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AP - For years, former Vice President Al Gore and a host of climate scientists were belittled and, worst of all, ignored for their message about how dire global warming is. On Friday, they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their warnings about what Gore calls "a planetary emergency."
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Earlier this year I showed off a new geegaw for my websites, <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/03/19/fiddling_while/">first at Rad Geek People’s Daily</a>, and <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/04/01/humanitarian_interventions/">then at Feminist Blogs</a>. That’s the <q><a href="http://www.humanized.com/weblog/2006/04/25/no_more_more_pages/">Humanized History</a></q> feature that provides the magic endless scrollbars for Geekery Today and Feminist blogs. I used some WordPress template kludges and a bit of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtrusive_JavaScript">unobtrusive JavaScript</a> to magically fetch older posts for you as you get close to the end of the current page, thus allowing you to keep on scrolling as far back as you want to scroll, without having to stop and click through on <q>older posts</q> / <q>newer posts</q> page links.</p> <p>The way I implemented the feature, at first, was through some ugly spit-and-bailing wire kludges in the WordPress templates, which would be messy and complicated to replicate elsewhere, and which would fall apart if one ever switched to a different theme from the one they were currently using.</p> <p>But I’m happy to announce that if you have a WordPress weblog, you, too, can now add a Humanized History magic scroller, with only minimal spit and bailing wire. I’ve packaged as much of the magic as I can into a new WordPress plugin, which I’ve unimaginatively dubbed <q><a href="http://projects.radgeek.com/humanized-history-for-wordpress/">Humanized History for WordPress</a>,</q> and which is now available for download <a href="http://projects.radgeek.com/humanized-history-for-wordpress/">through my projects website</a>.</p> <p>The plugin does still require some minimal template hacking, due to unavoidable limitations in WordPress, but the hacking you’ll have to d is nice and contained, and if you’re unfamiliar with WordPress templates, you just follow the step-by-step copy-and-paste instructions provided in the documentation. You should also feel free to <a href="http://radgeek.com/contact">contact me</a> if anything is unclear or not working properly for you.</p> <p>Enjoy, and scroll on!</p> </div> </content>
I awoke this morning to one of the best radio interviews I have heard in a very long time. K-OS, the Canadian hip-hop artist otherwise known as Kevin Brereton, was the guest host of The Current on CBC Radio. The theme of the show was "The Future of Music", with discussion ranging from Radiohead's online gambit, to celebrity trainwrecks.
The highlight, however, was certainly the interview with Dr. Cornel West.
Having just released a new album, West joined K-OS to discuss his new album, hip-hop as "edutainment", how Kanye West wastes his obvious talent, and why Barack Obama isn't "black enough" for some of his critics.
Listen to the show over at CBC Radio.
Reuters - The winning of the Nobel Peace Prize by Al Gore and the U.N. climate panel on Friday should give a push to alternative energy technologies that are already enjoying their best year ever, experts said.
Reuters - Former U.S. Vice
President Al Gore, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday,
said he was getting straight back to work on the "planetary
emergency" of climate change.
AFP - Former US vice-president Al Gore vowed to use his Nobel Peace Prize to step up awareness of climate change on Friday but ducked questions about a possible bid for the White House.
AFP - US former vice president Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize has highlighted the urgency of tackling climate change, but experts are divided over whether it will spur Americans to mend their energy-unfriendly ways.
AP - What does global warming have to do with global peace? The globe may find out sooner than we think, experts say.
AFP - Former US vice president Al Gore on Friday described climate change as a "planetary emergency" and vowed to use his Nobel Peace Prize to accelerate awareness of the issue.
AP - Plenty of people share the glory of the Nobel Peace Prize — thousands of scientists have been studying and documenting climate change under a U.N. body set up in 1988 as concerns grew about global warming. And they hope the award will help — or prod — governments to do more to curb global warming or avert disasters on the scale of a Hurricane Katrina or the deadly effects of the 2003 heat wave that killed up to 35,000 people in Europe.
