Join the family programs on Fridays and Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. throughout June and July, featuring storytellers, musicians, jugglers, magicians and much more. Check the Island Eye schedule or visit ccpl.org for more details.
Kids sign up for summer reading and pick from an assortment of prizes at 5-, 15- and 30-hour marks, including tickets to the Riverdogs and a wide variety of local attractions. Babies and toddlers get in on the act by completing 20 prereading activities to earn a board book and special book bag. And don't miss Marie's toddler storytime every Tuesday at 10:30, because then you can check off one of the activities!
Teens read 500 pages to earn a supersoft T-shirt and a chance to win the grand prize – a $50 Target gift card. Poe is also hosting "Writers Rock" on Monday afternoons from 1:30-3:30 p.m., giving creative teens a chance to write and share their work with a friendly audience. This program is limited to 12 teen participants per session, so be sure to call to reserve a spot.
Adults can register what they are reading this summer and compete with other voracious readers to win gift cards. They may also participate in the monthly Beach Lovers, Lit After Dark, and Open Book discussions. Parents are invited to create family accounts to track their own reading and keep up with their children's progress.
Last, but certainly not least, CCPL wants to know where you are taking them this summer, especially if you are using downloadable ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, music and more. Send a postcard to Poe Branch Library, 1921 I'on Ave., Sullivan's Island and you will be entered into a drawing for a $25 gift certificate to 450˚ Pizza. Be sure to sign your first and last name clearly. Happy reading!
Find more details on all of these programs by visiting ccpl.org, calling 843- 883-3914, or stopping by the Poe Library at 1921 I'on Avenue on Sullivan's Island.


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text:
package jenkins.slaves;

import hudson.ExtensionList;
import hudson.ExtensionPoint;
import hudson.model.Slave;
import jenkins.model.Jenkins;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Properties;

/**
 * Receives incoming slaves connecting through {@link JnlpSlaveAgentProtocol2}.
 *
 *

 * This is useful to establish the communication with other JVMs and use them
 * for different purposes outside {@link Slave}s.
 *
 * @author Kohsuke Kawaguchi
 * @since 1.561
 */
public abstract class JnlpAgentReceiver implements ExtensionPoint {

    /**
     * Called after the client has connected.
     *
     *

     * The implementation must do the following in the order:
     *
     *

     *
Check if the implementation recognizes and claims the given name.
     *         If not, return false to let other {@link JnlpAgentReceiver} have a chance to
     *         take this connection.
     *
     *
If you claim the name but the connection is refused, call
     *         {@link JnlpSlaveHandshake#error(String)} to refuse the client, and return true.
     *         The connection will be shut down and the client will report this error to the user.
     *
     *
If you claim the name and the connection is OK, call
     *         {@link JnlpSlaveHandshake#success(Properties)} to accept the client.
     *
     *
Proceed to build a channel with {@link JnlpSlaveHandshake#createChannelBuilder(String)}
     *         and return true
     *
     * @param name
     *      Name of the incoming JNLP agent. All {@link JnlpAgentReceiver} shares a single namespace
     *      of names. The implementation needs to be able to tell which name belongs to them.
     *
     * @param handshake
     *      Encapsulation of the interaction with the incoming JNLP agent.
     *
     * @return
     *      true if the name was claimed and the handshake was completed (either successfully or unsuccessfully)
     *      false if the name was not claimed. Other {@link JnlpAgentReceiver}s will be called to see if they
     *      take this connection.
     *
     * @throws Exception
     *      Any exception thrown from this method will fatally terminate the connection.
     */
    public abstract boolean handle(String name, JnlpSlaveHandshake handshake) throws IOException, InterruptedException;

    public static ExtensionList<JnlpAgentReceiver> all() {
        return Jenkins.getInstance().getExtensionList(JnlpAgentReceiver.class);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
La battaglia di Cable Street o Cable Street Riot (rivolta di Cable Street) avvenne la domenica del 4 ottobre 1936 a Cable Street nell'East End di Londra. Essa fu uno scontro fra agenti della Metropolitan Police Service, che scortavano un corteo autorizzato dell'Unione Britannica dei Fascisti, guidata da Oswald Mosley, ed un gruppo antifascista, comprendente anche ebrei, socialisti, anarchici, irlandesi e comunisti. La maggior parte dei manifestanti di entrambi gli schieramenti parteciparono al corteo con lo scopo preciso di realizzare una provocazione. Mosley decise di far marciare migliaia di fascisti vestiti con le camicie nere proprio nell'East End di Londra e in particolare attraverso il quartiere di Stepney che era abitato da una numerosa comunità israelitica, pari a circa 60.000 persone su un totale di 183.000 ebrei in città.

I giorni precedenti la battaglia
Qualche giorno prima del 4 ottobre, attraverso gli attivisti anarchici e socialisti di Londra, i residenti dell'East End erano venuti a conoscenza dell'imminente corteo delle camicie nere britanniche all'interno del loro quartiere. Intimoriti e contrariati, quasi 100.000 residenti firmarono una petizione e la inviarono al Ministro dell'Interno John Simon, con cui chiesero al Governo di vietare il corteo. Il Ministro Simon non accolse la richiesta dei residenti ma, col fine di evitare possibili tensioni e violenze (Londra era all'epoca una fucina molto attiva di idee anarchiche e comuniste), decise di inviare uomini della Polizia Metropolitana di Londra come scorta delle camicie nere.

Le associazioni ebraiche di Londra dichiararono che il corteo era "evidentemente anti-semita" e consigliarono di "stare quanto più possibile alla larga dell'East End il prossimo 4 ottobre".

Vista la volontà delle associazioni ebraiche di rinunciare allo scontro aperto, immediatamente, il Partito Comunista di Gran Bretagna e gli anarchici decisero di organizzarsi autonomamente per bloccare il corteo dei fascisti britannici.

Il giorno dello scontro
La mattina del 4 ottobre 1936, i contro-manifestanti sbarrarono la strada nel tentativo di impedire la sfilata. A fronteggiarsi vi erano all'incirca 2.500 fascisti e non meno di 20.000 anti-fascisti. Quella che a prima vista sembrava una manifestazione di protesta disorganizzata, in realtà era stata pianificata a tavolino in modo da bloccare le vie di accesso al corteo di Mosley. Il Daily Worker aveva pubblicato una mappa della zona in modo che i manifestanti potessero organizzare la propria presenza in modo più efficace.

Già dal loro ingresso nell'East End le camicie nere erano state raggiunte da lanci di spazzatura, uova e verdura marcia da parte dei residenti appostati sui tetti delle case. Barricate erano state costruite vicino all'incrocio con Christian Street, verso il west end di questa lunga strada. Gli oppositori al corteo erano armati in maniera assai disordinata, con gambe di sedie, pietre, bastoni e catene.

Una forza di seimila poliziotti circa tentò di riaprire la strada, anche col sostegno di agenti a cavallo, ma fu respinta dalle barricate composte anche da quattro tram abbandonati dai rispettivi autisti simpatizzanti con il corteo di protesta. Dopo una serie di scontri fra forze dell'ordine e antifascisti, in particolare in Christian Street davanti al Gardiner's Corner di Whitechapel, e avendo i giovani comunisti occupato Victoria park, per i membri del BUF restava aperta solo la via attraverso Cable Street dove le barricate e i manifestanti, nonostante un nuovo attacco della polizia, impedirono ogni passaggio: la marcia non poté essere effettuata ed il gruppo dei fascisti britannici si disperse dentro Hyde Park.

Al termine degli scontri si contarono 150 arresti tra i dimostranti e circa 175 feriti tra poliziotti e manifestanti, anche se solo cinque fascisti furono fermati.

Un testimone oculare quindicenne al momento dell'evento, William J. Fishman, disse: "Io ero andato per vedere gli ebrei con le barbe lunghe ed i cattolici irlandesi fermi ad attendere l'arrivo dei fascisti. Non potrò mai dimenticare, per il resto della mia vita, come il gruppo degli appartenenti alla classe dei lavoratori si oppose alla malvagità dei razzisti"

Conseguenze
La battaglia di Cable Street fu il fattore principale che portò all'emanazione del Public Order Act 1936, che prescriveva un'autorizzazione preventiva della polizia per l'organizzazione di marce politiche ed il divieto di sfilare con indosso qualsiasi uniforme politica. Questo è generalmente considerato uno dei maggiori elementi che portarono al declino politico del partito fascista britannico ben prima dello scoppio della seconda guerra mondiale.
Viene inoltre ricordata come il momento di definitiva interruzione della popolarità del fascismo nel Regno Unito, anche se una settimana dopo un gruppo di antisemiti irruppe a Stepney distruggendo numerose vetrine di negozi di proprietà di cittadini di religione ebraica. L'episodio viene ricordato come il Mile End pogrom.

Nella cultura popolare

 Viene descritta nel libro di Ken Follett L'inverno del mondo.

Note

Altri progetti

Collegamenti esterni
 The Battle of Cable Street vista dal partito comunista britannico.

 Cable Street and the Battle of Cable Street.
 Does Cable Street still matter?. BBC News Magazine, 4 ottobre 2006

Storia dell'Inghilterra

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, Calif., issued a statement Monday apologizing to more than 80 women suing the medical facility, saying they were accidentally recorded by motion-activated cameras installed in three separate operating rooms in an effort to catch someone who had been stealing drugs.
Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, Calif., issued a statement Monday apologizing to more than 80 women who are suing the medical facility, saying they were accidentally recorded by motion-activated cameras installed in three separate operating rooms in an effort to catch someone who had been stealing drugs.
Hospital officials discovered in 2011 that someone had been taking "powerful drugs" and equipment from anesthesia carts in several operating rooms.
After the hospital was unable to find the thief using "other investigative methods," officials decided to install a computer monitor with a motion-activated camera in direct view of the anesthesia carts.
"Although the cameras were intended to record only individuals in front of the anesthesia carts, others, including patients and medical personnel in the operating rooms, were at times visible to the cameras and recorded without sound," the statement read.
Plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed three years ago include one woman who said she was recorded while giving birth by emergency cesarean section.
"The purpose of this investigation was to determine how the anesthesia drugs were going missing in order to ensure patient safety and quality of care," the hospital's statement said.
The thief was eventually caught using the hidden cameras and officials said that the individual was no longer affiliated with the hospital.
The hospital said that while it is unable to comment further on the lawsuits, it did say that the videos in question were kept in a "secured safe" and were then provided to third parties as a part of the litigation.
Officials said the camera system is no longer in place.


