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Wednesday Reads: Yummy Socks and Boots on the GroundPosted: September 17, 2014 Filed under: Barack Obama, Diplomacy Nightmares, Drone Warfare, Foreign Affairs, History, Iraq, morning reads, sports, Syria, U.S. Military | Tags: ISIS / ISIL, NFL 16 Comments
Good Morning
It has been crazy the last couple of days here in Banjoville. So today's post will be a quick round-up of the headlines making news this morning, with a few odd bits thrown in for fun.
First up, this disturbing article from the New York Times: U.S. General Open to Ground Forces in Fight Against ISIS in Iraq
President Obama's top military adviser said Tuesday that he would recommend deploying United States forces in ground operations against Islamic extremists in Iraq if airstrikes proved insufficient, opening the door to a riskier, more expansive American combat role than the president has publicly outlined.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that while he was confident that an American-led coalition would defeat the Islamic State, he would not foreclose the possibility of asking Mr. Obama to send American troops to fight the militants on the ground — something Mr. Obama has ruled out.
"My view at this point is that this coalition is the appropriate way forward. I believe that will prove true," General Dempsey said. "But if it fails to be true, and if there are threats to the United States, then I, of course, would go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of U.S. military ground forces."
I don't know about y'all, but all this makes me nauseous.
More from McClatchy's WASHINGTON: War on Islamic State will be long and difficult, top defense officials tell Senate
Indeed, the chances of success are far less in Syria than in Iraq, Dempsey said, as Hagel nodded agreement. "Five thousand alone is not going to be able to turn the tide," Hagel said, referring to the number of Syrian rebels likely to be trained under a proposed U.S. program.
Even the pledge that no American soldiers would engage in ground combat operations seemed tenuous. Dempsey said he could foresee circumstances where American advisers would join Iraqi troops, for example, if the Iraqis tried to recapture Mosul, in what he called "close combat advising."
"If we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific targets, I will recommend that to the president," Dempsey told the committee.
The appearance by Dempsey and Hagel came as the U.S. Central Command announced for the second day in a row that U.S. aircraft had conducted offensive strikes under Obama's new authorization against Islamic State targets southwest of Baghdad. The aircraft conducted three strikes against a truck, an anti-aircraft artillery piece, "a small ISIL ground unit" and "two small boats on the Euphrates River that were resupplying ISIL forces in the area," the statement said, using the acronym for the group that the government prefers.
The article points out this key point…
In their testimony, Hagel and Dempsey sought to brace the nation for a long war with an uncertain duration and outcome, repeatedly telling senators that they would make adjustments to the strategy as necessary.
Both struggled to define what degrading and destroying the Islamic State would look like. At one point, Dempsey suggested that it might be as simple as depriving the Islamic State forces of their current ability to move back and forth across the Syrian and Iraqi dividing line. "Restore the border and then they are defeated," he said.
They also were at pains to explain whether the Islamic State presented an imminent threat to the United States. "Although the intelligence community has not yet detected specific plotting against the U.S. homeland, ISIL has global aspirations," Hagel said. "If left unchecked, ISIL will directly threaten our homeland and our allies."
Ugh, I'm past nausea. I think the dry heaves are coming next…Robert Fisk. Take it for what it is, okay? My mind is really too fried to make sense of anything now, but I got to say, any "arrangement" or "collaboration" made with Assad is bad news…IMHO. Assad's letter to the US: How Syria is luring President Obama into its web – Middle East – World – The Independent
Syria has asked Washington to engage in military and intelligence collaboration to defeat their mutual enemy Isis, inviting US congressmen and senators to visit Damascus to discuss joint action against the jihadis who threaten both America and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
It's an offer that President Barack Obama will have to refuse – but not without some embarrassment. After deciding to bomb the forces of Isis, which calls itself Islamic State, in Syria as well as Iraq, Mr Obama was confronted by Vladimir Putin's warning that any such unilateral action in Syria would be "an act of aggression".
The US President will now have to explain yet again why he cannot collaborate against America's "apocalyptic" enemies with a Syrian regime which he has also sworn to overthrow – even though this regime is fighting exactly the same enemies.
And as if all this was not enough to get you happy morning, ISIS Releases New Video Threatening to Kill U.S. Forces in Iraq
In a bizarre new video reportedly released by ISIS late Tuesday that resembles a Hollywood movie trailer, the Sunni militant group appears to threaten to kill American troops in Iraq. The short clip, apparently a preview of a longer video called "Flames of War," ends with the message, "fighting has just begun" and that more is "coming soon."
The video was released hours after Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that ground troops might be necessary in the military campaign against ISIS in Iraq. In the clip, audio of Obama saying, "American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq," can be heard. The video also comes after a televised address from Obama last week, where he vowed to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS.
The House is set to vote today to allow the U.S. to train and arm Syrian rebels in the country, where ISIS has taken sanctuary. "If we want to open a front against (Islamic State forces) in Syria, we have to open a front. And I don't see any other way to do it than try to build an alternative force," Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, lead Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told the Associated Press. "No one's excited about it but, you know, it's the best from a series of bad options."
Video that was at the link has been removed, but from what few still images I saw….all I can say is…damn. As the author of the Gawker article so aptly states:
This looks like a Michael Bay movie?
Enough of this shit. On to another vomit inducing topic. Still Playing: 12 NFL Players Have Domestic Violence Arrests – NBC News.com
Ray Rice may never again play in the NFL, but a dozen other players with domestic violence arrests are still suiting up on Sundays.
Ray McDonald and Chris Cook of the San Francsico 49ers, Tony McDaniel and Kevin Williams of the Seattle Seahawks, Brandon Marshall and Santonio Holmes of the Chicago Bears, Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panthers, Dez Bryant of the Dallas Cowboys, Erik Walden of the Indianapolis Colts, Donte Whitner of the Cleveland Browns, Randy Starks of the Miami Dolphins and Frostee Rucker of the Arizona Cardinals have all been arrested for domestic violence or related charges since 2005, according to a USA Today database that tracks players' arrests since 2000.
Some fought the charges and won. Others accepted blame, served short suspensions and returned to the game. The rest are still waiting for their day in court, the focus of intense new scrutiny as America's most powerful sports league faces growing criticism over its handling of players' off-the-field conduct.
Domestic violence and related incidents rank among the NFL's biggest off-the-field problems, with 87 arrests involving 80 players over the last 14 years. The only other crime category with a larger number of arrests involving NFL players is DUI. But while the arrests are troubling, the rate is lower than the national average for men of similar age, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight.
The team with the most arrests of players for domestic violence and related charges is the Denver Broncos, with 12. But it hasn't had one since 2010, when linebacker Kevin Alexander was cut a day after he was accused of hitting his girlfriend (the charges were later dropped). The team prides itself on its battery of professional-development resources. "While this is a very important issue, our team hasn't had such an incident in nearly four years," spokesman Patrick Smyth said. "It has zero such incidents under our current football leadership structure, which has been in place since 2011."
Offenders on the field
Of the 12 active players with domestic violence-related arrests, the one with the most is Brandon Marshall, who has three. He's never been convicted, but he served a three-game suspension in 2008 for personal conduct violations. But from there his story changes. He's sought treatment, become an outspoken voice against domestic violence and is now considered a success, on and off the field.
Marshall has been offering commentary on the NFL's unfolding crisis as an analyst for Showtime's Inside the NFL. He said in a recent episode that he wasn't sure whether a stricter disciplinary policy would have deterred him from violent behavior back then. The difference, he said, was deciding that he needed help.
Another player who has turned his career around is Bryant, a wide receiver for the Cowboys. In 2012, he was accused of hitting his mother, and agreed to anger counseling in exchange for having the charge dismissed. The NFL didn't suspend him, but imposed a strict set of conduct guidelines that included counseling and a curfew. Last year, he showed up at a rally against domestic violence.
Then there's Walden, a linebacker who was suspended by the Green Bay Packers for one game in 2011 after being jailed for an alleged assault against his live-in girlfriend. In court, he submitted to a deferred judgment agreement that allowed him to avoid pleading guilty while receiving counseling. He's since landed with the Colts.
Cook, a cornerback, was charged with assaulting his girlfriend in October 2011. He sat out most of the season for the Minnesota Vikings, but was later acquitted of all charges. The Vikings reinstated him, and he now is a teammate of McDonald's in San Francisco.
McDaniel, a defensive tackle, was on the Miami Dolphins in 2010 when he was arrested for shoving his girlfriend, whose head hit the pavement. He pleaded no contest, was put on probation, and the league suspended him one game. He is now playing in Seattle.
Whitner, a safety then with the Buffalo Bills, was accused of harassment in a domestic dispute with his girlfriend in 2006. The charges were later dropped, and the NFL imposed no punishment. He's now playing in his native Cleveland.
Starks, a defensive tackle, was charged with domestic assault on his fiancée in 2006, while he was playing for the Tennessee Titans. He was ordered to receive counseling as part of a diversion program and was suspended for one preseason game. He now plays in Miami.
Rucker, a defensive end, was arrested after a fight with his girlfriend at a party in Los Angeles in 2006, when he was a Cincinnati Bengals draft pick. He pleaded no contest, and was suspended for a game, but successfully appealed the punishment because he'd been in college at the time of the incident. Rucker now plays for the Arizona Cardinals.
Holmes, a wide receiver, has a long list of run-ins with the law. His domestic violence arrest came in 2006, when he was with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the mother of his children accused him of choking her and slamming her into a door. But she later was reluctant to testify, and the charges were dropped. Holmes' lawyers promised he'd participate in counseling through the NFL. He now plays with Marshall in Chicago.
Williams, a defensive tackle with a lengthy history of legal troubles, was on the Vikings in 2005 when he was accused of domestic assault for a fight with his wife at home. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was put on probation, but the NFL didn't suspended him. In 2011, however, Williams was suspended for using performance enhancing drugs. He now plays in Seattle.
The Joan Rivers case gets more disturbing as the weeks go by. Did y'all know her doctor had been sued for malpractice for taking a biopsy on someone without permission several years ago? Now this new information…Source: Joan Rivers' doc did biopsy, selfie at clinic – CNN.com
The cardiac arrest leading to Joan Rivers' death happened as the comedian's personal doctor began performing a biopsy on her vocal cords, a source close to the death investigation told CNN.
A staff member at Manhattan's Yorkville Endoscopy clinic told investigators that the doctor, who has not been publicly identified, took a selfie photo in the procedure room while Rivers was under anesthesia, the source said.
Rivers, 81, was at the clinic for a scheduled endoscopy by another doctor, gastroenterologist Dr. Lawrence Cohen. That procedure, intended to help diagnose her hoarse voice and sore throat, involved the insertion of a camera down her throat.
After Cohen, the clinic's medical director, finished his work, a biopsy was done on Rivers without her prior consent, according to the source.
Yuk! All these selfies and cell phone apps! The world is really becoming a slave to those things: Chinese city creates cellphone sidewalk lane – Yahoo News
Taking a cue from an American TV program, the Chinese city of Chongqing has created a smartphone sidewalk lane, offering a path for those too engrossed in messaging and tweeting to watch where they're going.
But the property manager says it's intended to be ironic — to remind people that it's dangerous to tweet while walking the street.
"There are lots of elderly people and children in our street, and walking with your cellphone may cause unnecessary collisions here," said Nong Cheng, the marketing official with Meixin Group, which manages the area in the city's entertainment zone.
Meixin has marked a 50-meter (165-foot) stretch of pavement with two lanes: one that prohibits cellphone use next to one that allows pedestrians to use them — at their "own risk."
Nong said the idea came from a similar stretch of pavement in Washington D.C. created by National Geographic Television in July as part of a behavior experiment.
I don't think it is too much of a jump from "joke" to "for serious."
My family just got new iPhones. I don't have any clue what to do with these things. They are not the new 6s…they're 5s and so intimidating, how can people stare at those things so damn long and not get sick.
Just a few more quick links.
PA State police name 'survivalist' as gunman who killed trooper
A man described as a "survivalist," a trained marksman with antigovernment leanings, was the gunman who killed one state police officer and injured a second in an ambush outside the barracks here last week, investigators said Tuesday.
