4), Barbarian (7)
10th: Minotaur (4), Barbarian (8)
At this point the minotaur receives no further bonus levels, because he's received a number equal to half of his CR (i.e. two). Based on this example, it looks like monsters don't receive their bonus levels for levels less than their CR (so the monster doesn't get one between level two and three).
For determining when a monster gains bonus levels, look at the number of levels gained by the party above the monster's CR. I the example the monster is CR 4 so at party level 7 and 10 and extra level is gained, which comes half way through the level. This means that between the 2nd and 3rd party level, and again between the 5th and 6th. For monsters of higher CR this continues every three levels.
Basically when the party level is equal to CR + 3*n -0.5, and n < CR/2, then the monster gains a bonus class level.
(section corrected by Pellanor... Thanks!)
Starting Level
[...] Make sure the group is of a level that is at least as high as the monster's CR. Treat the monster's CR as class levels when determining the monster PC's overall levels.
In your case this means you have a level 5 party (the highest CR).
The Djinn is pretty simple: He's a level 5 Djinn. He's entitled to two bonus levels (half of five, rounded down), which he'll receive at level 7.5 and 10.5.
The Unicorn is entitled to one bonus level, which he'll receive at level 5.5. At 5th level, he'll be a Unicorn 3/ <class level> 2.
The Triton is entitled to one bonus level, which he'll receive at level 4.5. At 5th level, he'll be a Triton 2 / <class level> 4.
The human is the easiest: Humans don't have racial hit dice, so they just use the normal rules.
Experience to Level
This is where things get a little tricky. The rules are phrased in terms of overall party level, which simplifies things a great deal. When you're talking about the level of a specific character, it's more complicated.
In terms of the party, a CR3/Class1 monster fights with a fourth level party. It is effectively a fourth level character in terms of XP. When the party reaches level five, it levels up to CR3/Class2. So your edit is correct.
Basically, in terms of leveling, calculate the monster's level like this:
(challenge rating) + (class level) - (bonus levels)
The monster advances in level when either:
• It gets a bonus level.
• It gets an experience total equal to (challenge rating) + (class level) - (bonus levels) + 1
So in the Minotaur example above, the Minotaur is a Minotaur 4 / Barbarian 8. For experience totals, he's a tenth level character. He levels up when he acquires enough experience points to reach eleventh level. At that point he becomes a Minotaur 4 / Barbarian 9.
Current experience level: 4 + 8 - 2 = 10
Next experience level: 4 + 8 - 2 + 1 = 11
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Fantastic well explained, example based answer - thank you; I feel like printing it out! :) – Rob May 10 '12 at 13:15
I think the typo is "when the group is at a point between 6th and 7th level, the minotaur gains a level, and then again at 7th, making him a minotaur barbarian 4.. I think the Barbarian 4 is the typo. I think that should be 6 or 7. It would be better to just say that the monster PC levels every party 2.5 levels until level 10.
I think RAW it is telling you that the starting level of any monster PC is its CR. Add half of that as a core Multiclass.
In order for a character to be a Monster PC, it would have to have a class (barbarian, fighter, etc.) Since Monsters have inherent power because they are monsters, you have to be careful to not add further monster levels too fast.
So as the example in the RAW says, a party of 10th level PCs that has a monster in it, the monster (Minitaur in the example) should be level 8 (Monster4/Class4). In the example, I think the Minitaur is a Barbarian 8 (with four inherent Monster levels increases from level 4 start (one level every 2.5 party levels although it is written wrong in the rule). So the monster would level up from 4 at party level 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10. But from then on, it levels up as the party would. Not sure why on that.
In your case, the starting level of the party would have to be 5 as that is the starting level of your party. So you would have to level up the other party members.
Not sure that is right or not, as I have not done this yet, but that is how I read it even though again it is not written too well.
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Cheers for the answer, but Ace kinda, um, aced the answer :) – Rob May 10 '12 at 18:07
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93068
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
In a Neverwhere style setting, how do I keep the players interested in staying connected to the surface world? How can I make their connections to the mundane world matter to the players and characters?
The game will be played with Dresden rules in a different setting.
I'm looking for story, plot and personal drivers beyond dresden/fate aspects.
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6 Answers 6
up vote 4 down vote accepted
I feel like the simple answer is make the surface world interesting and important. Neverwhere-style stories, in fiction and rpgs, definitely suffer from the Other World being way more interesting and engaging than the Regular World, in part because that's where all the action happens. However, there is plenty in the Regular World that has provided fodder for tons of rpgs and stories all on its own; try to avail yourself of some of that. Have some of the main plot be driven by actors from the Regular World or events in it, and force your players to re-visit the Regular World and interact with it on a regular basis. Whatever goals they have for their characters, make the Regular World an important part of that. Have it come and get them when they neglect it. Make it exciting. Even mundane foes can be threatening and cool--I'm thinking of Marcone in the Dresden Files books--and your players are likely to underestimate them. All their old friends and enemies and family are still living their lives back there, and eventually they'll notice something's up.
And maybe their new enemies will take notice of the characters' friends/family/etc in the Regular World. You could try having one world eventually bleed through into the other, and have people and events from Regular World affect the Other World and vice versa. The PCs crossed over; maybe other people figure out how to do that as well. Try not giving your players that comfortable separation between places forever.
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While kind of a 'duh' moment, this is something worth pointing out, and what I was looking for. I was falling into pitfall of designing the underworld but not designing much on the surface. Aspects are good to tie the characters to the surface but they can change and the surface can lose importance quickly. Also asking for players to come up with what makes the surface interesting is good for tying the characters but not in hooking players themselves. – Thinking Sites May 14 '12 at 19:41
I would explicitly ask players to come up with hooks to the mundane world themselves as part of character creation, even going to the lengths of explaining why the information is needed and where it is going to be used. These could be people, ambitions, objects, hates, pretty much anything that really matters to the character.
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This is what I normally do. I'd like to find ways to get players themselves more emotionally involved without leaning on game mechanics. However, doing this give a paper answer, which is good for good character players, but not so good for others. – Thinking Sites May 11 '12 at 19:12
Aspects. There are other drivers that you can use, but Aspects are how the important plot points of the Dresden Files are kept in play mechanically.
From YS18:
Characters also have a set of traits called aspects. Aspects cover a wide range of elements and should collectively paint a picture of who the character is, what he’s connected to, and what’s important to him (in contrast to the “what he can do” of skills). Aspects can be relationships, beliefs, catchphrases, descriptors, items, or pretty much anything else that paints a picture of the character.
If the character is connected to his fiancee, and wants to reconnect to her, represent that as an aspect. The player can invoke that connection/aspect to give himself more drive when he needs it, and you can compel that connection/aspect to give him an imperative to do things that move him towards this goal and tie him to this connection.
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As I mentioned to the @Phil, I'm looking to get the players connected emotionally, not just how to have mechanics that represent the characters connection. – Thinking Sites May 11 '12 at 19:14
@ThinkingSites the cool thing about aspects, and the reason that I mention them, is that carefully crafted aspects act like acting prompts, and that's the reason that the book focuses so much on creating them. It's not so much the mechanical part of the aspect- it's crafting the character around them, and creating a story before the story. As the player (and you) go through this process, there's more investment in the characters, and more life is breathed into them, therefore I find that it engages the emotions that you are trying to invoke. YMMV, but it's worked for me. – wraith808 May 11 '12 at 20:46
There are multiple ways of folding plot hooks in to accomplish that. However, unless you're having all of the characters closely mimic Mayhew's journey, "staying conmnected to the surface world" didn't seem to be a massive component for most people in London below.
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Not closely mimic, but superficially similar (pushed from real world to Neverwhere) yes. – Thinking Sites May 11 '12 at 19:11
Couldn't you take inspiration from the original? A fiancee who would forgive him if only he could explain; but he can't because he can't get back to that world... Family, boss, even a football team - whatever is important to that character, and it's slipping away because the character doesn't know what questions to ask; so hurry up and solve the riddle.
(IIRC, the fiancee has a walk-on part towards the end, allowing the title character to balance what he found important then against what he finds important now: a bit hammy for most games, but maybe a good pause to reflect before The Final Confrontation.)
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Have parts of the surface world come looking for them. It's one thing to say "I'm going through this adventure to try to get back to my daughter, back on the surface." That's a good motivation, but it's sort of self-limiting. It's another thing when the daughter comes looking for you.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93079
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The true meaning of Christmas
December 12, 2013
Kindergarten students at St. Paul School in Salem portray the manger scene for the school Christmas program titled, “Scrooge,” about a boy who rediscovers the true meaning of Christmas....
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Dec-12-13 5:23 PM
OMG! Precious and priceless! This photo is worth a thousand words!
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Dec-12-13 9:52 PM
I don't know. Mary's looking kinda
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93096
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Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
Introduction to How Quantum Cryptology Works
Traditional Cryptology
The keys used to encode messages are so long that it would take a trillion years to crack one using conventional computers.
Traditional Cryptology Problems
Both the secret-key and public-key methods of cryptology have unique flaws. Oddly enough, quantum physics can be used to either solve or expand these flaws.
The problem with public-key cryptology is that it's based on the staggering size of the numbers created by the combination of the key and the algorithm used to encode the message. These numbers can reach unbelievable proportions. What's more, they can be made so that in order to understand each bit of output data, you have to also understand every other bit as well. This means that to crack a 128-bit key, the possible numbers used can reach upward to the 1038 power [source: Dartmouth College]. That's a lot of possible numbers for the correct combination to the key.
The keys used in modern cryptography are so large, in fact, that a billion computers working in conjunction with each processing a billion calculations per second would still take a trillion years to definitively crack a key [source: Dartmouth College]. This isn't a problem now, but it soon will be. Current computers will be replaced in the near future with quantum computers, which exploit the properties of physics on the immensely small quantum scale. Since they can operate on the quantum level, these computers are expected to be able to perform calculations and operate at speeds no computer in use now could possibly achieve. So the codes that would take a trillion years to break with conventional computers could possibly be cracked in much less time with quantum computers. This means that secret-key cryptology (SKC) looks to be the preferred method of transferring ciphers in the future.
But SKC has its problems as well. The chief problem with SKC is how the two users agree on what secret key to use. If you live next door to the person with whom you exchange secret information, this isn't a problem. All you have to do is meet in person and agree on a key. But what if you live in another country? Sure, you could still meet, but if your key was ever compromised, then you would have to meet again and again.
It's possible to send a message concerning which key a user would like to use, but shouldn't that message be encoded, too? And how do the users agree on what secret key to use to encode the message about what secret key to use for the original message? The problem with secret-key cryptology is that there's almost always a place for an unwanted third party to listen in and gain information the users don't want that person to have. This is known in cryptology as the key distribution problem.
It's one of the great challenges of cryptology: To keep unwanted parties -- or eavesdroppers -- from learning of sensitive information. After all, if it was OK for just anyone to hear, there would be no need to encrypt a message.
Quantum physics has provided a way around this problem. By harnessing the unpredictable nature of matter at the quantum level, physicists have figured out a way to exchange information on secret keys. Coming up, we'll find out how quantum physics has revolutionized cryptology. But first, a bit on photons.
Photon Properties
Photons are some pretty amazing particles. They have no mass, they're the smallest measure of light, and they can exist in all of their possible states at once, called the wave function. This means that whatever direction a photon can spin in -- say, diagonally, vertically and horizontally -- it does all at once. Light in this state is called unpolarized. This is exactly the same as if you constantly moved east, west, north, south, and up-and-down at the same time. Mind-boggling? You bet. But don't let this throw you off; even quantum physicists are grappling with the implications of the wave function.
The foundation of quantum physics is the unpredictability factor. This unpredictability is pretty much defined by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. This principle says, essentially, that it's impossible to know both an object's position and velocity -- at the same time.
But when dealing with photons for encryption, Heisenberg's principle can be used to our advantage. To create a photon, quantum cryptographers use LEDs -- light emitting diodes, a source of unpolarized light. LEDs are capable of creating just one photon at a time, which is how a string of photons can be created, rather than a wild burst. Through the use of polarization filters, we can force the photon to take one state or another -- or polarize it. If we use a vertical polarizing filter situated beyond a LED, we can polarize the photons that emerge: The photons that aren't absorbed will emerge on the other side with a vertical spin ( | ).
So how do you attach information to a photon's spin? That's the essence of quantum cryptography. Read the next page to find out how quantum cryptography works.
Using Quantum Cryptology
Quantum cryptography uses photons to transmit a key. Once the key is transmitted, coding and encoding using the normal secret-key method can take place. But how does a photon become a key? How do you attach information to a photon's spin?
This is where binary code comes into play. Each type of a photon's spin represents one piece of information -- usually a 1 or a 0, for binary code. This code uses strings of 1s and 0s to create a coherent message. For example, 11100100110 could correspond with h-e-l-l-o. So a binary code can be assigned to each photon -- for example, a photon that has a vertical spin ( | ) can be assigned a 1. Alice can send her photons through randomly chosen filters and record the polarization of each photon. She will then know what photon polarizations Bob should receive.
• Bob: PlusAlice: Correct
• Bob: PlusAlice: Incorrect
• Bob: XAlice: Correct
Here's an example. Say Alice sent one photon as a ( / ) and Bob says he used a + filter to measure it. Alice will say "incorrect" to Bob. But if Bob says he used an X filter to measure that particular photon, Alice will say "correct." A person listening will only know that that particular photon could be either a ( / ) or a ( ), but not which one definitively. Bob will know that his measurements are correct, because a (--) photon traveling through a + filter will remain polarized as a (--) photon after it passes through the filter.
After their odd conversation, Alice and Bob both throw out the results from Bob's incorrect guesses. This leaves Alice and Bob with identical strings of polarized protons. It my look a little like this: -- / | | | / -- -- | | | -- / | … and so on. To Alice and Bob, this is a meaningless string of photons. But once binary code is applied, the photons become a message. Bob and Alice can agree on binary assignments, say 1 for photons polarized as ( ) and ( -- ) and 0 for photons polarized like ( / ) and ( | ).
This means that their string of photons now looks like this: 11110000011110001010. Which can in turn be translated into English, Spanish, Navajo, prime numbers or anything else the Bob and Alice use as codes for the keys used in their encryption.
Introducing Eve
The goal of quantum cryptology is to thwart attempts by a third party to eavesdrop on the encrypted message. In cryptology, an eavesdropper is referred to as Eve.
In modern cryptology, Eve (E) can passively intercept Alice and Bob's encrypted message -- she can get her hands on the encrypted message and work to decode it without Bob and Alice knowing she has their message. Eve can accomplish this in different ways, such as wiretapping Bob or Alice's phone or reading their secure e-mails.
Quantum cryptology is the first cryptology that safeguards against passive interception. Since we can't measure a photon without affecting its behavior, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle emerges when Eve makes her own eavesdrop measurements.
Here's an example. If Alice sends Bob a series of polarized photons, and Eve has set up a filter of her own to intercept the photons, Eve is in the same boat as Bob: Neither has any idea what the polarizations of the photons Alice sent are. Like Bob, Eve can only guess which filter orientation (for example an X filter or a + filter) she should use to measure the photons.
After Eve has measured the photons by randomly selecting filters to determine their spin, she will pass them down the line to Bob using her own LED with a filter set to the alignment she chose to measure the original photon. She does to cover up her presence and the fact that she intercepted the photon message. But due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Eve's presence will be detected. By measuring the photons, Eve inevitably altered some of them.
Say Alice sent to Bob one photon polarized to a ( -- ) spin, and Eve intercepts the photon. But Eve has incorrectly chosen to use an X filter to measure the photon. If Bob randomly (and correctly) chooses to use a + filter to measure the original photon, he will find it's polarized in either a ( / ) or ( ) position. Bob will believe he chose incorrectly until he has his conversation with Alice about the filter choice.
After all of the photons are received by Bob, and he and Alice have their conversation about the filters used to determine the polarizations, discrepancies will emerge if Eve has intercepted the message. In the example of the ( -- ) photon that Alice sent, Bob will tell her that he used a + filter. Alice will tell him this is correct, but Bob will know that the photon he received didn't measure as ( -- ) or ( | ). Due to this discrepancy, Bob and Alice will know that their photon has been measured by a third party, who inadvertently altered it.
Alice and Bob can further protect their transmission by discussing some of the exact correct results after they've discarded the incorrect measurements. This is called a parity check. If the chosen examples of Bob's measurements are all correct -- meaning the pairs of Alice's transmitted photons and Bob's received photons all match up -- then their message is secure.
Bob and Alice can then discard these discussed measurements and use the remaining secret measurements as their key. If discrepancies are found, they should occur in 50 percent of the parity checks. Since Eve will have altered about 25 percent of the photons through her measurements, Bob and Alice can reduce the likelihood that Eve has the remaining correct information down to a one-in-a-million chance by conducting 20 parity checks [source: Vittorio].
In the next section, we'll look at some of the problems of quantum cryptology.
Example of Einstein's "Spooky Action at a Distance"
2007 HowStuffWorks
Quantum Cryptology Problems
Despite all of the security it offers, quantum cryptology also has a few fundamental flaws. Chief among these flaws is the length under which the system will work: It’s too short.
The original quantum cryptography system, built in 1989 by Charles Bennett, Gilles Brassard and John Smolin, sent a key over a distance of 36 centimeters [source: Scientific American]. Since then, newer models have reached a distance of 150 kilometers (about 93 miles). But this is still far short of the distance requirements needed to transmit information with modern computer and telecommunication systems.
The reason why the length of quantum cryptology capability is so short is because of interference. A photon’s spin can be changed when it bounces off other particles, and so when it's received, it may no longer be polarized the way it was originally intended to be. This means that a 1 may come through as a 0 -- this is the probability factor at work in quantum physics. As the distance a photon must travel to carry its binary message is increased, so, too, is the chance that it will meet other particles and be influenced by them.
One group of Austrian researchers may have solved this problem. This team used what Albert Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.” This observation of quantum physics is based on the entanglement of photons. At the quantum level, photons can come to depend on one another after undergoing some particle reactions, and their states become entangled. This entanglement doesn’t mean that the two photons are physically connected, but they become connected in a way that physicists still don't understand. In entangled pairs, each photon has the opposite spin of the other -- for example, ( / ) and ( ). If the spin of one is measured, the spin of the other can be deduced. What’s strange (or “spooky”) about the entangled pairs is that they remain entangled, even when they’re separated at a distance.
The Austrian team put a photon from an entangled pair at each end of a fiber optic cable. When one photon was measured in one polarization, its entangled counterpart took the opposite polarization, meaning the polarization the other photon would take could be predicted. It transmitted its information to its entangled partner. This could solve the distance problem of quantum cryptography, since there is now a method to help predict the actions of entangled photons.
Even though it’s existed just a few years so far, quantum cryptography may have already been cracked. A group of researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology took advantage of another property of entanglement. In this form, two states of a single photon become related, rather than the properties of two separate photons. By entangling the photons the team intercepted, they were able to measure one property of the photon and make an educated guess of what the measurement of another property -- like its spin -- would be. By not measuring the photon’s spin, they were able to identify its direction without affecting it. So the photon traveled down the line to its intended recipient none the wiser.
The MIT researchers admit that their eavesdropping method may not hold up to other systems, but that with a little more research, it could be perfected. Hopefully, quantum cryptology will be able to stay one step ahead as decoding methods continue to advance.
For more information on quantum physics and cryptology, read the next page.
Lots More Information
• "Quantum Cryptography Tutorial." Dartmouth College.
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Alexander Graham Bell
Frae Wikipedia
Lowp tae: navigation, rake
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell
Scientist, inventor o the telephone an innovations in aviation an hydrofoil technology
Born 3 March, 1847
Edinburgh, Scotland
Dee'd 2 August, 1922
Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Canadae
Alexander Graham Bell (3 March, 18472 August, 1922) wis a Scots scientist, inventor, an foonder o the Bell Canada, that wis kent as the faither o the telephone.[1] As weel as his wark in telecommunications technology, he wis responsible for important advances in aviation an hydrofoil technology.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93100
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Progressive metal
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Progressive metal
Stylistic oreegins '80s an '90s:
Progressive rock, hivy metal
Hivy metal, progressive rock, jazz fusion, psychedelic rock
Cultural oreegins Mid 1980s, Unitit States, Unitit Kinrick, Canadae
Teepical instruments Electric guitar, bass guitar,
percussion, vocals,
Derivative forms Djent
Fusion genres
Technical daith metal, mathcore
Ither topics
Timeline o hivy metal, mathcore
Progressive metal (sometimes known as prog metal or prog-metal) is a subgenre o hivy metal oreeginatin in the Unitit Kinrick an North Americae in the late 1980s. Progressive metal blendit elements o hivy metal an progressive rock, takin the loud "aggression",[1] amplifeed electric guitar-driven soond o the umwhile, wi the mair experimental, complex an "pseudo-classical" compositions o the latter.[1] Progressive metal aften kept the conceptual themes associatit wi progressive rock. Throughoot the years, progressive metal haes borraed influences frae several ither genres, includin classical an jazz fusion muisic.
Whilst the genre emerged towards the late-1980s, it wis no till the 1990s that progressive metal achievit some commercial success.[1] Dream Theater, Queensrÿche an Fates Warning are examples o progressive metal baunds who achievit a degree o popularity an success; additionally, hivy metal baunds such as Metallica incorporatit elements o progressive muisic in their wirk.[1]
History[eedit | eedit soorce]
Dream Theater playin live 8 Mairch 2008
The mixin o the progressive rock an hivy metal styles can be tracit back tae the late 1960s an early 1970s. Ane o Ingland's hiviest progressive rock baunds,[2] High Tide, fused the elements o "metal progenitors such as Cream, Blue Cheer, an the Jeff Beck Group" intae their soond.[3] Ither baunds such as King Crimson an Rush wur an aw incorporatin metal intae their muisic,[4][5] as well as Uriah Heep, whose "bi-the-beuks progressive hivy metal made the Breetish baund ane o the maist popular hard rock groups o the early '70s".[6] Rush sangs such as "Bastille Day", "Anthem", "By-Tor an Snow Dog", "2112", "The Fountain of Lamneth" an "Something for Nothing" hae been citit as some o the earliest examples o progressive metal.[7] Anither early practitioner o progressive rock an hivy metal wur Lucifer's Friend.[8] Night Sun wis an aw an early baund who mixed hivy metal wi progressive rock tones, though anerlie releasin ane album. Housomeivver, progressive metal did no develop intae a genre o its awn till the mid-1980s. Baunds such as Psychotic Waltz, Fates Warning, Queensrÿche, an Dream Theater teuk elements o progressive rock groups (primarily the instrumentation an compositional structur o sangs) an mergit them wi hivy metal styles associatit wi baunds like Judas Priest an Black Sabbath (the umwhile o which haed some progressive influences on their early albums). The result coud be describit as a progressive rock mentality wi hivy metal soonds.
These three early flagship baunds for progressive metal (Fates Warning, Queensrÿche, an Dream Theater) each haed somewha different soonds. Queensrÿche haed the maist melodic soond o the three an achievit, wi Operation Mindcrime and Empire the genre's most immediate commercial successes, which peaked with the crossover single "Silent Lucidity" reaching number nine on the Billboard Hot 100. Dream Theater drew more heavily upon traditional progressive rock and also built much of their earlier career on the band members' virtuoso instrumental skills, despite also achieving an early - and unexpected - MTV hit with the eight-minute "Pull Me Under" frae 1992's Images and Words. Fates Warning wur the maist aggressive an hivy an arguably haed the maist in common wi the thrash an extreme metal scenes o the time, which led them tae be the least accessible o the three baunds.
Porcupine Tree playin live 28 November 2007
Though progressive metal wis, an haes remained, primarily an album-orientit genre, this mainstream exposur increased the genre's profile, an opened doors for ither baunds. Ower the 1990s, baunds such as Pain of Salvation, Vanden Plas, Threshold, Symphony X, Tool, Andromeda, Porcupine Tree an Arjen Anthony Lucassen's Ayreon project aw succeedit in developin their awn audiences an signatur soonds. In the decade which follaed, airtists who began their careers ootside o the progressive milieu, such as Swaden's Tiamat (oreeginally a daith/doom metal act), Green Carnation an Opeth (baith formit in the daith metal moud), developit a progressive soond an became identifeed wi the progressive metal genre.
Ayreon stayed wi the traditional prog metal themes, but mixed them wi mony ither influences, prominently rock opera an ambient. Symphony X marriet progressive elements tae pouer metal an classical muisic. Tool creatit a progressive soond uisin alternative metal elements an odd rhythms. Steve Vai's umwhile sangster an hivy metal baund Strapping Young Lad's sangster an guitarist Devin Townsend combined elements o post-metal an ambient wi traditional progressive metal on his first twa solo albums Ocean Machine: Biomech an Infinity. Mastodon an aw combined progressive metal wi sludge elements. Opeth, Skyfire, an Between the Buried and Me combined (in vera different ways) their prog influence wi daith metal. Baunds such as 30 Seconds to Mars creatit a mair traditional progressive soond that incorporatit elements o space rock.[9][10]
Diversity[eedit | eedit soorce]
Progressive metal can be braken doun intae coontless sub-genres correspondin tae certain ither styles o muisic that hae influencit progressive metal groups. For example, twa bands that are commonly identifeed as progressive metal, King's X an Opeth, are at opposite ends o the sonic spectrum tae ane anither. King's X are greatly influencit bi softer mainstream rock an, in fact, contributit tae the growth o grunge, influencin baunds like Pearl Jam, whose bassist Jeff Ament ance said, "King's X inventit grunge.". Opeth's groulin vocals an hivy guitars (leeberally intermixed wi gothic metal-evocative acoustic passages an clean melodic vocals) aften see them citit as progressive daith metal, yet their vocalist [[Mikael Åkerfeldt ]] refers tae Yes an Camel as major influences in the style o their muisic.
Opeth playin live 30 Mey 2009
Classical an symphonic muisic hae an aw haed a significant impact on sections o the progressive metal genre, wi airtists like Devin Townsend, Symphony X, Sleepy Hollow an Shadow Gallery fusin traditional progressive metal wi a complexity an grandeur uisually foond in classical compositions. Similarly, baunds such as Dream Theater, Planet X an Liquid Tension Experiment hae a jazz influence, wi extended solo sections that aften featur "tradin solos". Cynic, Atheist, Opeth, Pestilence, Between the Buried and Me an Meshuggah aw blendit jazz/fusion wi daith metal, but in dramatically different ways. Devin Townsend draws on mair Ambient influences in the atmosphere o his muisic. Progressive metal is an aw aften linkit wi pouer metal, hence the ProgPower muisic festival, wi baunds such as Fates Warning an Conception oreeginatin as pouer metal baunds that incorporatit progressive elements which came tae owershadow their pouer metal ruits.
Progressive metal haes an aw owerlappit thrash metal - maist famously perhaps wi Dark Angel's swansang album Time Does Not Heal, which wis famous for its sticker that said "9 sangs, 67 minutes, 246 riffs." The baund Watchtower, who released their first album in 1985, blendit the modren thrash metal soond wi hivy progressive influences, an even Megadeth wur aften and still are aften associatit wi progressive metal, as Dave Mustaine even ance claimit that the band was billed as "jazz metal" in the early '80s. The baund Racer X wad an aw faw athin this genre o technical proficiency featurin Paul Gilbert, a guitar instructor at the Musicians Institute[11] in LA, a tendency evidencit on sangs such as "B.R.O." frae 1999's Technical Difficulties. The baund Voivod an aw combinit elements o thrash metal an progressive metal, specifically on the releases Dimension Hatross an Nothingface, in 1988 an 1989 respectively.
Recently, wi a new wave o popularity in shred guitar, the hitherto-unfashionable genre o "technical metal" haes become increasingly prevalent an popular in the metal scene. This haes led tae a resurgence o popularity for mair traditional progressive metal baunds like Dream Theater an Symphony X, an an aw haes led tae the inclusion athin the progressive metal scene o baunds that dae no necessarily play in its traditional style such as thrash/pouer metallers Nevermore, an the technical daith metal act Necrophagist. These baunds are, richtly or wrangly, aften labeled progressive metal, as they dae play relatively complex an technical metal muisic which does no readily cleave tae ony ither metal subgenre.
Differences wi avant-garde metal[eedit | eedit soorce]
Although progressive metal an avant-garde metal baith favor experimentation an non-staundart ideas, there are rather lairge differences atween the twa genres. The experimentation o progressive metal haes a strang emphasis on technicality an theoretical complexity (influencit bi jazz muisic). This is done bi playin complex rhythms an implementin unuisual time signaturs an song structures - aw wi the uise o traditional instruments. For avant-garde metal, maist o the experimentation is in the uise o unusual soonds an instruments - being mair unorthodox an questionin o muisical conventions.
See an aw[eedit | eedit soorce]
Notes[eedit | eedit soorce]
1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Progressive Metal". Allmusic. Archived from the original on November 24, 2011.
6. Thomas, Stephen. "Uriah Heep". Allmusic. Retrieved 2011-10-10.
7. [1] Progressive rock reconsidered by Durrell S. Brown
11. "GIT Welcomes Paul Gilbert | Sep 22, 2006 | News & Events at Musicians Institute". 2006-09-22. Retrieved 2011-10-10.
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Santa Clara University
Software Tips & Tricks
Back to Blog
Adding accents, cedillas, and other diacritical marks
Have you ever wondered how to add an accent to the letter 'e' or how to type an eñe (˜) for a Spanish class?
Brad Holtman at Mansfield University has a helpful guide for creating commonly used Accented Characters on the Computer for the Mac and PC.
Mac users typically hold down the OPTION (OPT) key and a 2-3 key combination. For example, to write the character à on a Mac, the keystroke is OPTION+'+A.
If you use a PC, you have three ways of adding diacritical marks. In Microsoft Word it is usually the CONTROL (CRTL) key and a 2-3 key combination, for example CONTROL+SHIFT+U produces ü. For other applications you'll either have to turn on the International U.S. English Keyboard, or use the list of ASCII codes for each character. So typing the same character (ü) in an email would use the keystrokes ALT+129. When typing these numbers, remember to use the number pad on the right-side of the keyboard and not the numbers at the top of the keyboard.
For information on how to type even more diacritical marks, click here for the Mac and here for the PC
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Tags: general computing, Word
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93117
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How to select Hyper-V high-availability hardware
Creating a Hyper-V high-availability environment involves a lot of effort, and choosing the right high-availability hardware isn't always obvious.
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Before delving into more complex tasks, you need to lay the groundwork for the most basic form of Hyper-V high availability: the Windows Failover Cluster. Here's a look at the hardware you'll need.
High-availability hardware for a Windows Failover Cluster
The Windows Failover Clustering service has been around for more than a decade, and today's incarnation uses a suite of wizards and pre-deployment verification tests that eliminate many of its previous problems.
Before creating a Windows Failover Cluster, your environment must pass more than 30 individual tests, which automatically run on each cluster candidate and storage device, and you need to verify that storage, networking, hardware and software configurations are correct.
Passing these high-availability hardware tests requires the integration of server, networking, and storage elements. To fulfill the server hardware criteria, you need a minimum of two Hyper-V hosts to create a cluster that supports failover. If you have more hosts, though, it increases your capacity for running simultaneous virtual workloads.
When budgeting for Hyper-V high-availability hardware, note the following critical items:
Compatible high-availability hardware
If you've spent time researching Hyper-V, you probably know that its services require the support of onboard virtualisation extensions, hardware data execution prevention support and the ability to run 64-bit OSes. If you overlook any of these requirements, your virtual machines (VMs) won't power on.
Second-Level Address Translation support
Installing compatible hardware is only the start. Second-Level Address Translation (SLAT) hardware support is often overlooked but is equally important for scaling cluster usage. Even though it's not required to power on VMs, SLAT extensions are a kind of "second generation" virtualisation extension that are present in most modern server hardware. (Look for AMD's Rapid Virtualisation Indexing extensions with AMD hardware or Intel Extended Page Tables extensions with Intel hardware.)
SLAT's added instruction sets on the processor level not only improve the performance of all workloads but also add low-level system optimisations, which dramatically assist virtual workloads that experience a large number of context switches.
Lots of fast shared storage
Highly available VMs in a Hyper-V environment do not reside on the host's local storage. For those VMs to use Live Migration, their Virtual Hard Disk files must exist on an independent, shared storage area network (SAN).
When choosing a SAN, it's important to account for Hyper-V's heavy reliance on raw disk speed for overall VM performance. If you don't spend good money on high-speed SAN disks, it won't matter how fast your Hyper-V hosts operate, because they will be bottlenecked by storage speed. My advice is to get the fastest --and largest -- SAN you can afford.
Plenty of networking
In nonvirtualised environments, often only a single network connection exits each server. Smart organisations team these connections to ensure redundancy in the event of a connection failure.
In virtual environments, however, it is not usual to see at least four network connections exiting a server. In environments that are created for scalability, Hyper-V hosts with more than six or eight network cards are regular events.
Chapter two of my free e-book The Shortcut Guide to Architecting iSCSI Storage for Microsoft Hyper-V talks about this larger number of Hyper-V network interfaces, and it also explains why these additional network cards are necessary. If you're considering a fully redundant Hyper-V infrastructure, check out the chapter (and the rest of the e-book) for more details.
Many powerful hosts
Finally, you need to analyse how to distribute your available budget between buying powerful hosts and buying many hosts. Here's why.
Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 does not currently support the kind of memory sharing that enables more VMs to operate than the available physical RAM allows (although that may change with Dynamic Memory in Service Pack 1). This means that once you've consumed the available RAM, additional VMs will not power on.
While this limitation doesn't usually pose a problem in single-server environments, it presents a conundrum for multihost, clustered environments. For a VM to live-migrate to another host, the host must have enough available RAM to fulfill each VM's assigned RAM needs. So if you completely fill your virtual hosts to their maximum amount of RAM, you'll never be able to fail over VMs in the event of a problem.
Until Microsoft fixes this problem, your clustered environment will always need to reserve a certain amount of unused RAM. That amount should exactly equal the amount of RAM required to fail over at least one host's VMs.
This reserve ensures that when a single host fails, its VMs can successfully fail over to a surviving Hyper-V host. This surplus RAM doesn't need to reside on a single host. In fact, you should spread the load around the cluster hosts to ensure the optimum use of resources.
Now that you know what Hyper-V high-availability hardware you need, the next step is to put these pieces together. I'll talk about those steps in the second part of this three-part series on Hyper-V high-availability.
This was first published in April 2010
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93121
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Home page logo
nmap-dev logo Nmap Development mailing list archives
Re: [Request for Testers] CVE-2011-3368 "Reverse Proxy Bypass"
From: Gutek <ange.gutek () gmail com>
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:01:00 +0200
Hash: SHA1
Le 12/10/2011 09:34, Michael Meyer a écrit :
*** Gutek <ange.gutek () gmail com> wrote:
Yes, that's the key point : getting an error status code, whatever it
could be. Maybe a 30s timeout is, here, too short ? On the other hand, a
timeout of >1m could make this script very slow. I have to figure out
the best balance between speed and efficiency.
I'm doing something like the following for OpenVAS at the moment:
| mime () kira[4]: ~ 0)$ telnet 80
| Trying
| Connected to
| Escape character is '^]'.
| GET @6666.6666.6666.6666 HTTP/1.0
| HTTP/1.1 200 OK
| Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 06:46:28 GMT
| Server: Apache/2.2.10 (Linux/SUSE)
| Vary: accept-language,accept-charset
| Accept-Ranges: bytes
| Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
| Content-Language: en
| Connection: close
| [...]
|<title>Bad Gateway!</title>
With such a wrong "ip", a vulnerable server immediately returns a 200 and
"Bad Gateway". Could you confirm that?
I'd rather say no. On the first hand, Contextis' analysis concludes that
(in the case of the LAN ip test, that's different for the other ones) a
vulnerable reverse proxy should return an *error* within a *delay*
(...when querying a non-existing host).
According to this statement, *immediately* should be the evidence for a
*non* -vulnerable target, and a 200 as well, whatever the title would be.