I've learned a lot from listening to others and observing the world around me.
Having accrued 35 years of experience, Jeff Chow has worked at the Vietnam office since 2014. His design experience has taken him across the world to U.S., Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, India and China. His expertise includes managing design, technical issues and coordinating with project stakeholders on various types of projects. With knowledge in the entire process from conceptual design to construction administration, Jeff is key to facilitating project success.


text:
You are in: Home > Places > R. A. Wilde, Ancient Nottingham Pottery, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 8 (1904)
Ancient Nottingham Pottery
By R. A. Wilde.
GROUP OF POTTERY FOUND IN NOTTINGHAM.
SEVERAL objects of antiquarian interest were discovered in connexion with the construction of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway Company's new London line (now the Great Central) through Nottingham. The excavation for the Victoria Station necessitated the removal of about half a million cubic yards of the soft yellow Bunter sandstone rock, on which a large portion of the city is built; and in April, 1897, during the removal of the southern portion (where Parliament Street crosses the railway), the old town wall was cut through. This was described by the late Mr. James Shipman, F.G.S., in a very able and interesting series of articles, published in the 1897 and 1898 volumes of "Notts, and Derbyshire Notes and Queries" (Murray, Nottingham). It was near this point, and at a depth of from ten to twelve feet beneath the original surface, that a long buried treasure was brought to light, in the shape of an ancient pattery kiln. This discovery at the time aroused great interest among local antiquaries, and is described by Mr. Shipman in an addendum to the reprinted "Notes on the Old Town Wall" (also published by Murray). With this exception, however, I have not been able to discover any printed description of it, or any theory as regards its age, and this article is designed to furnish such details, and to describe what is probably an almost unique discovery. The credit of rescuing from destruction by ruthless navvies the many specimens which were found, belongs largely to Mr. C. B. Wright, of the late firm of I. & I. C. Wright & Co., Bankers, who has also devoted a vast amount of patience and ingenuity to collecting and piecing together many broken parts; in some cases as many as thirty or forty fragments being cemented together to form one complete specimen; in others, missing parts being shaped and fitted. By his courtesy, I was enabled to examine and discuss with him his collection, and he very generously presented me with about a dozen more or less perfect or unbroken specimens of various shapes and sizes. These were forwarded to the General Manager of the Railway, Mr., now Sir William Pollitt, who has taken great interest in these treasures.
For the most part, they consisted of what were evidently jugs for carrying water, ale, mead, or wine, stew jars and drinking vessels, and a close examination reveals many peculiar characteristics. They are made of coarse clay, reddish brown in colour, and bear evidence of the use of the potter's wheel. They show no kind of ornamentation, except that the handles are indented or grooved the whole length at each side, and more deeply in the centre, by the potter's thumb, presenting a very crude attempt at foliation. Where the upper portion of the handle joins the jug, the indentation in the centre is made very much deeper, in order to afford a stronger grip. In some cases the grooves are very much narrower than in others, suggesting the theory that they were formed by women and children. One peculiarity is, that all the jugs are covered on the upper and outside portion only, with a dark greenish glaze, with occasional accidental splashes on the unglazed portions. One is led to wonder why the upper external surface only is glazed, where the glaze appears practically useless, as the unglazed portions are very rough and porous, perhaps with age. Three specimen jugs are here illustrated.
The largest of these is seventeen inches high and twelve inches in diameter, and intended to hold about two gallons, but as a matter of fact, like many of the others, it would not hold anything of a liquid nature, as with a singular lack of ingenuity or thoughtfulness on the workmen's part, or perhaps to save space, they were placed in the kiln, not on shelves, or protected in any way, but with the base of the upper row resting on the mouth of the lower one, having been so placed whilst the clay was in a soft condition; this caused the base of those on the upper tiers to be more or less damaged, many being quite broken through, others bearing the impress of the mouth of the jugs below, while the glazing of those in the lower row was torn away from the mouth when the vessels came to be detached from one another. The bottom row was laid on three or four small dabs of clay.
It is very interesting to note that although no complete specimen has been discovered, with any device or ornamentation beyond the thumb marks before mentioned, yet many fragments were found bearing what were possibly intended for marks of ownership, or the badges of the various families in the vicinity. One resembles a hammer, nail and a curved figure. Another device or mark bears a slight resemblance to "I.H.S." The characters, however, are so roughly shaped that their meaning can only be surmised. One shows distinctly the figure of a buckle. All these designs were put on while the jugs were in a soft condition, no attempt being made to protect them, so that the sides are thrust inward where the device appears. They were made by placing a small piece of soft clay on the jug, the imprint being fixed on with a stick, at one end of which the design was carved, precisely in the same way as we seal letters.
Several loose lids were found, all of the same size, and, generally speaking, although the jugs vary in size and shape, the mouths are uniform, the lids thus fitting each; several specimens were slender, evidently being intended for drinking cups.
The chief interest in the pottery, however, consists in trying to identify the period during which it was manufactured, and its probable rarity, and it is hoped that this article may throw some light on it. In the "Art Journal" for 1864, Professor Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A., contributes a long and elaborately illustrated article on the Ancient Potteries of the Midland Counties, in which he explains that the potteries of England are divided into the Celtic or Ancient British, Romano - British, Anglo - Saxon, Mediaeval, and Modern. It may simplify matters to say at once that the pottery found at Nottingham cannot be included in either of the first three periods named, for the potter's wheel was not known to the Ancient British, and their pottery was in consequence extremely thick and roughly made. It is a singular fact that no Roman remains of any description have ever been discovered in Nottingham, the nearest being at Southwell and Barton-in-Fabis. Professor Jewitt states that although single specimens of Roman pottery are not uncommon, no kiln has ever been discovered in England, adding that the Saxons had a great dislike to clay for culinary, or for drinking and food vessels, the last being made of ash or metal, and their drinking cups of horn or glass. Some of their later pottery, however, presumably urns, etc., shews signs of the potter's wheel.
We now come to the Mediaeval age, but as this covers a rather wide period, in which Saxon and Norman work overlap, it may be better to confine ourselves to the latter. On page 338 of the "Art Journal," Professor Jewitt describes specimens which, in both the text and illustrations, coincide to the minutest detail with those now under discussion, including the nature of the clay, the use of the potter's wheel, the partial glazing of dark green, and the foliation of the handle. These, he asserts, are of Anglo-Norman manufacture. Up to the time of his writing (1864) only one pottery of either Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Norman date had been discovered in England, and this one he himself found in the county of Derby. Therefore, on the assumption that the Nottingham kiln is the second (a matter, however, difficult to prove), it gains greatly in interest and importance. In any case it is evident that such discoveries are of extreme rarity.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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The British Pound is gripped by anticipation this morning as investors brace for a parliamentary debate and vote on Theresa May's Brexit 'Plan B' later in the day.
It remains unclear how the second parliamentary vote will play out, especially when considering how 'Plan B' shares many similarities with 'Plan A' which was previously rejected by British MP's. Although the pending vote is not legally binding, it should provide fresh insight into what the House of Commons desires regarding Brexit. While there are more than a dozen amendments suggested, Sterling is seen appreciating if the speaker chooses the Cooper and Brady amendments. Although expectations continue to mount over the government extending Article 50, it is worth noting that the unanimous agreement of all the remaining 27 EU countries will be needed for this to materialize. The truth of the matter remains that one must always expect the unexpected when dealing with Brexit, and the parliamentary Brexit vote this evening should be no exception.


text:
Sochocin é um município da Polônia, na voivodia da Mazóvia, no condado de Płońsk e na comuna urbano-rural de Sochocin. A cidade é a sede da comuna de Sochocin.

Estende-se por uma área de 6,83 km², com 1 997 habitantes, segundo os censos de 2011, com uma densidade de 292  hab/km².

Sochocin foi uma cidade de 1385 a 13 de janeiro de 1870. A cidade recuperou seu status de cidade em 1 de janeiro de 2021.

De 1867 a 1954 foi sede coletiva da comuna de Sochocin, de 1954 a 1972 da Gromada Sochocin e, a partir de 1973, novamente da comuna de Sochocin. Nos anos de 1975 a 1998, a cidade pertencia administrativamente à voivodia de Ciechanów.

Ela está situada em uma área de planície, principalmente no vale glacial do rio Wkra - as alturas absolutas variam de 85 m até 112 m acima do nível médio do mar. A estrada nacional n.º 50 atravessa o município. Em Sochocin existe a igreja histórica de São João Batista. Sochocin é a sede do Wkra Sochocin Commune Sports Club, que atualmente joga na Liga Distrital-Ciechanów-Ostrołęka. Ele joga suas partidas no estádio municipal de Sochocin, que pode acomodar 500 pessoas.

História
As primeiras informações históricas sobre Sochocin vêm do século XIV. Localizada às margens do rio Wkra, a vila era o centro econômico do mercado local. Estava localizada na rota comercial que conectava o Grão-Ducado da Lituânia com a Coroa (a estrada entre as cidades de Poznań - Vilnius, levando mais adiante até Moscou).