At an afternoon news conference, police said they identified 31-year-old Eric Matthew Frein from documents he left in a Jeep he abandoned about two miles from the barracks, where he ambushed Cpl. Bryon K. Dickson and Trooper Alex Douglass on Friday. Dickson was killed and Douglass critically injured.
Frein, who lived with his parents in Monroe County, was at large and considered extremely dangerous, possibly armed with a high-powered rifle that looks like an AK-47, police said.
Richard III killed in battle while horseless | Al Jazeera America
England's King Richard III might well have lost his kingdom for a horse.
The reviled king suffered nearly a dozen injuries on the battlefield, but the fatal blows were probably only sustained after he had to abandon his horse, according to a new paper in medical journal the Lancet.
"Richard was probably in quite a lot of pain at the end," said Sarah Hainsworth, a professor of materials engineering at the University of Leicester and one of the study's authors. She said the king was most likely attacked by numerous assailants after dismounting from his horse, which got stuck in a marsh.
Richard's skeleton showed evidence of 11 injuries from weapons including daggers, swords and a long metal pole with an ax and hook that was used to pull knights off their horses. "Medieval battle was bloody and brutal," she said, noting one of the injuries showed a sword had pierced his skull.
The nine injuries Richard suffered to his head suggest the king somehow lost or took off his helmet during the battle at Bosworth Field, against his rival and successor, Henry Tudor, on Aug. 22, 1485. He was the last English monarch to die in battle.
So…perhaps Black Adder, I mean, Shakespeare had it right?
Richard III: [looking for a horse] A horse!
Richard III: A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
[sees a horse]
Richard III: Ah! Horsey.
For our final link, a story about a dog…a Great Dane…those dogs are as big as a horse: Great Dane dined on 43 socks; all were removed in successful surgery – LA Times
140-pound Great Dane in Portland, Ore., is making headlines after a veterinarian found 43 1/2 socks in the dog's stomach during surgery.
The incident happened in February but only recently became public after the animal hospital where the socks were removed submitted the dog's X-ray for a tongue-in-cheek industry award, said Shawna Harch, spokeswoman for DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital.
DoveLewis is where the 3-year-old dog went for the operation when the owners noticed the animal was growing increasingly ill but did not know why, Harch said.
The surgery took nearly three hours, but the dog has fully recovered, Harch said.
Ailing Great Dane in Oregon packed his belly with 43.5 socks – Yahoo News
The 3-year-old canine, who had an affinity for chewing on socks but was not known to swallow them whole, was rushed to Portland's DoveLewis Emergency Animal Hospital in February, hospital spokeswoman Shawna Harch said.
"We see some very strange things, but this is by far the most socks we've ever pulled out of an animal," Harch said after X-ray images of the dog's belly won a tongue-in-cheek veterinary industry prize called "They ate WHAT?"
DoveLewis will use the prize money to fund emergency care for pets of low-income animal owners, Harch said.
The Great Dane appeared to favor lush, colored socks in smaller sizes, images of the retrieved items showed. The sock-devouring pooch's owners are keeping the hungry dog's name private, Harch said.
"His owners wish to remain anonymous," she said. "But they are getting a kick out of the award."
And on that note…I will pass it on to you.
Have a brilliant day!
Wednesday Reads: Math, Dogs and SheepPosted: August 27, 2014 Filed under: American Gun Fetish, court rulings, Crime, Diplomacy Nightmares, Discrimination against women, Economy, Foreign Affairs, Gun Control, Israel, morning reads, Planned Parenthood, racism, science, Uncategorized, Violence against women | Tags: Sheep herding 59 Comments
Good Mid-Morning
Just a quick thought this morning before we get to the links. Yesterday Boston Boomer linked to an article about Janet Yellen, and there were a few sentences that made me stop and think. Which is really something because usually when it comes to articles containing anything associated with numbers, my brain tends to retreat like a coward who is being bombarded by incoming aerial livestock.
But seriously…the article Boston Boomer linked to was from CNN. Here is the quote:
CNN Money's report on Yellen's speech, Janet Yellen: Job market not recovered.
That was Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's main message Friday in a much anticipated speech.
"It speaks to the depth of the damage that, five years after the end of the recession, the labor market has yet to fully recover," she said.
The debate now is whether the job situation in America is healthy enough for the Federal Reserve to start raising interest rates, which have been at historic lows in recent years in an effort to jump start the economy. Yellen, however, said little new on Friday, and U.S. stock markets stayed flat.
Yellen is chair of the committee that sets interest rates, but she only gets one vote. Other members have differing views. The Fed board and other top economists are spending the weekend in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, debating these key issues.
Though the unemployment rate "has fallen considerably and at a surprisingly rapid pace," Yellen said problems remain.
Emphasis mine.
Okay, maybe I am a bit hypersensitive, but why the specific mention about her getting only one vote. Is this something new? I was under the impression that whenever Greenspan or Bernake or Geithner spoke…it was as if the all powerful Oz had spoken. Especially with Greenspan, I mean that guy was the equivalent of verbal Dow Jones Industrial Average "pusher" in that whenever he opened his mouth…he spewed economic commentary uppers or downers.
Anyway, if this is not a big deal…then just forget about all that shit and continue with the post. As it is, the thread is late this morning. I got distracted finding images of sheep on Pinterest. Oh well, you know what that means…another dump. Link dump that is….
The latest news:
Two Men Abducted, Drowned in Philadelphia River, Third Man Escapes, Police Say – ABC News
The bodies of two men who had been bound were found today dumped a Philadelphia river, while a third man who had been repeatedly stabbed narrowly escaped the abductors believed to be responsible for the double homicide, authorities said.
The survivor, a 20-year-old man, was taken off the street by four or five men early this morning and thrown into the back of a van, police said.
He was then stabbed about nine times, in the torso and legs, Philadelphia police said, and his hands were tied behind his back with duct tape and his ankles were bound as well. Duct tape was also placed over his mouth, and once in the van, he realized there were two other people in the van who had also been bound, police said.
All three were taken to the Schuylkill River in Fairmount Park, where they were thrown into the water, police said, noting that the two other people were tethered to some kind of weight and drowned in five to ten feet of water.
This is a new story obviously so no real info as of yet…cops say they may have surveillance video of abduction.
And you may be one of the millions without internet service: Time Warner Cable Suffers Massive Outage
Time Warner Cable suffered a nationwide outage on Wednesday morning, leaving many users unable to access the Internet.
The company issued a statement to Mashable, acknowledging the outage and reporting that much of its service had been restored. TWC said the service outage was due to an issue with its "Internet backbone" that occurred during routine maintenance.
At 430am ET this morning during our routine network maintenance, an issue with our Internet backbone created disruption with our Internet and On Demand services. As of 6am ET services were largely restored as updates continue to bring all customers back online.
TWC outage leaves 12M people without Internet access — and it's only going to get worse
On Tuesday, Time Warner Cable agreed to pay the Federal Communications Commission $1.1 million for failing to disclose a "substantial number" of outages affecting its customers. Now today, the company announced that it is suffering from multiple outages affecting 12 million people.
Making matters worse is that many of those consumers probably didn't have much choice when they signed up for the service, given Time Warner Cable's effective monopoly in a number of its markets. As I wrote when I compared its service against the only other option for Internet service in my area,
The problem is, there are no options for someone living in the boonies. If they want to connect to the Internet they have to use something like [Finger Lakes Technologies Group, a regional Internet provider]; there are no other options. […] So far as choices go, it's clear that people who live in small towns like this one are totally screwed.
This is a problem all across the country. Many people have access to just a handful of ISPs, many of which are regional offerings that pale in comparison to their national counterparts, which enjoy a monopoly on the high-end service market in many of the places they operate.
That problem will only be made worse if Time Warner Cable is allowed to merge with Comcast and become what Netflix called the "nation's largest onramp to the Internet." The combined company is unlikely to care much about leveling the playing field and allowing other ISPs to give consumers more options for Internet service. It'll just amass as much power as it can.
Does that seem like a company that's going to solve problems that lead to outages affecting 12 million people around the United States? Hell, even with the scant competition they have now, both Time Warner Cable and Comcast have done little to make their services better. As I wrote in May, the companies are the least-liked in every industry in which they operate. (Surprise!)
We have this problem with Windstream being the shitty internet service monopoly here in Banjoville.
Next: Why Israel's bombardment of Gaza neighborhood left US officers 'stunned' | Al Jazeera America
The cease-fire announced Tuesday between Israel and Palestinian factions — if it holds — will end seven weeks of fighting that killed more than 2,200 Gazans and some 69 Israelis. But as the rival camps seek to put their spin on the outcome, one assessment of Israel's Gaza operation that won't be publicized is that of the U.S. military. Still, even though the Pentagon shies away from publicly expressing judgments that might fall afoul of a decidedly pro-Israel Congress, senior U.S. military sources speaking on condition of anonymity offered a scathing assessment of Israeli tactics, particularly in the battle for Shujaiya.
One of the more curious moments in Israel's Operation Protective Edge came on July 20, when a live microphone at FOX News caught Secretary of State John Kerry commenting sarcastically on Israel's military action: "It's a hell of a pinpoint operation," Kerry said. "It's a hell of a pinpoint operation."
Rain of high-explosive shells
The secretary of state's comment followed the heaviest bombardment of the war to that point, as Israeli artillery rained thousands of high-explosive shells into the neighborhood of Shujaiya, a residential area on the eastern edge of Gaza City. A high-ranking U.S. military officer told this reporter that the source of Kerry's apparent consternation was almost certainly a Pentagon summary report assessing the Israeli barrage, on which the Secretary had been briefed by an aide moments earlier.
According to this senior U.S. officer, who had access to the July 21 Pentagon summary of the previous 24 hours of Israeli operations, the internal report showed that 11 Israeli artillery battalions —a minimum of 258 artillery pieces in all, according to this officer's estimate — had pumped at least 7,000 high explosive shells into the Gaza neighborhood, which included a barrage of some 4,800 shells during the seven-hour period marking the height of the operation. Senior U.S. officers were stunned by the report.
Twice daily throughout the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) operation, a select group of senior U.S. military and intelligence officers at the Pentagon received a lengthy written summary of Israeli military action in Gaza. The reports — compiled from information gleaned from open sources, Israeli military officers with whom U.S. officials speak and satellite images — offered a detailed assessment of Israel's battlefield tactics and the performance of its weaponry, a considerable portion of it supplied by the United States.
Although these reports shy away from offering political judgments on the operation, a number of senior U.S. military officers who spoke about the contents of those daily reports with this reporter were highly critical of some of the IDF's tactics, particularly in the Israeli ground invasion of Shujaiya. An official spokesman at the Pentagon declined to comment on the contents of this article.
50 years later, SNAP proves its continuing vitality | Opinion | McClatchy DC
Even as SNAP policies and procedures change with the times, the program's core mission remains the same. When the Food Stamp Act was passed in 1964, it aimed to provide better nutrition to low-income households while benefiting our agricultural economy. Fifty years later, research shows SNAP is still doing just that.
For example, SNAP benefits boost the economy by creating markets, and spurring economic growth and jobs in urban and rural communities at grocers, superstores, farmers' markets, military commissaries, manufacturers and farms. And because SNAP benefits are so urgently needed, they are spent quickly – 97 percent of benefits are redeemed within the month of issuance – and therefore have great positive economic effects. Moody's Analytics and USDA estimate that the economic growth impact of SNAP ranges from $1.73 to $1.79 per $1 of SNAP benefits.
One component of SNAP that needs to change and hasn't is the amount of the monthly benefit allotment. While we know the program is capable of reducing food insecurity, improving the health and well-being of recipients, and ultimately saving taxpayer dollars on avoided healthcare costs, it could work much better. Current benefits are based on assumptions developed in the 1930s for emergency diets. That plan is now woefully outmoded on every front from nutrition to practicality. Multiple studies, including the USDA's own analysis of a recent (temporary) boost in benefits, show the value of a healthier allotment.
Over the course of any 50-year period, change is inevitable. Since August 1964, SNAP's strength has been recognizing and responding to those changes. Today, the program's mission is as necessary as it was 50 years ago: providing relevant, vital help to boost nutrition, economic security and health among seniors, children, people with disabilities, and unemployed or low-income working families. This is an anniversary worth celebrating.