In this particular case, a 200 which is in fact a customized error
answer (the normal behavior would be a code 502 in this case), I'd
conclude maybe "filtered" or "patched". Plus, we have no delay, which
sounds to me like a filtering system is immediately spotting something
On the other hand, my own tests seem to show that everytime I get a 200,
that was in fact a false-positive. It seems to confirm the Contextis
conclusion on that matter.
The only case when you could get an immediate 200 is the one when you've
hit an existing LAN webservice. Lucky you :)
Cheers !
Version: GnuPG v2.0.16 (GNU/Linux)
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93122
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Home page logo
oss-sec logo oss-sec mailing list archives
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:57:32 -0400 (EDT)
On Mon, 25 Jul 2011, Jeff Mitchell wrote:
The Arora and Rekonq web browsers are also vulnerable to the same attack
vector, and other Qt-based programs may be as well. We're working with
the Qt team to help enhance their documentation to warn developers to
take care sanitizing their inputs, but it's not actually a Qt flaw. So
we're a bit unsure how to proceed here.
This sounds like a limitation of the Qt API, which can be avoided by programmers who are aware of the limitation. Kind of like how strcpy() can be subject to buffer overflows, *if* the programmer isn't careful. Also happened with confusing return values from certain OpenSSL API functions a couple years ago. (The PHP_SELF example is similar.) So, this should probably get separate CVEs for each application/library that misuses the relevant function(s).
If Qt itself contains misuse of its own functions - which happens sometimes (CVE-2008-5077 for OpenSSL) - then Qt might need its own CVE, too.
- Steve
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93124
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
Is it possible on the server to log the password encoded by the remote user inside a log. I want to make a honeypot to see the type of user/password used.
share|improve this question
Can you provide more information about what you are trying to do? What do you mean by a honeypot? A honeypot is normally something that intentionally looks vulnerable but that should never normally be used so that anyone accessing it can be identified as an intruder. As for the original question about decrypting an SSH connection on the server, there are multiple ways this could be done based on what you are trying to accomplish and what type of configuration you are using. Some software supports it natively, also proxies could be used or a raw log could be dumped and decoded manually. – AJ Henderson Sep 19 '12 at 19:24
I want to see who i trying to connect with old passwords on shared user accounts ;) not a real honeypot in fact. Thanks ! – hotips Sep 19 '12 at 21:22
3 Answers 3
up vote 4 down vote accepted
Another method is to attach strace to the process (and it's children). Input/output will be logged there after decryption, yielding the password. In my experience this sort of thing works more reliably than mucking about with the log levels of sshd (but of course YMMV).
write(5, "\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\1\0\0\0\nPassword: \0\0"..., 34) = 34
read(5, "\0\0\0\r", 4) = 4
read(5, "4\0\0\0\1\0\0\0\4asdf", 13) = 13
share|improve this answer
If you run ssh in full debug mode you can have it log the content of all packets and then go back and extract the passwords from that. you can do this bu running
ssh -dddddddd
or add it to your /etc/ssh/sshd_config:
LogLevel DEBUG3
this runs it once, in non-daemon mode and logs way more than you care about. you can improve this by disabling the sshd service and running ssh with the -ddddd from xinitd.
At work I currently maintain an open-ssh fork that includes this ability because it uses an external web service to verify the passwords. If you can afford to maintain an open-ssh fork it will likely give a cleaner experience.
share|improve this answer
Is it possible to define that inside the sshd_config ? – hotips Sep 19 '12 at 19:24
good point!, editing to add this. – Arthur Ulfeldt Sep 19 '12 at 19:38
It seems that DEBUG3 doesn't show the password : Failed password for invalid user xxxx from 192.168.xxx.xxx port 54120 ssh2. Do you know to integrate that inside the config ? – hotips Sep 19 '12 at 23:19
does it work for you when running sshd in debug more (-d) – Arthur Ulfeldt Sep 19 '12 at 23:21
it doesn't work for me. do you have another idea except fork openssh ;-) ? thanks – hotips Sep 19 '12 at 23:42
This is dramatically simpler to accomplish if you just modify the sshd binary to log password attempts either to a log file or to a remote logging service.
This is trivial to accomplish since the source code is availble and very well-written. In fact, attackers who get root level access on a server typically install modified ssh and sshd binaries that do exactly that! It should be simple to find source code patches out there if you have a look; I know I've seen the patch files show up on people's servers many times in the past.
share|improve this answer
Your Answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93126
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Cooling Coil with Partially Wet Surface By S. Gabel and M. Brandemuehl for ASHRAE Revised for TRNSYS by N. Blair and R. Schwarz This model was adapted strictly for use with the TRNSYS Program by the Solar Energy Laboratory. This subroutine calculates the outlet temperature , air dry bulb temperature and humidity ratio, and the total and sensible cooling capacity for a coil with partly wet and partly dry fin surface. The coil is considered to be operating under "part wet" surface conditions if the surface temperature at the air inlet is higher than the inlet air dewpoint temperature, but the surface temperature at the air outlet is lower than the entering dew point temperature. The coil is modeled as seperate dry and wet coils with common conditions at the boundary. Under dry conditions, the steady state air and water conditions can be determined using standard heat exchanger effectiveness relationships. A counterflow effectiveness model for enthalpy exchange is used which closely approximates the performance of counter crossflow heat exchanger. Sample input and output are included in the source code. REF: A Toolkit for Secondary HVAC System Energy Calculations May 25,1992 Joint Center for Energy Management University of Colorado at Boulder
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13 June 2008
The Incredible Hulk is Here
How is it? How does it compare to Hulk (03) and will we be getting a World War Hulk sequel?
1 comment:
j said...
I saw this Saturday afternoon in Vegas (cheapest shows on the Strip) and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I can't compare to Hulk '03, because I can't seem to stay awake during that one, but this one did a good job of holding my interest.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93136
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I'm working on a sample script that calls out to the User Profile service and retrieves some sample data. I noticed that when I deploy the Application page and render it, I get a considerable gap between the last web resource being loaded and then my calls being made (got it clocked in at .5s). The screenshot below shows after the result being called a few times in a row, so I have much lower exeuction times for the POST calls, but I still can't figure out why they just don't start after the last Web Resource is loaded. If anyone has a starting point on how to figure this out it would be a huge help. We also notice these gaps on pages where we're using Content Search Web Parts, so I think it's something to do with our server setup.
enter image description here
share|improve this question
Not entirely certain so this gets to be a comment. Plenty of SharePoint JavaScript uses functionality to wait until everything is loaded before running (or look up executeOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded in SharePoint). My one thought would be to try under different browsers and measure that way. – tekiegreg Apr 29 '13 at 16:53
Would executeOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded cause a timing gap? I will try Chrome, but I'm not so familiar with it's debugging tools. – EHorodyski Apr 29 '13 at 17:33
Weird, Chrome has no gaps. Perhaps the Developer tool creates those gaps by writing header information or such? – EHorodyski Apr 29 '13 at 17:52
possibly, all I know is rule #1 in development: Never expect miracles from Internet Explorer, especially concerning client side code :-p – tekiegreg Apr 29 '13 at 17:56
2 Answers 2
it's usual after a deploy because IIS, ASP.NET, SQL and so one needs time to allocate memory, get information around, and send to you what you asked.
Indeed the others calls should be faster.
share|improve this answer
Not sure if that's the case, JavaScript wouldn't care if you were just deployed, server side code is what feels sluggish afterwards... – tekiegreg Apr 29 '13 at 16:54
You have to think about that ask data to client.svc that is hosted on IIS – Salvatore Di Fazio Apr 29 '13 at 16:58
Good point now that you mention it, so my curiousity is how fast does this happen after reload? – tekiegreg Apr 29 '13 at 17:07
because IIS has all the data in memory. – Salvatore Di Fazio Apr 29 '13 at 17:17
Sorry, I should have made this clearer, but this is well after a deploy. I know you can't see it (and I wasn't aware of this before I posted that you couldn't get the original size of the image) but the call to /_api/contextinfo in that run was 46ms, the shortest I've ever seen it. That was like the 10th run in a row. Regardless of when I run the test, there's usually ~1s gap between the last Web Resource and my POSTs. – EHorodyski Apr 29 '13 at 17:32
I'll just post my answer as "The behaviors of different browsers can vary. Internet Explorer's JavaScript renderer in particular has many quirks that can slow performance down or give inconsistent results compared to other browsers. Likely there is no easy workaround for this short of using an alternate browser (and putting up with its drawbacks as well)."
share|improve this answer
If this is the case Microsoft has a support ticket coming. They usually design these things around IE, and if the CSOM/REST calls are so slow because of IE it makes no sense. How do they expect people to adapt their App paradigm if it takes forever for these calls to be made? I can confirm it's an IE issue as well. Chrome renders under a second (644ms for content, 966s with images) but IE lags to at least 1.4s. Thanks for the help. – EHorodyski May 1 '13 at 16:02
Your Answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93140
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Friday, February 22, 2013
Shoshanas Yaakov • Lubavitch UK Boys Choir
Composed by R' Sholom Charitonov of Nikolayev
Moshe Natan said...
So long have I looked for this Nigun, I once had a recording of Reb Aharon Charitonov himself singing this very slowly, of course it was 9-10 minutes loooong.
I wish I could find it.
can you help me?
Moshe Natan
Yaakov said...
Note that there are two Shoshanas Yaakov nigunim there, his is the first.
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The Sideshow
Archive for June 2007
Check box to open new browser windows for links.
Saturday, 30 June 2007
Stops on the Infobahn
Wet rose and bug.
William Powers has a review in the NYT of Norman Pearlstine's OFF THE RECORD: The Press, the Government, and the War Over Anonymous Sources, in which he explains how he changed his mind about allowing Patrick Fitzgerald to have Matt Cooper's notes: "Though Mr. Cooper felt he had promised to protect his administration sources, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby Jr., Mr. Pearlstine came to believe those men didn't qualify as true confidential sources. After all, they were hardly the honorable whistle-blowers journalists are supposed to protect, but rather part of an effort to undermine a whistle-blower, Joseph C. Wilson IV, Ms. Wilson's husband and a former ambassador. And Mr. Cooper had sent e-mail messages within the Time organization, discussing Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby as sources, effectively compromising their confidentiality." That's the view I held all along, and I wish Time had recognized the necessity of that position from the start. Trying to frame the situation otherwise actually threatened the very idea of a legitimate journalist's shield against blowing the whistle on whistle-blowers. And if Time had held to that position to begin with, it might have dissuaded The New York Times from following that path, too.
Rorschach alerts me that Turkey is threatening to invade northern Iraq if either the Iraqi government or the US doesn't "dislodge" Kurdish guerrillas from their mountain stronghold.
Madison Guy says "Sicko turns film critics into health care concern trolls." I particularly liked the reviewer who imagines that Michael Moore is behind the times because the Democrats are talking about healthcare and are going to fix it now or something.
Taylor Marsh on the obliviousness of Democrats to the power of broadcast radio.
Greg Sargent praises Elizabeth Edwards, both for her calm explanation to Wolf Blitzer of what's wrong with Ann Coulter, and for the fact that the Edwards campaign is fighting back.
"A Reversal of Fortune for Bush's Political Capital" by Sheryl Gay Stolberg in the NYT, saying that Bush's grip on his party is slipping. Well, sure, but all that means is that they're voting the same way on most issues, but not just to please him.
Neo-racism and Roberts' New Rules of Order.
23:27 BST
As seen on TV - or not
Jamison Foser, "Why pay the bigot when you can get the bile for free? - MSNBC fired Ann Coulter in 1996, but she's still getting plenty of air-time from them as a guest. This week, the excuse is that she has a new book out - but lots of people have new books out and mysteriously don't get airtime on the talk shows. For example, Glenn Greenwald, best-selling author of How Would A Patriot Act? has a new book out, A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency. How many talk shows have you seen him on? And then there's Joe Conason, whose It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush hasn't exactly sent him on the rounds of talk shows, has it? (Why, he hasn't even been on The Daily Show. What's up with that?)
And, speaking of people who don't seem to be on television much, how about a real thinker, like, say, Ted Sorenson? Like Pat Buchanan, he was once a presidential speech-writer, but unlike Pat Buchanan, who has his own show, he actually has a vision of the America we love. "Hmmm, imagine if Al Gore were to hook up with Ted Sorenson in 2007...."
17:00 BST
Don't worry too much, it'll happen to you
I don't know about you, but the best news of my morning was that Congress refused to renew fast-track, a disastrous policy that has helped impoverish workers both at home and abroad. Lori Wallach writes the obituary, but I sure hope no one pulls the stake out.
Digby points us to a good post by Robert Borosage on why the Democratic leadership needs to push the fact that the Republicans are obstructing all the popular legislation the Democrats have been passing: "Conservatives boast about the "success" of their strategy in discrediting the new majority. As Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss., put it, "the strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. So far it's working for us." How is it working? It's dragging the reputation of the Congress down to the level of the failed president. Conservatives lie in the road of progress and then complain that nothing is moving. This values partisan posturing over reforms vital to the country. It must be challenged. It's time to take the gloves off." Join in petitioning Harry Reid to "force a real filibuster. Keep the bills on the floor and force vote after vote, exposing the obstructionists. We'll organize in states across the country to insure that their constituents know exactly who is standing in the way of progress." Refusing to take issues to the floor because you don't have the votes means allowing the Republicans to do their dirty work on the quiet. Make 'em hold a real filibuster that America can see in all its glory - and hear what they use as "debate" to prevent passage of those popular bills.
Jay Rosen is less than impressed with the coverage of the journalism and activism of the web at Mother Jones.
Bill Moyers On Murdoch and why we really don't want him taking over The Wall Street Journal, which may have a crackpot editorial page but still has a crack news team - so far.
Simulated you.
"The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" [Update: Live version, Pt.1 and Pt.2.]
14:19 BST
Lazy blogging
A few interesting links Rich dropped into a comment thread below
A report from Citizens for Tax Justice, "Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years", showing that they've pretty much avoided paying anything for the massive benefits they reap from our system: In the fall of 2001, corporate lobbyists descended upon Washington, D.C. to try to turn our nation's bad fortune to their companies' advantage. They sought huge new tax breaks, even refunds of taxes paid in the past. Major accounting firms assisted in the lobbying, and also redoubled their efforts to market offshore tax shelters to their corporate clients, even recommending renunciation of their U.S. citizenship. They told companies, in Ernst & Young's infamous phrase, that "the improvement on earnings is powerful enough that maybe the patriotism issue needs to take a back seat." The result is that nearly 100 companies are paying 0.0% or less in taxes.
"Judge Tells RIAA: Irreparable Harm Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means ... In denying the RIAA's request to have the University of New Mexico simply hand over info on someone using their network (without letting that individual fight back against the request for info), the judge notes: 'While the Court does not dispute that infringement of a copyright results in harm, it requires a Coleridgian "suspension of disbelief" to accept that the harm is irreparable, especially when monetary damages can cure any alleged violation.' However, the judge argues, turning over someone's private info without giving them a chance to defend themselves and protest could cause irreparable harm: 'the harm related to disclosure of confidential information in a student or faculty member's Internet files can be equally harmful.'"
A Map of Europe through time - you can click the arrows to bring it forward or backward, and click quadrant squares to change the view.
12:17 BST
Somebody holds the key
I regard Steve Winwood's "Can't Find My Way Home" as one of the best songs of all time, and I always thought it was perfect just the way it was on the original Blind Faith album, but when I got the deluxe version of the CD and discovered that there had been two different arrangements cut in the studio, I was astonished to learn that I actually loved them both. Some kind soul has posted both versions together, and if you've never heard the latter - or, worse, are unfamiliar with the song - go listen for a real treat. (Hell, listen anyway, just because it's always good to hear it.
And, to my further delight, I have found two more arrangements on YouTube by Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, and Nathan East, one at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and the other at Shoreline Amphitheater in San Francisco from 1988. I just listened to all four one after another, and didn't get bored.
03:15 BST
Looking for Atticus
Scott Horton in Harper's on Justice in Alabama:
But the Georgia Thompson case is not the worst. Far, far more troubling still is the conviction of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman in a prosecution in Montgomery. When this case got started, I was ready to accept what those Montgomery jurors did - namely, what on earth could be surprising about allegations that a political figure sells appointments for money? Isn't that indeed just the way our system works? And shouldn't we throw the book at them when they're caught doing it? Truth is, I never much cared for Mr. Siegelman anyway.
In the meantime, however, I have spent over a month looking at this case. I have spoken with a number of journalists who covered the trial, pulled out and read the transcripts, talked to figures involved in the case. And I have received tips and messages from Alabamians who are trying feverishly to spin the case one way or the other. My conclusion: I have no idea whether in the end of the day, Mr. Siegelman is guilty or innocent of corruption. But that the prosecution was corruptly conceived and pursued and that the court proceedings were corrupted, almost from the outset: that is already extremely clear. This is not a prosecution of a political figure for corruption. It is a political vendetta, conceived, developed and pursued for a corrupt purpose.
The curtain was pulled back on this plan when Dana Jill Simpson, a Republican lawyer who previously worked on a campaign against Siegelman, decided to blow the whistle. [...]
That's just the nut of it, but I recommend the whole thing. (And thanks for the tip, Rich.)
00:55 BST
Friday, 29 June 2007
Something to make us feel better
Who could have predicted that putting right-wing crackpots on the Supreme Court would result in right-wing decisions? Not the editors of The Washington Post.
At first glance Broder seems to be admitting that Cheney is a bad man, but ... Oh, man, what's the use? Just go read Josh and Atrios on the subject.
Keith Olbermann and David Shuster on subpoenas and executive privilege.
Why Dr. Scott has given up on the Gulf Coast and finally said, "Enough." (via)
I like the new layout at BTC News, where Weldon is talking about healthcare, in "Health care in America is un-American" and "If national health care sucks, why do people like it?" - with more promised.
Jeralyn says the Plame verdict has been reissued with Karl Rove's name unredacted. More importantly, however, she reminds us that it gets lonely doing Holiday Weekend Blogging: Give the Gift of Traffic. That is, don't forget to visit some blogs, and link a lot of if you're a blogger yourself.
Live Winwood: "Dear Mr. Fantasy".
23:52 BST
Assorted links
I just heard Thom Hartmann talking about the Dem debate where our leading characters were asked how they account for the fact that white highschool drop-outs have a lower unemployment rate than black highschool graduates. And they all talked about education. I wish someone had said, "Did you hear the question?" *sigh*
Was Al Gore waiting for those New Hampshire poll numbers? Andy Ostroy thinks so: "On Air America Radio's "Sam and Army" program Thursday morning co-host Sam Greenfield said he has learned that Al Gore has instructed the Harry Walker Agency to cancel all of his scheduled speaking engagements for the next six months, indicating that the former VP has decided to seek the presidency in 2008. "I guess he's running," Greenfield said. If this story is true, then it certainly would be a very strong sign that The Goracle is indeed getting ready to announce his candidacy...which I've said many times here will occur by October. Stay tuned..."
When Elizabeth Edwards called in to a television show to ask Ann Coulter - who had made fun of the death of the Edwards' son and said she favored John Edwards being killed in a terrorist attack - to damp down the rhetoric, the right-wing went up in arms to complain that Edwards was advocating censorship and claiming it's all about an evil liberal plot to restore the Fairness Doctrine. John Amato responds. (John Edwards: "I applaud Elizabeth.")
A Night Light: "That's why some people misunderstand why there's room for a possible Michael Bloomberg candidacy. If Bloomberg's campaign gains traction, it won't be because people are looking for someone who will split the difference between Democratic and Republican positions. It will be because he takes clear stands on issues. Right to choose? He's for it. Gun control? He's for it. Fiscal responsibility? He's for it. It's true that he's a blank slate right now on foreign policy issues, but Bloomberg could appeal to "antipartisan" swing voters -- not because he parses his words, but because he says what's on his mind." (via)
"How The USS Vincennes Killed My High School Biology Lab Partner" - Jonathan Schwarz with some background to the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, and the trail of violence.
"Laissez-faire Is More" - John Updike on depression revisionism, in The New Yorker. (Thanks to D.)
18:28 BST
Potatoes and oranges
For those who couldn't get the Wanker of the Day link from Eschaton earlier, try this one for Roy Edroso's take on the latest eruptions of overt racism from America's moral leaders.
And, of course, it's not really just about racism - that's just the best wedge for giving all power to the corporation. I hate it just as much as anyone else does when I jump in a cab and tell the driver where I want to go, only to discover that his referents to the English language and the local landscape make communication impossible. ("What is 'Port Authority'?") And I hate as much as anyone else does the suggestion that Americans should go without jobs so that foreigners can be paid far less than is necessary to live a decent life in the United States.
But we already have laws on the books that are supposed to prevent huge influxes of unskilled workers - and if they aren't being enforced, what good will new ones do?
Besides, it's hardly just those illegal immigrants who are responsible for the fact that America's employers are leaving the country, reneging on contracts, out-sourcing jobs, and treating the remaining American workers like peons.
(Does any reasonable person believe that, if a vital position has such a high threshold of requirements for the job that no American can meet it, that person should be paid less than what an American would command to do the same job? I think we should insist that people who get HB-1 visas for non-name jobs should always be paid more than the regular market value of whatever the position is, on the grounds that, surely, the rarity and necessity of their capabilities should be rewarded accordingly. If you're paying an engineer who speaks only English $80,000 a year, surely an engineer in the same category and with the same engineering abilities who "must speak three languages" should be getting much, much more.)
We'd actually be better off if we offered a prize of automatic citizenship to any undocumented worker who could prove they had been illegally hired by an employer in America - and then made sure to arrest that employer and prosecute them to the full extent of the law. (Increasing penalties might help, too.)
But, as I say, illegal immigration is just one little thing, and the current debate is largely a red herring - otherwise, no one would be talking about building a wall.
16:47 BST
He's begging for it
In Slate, Bruce Fein says:
Impeach Cheney:The vice president has run utterly amok and must be stopped. [...] The House judiciary committee should commence an impeachment inquiry. As Alexander Hamilton advised in the Federalist Papers, an impeachable offense is a political crime against the nation. Cheney's multiple crimes against the Constitution clearly qualify.
He has a nice enumeration of some of Cheney's more appalling transgressions. Such as:
Not a point that's been lost on the people of other nations who suddenly see themselves at the mercy of some maniac in Washington.
And so is Bush, for ceding his authority to this psychopath and failing in his duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
(Thanks to D. Potter for the tip.)
12:03 BST
Media notes
A taste of their own poison: No More Mister Nice Blog reports that, once again, when the right-wing noise machine attacks politicians who don't vote the way they want, they get threats. Only this time, it's other right-wingers who are on the receiving end. (Also: A Field Guide to Several Men Named Beck.)
Alterman has two articles about the media's campaign of character assassination on Al Gore, "The Assault on Reality" in The Nation, and "The Assault on Reality, Part II" at CAP.
CNN had an accident and let Nir Rosen come on to tell the truth about the mess the US made by sending thugs in to overturn the democratically elected Hamas government. (Meanwhile, National Review's Rod Dreher finds out at the age of 40 that war is bad.)
Katha Pollitt went and saw Knocked Up (don't ask me why) and she has a few things to say by way of a review about "a raunchfest with a family-values core --- carrying on with accidental pregnancies, marriage as responsible adulthood, staying together for the sake of the kids." (via) (She also recommends Dana Stevens' article about Hollywood's odd relationship with abortion.)
03:31 BST
Thursday, 28 June 2007
Dirty things
Laura McGann says there are more questions about the political nature of the prosecution of Don Siegelman, just leaving aside the fact that the prosecution seems to want his sentence to include time for crimes he was acquitted of.
Mary Beth Williams remembers a little detail about Klamath that the WaPo left out.
Steve Clemons: "If the Vice President thinks that there is no authority to which he reports, then he has committed a high crime against this nation and its democracy."
A reader of Altercation writes that the SacBee is hustling for pro-Bush letters for its letter page. And Eric wants to know why the NYT seems so uninterested in the story of how the health of people who helped in the 9/11 emergency was endangered by deliberate dishonesty on the part of government officials.
What kind of people think privatized medicine is a good thing? Idiots.
How not to hire qualified American workers. (Thanks to Rich for the tip.)
23:59 BST
A passel of links
Clinton Leads in New Hampshire but Gore Would Win "A new Suffolk University poll in New Hampshire shows Sen. Hillary Clinton leading among likely primary voters with 37% support, followed by Sen. Barack Obama with 19%, John Edwards at 9%, and Bill Richardson at 9%. Key finding: 'The only obstacle for Clinton in the Democratic primary is Al Gore. Twenty-nine percent of Clinton voters would switch to Gore if he announced for president, and when all of the switches from other Democratic candidates were recalculated, Gore would defeat Clinton.'"
Media Matters: "While Media Matters for America is pleased with PBS' announcement this morning that discredited Republican pollster Frank Luntz will not appear on its Thursday-night programming, PBS has yet to address the fundamental problem with its choice of Luntz to participate in analysis of the PBS forum."
At The Left Coaster, "What Do We Owe the Iraqis?", "Dear Dr. Dean, Our Bloggers Need Help", and why our economy is great because a few more people are rich.
Voting machine companies and Microsoft tried to sneak Trojan horse clauses into new legislation in New York, to get around the state's strong voter integrity laws, but citizens stood up and stopped them.
Pat Leahy issues lots of subpoenas, says this administration worse than Nixon.
Even Tucker Carlson Realizes Rudy Is Dissembling About Bill's Terror Record.
12:30 BST
A little night linkage
Neocon driven mad by facts, has temper tantrum, in net neutrality discussion with technology experts.
Digby and Wolcott both much enjoyed Johann Hari's delightful trip on The Hate Boat.
Illustrating the obvious - because our talking heads are beyond parody.
"We made war on poverty" - and though Reagan claimed we'd lost, he was wrong. But that was then.
"Bush's Mistake and Kennedy's Error" - Michael Shermer in Scientific American on self-deception and self-justification.
I'm sure we must be the greatest nation at something - oh, maybe it's stuff like this.
The first Parliamentary reading of the new Criminal Justice Bill was Tuesday. The "extreme pornography" clause is here. They've obviously narrowed it quite a bit to make it seem less stupid, but it's still just another law that will cause new problems without solving any.
02:29 BST
Wednesday, 27 June 2007
In the papers
I see the WaPo gave real estate in today's paper to a couple of conservative flacks to "explain" the current politics of a further sell-off of the electromagnetic spectrum, and, naturally, they're saying that net neutrality is "a bad idea". Of course, it's only a bad idea for people who want to gouge profits out of a system that, paid for and developed by our taxes and user innovation, has flourished under net neutrality. If there's one thing these "free-market" types hate, it's the idea of having to compete in the market as it is rather than having the rules jimmied to give them an unfair advantage.
Also in the WaPo, Sally Quinn imagines that principled Republicans will ask Dick Cheney to leave office, and Dick Cheney will do what they ask. Get a load of how she recommends his replacement, too: "That leaves Fred Thompson. Everybody loves Fred. He has the healing qualities of Gerald Ford and the movie-star appeal of Ronald Reagan. He is relatively moderate on social issues. He has a reputation as a peacemaker and a compromiser. And he has a good sense of humor." Actually, he has a reputation as a lobbyist, but he also has a reputation as an actor, and we know how Republicans feel about hyping actors who happen to be Republican for major office. It worked so good before! Eugene Robinson doesn't seem to think Cheney is going anywhere, but he seems to think you can't impeach Bush because then you'd have Cheney as president. Doesn't he know you can impeach them both? Why not? They have conspired together to destroy the country, so try and convict them together. Froomkin seems to think Cheney is a dead issue, but I think it's a mistake to think he isn't dangerous every single day he is still in office rather than in prison.
In the NYT, Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee discuss a new poll that says younger Americans are "leaning left" - more liberal on social issues and more supportive of the Democratic party. But they are also more optimistic about the possibility of a successful solution in Iraq. Go figure.
I guess it's a relief to be rid of Blair, but it's not to early to deluge Brown with letters about how evil the idea of a national ID card really is. Hoggart thinks it's the Oscars.
In other UK news, doctors are talking about making it easier to get an abortion, and people are trying to make the most of the last days of smoking at the pub.
15:14 BST
The secretive master
"Leaving No Tracks" continues the series on how Richard Bruce Cheney put his stamp on every aspect of this administration, this time concentrating on how he used his extensive knowledge of how our government works - er, worked - to up-end science in order to impose business-friendly attacks on the environment:
The survival of two imperiled species of fish was at stake.
Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks.
Now, there is something to be said for protecting Oregon farmers from being driven out of business by drought, but what's interesting here is that when Cheney couldn't find a legitimate way to do it quietly, his answer was to attack science - to pretend that reality would not deliver those tens of thousands of salmon to rot on the banks of the Klamath.
If there's one thing Cheney has proven to be a master at, it's saying things that are demonstrably not true in order to impose his will and make people behave as if he is making sense.
Yet pretty much everything Cheney says defies credulity. The very suggestion that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden, that he was capable of attacking the United States any time soon or even interested in doing so, was laughable. Why wasn't it laughed out of our public discourse?
But much of Cheney's work, as this article details, is behind the scenes. He prefers it that way:
So, aside from anything else, there may have been a better way to do it, but Cheney simply made it clear that he wanted the science to lie for him.
Not that it matters, since there would have been two opposed economic arguments:
And that's just one little thing.
11:51 BST
Open windows
Rick Perlstein asked Dinesh D'Souza what he's doing chumming up with Sun Myung Moon's gang, and D'Souza said, "I don't know that much about Moon." But John Gorenfeld says that's not true. (Thanks to Cell Whitman for the tip.)
Eric Boehlert on the WaPo's love affair with Scooter Libby: "I'm nervous Post opinion writers are this close to organizing noisy sidewalk protests on Libby's behalf."
Jon Carroll: "Soon, civics classes will be taught a revised version of our precious system of checks and balances. There's the administrative, the legislative, the judicial and the cheney. The exact function and duties of the cheney are unknown. The cheney does not report to the president because that would be a violation of the separation of powers. The cheney just does what it does because it is what it is." Ann Telnaes illustrates. (Thanks to D. Potter for the tip.)
I keep seeing things on the web that suggest that Senator Richard Lugar is talking the get-out-of-Iraq talk, but Bill Scher says the headlines really should say, "Lugar Calls For 'Sustainable Military Posture' In Iraq."
Unequal Protection is Thom Hartmann's book explaining how corporations got to be people.
Colbert has The Word on Cheney: Fourth Branch.
Is Flickr "safe"?
01:34 BST
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
I am brought low
It is the dentist. Ouch. So read:
22:19 BST
Morning reading
The third part of Becker and Gellman's series on the secret emperor is out with the story on how Cheney is the architect of our ruined economy: "The president is "the decider," as Bush puts it, but the vice president often serves up his menu of choices."
Oh, look, right-wing creeps in the Justice Department's civil rights division illegally intervened before the 2004 election to try to get a judge to allow illegal caging in Ohio.
John Amato has posted the audio clip of Rachel Maddow's interview with John Dean in which he says, "Let me tell you the fastest way to get him to comply. Cut off his salary. Cut off his salary for all of his staff. And the Congress has the power to do that." Not that he needs the money. I wonder if his staff does. (Also: MSNBC's David Shuster Grills A Cheney Apologist, commits good journalism.)
Why would Tom Coburn want to stop the Emmett Till Unsolved Crimes bill?
So who did PBS pick to offer their response to the Democratic Forum? Frank Luntz, GOP frame-crafter and push-poller. Media Matters wants to help you do something about it. (C&L has a clip about Luntz.)
It just seems strange that we are getting all this stuff in the conservative Washington Post telling us that life will be horrible if we let Al Gore convince us to get better fuel mileage. I bought a car in 1977 that averaged about 50mpg (and kept it on the road until I moved here in 1985, at which time I left it in my father's hands - he didn't take very good care of it, but it was another decade before he traded it in). That average is for frequent trips into Washington as well as suburban driving; it did even better than that on interstates. I did not find this a hardship, and my life certainly was not made drab by it. What kind of mileage are you getting?
Some folks are looking for ways to address the fact that The Press Pretends We Don't Care.
Digby on good reasons to hate the Gang of 14 and the re-emergence of Jim Wilkinson.
August J. Pollak on Iran.
11:53 BST
Monday, 25 June 2007
I hate the weather
Kevin Hayden has a nice little round-up post that includes a link to Ian Welsh's Depressionomics at Firedoglake. I think he's on to something, and it may be worse than that.
David Broder defines the politics out of politics: "More than that, there is a palpable hunger among the public for someone who will attack the problems facing the country -- the war in Iraq, immigration, energy, health care -- and not worry about the politics." Broder's answer to this problem is apparently to get non-partisans into the White House so that we can all have a nice Woodstock Nation in which everyone in Congress will make nice. Keep 'em laughing, Dave!
Ezra: "Whenever anyone talks about regime change in Iran, the standard liberal response should be "remember Cuba." Not only have the same tactics failed to bring democracy, but there's ample evidence that they've substantially contributed to the survival of the regime, and that Castro purposefully arouses our ire whenever he feels his hold on power slipping." (Also: No one saw it coming.)
Isn't it interesting how they're against Islamofascists except when they're for them?
Frank Rich: They'll Break the Bad News on 9/11 - The magical month of September seems to be developing a different theme, but Rich implores American this time to pay attention. (Also: Cheney Pardons Libby.)
At Amygdala, all the bad things you suspected about the "grassroots" immigration movement turn out to be true. (Note: There is another grassroots movement that gets no juice because it's inconvenient.) Also, why Newsweek needs to hire Gary Farber.
23:59 BST
I want to second Alice in her view that campaign finance reform (at least as it is formulated under McCain-Feingold) is at best a red herring:
Campaign donations are just the tip of the influence peddling iceberg. Campaigns do not set the national agenda, merely conduct a referendum on who gets to gets to govern based on the current terms of debate. For example right wing stink tanks insert their operatives into every major press outlet. This is but one of many ways special interests pervert our national discourse. In order to take it back we need to empower ordinary citizens.
It actually doesn't matter if there are no donations at all as long as the media - particularly the broadcast media - continue to give free advertising in their regular programming to conservative views and voices. The big newspapers put ludicrously stupid stories that imply (but do not show) that Democrats are dishonest, psychologically warped, hypocritical, and calculating, while simultaneously giving adoring coverage to Republicans, and then the broadcast media grabs it for their main headlines - and if the newspapers didn't provide such material, the broadcasters would just make them up. Matt Drudge would continue to decide what "stories" deserve front-page coverage, even if they weren't true, and the press would run with them.
I see via Talk Left that the second part of the WaPo series on the out-of-control administration is up, with still more revelations that, despite all that has gone before, managed to astonish me. Like the fact that John Yoo did draw the line at one form of torture - the threat to bury a prisoner alive. (Here's a useful though no longer shocking paragraph: "Geneva rules forbade not only torture but also, in equally categorical terms, the use of "violence," "cruel treatment" or "humiliating and degrading treatment" against a detainee "at any time and in any place whatsoever." The War Crimes Act of 1996 made any grave breach of those restrictions a U.S. felony [Read the act]. The best defense against such a charge, Addington wrote, would combine a broad presidential direction for humane treatment, in general, with an assertion of unrestricted authority to make exceptions.") What really shocked me, though, was the news that the CIA actually went to the White House saying they couldn't get information without being able to torture. You'd think they'd have known better. And for that matter, you'd think I'd know better than to expect any more from the CIA. I keep forgetting because next to this administration, they still look good. (Also, Gore Vidal ticked off at the idea that he'd make a pass at Timothy McVeigh.)
My goodness Fox is disgusting, isn't it?
Evolution of the Left. (Thanks to Neil.)
Make. Them. Filibuster.
I see that Travis has decided that I've tagged him.
18:42 BST
The politics of impeachment
Larkspur in comments* provides seven random facts about me, and my favorite is:
4. An enthusiastic consumer of MmmPeachMint ice cream (two scoops, please)
I'm not actually sure two scoops will be enough, though.
And Nell directs me* to this post by Thoreau at Unqualified Offerings, where she left a comment offering her big reasons for impeaching Bush. After reading the post and the whole (mercifully short) thread, I left a comment of my own, but I want to expand on my response to this comment from Dave W.:
In a better world, President Clinton would have done some jail time for his perjury. First, because people deserve to go to jail for lying under oath, and second because it would have set a good example for others who are thinking about lying to a court.