Em 1 de outubro de 1385, o duque da Mazóvia, Janusz I, o Velho, assinou um documento concedendo direitos de cidade aos habitantes de Sochocin. Em 1404, a vila foi comprada por Ścibor de Sochocin - um dos magnatas mais destacados da Mazóvia medieval, o marechal da corte de Janusz I, o Velho e o camareiro de Zakroczym. Em 1492, o novo proprietário, Janusz II, interessado no desenvolvimento da cidade e na possibilidade de aumentar a renda que trazia, renovou os direitos da cidade de Sochocin. Em 1495, a cidade tornou-se a sede do condado de Sochocin e o local dos tribunais chamados roky.

Em 1524, a cidade principesca de Sochocin, junto com outras aldeias, foi doada a Feliks Brzeski - o voivoda da Mazóvia. Em 1533, a cidade foi consumida por um incêndio que destruiu a maioria dos edifícios.

Em 1869, como resultado da reforma administrativa realizada pelas autoridades czaristas, Sochocin perdeu seus direitos municipais após 484 anos. As atividades de russificação se intensificaram e o idioma russo era obrigatório na administração e no judiciário.

Na eclosão da Segunda Guerra Mundial, Sochocin tinha 1 750 habitantes, em novembro de 1939 as terras do norte da Mazóvia (incluindo Sochocin) foram incorporadas à Alemanha Nazista na chamada Região de Ciechanowska.

Em 1940, campos de trabalho penais alemães foram criados em Kuchary Żydowskie e Smardzewo. Em 1941, ocorreu o deslocamento dos habitantes de Sochocin e arredores. Muitas pessoas morreram, muitas foram reprimidas, muitas participaram do movimento de resistência armada do Exército da Pátria e dos Batalhões de Fazendeiros. Em 18 de janeiro de 1945, Sochocin estava livre.

Em 12 de junho de 1990, Tomasz Wiktorowicz foi eleito o primeiro prefeito da comuna de Sochocin após as transformações. Ele foi reeleito prefeito até as eleições de 2006, nas quais Jerzy Zawadzki o sucedeu. Nas eleições de 2014, no segundo turno, Andrzej Romatowski foi eleito prefeito.

Dados administrativos e econômicos
A comuna de Sochocin faz parte do condado de Płońsk e da voivodia da Mazóvia.

Número de habitantes - 1 945 (dados obtidos no Sochocin Commune Office, Civic Affairs Department em 31 de dezembro de 2004).

No registo de atividades econômicas mantido na comuna de Sochocin, existem 279 empresários que desenvolvem atividades empresariais no domínio de:
 comércio fixo e itinerante - 146 pessoas
 serviços - 78 pessoas
 transporte - 24 pessoas
 alvenaria - 22 pessoas
 processamento e produção - 9 pessoas

Ligações externas

Municípios da Polónia
Cidades da Mazóvia (voivodia)


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text:
<?php namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class MultipleQuestion extends Model {

	protected $table = 'multiplequestions';
	protected $fillable = ['question_id','solution','des_solution'];

	public function question(){
		return $this->belongsTo('App\Question');
	}

	public function options(){
		return $this->hasMany('App\Option');
	}

}


text:
De Sloedam is een oude dam, die de Zeeuwse eilanden Zuid-Beveland en Walcheren met elkaar verbond ter hoogte van Arnemuiden. Vóór de aanleg van de Sloedam werden deze eilanden gescheiden door het Sloe. De Sloedam werd in 1871 aangelegd ten behoeve van de spoorlijn Vlissingen-Roosendaal (de Zeeuwse lijn). Na de Tweede Wereldoorlog werden de gebieden ten zuiden ingepolderd. De Sloedam keerde daarna alleen nog water aan de noordzijde. Sinds de sluiting van de Veerse Gatdam en de ingebruikname van de Oosterscheldekering is de Sloedam een slaperdijk.

Ter hoogte van de Sloedam lopen de A58 en de oude provinciale weg parallel aan de spoorlijn. Bij de Sloedam werd in 2007 gewerkt aan de aanleg van de nieuwe Sloelijn in de richting van het haven- en industriegebied Vlissingen-Oost (Sloegebied).

Tweede Wereldoorlog

In de Tweede Wereldoorlog vonden gevechten plaats rond de Sloedam. De inzet was de toegang tot de haven van Antwerpen. Zeeuws-Vlaanderen en Zuid-Beveland waren na hevige gevechten veroverd door de Schotten en Canadezen. Op Walcheren zat echter een grote Duitse legermacht die de toegang tot de Westerschelde beheerste. De Sloedam, die toen nog aan weerszijden werd bespoeld door de zee, was de enige toegangsweg over land tot het voormalige eiland.

De Canadezen en Schotten bereikten de dam vanaf Zuid-Beveland. De Duitsers waren goed op hun komst voorbereid. Aan de Walcherse kant hadden zij mortierstellingen ingericht, waarmee ieder punt van de dam onder vuur kon worden genomen. Canadese pogingen om Walcheren te bereiken mislukten dan ook. De eenheden die hier vochten hebben de Sloedam als dodendam in hun annalen staan.

Twee Nederlandse verzetsstrijders van de groep Kloosterman (OD) boden hulp, waaronder Piet Kloosterman zelf. Zij kenden de slikken van het Sloe, die bij laagwater droogvielen, op hun duimpje. Een patrouille onder hun leiding vond en markeerde een droge route naar Walcheren. Na een korte verkenning van de Duitse stellingen keerde de patrouille terug naar Zuid-Beveland. De volgende dag maakte een grotere eenheid de overtocht, eveneens onder leiding van de verzetsmensen. Deze eenheid bereikte de overkant en viel de Duitsers in de rug aan. De mortierstellingen werden veroverd. Direct hierna trok de hoofdmacht via de Sloedam naar Walcheren en vestigde daar een bruggenhoofd. De slag om Walcheren kon beginnen.

Zie ook
 Slag om de Sloedam
 Slag om de Schelde over de context van de gevechten rond de Sloedam
 Verzorgingsplaats Sloedam

Dam in Nederland


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Het Wereldkampioenschap rally in 1990 was de achttiende jaargang van het Wereldkampioenschap rally (internationaal het World Rally Championship), georganiseerd door de Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA).

Externe links
  World Rally Championship
  Resultaten op eWRC-results.com

1990
Rally in 1990


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Jacquetta Van Zandt - Hot Mama Chronicles Gems
I had the opportunity to talk with Jacquetta Van Zandt, political strategist and podcast host for Politics and Prosecco. Jacquetta Van Zandt honed a political skill set on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. as well as various state and federal campaigns. Jacquetta has been a respected voice at the table to aid in making significant decisions that impact communities of color.
A highly sought-after political strategist, with a special focus on public policy and diversity initiatives, her desire to bring about equal opportunities for women of color has brought her back to Massachusetts. Her goal towards making an impact on her community and to bring important issues to light such as pay equity, financial literacy, socioeconomic development, women's empowerment, and diversifying the legislature are at the heart of today's most important issues.
She was an instrumental force on many campaigns including the successful campaign of Framingham's first Mayor and only popularly elected woman of color to that post. Van Zandt along with Lori Lennon launched a growing and popular Zoom-cast/podcast called "Politics and Prosecco." Politics and Prosecco is a one-hour show where guests and hosts engage in topics surrounding current events and its impact on everyday life. In addition to hosting "Politics and Prosecco," Van Zandt currently serves on the board of directors for the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts. Born and raised in Boston, MA, Van Zandt graduated from Mount Ida College (now part of the UMASS education system) with a B.S. in Criminal Justice.
What I love about her is this innate sense of service. She learned the power of networking and building relationships and leveraged that in her career in politics. One of the things I found fascinating was her interest in meditation. She talked about her struggles with anxiety and how it has helped to shift her energy. She gave great tips about that. Additionally, she dished on the next season of the podcast, words of wisdom that has grounded her in her journey and what her legacy will be. I hope you will enjoy listening to the interview. #blackgirlmagic #politics #mapoli #bospoli #podcast #politicsandprosecco


This mini cat notebook is perfect for writing your lists, ideas and notes. With a metal lock-and-key attachment, this fun and fluffy notebook makes an ideal diary! WARNING: Not suitable for children under 3 years due to small parts which may cause a choking hazard.