Black Agenda Report is out, and here is their coverage of the "events" at Ferguson | Black Agenda Report
Did y'all see the latest in ironic pro-gun nut death by gun shot? DEATH BY MISADVENTURE | Gin and Tacos
On Tuesday a 39 year old firearms instructor was fatally shot near Kingman, AZ when the nine year-old girl he was instructing on the use of an Uzi submachine gun lost control of it…while it was on full automatic. This resolves once and for all the question of whether it is a good idea to give a nine year old girl who appears in the linked video to weigh about 20 pounds (note: the video shows only the events leading up to the fatal incident, but does not include the incident itself) a submachine gun set on full auto. The facility, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal, caters to the vacationing yahoo crowd:
KINGMAN, Ariz. — An instructor who was shot by a 9-year-old girl who fired an Uzi at a northwestern Arizona shooting range died Monday night at University Medical Center in Las Vegas.
The girl fired the weapon at the outdoor range that caters to heavy tourism traffic along U.S. Highway 93 between Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon Skywalk.
Highway signage and Internet advertising beckons visitors to stop in, fire a machine gun and enjoy a meal at the Bullets and Burgers enterprise at the Last Stop, about 25 miles south of Las Vegas.
The instructor had, among others, the following hilarious pro-gun images posted on his Facebook wall (h/t Balloon Juice)
Go to the link to see the images and commentary that this man had posted on his wall. It is the typical shit…
What about a look at what makes Houston…colorful? Immigrants reshape Houston, America's most diverse metropolis | Al Jazeera America
In the past 20 years, Houston — that most Texan of Texan cities — has come to look more and more like the taxi drivers. Between 1990 and 2010, Greater Houston added more than 2.2 million people (PDF) and now boasts a population of more than 6 million (the city proper has 2.2 million residents). The metropolitan area has eclipsed New York and Los Angeles to become the most racially and ethnically diverse in the United States.
A joint report published last year by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research and the Hobby Center for the Study of Texas (PDF) found that Greater Houston scores highest on the Entropy Index, which measures diversity according to the presence and relative proportions of the four major racial groups (white, black, Hispanic and Asian). All five Houston counties have become more diverse over the past two decades, with increased numbers of Hispanics (from 21 to 35 percent) and Asians (from 3.4 to 6.5 percent), a stable population of blacks (about 17 percent) and a decrease in whites or "Anglos" (from over 50 to under 40 percent), though rates of residential segregation remain high.
Oh boy, it is really getting late…here are the rest in real quick dump format:
Video shows police shot Ohio man 'on sight' as he leaned on toy gun in Walmart, attorney says
Dueling demands in Walmart shooting case | WDTN
Scarlett Johansson designs shirt for Planned Parenthood | TheHill
Archaeologists Discover 15 Previously Unknown Monuments Buried Around Stonehenge
Jon Stewart Goes After Fox in Powerful Ferguson Monologue | Mediaite
– Another Ferguson? Young Black Man Shot In Chest With Hands Cuffed Behind Back. Police Say Suicide.
The Emmys Censored the Punchline of That Last Robin Williams Bit
Ferguson Police Officer Justin Cosma Hog-Tied And Injured A Young Child, Lawsuit Alleges
50 Shades of Grey: Harmful to Your Health? | Care2 Causes
It's being hailed as a "provocative new study" worthy of Christian Grey himself — a group of researchers have just published an article in Journal of Women's Health claiming that women who read "50 Shades of Grey" are at a higher risk for domestic abuse, disordered eating, a high number of sexual partners and even binge drinking. But don't throw your romance novel to the curb just yet: The study is another example of the good old "correlation does not equal causation" trope.
During the study, a group of scientists surveyed 655 18-to-24-year-old women online, a third of whom had read some or all of the '50 Shades' series. They asked them questions about their personal sexual practices, their experiences of partner victimization such as sexual and psychological abuse, and binge drinking. When they adjusted their findings for age and race, researchers learned that women who had read at least the first book in the series were more likely to report partner victimization, cyberstalking, fasting and using diet aids. Women who had read all three books in the series were also more likely to report having five or more sexual partners in their lifetime. Their conclusion? There is an association between reading the series and negative health outcomes for women.
At the Guardian: The 100 best novels: an introduction | Books | The Observer
They are at week 49: The 100 best novels: No 49 – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (1925) | Books | The Observer
You can see the past weeks here: The 100 best novels | Books | The Guardian
Now for the article that explains the title of this post: BBC News – 'Two simple rules' explain sheepdog behaviour
The relationship between a shepherd and his sheepdog has always seemed almost magical, but scientists now say it can be explained by two simple rules.
Researchers have used GPS data to reveal the mathematical secrets of how sheepdogs do their job.
The new model helps to explain why one shepherd and a single dog can herd an unruly flock of more than 100 sheep.
It could be used to help develop "shepherd robots", for controlling crowds or cleaning up an oil spill.
The first rule: The sheepdog learns how to make the sheep come together in a flock. The second rule: Whenever the sheep are in a tightly knit group, the dog pushes them forwards.
NERC fellow Dr Andrew King of Swansea University helped to design backpacks fitted with highly accurate GPS technology. These trackers were attached to a flock of sheep and a sheepdog.
"What's so interesting about this is how simple the rules are," Dr King told the BBC.
"At the beginning we had lots of different ideas. We started out looking from a birds eye view, but then we realised we needed to see what the dog sees. It sees white, fluffy things. If there are gaps between them or the gaps get bigger, the dogs needs to bring them together."
According to Dr King, sheepdogs are making the most of the "selfish herd theory" to bring the animals close together and move them where they want.
"One of the things that sheep are really good at is responding to a threat by working with their neighbours. It's the selfish herd theory: put something between the threat and you. Individuals try to minimise the chance of anything happening to them, so they move towards the centre of a group."
A colleague, Dr Daniel Strombom from Uppsala University in Sweden, used the GPS data from the collars to develop computer simulations. This enabled them to develop a mathematical shepherding model.
The algorithm displays the same weaving pattern exhibited by sheepdogs. It helps to solve what has been called the 'the shepherding problem': how one agent can control a large number of unwilling agents.
The research was published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
Read the rest at the link…and how they are working to use this information in other ways.
This made me look for a couple of more sheepy links:
Shrek the runaway sheep is a shear celebrity – Telegraph
29 Apr 2004
Shrek, the New Zealand merino sheep which spent the last six years on the run from his owners, finally had his long-postponed encounter with a pair of shears last night.
The woolly creature was shorn of his 15-inch long, 59lb fleece during a live television broadcast.
Viewers around the country watched eagerly to see the wool carefully snipped away by a former world champion shearer, Peter Casserly.
Despite his years as a hermit, Shrek was as meek as a lamb and co-operated fully.
"He is probably looking forward to getting this lot off," Mr Casserly said confidently as he got to work.
And from 2012, Shepherds around the world – in pictures | World news | theguardian.com
They used to be an important part of the global economy but with the increase of estates the need for shepherds has declined. However, the tradition does still exist in many parts of the world
That one is just a gallery…so go and enjoy it.
Sorry this is so damn late!
Sunday Reads: Wishing Ain't GettingPosted: August 3, 2014 Filed under: 2016 elections, A My Pet Goat Moment, Anti-War, Barack Obama, Diplomacy Nightmares, Drone Warfare, George W. Bush, History, morning reads, Real Life Horror, Republican politics, science 24 Comments
Morning All…
Yesterday Boston Boomer made a "wish" in the comment section,
I wish something good would happen in the news.
Oh yes….me too!
I think there are many of us out there who do agree with her. Things have gotten way outta control, and for someone in my situation…honestly, I have checked out.
Even BB's awesome post last week about TimeWarner being sold to Murdock, the only thing running through my brain was, "Oh no…what will happen to Turner Classic Movies!!!!" For that is the only thing saving my sanity these days.
I can't deal with war and torture and abandoned children, its too much. My usual outlet, sarcastic humor is gone, nothing can bring about a smartass remark or cheeky comment these days…I'm done.
So again I will just tread water today and give you a quick dump of links.
Starting with a couple of assholes: Awful: Couple Ditches Baby with Down Syndrome with Thai Surrogate
An anonymous Australian couple has ignited a huge controversy after abandoning a baby they had using a surrogate because he had Down syndrome and taking his healthy twin sister back to Australia with them. Because humanity just wasn't insufferable enough.
Because commercial surrogacy is outlawed in Australia (though they may use an altruistic surrogate who does not receive any payment outside medical expenses), many couples seek options overseas to make things easier. Fertility clinics in places like Thailand and India have become hotspots as they are a much easier options for overseas parents-to-be and poorer Indian women can make a considerable amount of money from surrogacy.
Pattaramon Chanbua of Thailand agreed to be a surrogate for the unnamed Australian couple in question. According to Sydney Morning Herald, Pattaramon discovered she was having twins three months after being injected with the Australian woman's fertilized eggs and was promised an additional sum of money. The next month they discovered one of the babies had Down syndrome. When the agency informed the Australian couple, they said they were not going to take the boy and allegedly asked her to have an abortion—which she refused.
When she gave birth to the twins in December of last year, the agent took the healthy baby girl, and left her with the baby boy. Pattaramon claims that she has yet to be fully compensated by the agency. She has never met the Australian parents.
Pattaramon, 21, is already the mother of two children, and was expecting to use the surrogacy money to provide for her family, educating her children and repaying debts. Now, she has been left with a much more considerable burden, as there is no way she can afford the medical bills necessary to treat the baby, named Gammy. She stated, via the Guardian:
"Why does he have to be abandoned while the other baby has it easy? I feel sorry for him. I don't know what to do. I chose to have him, not to hurt him. I love him. He was in my tummy for nine months, it's like my child. I treat him like my other children, never think you are not my child and I don't care for you, never."
As you can see below, the BBC is taking the Australian side of the story:
BBC News – Calls for clearer surrogacy rules after Thai Down's case
Surrogacy campaigners have called for clearer regulation after a Thai woman was left with a Down's syndrome baby when his parents refused to take him.
The boy, whose twin sister was taken to Australia by the unidentified couple, needs urgent medical care.
The surrogate mother in Thailand says she will raise the boy as her own and an online campaign has raised $185,000 (£110,000) for his treatment.
The case has raised fears Australia could ban international surrogacy.
The baby boy, named Gammy, has a congenital heart condition and a lung infection as well as Down's syndrome. He is currently receiving urgent treatment in a Thai hospital.
Rachel Kunde, the group's executive director, said she hoped the case would lead to better regulation by the Australian authorities of international surrogacy, rather than an outright ban.
"Our greatest fear is that Australia is going to ban international surrogacy altogether," she said. "We are hoping that the government will make accessing surrogates in Australia easier."
Nicola Scott, a British lawyer specialising in fertility issues, says a lack of regulation leaves the child vulnerable because issues such as termination are not discussed in advance.
She says the answer to the problem is an international treaty similar to the Hague Adoption Convention so that parents know what the situation is from the outset.
"Then each country would have its own rules and regulations and the parents, surrogates and children would be protected," she added.
Then you have the Independent: Thai surrogate mother of 'abandoned' Down's twin Gammy will keep him and says she doesn't blame Australian couple
Wow. The Jezebel article mentions the amount of disabled babies that are left abandoned by biological parents who use these surrogates…it is disgusting to think they would leave their children to rot in third world conditions…a hell, and many times leave the mothers who acted as surrogates holding the bag, er baby, if you will.
There has been a lot of noise about this:
That link will take you to this: It's Not Easy to Hold the CIA Accountable by Martin Longman | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly
Then look here:
He called the torturers patriots…
by digby
… and then lectured the American people that we are not to be "sanctimonious" about it because they had a tough job.
…We tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.
I understand why it happened. I think it's important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen, and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this. And it's important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.
These "folks" are big on sending messages. What "message" do you suppose that sent? When a patriot has a tough job we can't expect him to adhere to the law? Or norms? Or even basic morality? Looks like it. Good to know.
I remember reading somewhere during the whole torture debate that the right thing to do was to keep torture officially "illegal" for deniability but do it anyway and then throw yourself on the mercy of the people afterwards telling them that it was necessary to protect them. That way you could keep up the pretense that we were a civilized nation while being allowed to "take the gloves off." For our own good, mind you. Looks like that's the new SOP.