In a better world, Starr would not have set up a perjury trap for Clinton.
Face reality: Starr's pursuit of Clinton was what, in a case among ordinary people who aren't famous, would have ultimately been treated as harassment and thrown out of court at the very least. Jones v. Clinton was obviously a nuisance suit and Jones' own claims and evidence did not fit the definition of sexual harassment. There was never any evidence that Clinton sexually harassed Jones or that she paid a career price for her interaction with Clinton. (At least not at his hands; what the GOP did to her by encouraging her lawsuit and making her a pawn in their cause is another matter. Not sure that did her any good.) The judge granted Clinton summary judgment that, "There are no genuine issues for trial in this case."
People lie in court all the time, but if it isn't actually about something specific to the substance of the case, no one gets charged with perjury for it. I can't think of another case I've ever heard of where someone was charged with perjury for being untruthful about something that didn't really matter to the case (especially one that was thrown out of court!) - and whether Clinton had sex with Lewinsky had nothing to do with whether he had sexually harassed Paula Jones. The claim was that Lewinsky was germane to the case because it would show a pattern of sexual harassment; however, it was obvious that Clinton had not sexually harassed Lewinsky since by her own notes and testimony she was the one who went after him and not the other way around.
Moreover, perjury was never proven in Clinton's case, because it wasn't a simple matter of whether he claimed under oath to have had no sexual contact with Lewinsky. That never happened. Clinton was asked several questions about whether he did this or that with Lewsinsky, and in all but one case he admitted that he had. But one specific question about whether he had had sexual contact with Lewinsky was not so broad and went to his intent.* That was the question he answered negatively.
All of which should be beside the point, but is still worth drumming into people's minds, if only because they keep making false comparisons between the Clinton impeachment and the present circumstances. The fact is that, while most people do not approve of a man cheating on his wife, neither do most people regard it as an impeachable offense. Adultery can damage a marriage, but it was clear to the public that this was about humiliating both Clintons, not about preventing abuse of power, sexual harassment, or anything that was the public's business. Two-thirds of Americans did not support impeachment of Clinton. Right now, a majority of Americans do believe Bush and Cheney should be impeached because of the way they are mishandling the public's business.
It's nonsense to insist that once it was in the open, Clinton should have resigned. The whole point of the entire Whitewater investigation was to drum up a way to nullify the election and re-election of Clinton. The Republicans had been ginning the whole thing up from the moment Clinton entered office. Whitewater was a non-crime and everyone who actually looked at the details of the case knew it - the Clintons were the victims, not the perpetrators, of Whitewater, and the investigation was solely an excuse to harass them. The Jones case was bolted onto it precisely because Starr couldn't find anything to hang Clinton with and Janet Reno was too cowardly to tell him he couldn't keep fishing in other waters. If Clinton had resigned, it would have been giving carte blanche to the GOP to invent charges against any Democratic official and drum him out of office. There really was and is a principled reason why Clinton should not have resigned. It's pitiful that there are people who do not understand this.
These points, unfortunately, are worth making because the contrast is that Bush isn't being shoe-horned into a perjury trap, he has been engaged in an entire program that is a deliberate deception because it is all illegal. He lied about whether there was illegal wiretapping, then shifted gears and not only bragged about breaking the law but said he intended to continue to do so because he was above the law.
Bush believes he is the entire government and its ultimate authority. He does not believe in the will of the people, he does not believe he is bound by any law of the United States, and he is breaking the fundamental constraints of our system of government. That's just in addition to the fact that he has emptied our treasury and put us in debt to foreign nations to a degree that we may never recover from, made our national security a joke, and treated the troops he has placed in harm's way (in an illegal and unjustified war) like dirt.
This administration has far surpassed Nixon's transgressions, and most people seem to know that. If I were trying to destroy the United States economically and politically, I would have done exactly what the Bush administration has been doing.
The Washington establishment may be perfectly happy with this situation, but the rest of the country is not.
I heard Bernie Sanders - Bernie Sanders - repeating Karl Rove's line about how the Republicans would just love to see the Democrats impeach Bush. No, they wouldn't, but of course they want everyone to believe that. It's embarrassing that even Senator Bernie has fallen for this, but it certainly tells you how difficult it is to get through to the Democrats that they should stop believing what these liars say.
The Capitol Hill gossips want us to believe that impeaching Bush/Cheney is about revenge, or partisanship, or a pathological "Bush hatred". It's not. It's about attempting to restore the United States of America as a republic.
Failing to impeach is about partisanship. Failing to impeach is about being afraid of electoral repercussions, about believing GOP spin, and about cowardice. None of those things are more important than putting a stop to what Bush is doing to our country and its people.
13:58 BST
I've been waiting to awaken from these dreams
Johann Hari, "The religious war on Liberation Biology: The religious backlash against these life-saving advances has been viciously successful, holding back scientific progress in almost every part of the world."
At The Next Hurrah, emptywheel analyzes more media whoredom at the WaPo when Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, in an article about how Cheney is the real emperor-king, say: "Cheney is not, by nearly every inside account, the shadow president of popular lore." Except that he is. But the whoredom may not be Gellman and Becker's, if this from War and Peace is correct: "A careful reading of the story of Cheney's coup against a feeble executive reveals that paragraphs 7 through 10 were written and inserted in haste by a powerful editorial hand. The banging of colliding metaphors in an otherwise carefully written piece is evidence of last-minute interpolations by a bad editor whom no one has the power to rewrite." Now who could that be?
Kelly Ripa models the Candy Bra. (Thanks to Cup O' Joe for the tip.)
Take the "MacArther Park" Challenge.
At last! You can hear Cory Doctorow read Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown in your car!
Larkspur provides seven random facts about me in the comments.
A pretty picture from Maru.
"Doctor My Eyes"
03:29 BST
Things to read
The Editors has an excellent riposte to the usual right-wing ahistorical insistence on bringing up the Dixiecrats and Robert Byrd as evidence that the GOP isn't the racists' party: "Robert "KKK" Byrd . who calls joining the KKK at age 24 the biggest mistake of his life, and who recently received a 100% rating from the NAACP. It's funny how of all the conservative Southern politicians who ever opposed racial equality, the only one who conservatives refuse to forgive is the one who sincerely changed his views. I wonder why that is." That is why.
Brent Budowsky discusses CIA Skeletons, The Mortal Sins of Dick Cheney, The Nobility Of Al Gore at The Hill's Pundits Blog.
The Rude One on Six Other Things the Office of the Vice President Actually Is. (via)
The Official Movie Critics Watch
00:44 BST
Sunday, 24 June 2007
Buzzflash is inviting everyone to submit their Top Ten Reasons to Impeach Bush and Cheney. I regard this as helpful, because making a list of reasons to impeach them is one of those things on my To Do list that I never get around to. That's because I want a comprehensive list, but that would be a lot of work since there are so many things to put on it. I wonder if any of you would like to do a little compilation for me....
Kevin Hayden has vilely tagged me for one of those meme things. I can't do these things. I don't know any random facts about me. And I can't bring myself to "tag" anyone else, either. Feel free to consider yourself tagged if you want to be. Tell 'em I sent you.
Hm, Elton Beard still exists, even if he isn't posting. (I was going to say, "That's better than the alternative," but then again it would be kinda cool if he could post even if he wasn't still alive. Considering the number of Undead we have haunting the White House, it would be nice if that power could be used for good.) And I do miss his posts.
21:35 BST
Real liberal media
Cactus at Angry Bear muses on the reliability of acquired perceptions on the subject of race, drugs, and Australia - that last referring to an entertaining article I missed last December about whether Australia actually exists, and whether there are media conspiracies to convince us that Australia and carnage in Iraq exist. I was entertained by the ensuing comment threads as well (with particular note of this one by coberly), but nevertheless left a long comment of my own responding to both articles.
"A Nation of Closet Liberals" - As you know, Bob, the media is very effective at telling us that the things we believe are just the desires of some weird, extreme fringe group living in Manhattan and San Francisco. Also: "Turns out neither Gore nor Bush won the presidency in 2000."
And, as Steve Benen tells us, the real king of America planned it that way all along. In 1973 he argued that what the president does transcends the law, and then he figured out how to become the transcendent guy himself in 2000. Gosh, isn't it great that George Walker Bush had all that good counsel from "experienced hands" to guide him. Like I said before, Bush has fallen in with a bad crowd, and it's more important to impeach Richard Bruce Cheney than it is even to impeach Bush himself.
Jim Hightower on Outsourcing government: "A monumental shift has quietly and quickly been taking place in the way the public's business is done - and We the People have not even been informed about it, much less been asked to discuss and okay it. Corporations are taking over our government. No longer is it just a matter of big business's lobbyists and campaign donations perverting public policy. Now, politically connected corporations are also seizing day-to-day governmental operations for their own profit."
But we don't just outsource torture to foreign countries. We do it in American prisons all the time, and we create an entire class of people who can do it for us for free. Make no mistake; we are perfectly capable of setting up prisons so that prisoners are protected from violence by their fellow inmates, but we don't bother. Fred Clark at Slacktivist says that our acceptance of the idea that prisoners get raped and beaten up in prison makes us part of the problem, and he's right. (And I left a comment there, too, because for some reason I just don't seem to be able to stay out of ranting in comment threads today.)
Steve Clemons is intrigued about reactions to Michael Moore's Sicko, and it makes him think the slowly dawning change in the way even public officials are starting to talk about our policies toward Cuba.
Robert Louis Chavez takes neat pictures of lightning.
18:22 BST
Turning the paper red
I'm pleased to see that Melinda Henneberger managed to make Wanker of the Day for a second time, and only four minutes into the day, to boot, thanks to a little bit of research from Tom Hilton at If I Ran the Zoo, with a special assist from Digby.
Something that I think was obvious from Ms. Henneberger's original bit of Broderesque "reporting" about how Democrats must flee from their pro-choice stance or risk losing the electorate is that her interviews with average ordinary women who happen to support a minority view seems to come from a sample that is a bit, um, skewed. I mean, where do you start when you're actually looking for women to interview who were "first-time defectors" to voting for a Republican in 2004? And, if those women really did vote for Bush because they preferred a guy who starts wars and hates the CDA and the FDA and affordable medical care for children and the elderly to someone who might not appoint anti-choice zealots to the Supreme Court, just how "liberal" are they, really? They certainly aren't pro-life, they're just anti-abortion, and that's a position that will lose a lot more people for the Democratic Party than it could hope to gain. The anti-abortion types already have a home in the Grand Old Pestilence - we're the other one, and though we may be the party of confusion, at least we're a bit more hesitant to do things that destroy whole cities and leave the survivors without clean water or electricity.
And that's just leaving aside the fact that if you really care about reducing unwanted pregnancies, which is the best way to reduce the number of abortions, you know better than to make common cause with people who advocate abstinence-only sex "education" and refusing to fill birth control prescriptions.
The majority of Americans actually seem to understand this, and it's unfortunate that they didn't understand in 2004 that Bush really did intend to appoint Supreme Court justices who want to overturn Roe v. Wade (and even Griswald), because he would have lost plenty of votes right then and there.
Unfortunately, a variety of people (not all of whom were just concern trolls like Henneberger) assured us that the Republicans would never let Roe be overturned because it was such a good issue for the GOP. Little did they realize that we were dealing with people who had no problem with that since they were planning to count the votes themselves and were bent on overturning the Constitution itself. These maniacs really do mean business and all of these assurances from left and right that there have to be other priorities are just what they count on to keep people from recognizing that they mean what they say.
The simple fact is that your position on reproductive rights really is a good indicator of whether you are liberal on other issues. For one thing, liberals don't abandon peace, minorities, the poor, middle-class economic security, the Geneva Conventions and the entire Constitution just to make sure sex is punished by unwanted births or illegal abortions that threaten women's lives. Liberals might even notice a certain, um, ambiguity in the claims to support "life and liberty" by people who want to hoist the Confederate flag over their state houses while pretending Roe v. Wade is comparable to Dred Scot.
And that's what we mean by "litmus test" - abortion really is the litmus test for both sides, although lately only the far right takes it as read. They know that if they want a right-wing program, abolition of reproductive rights is integral to the plot. We should not forget that. But Henneberger is here precisely to cloud that insight.
14:47 BST
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error."
Chantelle Chantilly half cup bra
Bra of the Week
Would you believe the abstinence-only bunch is pretending they care about facts, now? (I'll tell you something else, too: Anyone who says abstinence is the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancy is lying - the only way to be sure is to get a total hysterectomy. People who abstain don't generally use birth control, so they are much more likely to get pregnant when they slip or are raped. For the rest of us, condoms do work remarkably well if you use them correctly.)
Stephen Lendman, "The Record of the Newspaper of Record: Dictionaries define 'yellow journalism' variously as irresponsible and sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It's misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation and readership or serve a larger purpose like lying for state and corporate interests."
Glenn Greenwald has more on the mysterious fact that the people we are fighting in Iraq are suddenly all in Al Qaeda: "But what is even more notable is that the establishment press has followed right along, just as enthusiastically. I don't think the New York Times has published a story about Iraq in the last two weeks without stating that we are killing 'Al Qaeda fighters,' capturing 'Al Qaeda leaders,' and every new operation is against 'Al Qaeda.'"
Bob Geiger's Saturday Cartoons - and an extra Toles.
Correction: "A music review in Weekend on Friday about Paul McCartney, at the Highline Ballroom in Manhattan, misidentified the instrument he played when he sang "Here Today." It was an acoustic guitar, not a piano." Yeah, I always get those two confused.
Paint Jam
02:12 BST
Saturday, 23 June 2007
Links for people who aren't watching Doctor Who
A curious thing: "Until a few days ago, the combatants in Iraq were 'insurgents' or they were referred to as 'Sunni' or 'Shia'a' fighters in the Iraq Civil War. Suddenly, without evidence, without proof, without any semblance of fact, the US military command is referring to these combatants as 'al-Qaida'." I'd been noticing this, too, but it's the kind of thing that these days I just seem to react to with an enervated sigh.
Nader is talking about another presidential run because both parties are in the pocket of the corporations, but Public Citizen says Obama is good on anti-corporate issues.
Jamison Foser on another phony study purporting to show that the media is liberal, and why it's a lousy study. (The comments are also hilarious.)
Robert Parry, "Bush's Mafia Whacks the Republic: In years to come, historians may look back on U.S. press coverage of George W. Bush's presidency and wonder why there was not a single front-page story announcing one of the most monumental events of mankind's modern era - the death of the American Republic and the elimination of the "unalienable rights" pledged to "posterity" by the Founders."
Claudio Arrau, Beethoven's Appassionata, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
19:46 BST
The haze I'm wandering around in
Whisky Fire: "'The Senate legislation would also eliminate from the federal financial aid application a controversial question asking whether applicants have been convicted of drug possession while receiving federal student aid.'" It's a baby-step, though - restrictions on student aid for such people should be eliminated altogether.
Via Atrios, Keith Olbermann learns that Dick Cheney is no longer an entity of any kind. (Funny, when you think of it - on the one hand, he claims "executive privilege" in order to obstruct transparency, but now he's claiming he's not part of the executive in order to obstruct security.) Help impeach them.
Taegan Goddard's Political Wire reports that Hitchens' God is Not Great has defied expectations and become a bestseller, "flying off store shelves, even in the Bible Belt," according to the Wall Street Journal." Also, Michael Moore doing the right thing.
"Doctors lord it over patients: An article titled "Doctors' beliefs can hinder patient care: New laws shore up providers' right to refuse treatment based on values" tells the chilling tale of one Lori Boyer who drove to the nearest emergency room after she was raped by an acquaintance."
Lenin on Lenin.
I came out this morning and discovered that one of the triffids has finally started to blossom. I am so excited. Pretty.
"Open My Eyes"
15:50 BST
And the sunshine'll set you free
Good news: The Senate Judiciary Committee passed legislation to restore habeas corpus, and Democrats are saying they will issues subpoenas to find out the skinny on the NSA program. Like, what the hell it is.
Another myth bites the dust: It's not just that people are still having sex, but white folk are more likely to use illegal drugs than black folk.
How to trap a Fox - or how the campaign to stop the Democratic debate from being hosted by Fox worked.
The Google, the E-mail and the Bush - So, does Bush use it, or doesn't he? And if he does, where is it?
A Trivial but far from unimportant reason not to elect (another) conservative GOP businessman president.
From MediaBloodhound, "ABC Obscures Truth About Autism and Thimerosal" - or, why you should be suspicious of claims made by "the same man who oversaw General Electric's dumping of untold amounts of PCBs into our water supply, denied it profusely, then, when forced to clean it up, fought every step of the way" when he defends Big Pharma from suspicions that putting poison in kids' vaccines might actually have harmed them.
Mark Adams thinks Markos jumped the shark with his analysis of the Democratic candidates.
Imagine my surprise when Jon Stewart announced his guest, and it was Greg Bear.
Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon.
12:18 BST
Friday, 22 June 2007
I'm watching Iggy and the Stooges play live
"An Unlikely Class Warrior" - Robert Frank co-authored Principles of Economics, fast becoming the standard ECON 101 primer, with Ben Bernanke, who is now chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. His new book, Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class, is described this way by Sam Pizzigati at "Frank's perspective, in our contemporary political clime, smacks dangerously close to a declaration of 'class war.'" Because he acknowledges that how much you spend isn't just a matter of choice, I guess. But his remedy still sounds to me like a way to evade straightforward progressive taxation. (via)
Thanks to Dominic for alerting me to this quote from the Buzzflash interview with Greg Palast:"We've got the documents. We ain't guessing. When I say they had caging lists targeting innocent black soldiers, I have the lists. I have the soldiers' names. We spoke to their families. In fact, interestingly, "60 Minutes" came into our office and said, "My God, to prove what these caging lists are, you're going to have to make hundreds of calls and spend hundreds of hours going through this stuff." And we said, "Yeah, it's reporting. Try it. It won't hurt you." Palast also says Rove et al. have already stolen the 2008 election.
Army officer says Gitmo panels flawed: "An Army officer with a key role in the U.S. military hearings at Guantanamo Bay says they relied on vague and incomplete intelligence and were pressured to declare detainees "enemy combatants," often without any specific evidence" (via)
AltHippo discovers that even Joe Conason is afraid of the I-Word. *sigh* (via)
Max Blumenthal's video isn't brilliant, but it has one or two moments, and it worth seeing just for the bit with Nader being a jerk.
A sun pillar from EPOD, the eclipse of Venus from APOD, and Nick Scipio posted something pretty for the Solstice.
23:33 BST
Discussing Sidney Blumenthal's "Imperial presidency declared null and void", Chris Floyd says that, although the courts have ruled that Bush is breaking the law, it doesn't seem like much is being done about it:
However, Blumenthal also notes that the ruling has changed nothing "on the ground." Bush has not altered his policies in the light of this stinging rebuke from his own side of the ideological divide. In fact, just last week, one of his mouthpieces strenuously defended Bush's abuse of "signing statements" -- his regular declarations that he is not bound by the laws passed by the people's representatives in Congress. The Boston Globe's Charles Savage, who almost alone in the corporate media has doggedly pursued this sinister practice, reports numerous specific instances of Bush's deliberate subversion of legislation. Questioned about the story, a Bush spokesman answered, in essence: "Yeah? So what? The Boss does what he wants to do, and that's the way it is. You savvy?"
The disgusting thugs who seized control of our government have been repeatedly unmasked. Their authoritarian pretensions and rampant lawbreaking have been repeatedly exposed in the media and by government insiders, and roundly condemned by numerous courts, including, as in this case, conservative courts packed with appointees of the Bush dynasty itself. Yet still, this gang squats in the White House, still they wield their earth-shaking powers, still they break laws and commit atrocities every day.
And Congress, the only institution in the country with the legal power to bring this monumental crime spree to an end, will not even attempt to use the tools provided to it by the Constitution to remove the perpetrators of high crimes from office.
Chris' piece does require one clarification:
On Saturday, July 27, the House Judiciary Committee approved its first article of impeachment charging President Nixon with obstruction of justice. Six of the Committee's 17 Republicans joined all 21 Democrats in voting for the article. The following Monday the Committee approved its second article charging Nixon with abuse of power. The next day, the third and final article, contempt of Congress, was approved.
That revelation resulted in a complete collapse of support for Nixon in Congress. On Friday, August 9, Nixon resigned the presidency and avoided the likely prospect of losing the impeachment vote in the full House and a subsequent trial in the Senate. He thus became the only U.S. President ever to resign.
In the literal meaning of the word, Nixon was, literally, successfully impeached. But legally speaking, he resigned before the indictment could be made official.
However, the point remains: We once had a Congress (and a press) that, when they couldn't deny the connection between the White House and criminally unconstitutional conduct, was willing and able to demand and bring into being impeachment hearings.
We now have a situation where the crimes of the administration are far more serious and far more blatant - although some have been (for the most part ineptly) covered up, others have been proudly displayed in public and even bragged about.
George Walker Bush, Richard Bruce Cheney, and most of the cabinet have run a criminal operation out of the White House. There can be no question at this point that they are openly flouting the most fundamental laws of the land and betraying our country. Anyone who denies this must be either stupid, mad, or lying.
And yet, Congress is still pretending that there is nothing to be done.
It may be true that the Republicans and a small cadre of conservative Democrats will never allow impeachment proceedings to begin, but with more than half the country now believing - before such proceedings have even begun - that Bush should be impeached and removed from office, it is a disgrace that anyone in Congress is failing to push for impeachment of the executive and the entire cabinet. It should be obvious that - despite Karl Rove's pretence that he would be happy to see it happen - pushing for impeachment will bring even more of the country behind it and put tremendous pressure on those remaining members of Congress who would prefer not to see this administration repudiated.
The alternative is to admit that we have lost our republic.
15:02 BST
After I overslept
In a comment below about Henry Waxman's letter, jurassicpork sez: "So, 2003 is the year that Dick Cheney stopped letting the inspectors in. So how come we invaded Iraq and not Dick Cheney?"
More Waxman news as the right wing erupts over his request to delay the Blackstone IPO, although they didn't seem to care why - and it turns out there is a very good reason: "It now turns out that Senator James Webb, formerly a high Defense Department official has serious national security concerns over this deal. It seems that the $200B investment fund that China is using Blackstone to administer could give China access to sensitive information about US defense contractors. But the IPO went ahead anyway." Of course it did.
The Rude One discovers the conservative appreciation of manliness.
Regulating the use of The Race Card with: The Race Flag!
Ashcroft contradicts Gonzales wiretapping testimony: "In sworn testimony to Congress in 2006, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that there had 'not been any serious disagreement' over President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. But today, former Attorney General John Ashcroft - who almost resigned in protest over the program - told a House panel that in reality, the administration was 'sharply divided over the legality of President Bush's most controversial eavesdropping policies.'"
This radio program has interviews with some recently-retired veterans of The Baltimore Sun, including Dave Ettlin, about the current state of the newspaper biz.
Go over to YouTube and give props to Matt for this video.
12:48 BST
Thursday, 21 June 2007
Dinner and links
Want to know how to dramatically improve Afghanistan's economy and take power away from the warlords and the Taliban? "Leading doctors say Afghanistan's opium-poppy harvest should be used to tackle an NHS shortage of diamorphine. The British Medical Association says using the poppy fields in this way, rather than destroying them, would help Afghans and NHS patients. [...] But the UK and Afghan governments reject using the poppy fields to address the UK's diamorphine shortage. However, UK doctors say the diamorphine shortage is getting worse, leaving them reliant on less effective, more expensive alternatives." Yeah, I wonder who's selling those "more expensive alternatives". No, I don't.
Dover Bitch is against slavery - particularly slavery we can do something about because it's happening within our jurisdiction. And she also thinks voting rights are important. My god, what a crazy left-wing loony she is!
Those conservative high-tech hipsters are keeping us safer, you bet.
Henry Waxman writes a letter about this: "The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an 'entity within the executive branch.'" Jeez, this guy actually thinks being VP puts him above even the executive? That's a new one. (via)
Catholic Church does the right thing for the wrong reason. Well, sorta the right thing. Definitely the wrong reason, unless they want to start doing this stuff to Republicans, too.
Privatized criminal government bites. (Oh, and congratulations on the grandson, sugar.)
Have a look at McClatchy's Wounded Warriors blog.
17:35 BST
This dictatorship/911 media event/war brought to you by...: "Jim Wilkinson is the Republican operative I was talking about. He's a guy that - he's about my age. .He worked in Dick Armey's office. He is credited with coming up with a line about Gore having invented the internet. That was Jim's work. .Then, in the 2000 elections, he was in charge of the media down in the Florida recount, where there was one point where the Dade County voting board was going to recount the ballots down there. The Republicans didn't want them to recount it until a decision had been made by the courts, and so they stormed the office." And then he got put in charge of forcing our troops to politicize their responses to the press to help them sell the invasion of Iraq. More here.
At Think Progress:
See, I just do not want someone who supports torture to be president. I really don't. "Have we fallen so low as to debate how much torture we are willing to stomach?"
Did I mention that CBS are pigs? Well, they are. (Ahem.)
I can't help the feeling that Ann Althouse really does need a good shag. It's the only explanation for her severe case of Tubesteak Messiah Derangement Syndrome.
Keith Olbermann and Jonathan Turley discuss Bush's signing statements and the government officials who treat them like law.
15:59 BST
Happy Solstice
I am pleased to announce that, Massachusetts and Elton John notwithstanding, Mr. Sideshow and I have continued on to our 22nd wedding anniversary.
Judicial Watch got some documents proving that a 727 full of Saudis "Chartered either by The Saudi Arabian royal family or Osama Bin Laden" was allowed to leave the United States on 19 September 2001, but Michael Moore is still fat.
Trifecta wasn't impressed with Richard Cohen's performance in his "chat" session with WaPo readers who mostly took issue with his column on Scooter Libby. You know, one thing people keep failing to mention is that it doesn't matter whether Valerie Plame in particular had been stationed abroad in the last five years or fit other criteria of the particular law that everyone is talking about (and not just because that's not the only law that might have been broken). Because, by blowing Plame's cover, the White House blew the entire Brewster-Jennings operation and the cover of everyone in it or connected with it. Someone should ask these pundits whether blowing everyone's cover might have violated the law.
I also see via Trifecta that the WaPo has discovered the story of Bradley Schlozman discriminatory antics in the Civil Rights division. We already knew much of this but I hadn't seen this before: "In another politically tinged conversation recounted by former colleagues, Schlozman asked a supervisor if a career lawyer who had voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a onetime political rival of President Bush, could still be trusted."
KathyF may be correct when she says you shouldn't try to pronounce Welsh words after a glass of wine; it's not enough. Have a few pints of bitter instead.
12:54 BST
"Get me rewrite!"
How did they come up with this lie that we never praise good professional journalism? Of course we do - one of the reasons we're here is to find the good journalism buried under the bad. We praise Conason, Lyons, Krugman, Pincus, Hersh, Savage and others and link to them frequently. The problem is that most of those people seldom if ever make the front page. If fake stories about John Edwards selling his house to Republicans (gasp!) or getting a haircut are what's on the telegraph page, and Walter Pincus is on page 17, well, all praise to Pincus when he does good work, but what are the editors thinking? And why did any journalist actually go to the trouble to write those tacky stories in the first place? And why are the "gatekeepers" employing people who bring the profession into such disrepute - and keeping them - while hiding Paul Krugman behind a paywall? We don't praise good journalism? It was the biggest newspapers in the country that destroyed Gary Webb's career because he did good journalism. And without bloggers, no one would ever remember him. We love to find good journalism in the professional media - but we have to work hard too find it, buried as it is behind loads of high-profile rubbish.
And speaking of journalists we love, I've just received Dave Ettlin's announcement that he retired from 40 years at The Baltimore Sun this month. I am stunned by this news - for years we all assumed he would die on re-write because he just seemed to love it so much that it never seemed to occur to him to ask for a promotion. Then a few years ago one of his bosses pointed out to him that he should be an editor, so he asked for it and got the job as night editor. I figured he'd still be there to cover the end of the world. Of course, there were several things that went into his decision to retire now, but I got the impression that one of them was the threat of another ownership change. So when they offered another job buy-out, he put in for it. Not that he's bored, yet: "And five days later, I had another job (if only for a day): A cameo appearance in the filming of the HBO TV series "The Wire," courtesy of its creator-producer and former Sun colleague David Simon. I played a newsroom character named "Ettlin." Type-casting, I guess. It likely will be on TV next spring on HBO." According to the brief mention at the bottom of the Maryland news column, he plays a rewrite man.
11:22 BST
Out and about on the intraweb
MB Williams has been blogging the Wyoming contest to replace the recently deceased GOP Senator with another Republican.
Continuously crafting good, popular bills that Republicans won't pass may not be a good recipe for enacting good, new legislation, but it would certainly draw the distinctions between Democrats and Republicans, and it might just light a fire under the public to see good legislation getting killed over and over.
I just heard John Nichols on the radio talking about his article about Bloomberg's announcement, and he said an interesting thing that's not in the article: The very fact that he's making news this way (and especially saying things about how when he got into office the city was a wreck) reminds people that it wasn't Rudy Giuliani who put New York City back together again.
Among the things the United States government can no longer do well, they can't mint coins correctly and they can't prepare for a new rush on passports that they should have expected when they changed the law to require them in more situations. Via Rachel, who also alerts us that Janet Reno is getting into the music biz.
Folks in Connecticut just won't shut up about how much they can't stand Joe Lieberman.
My favorite part of the story of about the stupid London Olympics logo was when "Education Secretary Alan Johnson likened the logo to Tory MP Boris Johnson's hair yesterday," and Boris "said his hair 'had yet to induce epilepsy' and cost 'considerably less than £400,000 to design.'"
Listen to some new Maroon5.
01:21 BST
Wednesday, 20 June 2007
Trying to keep up
Via Eschaton I see that Blast Off! has posted the transcript of Digby's speech for those who can't play the video. And Glenn Greenwald looks at the section of the speech that discusses the core views of the liberal blogosphere.
Terry Jones on A true land of opportunity: "Gordon Brown was in Iraq yesterday on a "fact-finding mission". It needn't all have looked gloomy for the next prime minister, however - not if he did some fact-finding about Blackwater, a North Carolina company that is now one of the most profitable military contractors operating in Iraq, and proves just what a land of opportunity Iraq really is. Blackwater's president, Gary Jackson, acclaimed a "staggering" 600% growth in 2004: "This is a billion-dollar industry," he said, "and Blackwater has only scratched the surface of it." So if Gordon, or any of us, wants to get on this Iraqi gravy train, we could do worse than see how Blackwater goes about it."
McClatchy has a nice new motto, but I can't say I was pleased to see that headline and the story that goes with it. Yes, Clinton was booed at one point in her presentation, but she was applauded when she got up to speak and applauded when she closed. But the audience at Take Back America wasn't much pleased when she said, "The American military has succeeded. It is the Iraqi government that has failed to make the tough decisions." Right, we went in there and wrecked their country so we could hold them up at gun-point for their oil, and it's their fault the country is a mess, perhaps because they don't want to make the "tough decision" to give the Texas oilmen all of their oil.
Mark at Adult Video News learns that a right-wing anti-porn "family values" group was breaking the law. What a surprise.
Harry Potter and the Blue Dog Democrats ... "or should we follow the path of the 'all-out' Van Helsing and relegate the blue dogs back to the unemployment line?" (Thanks to Randolph for the tip.)
The hidden price of a Christmas bestseller - Crikey, I had no idea. (Thanks, Neil.)
Some quotes.
23:58 BST
American footprints
I see Norman Podhoretz is advocating bombing Iran although it would "unleash a wave of global anti-Americanism ." Boy, these people really don't care about "the good opinion of mankind", do they? Andrew Sullivan also posts from a reader who saw another video of Podhoretz shrugging off the effects of bombing a country, and says, "And the shrug tells you everything you need to know about the current state of neo-conservativism."
Steve Soto says it's time to "Start Calling For Special Prosecutors: That the administration will reject the need for any such appointments even with a truckload of evidence of lawbreaking is inevitable. But forcing the subpoenas and getting to that conflict sooner rather than later is better for the country to see the lengths this president will go to shield his actions from public view."
"Message to the Democratic Leadership: Never Leave Your Wounded Heroes on the Battlefield" - This Buzzflash editorial is referring to those fighting against the occupation at home, but when the leadership falls down like this, they literally leave our troops on the battlefield in Iraq to be wounded and die unnecessarily. Right now they're apparently starting to see the writing on the wall, and I've heard them talking on the radio about how they're still working in Congress and there will be more coming down the pike to fulfill the promises we hoped we had in the election last year. But they need to be reminded: We have their backs if they work for us, but not if they don't.
Trifecta is not optimistic about what a Bloomberg presidential try will mean to the election. I know many New York liberals who like Bloomberg and what he's done for the city, but there are plenty of things about him that worry me, and I still haven't forgiven him for how he violated demonstrators' rights during the RNC in 2004. (I'm hearing, though, that it's all about how much he hates Giuliani and wants to beat him. I have to admit, the thought amuses.)
19:00 BST
Brain food
Back in the saddle, Digby finds Justice Scalia unable to separate television shows from fact, and thinks they override the Constitution as well. Meanwhile, Dover Bitch finds the bottom line in the al-Marri decision: "...the Constitution simply does not provide the President the power to exercise military authority over civilians within the United States."
I've been meaning to link to this post at Crooks and Liars in which Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks argues with Tucker Carlson about extraordinary rendition. Carlson actually had the nerve to demand of her that she support Bush's complete failure to obey the law on the grounds that if he didn't break the Constitution, he'd be failing in his "sworn" duty to protect us from terrorism. Brooks was doing a good job, but she fell down on this - she really should have pointed out that a president's sworn duty is this: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. " As Fact-esque reminds me, lesser cogs like the VP and members of Congress swear an even longer oath to the Constitution. Wish they believed it.
One of the fine ironies of the occupation of Iraq was the claim that we would show those funny-colored wogs the virtues of democracy free of the corruption that plagues lesser civilizations. So then we went over there and demonstrated that, with Republicans running things, we could actually be even more corrupt, and not only that, bring that level of corruption to America as well. The thing is, all those funny-colored people still want to be rid of corruption. Just like us.
"Would you trust a man called Rita?" Not this one.
17:47 BST
It hasn't rained in hours!
You have no idea how hard it was when I did this post not to write, "Digby, who writes real good even if she is a boy." But I restrained myself. More recently I've noticed that she hasn't been so careful about hiding it, so I've made a James Tiptree joke or two, but I had a feeling the Big Reveal was coming, and the cat was already out of the bag in some quarters. No, she never told me, I just suspected it a long time ago, and then a few of her remarks nailed it down for me. (I was surprised so many people missed them.)
Stranger has a good catch on the indictment of Giuliani's SC campaign manager for crack cocaine - and the fact that the word "crack" is being edited out of the news accounts, possibly so people will forget that there are mandatory sentences to go with that.
FungiFromYuggoth points out in comments that Bernie Kerik has been to Iraq, but he probably doesn't want to remind anyone.
Greg Anrig at TPM Cafe says: "One of the great government success stories at the state level in recent years has been the streamlining of the driver's license application and renewal process so that the endless DMV lines of the past - which fueled public hostility toward government - became far shorter and less hassle-laden in most places. But the REAL ID Act of 2005, which will begin to take effect next year, will totally trash that progress." Some states have opted out of REAL ID - is yours one of them? That could be good for you when you get your driver's license, but not so good if you move.
The blog for the Take Back America conference has a number of interesting items up, including a short interview with Digby, coverage of appearances by Edwards and Obama, and Robert Greenwald's short Lift the Ban.
The entertainment industry now says that the cops shouldn't be chasing those people who robbed you because it's much more important to protect them from losing the imaginary money they think they would have made if only you couldn't download stuff free on the Internet. (I keep wondering why all these corporate swine think we should pay taxes to serve them and not us, but this is even more blatant than usual.)
Take a short IQ test, (via).