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Activist & Political · Reviews
The Plague 2.0: On Steven Soderbergh's Contagion
Jayson Harsin
"The original industrial accidents as, for instance, the derailment of a train or the crash of an airplane, were all specific, localized, and particular accidents. They were taking place at a certain place and at a certain moment in time. Now, however, the revolution of instantaneous transmissions brought about by telecommunications makes the accident global." — Paul Virilio
Contagion is simultaneously timeless and time-bound, place specific and yet everywhere. Its title is not misleading. On one level it's a horror and disaster film about a virus launched by an innocent bat in Macau, which becomes pandemic as it travels the globe like superhero The Flash on amphetamines. The race to understand the virus's origin and then develop a vaccine before it decimates humanity also makes it a thriller. Masterfully edited images (Stephen Mirrione) and soundtrack (Cliff Martinez) and a wonderfully circular script (Scott Z. Burns) nearly perfectly portray the global back-and-forth, sometimes dizzying montage-movement of contagion that the title implies and that has in other films been identified as a "hyperlink" style of cinema. Used to impressively full potential, too, is Contagion's all-star cast (Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet). Yet it arguably enters a higher canon of films especially because it poses perennial questions of the human condition (individual versus society, duty versus personal feeling, love versus justice, to name a few), while simultaneously placing those questions in complicated contemporary global as well as national and local relations of inequality (even between janitors and oligarchs, for example). Those inequalities have a foil in the Enlightenment tradition of triumphal Science, which the film admirably puts in its deservedly ironic contemporary place, subservient to a government-dependent global capitalism of medicine.
Contagion can be viewed as potential existential allegory and simultaneously realist, even realpolitik film, following what seems an obvious influence — Albert Camus' famous novel The Plague. Camus' multi-level story is traditionally read as treating the absurdity of the human condition, that it faces recurrent plagues and wars and their accompanying suffering, and that its people deal with it in a range of ways, some admirable, some repugnant; whereas Contagion goes further, showing, in addition, the absurdity of global, national, and local inequalities in social conditions that humans themselves have made and reproduce on a daily basis.
"What we learn in time of pestilence," Camus' narrator claims, is "that there are more things to admire than to despise in humans." While Soderbergh's (by which I mean in this essay Soderbergh and Co.'s) film does have redemptive characters, it is a tad less optimistic than Camus' narrator concludes (himself perhaps wanting to massage his data to believe so). It isn't at all clear that the plague makes the people "bond," or become more altruistic. On the contrary, we see massive every-man-for-himself violence, even murder, in response to the virus, the same kind of behavior, in fact, that is rampant in everyday life in countries like the U.S. (even if often spatially contained, as if every day is the plague).
As in Camus' story, Contagion reveals some characters ready to profit from the suffering, especially blogger/citizen journalist Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law), who begins by posing some critical questions about the government's account of the pandemic and its relationship to the pharmaceutical industry, and ends up looking more abhorrently selfish than any other character, as he stands accused of trying to drive up prices for a fake homeopathic remedy. The latter is all the more troubling (and writer Scott Z. Burns is here at his politically riskiest) because the government-pharmaceutical complex stands to gain face from his self-serving populism. Yet even the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) main character, Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne), is shown, like many of the film's characters, to be privileging friends and family over the public he is being paid to serve. Moving toward the film's upsetting scenes of mass response, Soderbergh's treatment of the U.S. (he gives his Chinese subplot less of a society-wide view) suggests the need for Leviathan in such situations, represented by military blockades and machine-gunned sentries at every turn (in fact, their inadequate numbers push many people to take up arms in self-defense as well as offense). Given the unpredictable ethical behavior of other public servants in the film, one can hardly expect the military and police sector to behave much differently, even if they are not treated in any detail.
Technology, especially digital and closely related to its co-star Science, shows itself to be a double-edged sword character (like the humans who make and use it). The speed at which the virus travels, and attempts to understand and contain it, are mirrored by the vertiginous communication about it, a point that perfectly captures the contemporary dilemmas of our new media culture that moves between and integrates digital technologies and older print and broadcast ones. Rumor and information bombs, which I've written about extensively elsewhere, threaten to wreak equal havoc.1 False information and claims deliberately spread by self-interested parties such as the Jude Law blogger-citizen journalist quickly attracts believers and old mainstream print and TV news attention, all of whom in turn pass it on, and the result is a communication catastrophe difficult to contain. A key point is that the severity of both natural and communication viruses is enabled by time-space compression of high-tech political-economic globalization; however, unlike the film's biological virus born of indirect bat-pig contact absent a malevolent motive, the communication virus is deliberately launched (though the fact that bio-viruses can be humanly launched as warfare is also briefly considered). Meanwhile, the old broadcast media seem helpless to clarify anything, being at the mercy of not only government and corporations but also now of what some naively celebrate as the new democracy of user-generated content. This particular part of the film speaks to a plethora of problems in the contemporary political and cultural scene, from "Obama is a Muslim and/or has a fake birth certificate" to "Shirley Sherrod is a racist" rumor bombs, to say nothing of the effects similar claims have in the financial sector.
Still, even-handedly, Soderbergh isn't a simplistic technological pessimist/catastrophist, since it is social media that spread some key information and questions quickly enough to be an imposed conscience on oligarchs in public service positions, such as the Fishburne CDC character, whose public statements of the pandemic do not jibe with the information he shared with his wife.2 Technology of the surveillance society also comes off positively in the film, as health care officials depend on its seemingly omnipresent cameras to solve the mystery of the virus's origins. Finally, several scenes give science lessons in modern epidemiology via an impressive visual technological simulation of the virus, rendering Al Gore's PowerPoints downright stone age.
Indeed, it would be wrong to say the film is too heavy on human frailties in the ever-ominous digitally and economically globalized age. In many ways, the film's heroes are about the ethical choices they make within their job responsibilities but also about how those choices inevitably overlap between public and private, some of them having enormous consequences for millions of people. If Fishburne's CDC character falters in privileging friends and family, Kate Winslet's no-bullshit, tough scientist character gives her life for the cause of public protection and health. Indeed, there's no sense that she has any life outside of her job. The same can be said for the scientist, played with virtuosity by Jennifer Ehle, who works tirelessly on a vaccine, also taking life-threatening risks (which apparently is an ethic impressed upon her by her father, or are duty and altruism genetic?). Several of these characters are faced with ethical issues of following orders and respecting authority or doing what they feel is best or right. But what is just and right in the film seems to be situational, not clearly in favor of following or rebelling, for the greater good or the personal one. Science, also, plays a heroic but complicated role.
Science saves, but not everyone, not at the same rate, and not without being partly co-opted by profit and geopolitical relations. It is easy to miss the latter point of the film, because most viewers do not face daily news that underlines global inequalities of the distribution of science's fruits. Otherwise, this would be just another literary treatment of the human condition and the absurdly divergent reactions of its creatures in the face of extreme collective adversity.
Government and the market, of course, mediate the scientists investigating the virus and working on its cure, revealing the thorny obstacles for public health, local and global. "The historic dream of public health is social justice," writes one recent public health scholar tackling the issue head-on. Here's some perspective for this aspect of the film. Mark Heywood, writing in the Third World Quarterly in 2002, noted that post-World War II globalizing economic and political processes have increased vulnerability to disease in many parts of the world. Those processes have also accelerated the speed at which viruses can travel. While certain diseases globalize, the tragedy is that "while there has been a globalisation of medical research, and a globalisation of knowledge about medicine, there has been only a partial globalisation in the availability of medicines." More concretely, "a doctor working in impoverished areas of Botswana or Malaysia can read about effective medicines on the Internet, but has no hope of obtaining these medicines for her patients or getting to a health centre that can obtain them." For those like the Gwyneth Paltrow character who works as a corporate globe trotter, that means "it is possible to board a plane in Johannesburg — a city in a country where the prevalence of HIV infection among pregnant women was 24.8% in 2000 and where 22 million people 'survive' on less than R500 (US$50) per month — and disembark 12 hours later in the USA or Europe, countries where HIV prevalence is well below 1% and where poverty is confined to relatively small groups of people."3
It's no doubt a tall order to employ the cast Soderbergh has to make a film as moving, entertaining, and successful at the box office as Contagion and still show the global political economics and ethical issues behind the drama. Soderbergh treats the inequalities subtly. A global map in the middle of the film shows the rapidly proliferating virus across space. Countries with high populations and fewer resources per capita, such as India and China, figure on this map. While the film has nothing to say specifically about most of those non-Western areas, the Chinese are a metaphor that appears to stand in for the rest, thanks to a very interesting rite of passage experienced by a World Health Organization (WHO) doctor played convincingly by Marie Cotillard. Cotillard is sent to China to figure out the origins of the disease. She reacts with cold officiousness when her local Chinese counterpart (Chin Han) mentions his mother just died from the virus and that half of his village has been decimated by it. However, by the film's end, after being kidnapped and forced to establish human relations with children at risk in the village (who are no longer mere statistics in the WHO database and reports), she is moved with indignation at the global inequality in the distribution of the vaccine, mired in geopolitics. To put a fine point on it, in 2008, the WHO listed China as 116th in the world in terms of healthcare spending per capita; Switzerland, the base of the WHO, ranked fifth, while the U.S. ranked first (even if the latter's "efficency" measure is much lower).4
The irony is acute. In the film, a French company in China has manufactured some of the first large quantities of the vaccine, which were apparently to be exported or to serve the Western oligarchic classes (people like Fishburne's character). Meanwhile, the appearance of fairness in distribution is questioned via a montage with the U.S., where the population receives the vaccine over time in the order of lottery numbers drawn. This back and forth between Asia and the U.S., scientists and government, the poor and oligarchs/the rich makes for a nuanced tale that is simultaneously existentialist and historically specific. The latter questions capitalism and medicine (especially in the U.S., but also elsewhere represented again by the China-based French manufacturer of the vaccine, since the French have a much more egalitarian and accessible healthcare system). As many a public health worker who's read about globalization knows, the AIDS pandemic followed (and continues) to follow similar patterns of injustice.
The morality of sovereign nations and their collusion with pharmaceutical capitalism figures, too, in this drama of power and ethics across time and space. Thus the focus on the U.S., whose government-pharmaceutical alliance is shown to be concerned only with the U.S. (according to the absence of dialogue otherwise), and even there, it is not one for all and all for one. Fishburne's high-level CDC official is shown working diligently for a solution, and yet in protecting the population as a public servant, he can't help taking care of loved ones first. When a janitor overhears him breaking his public duties by making exceptions for those he cares about, the former reminds him that lots of people have loved ones that need taking care of. Later we find the janitor's son getting Fishburne's own dose of the vaccine, since he and his wife are apparently privileged to get it first. However, is it humane guilt or fear of blackmail that motivates what would otherwise be Fishburne's seemingly selfless act? After all, by not taking the vaccine and fastening a Government Issue bracelet that indicates he has not been and is not contagious, he may be risking not just his own life but also those of others whom he could infect.
"What's true of all the evils in the world is true of the plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves," says narrator Dr. Rieux in The Plague. Soderbergh's film seems to make a similar claim, with utter fidelity to the absurdity of the cosmos. The closing footage is the most fantastic, and slow-mo'd for emphasis. A bat drops a banana into a pig lot petri dish, the virus then jumps on board for the market, then to the casino restaurant, as the wheels of economic globalization start to rev up. The sequence is a subtle and compact meditation on globalization and agribusiness, the latter of which doesn't really appear until then.
Soderbergh is not starry-eyed about how humans react to public threats. Some will individualize them almost naturally; some will go crazy out of self-preservation, becoming just as violent and as threatening as the plague they face; and some will see yet another opportunity to profit, literally becoming millionaires. Others, mysterious as the process that begat the virus in bat-pig contact, risk and sacrifice their lives out of purely irrational, altruistic, or unwavering professional care for their fellow human beings. That some of their jobs were as public servants in the first place only shows their magnanimity to follow through while others demonstrate the private can and does triumph again and again over the public, partly by refusing the distinction altogether. Do the majority rise above the inhuman conditions of the plague to salvage humanity itself? That's not clear. But many do, and not just in times of plague, even if they are not quickly able to change the unequal global socioeconomic conditions in which they find themselves making choices.
See my "That's Democratainment: Obama, Rumor Bombs, and Primary Definers," Flow 10.8 (2010) available at http://flowtv.org/2010/10/thats-democratainment/ [↩]
For more reading on this topic see my "Wikileak's Lessons for Media Theory and Politics," Flow, 13.6 (2011) available at http://flowtv.org/2011/05/flow-favorites-wikileaks-lessons-for-media-theory-and-politics/. [↩]
Available at http://hmb.utoronto.ca/Old%20Site/HMB303H/weekly_supp/week-08-09/Heywood_Drug_Access.pdf [↩]
http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/2011/en/index.html [↩]
— Jayson Harsin
Jayson Harsin is Associate Professor of Global Communications at the American University of Paris. His writing on media and politics, music, and film appears in many online and print journals and magazines. He is currently writing a book, The Rumor Bomb: Vertiginous Democracy in Digital Time.
Previous story It's a bourgeois town: the feel-good Oscar Nominees for 2011
Next story The Connectitrons Are Coming! But wait a minute, weren't they here all along?
Want Fact with That? Disney's Hidalgo and the Commodification of Myth July 31, 2004
Distribute This! Privilege (Peter Watkins, 1967, Great Britain) August 1, 2005
Who are Parents? Parents are the ones who are ALWAYS there January 29, 2010
The Life of Pi: A Politics of the Imagination July 31, 2013