Chess analogies are overdone, but chess is a good way to explain the narrative fallacy--the tendency of humans to be able to explain things in hindsight much better than understand them as they unfold. So I'll explain in <span style="font-weight: bold;">hindsight</span> how two current events led to our bombing Iran:<br /><br />Trying to invade and hold Iran is a fool's errand. OK, so was bombing Iran, but it seems that the we didn't understand that at the time. Rather, we opted for a strategy of bombing key sites, and holding and occupying a few other key areas (Khuzestan, Bandar-e-Abbas, etc.), without attempting to occupy the entire country. In order to do that, we needed to address a force problem: all of our ground forces were tied up on the ground in Iraq. Specifically, the US Marines, the force most capable of larger expeditionary actions, was spread thin in a counter insurgency and peacekeeping role. We needed to make a significant chunk of Marine Corps manpower available for use against Iran. The problem was that the American people (before that rather effective PR blitz and those statements by Hillary) were quite opposed to attacking Iran. We couldn't just pull back an entire expeditionary force into a staging area in some Gulf Emirate airbase without raising several red flags. And anything originating out of the Vice President's office would look suspect, as well. BUT, if we got the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/washington/11military.html?_r=1&amp;hp&amp;oref=slogin">Commandant of the Marine Corps to say that the Marines are meant to operate in an expeditionary role, and that they should leave Iraq and go to Afghanistan</a>, that would have exactly the same effect, but seem quite legitimate. Suddenly, the Marines would be nicely staged for aerial redeployment within theater when they would be unexpectedly re-tasked (from their trans-shipment point conveniently near Bandar-e-Abbas) before they were actually spread thin on the ground in Afghanistan. It's easy to explain these kind of set-up moves on the chess board eight moves later, but understanding how today's move is intended to set up an attack eight moves down the road is much more difficult.<br /><br />Of course, we needed more than just ready-to-deploy Marines. There was that sticky issue of American public opinion that was, at the time, against attacking Iran. Discussions of their nuclear ambitions were too speculative after the WMD debacle, we needed something more tangible. We had been issuing press releases to everyone who would listen that Iran was supplying the weaponry used by Shi'a insurgents against our forces in Iraq for months, but it really hadn't galvanized American behind attacking Iran. However, sometimes your enemy is your friend. The insurgency in Iraq had been operating under a model of open-source innovation for quite some time. They had tried many indirect fire attacks against US bases with mortars and rockets, and on occasion had minor success. It was natural to expect them to learn and improve over time. But this time, their tactical improvements (combined with a re-entry of certain Shi'a militias into a more active role) allowed us to point the finger at Iran. Beginning with the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101100172.html?hpid=topnews">relatively minor but accurate attack on Camp Victory that killed 2 and injured 40</a>, and escalating into the string of more deadly attacks that followed, we were able to spin this increase in accuracy to point the finger not at the expected improvements of an open-source enemy, but as a result of training and improved guidance systems and munitions provided directly by Iran. It was surprising, even to the most cynical among us, how quickly the American people rallied around the flag. <br /><br />The rest, as the saying goes, is history...</content>
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to build awareness about human-induced climate change. Gore and the IPCC, a body of climate scientists, will each receive about $1.5 million.
This blog is generally restricted to political posts, and I mostly try to avoid posting really random shit. But, I do have a random category, and every now and then I see something that demands posting.
It might be the fact that it’s 3:25am, and I haven’t had much sleep lately, but this video is amazing. Go watch it now.
AFP - The Nobel Peace Prize should add a "sense of urgency" to the fight against global warming, the head of the world's top scientific body on climate change, which shared the award, said on Friday.
You can always guarantee that the posties will show each other a refreshing display of solidarity. And more than that, you can expect to see a bit of independence of spirit. They don't just strike because the head of the...