14:28 BST
Sunshine in London
What Digby said - in living color. Thanks, babe, you know you speak for me.
I really wish Kevin Drum would not repeat this junk about how Michael Moore is so inaccurate. Moore is no more inaccurate than most advocacy journalism, and certainly a whole lot better than his detractors at getting the story right. It shouldn't be necessary to remind someone who supported the invasion of Iraq that Fahrenheit 911 was (and largely still is) better than what war-supporters were writing, and the corporate media was distributing, at the time.
This morning I noticed a blog called This Is So Gay in my referrers, an irresistible title. Turns out to be a new blog by someone who reads a lot, which means it wasn't much work to get a feel for what's in the archives. I was particularly interested in "Gay Christians Say the Darndest Things!" - but hasten to note that absolutely everyone seems to have remembered only their favorite bits from the Bible or simply disregards the rest.
13:01 BST
Stuff to check out
At Tapped, Ben Adler on the likelihood that Bloomberg's change of party is about running for president, and Paul Waldman on why Edwards can go anywhere.
Big Media Benen - Steve gets interviewed by The Politico, I learn from this very linky post by Steve at his own joint, The Carpet Bagger Report, which also has the dirt on how Fear of Karl Rove is ceasing to be a factor in the Republican Party. (Also: a good reason not to want Mike Gravel to be president.)
Paperwight on why The Criminal IS Political, and, in another linky post, the Republican Ratchet.
So, are conservatives at least better for keeping families together? Not if this is how they do it.
I can put asterisks in their name, or I can just say that someone doesn't like being parodied at the Edinburgh Fringe.
I can't figure out why the mysterious Gnome Liberation Front would be smuggling snakes.
01:42 BST
Tuesday, 19 June 2007
Hazelnut yogurt
The excellent Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe is looking at signing statements again, and says, "US agencies disobey [at least] 6 laws that president challenged": In a report to Congress, the non partisan Government Accountability Office studied a small sample of the bill provisions that Bush has signed into law but also challenged with signing statements. The GAO found that agencies disobeyed six such laws, while enforcing 10 others as written even though Bush had challenged them. [...] "The findings of this report should come as no great surprise: When the president tells federal agencies they don't have to follow the law, they often don't," Sloan said. "This report should put to rest any doubts as to the real impact of signing statements. The Constitution does not bestow upon the president the power to simply ignore portions of laws he doesn't like."
The tears of Bernie Kerik (who has been almost everywhere, except Iraq). Also: "I Get To Compare People To Eliminationist Dictators. You Don't."
The religious right is making America more secular - because they're driving people away. (via)
Dover Bitch reports back from the Take Back America conference on the Women Rising: The Issues that Count panel.
I refuse to listen to it, but you can hear the winner of the contest to find Hillary a campaign theme song here.
I'm reading about how the immigration issue is bigger than Teh Gay issue for the GOP base, lately, and thinking it would be smart if the Democrats loudly and vociferously made the point that the GOP does not prosecute illegal employers and that's why we have this problem under Republicans. They should explain it every chance they get.
22:11 BST
Blogger's notebook
Yet again, while I'm writing about something that annoyed me, Glenn Greenwald is already posting something more thorough (and Atrios is making the subject Wanker of the Day):
Richard Cohen's Washington Post column this morning is a true tour de force in explaining the function of our Beltway media stars. Cohen's column -- which grieves over the grave and tragic injustice brought down upon Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- should be immediately laminated and placed into the Smithsonian History Museum as an exhibit which, standing alone, will explain so much about what happened to our country over the last six years. It is really that good.
Glenn doesn't normally go in for steep sarcasm like this, but this is hot. (And not, thank goodness, a hint of Aqua Velva.)
Michael Moore has posted a bunch of clips on his Sicko page. (He's also said he has no problem with people pirating his film and spreading it around - he makes 'em so people will see them.)
In case you were wondering, here's one reason why nobody with any sense listens to Michael Ledeen.
In comments, jbk wants everyone to know that Henry Rollins has a cool contest for you to make a video rant - "Henry supplies the topics, & you supply the attitude. Submit the best rant & you could host the "The Henry Rollins Show" marathon on IFC and fly to LA to meet Henry."
Laney has an interest blog, with a couple of posts at the top just now about How the Bushies screwed up in Gaza and Israel getting what it wants in Gaza.
20:29 BST
Question: How can you tell the difference between Richard Cohen and a GOP political operative? Answer: You really can't, anymore. Today's column comes straight off the RNC talking points, complete with "no underlying crime" and consistent downplaying of the seriousness of the underlying crime itself. It's unfortunate that Cohen will probably not bother to read or understand the remarks from commenter CatelynK, who said:
If the original source--the giver of the order to leak--of the deliberate outing of a covert CIA Agent was of no significance, why would Libby lie? He's a smart man and a skilled lawyer. But he lied repeatedly to federal investigators and perjured himself repeatedly under oath to a Grand Jury. He, for one, thought there was something to hide.
Libby knew he was committing a serious crime. He had to take a security oath for his job, and that oath was violated the minute he repeated classified information to members of the press.
15:35 BST
Last night's links
My broadband disappeared for about an hour last night, and I learned you have to be dedicated to wait for Jesus General to load on dial-up. Actually, I eventually gave up. Same for Crooks and Liars. Still, I hope you can see this clip about the Wilton students' Iraq play, which is rather inspiring.
Also at C&L, a story on a right-wing special on PBS that will lie about the intention of the founders in separating church and state.
"Do Bloggers Deserve a Shield Law? Absolutely," says Kevin Hayden.
At Yank in London, "Democratic Candidates for President (and one other) - a British perspective" does the English translation. This is considerably more accurate than what you get from the media.
Henry Rollins not a fan of Halliburton/KBR privatization . Also, "Republicans get ready to threaten Valerie Plame Wilson with subpoena" - This is a bunch of smoke, of course, but they still want to smear Plame, and also take some heat off of the White House.
The Yellow Doggerel Democrat wonders if BushCo think they are Unimpeachable (to the tune of this).
Winners of the Infuriating Phrases Competition, (via).
11:20 BST
Monday, 18 June 2007
Some liars
It's no surprise that Fox News' favorite investigation is the one of William Jefferson, one of very few of the (alleged) criminals in Washington who isn't part of the Republican Mafia. It's no surprise, either, that they are lying when they try to equate Jefferson's individual dirt with the entire GOP criminal enterprise, and when they pretend that Republicans who get indicted "just step down while they work this out."
Todd Tiahrt lying about needle-exchange (and Newt on drugs).
22:25 BST
What they say
Tim Grieve: "Asked on CNN this morning whether the fact that none of his five sons has served in the U.S. military might be a political issue for him, Iraq surge supporter and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said: 'Each of my five sons gave two years of their life to the service of their church, and I consider that service to be laudable. But I very highly value those who serve in the military. But it is a volunteer military and I hope that we keep it that way.'"
Charlie Stross: "Evil elves have clearly abducted the spirit of British politics and replaced it with a red-headed changeling with three eyes and a Martian accent. Can anyone imagine the reaction if in 1990 Neil Kinnock had declared that he was the true heir to Margaret Thatcher's legacy, not that milquetoast left-winger John Major?" The worst part is that it's true - the Tories are the true defender's of Blair's legacy, because Blair is a Thatcherite, and to the right of even pre-Thatcherite Tories. (PS. I just finished Iron Sunrise and thought it was even better than Singularity Sky.)
Whiskey Fire: "Ezra Klein is perfectly right to judge people writing on foreign policy primarily on their stances towards real world issues. A discussion of "underlying beliefs or theories" in this context is absurd, given the horror of the Iraq debacle. If your "underlying beliefs or theories" made you stick your dick in the blender, even "reluctantly," and you haven't thoroughly reassessed these concepts, I frankly don't want to hear your advice about what to do with the weed whacker." (via)
Brian Beutler: "I propose that we hereby refer to Bill Kristol as the most dangerous pundit in America." (via)
After years of right-wing dominance, things have changed in Milwaukee.
16:53 BST
Things I read today
Descending into the rose - Click for larger image June is busting out all over my favorite rose bush, so I've been going a bit wild with the camera. Here's another from just after the rain this morning.
"Health care industry braces for Sicko: The U.S. health-care industry has the June 29 premiere of Michael Moore's new film Sicko 'circled on its calendar. For-profit providers of health care are the controversial and award-winning filmmaker's latest target.'" (But read the eighth comment, by oldcranky.)
Steve Benen finds the holes in Jonathan Alter's theory that Democrats aren't properly framing their Iraq position to reach the public, noting that, "Alter's heart is in the right place, but he's missing a key point here -- the public has already accepted the Democratic war policy. The problem isn't in framing; Dems' poll numbers started to sag only after they gave in and gave the Bush White House the war funding bill the president demanded. The sales pitch was irrelevant."
Dana Priest and Anne Hull have followed up their series on the outrageous treatment of our troops at Walter Reed with "The War Inside", about the inadequate treatment returning troops receive for mental health problems.
The DoJ was already having trouble finding people to fill in those US Attorney vacancies, but now it's even worse: "The Justice Department is scrambling to find willing replacements for nearly two dozen temporary U.S. attorneys, whose time in office is now limited under a law signed last week by President Bush." Eh? Where'd that come from?
The FBI is also illegally entering your house.
Duncan Black has a good bit this morning on the imaginary figures for the residual troop numbers that are being mooted for the long-term occupation of Iraq: "What drives me nuts about this residual force stuff, aside from how arbitrary it is, is that there's never any thought to exactly what these 50,000 should do. Basically, as the violence rages around them they're supposed to sit there to ensure that... there isn't even more violence raging around them. But it isn't really enough people to actually intervene, especially given that not even close to that many would be combat troops."
13:46 BST
Whisper who dares
Seymour Hersh has another one in The New Yorker, "The General's Report - How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties." Or as Lambert puts it: "Rape. Father-son humiliation. Objects up the rectum. Torture. And the videos. In other words, Republican sex. Nice work, Christianists." C&L has video of Hersh on CNN.
2,000 non-lethal AK-47s and other WaPo facts, as explained by Jonathan Schwarz.
No one is checking to make sure your food is safe.
I guess it was too much to expect Deborah Howell to understand that the real problem with getting a hack who apparently hadn't read Gore's book to review it is that WaPo editors should stop hiring oppo hacks to review books by liberals. That is, on the rare occasion when the Post actually bothers to have reviews of books by liberals.
Shocking photographs.
She just had to write something. Prose Before Hos.
Got any spare change? Katha Pollitt knows something good you can do with it.
Bob Harris watches The end of The Sopranos. (Thanks to HP.)
Trailer for Sicko.
The theramin bra.
01:49 BST
Sunday, 17 June 2007
A bunch of stuff
A group of CIA officers have written to the RNC to tell them to stop lying and excusing the illegal exposure of Valerie Plame. (via)
In typical fashion for the Bushistas, when Fredo Gonzales gets caught in a conspiracy of lawbreaking, his answer is to try to make it look normal by making it formal and doing it more. Also predictably, Petraeus endorses the Bush model - says we won't know if the surge has worked until September, and likes the Korea plan.
Your Talking Dog tries to make sense of the latest stenography in the NYT, and also wonders why Harry Reid wants to work overtime to help Bush pass his corporatist immigration bill.
Victoria Gotti, disgusted with still being hounded by the press, thinks the media should be obsessed with "that mob in Washington" instead - and Frank Rich can see her point. Via Quiddity, who reckons "Looking for an 'honest conservative' is a fool's errand."
Helen Thomas doesn't think Bush is on the frontlines (with added color by Maru). (Also, this.) And via Maru, Julian Beaver's wonderful pavement drawings - the 3-D illusions are really rather impressive, and it's fascinating when he shows you how it's done.
Patrick has it Sidelighted as "Astonishing Vietnamese theme park" - and it is.
Beauty Tip of the Day, via Biomes Blog.
These triffids are growing in my garden but I don't know what they are. I'm beginning to think they were a bit much for a garden that size. Can anyone identify them?
18:40 BST
Feed your head
Army Times: "The airman's dress blues are faded; the footlocker he carried through three tours in Vietnam has gone to rust. Yet the epitaph he chose to mark his grave is as fresh as the morning headlines: "When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."
Better Deeds: "Here's a snapshot of the quality of loans made by two kinds of lenders to aspiring homebuyers who are financially strapped: The record for the first kind of lender is that one out of every five or six borrowers are late on payments, and foreclosure rates are rising. For the second kind of lender, at the most one in 20 borrowers pay late, and foreclosure rates are holding steady. Which group do you want lending your money or financing your home purchase? Obviously, the second kind. And yet if you picked them, you'd be running against the tide of American capitalism." Because the second kind are non-profits. Via Suburban Guerrilla.
Hitchens defends Marx in the Guardian: "But when journalists today are feeling good about themselves, and sitting through the banquets at which they give each other prizes and awards, they sometimes like to flatter one another by describing their hasty dispatches as "the first draft of history". Next time you hear that tone of self-regard, you might like to pick up Dispatches for the New York Tribune and read the only reporter of whom it was ever actually true." (Thanks to ks.)
Think Progress has posted video of Michael Moore talking about healthcare on Oprah, with a clip from his film, Sicko.
12:50 BST
Blogging notes
Rigby & Peller Juliette full cup underwired bra
Bra of the Week
Speaking of breasts, I see people are getting pretty embarrassed at some of the fatwas that have been announced in Egypt, lately.
Arthur Silber has a post made up of newspaper stories about censorship of a play at a highschool, and letters of complaint about the principal's refusal to allow it because he found it too controversial. The letters include one from native son Ira Levin, who says he is not surprised to learn that the town he based The Stepford Wives on has a Stepford principal. But perhaps the worst part of the story is a quote from a student who says that the theater class was the only place in school they were allowed to talk about the war - they weren't even allowed to bring it up in their current events class. Boy, that's one twitchy principle.
An American citizen was deported to Mexico by officials who didn't bother to check his citizenship and turned him over to Mexican authorities - and then he disappeared. His family still can't find him.
It's Not Your Money You Know - Confiscation laws make it dicey to have any significant amount of your own money on you, and the cops have an incentive to search you even if they know you have the money legitimately.
Kung Fu Monkey is reminded that the ending of The Sopranos could have been much worse.
The map of Middle Earth, Europe. (Thanks, Rich.)
01:06 BST
Saturday, 16 June 2007
Dinner links
Like I keep telling you, There is no such thing is a conservative think tank - and Rick Perlstein has the goods: "Our good Senator Sessions says Heritage's nobly helping to "encourage widespread debate and discussion." Yeah, right. Here's how the Heritage Foundation invites "debate and discussion": by issuing ideological dictates in boldface type. Remember, rewarding lawbreakers with an amnesty is wrong."
The trouble with a private/public competition on healthcare, Ezra Klein points out, is that commercial interests will graft their way into winning it.
A conservative group is trying to get candidates to pledge not to wiretap without a judge's approval - Mitt Romney has refused, and they have declared him "unfit to serve as president." But they're especially worried about putting the power of a runaway executive into Hillary Clinton's hands.
The teacher who was sentenced to 40 years in jail because, through no fault of hers, a computer in the classroom was infected with a virus and subject to porn pop-ups, has been granted a new trial. Also: Jeremy Allison on Why DRM won't ever work, and why engineers must say no to it.
Bill Moyers, "Begging His Pardon: We have yet another remarkable revelation of the mindset of Washington's ruling clique of neoconservative elites -- the people who took us to war from the safety of their Beltway bunkers. Even as Iraq grows bloodier by the day, their passion of the week is to keep one of their own from going to jail." (via)
In case you were wondering, this is how they are replacing the late Senator Craig Thomas in Wyoming.
Natasha, in a post full of links: "What the 'Christian' hard right wants, in case you didn't already know, is to follow forcing everyone to live by their rules with the end of the world."
Bill Gibson: "I think that's one of those *very* basic things that have recently changed on us. References used to be there to be "gotten" more than Googled. Google edges reference (in the "knowing" conversational sense) ever closer to name-checking and shout-out. Everything has already migrated halfway to hyperlink."
17:54 BST
Stormy weather
We keep having these two-minute rainstorms, sometimes punctuated by bright sunshine. Hmph.
Dave Lindorff has a list of ten important stories that the media is mostly failing to cover. The amazing thing is that despite the news blackout, most Americans, without any help from our media, have figured out on their own that George Walker Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney should be impeached and removed from office. And the media doesn't want to tell you that, either.
Lenin reviews Sicko: "However, if there is one thing that stands out in this film, it is how ruthless and brutal the American ruling class really is. It is unmistakable: they are the master race, and they're out for every last cent. [...] The conclusion is that one must be as ruthless as they are to get even the slightest penny back from them. Most of those in the film who did get ruthless did so in a highly individualistic fashion, through their lawyers, and left the system intact. What is obviously needed is for the kind of single-minded determination and class solidarity that American CEOs display to be shown on the streets and in workplaces."
Jamison Foser: "If there's a more pointless word in political journalism than "authentic," it must be "electable." Like "authenticity," "electability" is little more than a catch-all that allows the speaker to express his or her approval for, or disapproval of, a candidate in seemingly definitive terms, based on ... anything at all."
The Most Busted Name in News - MediaBloodhound is on the case.
It's kind of a rerun, but still...Gerberization. Sorry, I just find it hilarious.
Bob Geiger's Saturday cartoon post.
Aussiegall takes some great pictures.
16:01 BST
Morning trawl
I generally like Matt Tabbai's stuff in Rolling Stone a lot, but sometimes he has Maureen Dowd's disease and sounds like a real jackass. He thinks, for example, that this is a criticism of the left: "The sad truth is that if the FBI really is following anyone on the American left, it is engaging in a huge waste of time and personnel." Yes, Matt, that's the point - they are spying on innocent bystanders and harmless cranks, which is indeed a massive waste of time. (Hey, are you suggesting that the FBI should instead be following economic populist activists or something? Union-busting? Spying on Nathan Newman?) Do you get that this article is written in such a way that its good points are completely obscured by a load of garden-variety liberal-bashing that might just as easily have emerged from the GOP? Jerk. And, as someone in comments at The Mahablog observed, "Everything this essay accuses liberals of applies equally to conservatives."
If I ever needed evidence that conservatives are stupid, it's nailed down in a second with the suggestion that putting paper in a a different bag from cans is debilitatingly time-consuming.
Another one bites the dust at the DOJ: "Elston and his attorney have denied the allegations."
Combat Trauma: Injured Vets Find Scant Concern, Little Care, but LOTS of "Command Hostility".
Edwards writes FCC while Hillary & Obama play in the Mud: "One candidate however, is actually focusing on what really matters to some of us. John Edwards writes the FCC on Net Neutrality. "
Two countries united by mutual corruption: "It'll be darkly funny if the US Department of Justice does decide to indict and then seek to extradite someone from the UK in connection with the alleged payments from BAE to Prince Bandar, because Tony Blair's eagerness to send UK citizens to the US for white collar prosecutions has already established all the relevant legal principles."
Freeway Blogger has some updates From Our Founding Fathers.
11:56 BST
Assorted stuff
Tony Blair blames the media - especially the Internet: "Tony Blair hinted today at new restrictions on internet journalism, saying online news coverage had become "more pernicious and less balanced" than traditional political reporting."
I don't think I know many women who would find this useful as pornography. Sure, we all like a partner who is thoughtful, but making guys do the housework is only for those of a particular taste - and speciality prostitutes. Via JasonC, who also has a useful list of stories our "journalists" can pursue next.
Echidne on Pope Benedict and His Boys, and on Dan Rather, Katie Couric, and Rush Limbaugh.
Dave Johnson has another Overton's Window post at Seeing the Forest.
The Yes Men are at it again on energy policy.
Just what's going on with the Obama campaign, anyway? (Although, I would point out, Cisco is becoming a Chinese company....)
Time to order this T-shirt for the 4th of July.
01:25 BST
Friday, 15 June 2007
After-dinner links
Hans von Spakovsky apparently believes that violating two Constitutional amendments doesn't actually break the law. Bradley Schlozman thinks that people like Spakovsky are "good Americans", unlike those in the Civil rights division who were, um, funny-colored women.
Sidney Blumenthal does some quoting about the Libby pardon campaign: "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."
Have I mentioned lately that one of the things I've never forgiven Bill Clinton for is giving the axe to Jocelyn Elders? She was right, after all. Now we get a Surgeon General nominee with an obsession with homosexuality. More from Adult Video News's editor, Mark Kernes: Commentary: Just What We Need...Another Bigot in the Cabinet.
Two things Cabearie really hates are earmarks and federal grants to faith-based programs. Just think what happens when the two of them get together.
"We have earned the hatred of entrenched greed." - FDR, 1936 State of the Union address.
20:34 BST
Candidate horror stories
Robert Scheer has a warning for anyone who is talking about backing "any Democrat" who can win, "'President' Lieberman: A Cautionary Tale: What if Al Gore had won the 2000 presidential election but died in office? Would President Joe Lieberman have been worse than George W. Bush? His recent actions suggest that he could have descended even lower in his illogical and immoral responses to the tragedy of 9/11. Although now an independent, Lieberman provides a cautionary tale for folks who talk of backing "any Democrat" who can win." I gotta say, I'm pretty uncomfortable with some of the people we elected last year based, apparently, on the fact that they happened to be vets who happened to be running as Democrats. And Hillary is not looking that good to me.
In other things to fear, No More Mister Nice Guy looks at the two Republican candidates who sound most like each other and wonders, "Giuliani/Lieberman '08?"
18:21 BST
Make it stop
You're having a reasonably good day, you have things planned out for a change and are working to schedule, and then you click on a link at Eschaton and find yourself reading something like this:
People can not understand how great armed forces, like the and marines, can not help restoring electricity, water not even cell phones so people can cooperate with the authorities at least.
Please don't let the people remember your country in this way; making cities full with cemeteries more than it is already (some people in Fallujah buried their sons in their home gardens in 2004).
It is unfair to my people in Fallujah. It is unfair thing to do to the mothers of the soldiers who thought that they are sending their beloved sons to help millions of Iraqis. It is unfair thing to do to the good American citizens that I knew and met.
Please help not to change the name of Fallujah to the city of cemeteries.
In the comments, peterboy wrote:
no recess for congress this summer until they pass the get-out-of-iraq vote.
no recess.
no recess.
men and women are dying. no vacation.
no recess.
You like to think we can stay and fix the electricity and the water and the phones but you know we won't and you just want to scream for them to get out get out get out so at least they can pick up the pieces for themselves. They couldn't do any worse than what we're doing for them.
I have to go dry my face.
17:00 BST
Today's Air America post
I was just over at the Rachel Maddow fans' blog and noticed they've posted the Air America re-launch video, which moved me to horrified fascination as it went from everyone else talking about what AAR is meant to add to the airwaves to some self-indulgent crap from Lionel who apparently thinks actually trying to create a real alternative for progressives is, um, boring. I think it's mighty strange that no one noticed him repudiating everything AAR is supposed to be about in their re-launch video.
The site also has Keith and Rachel discussing the FCC obscenity ruling, a topic you might have expected me to address sooner. Actually, I didn't have much to say about it, though I must say there is a certain delightful irony that, in a world where the right is constantly attacking liberals for our "vulgarity", it's the unrestrained uncouthness of right-wing politicians and commentators that really seems to have moved this thing. However, I also want to say that even if Cheney hadn't used the particular language he used and had said, "Get stuffed!" instead, it is still indefensible to address a Senator that way while discussing the nation's business on the Senate floor.
Rachel's latest Campaign Asylum video is at Alternet, where she muses on Mike Huckabee's problem with miniskirts. Personally, I think we can do without legislators who want to restrict the personal expression of others to prevent themselves from having Bad Thoughts.
On her show last night (which you can stream here until around 9:00 or 10:00 tonight), Rachel bemoaned the fact that she had actually done a post on the AAR front-page blog, and it was bumped immediately by something more controversial. Rachel wrote about was the fact that, since it's unlikely we will attack Iran for having made pornography a death penalty offense, they're trying to gin up other reasons - but they're still not working out too well. (She then went on to discuss the same thing on her show.)
The post that bumped Rachel's, by the way, was from Lionel himself, attacking listeners for not being able to engage in "critical thinking" because they didn't appreciate his bringing Bill Donohue to AAR to tell his lies and spread his hate. Unsurprisingly, Amanda Marcotte went after this one with brightly-colored flames (really- there's a neat picture) - especially to a claim that Donohue doesn't try to get people fired for disagreeing with him.
16:10 BST
Security circus
Bruce Schneier presents a Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot: "The recently publicized terrorist plot to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport, like so many of the terrorist plots over the past few years, is a study in alarmism and incompetence: on the part of the terrorists, our government and the press."
The Crone Speaks about "Why I'm Such A Bitch on the Privacy Issue" when she learns again that the FBI has been breaking the law, and observes that while they've been illegally spying on people who are obviously harmless, real domestic terrorists aren't even in their sights.
14:09 BST
Dress-up boys
Ezra says that the liberal hawks are edging away from having to admit they were just wrong all the way down the line about Iraq by, essentially, embracing the next war - with Iran. It seems that people might miss the need to attack Iran because they have "overlearned" the lessons of Iraq, which lessons they seem to think have to do with having bungled the war and occupation rather than that it's stupid to start unnecessary wars in the first place.
This is a replay of the "Vietnam syndrome" ploy, where we pretend that people have simply been burned by the last war and are therefore war-shy even when war is necessary. This might be a good argument if we had any evidence of this syndrome affecting people when war is necessary, but we haven't actually had mass opposition to a necessary war to test it on. Even if you don't believe that Kosovo, the Gulf War, or Afghanistan were necessary wars, there is not much evidence that there was much objection to those wars by the people who opposed the present adventure in Iraq. Indeed, the strongest resistance to Kosovo was from the same people who are now such ardent supporters of staying in Iraq. Al Gore, who strongly argued against the current enterprise, was a supporter of the previous Gulf War. Only about ten percent of Americans opposed going into Afghanistan after 9/11, whereas considerably more opposed invading Iraq and now those who recognize the folly of Bush's Crusade exceed seventy percent.
You might think the argument is about whether some people love all wars and some can tell the difference, but Kosovo demonstrates that it's not even that simple. Yes, it's true that there do seem to be people who never met a war they didn't like, but despite the current rhetoric, we've seen that there are other prejudices in play. The liberal hawk types always seem to have a need to show they are Brave and Manly warmongers (as long as they don't actually have to fight), and there are people who are purely partisan on either end - they will defend a war launched by a member of their party and oppose one launched by a president from the other party.
The rest of us, however, would prefer to know that our resources are spent to good purpose, and especially that our military power and the lives of our troops will not be wasted on stupidity. Since the risks of any war being stupid are very high, these means we ask many, many questions first and don't just wet ourselves when someone says "mushroom cloud".
The argument for attacking Iran is presumably to prevent a nuclear war between the west and a Muslim country. And we want to do this, apparently, by launching a nuclear war between the west and a Muslim country. I shouldn't have to explain that this makes no sense.
And I wonder just how good Musharaf's already precarious control of Pakistan would be if the United States did attack Iran; it has potential to be the proverbial straw on the camel's back. There are both democratic forces and extremist Muslim forces in Pakistan who object to Musharaf's having taken over the country in a coup - and chances are that if anyone disrupts his government, the people who take over will be the more violent and extreme. There are reasons to worry about this.
Meanwhile, the liberal hawks go on talking about how we have to attack Iran as if George Bush were not still sitting in the White House. Yes, they say, Iraq worked out badly because Bush mismanaged it so - but who do they think will be managing any attack on Iran? If they honestly believe that the problem in Iraq was the Bush-Cheney management style, how can they even risk talking about a potential threat from Iran when those people are still running the show and champing at the bit for an excuse to attack Iran precipitously?
For the last 35 years I've watched men complain that, unlike their fathers who fought in "the Good War" against the Third Reich, they didn't get a chance to show their manly stuff, because Vietnam was a bad war, which they had no choice but to resist. And now they think they can redeem their manhood by letting another generation of young people go fight a "good war" for them in the Middle-East - which they, of course, will be fighting from the same distance they fought the "bad war" from.
I'm sick of watching these so-called liberals try to exorcise their sexual identity problems with macho displays in which they insist others should serve as their proxies so they can show us what butch guys they really are.
Look, if you believe in sending other people off to fight for you, it doesn't matter whether you have a good war or a bad one. You had as much reason to fight in Vietnam as today's troops ever had to be fighting in Iraq, and if you didn't go then, there's no reason they should go now. Attacking Iran won't make up for the mess you've made in Iraq, and it still won't "make you a man". You like war? Go fight in one. Otherwise, you're still just a desk-jockey; you will never be a warrior.
12:47 BST
The Manly Men are at it again
Since they have a tendency to disappear, I've given Gene Lyons' column on Hardball homoeroticism, "Republicans have locked up the pundit vote," a permanent home at my emergency weblog. Not only is it good, but it actually quotes Digby. More on that subject from Glenn Greenwald, who reproduces a totally icky quote from Chris Matthews. I knew there had to be someone who liked English Leather and Aqua Velva....
01:35 BST
Thursday, 14 June 2007
Please stop digging
Max Sawicky:
The lack of a veto-proof majority is irrelevant. Congress appropriates funds. No funds, no policy. It takes affirmative action to continue a war. Congress has stood up to be counted, and they have said let's have some more war. Veto-proof majorities are very rare. If that's what you're looking forward to, you had better be prepared for a long wait.
David Sirota on Partisan War Syndrome:
The disease is simple to understand: It leads the supposedly "ideological" grassroots left to increasingly subvert its overarching ideology on issues in favor of pure partisan concerns. That may sound great at first glance. Democratic Party officials always talk about a need for "big tent unity" and subsequently try to downplay ideology. But as a trait of the grassroots and not just the party, Partisan War Syndrome could be positively devastating not just for issue advocacy, but also for Democrats' political aspirations as well.
The only voices that grasp this basic truth right now are Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Ron Paul. Clinton, Obama, and Edwards have a realistic chance to be president, so they are consumed with the need to convince elites that they will carry on the blood-soaked tradition in U.S. foreign policy.
For the time being as far as national electoral politics is concerned, the peace-makers are the ones who deserve elevation, for the sake of public enlightenment. Grass roots anti-war action should be channeled to primary campaigns in the same vein. There will still be plenty of time to vote for somebody you don't like.
The perversity of the habit among some netroots to slime Kucinich should now be clear. Pragmatic considerations compel some self-styled progressives to attack those proposing the politically untenable and defend Democratic gains in Congress. Problem is, the Congressional Democrats believe that ending the war by denying it funds is politically untenable. So the anti-war netroots are gagging on their own tail.
Here's a wildly impractical, radical ultra-communist thought: do the right thing and get out of Iraq, and trust the people to duly reward you at the polls.
Yes. Just yes.
15:39 BST
Things I was distracted from last night
Sketch generator, via this blog, via Elayne Riggs.
The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America is a Myth: "This report by the Campaign for America's Future and Media Matters for America shows that in study after study, solid majorities of Americans take progressive stands on a full spectrum of issues, from bread-and-butter economics to the so-called "values" issues where conservatives claim preeminence."
I really do think these Retalibans have an especially warped sexuality, whichever way they swing.
In 1992, Gore condemned the Herbert Bush administration for enabling Saddam's brutal treatment of his people and his region - and now the right-wingers are leaping on this as proof that Gore is just a craven opportunist. Steve Benen cuts through the mud: "But the argument doesn't withstand any real scrutiny. Gore was right in both instances - Bush 41 was wrong to repeatedly cooperate with and reach out to a brutal dictator, and Bush 43 was wrong to launch an unnecessary war under false pretenses and then bungle the conflict every step of the way. The right sees a contradiction here. There isn't."
Henry Waxman to Lurita Doan "I have to say, this is my opinion, but it's unusual for me to ever call for the resignation of a federal official. But in your case, I don't see any other course of action that will protect the interests of your agency and the federal taxpayer. No one can be an effective leader who has abused the trust of her employees, and threatened to deny promotions and bonuses to employees for telling the truth. And no one can be an effective leader who has lost the public's confidence, politicizing the agency and violating the federal Hatch Act, yet that is exactly what you have done."
It would be nice if Dick Morris were as smart as Pancho Villa. (And: Really? That T-shirt?)
Half a million names on a terrorist watch list? I can't help the feeling that these people just are not taking the issue seriously at all. What you definitely don't do if you're trying to stop terrorism is create a really big haystack to search through for that needle. But that's just what they're planning to do - six billion records? That's not too many!
Paradox: "They are not Americans as we know them. Our laws and norms mean nothing to them, so our methods of shame and shunning are useless--how else could Gonzo still be there? In our softly fascist American system Bush and the Republicans do respond to pressure and events, but never, ever at the hands of their opponents--unless brute political power forces them to."
Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy would have liked MC Hammer's song better if it had been more honest about why those kids are over there getting killed.
But you probably guessed what I was distracted by... again.
12:33 BST
Wednesday, 13 June 2007
And what's with all the carrots?
Digby responds to an article which was, astonishingly, written by Barack Obama's general counsel: "But it appears that this is actually something more and it's beginning to smell very ugly to me. The political and media establishment are making an explicit argument that high level Republicans really should be held to a lower standard than other Americans --- the exact opposite of the argument they made in the Clinton impeachment, where they insisted that a non-material lie about a private sexual matter in a dismissed case was so important that it required a duly elected and successful president be removed from office. Perhaps the problem is simply that the it's a capitol full of lawyers, who tailor their arguments for each individual case. Unfortunately, the only client seems to be the Republican party." IOKIYAR.
Frankly, I don't even understand why a Democrat would want to go out in public and defend the idea of pardoning Libby, but it's completely nuts to believe that suddenly, after ignoring everything else, all of government and media will rise up to condemn Bush for pardoning Libby and finally decide to hold Bush accountable. Especially after even Democrats have been running around saying Libby should be pardoned. Who, exactly, are these people who will suddenly stand up and see the light? The same ones who thought torture and illegal wiretaps weren't anything to get upset about? Please. I'm with Scott on this: There is no upside to Bush pardoning Libby, and there's a big downside to anyone suggesting that he should. More from Jeff Lomonaco.
Thank John Conyers and Patrick Leahy for fighting for our country.
Jeralyn didn't like the ending of The Sopranos.
Levitating islands (Thanks to Rich for the tip.)
23:50 BST
Blog notes
As of 2001, the Muslim world - even including the ones who had once been intrigued by Al Qaeda - had had enough of their violence. And by 12 September of 2001, most Muslims were completely disgusted with Al Qaeda's violence. Of course, things have moved on since then, but isn't it good that Thomas Friedman has noticed what most Muslims already knew?
The nomination of yet another voter-suppressing GOP hack is headed for hearings. It never hurts to let your Senators know that you see no reason to confirm any of Bush's appointments unless he appoints real, normal people who aren't engaged in criminal activities.
This is the post Mudcat Saunders should have started with, but at least he got around to it eventually. Garance Franke-Ruta, I think, misinterprets the source of the problem. It's actually not a terrific idea to introduce yourself by telling your audience that you don't like them and don't care what they think. Once Saunders got the message that his audience wasn't whoever it was he thought they were, he changed his tune and started talking about issues. That's a good thing.
Arianna has a big rant about the disaster of the Iraq funding vote, "Democratic Dinosaurs Turn D.C. into the Land That Time Forgot."
16:36 BST
Tuesday, 12 June 2007
Blind pigs and acorns
There've been a couple of times I've heard right-wing nuts say things that are true, but not the way they mean. Rush Limbaugh actually came up with a good phrase - "our drive-by media" - that truly does describe what our media does: It gives us stories (often buried deep in the paper) and then lets them disappear again, never lets them get legs, even when they are important.
In Limbaugh's case, he's talking about stories that never get anywhere because even our lame media knows there's nothing to them, but we all know that some very real, very important stories have been given the same treatment, from numerous aspects of the 2000 election/Selection to the Downing Street Memo and so many others. They tried to sweep the outing of Valerie Plame under the carpet and are still trying to pretend it wasn't a big deal, they've apparently forgotten that two Democratic Senators and even members of their own profession were targets of anthrax attacks and some people died, and they still can't seem to remember that the "evidence" that was used to gin up the war was a forgery that had to come from somewhere (that probably has a trail coming from the office of the vice president). In our contextless news world, it's easy to avoid making sense of any of it.