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Blognonymo.us
A day without snark is like a day without sunshine.
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Kvatch Says
MoreHYPES
Kvatch Konsiders - Whose Freedom of Speech?
Newt Gingrich says: ...the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism.
Kvatch says: The country would be better off if we reexamined Newt Gingrich's freedom of speech.
Thanks to Sewmouse for inspiring me to get this one posted.
Posted by Kvatch @ 5:50 PM | 11 Comments | Post Links |
That'll Teach Those North Koreans
Cupertino (f-A-ke. P.) -
In an effort to reach out to North Korea, the Bush Administration and Apple Computer announced the immediate availability of the Kim Jong-il Special Edition iPod.
"The administration just wants to show those commies that we're not totally insensitive to their need for quality American products," said Press Secretary, Tony Snow.
The new iPod will come pre-loaded with the North Korean national anthem, The Internationale, and the complete collected speeches of the Dear Leader. Pricing has not been announced but is expected to be set at two head of cattle, four bushels of rice, or your sister.
Posted by Kvatch @ 7:11 AM | 14 Comments | Post Links |
10 Years From Now At The Bush Presidential Library
Curator: Welcome to the George W. Bush Presidential Library.
Patron: Thanks.
Curator: How can we help you?
Patron: I'm interested in researching the period just before the Iraq War.
Curator: Uh...well...we might have some menus from state dinners in 2003.
Patron: ??? -- State dinners?
Curator: Yeah. Everything else is classified you know.
Patron: Everything?
Curator Everything. Though I think that we may also have a copy of 'My Pet Goat'.
Thanks to Libby for the inspiration and to Romunov for that last bit.
Posted by Kvatch @ 6:19 PM | 8 Comments | Post Links |
National Meth Awareness Day
Do you know where your pastor is?
Kvatch Kvetches - It's About Your Job Stupid!
The FBI wants to start including "non-serious offenses" on criminal-history reports to employers, a move some say could unduly taint people's job prospects and spread misinformation.
Don't be fooled by employers that say that they just want to protect themselves. Don't be fooled by law enforcement saying that this is about providing more complete information. This is about putting the kabosh on civil disobedience by threatening one's future job prospects. It's about controlling citizens and their actions. It's about creating new underclass--unemployables who'll have no opportunities outside of low-pay, low-prestige jobs where one's past isn't examined.
You can move the candy dish just 6 feet away from you, rather than 3 feet.
So...why did Kvatch leave his last job? Well, having to make up his position and boredom were certainly factors, but the biggest factor? Junk food. In other words, a break room stuffed with snacks not 15 feet from his desk. 15 lbs of weight gain in 9 months on the job. Not being able to concentrate from all the snacking. And yeah you can say it's Kvatch's lack of control, but he's got plenty of control when it comes to his flat. Junk food simply doesn't make it in the door. Nobody needs an employer who thinks that candy is the key to stable, happy employees, and this article in Salon has a lot to say about the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that we're encouraged to overeat.
Big Auto Predicts An End To California's SUVs
And Blognonymous says...GOOD!
From the San Francisco Chronicle -
The auto industry said Monday that lawsuits over vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions could eventually force manufacturers to eliminate big SUVs from the market in California
You know what, a vehicle with a grill so high that you can't spot a pedestrian in front of you is not a good thing! A vehicle that weighs 3 tons but that isn't any safer than your average mini-van is not a good thing. A vehicle that sucks down gasoline like a drunk with a 1/5th of Mad Dog, is not a good thing.
And if Big Auto can't see their way clear to building a more fuel efficient SUV in order to satisfy our regulations, then F*CK 'EM! Let them be consigned to the dustbin of history cause we're talking about our air here, and we've got the worst in the nation. But don't worry Californians. If GM won't build a better SUV, Toyata will. Oh wait...Toyota already does.
His Holiness Pope Fester I
The real reason the Turks are protesting a visit from Il Papa.
Labels: Benedict XVI, catholic, catholicism, Fester
Posted by Kvatch @ 11:49 AM | 19 Comments | Post Links |
McCain-Lieberman - A Democratic Wet Dream
With Joe Lieberman's hiring of Marshall Whitmann as his new communications director, the rumors of a McCain/Lieberman ticket in 2008 are flying once again. Pundits on the right (and even a few on the left) are slyly predicting that this could be a potent ticket for the GOP. But I don't buy it.
Here's the thing...McCain is already pissing off moderate Republicans--the few that still exist--with his recent coddling of the religious right. Add Lieberman to the mix, and you have a recipe for pissing off just about everybody. Rightist zealots will never trust a former Democrat, especially one that ran with Al Gore. Centrist Democrats aren't going to cross party lines for a turncoat and a spoiler who didn't know when to step aside, and leftist kooks would sooner vote for Barry Goldwater's ghost, as long as it ran as a Democrat and promised to raise the minimum wage.
There you have it, a GOP formula for disaster. Uhh...so...can I have McCain/Lieberman? Can I? CAN I? Pleeeeeaaaazzzzzeeee?!
Blognonymous Moves To The Left
Today Kvatch Kopf, famous frog and liberal commentator, announced that in response to the new political climate he will take Blognonymous even further to the left. "I plan to move my politics so far to the left that to move them further would place them off the page," said the amphibian. "My readers want speed. They want my commentary to leap onto the computer screen."
But some in the Frogsphere has suggested that maybe Mr. Kopf has gone too far. "This new emphasis on speed is not without a cost. Kvatch is emphasizing the now and ignoring his history," remarked Bill O'Reilly of Faux News. "If fact, I had a hard time even find his previous material before I discovered it at the end of his posts." For his part, Kvatch has determined that this is a bug...not a feature, and is actively working to correct the issue.
Now where did I put that $500B?
Of all the scary things I read this past week, the one that really gave me the shivers (figuratively speaking, of course) was James Hansen's comments to Reuters that the world has just a decade to take meaningful action to combat global climate change. After that it'll be too late. Ten years folks. Not 50 or 20, but 10! Before your children reach adulthood. Really 8. Because after all Bush is still President for another two years.
You may recall that Dr. James Hansen, a climatologist, is director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has the distinction of being the man who blew the whistle on Bu$hCo attempts to silence NOAA and NASA climate scientists. So...is he a man to be trusted? Yeah, probably.
Coincidentally, the New Yorker ran an article in its Nov. 13th issue about a recent report that estimates the total costs of seriously addressing climate change--with a goal of stable emissions by 2050. Sir Nicholas Stern, head the British Government Economic Service, and his team put that figure at 1% of the annual global gross domestic product or about half a trillion dollars.
Expensive? Perhaps. But minor ducats compared to the cost of doing nothing. "Now where did I put that $500 billion. Oh...I know. I spent it on a f*cking war!"
Posted by Kvatch @ 10:06 PM | 15 Comments | Post Links |
A Turkey Day Post Mortem
Now that Thanksgiving is over, let me just say this and then the recriminations can begin.
I hate turkey!!!
I know it's traditional. I know that turkey is the bird that people love to dump on. They're stupid. They're slow. But you know what else? They-don't--taste--good! I mean, I don't like football either, but that's only because I'm an un-American kook. And so I have to ask: What compels American families rush out to buy a bird that, once cooked, can only be choked down when it's smothered in gravy and stuffing? AAAUUUGGGGHHHH!
For our part, we spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends who think about turkey the same way that we do. In other words, they fixed some awesome steaks and we brought pies and non-traditional veggies to go with it. And I really think this gets to the heart of the matter. Why do we have this one meal every year where we eat foods that we wouldn't ordinarily prepare? Cranberry sauce? Never touch the stuff...except at Thanksgiving. And when was the last time you fixed yams?!
So here's a suggestion: Be extra thankful next year by letting the sad, stupid birds live out their lives. Have a steak or a special fish. If you're a Muslim, how about lamb? Jewish? Maybe a nice brisket, but please, please, please don't make me face more dry white meat!
Carlos the Turkey Pardoned
Washington (f-A-ke. P.) -
Famed international terrorist Carlos the Turkey, who has been held in US custody at Guantanamo Bay for the last year, was given an official pardon by the Bush Administration today and then left the country on a unregistered CIA flight. Sources close to the President said that recent intelligence indicated that Carlos is a member of the Saudi royal family, necessitating the hastily arranged departure.
House Speaker-elect, Nancy Pelosi, called for an immediate investigation and promised to convene a panel to look into to other 'poultry peccadilloes' in the Bush Administration.
[Happy Thanksgiving everyone!]
Should sex offenses result in banishment?
I have sympathy for communities that want to keep convicted sex offenders out. I understand the concerns of parents who worry about sexual predators going after their children. But this national obsession with draconian punishments for even the mildest of sex offenses, like statutory rape or public exposure, has got to stop.
Why do we feel the need to treat even the suspicion of a sex offense as an already tried and convicted crime? Think it doesn't happen? You're wrong. In Ohio, a recently enacted law allows a prosecutor, sheriff, or alleged victim to petition a court to place a person in a 'civil-registry' even when no conviction has been secured. And, once you're in that registry...you're screwed! You'll be treated exactly as if you'd committed a crime, unable to live where you choose or to challenge your status for a period of six years.
And while we're on the subject of "living where you choose"... Many states make it practically impossible for registered sex offenders to even find a place to live. Take Georgia for example, where recently enacted legislation prohibits the convicted from living within 1000 feet of a school, church, school bus stop, or playground, effectively placing whole counties out of bounds. In other words, BANISHMENT, a concept that Georgia state officials don't just recognize...but applaud.