Vicente Fox disrupted in NYC by questions about Oaxaca and Brad Will<br />http://elenemigocomun.net/1279<br /><br />A book signing at Barnes and Noble turned tense when audience members <br />asked about Brad Will…<br /><br />October 10th, 2007 - Friend of Brad Will writes: Former Mexican <br />President Vicente Fox faced a skeptical, if not hostile crowd on <br />October 9th during what was supposed to be a tame and uneventful book <br />signing event at Barnes and Noble in New York City's Union Square <br />park neighborhood. In town to shill for his new tome, "Revolution of <br />Hope", Fox has lept upon the Bush bashing parade full bore, joining <br />the ranks of Alan Greenspan and others who were in positions of power <br />to speak out loudly against world wrecking policies, but chose to <br />wait until out of office and on the writing circuit to cash in on the <br />now almost universal disdain for America's leader. Such is the <br />courage of this ill begotten ilk.<br /><br />Vicente Fox sounded like a stilted Mitt Romney, and of the same tall <br />height, or some such christo-fascist with his wanting to "thank god, <br />publicly" numerous times. Fox further enlightened the unimpressed <br />crowd of over 150 with snippets like, "Information is important," and <br />that the first Spaniards on these continents "came through Ellis <br />Island" while calling the Barnes and Noble mega chain bookstore a <br />"library", more than once.<br /><br />Fox did not actually read from his book, completed with the support <br />of a ghost writer. Fox was spoon fed questions written by audience <br />members and placed in a fishbowl, at the heavily policed event. Fox <br />is regularly confronted with dozens of demonstrators, whether in the <br />States, or in Mexico, and the same was expected in New York. Most <br />recently, he faces corruption charges and allegations of illicit <br />gain, bolstered by tabloid photo spreads of his grandiose and <br />recently renovated mansions.<br /><br />Two questions were read aloud by the droning public relations flak of <br />Barbes and Noble and Fox stated that his heroes included Ghandi. An <br />audience member then inquired loudly to Fox whether he though that <br />Ghandi would have sent in thousands of soldiers to squash dissent and <br />allow the murder and disappearances of the Oaxacan people while he <br />was President. The audience member, part of an organized group <br />affiliated with Friends of Brad Will, a nation-wide brand of <br />activists, also asked him to comment on the murder of Brad Will, and <br />how it could be that the federal authorities under his purview at the <br />time could not identify or arrest anyone in connection to that crime.<br /><br />Security closed in from all directions, ala the Kerry scene in <br />Florida, while the questioner remained seated. Fox, to his credit, or <br />that of pr handlers who have prepped all world "leaders" for similar <br />circumstances in light of Kerry's embarrassing and cowardly inaction <br />while a questioner was tased, said aloud that this is still a free <br />country and that people have a right to speak and the audience <br />erupted in applause and the goons backed off.<br /><br />The Barnes and Noble people wanted to continue with the softball <br />fishbowl screened questions when another audience member said he too <br />was a friend of Brad Will, who was loving and compassionate as the <br />peaceful people Fox had just indicated, and please answer the <br />questions. The PR flak zipped through two more silly inquiries which <br />Fox just answered with one line each and then she called the event <br />over. Fox insisted on answering the points made from the audience, to <br />get himself off the hook in front of the Spanish speaking media in <br />attendance and stated that what happened in Oaxaca was a local <br />matter, and as President he couldn't do anything about it. This <br />despite first stating that he gave the teacher's union all that they <br />demanded until the ouster of corrupt Governor's Ruiz became a demand.<br /><br />His lies continued on for a bit, and when he finished another <br />audience member asked why then did he send federal troops to tear gas <br />and shoot and arrest hundreds of people, and why did he not launch a <br />federal investigation and handling of the inquiry into the murder of <br />Brad Will. Security swarmed the audience members who were in three <br />different sections of the seating area while all the cameras and <br />photographers turned to the activists and audience members piqued by <br />so paltry and pathetic a performance by Fox. Most of the questioners <br />left, while one was grabbed and carried down the stairs and pushed <br />through the front door, breaking a window. Meanwhile, the first on <br />many media interviews highlighting the situation in Oaxaca and Brad <br />Will occurred just feet from where Fox was still trying to sign some <br />of his pawning books, before security and police could muster another <br />push out the door. Hundreds of fliers were distributed in the event <br />and in the store and outside featuring friendsofbradwill.org and <br />bradwill.org.<br /><br />This month will mark an entire year since Brad was killed and the <br />Oaxacan uprising was violently, if temporarily suppressed.<br /><br />Check the websites and do what you can, from NYC, to DC, to <br />Cincinnati to Oaxaca and beyond.<br /><br />source: http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2007/10/91737.shtml</content>