George Bush had a period of saying something that was true, although he made it sound all wrong because he didn't really mean it. He said that freedom was given to us by God.
Now, I don't mean that freedom was given to us by God - in practice, we only have freedom when human beings arrange for us to have it - but according to The Declaration of Independence:
Of course, if you believe that, then you would have to believe that the Geneva Conventions and the rights enumerated (and those not enumerated) in The Bill of Rights are the entitlement of every single person in the world, no matter where they are born. Under George Bush, however, the Bill of Rights is shredded, and the Geneva Conventions are null and void. It is unlikely that Bush does believe in a God-given right to freedom - for anyone other than himself.
23:41 BST
My favorite headlines
The exciting item on tonight's news is Bush extending his hand to be clasped by the crowd in Albania - and when it comes back, his watch is gone. They've already shown a clear clip of this happening, but of course, the White House is already lying about it.
Paul Kiel, yesterday: "As the vote draws near, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) made it simple this afternoon: Republicans have no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but they're not going to vote that way, because that would hand a victory to Democrats. For his part, Specter is a reluctant supporter of the resolution, he said -- but don't expect others to follow him." God forbid they should "hand Democrats a victory", even if they have to hand the American form of government a defeat to avoid that fate.
Schlozman `Clarifies' Sworn Testimony Over Election-Timed Voter Fraud Case - Funny, he seemed so sure that he was just following orders, but now he takes "full responsibility" for the decision to violate the rules to forward those prosecutions right before an election.
20:38 BST
Political stew
Steve Benen has a post up at TPM discussing how the K Street Project is foundering now that Democrats are in charge. I actually thought it was kind of funny: "The result is an awkward environment -- Republican lobbyists are completely lost in trying to figure out how to function in a Democratic Congress. Their perspective provides a good illustration of why having Dems run Congress actually makes a difference." That difference being that you can't just march into a Democrat's office and make a corporate pitch and expect it to sit well with Democratic ideology - a fact that apparently has caught all these Republican lobbyists off-guard. Seems they didn't realize that there actually are differences in ideology, and they aren't just about Teh Gay and abortion.
To me, the real American heartland is the original 13 colonies, so I've never quite understood why someone like the GOP or Mudcat Saunders would think this term should apply to the south or the midwest. I mean, why would you sneer at the part of the country where America was founded, where the Declaration of Independence was written and the Constitution was signed? But I guess that's just me. Mudcat is running around promoting his book, and Time gave him a week to blog at Swampland, with the initial result that he started off insulting northern and coastal liberals, which is a really good idea for a Democratic consultant. Apparently, though, he actually read the comment threads that ensued, and he has now delivered an apology and turned to the more productive path of actually talking about issues - but perhaps not in time to prevent alienating more Edwards voters.
David Neiwert has been watching Ron Paul for a long time - so long that he was at first surprised to see him suddenly getting so much mainstream attention. But most people don't realize just how far-right Paul really is: "Ron Paul may or may not be a racist -- and arguing about it is likely to end up nowhere. But what is unmistakably, ineluctably true about Ron Paul is that he is an extremist: a conspiracy theorist, a fear-monger, and an outright nutcase when it comes to monetary, tax, and education policy. The more believers and sympathizers he gathers, the worse off the rest of us will be."
The Senator with the Warmest Nose - Joe Lieberman (R-Likud) said in public that he wants to start a war with Iran.
16:33 BST
Monday, 11 June 2007
Holding pattern
I've become ennervated by the fact that I somehow got hypnotized into writings that included Paris Hilton. I have to reboot my brain. Here's a few things to read while I wash it out:
"Appeals Court Rules Cops Can Steal Cars and Lie to Victims To Conduct a Warrantless Search" at Wired.
Eric Boehlert has an update to his piece on Ajami's creepy article: "TNR's Marty Peretz has declares Ajami's "Fallen Soldier" column to be "ethically unimpeachable" and "a document of our time." Well, that settles it."
A Simple, Progressive Replacement for the AMT: "The individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) was originally an add-on tax intended to assure that high income people paid at least some tax. It has morphed and mutated over time, and now is on track to hit 23 million households in 2007. This note describes an option that would return the AMT by repealing the AMT and replacing it with an add-on tax of four percent of adjusted gross income (AGI) above $100,000 for singles and $200,000 for couples. It is a simple, approximately revenue neutral over the ten-year budget window and highly progressive."
J. Goodrich on The Forced Birth Movement, and Ezra Klein examines further evidence that David Brooks is a cabbage.
Media news from Make Them Accountable.
"Save Your Outrage for Those Who Need It."
The Chance for Peace - speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953.
22:40 BST
Almost infamous
Naturally, Joe Klein had to add his name to the list of people who can't understand that Libby is a criminal. And he really gets the similarities between Paris Hilton and Scooter Libby wrong:
Neither Paris nor Scooter would be facing jail time if they weren't part of "a certain group of people," namely celebrities.
I. Lewis Libby is not a "celebrity", he is a public servant - or is at least supposed to be. Paris Hilton does not work for me, but Scooter Libby does, and he's been sabotaging my country. He wasn't very much of a celebrity, actually, until he became the chief of staff of the vice president of the United States, a job he chose to take. And he still wasn't much of a celebrity (most people don't even know the names of people who hold those positions - the press has decided to put a greater spotlight on Karl Rove than is normal for a chief of staff, even to the president, but a lot of people don't even know what his job is even if they have heard of him) before he was exposed as a leaker of classified information and got busted for lying about it.
In Hilton's case, if she were another, less famous rich girl, say the daughter of a prominent Beverly Hills orthodontist, the court might have given her a stiff fine for get caught DUI while on probation, maybe some community service and sentenced her to rehab.
That much is true, and it's also true that Hilton did not originally seek out her celebrity - it was thrust upon her when someone uploaded what was supposed to be a very private video onto the Internet. Her current situation is a response to the fact that she instantly became the world's most famous unintentional porn star, and I could almost feel bad for her if it weren't for the fact that she probably wasn't relying on her reputation as a virgin to enhance her future employment opportunities, anyway. She's rich, it doesn't matter if people think she's a slut. It's a shame that she no longer has the opportunity to make stupid decisions in private like most of us could at that age, but when you know the whole world is watching you constantly, it's probably a bad idea to blatantly, publicly, flout the law.
But jail time for Hilton, however "unfair," strikes me as a public service--it is exemplary: It sends the message, as Gilmore suggests, that even rich twits can't avoid the law.
Sure, and that's not a bad message to send - if it's true. If it's not, the public should be outraged that the rule of law is being undermined and that the law is unjust. But throwing the occasional rich woman to the wolves in lieu of the more powerful men who are committing far greater crimes doesn't actually make me feel all that much more reassured.
If he weren't "Dick Cheney's hatchet man", he would not have been in a position to commit such a serious crime. However, Joe Klein wants us to believe that people you've never heard of don't go to jail for perjury. This is simply not true. (I was once excluded from a jury for just such a case.)
Klein says he enjoyed the trial and was glad some of the information that came out was exposed.
Speak for yourself, rich man.
Yes, I want our tax dollars to be spent demonstrating that a public servant will be punished for undermining the security of the United States. I want our criminal justice system to say loud and clear that when we pay people to protect and defend the Constitution, we do not allow them to instead jeopardize national security for partisan purposes.
Another false comparison. This perjury case does not exist because partisans wanted to "get" I.L. Libby in the same way that Republicans wanted to get Bill Clinton; it was not a set-up for a perjury trap. Nor does this perjury case exist merely because Libby is "somebody famous".
This perjury case exists because a real crime occurred and when it was being investigated Libby turned out to have been party to the crime and to have lied about the substance of that crime to the FBI and a grand jury. That, unlike Bill Clinton's (alleged) lie, is the essence of real, criminal perjury.
Sentence Libby to community service--at Walter Reed Hospital, where he can spend his days contemplating the broken victims of his ideological arrogance.
Only after he's served a couple of years in prison, during his parole - and only if he also has to live in the same substandard conditions as the patients who are housed there.
[Update: I meant to point out that if Libby were a Democrat, no one - and I mean no one - would have been arguing whether or not Libby should get jail or a pardon; they'd be arguing about whether Libby should get jail or be executed for treason. It should also be remembered that Clinton's prosecutors were highly-partisan Republicans, while Fitzgerald is not a Democrat, but a Republican appointee. I don't know why I didn't remember to stress these points more, but while I was doing that, Glenn Greenwald beat me to the punch, and thus Klein has already won the coveted Wanker of the Day award.]
[Further update: My commenters advise me that even my weak defense of Paris Hilton is incorrect; she may not have sought this kind of celebrity, but she was initially a model who hadn't much been noticed, and this arrest and prosecution was a third strike. Be advised that, as a non-celebrity-watcher, I am the exception who actually knows more about the Libby case than about Paris Hilton.]
14:32 BST
Assorted nuts and bolts
One Million Blogs for Peace
The Economic Policy Institute has a good response to the claim that the antidote to increasing income inequality is more education, and I think they demonstrate pretty convincingly that, as I've been saying all along, it's just not true. As they point out, American worker productivity continues to rise, but wages have been stagnant for college-educated workers, and other workers' wages have been sinking: "Work-force skills can spur productivity growth which, in turn, increases national wealth, but skills cannot determine how that wealth is distributed. This is a function of policies over which schools have no influence: tax, regulatory, trade, monetary, technology, anti-discrimination, and labor market policies organize the demand for skilled workers and help determine how much they are paid. Continued upgrading of skills is essential for continued growth and especially for closing historic racial and ethnic income gaps but is no guarantee of economic success without policies to ensure that productivity gains are passed on to employees." (They also deal with the right-wing suggestion that the way to improve education is to raise teacher salaries by trading away their pension plans for something closer to the cat-food plan being suggested to replace Social Security by the privatizers.) (via)
Linkmeister (who is practically a member of the family, now), wants us to know that he said it in more detail and more succinctly about Ajami.
Robert Stein say Lieberman and Ahmadinejad can't match Bush and Cheney for sheer evil. In the old sense of the word, they are punks.
Another thrilling example of the ghastly writing in Left Behind generates an amusing comment thread at Slacktivist.
The one good thing about Rupert Murdoch. Sort of.
Paris Hilton: Only a pawn in their game.
Oops, I forgot to mention the excellent Saturday cartoons.
Why does Ms. Marvel have that ghastly costume? Also, can't someone give these artists a few copies of Playboy to practice drawing breasts? You'd think they'd never seen any before.
02:28 BST
Sunday, 10 June 2007
Things they said
I was in front of my TV when Mr. Sideshow, flipping through channels, paused long enough for me to see Colin Powell saying, "America, unfortunately, has two million people in jail, all of whom had lawyers and access to writs of habeas corpus. And so we can handle bad people in our system. And so I would get rid of Guantanamo and I'd get rid of the military commissions system, and use established procedures in federal law or in the manual for courts martial." And then the DVD Mr. Sideshow was setting up came on. However, C&L has the rest of it.
I suppose we should give kudos to Broder for noticing that Libby did commit real perjury and that allowing him to escape without punishment promotes lawlessness all the way down the line in society. On the other hand, he parrots the GOP lie about "the absence of any underlying crime" and promotes this one, as well: "This whole controversy is a sideshow -- engineered partly by the publicity-seeking former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife and heightened by the hunger in parts of Washington to 'get' Rove for something or other." No, Broderella, the Wilsons sought to expose criminal behavior in the White House, and as patriotic Americans, they had a right and an obligation to do so. To dismiss this as "publicity-seeking" and pretend that people want to "get" Rove for any reason other than because he continues to commit crimes is irresponsible and disgusting. Readers take him apart nicely in the comment thread, and Attaturk has more, citing another article right in the same newspaper detailing the myths about the case. (The wingnuts don't seem to have discovered that one, yet, and most of the comments are pretty sane. Drop by the thread and thank Carol D. Leonnig for writing it.) It's a pretty good article; Broder could start there if he's been ignoring all the other material about this very serious matter that he just can't bring himself to take seriously.
On The Errington Thompson Show, Thompson tries to absorb the vote on the Iraq funding bill. (Somebody tell me how to get that .mp3 player widget, I like that.)
20:33 BST
Tea time links
Steve Benen does a nice job on the reprehensible Ajami piece in the WSJ comparing convicted criminal I. Lewis Libby to our uniformed troops who serve honorably in the field.
For those who don't remember him from his controversial recess appointment last year to the Labor Relations Board so he could interfere with the rights of people who work for a living, Laura McGann introduces Peter Kirsanow, who also thinks stopping Daffy Duck from registering to vote is far, far more important than making sure Americans who have a right to vote are permitted to do so. Also , bonus video of Bradley Schlozman lying to Congress about getting the go-ahead to launch a voter-fraud case right before an election from Craig Donsanto, which seems unbelievable, since Donsanto has long been thoroughly opposed to doing so.
David Podvin writes: "John Lennon wrote, "Woman is the nigger of the world". Woman should be so lucky. She does not rank nearly that high, and she never has. A typical example recently arrived from the Supreme Court, which ruled that saving a female life is insufficiently relevant to justify performing a late term abortion. The justices stressed that although the lives of women are important, there exists a higher priority." But I think he is in error when he says, "From the liberal perspective, there is an extended litany of priorities more important than women's rights. And for conservatives, every priority is more important." On the contrary, there is no greater priority for the conservative movement than women's rights - that is, getting rid of them.
Hunt for Higgs.
16:44 BST
Theres always someone around you who will call
Aubade Promenade du Couchant half cup bra
Bra of the Week - on sale and still too expensive.
The laughs just keep on coming as Scott Lemieux considers the republicanism of Robert Bork. (And I see we missed celebrating a highlight in Worst American Birthdays when William Calley turned 64. Definitely go read this if you've forgotten the details. This is also the start of Colin Powell's illustrious career as a cover-up artist.)
Who says the administration never changes policy in Iraq? This is priceless: "For a while, part of the administration's war policy in Iraq was disarming sectarian militias. Now, U.S. forces are trying a different tack -- the opposite tack. [...] What could possibly go wrong?"
It's a good day to visit Happy Furry Puppy Story Time, where The Left ruminates on the suggestion that Bush is one of him, and Norbizness tries to remember good female characters in movies after Adrian Lyne instituted the Age of Misogyny. Also: the GOP debate summed up (and photoshopped).
I remember intending to link this one but now can't remember if I actually did: "Red to Blue: Confessions of a Former Loyal Bushie" - LarsThorwald at DKos on the curious journey. Thanks to Biomes Blog for the reminder, and for the tip on Bill Maher's bumper stickers.
The Velvet Underground, "Sunday Morning".
13:21 BST
Saturday, 09 June 2007
Items of interest
It sounds like John Edwards has learned from his mistakes, and he is not trying to distance himself from Danny Glover's support. And New Hampshire may be about to become the first state to overturn a parental notification law for minors seeking abortion. Via TPM Cafe.
Steve Clemons says good riddance to Peter Pace.
I laugh every time I see stories about how Jefferson claims the FBI gave him the money for a sting. It's a nice story, anyway.
Gary Farber and Scott McLeod discuss the administration's "helpful" aid to moderates in Iran that undermines their work, but I'm not sure they don't do that on purpose.
Paradox explains to Dr. Dean that the Dems need to promote their brand. They just have to remember what it is.
Download a pocket guide to eating fish that haven't been overfished and avoiding the ones that have.
23:26 BST
I keep forgetting this is going on, because it makes no sense whatsoever, but why the hell are the Democrats actually extending and voting more funds for abstinence-only miseducation?
In one inglorious motion, the Democrats have sold the health and well-being of young people down the proverbial drain, delivered a public slap in the face to evidence-based public health, and made a mockery of their "prevention first" message.
Consider this irony. The first domestic policy the Democrats will endorse on the prevention front will be to fund abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for young people up to the age of 29! Good work, gang. You make me proud to be a Democrat-NOT!
And consider this second irony. The Democrats will now become one of the largest funders of an ultra-conservative network that is clearly hostile to its policies and candidates (See an in-depth article in The Nation.)
This program is immoral and irresponsible on its face, just leaving aside that it is a right-wing crackpot scheme and a kick-back to fringe religious groups as well. The majority of parents in America want their kids to get real sex education, not enforced ignorance and lies. There is not one single tolerable excuse for the program's existence, and it is the shame of progressives everywhere that they - and elected Democrats - have not been screaming bloody murder about this outrageous misuse of taxpayers' money. Tell your Representative in the House that continuing Ignorance-Only is indefensible, and make sure your Senators know how you feel, too. (Via Mother Talkers.)
15:44 BST
Last night's links
The woman who "joined a women's prayer group whose members included Susan Baker, the wife of Reagan-Bush chief of staff/sec. of state James Baker, as well as the wife of the Washington Redskins chaplain who was also the minister of the McLean church where Kenneth Starr and other conservative Republican luminaries worship" - are you sure you want her to be president?
Cernig thinks Gates may be trying to do some rebuilding: "It seems plain to me that Mullen is being brought forward, in part, to clean house for Gates and consolidate his position at Defense by sweeping out all the old Rumsfeld hangovers. That won't please Cheney, who was always the closest to Rummie in White house circles as the two of them headed the neocon cabal. [...] Does anyone else get the impression that the real feud in the Bush administration in coming days won't be the much publicized Cheney-Rice spat but instead a Cheney-Gates one?"
Judge Walton appears to have a dry and biting wit.
Chris McGurk talks about serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and coming home.
What Bill Clinton Told Andy Ostroy About Al Gore
How to Impeach The President
A couple images.
12:16 BST
The paragon of animals
Some Races Are Just Not as Good as Others - Arthur Silber on the White Woman's/Man's Burden. Funny how the more we try to gift them with our superior enlightenment, the worse things get for them. I wonder if it means something.... Oh, it must be their fault.
Bruce Schneier (a delightful dinner partner), has a piece up on Childhood Risks: Perception vs. Reality, probably best read if you bear in mind that in 1976, the year all those child porn laws were passed because supposedly 300,000 children a year were kidnapped in the US in order to make child porn, the number of children actually kidnapped in the US was under 130. (And next time, you gotta come out here for some Indian grazing, Bruce.)
Based on their vote and their excuses on the subject, one could certainly get the idea that the Democratic Party's priorities put continuing the occupation above meeting the basic needs of Americans. Time to start pressuring your reps to support the Clinton-Byrd bill to de-authorize the Iraq adventure.
Dominic wrote a bit in this post about the MOD jamming GPS signals in violation of international law, the advisability of keeping the content you write for the web under your own control, and some other stuff that I thought was interesting.
Me, me, me, vote for me! It's not that I'm any better than the rest of them, but we're all good, so you might as well vote for me. I was probably here first, anyway. (But read them all.)
Another piece Rado and Ragni swiped from another famous poet, "What a Piece of Work is Man". (Not, alas, from the original recording.)
00:08 BST
Friday, 08 June 2007
We're the good guys
Just the little things that let you know how far we have come from the days of barbarism:
First, Hilzoy:
The evidence that our government held Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's sons is not conclusive, and I do not mean to suggest that it is. Still, if you had told me, six years ago, that I would find myself seriously entertaining the possibility that my own government had detained children more or less the same age, I would have thought you were insane. Disappearing people of any age, without charges or trial or anything, is what two-bit dictators do; not what we do. But disappearing children, not seventeen year olds about whom one might have interesting debates about when exactly childhood ends but seven- and nine-year olds -- that's so far across the line that it would have been unimaginable to me.
Skimble provides a little tidbit from behind the paywall at the WSJ, but even the first paragraph tells you all you really need to know:
Federal prosecutors are investigating the Kuwaiti company building the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, probing allegations that foreign employees were brought to work on the massive project against their will and prevented from leaving the country.
So, we're building the American embassy with slaves. I feel so proud. Well, at least they're investigating - but how could it happen in the first place?
18:32 BST
Things to check out
The other day I noticed that Robert Samuelson was telling fairy stories about income inequality and was going to stomp all over him for it, but I see via Kevin Drum that some of it is addressed here by Mark Thoma at Economist's View.
Paul Krugman watched the debates this week and couldn't help thinking about the campaign coverage in 2000. In "Lies, Sighs and Politics", he says, "For if there's one thing I hope we've learned from the calamity of the last six and a half years, it's that it matters who becomes president - and that listening to what candidates say about substantive issues offers a much better way to judge potential presidents than superficial character judgments. Mr. Bush's tax lies, not his surface amiability, were the true guide to how he would govern." (Read it for free here.)
At The Poor Man Institute, a study of "America's idiotic relationship to floodplains" in "New Orleans on the Sacramento".
At Slacktivist, Fred Clark examines George Will's call-out to the religious right to give it up on abortion and support Rudy Giuliani. Fred thinks Will is underestimating the role cognitive dissonance plays in how people choose their candidates, but he did have to take issue with one of the wingers Will quoted: "I shouldn't let this description of Rudy Giuliani as "the hero of 9/11" pass without comment. As mayor on Sept. 11, 2001, Giuliani did help to fill the leadership vacuum created by President Bush's imitation of "Brave Sir Robin." But what Giuliani actually did was this: He held a press conference. It was a very good press conference. He said much of what needed to be said in much the way it needed to be said. But for all of that, it was still just a press conference. Describing a press conference -- even a well executed one -- as "heroic" requires a rather stunted notion of what constitutes heroism. That stunted notion provides almost the entire basis for Giuliani's campaign." In fact, it provides much of the basis for everything that's been going on for the last seven years. Remember, Bush eventually stepped into his own vacuum to reclaim the "hero" mantle by standing on some rubble with a bullhorn and saying a lot of things he didn't mean. And then, rather than having the whole country rise up and demand to know how this lazy little drunk let 9/11 happen, we had months of hearing what a great and God-given miracle it was that Bush happened to be president at the time.
You know, it's really hard not to get the impression that Bush was drinking too much to play his role at the G8.
16:38 BST
Lawless world
One of the disquieting footnotes to the Whitewater circus was that Kenneth Starr subjected Susan MacDougal to extraordinary punishment for refusing to make up lies about Bill Clinton, and when a judge ordered that she be removed from murderer's row and treated in a manner more in keeping with her alleged crime of contempt, the prison authorities refused to do it, insisting that they took their orders from Ken Starr. Of course, they weren't supposed to do that, but they did it anyway.
There's a bit of the same thing going on in reverse in the Paris Hilton case, which Eugene Robinson writes of as the simple result of her having achieved super-celebrity status, but the fact remains that a Sheriff simply decided to directly countermand a judge's order and remove Hilton from jail before she had served her sentence because she whimpered a lot. (Can you imagine some unknown middle-class pot-smoker, let alone someone busted for a more serious crime, being allowed to leave prison and instead serve under house arrest because they "couldn't sleep"?)
Meanwhile, most of the Republican core seems to feel that breaking the law should be no barrier to getting off without so much as a slap on the hands when the culprit is Scooter Libby, who they all think should get amnesty on the grounds that, well, it's all irrelevant that he lied to the FBI and the grand jury about the fundamental facts of a crime. The Washington Post even had a front page story the other day which spoke of possible political consequences for Bush if he should take such a step, but put little effort into discussing the damage such behavior does to the rule of law. Even talking about pardoning Libby should be treated as outrageous - he clearly broke the law and should be held responsible. The GOP argument that no one was prosecuted for an underlying crime is ridiculous, since there is every reason to think that Libby was lying to cover up that crime, and that his lying was effective in doing so. It is not unreasonable to assume that if Libby had told the truth, both Karl Rove and Dick Cheney might have ended up in the dock.
(This is very different, by the way, from Clinton allegedly lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, since he was charged with sexually harassing Paula Jones. There is not the slightest shred of evidence that he did sexually harass Jones, let alone lie about it. Clinton did not lie to conceal an underlying crime.)
Howie at Down With Tyranny! wonders if the Paris Hilton event is a model for not bothering to hold The Right People to account when they break the law, but I think the model is much older - Nixon, Iran-Contra - and there's no reason to expect that pattern to change, especially since there is so great a risk that Libby will start whimpering, too, and say all the wrong things. Most mobsters have to use a different remedy for this sort of thing, but wouldn't they just love to be president so they can just pardon anyone to keep them from testifying against them?
(Of course, if the GOP is really worried about the political consequences of a pardon, they can always go back to the more traditional method, to stop Bush from embarrassing them by giving Libby amnesty. But I think they're pretty well past embarrassment and not likely to bother.)
13:28 BST
The ultimate conservative
Glenn Greenwald has more on the fact that The Republican Party is the party of Bush, even though most of them are trying to distance themselves from him now because nobody likes him and even some conservatives have noticed that he hasn't exactly upheld the alleged principles of conservatism.
The problem of course, is that Bush has upheld the principles of the conservative movement, and all of these so-called conservatives who are suddenly so disappointed in him had been cheering him on all along while he did all these things they supposedly didn't like. And the thing is, they still haven't repudiated the actual policies - just the outcome.
For example, none of these people are complaining about the fact that he lowered taxes in wartime, an unprecedented policy in all of history. They can complain all they like that he hasn't been "fiscally conservative", but they not only supported his war and his tax cuts, but they refused to so much as question the fact that he ran it in the most expensive way imaginable - not just pseudo-privatizing the functions of the armed services, but actually giving the private companies they outsourced to incentives to overspend and generally waste resources. (And they let him force them to pass the drug-benefit bill with a clause forbidding negotiations to keep prices down.)
I say "pseudo-privatizing" because outsourcing government functions but still paying for them from the tax base isn't real privatization, it's socializing it at a higher price. Actually privatizing the invasion and occupation of Iraq would mean that you told all the people who wanted to invade Iraq to go do it themselves. They could club together and raise an army on their own dime and leave the taxpayer out of it. But they didn't do that - they raided the US treasury instead.
It's all very well to say in hindsight that Bush didn't run the war and occupation competently, that there should have been more troops at the outset, that we somehow should have warred harder or whatever it is they think would have been "competent", but what none of them are saying is that (a) you would have needed a draft to have enough troops to do it up right, (b) this would have been even more expensive, and (c) outsourcing to private firms was still too expensive. They aren't complaining about the lack of a draft, and they have never complained about the Bush-Cheney program of giving Halliburton et al. far more money than it would have cost just to let the army do the same things.
And then they did things like spend amazing amounts of money to have schools tell kids not to have sex. Now, you can cancel all sex education, or you can have real sex education, but why on earth would you need to pay strangers to tell kids not to have sex when they can hear it for free from their own parents, just as we always have? Can you say, "Waste of money"? I thought you could. Did you hear conservatives say it? Rarely, if it all.
Bush has not been spending all that money alone - he had the help of the entire Republican leadership and almost every Republican in Congress, as well as the rest of the conservative base, who never raised a whisper against this behavior.
And then there's national security, something they pretend to be the masters of, but they've actually put our national security - from the guardianship of our ports to the actual handling of our troop supports - into the hands of private companies which know no allegiance to the United States of America. One of those companies recently announced it was ceasing to be an American company at all, and is moving its headquarters to Dubai, one of the countries that is connected to the 9/11 attacks. Conservatives did complain about the Dubai port deal, but they never seemed to get that the port deal was part and parcel of the conservative economic policies they supported, nor wonder whether it was safe to allow organizations that were not run by those sworn to the United States Constitution to handle our military operations.
Even now, as we look at the main contenders for the Republican nomination, we may see them trying to distance themselves from the individual named George Walker Bush, but they are not distancing themselves from his policies - and in some cases, they are even tying themselves more tightly to his policies. (Some of them even appear to think that we aren't torturing people enough, for example. None of them are talking about rescinding the tax cuts or reinstating the draft, but they still want to keep spending money and lives on war.)
George Bush has expanded government and burned our money and even more that we don't even have, and the Republicans still don't want to raise taxes.
And something else: When you ask Republicans how they can trust a president to hold the kind of power they have continued to allow Bush to take, they seem to think it's perfectly all right to put such power in his hands. If you suggest that Hillary Clinton might become president and she would have such power, well, that's different, because you can't trust her. But think about that: If they really felt that much distance from Bush, why aren't they horrified that he is wielding such power? How can they claim to see him as such a bad president if they are still comfortable giving him the power of life and death without due process?
If they really want to repudiate George Bush, I can think of a lot more convincing ways to do it. They're not doing it.
02:30 BST
Thursday, 07 June 2007
A thousand deaths ago, I quoted from the original poem "Witchita Vortex Sutra", but this time I think I'll just do the Rado version:
Ripped open by metal explosion
Caught in barbed wire
Bullet shock
Bayonet electricity
Throbbing meat
Electronic data processing
Black uniforms
Bare feet, carbines
Mail-order rifles
Shoot the muscles
256 Viet Cong captured
256 Viet Cong captured
Prisoners in Niggertown
It's a dirty little war
Three Five Zero Zero
Take weapons up and begin to kill
Watch the long long armies drifting home
23:55 BST
On the firefly platform
Bill Scher advises Dems to show they are strong on defense by making a stink about the fact that Bush is deliberately trying to prevent peace in the Middle-East. Perhaps you could suggest this to your Democratic reps.
So, we're bombing a lot of Iraqi civilians. And they're supposed to be grateful? A lot of Republicans seem to think so. You'd think it would be fairly simple to work out that having bombs drop on you may not actually be preferable to knowing there's a dictator of your country but there are no bombs dropping on you. People hate it when bombs drop on them. I'm surprised I have to explain this.
I really wish that no one had so much as given lip-service to the idea that Petraeus would be better than any other Bush appointee. Why would they think that? Why would they say it? The only thing Bush wants from people is to agree with him. He doesn't rely on them to be competent, he relies on them to forget what a competent person would do in a real administration.
Big Ed's Swan Song - Ed Whitacre's farewell address to AT&T made clear that what they're all about is destroying net neutrality so they can suck more money out of the system - and they will suck freedom away with it. (And Feministing's very own Jessica Valenti on Colbert!)
Michael Powell returns to the fray for a further exchange with Media Bloodhound.
I've been meaning to mention The Oil Drum, which covers energy issues and has been watching Cyclone Gonu, with maps and all. "This is an unprecedented event. NO CYCLONE has ever entered the Gulf of Oman."
I don't think MadKane was impressed by the false piety of the Republican candidates.
The Miracle of Cardboard - it can say "Impeach" for a good long time.
This could create real problems for Bartcop. (I'm sure care packages of Chinaco Anejo will be welcome.)*
Sunny Goodge Street
12:40 BST
Wednesday, 06 June 2007
When sundown pales the sky
Bush's Nominee For Surgeon General Wrote Study On The 'Dangers' Of 'Anal Eroticism' - Gosh, do you think James W. Holsinger might be a homophobe? (Also: Fox News CEO Ailes: `The Candidates Who Can't Face Fox, Can't Face Al Qaeda'. Let's see Republican candidates face Randi Rhodes and Sam Seder, and then maybe the party that elected a man who's afraid of horses can show how brave they are.)
You know, I remember reading the Bob Herbert article Somerby is talking about here, but I didn't remember who wrote it. I feel dirty.
Fred Thompson, happy to lie about Valerie Plame. He plays a tough prosecutor on TV, but in real life, he's soft on criminals.
You know, it's really not very long, you ought to read this thing if you've never done it before. Really.
Kurds vs. Turks - It's so awful when you're friends hate each other.
The mystery of George Bush's love life
RIAA forced to drop case due to lack of case. Good. (via)
Breaking 211 years of media silence, George Washington has decided to criticize the Bush administration's handling of Iraq.
Catch the Wind.
21:30 BST
Life and media
I remember after 9/11 trying to explain to some Americans that you can't suddenly upend your existence just because there is terrorism - that that really is letting the terrorists win. People made fun of the use of that phrase - "If you don't shine your shoes, the terrorists win." So then I would tell them that, after all, the British had managed to live life as normal despite the fact that the IRA was using Britain for target practice. And people said, "How do you put up with it?" Which was supposed to mean the British people were foolish not to throw their whole way of life overboard so they could clamp down on terrorism. (In fact, Margaret Thatcher had tried a little of that, and her anti-terrorism laws made a laughing stock of the whole process and actually created sympathy for the IRA. The bombing stopped not because of the laws, but because - after those laws were overturned - the government changed tactics completely and started working for actual peace. By talking to people.) But the point is, you can't live your life in fear, nor do you need to. Bloomberg was right about this. As is Barbara O'Brien. Life goes on.
Also via Maha, I finally learn what an important, insightful, influential blogger has to do to get the attention of The New York Times (outside of Paul Krugman's column): Die. This infuriates me. If they'd had any dedication to intelligent news and analysis on their pages, Steve Gilliard would have been quoted there frequently, been asked to write op-eds occasionally, and maybe even invited to write a column for them. But that didn't happen, because their agenda didn't really include informing the public and pursuing the truth about the important issues of the day. Damn them. But at least they had the decency to publish an obituary. Too bad they couldn't recognize him while he was alive and it really mattered.
At the other end of the spectrum, Jon Carroll at The San Francisco Chronicle likes one blog article so much that he just quotes it, and lets a blogger tell you what is wrong with campaign coverage and news coverage in general. (Thanks to D.)
And in other media news, Dennis Perrin is having some Schaudenfruede over Alterman's arrest. (Thanks to Duncan in comments.)
Meanwhile, I see I am not alone in my opinion of James Carville.
16:47 BST
News and events
Coalition for Voting Integrity says, "Dr. Steve Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania, author of Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count, and Mark Crispin Miller, NYU Professor of Media Studies and author of Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them), on Voice of the Voters! Wednesday, June 6, 8-9 PM ET."
The free podcasts of Seder on Sunday are available here, and this week's show is now posted.
Greg Palast says "Conyers Challenges Bush For G8 Action on Vultures: Congressman John Conyers, still in the thick of his hearings on the firing of US Attorneys, is preparing a new target for investigation: Vultures. We're not talking about the feathered birds of prey, but predators with allies in the White House and Swiss bank vaults full of untraceable currency. These speculators buy up the debt of the poorest nations on the planet for pennies on the dollar - then use legal extortion or less-than-legal bribery to extract payments from these nations - payments equal to five, ten or twenty times what the vultures "invested." Conyers has personally informed George Bush that he expects the President to join the other G8 leaders to put the vultures out of business." Greg will have the story tonight on BBC2.
Jerome Doolittle has posted an excerpt from E.J. Dionne's 1996 book, They Only Look Dead, which jumped the gun on predicting progressive dominance of the political spectrum.
At Think Progress, Schlozman's Inadvertent Confession: Any Group That Works With Minorities Is `Liberal', and Gonzales Contradicts His Sworn Testimony About Bush's Warrantless Spying Program - and Tim Griffin can't find a job.
What did we tell you? If Democrats don't act to hold the administration in check, voters will turn on them. They'd better find a way to change this perception fast, or they will lose it all over again.
Eric Alterman gets arrested! (There's even video.)
It's so nice to see Republicans showing so much sympathy for criminals.
14:00 BST
Fannish - but in a bad way
MediaBloodhound's article about a stupid NYT article gushing about the strong and disciplined Rudy Giuliani attracted the attention of the author himself during a bout of egoscanning and garnered a reply, which generated some thoughts from Digby.
I also had some thoughts while reading this, such as, "So the NYT is just a collection of third-rate fanzine articles for reporters, now?"
No, I don't mean that fanzine articles aren't any good - some of the best writing I've seen anywhere - on just about any subject - has appeared in fanzines. And many of those pieces could easily have appeared in more widely-circulated, professional publications.
But a signature of fanzines is their insularity, their in-jokey, insidery, self-referential approach, and the fact that they generally are playing to a very small audience of people who all know each other. There's no point in printing up thousands (or millions) of copies of a publication that only a few hundred people will understand. Which is why most fanzine editors don't bother to waste time and money stapling and mailing out more than maybe 200 copies of a zine.
And, more and more, a reader of The New York Times has the feeling they're looking at the fanzine of a group of people who are practitioners of an arcane hobby that we outsiders don't get and aren't meant to understand. They write for each other, not for us, and yet they are baffled by the fact that fewer and fewer of us feel like forking over cash to read what is essentially personal writing and general performance for their friends rather than, well, a newspaper. Remember, I'm saying this not just as someone who used to work at a real, grown-up, daily newspaper, but also as someone who has been nominated three times for a Hugo for fanwriting, so I really do know what I'm talking about - and, guys, these fanarticles that have been appearing in The Newspapers of Record aren't just bad political reporting, but they're lousy fanarticles, too.