My intent personally is to make it so onerous on those that are convicted of these offenses... they will want to move to another state...
Georgia House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R), Sponsor
"These offenses"? Like underage consensual sex? Because that's all it takes to get you in Georgia's sex offender registry, and this law applies to everyone in that registry.
Basically, for the convicted, one's status as a "sex offender" is now a life-long stain allowing for no chance of rehabilitation, no notion of "time-served", and perpetual ostracism. It's crazy, and it has to stop.
Classification - A get out of jail free card?
In a blow to attempts by liberal advocacy groups to expose Bu$hCo's unwarranted surveillance program, federal judge Ellen Segal Huvelle issued a ruling that gives support to using classification as a way of covering up illegal activity. She said in the case of People for the American Way v. NSA that, "...even if the program is ultimately determined to be illegal, it doesn't change the fact that the materials are classified and are not covered by the Freedom of Information Act."
Now I suppose we'll see a rush to classify everything about this administration's doings so that Bush and his cronies can ensure that they're not exposed to criminal liability. Classification is about to become just another tool of the would-be criminal, like money-laundering or multiple set's of books.
Should Democrats go nukuler?
Threatening to use the so-called "nuclear option" was good enough for Bill Frist and the Senate Republicans when the it looked like Democrats would filibuster Bu$hCo nominees to the federal bench. Will it be good enough for the Democrats when Republicans decide to tie up the Senate in order to get their way?
Apparently Mitch McConnell (R KY), the minority leader in waiting and a man for whom no hypocrisy is too blatant, doesn't think so. He's all about making threats when he's talking to a receptive audience like the Federalist society, but all his bluster on the subject of bi-partisan cooperation won't get him very far. Senate Republicans spent 10 of the last 12 years sh*tting on their colleagues across the aisle, excluding their amendments, preventing debate, and running committees like tiny dictatorships. Democratic cooperation will last right up until Republicans start their first filibuster, and then the GOP better pray that they can get Joe Lieberman to switch sides before radiation suits become necessary.
The Pizza Flyer - Scourge of the Modern Metropolis
I've got a problem. My city is getting dirtier. Well...it was pretty dirty before--trash blowing around our streets, people leaving their junk on the sidewalks--but now I'm sweeping outside our flat almost every day. And what is it that makes such a mess, fills my trash bags and clogs our gutters, PIZZA FLYERS!
If you don't live in a major metropolitan area, you may not be familiar this modern form of advertising. It's basically a restaurant menu, pizza, Chinese, Indian, Thai, whatever, that somebody attaches to your front door. Sometimes they leave a few. Sometimes they dump 'em by the dozens in your entryway. Maybe they slip them through your mail slot, but regardless of how or how many they leave, hundreds end up in the streets.
And how do you fight back against this scourge? Well I've tried signs saying "no flyers". I've called restaurants to tell them not to distribute the things on our block. The usual response being, "F*ck off. We've got a right to run a business!" or "Nothing I can do. Call the guy who distributes them for me." Though they never tell you who that is. One lady even accused me of targeting her restaurant specifically, of trying to drive her out of business. The police aren't helpful. Unless you've got a photo of someone actually dumping flyers in the streets, they don't want to hear about it. I've even gathered up all the flyers on our block and then tossed them into the lobby of an offending restaurant. I'm a popular guy at that place.
So the question remains, how do I get rid of this problem? All I want to do is clean up my feakin' block. Any suggestions?
Music - The Guiltiest Pleasure
OK, I admit that I spent my formative musical years listening to classical and in doing so missed most of the 1970s. Well...with the exception of disco, that is. And this little admission brings me to my point. There's a lot of music out there that we'd be embarrassed to admit we like. Are you a Paul Anka fan? Not me, but I do have a fetish for Bananarama. In fact, I've often been reluctant to lend out the flyPod because of some of the stuff that's in there.
So Kvatch asks the question: What are your guiltiest musical pleasures? And just so you won't think I'm a slacker, here are mine:
Chances are, if you were any older than 7 by 1970, you could count yourself a fan of at least one of the dozens of lite "folk rock" groups. They were everywhere. You couldn't escape 'em.
Sure the B-52's wrote some catchy stuff, but they also recorded a whole lot of dreck. I don't care. I love it all. "Channel Z! All static, all day...forever!"
On his infamous Black Album, Prince Rogers Nelson describes himself as "...that skinny motherf*cker with the high voice," but until you seen this funky little pipsqueak scream while playing a penis shaped guitar, you haven't lived.
Saving the best for last. All hail the indomitable, unstoppable, greatest one-hit, filthy, party-monster band of all time!!!
Frankie says... RELAX---WHOAAAA!!!
At a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday CIA Director, Michael Hayden, described the violence in Iraq as having reached "satanic levels".
Responding later in the day from his office in the fiery pit, the Great Deceiver said -
I'd like to take credit for Iraq, but really it was the work of my minions Bush and Cheney, and just let me say that I couldn't be more proud. Heck of a job boys!
The O'Froggy Factor
On good days, this frog would never curtail someone's right to free speech--never apply the kinds of labels or advocate the kinds of punishments that radical rightists are in love with.
This is not one of those days. Spurred on by this new CNN f*ckstick, Glenn Beck, tearing into MN Rep. elect Keith Ellison, Evil Kvatch takes over, grabs the microphone and lets loose with The O'Froggy Factor!
You know that what we really want is to go medieval on Ann Coulter's ass--drop Michael Savage in East LA and let the homies have at him for 20 minutes. You know it! We want to render David Addington to an Albanian prison where he can experience water-boarding for himself--grab John Yoo and let him teach classes at Gitmo Law...
...but for now how about we just take these choice six, pundits and politicians, and send them for an all expense paid vacation to a Halliburton Reeducation Camp. What else are you going to do with people who choose to so systematically damage America?
OK...I feel better now. Anybody else you'd like me to deal with?
Kvatch Kvetches - Meet the New GOP...
...same as the old GOP, or "What Kvatch blogs about until a BBP (bigger better post) comes along".
It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Trent Lott manages to win back a leadership post in the Senate. Republicans deny that this is a return to the 'good ol' days'. Strom Thurmond sends his congratulations from beyond the grave.
"They didn't win. We lost. Or...was it the other way around?"
Tom DeLay takes to the Blogsphere to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
"If senior citizens win, America loses!"
Bu$hCo announces that it will "strenuously oppose" one of the Democrats top priorities: Legislation authorizing the feds to negotiate with drug companies to get lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries.
Posted by Kvatch @ 7:22 AM | 7 Comments | Post Links |
Hot & Hunky Hydrogen Honda
Well OK. It's not really that hunky, but never let it be said that this frog doesn't pander to his local readers. Nonetheless...cute, Cute, CUTE! Runs on hydrogen, emits H2O, and after factoring in the cost of fuel production gets the equivalent of about 65 MPG.
And so here at Blognonymous we have to ask: Considering Detroit's near constant dissing of hybrid technology and their insistence that "they're going straight to hydrogen", how come they didn't bring this to market first?
An Ode On Jack Abramoff
Fat Jack is off to jail today
And many lawmakers will pray
A six year sentence in the clink
Will gag this lobbyist and fink.
But alas it just ain't so
The scandal's set to grow and grow
With Jack about to spill his guts
In the hope his time they'll cut.
Right and left all quake in fear
Cause senators and Karl are near
To learning of a fate they dread
As they're fingered by the feds.
But for now there's no more black
They're gonna take Jack's sporty hat
And perhaps he'll look less fat
When prison stripes are where it's at.
Discrimination Blatant...And Subtle, Part 2
In 1994 the GOP engineered a 26 seat advantage in the House after being in the minority for decades.
After 12 years in the minority the Democrats engineer a 29 seat advantage in the House.
Time Magazine considers the former a "Revolution". But the latter? Something else entirely.
Discrimination Blatant...And Subtle
This is the logo of
the Democratic Party. > >
< < Not this!
Apparently WHDH TV in Boston doesn't have a problem with the GOP's logo.
Kvatch Kvetches - Meet The New Boss
...same as the old boss.
"Whatever your opinion of the outcome, all Americans can take pride in the example our democracy sets for the world by holding elections even in a time of war," - George W. Bush
Uh George...the US has never cancelled a federal election! Never will cancel an election. Not during wartime, not ever...unless some moron like you tries it!
"President Bush will not relent in his defense of John Bolton, his nominee for U.N. ambassador, despite unwavering opposition from Democrats..."
The Senate--the Republican Senate--has been sitting on this for almost a year. Bolton doesn't have the votes in committee much less on the Senate floor. The nomination is dead. Move on George!
Kvatch's Kommandos Storm The Kastro
At noon today two companies of Kvatch's Kommandos stormed into San Francisco's Castro district, showing support for America's veterans while getting odd looks from the Sunday brunch crowd.
Check out all of the great pics of bloggers fighting the War on War at the Kommandos Project.
Kommandos Swing Into Action...
This morning in San Francisco's Castro district.
Dispatches from the front will be posted later today.
Posted by Kvatch @ 10:07 AM | 1 Comments | Post Links |
'Good for GM' No Longer Good For America
The evidence that the earth has already passed the "tipping point" on global warming is accumulating, and the situation is looking increasingly dire. In fact, rather than stabilizing or--in a more perfect world--starting to retreat, global carbon emmissions are accelerating. Recent reports from the Global Carbon Project, reported in The Independent, show that the growth rate leapt from an annualized .08% per year (1990 - 1999) to .6% per year (2000 - 2005), a factor 7!