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p class="linkroll">(Via <a rel="via" href="http://brownfemipower.com/?p=1880">Women of Color Blog 2007-10-07</a> and <a rel="via" href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/016020.html">Anthony Gregory @ LewRockwell.com Blog 2007-10-10</a>.)</p> <p>Cops in America are heavily armed and trained to be bullies, and they routinely hurt people who are not posing any serious threat to anyone, in order to make sure that they <q>stay in control of the situation</q>. They have no trouble electrifying <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2004/11/14/civil_defense" title="GT 2004-11-14: Civil defense">small children</a>, <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/05/05/peace_officers" title="GT 2005-05-05: Peace Officers, redux">alleged salad-bar thieves</a>, <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/06/30/bolts_from">pregnant women possibly guilty of a minor traffic violation</a>, or <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2006/11/16/law_and/">students who may have been guilty of using the computer lab without proper papers—<em>while they are already lying helpless on the ground</em></a>. They are willing to <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/09/27/new_york/">pepper spray lawyers for asking inconvenient questions</a> and to <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/10/02/public_schooling/">beat up 15 year old girls for daring to give them lip over whether to clean up spilled cake</a>. They routinely use intimidation, threats, and violence whenever they get tired enough of being talked back to and if their bellowed orders are no longer sufficient to end an argument—even without any plausible reason whatsoever for fearing any physical threat to themselves or others. When they are caught in the act police administrators will wring their hands, make up some lies to try to excuse the assault, promise an investigation, find that Official Procedures were followed, and then do nothing at all; meanwhile a chorus of sado-fascists can be counted on to cheer the pigs and smear the victim in print media, talk shows, and the Internet. Both administrators and freelance sycophants freely employ the most tortured sorts of <q>necessity</q> excuses, in what seems to be a deliberate effort to obliterate any notion of restraints on the use of force in securing police objectives.</p> <p><a href="http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2007/oct/08/fort-pierc-police-conduct-internal-investigation-o/">In Fort Pierce, Florida, a white male cop named Dan Gilroy recently stopped a 15 year old black girl named Shelwanda Riley</a>, and then placed her under arrest, for walking outside at 1:50 in the morning. (City ordinances forbid anyone under 18 from being on city streets without an adult minder between 11:00pm and 6:00am.) Here is the police video of Gilroy twisting her arm, telling her that he is going to hurt her to make her comply, wrenching her arm behind her back, punching her in the face, and then pepper-spraying her right after that, just for good measure.</p> <div class="figure"> <object width="425" height="350" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" class="figure" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/6hmmb4wI0Fw"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6hmmb4wI0Fw"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <p>In <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hmmb4wI0Fw">the video</a>, Riley starts crying and says she doesn’t want to go to jail. The officer repeatedly shouts at her not to resist while he tries to force her arms behind her back. When he threatens to <q>use force</q> and then wrenches the arm he’s holding behind her back, she bites him. He immediately punches her in the face, then, after waiting a second, pepper-sprays her in the face. He then finishes handcuffing her and leads her away as she cries that she can’t breathe.</p> </object> </div> <p>Note that after he shoved her into the car, this grown man later proceeded to charge the 15 year old girl that he forced down, beat up, and pepper-sprayed, with felony battery. <a href="http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2007/oct/08/fort-pierc-police-conduct-internal-investigation-o/">The Authorities at the police department are Investigating</a>, but Gilroy is still on active duty, and the local police chief, Sean Baldwin, says that <q>Initial review of the incident concluded that the police officer acted legally and within bounds.