(And the other thing about fanwriting: You don't expect money for it. No wonder these people feel threatened by bloggers - there's no way they can compete with Firedoglake and Glenn Greenwald.)
In other news....
Scott Horton at Harper's on A Blow for Justice at Gitmo: "The decision handed down today by Colonel Peter E. Brownback III, the military judge in Guantánamo, throwing out the war crimes charges leveled at Omar Khadr, is a watershed event." (Thanks to Apikoros for the tip.)
For those who were thwarted in their attempts to record Parkinson's interview with David Tennant, here's Part 1 and Part 2. (More stuff here.)
01:31 BST
Tuesday, 05 June 2007
Tell them: Only paper ballots will do
An interesting state of affairs, and a question, from The Brad Blog:
For months, supporters of Rep. Rush Holt's Election Reform Bill (HR 811) - from computer scientists such as David Dill and Avi Rubin, to extremely powerful advocacy groups such as People for the American Way (PFAW) and VoteTrustUSA --- have been telling critics, who believe that Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) touch-screen systems are antithetical to democracy, that an amendment to his bill, requiring a ban on such systems, could not be passed by Congress.
They appear to have accepted the talking point as gospel, and thus have argued that any attempt to amend the current bill (and the matching one in the Senate) is a fruitless endeavor, and we should therefore, support the bill as is because something is better than nothing.
Never mind that if the many respected Election Integrity advocates and computer scientists repeating that unsubstantiated argument actually announced they would not support any federal Election Reform legislation that failed to include such a ban --- one which most of them have said they'd support (PFAW not included) --- that we might actually get such a ban added to the bill.
Nonetheless, despite my best efforts, I have yet to be able to find a single Congress Member who supports the bill as currently written, without such a ban, who will go on record --- or even admit off-record --- that they would vote against the Election Reform bill if it included a ban on DREs.
I have yet to be able to find one.
Anyone have a name for me? Even just one?
Good question. How about if we all call our reps and ask them whether they would vote for or against a ban on Direct Record Electronic touch-screen machines? Ask them if they understand that the only truly verifiable voting method requires an actual, auditable paper ballot. Tell them to accept no substitutes, and to insist that the ban on DREs be included in the Holt bill.
22:46 BST
Fighting the good fight - in court
I hope it works.
My thanks to voxd for pointing me to the link I was looking for earlier for this story from Saturday:
People should have been on this the minute it started, not just because it is illegal, but because it's an insane way to run a war. If Karl Rove really had the talents of Machiavelli, even he would have put his foot down - Machiavelli warned against this kind of thing.
There are other reasons to be disturbed by these contracts as well, and they go straight to our national security: Blackwater is an organization that is part of a movement to overturn the American form of government. The United States should not be paying to provide funding and experience to a private army that is under the command of an enemy of the United States.
(Of course, you could say that about training Iraqis, too.)
19:30 BST
A few things
On a day like this, even going to the dentist is not so bad. Well, except for the needles, the drilling, the numbness that will eventually become pain, and the bill. But my, it's lovely out there.
Anyway, I got back in and see via Atrios that the letters testifying to Scooter Libby's wonderfulness from his friends who think treason is nothing to lock someone up for have been published, one of them is a long and heartfelt testimonial from Mary Matalin and James Carville. Can we start putting an (R) after his name, yet? (I didn't check to see if anyone praised Libby for the great job he did getting Marc Rich that pardon.)
Bob Herbert talked to Al Gore and now it's in the NYT:
"One of the hallmarks of a strategic catastrophe," he said, "is that it creates a cul-de-sac from which there are no good avenues of easy departure. Taking charge of the war policy and extricating our troops as quickly as possible without making a horrible situation even worse is a little like grabbing a steering wheel in the middle of a skid."
There is no quick and easy formula, he said. A new leader implementing a new policy on Iraq would have to get a feel for the overall situation. The objective, however, should be clear: "To get our troops out of there as soon as possible while simultaneously observing the moral duty that all of us share - including those of us who opposed this war in the first instance - to remove our troops in a way that doesn't do further avoidable damage to the people who live there."
I asked if he meant that all U.S. troops should ultimately be removed from Iraq.
"Yes," he said.
There, that was easy. Why is it so hard for everyone else? (Read it for free here. And an unimpressed review of the Democratic debate, where Hillary Clinton said a lot of frightening things, just aside from the bit about how we're safer now since 9/11.)
17:59 BST
Links for lunch
Since the Republicans have now decided it's okay to prosecute William Jefferson, it's time to look for his replacement, but what are the choices? BooMan says Derrick Shepherd looks better than the DLC candidate, but we're not so sure about him, either. (Although I do find people who like war but won't fight in one detestable, I'm not one of those people who thinks that merely having served in the armed forces makes you a great candidate, by the way. A lot of people refused to serve precisely because they understand how horrible war is. If you're against blowing up other countries for no good reason, chances are that joining the military is not high on your To-Do list.) Meanwhile, just How Close are the Turks & Kurds to War?
Chris Floyd on Gulagian's Island: The Deadly Farce of Bush's Gitmo Tribunals: "Ladies and gentlemen, we give you George W. Bush: the only man in the world who could screw up a kangaroo court."
Johann Hari on Iraq's Mercenaries - With A Licence To Kill: "Iraq is rapidly vanishing into the mists of uncollectable, unknowable news, with information travelling only as far as an Iraqi scream can be heard. But sometimes, if you peer closely, you can glimpse reality. Last week, Shia militiamen seized four "security contractors" working for the Canadian company Gardaworld. Buried in the story of this small horror is the bigger tale of a vast shift in how Western wars will be fought in the 21st century if the American right has its way - and one of the great lost scandals of this war." (I'm looking for a link to the story about the guy who is suing because using military contractors is illegal, but I can't seem to find the right keywords at the moment. I'm sure you can help.)
Cab Drollery: "It's about time that the Democrats in Congress, especially those on the Senate Judiciary Committee, start using some of that powder they have so assiduously kept dry over the past seven years. They can start with a particularly noxious nominee for the Fifth District, US Court of Appeals." Leslie Southwick is a racist who hates people who have to work for a living.
When Novakula joins the chorus of people who insist that massive law-breaking is no big deal, Digby notes the gall of right-wingers who have no controlling authority, in conscience or in law: "Sorry, I'm fresh out of compassion for Republicans. As far as I'm concerned, Waxman should ruthlessly go after every single case. It is a moral hazard to allow these people to continuously get away with things of which they accuse others. It's got to stop."
Bradbury even more of a crackpot than I thought! "But as Will Frank points out, in 1979 Bradbury wrote a "Coda" for a new paperback edition of the novel, in which he began by discussing the dangers of letting outraged "minorities" determine what may and may not be published[.]"
12:42 BST
And now a few words from...
...Al Gore:
I'm optimistic, because we have faced grave dangers before, and I truly believe that the people of our country care so passionately about breathing life into American democracy that these new tools we have available to us are going to be protected and then used vigorously.
But make no mistake. These problems cannot be solved simply by casting a vote or simply by writing a letter to the editor. These are systemic changes that have to be addressed. And truth is elusive, but when we are guided by the rule of reason it is a goal that we seek together.
We will fix these problems when We the People decide that nobody else is going to do it for us, but that we have to become personally involved in saving democracy.
10:41 BST
A bunch of stuff
Oliver Willis on the debate: "Hillary Will Win: That is, if the campaigns of Obama and Edwards continue to kind of dither and spin their wheels in the mud like they essentially did during the debate tonight, Senator Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. She took up a role of leadership and they deferred to her. If those three candidates continue on the paths that they're currently on, she will win that fight." Also, "Hollywood Actor Fred Thompson: Too Lazy To Answer A Simple Question," and "Hamdan, Khadr: What Happens When You Practice Law Conservative Style."
Scott Lemieux: "Marty Lederman points us to an interesting WaPo article, in which a few members of America's tiny minority of serious, principled "pro-lifers" have come to see that "Partial Birth" bans are silly, irrational laws whose primary purpose is to separate money from their wallets and funnel it to the Republican Party. Focus on the Family, however, maintains that the bans do have an upside: the law does increase the "danger of internal bleeding from a perforated uterus." If you don't believe me that most of the American forced pregnancy lobby cares a great deal more about punishing women for sexual choices they don't approve of than protecting fetal life, well, I say we take their word for it."
Paul K. Sonn on The Fight for the Minimum Wage: "Voters in several states soundly approved minimum wage increases last fall. But now state legislatures, with a push from industries that employ low-wage workers, are hard at work to gut the new laws."
Thers is taking a holiday, and VA is one of the volunteers sitting in at Whiskey Fire, starting with this post: "I started digging around this here left blogosphere some years ago as a young, foolish conservative."
I am proud to have been born in Takoma Park, which says impeach Bush and Cheney. (And so, of course, does Liz Holzman.)
If you live in Ohio, you might want to let your reps know that you want to protect free speech for ordinary people.
James Wolcott on Steve Gilliard.
03:16 BST
Monday, 04 June 2007
In other news...
As usual, conservatives talk big, do nothing about Gonzales.
Majikthise: "I'm not sure what to make of this article about an American torturer-turned-whistle blower who confessed to abusing prisoners in Iraq." (via)
Why can't they prosecute this? (Weak stomach warning.)
The cure for "ooga booga fever" may be to bang your head against a wall.
Meet the Zimmers - Really old people (led by a woman using a Zimmer frame) walk the crosswalk at Abbey Road to sing "My Generation" to highlight their complaint about being treated like refuse.
"What's the statute of limitations on interfering with a Federal election?"
22:11 BST
Ray Bradbury: An even worse writer than I thought
So, Bradbury now says that the only book of his I'd ever liked isn't even about what it appears to be about, and that Fahrenheit 451 has been completely misunderstood:
That might have been an interesting book, debatable though the point might be, but he didn't write it - instead, he clearly wrote a book about government censorship. It may very well be that people are watching vapid television shows, but that doesn't mean they are a replacement for books. Nothing in the book (or the movie) of F451 indicates that the primary example we have of an avid TV fan, Montag's wife, would be reading books if she weren't addicted to the screen. And Bradbury seems to have forgotten that not all books are of high intellectual quality, and a lot of written material was never any better than what television has to offer. More than that, Bradbury, like a lot of people, harbors the illusion that back in the olden days, everyone read. Well, no, they didn't. Back in the olden days, lots of people couldn't read at all, and those who could didn't necessarily spend all that much time doing it. (Many couldn't - it's not that long ago that a huge segment of the population worked 12-hour days, seven days a week.)
And he's almost on to something, in that it serves someone's purposes to fill the media up with disconnected factoids that dissuade people from looking more deeply into what's really going on in their world. That might have been an interesting book, in the hands of a decent author.
But Bradbury thinks he wrote a book that is about how all that television just makes people stop reading books, and yet everyone who reads it thinks it's about government censorship because the story is about a government censor and the people who refuse to go along with the censorship because, despite the existence of vapid television, they still like books.
Yes, of course he does, the tedious old fart.
19:43 BST
Good medicine
My friend Linda noticed a post in one of the sf mailing lists about Michael Moore's (temporarily) anonymous gift of cash to an anti-Moore blogger whose wife needed surgery, and she said:
I was actually approached by Moore's production company to be interviewed for the film. The segment fell through in the end but we corresponded about it quite a bit. It all had to do with the British medical approach to my breast cancer surgery as opposed to what would have been the US approach
Essentially, I felt I was given enough information, given choice in how to deal with the diagnosis and supported in my decision to go for a mastectomy with an immediate reconstruction. (just had my 5 years post-op checkup and still in the clear, btw). In the US women given diagnosis similar to mine would have to go to several specialist, a lumpectomy (or two) before being offered a mastectomy and should they want a reconstructed breast go back for yet another surgery. So possibly three or more surgeries (on a health plan, if they're lucky), each with their inherent cost financially if not physically & psychologically - compared to my one (on the NHS).
The question was, who benefits from the US approach (ka-ching!)
So yes - I look forward to the film as well.
Now, there are both medical and psychological issues about the advisability of a mastectomy without first seeing if a lumpectomy will do, but it appears Linda had gone over those options and made her choice, and that's fine, too. My mother, on the other hand, went through the American experience Linda describes (but without reconstruction).
But of course, she left out the best thing about the NHS, which is that you can get good medical care without having to go through all the tsouris of worrying about costs, co-pays, deductibles, and whether your insurance company will cover you. You go to your doctor, you get referred, you have your consultations, you get your surgery and everything that goes with it, and you are never presented with a bill.
And that fact alone makes healthcare much cheaper in Britain, because of the savings on administration. No one is vetting you to see if you "deserve" healthcare, if you're poor enough, if you've paid enough. You get it when you need it.
Naturally, this makes a tremendous difference to the stresses you have to deal with when making medical decisions, but you don't have to feel guilty about it, because whenever you've been employed, you've already paid. Everyone who works pays. (And everyone who smokes pays whether they work or not.) It's not too much - it's just enough. And when you can't work because you're ill, that doesn't change things - you're covered.
I advocate single-payer for the United States because I can't imagine anything better being suggested in the American discourse on healthcare (and look how long it took just to be able to mention it), but to be absolutely honest, I think the NHS that Nye Bevan created (before Thatcher and Blair got their hands on it) was probably the best healthcare plan there is. You don't "buy into" it, you don't sign up, you don't do anything - you just have the money taken in taxes and never even notice you're paying for it when you work, or when you buy a pack of fags, and then you don't have to think about it when you go to the doctor.
Which brings us to Paul Krugman, who is waiting to see some character from candidates who are timidly trying to negotiate their way into a healthcare plan that would satisfy both the power-players and the electorate.
But that's not going to happen, because the least expensive way to handle healthcare is to remove those power-players from the field, and no one who suggests that will be allowed to run for president.
16:02 BST
Announcements and advice
Action Alert: Tell Congress to Vote NO on H.R. 811 :"H.R. 811 is a well-intended but deeply flawed bill that will do more harm to the cause for free and fair elections than it will help. Can we count on you to help make it the bill we need it to be? Monday, June 4 is H.R. 811 Call-in Day. We need you and five of your friends and family to make a call or send a fax to your Congressperson, telling him/her to vote NO on H.R. 811 until crucial improvements are made." See also Voters United.
Koufax Award nominations for the blog Most Deserving of Wider Recognition. At least I short-listed in this one again... *sigh*
Digby reviews last night's debate and has some good advice for Dennis Kucinich. (I like a lot of Kucinich's positions, but this is one of the reasons he bugs me - he doesn't get that, for all the flaws of the Democrats, it's to the advantage of the Retaliban that the distinction between the two parties is blurred as much as possible. It does not help progressives. Don't do it.)
Boor at DKos has gone through the links for Steve Gilliard's colonialism series to fix the dead links for the articles Eric posted at Wampum, and has the repaired version, with the titles for each post, here. Brilliant at Breakfast also put together a list of other articles. And The Tattered Coat has a good tribute post. Oh, and MadKane reposted her 90-second audio interview with Steve with his advice to the Bush administration.
Whatever you're doing that turns your ordinary punctuation into funny symbols and boxes, stop doing it. Compose your blog posts on TextPad or even Notepad if you have to, but stop using whatever you're using that messes up your apostrophes and dashes and quotation marks, because it's really distracting and ugly and I hate it.
10:58 BST
Sunday, 03 June 2007
Midnight snack
Elixir de Lingerie by Lejaby Rosace full cup bra
Bra of the Week
They didn't study. Also, Top 10 Fashion Suggestions for Nerds. (via)
Don't Cry for Venezuela's RCTV: "As I write this, I am looking at a Venezuelan newspaper, El Diario, from February 10, 1992. The editorial that would have occupied half of page 2 is missing. Page 4 is completely blank. The contents were censored by the government of the then president Carlos Andres Perez. The newspaper is just one of many horrible memories of the pre-Hugo Chavez days in Venezuela's "exceptional" democracy."
MahaBarb on Idolotors: "It is extraordinarily difficult for a person to be handed any power at all and not use that power to some ego-driven end, and I don't see that the religious have ever been any better at it than the non-religious."
Roy Edroso on The downside of Jesus freaks, and The Rude one with a WTF? (And also with a look at the anti-Americanism of Cal Thomas.)
Digby: "A lot of tributes to our friend Steve Gilliard have mentioned the fact that there aren't enough African American voices in the blogosphere. As it happens there are quite a few and some of them have created a nice site called to access them. I thought you might want to add it to your bookmarks."
23:42 BST
Found items
What would a headline like "Brown pledge to protect liberties" be about? Oh, yes, Gordon Brown has proposed changes in the anti-terrorism laws that would include holding suspects without charge for more than 28 days and allowing police to continue questioning suspects after they have been charged. Of course, he promises that no one's civil liberties will be lost. Of course.
This post at Brad Plumer's site is a few weeks old, but since immigration is the talk of the town again, worth going back to. People talk about how Mexicans have been coming up to America in droves because their economy is so bad, but their economy has always been bad compared to ours. What makes the real difference is that we put no effort into enforcing laws against hiring undocumented workers. Brad quotes Nathan Newman: "Here's the core reason why I think most (not all, but most) of those saying they oppose immigration because of its effects of lower-income native workers are not really serious or, worse, just covering straight-up nativism with a faux charitable concern. In the Bush 2007 budget, a grand total of $177 million was appropriated to enforce our wage and hour laws. Compare that to the $13 billion in the 2008 Bush budget for border enforcement -- nearly ONE HUNDRED TIME AS MUCH spent for border enforcement as for wage enforcement." Of course. Pushing down wages is the whole point.
Jon Swift gives Mr. Gilliard his highest accolades: "Steve hated BS so I am not going to lie to you. We did not agree on much. He said the most scurrilous things about our President and he hated the Yankees, which is the finest team money can buy, and loved the Mets, a team only a Democrat could love. He actually believed that "liberal" was not a dirty word and predicted even before the War in Iraq began that it was doomed to failure instead of the great success it has turned out to be. Yes, he was wrong about just about everything." (Via another tribute, from Tom Watson.)
I see the nominations for Best New Blog in the Koufax Awards are up (and congratulations to our friend Monkeyfister). There are only a few on the list that I recognize, so I'll have to take some time to familiarize myself with them. In the meantime, y'all might want to check them out and tell me what you think of them.
And speaking of Monkeyfister, he's posted Al Gore's GWU speech from last Tuesday.
19:32 BST
More net-nuggets
Bill Moyers found tape of Lyndon Johnson telling McGeorge Bundy that escalating in Vietnam will be a terrible idea - and yet, he did it anyway. (Also: 93.5% of Americans agree with Atrios that the boy-king is not gonna pull the troops out of Iraq, and apparently that no one is going to make him do it, either.)
The media has decided that "faith" will be a major issue in the campaign, even though they're the only ones who particularly want to talk about it.
Jo Fish has some choice words about the mercenary force in Iraq. These people aren't working for us, remember, they are working for Blackwater's private Christian army, and no law appears to control them.
Philadelphia has passed a resolution to make the Boy Scouts quit discriminating or pay full market value for use of city property they have been using for free.
Hey, Jonathan Alter noticed that BushCo. policy is about imperialism. Isn't watching these people catch up exciting?
EBW has posted links to Steve Gilliard's series on colonialism at Wampum. (Other old stuff from Steve's original site is here.)
15:13 BST
Wisdom of the Internet
I didn't post anything about the blow-up at Live Journal earlier (mainly because I was obsessing on other things), but it seems they were stampeded into a sex panic by a right-wing hate group and closed hundreds of accounts because they deemed the content "inappropriate" or claimed it was illegal to post depictions of illegal acts. Of course, this last is nonsense, since a considerable proportion of fiction - not just in books, but in movies and television - revolves around the commission of illegal acts and portrays them regularly. Most of them are not explicit sexual descriptions, but the prohibitions on sexual material aren't about the legality of the acts, they are about the sexual nature of the acts (even if they are legal). We still get plenty of assault, murder, and robbery, despite the fact that these acts are illegal. We get explicit portrayals of them, and we even see heroes breaking the law. Portrayals of rape are less explicit - again, because it's sexual rather than because it's illegal. However, the illegal part of rape is okay to show even on television - that is, the fact that a victim is being forced. We also see plenty of depictions of fraud, embezzling, bribery, and blackmail, and everything right on down to illegal parking. (In any case, fictional characters really don't need to be protected from being the subjects of slash fiction, especially if they are, like Harry Potter, 17 and therefore above the age of consent.)
"Oh God, doctor, I was hoping it was cancer." One doctor speaks out on why he performs abortions.
McCain: Lying or stupid? Okay, maybe he just got things backwards. It's the Republican thing to do. But guys, come on, this whole "straight-talk" business about McCain is just a media creation - McCain gave them a lot of access in 2000, and they loved him for it. It has nothing to do with whether he was honest or had principles or any of that. He's also always been a right-wing loon, and no, you would not have liked him as president.
Eric Alterman is Worrying about Fred Thompson - "Unfortunately, it doesn't matter whether he'd be a good president. All that matters is that he can play one."
At Angry Bear, cactus takes on the task of making a detailed analysis of which party performs better for America's economy - and so far, the Democrats are winning on every measure. (But we knew that.)
Sara at Orcinus has a fine tribute to Steve Gilliard. (via) Sara is right, too, that we have too few black voices in the liberal blogosphere - I'm still a bit shaken about losing Uppity Negro - and Steve was wonderfully insightful and vigorous on racial issues (and class issues, and sexism, and on corporate culture). I've been missing that for months.
13:20 BST
I have seen in strange young eyes familiar tears
Craig Murray had much the same reaction as I did to being saved from yet another terrorist plot: big yawns. But Digby has another take.
At Pacific Views, the trouble with "free-market" solutions to healthcare is that they require lots of regulation and even bigger big government.
I didn't know Steve Gilliard personally, never corresponded with him, never told him how much I loved his stuff, and I'm sorry about that, but the guy would catch fire over something and you'd just think, yeah! I was so glad to have him on our team. I knew he was dying and I hated it, but it's still a bit of a shock that he's gone. To Jen and all those close to him, I wish you peace and strength.
"Old Souls"
01:30 BST
Saturday, 02 June 2007
Get back to where you once belonged
Scott Ritter wants Repudiation, Not Impeachment:
Repudiation is a strong term, defined as "rejecting as having no authority or binding force," to "cast off or disown," or to "reject with disapproval or condemnation." In my opinion, the complete repudiation of the presidency of George W. Bush is the only recourse we have collectively as a people to not only seek redress for the wrongs committed by the Bush administration, but also to purge society of this cancer that threatens to consume and destroy us as a whole, and which would continue to manifest itself in our system of governance even after any impeachment proceedings.
I think impeachment would be part of repudiation, but not the end of it. Impeach them all, and restore the law.
19:13 BST
Media notes
Potemkin Paper? - In The Nation, Eric Alterman writes that The New York Sun doesn't seem to have the characteristics of a real paper with real readers, despite its claim that it reaches "150,000 of New York City's Most Influential Readers Every Day" - but that it does seem to influence some of the most naive readers anywhere - mainstream journalists.
Jamison Foser on A rich man in a poor man's shirt - Fred Thompson rents a pick-up truck to look "folksy", Giuliani is - well, Giuliani - and so on, and so on, but when John Edwards cares about the poor, that's "hypocrisy" - and lots of "journalists" write headlines saying that headlines about his "hypocrisy" are overshadowing his proposals to help the poor (which they can't be bothered to write about).
Norman Pearlstine, former editor in chief at Time, says Patrick Fitzgerald hurt the press, but I think his argument hurts the press more by implying that all sources in all cases are equal. The press should never have license to conspire with government officials to shield their illegal operations from public scrutiny. It is precisely to expose such operations that the idea of shielding the press exists at all. (Via the media round-up at Make Them Accountable.)
14:27 BST
Morning reading
The VFW gets behind Marine Cpl. Adam Kokesh after the administration spitefully tries to rescind his honorable discharge for taking part in anti-war protests. Trying to hush up and punish fellow Americans for exercising the same democratic right we're trying to instill in Iraq is not what we're all about," said Gary Kurpius, national commander of the 2.4 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars. [...] "We all know that people give up some individual rights when they join the military," Kurpius said. "But these Marines went to war, did their duty, and were honorably discharged from the active roles. I may disagree with their message, but I will always defend their right to say it."
We already know that the right-wing counts it as "bias" to allow liberals to speak in public at all, but the YAF is nuts when claiming that, "college administrators are using commencement ceremonies to send their students off with one more predictable leftist lecture." Of course fewer far-right hacks are invited to speak at universities, since they are unrepresentative of the population and are part of a movement to destroy universities and their very purpose. They don't respect science, they don't respect facts, and they don't know what they're talking about most of the time. And that's just leaving aside the problematic definition of who is "not conservative".
Alterman on Who Really Supports the Troops: "In fact, in addition to all the damage that Bush's administration's war has done to the people it has killed and maimed, to the reputation of the nation it has destroyed, to the budget it has busted, and to the constitution it is sworn to defend, one of its most lasting legacies has been to undermine the military institutions the president professes to admire so much." But the media still pretends otherwise.
Glenn Greenwald on the right-wing's inability to understand that to say we are better than Al Qaeda, we must be better than Al Qaeda, though they think they can sidestep that responsibility simply by saying that Al-Qaida does it, too.
Steve Soto on permanent bases and the devastating effects of BushCo. "security" policy on our national security.
Have a nuclear nightmare: "Research now indicates that the enormous tanks holding discarded submarine fuel rods in the Andreeva Bay may explode at any time, creating a nuclear nightmare for Northern Europe."
I see via the Haze Filter that the Alabama Dem blog is probably the place to keep up with local coverage of the Siegelman story, which they think may really be the one to blow the lid off the whole US Attorney scandal and puts it right in Karl Rove's pants.
The Saturday Cartoons from Bob Geiger.
12:28 BST
Facts and figuring
Bill Scher says it's Time For Congressional Oversight On Permanent Bases: "They've never explicitly talked about staying in Iraq permanently. And now they really can't, because it's unequivocally against the law. But they're subtly making it clear they're not planning to go anywhere. Which means Congress has the ability to investigate and assess if the White House is breaking the law with those "three or four large bases." If they don't try to enforce the law that they passed, then the law is meaningless. Every Democratic presidential candidate is opposed to permanent bases. Some of them are in Congress. The candidate that actually takes the permanent bases law seriously, takes the lead on oversight, and forcefully challenges the foreign policy objective of permanent occupation, will make a strong impression.
Ah, Greg Palast has the cause and effect: "Tim Griffin, formerly right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television 'Newsnight' reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network's evidence on Griffin's involvement in 'caging voters.'"
John Dean on The Bush Administration's Dilemma Regarding a Possible Libby Pardon notes that Fred Thompson "has either lied or could not be troubled to inform himself of the facts before he attacked Special Counsel Fitzgerald."
Josh Marshall notices something odd about the steep sentence the government is asking for in the conviction of former governor Don Siegelman (D-AL), and wonders if it fits in with the US Attorney Purge, then notices there is a Rove connection in the mix.
Laura McGann notes that, "Many of the controversial interrogation tactics used against "war on terror" detainees in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan are similar to strategies the United States feared its worst enemies would use against captured soldiers during the Cold War." (As some people may remember, the Soviets used these methods not to get real intel, but to force false confessions.)
Let's hope hurricane season is mild this year - "the incompetents are still in charge over at the Department of Homeland Security."
Oh, look, another one of those music widget things.
02:39 BST
Friday, 01 June 2007
What they're saying
Robert W. McChesney and Mark Weisbrot on Venezuela and the Media: Fact and Fiction: "To read and view the U.S. news media over the past week, there is an episode of grand tyranny unfolding, one repugnant to all who cherish democratic freedoms. The Venezuelan government under "strongman" Hugo Chavez refused to renew the 20-year broadcast license for RCTV, because that medium had the temerity to be critical of his regime. It is a familiar story. And in this case it is wrong."
How The Ruling Class Thwarts Democracy: "Since President McKinley and the Spanish-American War, overseas adventures have been the oligarchy's response to the public's demand for reform. Whether it was Populists or Progressives, rank-and-file Republicans or Democrats leading the charge for domestic change, the major party bosses and their partners on Wall Street have worked together in "collusive harmony," in the words of political historian Walter Karp, to divert the country from its just demands by embroiling them in deadly foreign entanglements."
Peggy Noonan goes dry for Bush: "For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome."
Nigerian families sue Pfizer after being used as guinea pigs in an astonishingly unethical trial. The suit "further alleges that Pfizer did not tell parents they were free to refuse the drug and instead choose an internationally approved treatment for meningitis being offered at the same site free of charge by a charitable medical group."
If Hollywood Fred Thompson gets into the race, Will Durst says we've got the people to run against him.
19:05 BST
On the landscape
A different kind of 1% doctrine - because if you weren't 100% clairvoyant, you were just plain wrong.
This is so stupid that even the administration noticed and made them stop.
August J. Pollack says, "Next Monday, they'll rule on how tightly their feet should be bound ... the Roberts majority isn't just anti-abortion. It's anti-women. And the sooner liberals and progressives start telling moderate and even conservative women that even if they don't like abortion, these people also want your daughters to not get the same pay, not get the same education, not have the same chance to play sports or even try and have the same jobs, the better. Because even if a mother thinks abortion is wrong, I doubt there are many mothers who think a judge has the right the tell them their daughter isn't allowed to do something because she's a girl." (via)
Oh, man do I wish I'd waited 'til this month to go home so I could go to this! Especially now that I know James Triptree Jr. Digby is going to be there.
Help save
I've tried to explain to punk-era music fans why the Beatles were such a big deal, but there's no way to get across to them just how absurd was the period they guided us out of. Tristero tries to help. (And - m'god! - Ken Starr is still babbling to Jeff Gerth.)
Wimmin are scary.
Fred Clark on religious Totalitarians vs. pluralists, Crediting women, and Jeff Buckley, ten years gone.
I guess these would go well with this. (via)
17:46 BST
More news and comment
Via the link-rich "Election Central" post at TPM Cafe, an interview with Al Gore forces me to link to The Politico, where he defends Congressional Democrats for trying to use the political process to slowly, slowly, move toward change on Iraq. But I was interested to note that the interviewer, John Harris, formerly the political editor at The Washington Post, also said this: "Gore's refusal to be pinned down can be frustrating. But he is fun to talk to - at least I have always thought so. We have known each other - not intimately, but cordially - since the 1990s, when I covered the Clinton White House." Does anyone remember Harris writing anything during the 2000 campaign to suggest that he thought Gore was anything but a bore and a stiff who couldn't keep his story straight? And I loved this: "I asked Gore Tuesday what he made of the argument that his candidacy was victimized by false narratives that took root in the news media."
Harold Myerson also defended the Democrats in the WaPo the other day, pointing out that it wasn't exactly quick in Vietnam, either: "It took the Democrats, and their dovish Republican allies, four full years to pass a cutoff of funds for U.S. ground forces in Vietnam, by which point Nixon had already pulled all ground forces out (though the legislation kept him from putting those forces back in, which was not a mere academic possibility). That hardly means that Mansfield betrayed the cause of peace, any more than Nancy Pelosi's failure to shut down the war last week means that she sold out to the Bush administration. Mansfield put one antiwar bill after another to a vote, winning more and more support each time around, leaving Nixon with fewer and fewer options. Pelosi is steering the same course, for a war even more reckless and absurd than Vietnam." The bulk of that article is about how we are "Dying for an Iraq That Isn't," and Brian Beutler says Myerson is writing such good stuff that the WaPo might notice and fire him.
On the other hand, Chris Dodd is standing up, and he participated in a vlog at Firedoglake to answer questions and keep the fire going. This is something I think we can all get behind.
In a rare departure from normal GOP behavior, one non-wimp Republican legislator actually fights crime: "Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, 61, a Republican who represents Morris County and parts of Somerset, Essex, Sussex and Passaic counties, tussled with one of four men who the police say stole Mr. Frelinghuysen's wallet as he was walking in Georgetown on Thursday night. Mr. Frelinghuysen's office issued a statement that he had not been injured in the confrontation." Frelinghuysen, despite coming from a rich family (his father was also in the House), served in Vietnam. I vaguely recall that he is pro-choice.
Josh Marshall: "It's amazing how picky people are nowadays. A big oil company whose executives have been indicted for bribing multiple Alaska politicians can't even be in charge of renovating the state's senior senator's house without people making it like there's something fishy going on."
And now, some paranoid TB speculation.
13:50 BST
Spotlight on...
Anti-Secrecy Bill Gets Secret Hold: "A bill designed to combat government secrecy won't be coming to a vote on the Senate floor any time soon. An anonymous Senator who apparently thinks the government isn't secretive enough has placed a secret hold on the bill." But then it turned out to John Kyle (R-AZ), "because of what he said was the Justice Department's 'uncharacteristically strong' opposition."
John Edwards and Al Gore "put the issues of who owns the Internet front and center." This stuff is important - you should be getting that letter to your reps ready.
Brokeback Hill.
12:25 BST
Forewarned is forearmed
Matt Taibbi warns that Rudy Giuliani is worse than Bush: "He's cashing in on 9/11, working with Karl Rove's henchmen and in cahoots with a Swift Boat-style attack on Hillary. Will Rudy Giuliani be Bush III?"
Bill Scher reminds us that Alito's reactionary opinion in the Ledbetter case on discriminatory pay was predictable before he was confirmed, and it was possible to prevent that confirmation with a little due diligence. Bill wants us to remember that for next time, but people, there are five of these people on the court, now, all apparently hostile to equality, and at least four of them have demonstrated that they should be impeached. Alito and Scalia are openly hostile to the Constitution itself, and lied to get onto the court. Yeah, yeah, I know it can't be done with the present Congress, but it's still a though worth holding in mind. These are bad, bad people.
If we don't fight those religious loonies over here, we'll be fighting them everywhere.
More E. Coli Conservatism, and Jon Stewart interviews President Al, and Keith Olbermann interviews him, too. (And is he going to run?)
Chaka Khan "trying to forget" singing at the 2000 Republican convention. (via)
03:07 BST
While I was out
Atrios is absolutely right about why we stay in Iraq. In the early days it was reasonable, I suppose, to wonder what the one reason for it all was, but these people have all said enough and done enough that by now their reasons are clear, and they don't all have the same reasons. I'm tempted to send that post to my legislators just as a reminder that we're watching and we know.
Darfur a threat to your soft drinks: The Sudanese ambassador gave a press conference and informed those present that if we didn't stop acting like there was genocide in his country they would retaliate by stopping the export of gum arabic, necessary for the production of soft drinks. That's right - they are holding your Coke hostage.
All one thing: Fred Phelps claims Brownback "likes what we're doing, and he tells me that." But, wait, is Brownback trying to sound like a rational raving loony? (via)
Monkeyfister learns about The Security and Prosperity Partnership Of North America, a "a trilateral effort to increase security and enhance prosperity among the United States, Canada and Mexico through greater cooperation and information sharing" - and he finds it scarier than PNAC, and just as freaky as the John Birch Society does.
01:55 BST
Avedon Carol at The Sideshow, June 2007
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Is the media in denial?
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Weblog Commenting and Trackback by
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life is short but sweet for certain
Let's experience this thing called life.
Caikes. Seattle. 24. Just sharing my obsessions. I'm in love with music. I also post frequent "mug shots".
Top obsessions: Dave Matthews Band, Buffy, Seattle, potatoes, TMNT, 60's/70's, 90's, Harry Potter, Led Zeppelin, Marianas Trench, music in general, Ireland, Spider-Man, Brand New, squirrels, gingers!, and british tv series.
You have these gorgeous, gigantic beautiful blue eyes. They're like those anime girls, but in real life.
What a lovely anon! You just brightened my day! I don’t even know..aldsfkjadslfkjadfkl
Thank you.