But in the United States, where the Democrats have just won control of Congress, one would expect some new, some reinvigorated thinking on how to curb emissions, right? Wrong! The presumptive head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, John Dingell of Michigan, has already announced that raising the fuel-efficiency standards of American cars is not on the table. Unfortunately for us, Dingell, whose been a lawmaker since 1955, seems to have his head stuck in an era when fuel-efficiency didn't matter. But this is 2006, and what's good for GM is no longer good for America or for the world. In fact, it might be down-right deadly.
We don't need this kind of leadership. Dingell should step aside.
Updated 2006/11/12, 7:30 AM PST -
The Washington Post is running an interesting article today about how the Democrats plan to bring to the 110th Congress the same energy that Republicans brought in 1994. Fine words, but I'd point out that ossified attitudes toward profound issues like global climate change are exactly what the Democrats don't need, especially before they've even swapped offices with their GOP counterparts.
Men Are Pigs...Literally
And so we end the week here at Blognonymous with a saying that you always suspected to be true but that never had any definitive proof.
Scientists at NEC Systems and Mie University have designed a little robot that can tell you what it's tasting. And what does the metal maitre d' think of a reporter's hand? "BACON!" it replies.
So there you have it folks. Men really are pigs.
Time For Tough National Election Standards
While Democrats haggle and speechify about little stuff like the minimum wage, examine their proposed legislative agenda and ask yourself, "Where's meaningful election reform?" Because if there's anything that the elections of 2000 - 2006 have proven it's that Americans no longer believe that their leaders can resist gaming the system--believe unquestioningly that their vote will be counted. Of all of the nasty, tragic things that have happened in the last 4 campaigns, this is the most tragic.
And how do we know that Americans have lost faith in the election process? Did you think you would live to see the day when citizens routinely take cameras and camcorders into the polling place to record their votes? Americans are voting absentee in record numbers. And why? Because they feel it's a way to ensure that their vote gets counted. Have you ever been turned away from a polling place? Waited in a 4 hour line to vote? Well...this sort of stuff happens frequently in urban areas. And what about the voter suppression efforts? Or the legions of lawyers ready to contest every outcome--poll monitors ready to contest every registration?
This nonsense has got to stop, and congress has the power to do make it stop:
The toothless and inadvisable Help America Vote Act needs to be scrapped.
Voting system certification should to be nationalized and handed over to a non-partisan board of experts.
Any accepted system must either have physical ballots or a physical audit trail.
Service levels for voting systems need to be developed that mandate "hours in service" without a crash or glitch.
Polling place capacity standards need to be developed so that urban areas don't get shorted on equipment or personnel.
Voter registration procedures need a uniform federal standard, and the registration process should produce a certificate (or ID) that is sufficient for demonstrating eligibility to vote.
And finally, penalties for tampering with any aspect of the voting process, from machine management to polling place procedures, need to be severe enough to deter the types of shenanigans we've seen in the last 4 elections.
Tell the Democrats that tough national election standards should be one of their first orders of business!
RIP Ed Bradley, 1941 - 2006
You were certainly the best on 60 Minutes and probably the best at CBS. As tough as Mike Wallace, more charm than Morley Safer, with greater longevity and more style than all the rest.
Television journalism is in a sorry state and today is much the worse for your departure.
Future Headlines - Rapture? What Rapture...
FUTURE SPEAKER PELOSI ANNOUNCES THE DOMINION OF SATAN ON EARTH.
San Francisco (f-A-ke. P.) -
Future House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D CA), announced that, with the Democrats resounding success in the midterm elections, the dominion of Satan on Earth has begun. Stunned evangelicals were left to wonder about the supposedly missing rapture, but their confusion was short lived when government scientists announced that the Rapture occurred at 12:35 AM on the 8th, approximately 4 hours after polls closed on the west coast. "Apparently most conservatives were too depressed to notice," remarked an official from the Republican National Committee.
Satan, for his part, has announced his intention to work with the Democratic congress on initiatives that will greatly increase the "wages of sin". "We want to make the words 'you'll have to sell your soul to get that S.U.V.,' have real meaning again," the Great Deceiver was quoted as saying at a press conference earlier this afternoon.
What's the Kommandos Project all about?
Once upon a time there was a Chicago peace activist named Sallie Gratch who had an idea for a novel sort of protest involving the little green army men that you played with as a kid. A blogger named Jay Lassiter picked up the idea and began deploying these little guys whenever and wherever he had the chance.
The Kommandos Project started when your's truly decided to go national with the idea in order celebrate Blognonymous' one year anniversary. That was in May. Since then, dozens of bloggers all over the nation have deployed thousands of these little guys. We held major protests on Memorial Day and Independence Day.
And now we're going to show our support for the troops and for an end to the Iraq War with a Veteran's Day Protest. The Democrats have taken control of Congress, but that doesn't mean that the war will end. We need to speak out!
Please join us.
On the Right - Tearing of Hair and Gnashing of Teeth
The cry is going up among the conservative bloggers. From Balloon Juice to Ankle Biting Pundits, Little Green Footballs to Michelle Malkin: "The big bad Democrats didn't really win, but they're coming to harvest our organs, clone our bodies, kill our babies, take our property, stifle our speech, and welcome the terrorists in...anyway!" To a one though, each of these rhetorical pipsqueaks conveniently omits that most "islamo-fascists" agree on how much better off they are for having a Bu$hCo to fight against. Well no more. Seems even Bush may have seen the writing on the wall.
But don't worry whiny babies, your message will still get out, even without a Republican tyranny to ensure that it's the only message. Remember, you still have O'Reilly and Coulter, and nothing can shut them up.
With Regard To Bipartisanship
"If the Democrats win America Loses"
"If Democrats gain control of Congress, our values will be destroyed."
GOP flyer distributed the NY Republican State Committee
"He'll [President Bush] start by congratulating the winners and extend a hand for bipartisan cooperation to work on the issues facing our country."
White House Counselor, Dan Bartlett
Come here Georgie...[BURP!!!]
Kvatch
Mammaries of Mass Destruction
Peacechick Mary gets the coveted, "I made Kvatch snort his martini through his nose," Award for this week. Her proposal for weapon redesign is brilliant!
The Last Word On Robocalls
OK, I've held back on this, but now I've just got to get it off my chest:
Anyone who is so intimidated by a nasty GOP robocall that they choose not to vote, has the intelligence of a doorknob and isn't deserving of the benefits of democracy. The Frogette adds that they're probably looking for a reason to continue stuffing their faces with Doritos rather than getting their fat asses off the couch and to the polls.
There... I said it. (Blame the Anon-Paranoid for this rant. ;-) )
With Every California Election A Forest Dies
Well I've just voted, and don't that just make me feel grand? Not really. Unlike other states where I've lived, the California election process is study in boredom, frustration, and too much democracy. I've blogged on that last topic before. So now let me tackle another topic: The fact that our elections are so goddamned wasteful that the mind boggles.
Do you know how many of those deceptive little campaign leaflets the Frogette and I received? 68...in three weeks. I counted them. Add to that three, 200 page voter guides all mandated by the state, and you've got a massive amount of waste. "How much waste?" you ask. Well let's see. San Francisco has about 480,000 registered voters...
San Francisco Voter Guides
(7.2 lbs of paper / voter by 480,000 voters) = 3,456,000 lbs
California Voter Guides
(7.2 lbs of paper / household by 160,000 households) = 1,152,000 lbs
(3.3 lbs of paper / household by 160,000 households) = 528,000 lbs.
Total Pounds of Paper = 5,136,000
Tons of Paper = 2568
Trees Consumed
(24 trees / ton of paper) = 61632
And that's just for the City of San Francisco! What about the whole state?! What about the fact that we do this EVERY SINGLE YEAR?!
We've got to be able to do better than this.
1999 Report: Outcome In Iraq Never In Question
Did you ever play Risk as a kid? If so, you probably experienced at least one hopeless situation--looking at say a hundred armies across the Bering Staits? Well that was the situation with Iraq. The outcome was never in question, and CENTCOMM knew it--knew it in 1999! Bu$hCo almost certainly knew it as well, and now so do we.
On the eve of the election, you probably don't need another reason to vote against Bu$hCo or the Rethuglicans, but this new report, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, should be a stake to the heart of the Bush administration vampire. And what does this report say? For starters, the war simulation called 'Desert Crossing' concluded that, even with 400,000 troops on the ground, Iraq would probably end up as a failed state. 400-f*cking-thousand!!! 2.5 times the number we sent. It also predicted the instability of the replacement regime and the exacerbation of tensions with Iran. In short...IT PREDICTED THE WHOLE F*CKING DISASTER! The only things it didn't predict were a megalomaniac president and the terrible cost for America.
So tomorrow...everyone get your ass to the polls and put George Bush in a hurt locker for the next two years!
Time For The Governator To Go
Democrat Phil Angelides is having a tough time in the California governor's race and probably won't win. But three years of a man acting the part of our governor is enough. Schwarzenegger waffles, proposes initiatives nobody wants, and treats the legislature and his opponents with disdain.