</q></p> <p>For the time being, I want to set aside the obvious, stupid tyranny of the law that Dan Gilroy was so diligently trying to enforce. City governments have no business at all keeping tabs on where or when teenagers happen to be out, and cops have no business enforcing laws that city governments have no business making. But <em>even if they did</em>, this kind of thuggery from the police would still be inexcusable.</p> <p>The sado-fascist police enablers will, no doubt, mutter something about The Law and about keeping public order. They will no doubt point out the fact that the girl was <q>resisting arrest</q> by not submitting to the cop’s bellowed orders to let him handcuff her. They will no doubt point out the fact that, after he told her he was going to hurt her and then <em>wrenched her arm behind her back</em>, she bit at his wrist. They will no doubt claim that a grown man punching a 15-year-old girl in the face and then pepper-spraying her <em>after</em> he had punched her, in spite of the fact that she had done nothing else at that point to indicate that she posed any further threat, was necessary for the officer to successfully complete the arrest. But suppose that this were all true. Then <em>so what?</em></p> <p>Even supposing that this cop had any kind of business arresting Shelwanda Riley, <em>so what</em> if he could not complete the arrest without doing these things? So what if he would otherwise have had to stand around waiting until she was willing to submit to arrest, or if he would otherwise have had to give up and let her get away when it became clear that beating her up was the only way to get her cuffed, or if he would have had to let go and back off in order to avoid getting hit by her or bit by her or whatever the hell it is he was so worked up about? So what if she even—perish the thought!—happened to get away from him?</p> <p>Even if you <em>have</em> a right to do something, that does not mean that you have the right to do it <em>by any means necessary</em>; sometimes there’s no way that you can get it done without using a levels of force that are <em>disproportionate</em> to the case, and in that case you simply have to give up on it; even if you were in the right, using force beyond what’s proportional to the situation turns you into a criminal and turns your enforcement into nothing more than an assault. If the cops cruising around our city streets think that the violence Dan Gilroy used here is worthwhile and <q>within bounds</q> of the proportional use of force — beating up teenaged girls and hurting them with pepper-spray just to make sure they don’t <em>get away</em> with the dreadful crime of <em>wandering around outside too late at night</em>, then that may tell you all that you need to know about the institutional culture of policing in America today. </p> </div> </content>
"More than 2,000 criminal suspects died in police custody over a three-year period, half of them killed by officers as they scuffled or attempted to flee, the government said Thursday." (<a href="http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/National/Police_Killings.html">link</a>)</content>
A Chicago court has condemned the Chicago Parks District for the destruction of a public art installation in one of its parks. Wildflower Works was a 1.5 acre field of wildflowers created in 1984 by artist Chapman Kelley in Chicago’s Grant Park . Kelley described the garden as a painting in the summer when in bloom and a sculpture in the winter. Chapman Kelley, along with friends and supporters, maintained the installation over the years with their own time and resources. In 2004 the Parks District, without consulting Kelley, reduced it by half and surrounded it with a knee-high hedge and closely cropped lawn.
Kelley, who was 71 at the time, sued under the Federal Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), legislation created in 1990 to protect public art. VERA requires that artists be notified at least 90 days before public art is altered, removed or destroyed. Kelley was given only a few days notice, not enough time to take legal action or remove the flowers himself. The court valued the art work at $1.5 million.
The decision comes in the midst of a municipal battle to save Grant Park and Bicentennial Plaza from bulldozers and redevelopment. A consortium of private interests have proposed a new 100,000 square foot museum to built in the plaza.
The Park was created in Chicago’s downtown on the shoreline of Lake Michigan as a permanent green space in 1836. Chicago residents enjoy less greenspace per capita than any of the other 10 largest cities in the U.S.
For more information about the fight to save Grant Park go here.
Accompanying photo by Chapman Kelley.
I’m feeling pretty down about my classes this week. Last week was the nationwide holiday, and i felt like i made some progress. Instead of going out travelling to touristy destinations with my classmates, i decided to hit the books. Spending several hours per day with my nose to the grindstone, i felt good each day because it seemed like i had measurable progress. I reviewed the lessons from the previous book and reminded my self of several important concepts, and also worked ahead and learned some new words.