Like I said, I have not fully read those links there. I cannot process it. So I just post these and take it from there.
Another Digby: Hullabaloo
The keepers of the secrets
by digby
Conor Friedersdorf speculates about the power someone like John Brennan must have over a president who has ordered killings overseas:
I am not suggesting that Brennan is blackmailing Obama, or even that he would necessarily retaliate if fired. Still, if Obama is like most people in positions of power, he fires no subordinate without first asking himself, "Could this person damage me?" If Obama is a normal person, rather than an unusually principled person, the answer factors into his decision.
Holy Shit! Obama must have done something huge!
Obama steps up to call Bush-era CIA Torture "Torture," Despite Legal Implications | Informed Comment
CNN points out that President Obama's forthright condemnation of Bush administration-era CIA torture could cause legal problems for Agency employees, and that the Congressional report he was talking about avoided that diction. Obama doesn't very often any more speak his mind, but in this case he clearly felt strongly enough about the betrayal of constitutional values to do so.
Okay, let's move on.
Crazy ass right wing shitkickers! 5 Most Demented Right-Wing Moments This Week | Alternet
I can't believe this nightmare is ongoing: Domestic Abuse Victim Marissa Alexander Faces 60 Years in Prison for Self Defense | Care2 Causes
Ever wonder what it is like at Ground Zero Ebola: Eyewitness: A day at an Ebola treatment unit – Comment – Voices – The Independent
I enter… it could be a scene from a horror film
I wake with a sore throat. It's almost certainly due to inhaling chlorine fumes from our disinfectant, but since two people working for another NGO tested positive, paranoia has set in, so I take my temperature for the 10th time that morning.
It's my last day of work, so I'm going to the Ebola treatment unit to say goodbye to the staff and to lend a hand; in the past week, some local staff have resigned or just not turned up. I can't blame them – they're scared.
Arrive at the treatment centre. Hear the predictable news of many deaths inside. Get dressed up in protective clothing, with Sara, an MSF doctor. Three hygienists are joining us to move the bodies. We label the body bags before entering. I like to double-bag bodies but now there aren't enough bags to go round.
After checking that not a millimetre of skin is showing, enter the zone for suspected cases. Empty the buckets of faeces and vomit and say cheerful good mornings to the patients. I spray chlorine solution as I go – we touch nothing without spraying, even though we wear three pairs of gloves.
Enter the zone for confirmed cases. This should house 10 patients, but in fact has 14.
It's very humid and my tiredness has made the time I can stay in the protective gear shorter. Sweat is dripping into my eyes. I cross the outdoor area, where body bags are lying on the ground. The morgue is full so now we are leaving the dead outside. The burial teams can't keep up. I turn the corner and find a dead man in the doorway. Looks like he crawled there.
I enter… it could be a scene from a horror film.
Read the rest at the link.
Words….words…..words….World Wide Words Newsletter: 2 Aug 2014
Have you ever swum in the warm water of a lake in summer and found when treading water that your feet suddenly became uncomfortably cold? If so, you experienced something that limnologists, experts on lakes, describe by the rather splendid and poetic-sounding pair epilimnion and hypolimnion.
When the sun heats a smallish body of water, the topmost layer of water warms up, but because warm water is less dense than cold, it stays on top. That top area is the epilimnion. The cold water below it, which may not warm up much during the summer if the lake is at all deep, is the hypolimnion.
The root of both epilimnion and hypolimnion is the classical Greek limnion, the diminutive of limne, a lake. Limnologist and the subject of study, limnology, are very closely related — they derive from limne. Epi- is Greek for upon or above, while hypo- is from Greek hupo, under.
The epilimnion and hypolimnion are separated by a thinnish layer where the temperature drops quickly. You might guess this is sometimes called the metalimnion (Greek meta-, with or across), though it's commonly referred to as the thermocline.
Most examples of epilimnion are in scientific contexts, though it also crops up very occasionally in SF:
The brown sphere was spotted after some days by a prowling ameba, quiescent in the eternal winter of the bottom. Down there the temperature was always an even 4°, no matter what the season, but it was unheard of that a spore should be found there while the high epilimnion was still warm and rich in oxygen.
Surface Tension, by James Blish, 1952.
Now re-read that with your pinky up to your mouth.
Book review: MIND Reviews: I Can Hear You Whisper: An Intimate Journey Through the Science of Sound and Language – Scientific American
Science Link: Society bloomed with gentler personalities, more feminine faces: Technology boom 50,000 years ago correlated with less testosterone — ScienceDaily
Medieval Link: Is there a Sixth Sense in the Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries?
Pretty pictures of fruit link: BibliOdyssey: Swiss Fruit
Old Hollywood: Saturday Morning Cartoons: Dizzy Dishes (1930) | The Black Maria
Classic Hollywood Style: Edith Head, the best sort of designing woman – LA Times
Various links about the 100th Anniversary of World War I:
The Lamps are going out all over Europe | Stephen Liddell
Inside the brothels that served the Western Front: How one First World War soldier found love in the arms of a French sweetheart – World History – World – The Independent
A foreign secretary's pyrotechnic display of mixed signals that sentenced 800,000 British soldiers and sailors to death – Comment – Voices – The Independent
And the last dumbass, end of post, have a nice day….set of links:
Chinese Businessman Sells Peaches in Panties Because Butts
Drunk People Are Causing Quite the Ruckus at the London Zoo
An investigation into parties held at the London Zoo has been launched because apparently it takes an investigation to see that putting people drunk off their ass in the same vicinity as wild animals is a terrible fucking idea.
The Westminster Council is compiling a report on Zoo Lates, a weekly program for adults at the London Zoo that sounds like a hoot and a holler:
Every Friday night in June and July, London Zoo is opening after hours and inviting visitors to explore the wilds of the ultimate urban jungle.
Monkeys go ape and birds of paradise strut their stuff with animal talks, improvised comedy, twisted cabaret, roving performances, pop up bars, street food festival, carousel rides, and approximately 17500 creatures great and small.
Fun, right? And alcohol is served at these events, so what could possibly go wrong? Well, a lot. Sources at the London Zoo have voiced some plenty of concerns after multiple incidents in which some of the more shithoused Lates-goers were a bit too enthusiastic about their love/indifference for animals. These incidents include "a beer being thrown over a tiger, a drunken woman reportedly trying to enter a lion enclosure and a man stripping off and attempting to enter the penguin pool."
And lastly…
This Chorus of Baby Goats Would Like a Word With You
I think I will go ahead and tag this post…A My Pet Goat Moment…so, what's up with you?
Sunday Reads: They're real, and they're spectacular…Posted: July 6, 2014 Filed under: Diplomacy Nightmares, Foreign Affairs, Israel, morning reads, NSA, National Security Agency, Palestine | Tags: Seinfeld 25th Anniversary 42 Comments
Good Morning
Twenty-five years…in the real world, they probably would begin to sag by now.
See, yesterday was a special day for those of us who are Seinfeld fans. It was the 25th Anniversary of the first time the show was on the air. Yup, July 5th 1989, started it all.
As you will see at the end of the post, I have a shitload of links for you from around the world celebrating the four misfits of a show about "nothing" that really connected to people and became part of the popular culture throughout the world…in more ways than anything else on "TV" before or since.
As this quote from Rolling Stone states:
Seinfeld's pilot episode aired 25 years ago, on July 5th, 1989, yet it continues to be the most influential sitcom in TV history — not only for changing how we watched television and rewriting the playbook for every comedy that followed it, but also how this "show about nothing" expanded our vocabulary.
Nearly every episode of Seinfeld contains one word or phrase that we still weave into our day-to-day interactions…..the show left a lasting mark on our lexicon.
Its true, not a day goes by that I don't use a Seinfeldisms in my conversations. I still see many references to the show on commercials till this day. I love that damn show.
Anyway, let's just start the post alright? But, as you will see…this is another link dump, and one of massive proportions. (Things are still far from "back to normal" here in Banjoville.)
Cannonfire-Burned Alive
This is a remarkable day: The mainstream media has actually noticed an atrocity perpetrated by Israelis against Palestinians. Teenaged boy Mohammed Abu Khedair, mentioned in our previous post, was burned alive, a fact ascertained by the traces of smoke in his lungs. CNN took note, as did The Guardian and The Jerusalem Post.
If you visit The Jerusalem Post site, you'll find a predictable response:
The use of agent provocateurs has been a central component of Arab disinformation and propaganda for decades now. This has all the hallmarks of an operation that was mounted specifically to negate international anti-Muslim animosity following the discovery of the three murdered Jewish boys. It allows the anti-Semites to retreat back to their standard anti-Israel position.
Actually, it has been established that right-wing Jewish zealots were responsible for what happened to Mohammed Abu Khedair. The source for that report is Ha'aretz, not normally considered an anti-Semitic journal.
Moreover, it turns out that Mohammed's 15 year old cousin Tariq Khdeir — a gentle youth who was also kidnapped and beaten nearly to death — is an American citizen visiting family in the area.
Video at the link.
Turns out the American boy that was beaten up is from Tampa: Tampa teen Tariq Khdeir beaten, jailed in Jerusalem
From Juan Cole's site: Can Palestinians ever Get a Break in the American Press? | Informed Comment
As tragedy and uninterrupted terror strikes the besieged Palestinian population once more, Western media outlets have been busy producing and presenting articles and television reports on the events taking place. These "news reports" – for the lack of a better terminology – are presented as factual and true, objective and neutral, unblemished by personal, emotional, political, or historical bias.
Snowden is in the news again: New Snowden leak: Of 160,000 intercepted messages, only 10% from offical targets | Ars Technica
Late Saturday night, the Washington Post dropped a bombshell of a report related to a trove of documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The documents included 160,000 e-mail and instant-message conversations intercepted by the NSA, as well as 7,900 documents taken from more than 11,000 online accounts. The Washington Post says that the information spans from 2009 to 2012.
In the Post's analysis, "nearly half" of the files contained details that the NSA had marked as belonging to US citizens or residents, which the agency masked, or "minimized," to protect those citizens' privacy. Still, despite the 65,000 minimized references to Americans that the Post found in the cache, 900 additional e-mail addreses were found unmasked "that could be strongly linked to US citizens or US residents."
This is disturbing, about the city water in Detroit: Water : Lawyers, Guns & Money
And from the Vatican: Pope Francis calls destruction of nature a modern sin | Al Jazeera America
A look at population and "polarization" in the US by Digby: Hullabaloo
Another link from Hullabaloo, this one is written by Dennis Hartley. It is a review of the movie Life Itself:
Saturday Night at the Movies
Out there, in the dark: Life Itself
When the long-running TV program At the Movies quietly packed its bags and closed the balcony for good back in 2010, I did a piece about the profound impact that the show had on me in its various incarnations over the years; first as a film buff and later on as a critic:
Back in the late 70s, I was living in Fairbanks, Alaska. This was not the ideal environment for an obsessive movie buff. At the time, there were only two single-screen movie theaters in town. And keep in mind, there was no cable service in the market, and the video stores were a still a few years down the road as well…Consequently, due to the lack of venues, I was reading more about movies, than actually watching them. I remember poring over back issues of The New Yorker at the public library, soaking up Penelope Gilliat and Pauline Kael, and thinking they had a pretty cool gig; but it seemed like it was requisite to actually live in NYC (or L.A.) to be taken seriously as a film critic (most of the films they reviewed didn't make it out to the sticks)…Then, in 1978, our local PBS affiliate began carrying a bi-weekly 30-minute program called Sneak Previews. Now here was something kind of interesting; a couple of guys (kind of scruffy lookin') casually bantering about current films-who actually seemed to know their shit. You might even think they were professional movie critics…In fact, they were professional rivals; Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel wrote for competing Chicago dailies… This underlying tension between the pair was always bubbling just under the surface, but imbued the show with an interesting dynamic…One thing these two did share was an obvious and genuine love and respect for the art of cinema; and long before the advent of the internet, I think they were instrumental in razing the ivory towers and demystifying the art of film criticism (especially for culturally starved yahoos like me, living on the frozen tundra).