1. lipsofspike said: lol its true dude, your eyes are huge. Which is a totally good thing (:
2. sidewalksecrets posted this
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Erykah Badu
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Erykah Badu
Erykah Badu at a concert in 2008
Background information
Birth name Erica Abi Wright
Born February 26, 1971 (1971-02-26) (age 43)
Dallas, Texas
United States
Origin Dallas, Texas
United States
Occupations Singer-songwriter, Producer, Actress
Instruments Vocals, keyboards, guitar, drums
Years active 1991–now
Labels Kedar, Universal, Motown, Puppy Love, Control Freaq
Associated acts Soulquarians
Erica Abi Wright (born February 26, 1971), better known by her stage name Erykah Badu (how to say: /ˈɛrɨkə bɑːˈduː/), is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress.[1] She rose to fame in 1997 when she released her critically well liked first album, Baduizm.[2] For this album she received two Grammy Awards. Badu has won a total of four Grammy Awards out of nineteen nominations. Her songs include parts from R&B, hip hop and jazz.[3] Badu is best known for her role in the rise of the neo soul sub-genre, and for her eccentric, creative musical stylings and sense of fashion. She is known as the "Queen of Neo-Soul".
Personal life[change | change source]
Badu has three children.
Discography[change | change source]
Studio albums
Live albums
References[change | change source]
1. Bush, John. "Erykah Badu - Biography". Allmusic. Retrieved January 23, 2012.
2. Bush, John. "Baduizm". Allmusic. Retrieved January 23, 2012.
3. "Erykah Badu". Retrieved January 23, 2012.
Other websites[change | change source]
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Forgot your password?
Comment: Re:Valid science isn't the only yardstick. (Score 1) 134
by Phasma Felis (#44025737) Attached to: Proposed Rule Would Drastically Restrict Chimp Research
Well, in that case, we ought to be allowed to experiment on humans against their will, surely. I mean, chimps are similar to us, but they're not identical, and those dissimilarities slow down human-applicable research. if vivisecting a few hundred screaming humans can advance lifesaving medical science, why, it would be selfish not to strap them down!
Comment: Try to sympathize with other users (Score 1) 429
by Phasma Felis (#43749095) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Dealing With a Fear of Technological Change?
I find that it's a really good idea to try to understand why people prefer the systems they do. Be sympathetic, get inside their heads, and you'll be better able to both defend your own choices and sympathize with theirs.
This part really should be obvious, but on Slashdot it's not: if you ever conclude that anyone likes any system because "they're stupid", go back and try again. For non-techies, a dirt-simple, friendly, easy-to-use system that does the tiny set of tasks they need is genuinely more useful than a powerful, complex system that they don't have the time or inclination to learn about. Not everyone derives pleasure and satisfaction from figuring out complex systems, and many people simply have other things to do with their time.
Comment: Re:Why not just 0? (Score 1) 996
My guess is that there's several reasons: BAC below a certain threshold doesn't measurably affect your ability to drive; lots of innocuous things contain alcohol in quantities too small to ever cause intoxication; and breathalyzers are far from 100% accurate. You don't want people losing their license because they drank a glass of orange juice, or just because the breathalyzer erroneously showed 0.01% instead of 0.00%.
Comment: "You don't wear your Bluetooth all the time" (Score 1) 533
by Phasma Felis (#43624049) Attached to: Is Google Glass Too Nerdy For the Mainstream?
"Think of the Bluetooth headset: it’s a really sensible way to use your phone without having to take it out of your pocket—so sensible that there’s really no reason not to keep that headset in your ear most of the time. But you don’t, do you?"
Yes. Yes, I do. Know why? Because I'm a nerd, I'm practical, and I don't give two wet shits what you think.
What weirds me out about this excerpt (I did not RTFA) is the vague implication that if people are too image-obsessed to use a practical, advantageous product, it's the product that's defective and not the people.
Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the slaves-to-the-grind dept.
Comment: Re:Didn't read any other advice. (Score 1) 561
by Phasma Felis (#43182945) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Block Noise In a Dorm?
The questioner asked how to deal with a problem at school, and your answer was "Finish school, then..."
You're not answering the question that was asked. You're answering a completely different question that is useless to the asker and is only intended to make you feel better about yourself, you Hard-Minded Realist, you. Thus, you're a troll.
Comment: Re:Read your work out loud (Score 1) 561
by Phasma Felis (#43182803) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Block Noise In a Dorm?
This is true in general, but when you're having trouble with something--a coding problem, say--it can be very useful to describe it out loud. Processing things verbally makes your brain think about them differently. I'd like to have a dollar for every time I've struggled with something for three hours, gone to ask a coworker for help, and then realized the solution while I was explaining the problem to them.
Comment: Re:Don't Complain... (Score 1) 561
by Phasma Felis (#43182759) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Block Noise In a Dorm?
Telling an ADD person that they have to get used to distractions is like telling a person in a wheelchair to quit moaning and walk already.
Why is it so hard to believe that not everyone's brain works like yours? With ADD (and some kinds of autism), a conversation on TV across the room feels like it's being shouted in your ear. It is not physically possible to ignore. It can't be fixed with practice or willpower any more than a severed spinal cord can be.
Growing Consensus: The Higgs Boson Exists 254
Posted by timothy
A rolling disk gathers no MOS.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93176
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How to add a custom Subject Alternative Name to a fixed certificate request at CA level?
• We have a fixed certificate request from a third party device. The certificate request doesn't contain any subject alternative Name.
Is it possible to add the subject alternative name at CA level in the signing process itself?
Many Commercial CAs offer this step wenn you upload you custom certificate request in binary format and afterwards you can choose to add a custom subject alternative name before the actual signing occurs.
• Edited by lkl-it Saturday, October 19, 2013 5:02 PM spelling
Saturday, October 19, 2013 5:01 PM
All replies
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93177
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Unproductive War II
Posted on January 26, 2013 by
In the previous post I argued that although it looks like the period between 1 and 1500 AD was one of stagnation, and even regress (European ‘Dark Ages’, etc.), under the surface there was a lot of technological and social progress. In China, again, agricultural techniques continued to evolve. And while the geographic extent of Chinese empires, measured in millions of square kilometers, did not increase much, if at all, the scale of the Chinese society measured in the number of people expanded quite dramatically. During the first millennium AD the population of Chinese empires (under Han, Sui, and Tang Dynasties) peaked at the level between 50 and 60 million. But in the early second millennium, under the Sung Dynasty, as a result of significant advances in agricultural technology the population reached the level that was double of the first millennium peaks, 120 million. And peak populations achieved by subsequent dynasties continued to increase even before 1500.
Similar advances took place on the other side of the Eurasian land mass. In the region where I was born (just southwest of Moscow) there was no agriculture to speak of during the first millennium AD. But in the second millennium, as a result of such innovations as the heavy plow and new cultivars (e.g., rye) agriculture spread to central Russia, and provided a resource base for a very substantial state.
Most importantly, military technology was not at a standstill. Cavalry improvements (stirrup, heavily armored cavalry, and sabers to cut through the armor) is one example. But the most far-reaching consequences were due to improvements in firearms, starting with Greek fire and Chinese incendiary weapons. In fact, the perfection of gunpowder weapons was what brought the era of the steppe archer dominance to its end.
At a deeper level, it’s wrong to think of the period between 1 and 1500 AD as unproductive, because it’s not really war in itself that is either productive or unproductive. The productive force, in terms of driving social evolution, is instead competition between groups and societies, which has the effect of weeding out dysfunctional groups. It’s just like firms competing in the marketplace. If you stop such economic competition, as happened in the Soviet Union, you will end up with a lot of dysfunctional firms. Same principle applies to the competition between social groups.
Violence is unproductive when it pitches people against other people within societies, taking forms such as murders between individual people or civil war between organized groups. It can be ‘productive,’ despite killing people and destroying property, when it is whole societies fighting other societies. But the key is not killing people, it’s between-group selection – competition that eliminates societies, whose members are unable to cooperate with each other, or to invent and adopt innovations and acquire or sustain prosocial norms and institutions. It’s not being good at killing.
Even in war one society can defeat another by outproducing the enemy, rather than by outfightning them. During World War II Germans were unparalleled as fighters on the battlefield. Quantitative studies by military historians have documented that, for example, Americans had to bring 40 percent more troops than the Germans just to get an even chance of winning. This is a little-known historical fact. What is better known is that Americans simply outproduced the Germans by churning out more aircraft, tanks, artillery shells, etc.
Another little-known fact is that this was also how the Soviets fought the Nazi Germany (which is more important, because the Third Reich lost over 80 percent of its casualties on the Eastern Front). Before 1944, when the battle-hardened Red Army finally matched the fighting prowess of the Germans, the Soviet Union had to rely on outproducing the Reich – I don’t have the numbers handy, but it was like producing two, three, or even four times as many tanks, planes, assault rifles, ammunition, etc.
These examples deal with war, but while historically competition between societies usually (but not always) took bloody forms, it does not logically need to be that way. This is, by the way, one reason why I think our future as the species is not completely dark.
So between-society competition is not just about violence, and primarily not about it. Conversely, high rates of violence, as those found in the Inuit (where 30 percent of adult male deaths were due to murders), or incessant between-village warfare in New Guinea and the Amazon (Yanomami!) have been completely unproductive for the evolution of large-scale cohesive and productive societies.
new guinea warfare
If you are interested in a more detailed, although technical argument, take a look at this article of mine.
In that article I identify several conditions that turn war into a potent force of social evolution. One of them is improvements (if this is the right word) in military technology. As I have written before in this blog, the rise of the warhorse was one of the most important such technological innovations before the Age of Gunpowder, And that is why we see tow jumps in the scale of largest empires in the figure above after the invention of, first, chariotry, and, a thousand years later, cavalry. And there was a third jump, after 1500, due to the invention of cannon and ocean-crossing ships.
So I disagree with Ian who sees the rise of steppe horse-riders as the development that turned productive war into unproductive violence. It was these horse-riders who drove the evolution to larger and wealthier world empires during the first millennium BC. The warhorse increased the selection intensity on societies, which brought the typical size of world empires to that range of around 3 million square kilometers around which it fluctuated for the next two thousand years. Then, the evolution of gunpowder weapons and sailing ships elevated the pitch of selection even higher, resulting in the rise of such huge transoceanic empires as the Spanish and the British.
We now live in a new age. The Spanish and the British empires, as well as the Soviet one are now gone. Only one is left, and it is in deep trouble. The European Union, which for a while looked like a new and different way of voluntarily integrating multinational conglomerates of people, is also in trouble. Does this mean that we have again run out of steam, just as in 1 AD, as Ian Morris suggested for an earlier period? Interesting questions for which I don’t have answers.
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cross Daily Readings cross
Wednesday, 30th July 2014 --- 23 Abib 1730
Today's Readings
Readings for Wednesday, 30th July 2014 --- 23 Abib 1730
Vespers Psalm
From the Psalms of our teacher David the prophet.
May his blessings be with us all.
Psalms 46 : 1,7
Chapter 46
7The LORD of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our refuge.Selah
Vespers Gospel
May His Blessings be with us all.
Mark 1 : 16 - 22
Chapter 1
18They immediately left their nets and followed Him.
And Glory be to God forever.
↑ Top of Page ↑
Matins Psalm
From the Psalms of our teacher David the prophet.
May his blessings be with us all.
Psalms 146 : 1,5
Chapter 146
1Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul!
Matins Gospel
May His Blessings be with us all.
Matthew 4 : 18 - 22
Chapter 4
22and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.
And Glory be to God forever.
↑ Top of Page ↑
Paulines Epistle
A reading from the Epistle of our teacher Paul to the Galatians .
May his blessings be upon us.
Galatians 1 : 1 - 19
Chapter 1
5to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
The grace of God the Father be with you all.
↑ Top of Page ↑
Catholic Epistle
A Reading from Epistle of St. James .
May his blessing be upon us.
James 1 : 1 - 12
Chapter 1
3knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
9Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation,
Do not love the world or the things in the world.
↑ Top of Page ↑
Acts of the Apostles
Acts 15 : 13 - 21
Chapter 15
18"Known to God from eternity are all His works.
↑ Top of Page ↑
The Twenty-Third Day of the Blessed Month of Abib
Martyrdom of St.Longinus the Soldier
On this day, St. Longinus the Soldier, was martyred. He was Greek by nationality, from one of the countries of Cappadocia. When Tiberius Caesar reigned, and appointed Pilate governor of the land of Judah, Longinus was one of the soldiers that accompanied him. When the time arrived that Our Lord wished to save the creation, Longinus was one of the soldiers that were in charge of crucifying the Lord of Glory. It happened that after the Lord had delivered up His soul, Longinus pierced His side with a spear, and blood and water flowed from His Side. Longinus marvelled exceedingly when he saw this, and his amazement increased when he saw that the sun became dark, the curtain of the Temple was rent, the rocks were split, and that the dead rose up from the tombs. He believed and realized all the miracles which Our Lord performed from His Birth to His Crucifixion. When the righteous Joseph took the body of the Savior, shrouded Him, and laid it in the sepulcher, this Saint was standing there with the guards when they sealed the tomb. When Our Lord rose from the sealed tomb, Longinus was perplexed, and he asked God to explain to him this mystery. Our Lord sent to him the Apostle Peter, who told him everything which had been prophesied concerning the Redeemer. He believed, abandoned the military service, went back to his country, and preached the Name of Christ. When Pilate heard about this, he wrote to Tiberius about him, who ordered his head cut off, and thus he received the crown of martyrdom.
May his prayers be with us, Amen.
Martyrdom of St.Marina, of Antioch
On this day also, is the commemoration of the martyrdom of the blessed St. Marina, who overcame the Devil. She was one of the daughters of the nobles of Antioch. Her parents were pagan. When her mother died, her father sent her to a nanny to raise her, who was a Christian. She taught Marina the Faith of Christ. When Marina reached the age of fifteen years, her father died. One day she heard her nurse talking about the biography of the martyrs and what glory they receive in the Kingdom of Heaven. She longed to become a martyr in the Name of the Lord Christ. One day St. Marina went out of her house with her maiden servants, and on her way she passed by Lopharius Ebrotus, the governor, who admired her much when he saw her. He ordered her brought to him. When the soldiers came to her, she told them that she was Christian. In turn, when they told the governor this, he was distressed for he liked her, and he had her brought to him by force. He offered her the worship of the idols and asked her to forsake God, but she refused. Then he asked her, "What is your name? and from where are you?" She told him, "I am Christian. I believe in the Lord Christ, and my name is Marina." He tried to persuade her by many promises and promised to marry her, but she did not heed him. When she cursed and insulted him, he ordered her body scraped with iron combs, then rubbed with vinegar, salt and lime, which they did. Nevertheless, she endured with patience. They cast her in prison, thinking that she was about to die. Immediately the angel of the Lord came, and healed all her wounds. While she was standing up praying, and her hands were extended in the form of a cross, a huge and terrifying serpent came forth. When she saw it she was frightened and her whole body trembled. The serpent swallowed her up, and her soul almost departed from her. She made the sign of the cross and prayed while she was in the belly of the serpent. It split open and fell on the ground dead. St. Marina went out unharmed.
The next morning, the governor ordered her brought to him. When he saw that she was well, he marvelled much, and told her, "Marina, your sorcery has become evident today, so listen to me. Worship the gods and much good would be for you, and I will give you all that I have promised you." She looked to him and to the dumb idols with contempt and said, "I worship the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, the God of heavens and earth, and whatever you wish to do with me, do, for I will not heed you." The governor ordered her hanged on the wheel, the squeezing wheel, and squeezed very tightly. They did so, then cast her in prison. The angel of the Lord came to her, and healed her. Then the Devil appeared to her and said, "O Marina, if you obey the governor that would be for your good for he is merciless, and he wishes to erase your name from the face of the earth." She realized that he was the Devil. Straightway she caught the hair of his head, and she took an iron rod and started to beat him, saying, "Stop it O Satan." Then she bound him with the sign of the cross, not to depart from before her until he told her all about what he does to the human race. When she pressed him, he told her, "I am the one who makes adultery, stealing, blasphemy, and earthly desires, good and desirable to the human. And if I do not overcome him, I steer sleep and laziness against him, so he will not pray and ask for the forgiveness of his sins." The Saint straightway expelled him.
When the governor saw her he marvelled much, then he ordered to uncover her body, and to fill a large cauldron with melted lead, and to immerse her in it. When they did so, she asked the Lord to make this a baptism for her. The Lord sent his angel in the form of a dove. She immersed while saying, "In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God Amen." A voice from heaven called her and said, "O Marina you have been baptized in the baptismal water." She rejoiced exceedingly, and those who were present heard what had happened to the saint. Many of them believed, and the governor ordered to cut off their necks, and afterwards ordered to cut off St. Marina's holy head. The executioner took her and went outside the city, then told her, "My lady Marina, I see the angel of the Lord and with him a crown of bright light." She said, "I ask you to tarry on me until I have prayed." She extended her arms and prayed fervently, then told the executioner, "Do what you have been ordered to do." She bowed her neck to the executioner who told her, "I could not do so." The saint told him, "If you do not do so, you would not have a share in the Kingdom of God." When he heard what she said, he took the sword and cut her neck off then he cut his neck also while he was saying, "I believe in the God of St. Marina." He fell down beside her and he received the crown of martyrdom in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord had manifested from her body many signs and healing miracles. Her body is presently located in the church of the Lady the Virgin Mary in Haret El-Roum.
↑ Top of Page ↑
Divine Psalm
May His Blessings be with us all. Amen.
May his blessings be with us all.
Psalms 78 : 5
Chapter 78
Psalms 135 : 5
Chapter 135
Divine Gospel
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Mark 10 : 35 - 45
Chapter 10
And Glory be to God forever.
↑ Top of Page ↑
Today's Readings
Return to previous page.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I am trying to create a job with quartz.net which will run every 45 minutes between a start time and a end time
I have tried to create this with a cron tigger using
cronExpression = "0 0/45 8-5 * * ?";
however this is not working the way i want it to.
After looking at the quartz.net tutorials it is suggested to implement such a job would require using two triggers.
I am a little confused on how to implement this, can anyone advise on a solution
share|improve this question
1 Answer 1
up vote 8 down vote accepted
Quartz.Net Tutorials are mostly based on Quartz.Net v1.
If you are using v2+, you can use the following trigger definition:
ITrigger trigger = TriggerBuilder.Create()
.WithIdentity("trigger1", "group1")
x => x.StartingDailyAt(TimeOfDay.HourAndMinuteOfDay(8, 0))
.EndingDailyAt(TimeOfDay.HourAndMinuteOfDay(11, 0))
This will create a trigger, running every 45 minutes, between 8am and 11am.
share|improve this answer
Your Answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93208
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
What is the way to use a Struts2 select tag inside a Struts2 Jquery Grid Column? I couldn't find any useful information in the plugin website, they just talk about a custom formatter using a javascript function, which I have been able to use successful for other needs, but I can't do it with the Struts2 select tag since there's no point of creating Struts2 tags dynamically with javascript. I really appreciate your help.
share|improve this question
1 Answer 1
up vote 2 down vote accepted
Maybe you are looking at the wrong place. Check here, you will understand how to use a select tag in jquery grid.
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Your Answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93209
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
When an event handler function gets registered like this:
element.onload = function()
var something = Selector("identifier", "inline", 1).FadeIn("inline", 1);
is there a way to stop the execution once it starts from the inside of another handler function? Let that handler function look like this:
another.onclick = function()
//Cancel the execution of the above function here
document.getElementById("start").innerHTML = "Start Slideshow";
Selector returns a special wrapper object that isn't relevant for the question itself so the implementation has been omitted.
It's quite known that it's possible to prevent execution of a handler function by assigning undefined to the handler variable, but how to stop it if it's already begun executing?
share|improve this question
You can't. JavaScript is single threaded, if a function runs, it runs. Other code can't be executed while a function is running. – Felix Kling Sep 8 '12 at 11:29
1 Answer 1
up vote 0 down vote accepted
You're missing an important concept here.
In javascript, there is only one thread of execution. While you might think that onclick gets called while onload is executing, that is plain false.
I don't know what framework you're using, but in jQuery you could do the following:
another.onclick = function()
//Cancel the execution of the above function here
Selector("identifier", "inline", 1).stop();
// ...other stuff
share|improve this answer
.stop does not simply stop a function. There is a lot more to do in order to make this work and it depends on the function itself whether it's possible to make it "stoppable". – Felix Kling Sep 8 '12 at 11:33
Oh my god. I didn't know what stop() does. Or did I? His problem is with animations which in jQuery can be stop()ped... Stop is pretty much useless anywhere else, it's not my problem to tell anyone how it works - there's ample documentation to do it. – Christian Sep 8 '12 at 15:26
Your Answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93210
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
I have my own program with plugins (dynamic shared libraries) on a linux (ubuntu) system. My libraries (plugins) use OpenCV (maybe not so important).
My plugins are in /usr/local/lib/mysoft/.
I have compiled my program successfully even with libraries, successfully installed so everything seems to be OK up to this point.
When I run my program, it loads a bunch of these libraries based on some configuration file. I have several libraries which are loaded successfully but I cannot load one library. It gives me error when loading (used dlopen() to open the library):
/usr/local/lib/mysoft/libMyPlugin2.so: undefined symbol: _ZN2cv6resizeERKNS_11_InputArrayERKNS_12_OutputArrayENS_5Size_IiEEddi
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
Tue Nov 20 19:11:29 CET 2012
It obviously has some problems to find cv::resize which is part of OpenCV but I don't understand why.
I checked following things:
• OpenCV is probably correctly installed since other libraries use it as well and are loaded without problems
• no dependencies of my program, libMyPlugin2.so or OpenCV are missing (checked with ldd)
• Architecture of all libraries and binaries seems to be the same (I checked it with objdump -f)
Does anybody have an idea what am I doing wrong?
This post seems to be so relevant but still didn't help: Linux shared library that uses a shared library undefined symbol
share|improve this question
You might have several versions of OpenCV installed and a wrong version is chosen at run time. – Andrey Kamaev Nov 20 '12 at 21:22
Might be Andrey Kamaev is correct, but try building OpenCV in debug mode and run it with debug libraries. OpenCV on Ubuntu / Linux distros has some prerequisites that you will catch only in debug mode. – ZEN.Kamath Nov 20 '12 at 21:36
It was correct that I had multiple versions of OpenCV installed but I linked the right one (chcecked with ldd). Even after uninstall and now when I have only a single version it acts the same (I even rebuilded my software to be sure that it's linked with the single vwersion). – bubo Nov 21 '12 at 6:53
_ZN2cv6resizeERKNS_11_InputArrayERKNS_12_OutputArrayENS_5Size_IiEEddi obviously looks like a C++ mangled name, so it seems that you have a C++ ABI compatibility problem. What compiler do you use and what compiler was used to build the library? Maybe, the mangling algorithm has changed slightly in another compiler version, so you get most of the symbols right. – EarlGray Nov 21 '12 at 10:39
Actually I use the the CMake to generate Makefiles but you're right - it seems that there is problem with different compiler versions. Do you know if it's possible to analyse the problem based on binaries? I specified the same compiler to the CMake for OpenCV and my stuff but it didn't solve my problem (I used CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++ and CMAKE_CC_COMPILER=/usr/bin/gcc). – bubo Nov 21 '12 at 15:04
1 Answer 1
up vote 0 down vote accepted
Well I found the problem, hopefully it can help others...
The problem - I was missing one OpenCV library when compiling. So I replaced "opencv_core opencv_highgui" by "opencv_core opencv_imgproc opencv_highgui" and everything works.
So although I was able to compile it one of the dependencies was missing - I guess something has changed in OpenCV cause these sources worked perfectly (even with build) with older versions of the OpenCV.
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Your Answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93211
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
The following code is working fine in development, as soon as i deploy in web server it said could find file directory. I need to change the .client template so its not hard coded like before. So if we deploy to the server where the Top folder name different or the hierarchy change, it still find the page.
I was thinking using @Url.Action but not sure how in this case to implement in .CLientTemplate
@Html.ActionLink(@item.FirstName, "Index", "Summary", new { testId = @item.FirstName })
.ClientTemplate("<a href='/Summary/Index/?testId =#= TestId #'>#=FirstName#</a>").Title("First Name");
share|improve this question
4 Answers 4
I got this one working fine
columns.Bound(a => a.Id).Title("Action").Filterable(false).ClientTemplate(
"<a href='" +
Url.Action("ActionName", "Controller") +
"/#= Id #'" +
I needed an extra column and a link button field for go to detalis page of a customer. I don't need filter option for this column and that is why I remove it using Filterable(false). Also you can give the link content and column header as above. This value( /#= Id #'") is the one I passe to the controller action method.Hope this will work
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In case you're using server-binding (as opposed to ajax) and Razor as your view-engine, here is an example. I need a link such as /Controller/Action/Id where Id is obtained from a property of the model. Please note that @item denotes the model instance being currently processed by the grid.
columns.Template(@<text>@Html.ActionLink(AbaScore.Resources.App.Edit,"ACTION", "CONTROLLER", new { @item.Id }, null)</text>)
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up vote 0 down vote accepted
After further research, i found my solution using the following forum
share|improve this answer
Something like this should do:
.ClientTemplate("<a href='" + Url.Action("Index", "Summary", new { testId = "#=TestId#" }) + "'>#=FirstName#</a>")
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93212
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
How do I dictate the destination folder of a clickOnce application?
share|improve this question
Are you talking about the publish location for the setup program or where the program gets installed? – Orion Adrian Sep 28 '08 at 7:13
sorry, where the program gets installed or at least the data folder – user23149 Sep 28 '08 at 7:19
What is your reason for needing a different directory? I'm running into a situation where a security system is blocking executables from the application data folder. – Brad Bruce Oct 1 '08 at 23:13
3 Answers 3
up vote 10 down vote accepted
This is not possible with ClickOnce. ClickOnce applications are always installed in the Apps subdirectory of local application data.
share|improve this answer
As a further to the above, this is a security feature. Allowing websites to install software to arbitrary locations on someone's harddrive somewhat automatically is a bad idea.
share|improve this answer
One Click application directly installs into the user profile directory. There is no way you can install it to your Programme files. To customize the your application use Installaware Admin http://www.installaware.com/studio-admin-features.htm
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93213
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
In an Apache Hadoop map-reduce program, what are the options for using sets/lists as keys in the output from the mapper?
My initial idea was to use ArrayWritable as key type, but that is not allowed, as the class does not implement WritableComparable. Do I need to define a custom class, or is there some other set like class in the Hadoop libraries that can act as key?
share|improve this question
Can you give the use case where you be using list/set as keys in mapper – Pradyumna Mohapatra Apr 23 at 8:23
@PradyumnaMohapatra My question is more than four years old, but IIRC my intermediate key was a set of products bought together, with the intermediate values being ids of orders with this subset. The reduce method would then count the occurrence of each distinct set of products. – Jørn Schou-Rode Apr 25 at 12:22
1 Answer 1
I thought ArrayWritable implemented Writable which is a superinterface of WritableComparable.
Did you subclass ArrayWritable? According to the documentation you need to subclass it so that you can set the type of object to be stored by the array. For example:
public class TextArrayWritable extends ArrayWritable {
public TextArrayWritable() {
Checkout the ArrayWritable javadocs.
share|improve this answer
ArrayWritable implements Writable but not WritableComparable, and apparently the latter is required for the class to be used for keys. I could subclass ArrayWritable and add support for the WritableComparable interface, but is this necessary? – Jørn Schou-Rode Jan 31 '10 at 21:31
Ah sorry looked a bit closer. The key needs WritableComparable because hadoop needs to be able to sort the keys. So, yes you could implement the WritableComparable interface which just requires you to override the compareTo method. Hope this helps. – Binary Nerd Jan 31 '10 at 21:51
Your Answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93214
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
I have a Grails app with acegi security, and I just found some users with their "enabled" field in false, when they were set to true after an approval process.
My question is: May it have happened because of a maximum login attempts reached ? If so, where is it configured ?
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1 Answer 1
up vote 0 down vote accepted
There's no support for maximum login attempt checking in the plugin. If it's implemented it may be custom code but it'd probably use an event handler. If it's custom code you'd probably have beans defined in resources.groovy, and/or possibly bean property changes in BootStrap.groovy. If it's using an event, the callback(s) would be in SecurityConfig.groovy - see http://www.grails.org/AcegiSecurity+Plugin+-+Acegi+Events
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93215
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
I am in the process of writing a fairly long monograph on a computer science topic. However, I usually find myself in a position of having to write some computer science concept in mathematical terms, and it is difficult to me. For instance, say I want to write a for-loop or a void function. I do most of the time go to my Knuth or Cormen or Sedgewick, but they are not enough now. Is there a "manual" or some text I can take as example to translate computer science into mathematics?
EDIT: Let me be more specific (thanks, Uri). What I mean is: For example, I have a function that is void, and it returns a random string of length n. This caused my curiosity, I dont even know how to represent void function in in math... but again, this is just an example. I'm plagued by these kinds of questions. Thank you.
share|improve this question
Hate to say it, but those three are probably the most mathematical CS books out there. If you're exhausting those, I think you might have to be a pioneer in this topic. :) – J. Polfer Jul 29 '10 at 1:40
@sheep: :) I wish I were... I think I'm just working on a topic more applied than, say, pure permutation, or linked lists, and a fair bit more on probability theory, which those books don't touch at all. – Dervin Thunk Jul 29 '10 at 1:46
Maybe I could help you offline if you sent me a manuscript and specific questions. I was a math prof before I went into software development. johndcook.com/contact.html – John D. Cook Jul 29 '10 at 1:52
As far as a random string of length n, you could simply say "X is a random string of length n...", and then be explicit about what you mean by "random". For example, is it chosen uniformly at random from all n-letter strings from some alphabet? – Seth Jul 29 '10 at 1:56
4 Answers 4
up vote 3 down vote accepted
Summation or product notation can probably replace some for-loops. Others can probably be expressed as logical quantifiers ("There exists i such that a[i] has some property" or "a[i] has some property for all i"). (Sorry I don't know how to render these in Markdown...hope you get the idea.)
"Void functions"...hmmm, maybe some convenient logical notation to state preconditions and postconditions, since such functions are only useful for their side effects?
But I think most mathematicians will be familiar enough with descriptions of algorithms to understand any halfway reasonable pseudocode convention. Just try to stay away from anything that requires a "language-lawyer" skill level in some particular programming language.
share|improve this answer
:) "Language-lawyer", I liked that. By the way, I tried the summation for for-loops, and a mathematician almost killed me while saying "yes, yes, but you're not adding anything here!"... – Dervin Thunk Jul 29 '10 at 1:51
@Dervin: Well, there ya go...don't overthink this! Be clear and concise, try to learn and abide by any topic-specific conventions, and mathematicians (and even normal people!) will be grateful for it. – Jim Lewis Jul 29 '10 at 2:09
that is very sensible... – Dervin Thunk Jul 29 '10 at 2:22
+1 Received the same comment from a mathematician when I tried to use summation and product notation as a replacement for For loops. – Ian Jul 29 '10 at 16:42
I think you have to be more specific. Are you talking about translating algorithms? Writing code as pseudocode?
There are many more "mathematical" formalisms, many of them are used in formal verification of programs. They are usually based on discrete mathematics.
Depending on what you're trying to do, Hoare Logic is a good way of representing the steps of algorithms, IMHO.
You could also formally specify some architectures and protocols using the Z notation.
share|improve this answer
Every formal notation of a construct I've seen has been in some form of discrete mathematics - mathematical logic, set theory, combinatorics, and algebra usually. Formal specification languages, like Z, are heavily based on the constructs from discrete mathematics. – Thomas Owens Jul 29 '10 at 1:38
To address your specific question: in mathematics, if it takes no arguments and returns a random string of length n, it probably isn't a function at all! That is, if f() is not equal to f() (e.g., with f() = rand()) then by definition f() isn't a function. You can solve this in different ways, depending on your preferences: you could pass it the state parameter and have it return the modified state parameter, or you could make it a multivalued function and return all possible values, or you could use two functions: f(n, state) gives the next random string of length n while g(n, state) gives the new state after generating f(n, state).
share|improve this answer
You could look into Elements of Programming by Alexander Stepanov and Paul McJones :
share|improve this answer
I like this book but most of the actual algorithms etc. are expressed in a dialect of C++, with "mathematical" notation reserved for defining concepts and properties (and even then they break out often into fragments of C++). It would not serve well I think as an example of how to express programs in mathematical notation, the programs in this book use C++, not even pseudo code. – Logan Capaldo Jul 29 '10 at 3:39
Yes, that should be a big disclaimer. Nevertheless, I think the mapping between mathematical concepts and a real programming language constructs could be useful for the OP. – anno Jul 29 '10 at 13:26
Your Answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93216
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
I was able to successfully get the GWT Atmosphere demo project as well as the Grails atmosphere project up and running. However, when using the Grails backend to power up the GWT Atmosphere client, it stops working with the following message:
comet.error [connected=false] (0)0
comet.error [connected=true] (-1)Expecting disconnection but received message: <!-- Welcome to the Atmosphere Framework. To work with all the browsers when suspending connection, Atmosphere must output some data to makes WebKit based browser working.-->
Any advice?
share|improve this question
2 Answers 2
Do you have some more output available? Maybe an exception?
Does it happen while broadcasting a message? Maybe you have configured the suspended connection to resume on broadcast.
Maybe the problem is the received message. You could try to deactivate writing the message when suspending, e.g.:
new SuspendResponse.SuspendResponseBuilderString... .outputComments(false) ... .build()
share|improve this answer
the problem seems to be the protocol and some funny issues with grails 2 – fabiangebert Dec 26 '11 at 12:18
up vote 1 down vote accepted
It was all about configuring the CometHandler correctly. It's still not working as we expect it to, but it's at least working the same way as manually injecting the AtmosphereServlet
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93217
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
I'm writing a script which archives files for analysis. My issue is that the file names aren't unique over multiple folders so they are being over written.
For instance:
At the end of my copy process I'm only getting 2 files, but I want 4.
I'd like the output to be like this:
Here's my script so far.
$files = dir -r -path "C:\StuffToCopy\" -i *.*
foreach ($file in $files)
if ($file.LastWriteTime -gt (get-date).AddDays(-1)) {
copy -path $file C:\ArchiveCopy\
I want to do something like copy -path $file.FolderName & '_' & $file C:\ArchiveCopy\
I'm just not sure how to do it.
share|improve this question
3 Answers 3
If $file is really a file – an instance of System.IO.FileInfo (and not really a directory: System.IO.DirectoryInfo) then it has property Directory which is an instance of DirectoryInfo which has a Name:
$file |
copy-item -destination {
Join-Path C:\ArchiveCopy\ -childpath ($_.Directory.Name + "_" + $_.Name) }
(Using a pipeline to start because the -LiteralPath parameter of Copy-Item will bind to the PSPath property from the pipeline, so no need to pull the original file's name from the $file object.)
If $file might be a directory, then you need to do more of the work yourself, but probably easier to filter out directories first:
dir -r -path C:\StuffToCopy\ |
where { -not $_.PSIsContainer } |
copy-item -destination {
• No need to save all the file objects and then loop over them: let the pipeline do the looping
• No need to -i "*.*": this is the default anyway (and if you need to filter files on a wildcard pattern prefer the -filter pattern parameter: the filter is passed to the filesystem rather than creating .NET objects and then filtering them which is much slower if there are a lot of files).
share|improve this answer
Great explanation +1 – nimizen Sep 16 '11 at 13:49
Try this:
dir -r -path C:\StuffToCopy |
where {!$_.psiscontainer} |
copy -dest { "C:\ArchiveCopy\$($_.Directory.Name)_$($_.Name)"}
share|improve this answer
This :) Really economical +1 – nimizen Sep 16 '11 at 13:43
thanks @nimizen – Shay Levy Sep 16 '11 at 13:49
Based on your script, here's another way to do this:
$destPath = "c:\ArchiveCopy\"
foreach ($file in $files)
$folderPath = Split-Path $file.fullname -parent
$folder = Split-Path $folderPath -leaf
$destFilename = $folder + "_" + $file.name
$destFileFullPath = $destPath + $destFilename
write-host $destFileFullPath
if ($file.LastWriteTime -eq (get-date).AddDays(0)) {
copy -path $file $destFileFullPath
share|improve this answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93227
|
Chief Todd Schmaderer
Police: Dad Killed During Standoff After Using 3-Year-Old Son As Human Shield
Omaha police say the shotgun used by a man killed in a New Year’s Day standoff was unloaded, but he posed an imminent threat by using his 3-year-old son as a human shield.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93240
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
I am trying to insert a cropped out part of one picture into another picture.
