I pass this stop on my way to downtown Palo Alto from where I live in Mountain View. It's a nondescript spot. Incredibly sad, especially for the family and friends of the students. # § Local, News, paloalto
Not sure if that NY1 report was a fake or not. But damn funny. # § Culture, Humor, News, NYC, obama, Television
Lots of bosses say they value their employees. Some even mean it. And then there's Leonard Abess Jr. # § banking, economy, humaninterest, miamiherald, News
Kitchen sink equivalence. # § Aggregators, Cool, News, Uncategorized
Real time rss + flash = "newsy":http://www.jeroenwijering.com/whatsup/ "distractions":http://www.reverbiage.com/. Via a metatalk discussion. # § Flash, News, RSS, Uncategorized
The day "Coretta Scott King dies":http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5180053 is the same day "Samuel Alito":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Alito is confirmed to the Supreme Court. The sad irony of this juxtaposition would be too much to bear if we did not already suffer from outrage fatigue. This is par for the course. How would the Civil Rights movement have fared if Alito were on the High Court at the time? How would any of the seminal cases that bought this country closer to its founding ideals of justice and equality for all have turned out were he the one to cast the deciding vote? Would Brown vs. Board of Education still have been unanimous? Given his track record, his membership in the "Federalist society":http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0003.landay.html and the expectation of a thirty-year term as Justice, would it be hyperbole to call this the day -the experiment began to unravel- America started going backwards? # § Civil-Liberties, News, People, Politics, Uncategorized
Anyone who believes we successfully _won_ the war in Afghanistan needs a "serious reality check":http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-11-16-afghan-insurgents-inside_x.htm:
The adversary faced this year by the Desert Eagles and other American units fighting in Afghanistan has defied military predictions that the Taliban and al-Qaeda were fading. "It's absolutely true that the insurgency has become more effective and the insurgency has moved into more areas," says Peter Tomsen, a former special envoy who helped organize the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance in the 1980s. ... Seth Jones, a political scientist with Rand Corp. who specializes in Afghanistan, says, "The issue is not that they're going to be successful today or tomorrow or even next year, but that in time, the United States and other major powers ... just do not have the political will to stay."# § Current Events, Current-Events, News, War
Incidents and deadlines at the daily grind have kept me from posting of late. One subject of import that I have sorely neglected has been the utmost dire situation in the regions affected by the recent earthquake. theyblinked's brother Trevor gave him an "account":http://www.theyblinked.com/blog/2005/10/this-just-in-from-trevor-in-pakistan.html a few weeks ago: bq. Hope you get this. My computer died on me... hope to have it fixed today. Things here are unimaginable and its freezing cold--rain and hail the last few days. I have a cold already and I have warm clothes. Think of the millions that are sleeping under the sky. There are so many bodies here. The stench is terrible. They can't bury them fast enough because they don't have enough burial shrouds or shovels or people who aren't injured. The running deathcount has become an unfathomable number: 80,0000, rivaling only the December 2004 Tsunami in its human toll. Unlike that natural disaster, focus on the suffering due to this earthquake from U.S. news outlets has paled in comparison, where the public tendency to donate support is unfortunately in direct proportion to media attention. As winter comes, it becomes apparent that unless more assistance comes in the form of worldwide attention and humanitarian relief, the number of collateral deaths due to the earthquake will only rise. For those interested in lending a hand directly, there's a "link":http://www.securedpath.com/?type=Contact&submit=thanks&PayPal=other at Trevor's site _Secured Path_. See also Abbas from 3quarksdaily's recent story and "plea for help":http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2005/10/pakistan_earthq.html, with photos of the devastation from the NY times. # § Current Events, News
Delicious and sadly dead-on satirical on the primal scream inducing clusterfuck that is the U.S. government's handling of the Katrina crisis:
Predictably enough, the president has come under attack in the wake of the New Orleans disaster, as embittered partisans seek to blame him for every little thing the agencies under his control failed to do for days while Americans were starving and drowning to death. Loose talk of lack of preparation, underfunded levees, and apathetic response has provided some with the mistaken impression that the US government could've done more to save those trapped in the destroyed city. This, of course, is ridiculous: as anyone knowledgable in the nature of the structure and history of the American executive branch would explain, the president is utterly powerless in the face of disaster, and can only look on helplessly and leave things to those powerhouses in local government.# § News
My thoughts about the last week in a nutshell. I couldn't have said it better myself. # § News
"So You're Being Tortured To Death In An American Military Prison!":http://fafblog.blogspot.com/2005/06/so-youre-being-tortured-to-death-in.html
Q: Help! I'm being tortured to death in an American military prison! What should I do? A: First of all, you should get your facts straight. You're not being tortured to death in an American military prison; you're being interrogated to death in an American detainment facility. America does not tolerate torture. Q: Is there any sort of legal representative or due process I could get before being beaten to death? A: No. Lawyers, open legal procedures, and basic civil liberties are all tools the enemy can use to escape justice - the justice of being beaten to death in a prison camp. Q: It's just that my name is Musab Mohammed Khan, the pastry chef, and I believe you have me confused with Musab Muhammed Khan, the al Qaeda associate also known as "The Fist of Jihad." A: First, there are many terrorist pastry chefs, just as there are many terrorist pastries. Second, competent intelligence and accurate prison records are both tools the enemy can use to escape justice.
# § News!http://www.sotto.org/images/Pope_Palpatine_Small.jpg (Pope Palpatine...Benedict)!:http://www.sotto.org/images/Pope_Palpatine_Full.jpg Speculation on the new pope was fast and furious during those first few hours when he was annouced to an anxious world through a cloud of smoke and some thrown antipasto and giardiniera. Luckily, Wikipedia scooped them all. I took a "screenshot":http://www.sotto.org/images/Pope_Palpatine_Full.jpg of the Wikipedia page describing the ascendance of the new Emperor... er Pope Palpatine... er Benedict. # § Current Events, News
More details come to light concering Pat Tillman's death in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan last April. Two things came to mind while reading the article. Firstly, I couldn't help but think how different the Armed Forces would be if there were more Pat Tillman's serving: a soldier/poet spirit with the relative luxury of age (he was 27). Secondly, the Army when given a choice between itself and its soldiers, always covers its own ass. # § News
The Lonestart Iconoclast, Bush's hometown paper, endorses John Kerry for president. I'm not sure how many papers Crawford, Texas actually has, but I was gobsmacked that their editorial board had the guts to print this in Bush country. Their arguments about why this president does not deserve a second term are lucid, cogent and rational, with none of the rhetorical histerics reminiscent of the Bush campaign's stump speeches. Let's hope there are enough Republicans of conscience who see this endorsement as a reasonable assessment of the sitting president. # § News, Politics
The first Kerry campaign speech that made me think he might actually win. # § News, People, Politics
Democracy via Hellfire: A harrowing first person account of a purportedly unprovoked Apache Helicopter rocket attack on Iraqi civilians. The pictures are graphic. # § News
Your right to dissent:The 2004 election is becoming a referendum on your right to hold the president accountable. If the President were a CEO of a fortune 500 company (remember he touted himself as the first CEO president), he would have been replaced a long time ago for poor performance on his mishandling of the economy, the war on terror(ism) and just about every other major domestic issue. His standing in the polls reinforces my belief that the United States leads the world in cognitive dissonance. # § News