After Siskel died in 1999, Ebert kept the show going whilst essentially auditioning an interestingly diverse roster of guest critics for several months, with fellow Chicago Sun-Times reviewer Richard Roeper eventually winning the permanent seat across the aisle. Ebert remained a stalwart fixture until 2006, when treatment for his thyroid cancer began. Of course, Roger Ebert's life journey didn't end there, just as it had already taken many twists and turns before his fame as a TV personality. In fact, it is these bookends that provide the most compelling elements in Life Itself, a moving, compassionate and surprisingly frank portrait from acclaimed documentarian Steve James (Hoop Dreams).
Read the rest at the link.
Variety is up next, with a write-up on John Oliver's new gig at HBO. How John Oliver and HBO Shattered TV's Comedy-News Format | Variety
Get this:
Brevity, so it has been said, is the soul of wit. John Oliver seems to believe the opposite is equally true.
The comedian has been letting loose on his new HBO program "Last Week Tonight," unveiling segments that can last anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes and often pack as much research as a front-page story you might see from a traditional outlet like a newspaper (when front-page stories carried more weight in the modern news cycle). Last Sunday, Oliver presented a nearly 20-minute treatise on the plight of gay, lesbian and transgender citizens of Uganda, raising the notion that evangelicals from America may have played an instrumental role in harsh new treatment being doled out by that nation's government.
… Oliver and his staff are shaking up the genre anew, providing a sort of investigative journalism that is not seen in any of the other comedy-news hybrids on the air.
Yet "Last Week Tonight" defies nearly all current norms. The show surrounds soundbites with exposition, rather than letting video stand as the sole element of a segment. It trusts the attention span of its audience, believing a viewership constantly distracted by smartphones and mobile alerts will hang in there for the duration of a story, so long as it is compelling and informative. And it believes people will keep watching even if they might walk away feeling uneasy or unsettled by the issues presented each week despite the many jokes and laughs that are also delivered.
In an era during which even the most celebrated newsmagazines have taken to relying on soft celebrity interviews and tales of heinous murders, many could learn something from "Last Week Tonight." The program is drawing people in with the promise of laughter, but sending them back out to the world with an unexpected element: knowledge.
I don't get HBO but the show does have a youtube channel you can watch segments at:
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver – YouTube
One last link before we get to the massive Seinfeld dump: Marlene Dietrich and The Beatles! « Kinoimages.com
Some cool pictures there eh?
Now the big fun stuff!
Feel free to double dip as much as you like, you are master of your domain here:
Seinfeld 25th Anniversary : People.com
The Top 10 Seinfeld Episodes – IGN
'Seinfeld' at 25: Nothing means everything – CNN.com
'Seinfeld' debuted 25 years ago, yada yada yada, it remains a cultural giant – The Washington Post
Seinfeld 25th anniversary: 25 life lessons from Jerry, George, Elaine, Kramer and the sitcom's best characters – Mirror Online
Seinfeld at 25: There's Still Nothing Else Like It | TIME
12 Times a day using a Seinfeld quote makes total sense
'Seinfeld' 25th anniversary: Watch best moments
'Seinfeld' 25th anniversary: The 10 best episodes | TV | Entertainment | Toronto Sun
The Ultimate Seinfeld Quiz | Test your knowledge | TV | Entertainment | Toronto Sun
You Don't Know 'Seinfeld': 25 Facts About the Legendary Sitcom – The Moviefone Blog
Seinfeld at 25: The show's best quotes – Features – TV & Radio – The Independent
Twenty of the best sports moments on 'Seinfeld' | FOX Sports on MSN
Yankees, Not Mets, Were Masters of Seinfeld's Domain – WSJ
Vulture Superfan Quiz: Test Your Seinfeld I.Q. — Vulture
The 25 best 'Seinfeld'-isms | News.com.au
How Classic Seinfeld Episodes Were Written — Vulture
'Seinfeld' 25th Anniversary: 39 Surprising Celebrity Guest Stars Before They Were Famous [PHOTOS]
Master of Their Domain: 10 Great 'Seinfeld' Episodes Pictures | Rolling Stone
'Seinfeld,' No. 14 in Its Debut Season, Would Beat Every Show But One Today – TheWrap
5 Seinfeld References That Made Their Way into Politics | Mediaite
Soup Nazis, Big Salads + More: The Legacy Of Seinfeld | Celebrity Gossip and Entertainment News | VH1 Celebrity
Why celebrate the "Seinfeld" anniversary? Jerry Seinfeld himself doesn't seem to care about his legacy – Salon.com
Close Talkers and Double Dippers: 15 Phrases 'Seinfeld' Spawned Pictures | Rolling Stone
43 of 'Seinfeld's Most Memorable Lines, Phrases, & Made-Up Words — VIDEO | Bustle
What's Your Favorite Seinfeld Moment? — Vulture
Have a great day and tell us…what was your favorite Seinfeld moment?
Sunday Reads: One Sad Goat Makes A Happy AssPosted: June 1, 2014 Filed under: A My Pet Goat Moment, Afghanistan, American Gun Fetish, Cats, Congress, corporate greed, Diplomacy Nightmares, Discrimination against women, Feminists, Foreign Affairs, Gun Control, Happiness, History, Journalism, Mental Health, misogyny, morning reads, psychology, Rape Culture, Russia, science, sports, Violence against women, War on Women, Women's Rights | Tags: Bowe Bergdahl, GOP Assholes, Republicans 31 Comments
Good Morning
Summer is here for my kiddies…at least it is the second week of vacation for them. One thing though, change is coming. Today we are switching bedrooms, moving my brother up to the main floor and bringing my son down to the basement bedroom. Ya, the transformation to adult son living in basement just got all that much closer to reality.
My son will have his own entrance, his own fridge and his own little game room. He will even have a little intercom for those times when he needs a little nourishment.
Longer clip here.
Anyway, to make this switcheroo happen we have to take my brother out for the entire day, and let all hell brake loose when he comes home to find his desk, complete with all Dukes of Hazard paraphernalia has been moved upstairs.
So if you are near the vicinity of Banjoville, and hear the wrath of Uncle Gordy (my kids nickname for my brother) as he cusses us out but good….you will know that we have gotten back from our long drive to Atlanta, and that Denny has realized there was more to that fancy lunch at The Cheesecake Factory than just a huge hunk of cheesecake.
Now for the links. Which are all over the place today.
I guess the shit is meeting the fan? At least it looks like it from this headline at the New York Times After Deadly Rampage, Sheriff's Office Faces Concerns About Conduct
A week after Elliot O. Rodger's violent rampage in Isla Vista, Calif., that left six college students dead and 13 other people wounded, state lawmakers are now calling for an investigation of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office's previous contact with Mr. Rodger. Some are calling for wholesale changes to how law enforcement officers respond to calls that someone could be a threat to himself or to others.
Sheriff's deputies visited Mr. Rodger on April 30, just three weeks before his rampage, after receiving a call from his mother, who had been concerned by videos he posted online.
At the time, Mr. Rodger had already bought at least two firearms, which were both registered in his name. But sheriff's deputies were unaware of that when they visited Mr. Rodger, because they had not checked the statewide gun ownership database. They also had not watched the videos Mr. Rodger had posted.
You go check out some dude who is a "threat" and you don't even watch the damn video? They did not even do a quick check to see if he had any guns. That is some shitty police work if you ask me. But, I will let you read more about this here:
Kelly Hoover, a spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office, would not elaborate on why no weapons check was done, and declined to confirm whether there would be an internal investigation of the visit.
But Hannah-Beth Jackson, the state senator who represents Santa Barbara, said a comprehensive investigation of the deputies' visit to Mr. Rodger's apartment was needed to give the public a full accounting of the events leading up to the massacre. "The community will not tolerate any half-baked approach to dealing with this," Ms. Jackson said.
Law enforcement agencies across California have said that it is not necessarily standard practice to check the state gun registry before any check by officers on someone's well-being. And the sheriff's office has defended the six deputies who visited Mr. Rodger in April.
"Based on the information reviewed thus far, the sheriff's office has determined that the deputies who responded handled the call in a professional manner consistent with state law and department policy," Ms. Hoover said in an email on Saturday.
After Mr. Rodger's rampage in Isla Vista, Ms. Jackson co-wrote legislation that would create a "gun-violence restraining order." If family members or friends alert law enforcement that someone poses a threat to themselves or to others, law enforcement would then be able to petition a judge to prohibit the person from purchasing firearms.
But if you really want a freak out, read this: Lessons From a Day Spent With the UCSB Shooter's Awful Friends
Tuesday morning, I logged into a chat room full of refugees of the since shuttered PUAHate forum once frequented by University of California-Santa Barbara shooter Elliott Rodger. And I stayed there, silently watching them, for 8 hours. Here's what I learned.
PUAHate, as other outlets have discussed, is an offshoot of the Pick Up Artist community populated by men (and, allegedly, women) who believe Pick Up Artistry to be a sham waste of money not because women are more than "targets" and "prey," but because women are fucking hopeless cunts who can't be convinced to give nice guys a chance. Women, argue PUAHaters, will only go out with good looking alpha males and would never look twice at anyone who isn't a musclebound dreamboat with a six-figure income, and most men will never be those things, and so the world is against them and life is unfair. From an observer's perspective, PUAHate is a group of self-pitying babies who believe they're entitled to women who are much more attractive than they are.
Big news this day however:
Bowe Bergdahl, American Soldier, Freed by Taliban in Prisoner Trade – NYTimes.com
Hagel: U.S. acted fast to save Bowe Bergdahl's life – CNN.com
Official: Freed US soldier on Way to Military Hospital in Germany
Republicans attack Obama over soldier swap – The Times of India
There is video of Bergdahl eating in freedom at the CNN link. Of course the GOP would be pissed…can you imagine the shit storm if they had known?
Hagel: Congress Kept in Dark on Swap Because Bergdahl's Life in Danger – NBC News.com
Here is an interesting bit of Snowden news, Russian Web Journalism Award to be named after Snowden – Little Green Footballs
This takes the cake. From the country at the forefront of institutionalized oppression of journalists, featuring a massive surveillance apparatus, comes the Snowden Award for Journalistic Excellence. Not a peep from Snowden about his new host country's behavior. And no word on when this Russian media outlet plans on an expose on Putin's marginalization and oppression of his countryman's journalists and media owners.
Moving on, I told you this post was all over the place…Canadian Bar Sells Cups with Lids to Curb Roofied Drinks
A bar in Saskatchewan right across the border from North Dakota has taken it upon itself to keep an eye out for it's female patrons by offering drinking cups with screw-on lids. The hard plastic cup is selling for five dollars, and is being sold as a way to prevent spiked drinks. CBC reports that the bar's management simply wants so keep things safe for their women customers:
"I want girls to be able to come into our bar in groups of two or three, or if they don't have dates, they can still come in here and have fun and dance and not have to worry about somebody drugging them," Regina Rooks, manager of the Derrick Motor Hotel bar, told CBC News. "There has been a couple incidents."
"We are now a boomtown and undesirables do come to town," she said
Rooks very clearly means well. She obviously wants to protect her customers, and she's showing a resourcefulness and inclination to try and solve a serious problem.
At the same time, it's still just a bandaid solution to a much bigger issue. It reinforces the idea that potential victims are responsible for their own sexual safety. And charging for the cup adds a whole other layer to that idea. Putting a lid on a beverage isn't telling rapists they shouldn't rape, which is, you know, the main problem. It's not really deterring rape.
Hey, at least it is something. I mean…it tells the rapist who plan to drug women that they should move on to the bar next door, which is not a solution I know. But I will take what ever extra protection is offered, wouldn't you?
On Wednesday, I brought up the subject of women who are pulling the victim blaming bullshit on the Calhoun rape victim here in North Georgia. I even went so far as to put a label on them…the C-word…you know that one which rhymes with bunt.
Check this out: Men Aren't the Only Ones Slut Shaming Women | Care2 Causes
Thousands of women have rallied around the hashtag #YesAllWomen on Twitter sharing personal stories of the everyday harassment they face. The response has been overwhelming and put a spotlight on the sexist culture we live in where a young man resorted to murder for being rejected by women.
Sure, not all men are like Elliot Rodger (there's even a hashtag to prove it: #NotAllMen), but there is no denying that we live in a society where women are targets of violence and shamed for their sexuality. Women are called sluts for having sex and, like Rodger angrily proclaimed, sluts for not having sex, at least with him. Either way we're sluts. But as the two studies below prove, men aren't the only ones responsible for slut-shaming women. Sometimes we women are just as guilty.