It's time for Skynet's minion to be shown the door.
I Want My Goddamned Spectacle!
So here we have the big November surprise: Saddam Hussein is convicted and sentenced to hang for crimes against Iraqis. But after the most expensive prosecution in human history, I have to ask: We've spent $400B and all we get is a hanging!? For that price I would expect to see the gates of Hell open and Satan himself emerge to duck-walk Saddam down into the fiery pit.
Where's my goddamned spectacle?!
Kvatch Kvetches - Should'a Copped To The Meth Ted
Bits for when nothing but the finest 20/20 hindsight and prognostication will do...
Ted Haggard - Are you insane? Half of evangelical American doesn't even know what methamphetamine is. You should have admitted using meth and denied having sex with a gay prostitute.
Dear Leader - You just secured a guilty verdict in the most expensive prosecution in history...what are you going to do for an encore?
Donald Rumsfeld - Your own generals just dissed you. F*cking resign before Cheney invites you on a "hunting trip".
Nancy Pelosi - The House is yours, but just barely. You better have a solid agenda and PR of the gods to handle the GOP. They're going to blame you for everything from the Iraq to Darfur.
Democrats - You got the House, but the GOP called Diebold who promptly delivered the Senate. (The evidence of fraud is just too compelling, folks. Talent and Allen will pull off "miraculous" wins). Prepare for gridlock that will make the 109th look like a cakewalk.
America - You lose. Sorry, but The Deciderer has already stated that he won't change course. He won't fire Rumsfeld or Cheney, won't stop the executive power grabs, will flush away another $200B in Iraq. It's gonna be a rough two years.
America - Where Even Torture Is Classified
While the neocons abandon the President like rats off of a sinking ship and the military calls for Rumsfeld's resignation, you may have missed a little post-Military Commissions Act drama taking place in the US District Court in Washington.
Seems that the CIA is trying to prevent a "high-value" detainee from talking to his lawyer because it might reveal details about how and where the suspect was tortured. Specifically, agency Infomation Review Officer Marilyn Dorn argues that such information is classified TOP-SECRET/SCI because its disclosure would be very damaging, allowing our enemies to develop ways of resisting harsh interrogation techniques.
But frankly, this is all a Bu$hCo smokescreen. Under the Military Commissions Act, detainees have no access to the US court system. So Majid Kahn's lack of access to his lawyer is not relevant. Moreover, Bu$hCo has shown no reluctance to talk about interrorgation techniques when they feel it's in their interest to do so, making the disclosure issue irrelevant as well.
What is not irrelevant is a court ruling stating that prison locations and torture techniques are TOP-SECRET information, because with such a ruling in hand, Bu$hCo could go after anybody--a citizen, a lawyer, a reporter, an editor--anybody who might be tempted to embarrass the administration.
Bu$hCo couldn't care less about detainees, their target here is the public and the press--their goal is to put in place a mechanism for silencing their critics.
I Got Yer San Francisco Values Right Here
In this final week before the midterms the phrase San Francisco values is being thrown around by conservative stalwarts as a way to rally their base--to scare the kiddies into voting Republican. Newt Gingrich put it like this:
Will everything you've worked so hard to accomplish be lost to the San Francisco values of would-be Speaker Nancy Pelosi?
But you know what this frog says? America could use a good dose of San Francisco values...
While the heartland is busy trying to keep gays from marrying, we're defying California law to embrace commitment in all it's splendor and diversity. 3000 gay marriages in a week is a number that makes even the Reverend Moon look like a piker.
In San Francisco you've got a city where the big-box is told to shove it so that Mom-and-Pop shops can thrive.
While the heartland criminalizes homelessness, we're trying novel solutions that get the indigent off the streets, into rehab, and into homes of their own.
While the rest of America tries to decide between the Escalade and Expedition, we're out here buying Priuses, and driving in the H.O.V. lane, and taking mass-transit, and starting car-sharing companies.
We're gonna try out universal health care, right here in Sodom by the Sea, to see how we like it. What is the GO-f*cking-P doing for the rest of y'all?
While Bu$hCo is busy blowing Big Oil, we're out here passing the kind of clean air initiatives the EPA can only dream of.
This is a city that doesn't judge you by the color of your skin, the language you speak, by your gender, by your age, your sexual-orientation, your religion, your kink, your fetish, or your oddity. (Note I didn't say political party. We have to have some standards after all.)
There's a reason that the Rainbow flag flies over the Castro. We don't just know about diversity--we don't just know about multi-culturalism--we bloody well live it! And if the GOP, the RNC, and all of the so-called "values voters" are so goddamned afraid of San Francisco, then why does everybody and their brother want to live here?
Dear Reverend Haggard
Dear Reverend Haggard,
I know that this must be a trying time for you, having to step aside as the head of the New Life Church because of these ridiculous allegations. But just in case you really did pay a gay escort for sex every month for the last three years, let me just say...whoa! A man of your age! [Whoops...sorry.]
Where was I? Oh yeah. I'm sure that the accusations are false--just as your niece said--and that you'll be exonerated and back to doing the Lord's work in no time. For example, your state-by-state efforts to ban gay marriage are invaluable. Let's work to keep sex between men where it belongs, in clandestine relationships like yours. [Oh damn! Sorry again.]
Anyway, I'm sure this is all just a political stunt, and I'm looking forward to seeing you at next year's National Association of Evangelicals convention. Hey, by the way... Why don't you bring along some of that methamphetamine you snort. Those sessions can get pretty long, and I bet with enough meth we could all see God! [Ooops!]
Windows Vista - The OS You're Gonna Love To Hate
It's been a busy day, and I just can't face any more Republican sleaze. So let's talk about something else. How about Windows Vista, the new and improved Microsoft behemoth that you're gonna love to hate.
Vista is chock full of gotchas that will make your life just a little bit harder, for example: Digital rights management (DRM) that will decide what you can and cannot view--what you can and cannot listen to--even if you own your content; Defender, operating system software that will have the final say about what constitutes malware, even if it's a legitimate program that you use. And what about that funky reinstallation restriction? Rumor has it that one major hardware change is all you get before Vista decides you've got a new machine and deactivates itself.
And if that weren't enough, the new and improved End User License Agreement (EULA) has some gems for industry professionals as well, like...no published benchmarks without Microsoft's permission and no disclosing those pesky security vulnerabilities.
All in all Vista looks like a bad deal for just about everyone, and take it from a Frog in the industry...if you want to be happy using largely trouble-free software...get MacOS. On the other hand, since it looks like Vista will be delayed another 18,000 years, maybe it isn't such a problem after all.
The Military Recognizes Liberal Wisdom
By now you've all seen the graph from the NY Times article on the military's assessment of the situation in Iraq. I just want to call your attention to one important but overlooked fact...
What's on the LEFT side of this graph? What's on the right?
'Nuff said! :-)
Reprogramming? No. Crashing Voting Machines? Yes!
I've long maintained that if this election is stolen by the Rethuglicans it won't be due to some sophisticated mass reprogramming of touch-screen voting machines. The infernal devices are not suddenly going to report GOP victories because, although reprogramming is possible, it would require a huge conspiracy to pull off in a way that would swing an election.
No. What we are going to see is AccuVote machines (and others like them) crashing by the hundreds...by the thousands. Poll workers taking incorrect or inappropriate measures to fix the problems, such as rebooting the devices while the polls are open. Improper calibrations that favor GOP candidates. In fact, reports are already starting to come in of machines that won't choose Democrats, machines that freeze up, and machines set up to hide or obscure Democratic candidate's names (Webb). And where will these shenanigans hit the hardest? In dense urban areas where higher voter volumes are handled at each precinct. Unfortunately for us, these are also the districts where Democrats are strongest and where the GOP can benefit most from dampening turnout.
So what do we have to do? Remain vigilant and document, Document, DOCUMENT!!! It's not enough to provide anecdotal evidence of election fraud. We need the proof! So carry a camera with you to the polls and photograph your ballot, the screen, whatever. And, if you experience a screwup, DOCUMENT IT!!! Write down what happened, get photographs. Don't let election workers intimidate you. Our democracy is at stake here!
I live in San Francisco, a safe California district where we use optical scan machines, and I still plan on carrying my camera with me on election day.
Future Headlines - No Sex Without Procreation
After the stunning success of the federal "No Sex Without Marriage" program, administration officials announced the next step in their drive to make sex in America more acceptable to God, the No Sex Without Procreation initiative.
Department of Health and Human Services Undersecretary for Sin, Courtney Windblatt-Smythe, said:
We've put the brakes on promiscuity among young adults. Now it's time to deal with married couples, and this new initiative will do just that. It will make sexual congress in this country godly and pure.
When asked at the afternoon press briefing for the President's thoughts on the issue, Press Secretary Snow replied:
I asked President Bush about this just the other day, and he said that...well...you all know they have twin daughters and they've had sex...um...once. So I assume that the President is firmly behind this program.
In related news, recently released studies show that, in fact, children are not losing their virginity earlier and that there appears to be no link between promiscuity and sexually transmitted disease. Administration officials have referred these findings as, "junk science".
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