I am copying over a layer, but my issue is that the target picture is a little grainy. The layer lines up perfectly from a perspective point of view, but it stands out like a sore thumb because the layer is much more clear compared to the picture that it's sitting on top of.
Is there any way I can take a layer and make it easier to blend in with a background image?
Here is a part of the background to show the grainyness of the picture:
enter image description here
share|improve this question
2 Answers 2
up vote 1 down vote accepted
Without seeing the other image it's a little hard to say just exactly what has to be done to get them both into the same ballpark, but you're probably going to have to "degrade" your cropped image a bit. Experiment (on a copy) with some or all of these procedures:
Add noise.
Try a bit of blurring.
Feather the edges of the cropped image a few pixels.
Try getting the colors of the cropped image to match the background image more closely with the Match Color tool (Image > Adjustments > Match Color). (I think that's where it is; I'm doing this from memory.)
share|improve this answer
I would also try the different blend modes in the "layers" screen. Maybe try the heal brush on the edges? – Simon Verbeke Nov 20 '11 at 17:34
One thing you may want to look at is using Layer Masks with some Smart Filters. The layer masks will enable you to hide the really bad parts of the top image and apply soft blending as necessarily. The Smart Filters will allow you to apply just the right amount of blur to eliminate the grain. These two very important elements of Photoshop can be a little intimidating at first, but both are worth techniques are worth learning.
share|improve this answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93241
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
OK, now I'm at a loss.
I have been struggling with getting my Ubuntu server to boot. After a couple of days of fighting with it, I gave up and reinstalled thinking that'll sort it out.
It didn't.
What I get is a kernel panic (the same as when I tried to fix things) saying that boot can't find sdc2 (where root is located, sdc1 is /boot). It only offers me the partitions for sda and sdb drives, but not sdc. But here's the kicker: I just installed the system and I definitely could see sdc!
Reason I wouldn't want to mess up the partition table is that I have already set it up (and I have a RAID5 setup as well that I don't want to accidentally mess up).
How is this even possible? It does look like the order of the disks has somehow changed (because I'm pretty sure I had boot and root on sda - although I'm not 100% sure but if not, I don't know what I was thinking). Trying to change the boot order in BIOS did nothing, I get exactly the same setup during install.
Now I'm running out of ideas. Do I go and find 4 terabytes of backup storage somewhere, copy the RAID5 data there and wipe the whole system clean?
Here's the boot error: http://tinypic.com/r/qqwll3/6
And here's /etc/fstab and blkid output: http://tinypic.com/r/ae5oc8/6
And I have tried to reinstall GRUB, edit grub.cfg directly, change parameters in boot menu ('e' in grub menu), reinstall the whole system, change boot order in BIOS menu and.. I can't even remember what I have tried (my initial attempt was a couple of weeks ago).
EDIT2: Before reinstall /etc/fstab said boot and root were on sda rather than sdc, but something must have messed up the order the disks are reported. But even in this case, why does this not work? I thought I could organize the partitions as I want.
EDIT3: I found this question: Linux installation won't boot due to GRUB "no such device" error which looks a lot like my problem but the proposed solution did not work, unless I misunderstood it (I tried changing the Grub boot menu items with 'e' so that root was (hd0, gpt1), (hd0,gpt2), (hd1,gpt1) and (he1,gpt2) but each gave me the same error.
share|improve this question
2 Answers 2
Try the following:
• Boot into a live session
• Use blkid to check the UUIDs of your drives.
• If the problem occurs downstream of the bootloader, just change the /etc/fstab file of your instalation to use the UUIDs.
• If the problem is related to GRUB, try using a chroot environment to update and reinstall ti. See here for more information.
share|improve this answer
I have done pretty much all of those already :( I just checked the grub rescue and looks like sdc is hd1 rather than hd2, at least judging by number of partitions it listed. – Marko Poutiainen Feb 3 '13 at 19:18
I also tried changing the boot parameters to both hd1,gpt1 and hd1,gpt2 and still the same result. – Marko Poutiainen Feb 3 '13 at 19:20
Oh, to be more precise: I have checked the UUID's. I have also reinstall GRUB couple of times + I just did a full reinstall. – Marko Poutiainen Feb 3 '13 at 19:21
@Makis, please update your question to include everything you have tried. – terdon Feb 3 '13 at 19:48
Assuming that your RAID5 array is backed by a motherboard RAID, you'll have to take additional steps to make sure that it loads when you boot your system.
Unlike a standard RAID card, motherboard RAIDs need support in the operating system. I'm guessing that the live CD was configured to detect such arrays, while your installation does not because a. you failed to follow the provided instructions or b. there were no instructions about this in the installation guide you followed.
At any rate, booting from a fake-RAID (linux terminology) involves
• loading a temporary ram filesystem (initramfs) with necessary drivers
• detecting the RAID array, allowing kernel access it as a regular hard drive
• mounting a partition from that array as root and booting from that
This process should be documented on a wiki (Ununtu). Usually the solution will be a trivial edit to the kernel parameters in the boot loader stating that you want the system to probe for software raids. I say trivial because the ramfs with drivers is almost certainly already included so that you won't have to set that up manually.
I have not actually read this, but at first glance, it seems like what you need:
share|improve this answer
I didn't have a HW RAID. Turned out the issue was with the mobo which didn't like that the disk with the boot sector was on SATA port 5. – Marko Poutiainen Mar 25 '13 at 8:43
Your Answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93242
|
Take the 2-minute tour ×
Can the space bar scroll behavior be modified in all apps (such as Firefox, pdf viewers, etc.)? It's dizzying to have space bar scroll the full page -- I often lose track of what I'm reading.
I found this link, but the answer is for Microsoft Windows and seems to be only for Firefox. Is there an operating system and app independent solution? Or if not, one for Firefox and OSX would be very helpful still.
share|improve this question
A quick google search turned up empty. I'd even be interested in disabling the behavior, instead of just modifying the length of the jump, but no dice. Sucks. – fgb Apr 30 '13 at 21:08
1 Answer 1
I found this link that should solve your problem.
I've tried the solution myself, but I am using Ubuntu instead of OS X. Anyway I think this solution is general enough to solve your problem also, since it's firefox based.
Works with firefox, didn't look for a solution or alternative for chrome
Download the keyconfig extension (It seems a little bit outdated, but it is still working =D ).
Now look for "Keyconfig..." in the menus.
• Click Add new key
• In the Name textbox type something like "Half-page Scroll Down"
• Paste the following code, replacing the text /*CODE*/
/* Down */
window.content.scrollBy(0, window.content.innerHeight / 2);
• Click OK
• Now in the list look for "Half-page Scroll Down" and select it (the list may be alphabetically sorted)
• Click on the text field at the left size of the button Apply, and type the desired hotkey. In this case, you could press Space key of your keyboard
• Click Apply (Please don't forget this one :P )
Now to configure the scroll up just repeat the steps above using:
Name = "Half-page Scroll Up"
This code instead:
/* Up */
window.content.scrollBy(0, -(window.content.innerHeight / 2));
And hotkey = Press on your keyboard Shift+Space
(Don't forget apply :P)
Bonus: Note that the codes used above could easily be changed to get other desired effects like:
/* Down */
window.content.scrollBy(0, window.content.innerHeight / 3);
Scroll just 1/3 of the page instead of half! =)
/* Down */
window.content.scrollBy(0, 0);
Scroll does nothing at all (hey! Disables Space).
share|improve this answer
Your Answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93249
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Unchanging Chords
Whole song
More versions @911Tabs.com
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1 2 3 4 5
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B F# Gm 2X
*The Emaj7 is played on the fourth fret
B F# G#m Emaj7
And we will show that wherever you are
B E B
that is where all time starts
B F# G#m Emaj7
It's a pleasure to die a pleasure to be gone
B F# B
Into the sky we move on
D#m G#m Emaj7 B F# G#m
Life is unchanging It let me go
D#m G#m Emaj7 G#m B F# G#m Emaj7 G#m Emaj7
Life gave me up and I have no control
F# B F# G#m
I have no control
B F G#m
Verse 2
Everything goes a way that I do not
I clean up the clouds I ride
I've never been up where I see the others climb
Seems like it must be nice
Chorus 2
Laughters an ugly friend of mine
We share the best and the worst of times
Verse 3
Everyone goes where they belong
Nobody goes elswhere
Never much thought goes to being
right or wrong
B F# G#m Emaj7 3x
G#m F# G#m Emaj7 2x
G#m Emaj7
print report bad tab
5 comments total. Showing first comments.
0 reply
Frusciante19 wrote on October 1 2010, 01:58 pm
good tab.. although not everything correct 4*
0 reply
countrygentlema wrote on November 18 2010, 02:25 pm
Good. The blues like lick at the start is hammering on frets 4-6 on A string, palm muting of course. Easy to work out rhythm.
0 reply
PavelD wrote on March 17 2013, 08:24 am
No. It's playing palm muted G#5 chord
I want to post or [tab]
You may want to rate the tab now too:
select rating
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93255
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Fan-987-Logosm 35h_cbssportsrad_tampa cw44_tb
manned spaceflight
NASA’s Futuristic Spacesuits Made For First Mars Walkers
CBS Tampa–06/17/2014
The National Research Council recommends a long-term vision and a big increase in funding if NASA wants to send humans to Mars. (NASA/Getty Images)
Report: NASA Needs More Money And Focus Before Sending People To Mars
National Research Council says a steady hand and lots of money is the only way for NASA to fulfill its quest for Mars.
CBS Tampa–06/05/2014
NASA mission to capture an asteroid is just a prelude to a manned mission to Mars. (Getty Images)
CBS Tampa–03/28/2014
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93262
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Using dl for a Semantic Form
Wufoo’s login form
Understanding the dl element
HTML5 Working Draft: The dl element
Using dl, your code is going to look something like this:
<form action="">
<dt><label for="input-value">Label Name</label></dt>
<dd><input type="text" name="input-value" id="input-value" size="32" /></dd>
Aside from your code being semantic, using definition lists for forms will enable you to have a correctly styled form element by default since both dt (definition term aka term) and dd (definition aka value) are block elements. dl also lets you mark checkboxes up with more sense like so:
<dt>Select one or more option:</dt>
<input type="checkbox" name="value-1" id="value-1" />
<input type="checkbox" name="value-2" id="value-2" />
<input type="checkbox" name="value-3" id="value-3" />
I have to admit that I’m stumped checkboxes and radio boxes. There are times when it makes sense to put the option heading in a legend, but you can’t always put them in a separate fieldset! Using a heading element makes even less sense. Most of the time, I just use label even though it’s not really linked to anything. Well, p works, too.
Like everything else, using dl isn’t really foolproof:
• dt and dd are separate elements which makes it harder for you to clear them in case you’ve decided to float them and have multiple values. This scenario is easier for div, li and p because they act as a wrapper to the label-input pair. You can fix this by clearing your dt.
• You’ll encounter a version of the above mentioned problem when you have an empty value in a pair. You can either put a space (  ;) or min-height. I’m thinking that min-height is the better solution between the two, though.
• An IE 6 problem: when you add a block element within dl and its child elements, IE6 escapes the definition list so that the block element is outside it. There’s still a workaround like, instead of p, you can use span instead, which sort of defeats the purpose of what we’re trying to do. Ken, a co-worker of mine assured me that that problem doesn’t exist in IE 7, which is a sigh of relief.
Personally, I think the pros outweighs the various CSS issues you might encounter in the process. Nothing makes you feel better than being able to solve a CSS problem, which is probably why I miss IE 6 sometimes (isn’t that sad?). :(
How do you mark up your form? Do you think you’ll try and switch to dl one of these days?
Leave a Reply
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93270
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Skip to content
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The Guy's Guide to Dealing With Late Puberty
By Eric Metcalf, MPH
WebMD Feature
• Teased at school for being short
• People think you're younger than you are
Recommended Related to Teen Boys
LGBT Questions and Answers for Teen Boys
The teenage years can be a challenging and confusing time. Not only is your body changing, but your feelings may also be changing. This can cause a roller coaster of emotions as you explore your sexual identity. It is during the teen years that most boys and girls begin to take a closer look at their sexual orientation. That's a term used to describe a person's physical and romantic attraction to other people. WebMD takes a look at what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. We...
Read the LGBT Questions and Answers for Teen Boys article > >
What’s Taking So Long?
How to Keep Up With Other Guys
Don't stress if you're not in puberty yet. And don't compare yourself to other guys. Instead, do this:
Take it in stride. No one always gets what they want exactly when they want it, whether it’s an A on a test or a spot on the sports team, says teen counselor Tina Paone, PhD. Puberty is the same. “You can’t make this change happen any quicker than it’s going to happen,” Paone says, and feeling frustrated isn’t going to help.
Today on WebMD
Teen BMI Calculator
Young couple holding hands
teen boy doing pushups
teens flirting
burger and fries
Taylor Lautner
Boy meditating in gym class
Teen boy eating huge slice of pizza
boy looking at wall
teen boy looking at apple
boy popping pimple on face
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93274
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
How can I update a specific package of TeX Live (2013) on an offline computer? The packages I am going to try to update are glossaries and babel.
share|improve this question
What kind of system are you using? Note that packages may depend on other packages. I'd simply make a rsync copy of a tlnet mirror, place the copy on a USB stick, and run the update from that. – daleif Feb 19 at 8:09
Thanks @daleif I am on Windows 7. I was hoping for a very simple solution. – Sinan Feb 19 at 8:27
Under Linux, I move the so far existing relevant package to some other place outside of the TeXLive tree and unpack/copy the new version to the (designed) place, afterwards I run texconfig rehash. Well, under Windows, I suppose,this should work as well. Of course, you should have the new package on USB stick. From www.ctan.org packages can be obtained as zip files. – Christian Hupfer Feb 19 at 9:42
Your Answer
Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93275
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
Possible Duplicate:
Insert eps graphics with graphicx (file not found)
I'm trying to follow the tutorial on this website (link).
I can typeset the cover letter example with a .jpg, but not a .eps. I get the error
See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type H for immediate help.
l.14 } % ?
share|improve this question
marked as duplicate by doncherry, Thorsten, Heiko Oberdiek, N.N., Claudio Fiandrino Dec 31 '12 at 9:33
You have to compile with latex not with pdflatex as it is a eps figure. If you want to use eps figure and compile with pdflatex, you may need to load the package epstopdf. – Harish Kumar Dec 30 '12 at 22:52
Try to add the extension figures/UILogoLG3L.eps and, as @HarishKumar suggested, load the package \usepackage{epstopdf}. – tohecz Dec 30 '12 at 22:55
I agree with Harish Kumar but thought this link might give you more of an explanation. – DJP Dec 30 '12 at 22:56
I can't compile with latex, I don't have that option. I have pdfLatex and a bunch of other ones, but not latex. How do I get latex? Also, How do I "load a package"? – piratepartypumpkin Dec 30 '12 at 23:39
Your editor should be able to do it. Or from command line execute latex -shell-escape yourfile.tex (since epstopdf needs shell escape). To load a package, simply put \usepackage{epstopdf} in your preamble (between \documentclass{article} and \begin{document}) – Harish Kumar Dec 31 '12 at 0:06
1 Answer 1
Convert the eps to jpg using eps2pdf utility or another converter (such as Adobe Acrobat Professional. Then you can include it (since pdflatex does not recognize .eps files)
share|improve this answer
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93327
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• Nice try, Forever Alone Dude…
• Reasons to grow a beard&##8230;
• Hope for humanity is not lost yet…
• You make that up all on your own?
• New Keyboard
• How to make a man cry
• Yeah, it’s a chicken…
• No Skrillex, no.
• When the teacher gives notes…
• Best album cover ever
• Why did it cross the road?
• Just one more ride, please!
24 October, 2012 in People | Comment
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93334
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I just love me a bit of blogging furore. There’s been a good juicy one this week, when some hunter blogger who also writes for the decidingly high intellect publication called wowinsider, (which will probably be changing its name again next week), admitted to being a bit of a dick but with good reason. This led to some other blogger getting her knickers in a twist and preaching from the lofty heights of her trusty steed. It also led to calls for him to be fired from his paid gig at wowinsider. It doesn’t get much juicier than this. We’re talking a ripe plum here.
The part of this that I find most hilarious is the thought that bloggers need to be held to some standard of which normal mortals do not have to purvey themselves. Chastity wrote a 3000 word dissertation on this topic, and among the many points in his post, (I particularly liked the asshole chicken bit), he covered the following two points as regards to this issue:
What are these so called standards, and who is it that is setting them?
The correct answer is that there are none and nobody is up to the job.
I really love this bullshit theory of holding a certain segment of a population to a different behavior code. In the case of blogging, what it would have to assume is that the reader does not have the necessary intelligence to be able to determine right from wrong by themselves. Their blogger hero worship means that they blindly follow all advice coming from said blog. You let these people down at your peril, (that is if you actually give a shit). Because when you finally say or do something that even they in their blind hero worship are able to identify as unacceptable, then the shit really hits the fan. They feel a keen sense of betrayal. And they have a dim awareness of feeling stupid. Didn’t they blindly follow your every word? If you are actually a mere mortal then you could have made a mistake somewhere else! And they would have followed it, aceepting it as the truth! Oh noes!! Time to get out the pitchforks and have us a good old fashioned public hanging.
People who think this way, who believe that “public figures” should be set up on a lofty perch as an example of a behavioral code, (Lets face it – if you’re basing your own standards of behavior on a hunter blogger then you need some serious help), are what Gevlon refers to as M&S. It’s the old chestnut of absolving yourself of your own responsibility by deferring it to an unwilling third party.
If any of you are doing that with me then good fucking luck.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93351
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The Twilight Saga
Renesmee Carlie Cullen
I looked all around me, and smiled. I was in Paris. The possibly most beautiful place in the world.
This profile is set to private.
Join The Twilight Saga
© 2014 Created by Hachette Book Group.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93375
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Wednesday, September 1, 2004
Spam experiment
About six weeks ago, I reconfigured my mail server to forward all e-mail not addressed to known users at to Gmail. (This is also known as “star aliasing” — so if you sent e-mail to it would still go somewhere.) In the days before spam, this was a fun thing for friends to take advantage of, since I used to direct all e-mail to me. Every once in a while, a friend would get clever and e-mail a particularly offensive epithet at and be very proud of themselves when I would reply.
But with the advent of spam, this became untenable. Spam to my known address was bad enough, but a common tactic of spammers is to flood random combinations of letters (and/or common combinations of e-mail aliases) at particular domains. So I finally shut off the star aliasing, instead directing them to a spam filter.
But the amount of disk space it was taking on my personal server was a waste of disk space, so I shifted to forwarding all the e-mail to Gmail. I’d long since stopped bothering to weed through the messages — there were too many of them — but now simply wanted to know how bad the problem was.
Here’s how bad. From July 11 to August 31 (a total of 51 days), I received a grand total of 96,000 messages to invalid accounts at That works out to over 1,800 messages per day, 78 messages per hour, or 1.3 messages per minute.
When all was said and done, I’d consumed nearly 50% of my Gmail disk quota (just under 500 megabytes).
I’m now directing all e-mail sent to non-existent addresses to the mail server’s :blackhole:.
(Gmail feature request: empty trash. Right now I can only do 100 messages at a time.)
1 comment:
1. That sounds like fun. I think I'll try that. :-)
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93388
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Previous -7 - -6
In response to:
Republicans Have Bad Brains?
Jack630 Wrote: May 03, 2012 9:00 AM
There are several but have you noticed Obama does not have any? Not my opinion look at his proposed budget...deficits forever. That's a fact. So why do you support a President who proposes to increase the budget problem? This is the issue you asked about and your guy is making it worse? How do you square that circle?
Previous -7 - -6
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93389
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DHWood Wrote:
Dec 02, 2012 1:55 AM
You can forget it. The mental brainwashing is irreparable. Almost every politician on the boob tube spews out the word democracy relentlessly. If it's a con it's the phrase bringing democracy to the world, or to Iraq. Very little is heard about a Constitutional Republic. 200 million morons already have the democracy song and dance down pat. It's going nowhere, and any with 2 watts plus are dreaming of mass computer voting for that awesome and highly desired direct democracy, power and control in the hands of the proletariat... so they say.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93390
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Hugh Oxford Wrote:
Mar 29, 2013 10:16 AM
No, it isn't. You paint it as a simple thing, but you do that to mask the reality. Assuming that the inherently non-sexual unions of pairs of men or women were in any meaningful sense "equal" to the sexual unions of men and women upon which our society depends, equal rights and responsibilities could be conferred without the deconstruction of the normative statement conveyed in marriage, which is the human and pre-political institution that asserts human reality as male and female.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93395
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Ticket #243 (assigned enhancement)
Opened 16 months ago
Last modified 4 months ago
Add markup parsing to the Haddock API
Reported by: waern Owned by: Fūzetsu
Priority: major Milestone:
Version: Keywords:
The haddock library currently does not expose functionality for converting strings of Haddock markup to HTML.
This functionality is needed by Hackage, for example, to render package description text. Hackage duplicates the haddock parsing and lexing code rather than using it directly:
We should add functions to the Haddock API for parsing the markup.
Change History
Changed 4 months ago by Fūzetsu
• owner set to Fūzetsu
• status changed from new to assigned
Note: See TracTickets for help on using tickets.
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93419
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main index
Topical Tropes
Other Categories
TV Tropes Org
Film: Shane
"Shane! Come back!"
Classic 1953 Western, based on the novel by Jack Schaefer.
A Determined Homesteader named Starrett, his wife, and their young son are running a small farm. Some cattle ranchers want to force them out (along with the other Nesters), either with money or with guns. They are using an army of Mooks for this. While this is going on, a wanderer in buckskin clothing named Shane meets Starrett, and after a quickly resolved misunderstanding, Shane is accepted by the family and begins working for Starrett. Shane is soon idolized by the young boy, who wants to learn how to shoot. There is extensive discussion between Shane, Starrett, and his wife about the appropriateness of guns and violence.
Ultimately Shane protects the Determined Homesteader using violence, knowing that this means he will never be able to settle down to a peaceful life, Shane is cursed by his previous choices in life to always be The Gunslinger, always drifting. His final words before leaving is to tell the young boy to run home and tell his mother that she has her wish that there be "no more guns in the valley"; Shane leaving is of course required for this to be true.
Subject to a famous debate about the ending: Is Shane dead, or did he survive?
Was essentially remade and combined with High Plains Drifter as the Clint Eastwood film Pale Rider, with Clint Eastwood basically playing Alan Ladd's role.
Tropes in this Film:
The SearchersIndex of Film WesternsShanghai Noon
Shadow of a DoubtRoger Ebert Great Movies ListThe Shawshank Redemption
The WesternThe FiftiesThe Searchers
Roman HolidayAcademy AwardOn the Waterfront
An American in ParisAFI's 100 Years... 100 MoviesThe French Connection
Tex Avery MGM CartoonsNational Film RegistrySweet Smell of Success
Seven Days in MayCreator/ParamountThe Shootist
Sailor of the KingFilms of the 1950sStalag 17
alternative title(s): Shane
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93420
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main index
Topical Tropes
Other Categories
TV Tropes Org
Signal-to-Noise Train Wreck
You have to wade through a lot of stuff to get to the interesting and the important parts. It's a Signal-to-Noise Train Wreck.
• Cut Conversation in the Main Page and Thread Mode.
• Trim examples to get to the point and be done when they're through with the point. If context must be established, do it quickly and in general terms (and if you find that too difficult, there's no shame in just saying It Makes Sense in Context). Do away with all afterthoughts to the extent of "Your Mileage May Vary". Remove Word Cruft.
• Move lengthy quotes to the quotes namespace.
• Write recaps for the work, so examples can point to them rather than summarising an episode's plot, for the fifteenth time on the page. Keep in mind, however, that each example should still stand alone and be understandable without having to refer to any other page.
• For tropes with a very large list of examples:
• Trim the list, keeping just the most important examples rather than allowing every single hot-off-the-newest-issue remark. Be aware that removing valid examples- even "minor" ones- is highly contentious and is not likely to go over well. People are bound to end up edit warring over which are the "important" ones, or even just adding examples back in good faith without knowing about what you're trying to do.
• Throw away the list in favor of a "the show really pulls this one off a lot" digression. This approach is more drastic, but is less likely to be met with outrage or edit warred over if it's done well. Discuss the specifics of how often, in what way and in what circumstances the trope tends to be invoked in the work. If you're feeling brave, illuminate your point with specific instances and hope no-one takes this as a cue that we've Gotta Catch 'Em All.
• Split the tropes into categories (A "soft split"). This is really an extreme solution for pages where nothing else will work. This has the disadvantage of breaking alphabetical order, making editing less straightforward and causing potential argument about which example goes in which category- which is why some tropers would have it that it's never an appropriate solution. Some tropers prefer to split alphabetically (e.g. Tropes A-M, Tropes N-Z) to maintain alphabetical order, but this sometimes feels like pagination for the sake of pagination and doesn't really do anything to decrease clutter; it just spreads it out across more database entries.
• A "hard split" may be in order. For example, a spin-off Video Game may have too many tropes that don't apply to other games in that series, so it might need to have its own page or at least its own section so its tropes aren't mixed in with the rest of the series. This should be discussed first, however.
Still, if a page remains a Signal-to-Noise Train Wreck after all the measures above have been taken and it seems to you that a split to categories would be a major improvement, this may be the way to go. You could consider splitting either by events in the work's history (books, seasons, story arcs. major retools) or by the type of trope. The categories listed in the sidebar might be a useful starting point, but no more than that.
Just make sure to bring it up in both the discussion page and the Trope Repair Shop forum to work out a consensus, and aim for as few and as well-defined categories as you can that will still get the job done.
Serial TweakerWiki TropesSinkhole
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93421
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main index
Topical Tropes
Other Categories
TV Tropes Org
Trivia: Tomb Raider Legend
• Fan Nickname: The "Unknown Entity" that possesses Amanda in Peru is commonly known as "Fluffy'' in the fandom.
• Hey, It's That Voice!:
• What Could Have Been: Early trailers showcased a variety of things that didn't make it into the final product. Examples include Lara being able to use a rocket launcher and doing backflips off of diagonal surfaces. The Tokyo level was originally meant to have a longer biking segment upon the rooftops which would culminate with Lara crashing the bike into a traditional Japanese garden. Lara was also shown visiting more locations, one of which was nearby a beach, possiby an early version of Croft Manor. The Nepal level had Mooks in different apparel and what looked to be a small camp.
• The guidebook revealed there was supposed to be a motorcycle segment on a motorway in the England level, as Lara chases down Rutland's thugs who have kidnapped Zip and Alister. The segment was cut.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from
Privacy Policy
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93427
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t.t.r.ErrorHolder(TestHolder) : class documentation
Part of twisted.trial.runner View Source View In Hierarchy
Used to insert arbitrary errors into a test suite run. Provides enough methods to look like a TestCase, however, when it is run, it simply adds an error to the TestResult. The most common use-case is for when a module fails to import.
Method __init__
Method __repr__ Undocumented
Method run Run the test, reporting the error.
Inherited from TestHolder:
Method __call__ Run the test. Should always do exactly the same thing as run().
Method id Return a unique identifier for the test, usually the fully-qualified Python name.
Method countTestCases Return the number of tests in this test case. Usually 1.
Method shortDescription Return a short description of the test.
def __init__(self, description, error): (source)
ParametersdescriptionA string used by TestResults to identify this error. Generally, this is the name of a module that failed to import.
errorThe error to be added to the result. Can be an `exc_info` tuple or a twisted.python.failure.Failure.
def __repr__(self): (source)
def run(self, result): (source)
Run the test, reporting the error.
ParametersresultThe TestResult to store the results in. (type: twisted.trial.itrial.IReporter.)
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93432
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Arkansas Lewis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Scholarship and Enrichment Program
How can I apply to ARK-LSAMP Program?
You need to complete several forms to apply to the University Science Scholars Program.
• Fill out and submit the UALR Admissions Application (on-line You must apply on-line.
• Fill out and submit the UALR Academic Scholarship Application (on-line at
• Fill out and submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (on-line at Submitting this form on-line is faster and easier but you can submit a paper form
• Fill out and submit the ARK-LSAMP application form. This application includes writing a personal essay.
• For priority consideration, your application should be complete by February 1st.
Updated 10.14.2009
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global_05_local_4_shard_00000656_processed.jsonl/93436
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Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/HowTo:Become a Master of Disguise (Revised)
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
edit HowTo:Become a Master of Disguise
Tophat headless 01:06, February 1, 2011 (UTC)
Oh dang! I just realized this has already been here twice! Sorry. But I still want the review. --Tophat headless 01:13, February 1, 2011 (UTC)
This still hasn't been reviewed? I got it then. --Sir Oliphaunte (განხილვა) Georgia-flag-on-soccer-ball-vector 22:55, February 26, 2011 (UTC)
Humour: 5 The main problem with this article is that it doesn't utilize all the humour that is there and many of jokes you do have are run-on sentences that become a bother to read and can get a little confusing, like the sentences about magicians. Let's start from the top:
So the introductory paragraphs are alright, they introduce the topic pretty well and make a little joke about the sneezing tree. However, your prose really cuts down on the humour value, but look in the Prose and Format section on how to improve that. Aside from that, not much more I can say about this part.
Next up, let's talk about the section of why you should become a master of disguise. I'll list out your points and talk about them: When you become a master of disguise you can disguise not only yourself, but just about anything you put your mind to. ( I don't really see any humour in this sentence. You should either re-write it or just get rid of it, along with the caption you have at the bottom. You say some links are disguised as a Phthalo green, but I don't see any links in that color. Makes the joke seem very pointless.) Sex appeal. (This is kind of funny) Your kids can't find you. (You should probably say "Your kids won't be able to find you, otherwise it's in present tense and that's not what you're going for.) Sex appeal.(Once again, kind of funny) Majority rules! There are about one hundred right now, famous ones too! They still haven't found Elvis...( I don't understand this sentence. What majority? You need to explain this because it takes a while to realize that you're talking about celebrities, or are you? See? I still don't know...) So the main humour in this section is your running joke about sex appeal, and that's about it. You need to either vary about the joke about sex appeal, or expand this section, maybe by giving examples of famous masters of disguise, like inspector Jacques Clouseau from Pink Panther, or something from Monty Python like the 'How Not to Be Seen' skit. I was going to suggest this later, but it looks it could work here too. Just a suggestion of course, but you really should look to expanding the humour in here.
Step 1: The first issue of see, is that you repeat your joke in the picture next to the first sentence, about a cheap disguise being see-through. You shouldn't repeat your joke, but instead, re-word this first sentence so that it talks about a cheap disguise being see-through, but isn't worded the exact same way as the caption in the picture. The second issue is your joke about magicians. Your main focus in this section seems to be about magicians, but all your sentences about the magicians are run-on sentences, so the humour is lost. You need to try and minimize the amount of words it takes you get to your joke, like the one about what a magicians day is like. I also didn't understand why a magician would ask for your soul, what would a magician need with someone's soul? You should go more in-depth with that, because you might be able to take that somewhere. Another notion is that you could add another part to this section, maybe by talking about possible ideas for a disguise, or give specific examples of animals or objects that make good disguises. Whatever floats you boat of course.
Step 2: So the main joke here is the picture and the clever observation that every disguise needs a zipper or at least has one. You should maybe expand the article by suggesting other possible methods of using your disguise, maybe by saying how velcro is good alternative, although it may cause problems when your disguise sounds like a 5-year fixing his velcro shoes or something. Maybe talk about how buttons are good too. You really need to just expand on your ideas here, because this section appears to be a little short to have any real jokes in it. That's about it, it's a short section, so much iI can say about it.
Step 3: One question, what prize are you talking about? Becoming master of disguise? Getting a free cookie? What? You end this article with an unusual exit and it doesn't provide a humourous closer to the article. Maybe you should end it with being like, "And now you're the master of-hey. Wait, where did you go? Dude come on, I haven't finished talking to you. You know what screw it, I ain't playing this game of hide-and-seek with your childish ass. Have fun with your disguise." Or something, you don't have to use that idea, but you should try and use another sentence or idea to end the article, otherwise, it really cuts down on the humour.
Concept: 7.5 It's a good concept, being a master of disguise, so it has a lot of potential to be worthy of the main page. However, in the state that it is in now, it needs a lot of work. Aside from that, the topic is pretty good, although you fail to utilize many of the things associated with being a master of disguise like examples of famous masters in disguise. I go into more detail in the humour section, so look for more advice on the top.
Prose and formatting: 3 The main thing I don't like about this article, is your prose and formatting. First off, your formatting is really messy. Pictures seem to be in random places and make the page seem like a jumbled mess, and the paragraphs aren't aligned very well. I'm not sure how to help you out here, except to tell you work on re-organizing this article and maybe even delete a picture or two if you can't.
Your sentences are also a problem, because you have a like of connectors and conjunctions in the article, but instead of using commas or semi-colons, you only use periods where they shouldn't be. "Either way you probably just dismissed it as your mind playing tricks on you, and went on with your day. But that was no regular every day tree sneeze." You should have a comma, not a period before but. Or here, "Either way, all they'll usally ask for in return is your soul. Which is actually a small price to pay for becoming a master of disguise." Since both sentences are talking about the same idea, they shouldn't be broken up, they should have a comma. Otherwise, you have to re-introduce the idea into the next sentence. See what I'm getting at? I hope so, I can't tell if you're nodding or shaking your head. So just re-oraganize your article so that it flows better, and use some commas instead of periods all the time and both of those fixes should really help with the flow of this article and thus, make it a little more funny.
Images: 4.5 So let's go in order. You're first picture is good, although I might suggest saying something like "this 40-year old, one-armed man is a master of disguise," or something to add more the humour that the child isn't at all what you think he is.
The second picture, with the 'sexy' guy in disguise, is pretty good, so not much to say here.
The third picture, with the see through costume, is ok as well, but as I mentioned before, you shouldn't repeat the joke twice with the caption and that first sentence in the paragraph. Look to fix that and you should be fine.
The fourth picture seems really out of place. I'm not sure why you used it since you mainly talk about magicians and disguises, not about demons getting disguises. I would suggest getting rid of this picture, as it will also safe some space and help you re-organize your article.
The fifth picture with the he or she with pants is...eh. I would prefer a picture that has someone actually getting into a costume and having trouble with it as it would be more relevant, but this should be fine as well.
The sixth picture, with the planet of the apes character is ok, as it is pretty appropriate as well.
The seventh picture with the window blinds is our of place as well. It doesn't really have that much to do with disguises, as the person is merely looking through a window. Maybe a more appropriate picture of someone looking suspiciously at someone who is disguised as a tree or something? I'm not sure, it depends on how you decide to change that last sentence.
Miscellaneous: 5.5 Needs work, but there's definitely potential in this article. Most of the issues are just overlapping each other, so I apologize if I appeared redundant in some of my suggestions. Most of the errors are in the humour and format section, so just look to fixing those issues and you should be fine. Not a long article, so not too many comments, but still hope I have helped out a bit.
Final Score: 25.5 So overall, good work. Just work and what I outlined, maybe read over the article again to check for any other mistakes I may have missed and this article should look a lot better. Leave a message on my talk page if you have any questions or comments to make, or to just let me know if you've finished editing it. I'll be more than glad to re-read the article again to see ho you've worked on it. Good luck, hope I could have been of some help to you.
Reviewer: --Sir Oliphaunte (განხილვა) Georgia-flag-on-soccer-ball-vector 22:29, February 27, 2011 (UTC)
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TorgoX (1933)
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• Iridium is only 16% denser than gold, and it's similarly inert. There was no need for panic. And I think where he says "book of matches" it probably should be "matchbox".
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