The first study published in the Social Psychology Quarterly tracked the lives of 53 women attending college at a Midwestern university and found that women often participated in slut shaming one another as a means of maintaining their social status. The findings suggest that high-status women, those women who participated in Greek life on campus and often came from upper-middle class backgrounds, used slut shaming as a means of bullying lower-status girls and keeping them from climbing the social ladder.
On the flip side, high-status women were also far less likely to be slut shamed by their lower-status peers despite engaging in more sexual relationships. It stands to reason then that lower status girls were targets of slut shaming regardless of whether or not they had sexual experience. Lastly, while high-status women with more sexual experience defined their lifestyle as "classy," their low-status peers who tried to mimic this behavior to fit it were immediately called "trashy."
This study illustrates that the ladies are also guilty of creating a culture where women are stigmatized and defined by their sexuality. If women are calling each other sluts as a means of pulling social rank, what are their sexual partners saying about them behind closed doors? Does the fact that women are calling each other sluts make it OK for the men (or women) they are sleeping with to do so? If the Mean Girls assembly taught us anything, then yes.
"You've got to stop calling each other sluts and whores," says Tina Fey's character. "It just makes it OK for guys to call you sluts and whores."
It may not make it OK, but it does create a culture where slut shaming women is acceptable.
Another study from a think tank in the UK has found that women are also guilty of slut shaming one another online. The study tracked the use of the words "rape," "whore" and "slut" on Twitter for about a year and found that 12 percent of the tweets containing these words were intended as a direct threat or insult. What was more alarming, however, was the finding that women were almost as likely as men to send tweets with these words both casually or offensively.
For some sense to all this,
Time magazine looks to Kate Farrar, the vice president of campus leadership programs at AAUW, a non-profit focusing on women's empowerment, who argues gender based insults have become s0 ingrained in our culture that it's the norm:
Words like "slut" and "whore" are thrown around so frequently they "become a part of our cultural conversation [about women] from the time we're very young…there often aren't instances that we're told that it's not okay or that there's accountability for that."
And thanks to our culture's paradoxical attitudes towards female sexuality, where women are expected to be sexy, but not overtly sexual, one of the most effective ways for men and women to bully, judge and degrade a woman is to brand her a "slut" or "whore."
…that while women are often victims of a sexist culture, we are sometimes part of the problem. I for one will admit that as a college, and even high school, student I used the word "slut" very casually and as a means to put down other women, even if they weren't actually promiscuous. I wish I could say I hadn't, but like Farrar points out it was so ingrained in how we spoke that I didn't think twice, and I was never told it was wrong. Well, here I am now, saying that it is wrong. Defining a woman by her sexuality, or worse demeaning her for it, is wrong whether you are a woman or a man. It's high time we speak up when someone calls a woman a slut and analyze our own reasons for using this language.
I have done that as well…and perhaps the c-word was also along that line…but I still have to defend my use of that word. It is true, in my opinion, these women who blame rape victims are the most vulgar of women and deserve the most vulgar of titles.
The rest of this post in dump fashion…
Look who graduated: Rachel Jeantel, the close friend who was on the phone with Travon Martin moments before he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman has graduated from high school.
A football player who was taking clomid for low sperm count has been suspended: Robert Mathis of Indianapolis Colts suspended four games for PEDs – ESPN
I looked it up, they do use clomid for this condition on men…go figure.
Did y'all see this?
Ledge cracks at the Willis Tower, closed for inspection – chicagotribune.com
And it is scary considering less than a month ago my daughter was just doing this in that exact Ledge:
Yeah, they are jumping up and down in there.
This Graph From The CDC On Measles Infections Should Scare You – Forbes
From Addicting Info– Virginia Court Official Tells Atheist Couple They Have No Right To Get Married Because They Don't Believe In God
Also from Addicting Info, btw Dan says this store is full of bullshit, something is not right at that store: – Walmart Employee Picks Up Stray Coins On The Floor Of Her Store And Gets Fired For Theft
You're fired! The bad news came to Ashley Johnson, former Walmart employee, as a surprise. She had been working in Store #5440 in Oregon in security for more than a year and a half when the Asset Protection Manager requested an interview with her. Another man attended. The man asked her if she had ever retrieved change from the store floor when she was working.
The question stunned Ashley, but she decided honesty was her best answer. "Yes," she admitted. The man demanded how much, and Ashley said to him, "Maybe a quarter".
No. It was much more than that. We've been watching you for a long time. I estimate that you've stolen about 45 dollars from us.
The company fired her on the spot and given one month to repay the coins or face a lawsuit. This was rather extreme to say the least. Before the incident Ashley had asked the store's manager, Ben Carlson, for financial aid from Walmart's controversial Critical Need Fund. Ashley wonders if this the real reason they fired her?
The Walton's 4759 stores earn a revenue of $469 billion, which is more money than that of nearly 50% of all Americans combined. As America's richest family, they exploit a variety of legal loopholes in order to make certain they perpetuate the dynasty's wealth rather than contribute their government share, according public-records requests for court documents and the Internal Revenue Service filings. Yet the company still feels the need to pocket even the loose change on their store floors.
Joan Lorring, Oscar-Nominated Supporting Actress, Dead at 88
Joan Lorring, who was Oscar nominated for best supporting actress in the 1945 film The Corn Is Green, died Friday in the New York City suburb of Sleepy Hollow. She was 88. Born Mary Magdalene Ellis in Hong Kong on April 17, 1926, Lorring fled with her mother from the Japanese invasion in 1939 to San Francisco. Her showbiz career began in radio, and her first American film at 18 was the 1944 MGM romantic war drama Song of Russia. She signed with Warner Bros. for the role of the scheming, trampish Bessie Watty, playing opposite Bette Davis, in The Corn Is Green.
Because this next link is a picture of my idol Jonathan Frid:
Miss American Vampire, 1970 – Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money
A blog post about film: moviemorlocks.com – Cassavetes vs. Ottinger – Arthouse Grudge Match
A few articles on The Rose Tattoo…the play. Left overs from Wednesday's post:
"The Rose Tattoo as Comedy of the Grotesque"–Brian Parker
Where I Live: Selected Essays – Tennessee Williams – Google Books
A Life in the Wings: THE LADY AND TENNESSEE : The New Yorker
A LIFE IN THE WINGS about Lady Maria St. Just, the playwright Tennessee Williams' long-time friend, who after his death became executor of his estate and exercised tyrannical control over his literary legacy. She died in England on February 15, 1994; and was said to be the model for Maggie in Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." Lady Maria was born Maria Britneva on July 6, 1921 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her mother, Mary, and brother left their father Dr. Alexander Britnev and went to England in 1922. Maria's biography "Five O'Clock Angel" tells about her life and is quoted throughout article.
Tom and Lorezo's review of Maleficent | Tom & Lorenzo Fabulous & Opinionated
"Let us tell an old tale anew," the ever-present and somewhat talkative narrator intones at the start of Disney's Maleficent. But by the time we got to the story's end, we wondered if it was really worth the bother. Like 2012′s Snow White and The Huntsman, Maleficent attempts to take a more nuanced look at an old and (by design,) simplistic tale, in that "everything you know is wrong"manner. Like Broadway's "Wicked," it attempts to turn a classic villain into a hero – or at least, a villain that cries and has motivations beyond the acquisition of power or the destroying of annoyingly perfect little girls.
It's an apparently irresistible thing to modern audiences; this retelling of fairy tales and childhood stories by layering them with darkness and angst; meaning and themes. The Tolkienization of Disney. And we're not sure it's to the story's benefit. Fairy tales are supposed to be relatively simple stories populated by characters with the kind of motivations that children can understand. They evolved over time, but they always served the same purpose (outside of entertainment): to teach the very young about difficult concepts like evil and anger and jealousy and to reinforce a basic moral code about goodness and love and family – and also to not trust strangers or go wandering through the woods. Purely universal childhood themes that still resonate centuries after the original stories were devised. Classic old fairy tales were shockingly dark, so the basic idea behind the darkening and deepening concept of this film might've worked – except we're talking specifically about Disney characters. And we're not sure adding paper-thin rape metaphors is something that needed to be done to the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty.
Read the rest of that at the link…love TLo!
Can you believe it is 70 years? Operation Mincemeat: One of the biggest hoaxes in history | Stephen Liddell
With the 70th Anniversary of D-Day around the corner I thought that I might write a short series of posts about this historic event. The first of which might be one which you're unfamiliar with but in its own way was one of the key points of WW2.
After a long series of battles in North Africa had seen the Italians defeated and Monty's Desert Rats routed Rommel's dreaded Afrika Corps at El Alamein which set the scene for the Axis retreat from North Africa all together.
More history:
'Sadly and with a Bitter Heart': What the Caesarean Section Meant in the Middle Ages
One sunny spring day, a Resurrectionist priest sips tea and speaks of his time as a Bolivian missionary in the 1960s and '70s. His recollection of the local 'Indians' is obscured by more than three decades' distance. China cup in hand, he recalls vaguely their mud huts, flocks of sheep, herds of llamas, and the beautiful, rugged terrain of the altiplano. With greater precision, he speaks about the local belief system, especially attitudes towards stillbirths. This left a strong impression upon him. The priest emphasizes how deeply fearful the locals were of stillborn babies, and he flavours his recollections with two sad anecdotes. One day, he says, some villagers brought him a small blue corpse. The baby's father insisted that the missionary baptize it. Since this was canonically impossible, the priest performed an impromptu blessing. It effectively banished the evil spirit conjured by the unfortunate birth. Satisfied with the blessing, the villagers relaxed and returned to their normal lives. On another occasion, one of the priest's confrères was less delicate. A mother presented him with her dead baby, pleading for a postmortem baptism. At last the cleric told her, "The Church will only permit me to baptize your child if it draws milk from your breast." Since this was impossible, the mother went away frustrated and ill at ease, having been unsuccessful in her bid to exorcise the unlucky spirit.
Also from Medieval.net: Richard III had severe scoliosis but was not a hunchback, researchers find
Scientists and researchers have completed their study on the spinal column of Richard III, revealing that his scoliosis caused these bones to curve to the right, a well as a degree of twisting, resulting in a "spiral" shape. However, he would not have been hunchbacked as he was depicted by later writers.
This research has been published this week in the journal The Lancet. It was carried out by experts from the University of Leicester, University of Cambridge, Loughborough University and University Hospitals of Leicester
The kind of scoliosis Richard suffered from a form of adolescent onset idiopathic scoliosis, which would have not started until he had almost finished growing. By the time he was an adult, Richard's right shoulder would have been higher than his left, and his torso would have been relatively short compared to his arms and legs. The scoliosis also caused him to be several inches shorter than his normal height, which would have been about 5 feet 8 inches tall otherwise. This matches a contemporary description of Richard, by the chronicler John Rous who described the king as "small of stature, with a short face and unequal shoulders, the right higher and the left lower."
Science up: This New "Super-Hydrophobic" Material Is So Waterproof That Water Bounces Off It Like A Ball | Geekosystem
Foodie stuff: Yogurts With More Sugar Than A Twinkie
Since I am dealing with my kids a lot in this post, and since they are named after Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: 10 Incredible Facts About Ernest Hemingway – Listverse
And since Hemingway was a "cat person" we have this next link: Study Shows the Personality Differences Between Cat and Dog Lovers | Geekosystem
New research presented this month at the annual Association for Psychological Science shows the contrasting personality traits associated with cat and dog owners–or in other words, people who would rather scoop a creature's poop up from the street vs. those who prefer it buried under litter.
Denise Guastello of Carroll University conducted the study using a group of 600 college students. Participants were asked whether they were cat or dog lovers, what attribute they most admired in their pets, and then given a series of questions as part of a personality assessment. 60% of those polled claimed to be dog lovers, 11% copped to a cat fancy, and 29% said they had no preference, i.e., they were scared their cat would find out if they answered truthfully.
Based off trends found in the personality assessments, "dog people" were shown to typically be outgoing and rule-abiding, whereas cat fans appeared introverted, open minded, sensitive , innovative, and more intelligent than dog devotees. But pet owners shouldn't take the study's findings too seriously–the research was obviously conducted on a specific segment of the population, so it's impossible to say how allegiance to one kind of animal over another might manifest in the personality traits of different age groups or demographics.
Guastello suggests the trends in personality associated with cat or dog owners might be related to the kind of care the animal requires:
It makes sense that a dog person is going to be more lively, because they're going to want to be out there, outside, talking to people, bringing their dog […] Whereas, if you're more introverted, and sensitive, maybe you're more at home reading a book, and your cat doesn't need to go outside for a walk.
Maybe… or maybe cat owners are just too weakened by allergies to do anything but lie on the couch and hope the neighbor's dog won't smell their fear.
And one last fun link, the source for this morning's title: Depressed Goat Is Reunited With His Burro Best Friend
Mr. G, a goat, and Jellybean, a burro, were both rescued from the squalor of a hoarder's home earlier this year and were, for the first time in their lives, separated to live in different animal sanctuaries. The separation left Mr. G depressed and he didn't move or eat for six days. Until he was reunited with his best friend.
After Mr. G and Jellybean were rescued, each was taken in by different animal sanctuaries 14 hours apart. Mr G. became depressed in his new home without his lifelong friend, refusing to leave his stall or eat.
That's when the staff of Animal Place in Grass Valley, Ca. decided that the two needed to be together again. They arranged to have Jellybean transported and from the moment Mr. G heard his burro buddy being unloaded, he immediately perked up.
Watch that video and have a wonderful lovely day!
Wednesday Reads: Put up your dukes!Posted: March 26, 2014 Filed under: abortion rights, Accommodation and Compromise, Affordable Care Act (ACA), American Gun Fetish, Barack Obama, birth control, Diplomacy Nightmares, Discrimination against women, Egypt, Foreign Affairs, fundamentalist Christians, Gun Control, morning reads, NSA, National Security Agency, Religious Conscience, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, Republican politics, Russia, SCOTUS, the GOP, U.S. Politics, Ukraine, Violence against women, War on Women, Women's Healthcare, Women's Rights | Tags: China, Crimea, ebola, Guinea, Hobby Lobby, international space center, Justice Kennedy, Liberia, NASA 38 Comments
Good Morning
Oi! Put up your dukes and lets duke it out!
WordPress has fugged up with their editor, which means that the pictures and formatting may be a little off in this post. That said the images are all found on pinterest and are all various vintage picture of women boxing.
Because, the shit going on with the Supremes is something that makes me want to put on a pair of boxing gloves and kick some PLUB #HobbyLobby loving ass.
Justice Kennedy Thinks Hobby Lobby Is An Abortion Case — That's Bad News For Birth Control | ThinkProgress
"Your reasoning would permit" Congress to force corporations to pay for abortions, Kennedy told Verrilli. This was not the Anthony Kennedy that worried about conservatives imposing their anti-gay "animus" on others, this was the Anthony Kennedy that views abortion as a grave moral wrong. Shortly after Kennedy made this statement, Justice Kagan's face dropped. It appeared that she'd just figured out that she would be joining a dissenting opinion.
It's worth noting that Kennedy expressed a different concern than one offered shortly thereafter by Chief Justice John Roberts. Hobby Lobby objects to four forms of contraception on the mistaken ground that these contraceptive methods are actually forms of abortion — a brief filed by numerous medical organizations explains that they are not. Roberts, however, suggested that someone's mere belief that something is an abortion is enough to trigger an religious exemption to federal law.
More from :
SCOTUSblog: Birth control, business, and religious beliefs: In Plain English
Wednesday round-up : SCOTUSblog
Ugh….but that fucked up crap about the pill being "abortion" aside, last night Boston Boomer put up a tweet in the comments that I think needs to be shared up on the front page.
This brings up a good point, one of the tweets in this thread says that Hobby Lobby responded…
Some of the tweets mention the "myth" of infanticide and forced abortions…which is bullshit. Take a look at this from Telegraph:
Malaysia Airlines missing flight exposes tragedy of China's 'orphaned' one-child parents
Much has been written about the human rights abuses associated with China's notorious one-child policy: the forced abortions, sterilisations and even cases of infanticide as rural families sought to rid themselves of girls they thought were less useful than boys.
But the disappearance of MH370 has cast light a less well-known but equally devastating phenomenon: that of the "orphaned" parents who, through accident or illness, lost the only child the Chinese government allowed them to have.
There are an estimated one million so-called "shidu" families in China, with state media reporting that around 76,000 new families are "orphaned" each year.
"When you lose your only child, it feels like the sky has fallen in," said one bereaved Shanghai mother, who lost her only daughter and her husband to a 2012 car accident.
"Because of the one-child policy a million families have lost their offspring forever," added the woman, who requested anonymity because of the politically sensitive nature of the subject. "It is an ethical tragedy. Nobody can take away the pain."
Recent months have seen several major Chinese cities and provinces including Beijing and Shanghai start to change the controversial birth control policy, relaxing family planning rules so parents who are both only children can now have two children.
On the subject of lost children…grown children…the numbers have gone up in the death toll over in the Washington state landslide claims up to 24, more than 100 missing.
The number of dead climbed to as high as 24 with the recovery Tuesday of two more bodies and another eight believed to have been located in the debris.
Authorities did not immediately release the identities of the dead nor did they provide details about where the bodies were found.
At least 176 people are unaccounted for. Officials have stressed those unaccounted for are not necessarily all victims of the disaster. They say they believe many names have been duplicated.
Three sheriff's deputies who specialize in missing persons cases have begun reviewing the lists to get a more accurate count, Snohomish County Emergency Management Director John Pennington said.
And if death from plane crash or mudslide is not depressing enough, how about Ebola: W Africa scrambles to prevent Ebola spread
West African nations scrambled to contain an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus suspected to have killed at least 59 people in Guinea, with symptoms of the disease reported in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia as well.
The spread of Ebola, one of the most lethal infectious diseases known, has spooked nations with weak health care systems. In Guinea's southeast, home to all the confirmed cases, residents are avoiding large gatherings and prices in some markets have spiked as transporters avoid the area.
Health authorities in Liberia said they had now recorded eight suspected cases of Ebola, mainly in people who crossed the border from Guinea.
Five of these had died but tests were still being carried out to check if the cases were indeed Ebola, the Reuters news agency reported.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said a total of 86 suspected cases, including 59 deaths, had been reported in southeastern Guinea near the border with Sierra Leone and Liberia.
This next quote is very scary:
"People are really frightened. They have seen people die in a matter of just two or three days. They are constantly worried who is going to be the next fatality," said Joseph Gbaka Sandounou, who manages operations for aid agency Plan International in Guekedou.
On to more "newsy" link goodness. Major Garrett has a piece up over at National Journal: Obama Tries to Put Putin in His Place—Again
Moments after deflecting a question about his diminished influence on the world stage, President Obama described Russia as a "regional power" operating in Crimea out of weakness, not strength.
Noting Russia's long-standing influence in all of Ukraine, Obama said Russian President Vladimir Putin's illegal annexation of Crimea "indicates less influence, not more."
I guess that's why Ukraine's defense minister resigned and Ukrainian troops bugged out of Crimea, leaving it to Russian forces. This is the only "off ramp" that matters in Crimea. Ukraine and its rhetorically florid Western allies took it. Not Putin.
Even as the White House insists Crimea is not "lost" (Putin can find it without satellite imagery, after all), the grudging language of concession seeps from every corridor of Ukrainian talks here.
"It's not a done deal in the sense that the international community by and large isn't recognizing the annexation of Crimea," Obama said, before acknowledging the "facts on the ground" favored Russia. "It would be dishonest to say there is a simple solution to resolving what has already taken place in Crimea."
Obama and European leaders are rattled and resentful, thunderstruck that the wispy bonds of international "norms" could be so easily shredded. Fearful of the precedent they appear incapable of reversing, and desperate to limit Putin's ambitions to Crimea, the G-7 nations have effectively conceded Crimea. They threatened "sectoral sanctions" if Putin further bulldozed international law by gobbling up more of Ukraine or plowing into Moldova. Weak or strong, Putin enforces the new Crimean status quo. All he's lost is Russia's G-8 membership pin and decoder ring.
One of our astronauts hitched a ride yesterday. Leaving politics behind, Russian-U.S. crew blasts off for space | Reuters
Two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut blasted off for six-month stay aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday, a partnership unaffected by the political rancor and economic sanctions triggered by Russia's annexation of Crimea.
The Russian Soyuz rocket carrying cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steven Swanson lifted off at 5:17 p.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The trip to the space station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 260 miles above Earth, was scheduled to take about six hours. However, an unknown problem caused the crew's Soyuz capsule to skip two planned steering maneuvers, delaying the crew's arrival until Thursday.
"The crew is in no danger. The Soyuz (is) equipped with plenty of consumables to go even beyond the next two days, should that be become necessary. Nobody expects that that will be the case," mission commentator Rob Navias said during a NASA Television broadcast.
My son has a sinus infection, and was home from school yesterday…so he watched the launch live.
At Least Russia and the U.S. Still Get Along in Outer Space – NationalJournal.com
NASA, however, is not worried about the Ukraine crisis taking a toll on space exploration.
"We do not expect the current Russia-Ukraine situation to have an impact on our long-standing civil space cooperation with Russia, which goes back decades, including our partnership on the International Space Station program," said NASA spokesman Joshua Buck in a statement to National Journal. "We are confident that our two space agencies will continue to work closely as they have throughout various ups and downs of the broader U.S.-Russia relationship."
The International Space Station has indeed weathered terrestrial political storms in the past. "It doesn't appear that we are affected by what's going on diplomatically with the Russians," Al Sofge, director of NASA's human exploration and operations division, has said of the conflict in Syria and Russia's protection of American whistle-blower Edward Snowden. "I don't know that we've ever even discussed it."
After 16 years in orbit, the International Space Station is truly a bilateral effort. The station, divided into American and Russian segments, uses American solar arrays and power systems, Russian life-support systems, and a navigation system that comes from both nations.
The U.S. and Russia first collaborated in space in July 1975, when a Soviet Soyuz capsule carrying two cosmonauts docked with a U.S. Apollo module carrying three astronauts. In the 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. asked Russia to join its work on the International Space Station. Russia was too financially strapped to build a program of its own, BBC's Melissa Hogenboom explained in 2012, and the U.S. was behind schedule on the project and needed help.
This "reluctant codependency," as NBC space analyst James Oberg dubbed it, persists to this day. At the International Space Station, Russia depends on NASA's electronics and communications technology, which are more advanced. The U.S. depends on Roscosmos, the Russian federal agency, to send its astronauts to space. After NASA retired its space-shuttle program in 2011, Russia became the sole nation with the capability of carrying astronauts and cargo to and from space. Even U.S. national security satellites are powered into orbit on an American rocket with a Russian-built rocket engine.
While Jake was watching that rocket take off, I told him the Russians would not mess up that arrangement, they are getting paid. How much?
Right now, NASA pays $70.7 million per seat to send its astronauts to space on Russian Soyuz capsules, $8 million more than a previous agreement. But by 2017, NASA officials say the U.S. should be able to send its astronauts to the International Space Station on its own, thanks to private American spaceflight companies.
I will put this other link here for you, Zandar Versus The Stupid: Last Call For One Hell Of A Coincidence, where an article in the Business Insider by Michael Kelley is asking the question:
U.S. officials think that Russia recently obtained the ability to evade U.S. eavesdropping equipment while commandeering Crimea and amassing troops near Ukraine's border.
The revelation reportedly has the White House "very nervous," especially because it's unclear how the Kremlin hid its plans from the National Security Agency's snooping on digital and electronic communications.
One interesting fact involved is the presence of Edward Snowden in Russia, where he has been living since flying to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23.
In July, primary Snowden source Glenn Greenwald told The Associated Press that Snowden "is in possession of literally thousands of documents that contain very specific blueprints that would allow somebody who read them to know exactly how the NSA does what it does, which would in turn allow them to evade that surveillance or replicate it."
So it's either a crazy coincidence that the Russians figured out how to evade NSA surveillance while hosting the NSA-trained hacker, or else it implies that Snowden provided the Russians with access to the NSA's blueprint.
No doubt Kelley's article is going to draw a massive screed from Double G and the usual suspects. But as the people who support Snowden's actions remind us, we need to have a serious debate about American intelligence capabilities, and that includes debating the consequences of someone with the vast knowledge of these capabilities defecting to a foreign country.
I've said on a number of occasions that the actions of Snowden and his partners are not consistent with the goal of reigning in the NSA through existing means, but very consistent with the goal of taking it upon themselves to irreparably damage our intelligence-gathering abilities as a lesson to the Unites States government.
The threats have been made that if anything happens to Snowden, the full trove of information would be leaked.
Zandar asks…
It's a reasonable question to ask if that's already happened.
So, over at CNN they are looking for news since their 24/7 coverage of MH Flight 370 is coming to a close….Two CNN Producers Arrested in Sad Attempt to Break into the WTC Site
Two CNN producers were arrested today after trying—and failing miserably—to break into the World Trade Center site for a story about people who successfully broke in.
A CNN spokesperson said that producers Connor Boals, 26, and Yon Pomrenze, 35, were on assignment "but were not asked to sneak onto the WTC site."
According to reports, the pair first tried to talk their way past security guards into the heavily guarded construction site. When that failed, they tried scaling a nearby fence. Both times officers merely turned them away.
The tipping point came on their third attempt, when they tried to forcibly push their way through a security checkpoint.
That coup de grâce got Boals and Pomrenze cuffed and booked on criminal trespass, obstruction of governmental administration and disorderly conduct charges.
Sad…sad…sad…when all they had to do was head on over to Jersey: Body parts injure 4 after man killed by train
A man was struck and killed by a train Tuesday in a gruesome scene that left others on the New Brunswick Station platform injured.
Preliminary eyewitness accounts suggest that the man was struck after leaning into the path of the oncoming train while standing on the station platform.
As a result of the collision, at least four other people waiting on the platform were struck by parts of the man's body, officials said.
The incident happened at about 5 p.m. EDT and involved a New York-bound Northeast Corridor train carrying about 300 passengers, NJ Transit spokesman John Durso said.
Three of the four people who were hurt went to the hospital with injuries…eek! Now that is a "story" those producers could have gotten into…dirty laundry there. Literally.
Back to the MH370 for a moment: Families of Flight MH370 Victims Issue Blistering Statement | Vanity Fair
The families on the receiving end didn't take kindly to the message or the manner in which it was delivered. Families gathered in Beijing read a blistering rebuke of Malaysian Airlines and authorities on Monday:
"At 10pm on March 25, the Malaysian prime minister sent a statement to the families of MH370 passengers without any direct evidence that MH370 crashed in the south Indian ocean and no people survived.
From March 8 when they announced that MH370 lost contact to today, 18 days have passed during which the Malaysian government and military constantly tried to delay, deceive the passengers' families and cheat the whole world.
This shameless behaviour not only fooled and hurt the families of the 154 passengers but also misguided and delayed rescue actions, wasting a large quantity of human resources and materials and lost valuable time for the rescue effort.
If the 154 passengers did lose their lives, Malaysia Airlines, the Malaysian government and military are the real executioners who killed them. We the families of those on board submit our strongest protest against them.
We will take every possible means to pursue the unforgivable crimes and responsibility of all three."
Malaysia Airlines claims a representative for the company told the assembled families in person, and that phone calls and SMS messages were only sent to relatives who were not in the family-support center.
The rest of the links are in quick dump fashion:
What happens when a female student in a hot pink top walks through Cairo University? – News – Student – The Independent
Wearing a pink top and tight jeans, the young woman is whistled and shouted at as she makes her way through the site amongst a growing group of men following her.
University guards are seen in the clip, which has gone viral on social media, escorting her off the premises after she hid in a toilet to escape the group, who were allegedly trying to remove her clothes.
The school Dean blamed the girl of course…video at the link.
From the fuckwads in my state, In Georgia, Carry a Gun, Just Not in the Capitol – NYTimes.com
There's a lot of concern about new legislation in Georgia that expands how people can buy, carry and use guns. It reduces some licensing requirements and provides Georgians with a stronger "Stand Your Ground" defense should they feel threatened and decide to open fire. Some critics were calling it the "guns everywhere" law. That's so unfair. Georgia's lawmakers are not allowing everyone's safety to be endangered by gun-slinging people. They are deeply concerned, for example, with their own.
The bill, passed on Thursday and awaiting the governor's signature, will, among other things, allow people to carry concealed weapons into more places — including ones, like bars, which conveniently enough are spots where they are likely to be put to use.
They may also be carried in unsecured areas of airports. Even toting a gun in secured areas will merely be a misdemeanor in Georgia as long as you did it by mistake. After all, who among us has not had the embarrassing experience of forgetting they were carrying their Glock semiautomatic through airport security?
Republican lawmakers in the Georgia House tried — and failed — to require colleges and churches to allow concealed weapons. The law bans them on college campuses (thank goodness for that, at least) and requires armed Georgians to get permission from their church before they go to Sunday services packing heat.
But, while patting themselves on the back for protecting the Second Amendment rights of their fellow citizens and dismissing any notion that guns could be a danger to the public, Georgia lawmakers were careful to continue to ban the carrying of weapons in government buildings with security checkpoints, like the Capitol itself, though guns are welcomed in buildings without screening.
Barbara Boxer: Why no Viagra complaints? – Tal Kopan – POLITICO.com
As the Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday about the Obamacare mandate on birth control coverage, Sen. Barbara Boxer questioned why those up in arms about the requirement have no problem with most insurance covering Viagra.
"I have never heard Hobby Lobby or any other corporation, I could be wrong, or any other boss complain that Viagra is covered in many insurance plans, practically all of them, or other kinds of things, you know, for men, which I won't go into," Boxer said Tuesday on MSNBC's "Jansing & Co."
Yeah, isn't every sperm sacred?
After 27 years, Burger King Baby finds birth mom, feels pure joy
A woman who, as a newborn, was abandoned in the bathroom of a Pennsylvania fast-food restaurant said Tuesday she has found her birth mother just three weeks after launching a search that garnered worldwide attention.
Next…another blast from 80s' past, an interview with Boy George: Boy George Discusses New Album, Gender Identity, Madonna And More
If you're ever given 60 minutes to sit down with Boy George, one of the most beloved pop icons of the 20th century, in a private club on the west side of Manhattan in the middle of February, take them.
In the course of that hour, you'll not only be treated to stories about how as a teen, his brothers would cross the street so they didn't have to be seen with him and find out if he ever considered transitioning to the other end of the gender binary, but you'll also quickly realize that he is one of the most thoughtful — and refreshingly honest — interview subjects you've ever had the pleasure of encountering.
Next, tales of animals…remember that zoo in Copenhagen? The one that killed the young giraffe and butchered it then fed it to the lions?
Look what the zoo did to the lions: Danish zoo that killed giraffe puts down four lions
Two lions and their two 10-month-old cubs, all from the same family, were put down on Monday to make way for a new male after the zoo failed to find a new home for the felines.
Copenhagen Zoo said in a statement: "Because of the pride of lions' natural structure and behaviour, the zoo has had to euthanise the two old lions and two young lions who were not old enough to fend for themselves".
The cubs "would have been killed by the new male lion as soon as he got the chance," it added.
On the case of inbreeding and genetic defects…no I am not talking about Banjoville, Birth Defects In Last Woolly Mammoths Suggest Inbreeding May Have Led To Species' Extinction
Scientists studying 12,000-year-old mammoth fossils unearthed near the North Sea discovered that many of them had extra ribs along their neck vertebrae. Cervical ribs, while innocuous on their own, are usually a sign that something went wrong during the animal's development and are associated with chromosome abnormalities and even cancer.
Researchers found that cervical ribs were 10 times more common in woolly mammoths from the North Sea than in modern elephants. Scientists were stunned to find such a high rate of cervical ribs among European woolly mammoths.
"The high incidence and large size of the cervical ribs [in woolly mammoths] indicates a strong vulnerability, given the association of cervical ribs with diseases and congenital abnormalities in mammals," the researchers noted in a study published in the journal PeerJ. "The vulnerable condition may well have contributed to the eventual extinction of the woolly mammoths."
Scientists theorized that there are two possible explanations for the high frequency of cervical ribs in the last of the mammoths. The first is that there was rampant inbreeding among the last mammoth populations. This theory fits nicely with the idea that climate change fragmented the woolly mammoth's habitat, isolating small pockets of the animals from each other. These groups would have lost their genetic variation through inbreeding, which would have made them susceptible to abnormalities and disease.
The second theory is that woolly mammoth mothers suffered prenatal stress due to outside factors like famine and disease.
And finally, Goats are far more clever than previously thought
Goats learn how to solve complicated tasks quickly and can recall how to perform them for at least 10 months, which might explain their remarkable ability to adapt to harsh environments, say researchers at Queen Mary University of London.
Writing in the journal Frontiers in Zoology today, the scientists trained a group of goats to retrieve food from a box using a linked sequence of steps; first by pulling a lever with their mouths and then by lifting it to release the reward.
The goats' ability to remember the task was tested after one month and again at 10 months. They learned the task within 12 trials and took less than two minutes to remember the challenge.
"The speed at which the goats completed the task at 10 months compared to how long it took them to learn indicates excellent long-term memory," said co-author Dr Elodie Briefer, now based at ETH Zurich.
Before each learning session, some of the goats had the opportunity to watch another goat to demonstrate the task.
Dr Briefer added: "We found that those without a demonstrator were just as fast at learning as those that had seen demonstrations. This shows that goats prefer to learn on their own rather than by watching others."
Wow, I wonder if a goat could learn that the birth control pill does not = an abortion? Yeah, they sound like they are smarter than some of the Supremes sitting on the bench.
Have a great day, and let us know what you are reading and thinking about today.
Wednesday Reads: "I weave freely today, as always."Posted: March 19, 2014 Filed under: Diplomacy Nightmares, Foreign Affairs, Hillary Clinton, Iran, Medicaid, morning reads, Religious Conscience, Russia, the GOP, Ukraine, War on Women | Tags: Bob Dylan, Eihei Dōgen, Japan, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Saori Weaving, Vladimir Putin, Zen Buddhism 43 Comments
Good Morning…
I am excited. Today a FedEx truck will come up my driveway bringing a 15 pound box that found its way from Japan to Louisiana to Memphis to Banjoville. Inside that box is a chrome Piccolo Saori Loom that I have been slowly making layaway payments towards since Thanksgiving.
It is a little loom but it has super big possibilities…
You may remember my big Glimakra countermarche loom is broken down and packed away in storage.
Ugh, all over "away in storage." The loom is too big anyway to fit in the house we are living in now, so this baby should be perfect.
Anyway, let me quickly give you some links that explain what the Saori weaving philosophy is all about and how this creative form "self-innovation though free weaving" got started…
In the introduction of her book, "Saori: Innovation through free weaving" Misao Jo quotes a Haiku written by Eihei Dōgen, a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher who founded the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan.
Under the moonlit sky,
people enjoy dancing,
casting shadows of different shapes.
Misao goes on to say that the haiku:
…implies that once born in the world, we are destined to live different lives.
She grew up following others and had become one of the majority. It was not until it finally hit her and she:
…became aware of the importance of developing a path of my own. I crawled up against a stream and found a beautiful flower garden unfolded before me. In that flower garden I learned that kansei* is inherent in everyone.
kansei*- Misao Jo use of word "meant the significance of an intuitive sense of beauty existing inside of us."
"SA" of SAORI has the same meaning as the first syllable of the word "SAI" which is found in Zen vocabulary. It means everything has its own individual dignity. And the "ORI" means weaving.
All flowers are beautiful, even though each individual flower is different in form and color. Because of this difference, "all are good". Because everything has the same life, life cannot be measured by a yardstick. It is this individuality that makes everything meaningful and the uniqueness of each thread that creates the tapestry of life.
Misao Jo, Founder of SAORI
So…that should give you enough information on this new path I am starting on. If you would like to see some pictures of woven Saori, look here:
More images here: Weaving Saori and Around the World Weaving on Pinterest
Okay, the rest of today's post will be your usual newsy stuff…after the jump of course. Oh, and the pictures, woodblock, painting you see are various Japanese artwork featuring weaving or spinning. (That includes the tattooed women! Tattooing among Japan's Ainu people .)