This week i’ve been back at class for a few days now and i just keep feeling worse. 1 class is great, 2 are sometimes tolerable, and 1 sucks ass. It feels like my weaknesses aren’t being addressed by the classes, and most of the things i learn could be better learned on my own doing some rigourous self-study rather than plodding along slowly in the class.
I guess this brings me back to my former conclusion: i need to find more ways to practice speaking and listening with native speakers instead of just pissing around in the same old tired phrases and structures with my classmates. Except that my current interactions with native speakers are also frustrating since they don’t seem to actually help me with anything unless i constantly pester them about it. I need someone with a knack for teaching, really. At least my chinese friends are getting plenty of help from me with their english skills…i feel quite confident analyzing their speech and helping them understand the correct way to say things. I just have to discover the right things to ask them to try and squeeze some equivalent assistance out of them.
In my current frustrated mood, i can’t help but think that i’ll be able to learn more back in vancouver because i’ll be able to easily meet many native speakers by finding the chinese exchange students at the university and showing them around town. Then i at least have something in common with them. Here, i have very few ways to meet university students with whom i have something in common because all my classmates are other foreign students. It seems like the only way to meet people is to go to clubs or something (which i detest). This seems to be the big weak point in my language learning plan….how to meet more people when i really can’t understand a native-speed conversation and can’t say any of the ideas that i think make me interesting to talk to.
blah. maybe things’ll seem better next week.
Ride hard, ride free
Set Power Free There is the well known phrase, 'knowledge is power' and I believe it is true. There are many sh*t things going on all over the world, many causes that need fighting. But how is it when around 1 billion people on the planet starve, around 1 billion suffer from disorders of over-eating. This is a wrong balance. Global warming threatens our (and many other species) existence and
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Today’s lesson comes to us (thanks to <a href="http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=2414">Feminist Law Professors</a>) from <a href="http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2524635.html">a recent trend-story from Ananova on gun stores’ efforts to draw women in as customers</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Firearms shops in the US are stocking pink rifles and shotguns to encourage girls to get into shooting.</p> <p>A report in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel says the Gander Mountain hunting store in Waukesha stocks several pink guns.</p> <p>They include a Remington 20-gauge shotgun with a pink and black stock emblazoned with the slogan: <q>Shoot like a girl if you can!</q></p> <p>Store manager Chris Hanson said the guns were aimed, so to speak, at girls and women interested in hunting.</p> <p>He said the shotgun, and a Crickett rifle with a bright pink stock, were both selling well.</p> <p>In Baraboo, Jim Astle, owner of Jim’s Gun Supply in Baraboo, has been coating guns in pink and other colours for four years. His 12-year-old daughter owns a pink camouflage shotgun.</p> <p><q>Females want to shoot guns, but they want them to look pretty, too,</q> he said. <q>Guys could give a rat’s butt what their gun looks like.</q></p> </blockquote> <p>Now, if it were true that <q>guys</q> emphatically don’t care what their gun looks like, then you would expect that a <q>guy</q> would be just as happy to carry a gun that looks like this:</p> <div class="figure"> <img src="http://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/ar15-pink.jpg" alt="an AR-15 assault rifle painted pink"> </div> <p>… as he would a gun that looks like this:</p> <div class="figure"> <img src="http://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/ar15-black.jpg" alt="an black AR-15 assault rifle"> </div> <p>I encourage you to give any gun-loving male that you happen to know the choice between the two, and see whether he is really indifferent to how his gun looks.</p> <p>Most men actually have very strong preferences respecting fashion, appearance, color, and so on. Male society enforces these preferences as prevailing norms for masculinity, vigorously and often <a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2001/12/10/gender_terrorism/">violently</a>. Anyone who pays a few second’s worth of attention to branding in pop culture can find this out, if he or she did not already know it. But because men and their preferences are treated as the default case, especially when it comes to echt-male pursuits such as shooting, these strong preferences are rendered invisible, whereas women’s are marked out for special observation and remark. This has the further effect of allowing men to pose as especially pragmatic, as if they are coolly unconcerned with pursuits and preferences that they characterize as both feminine and frivolous. Even though, in fact, they have similar pursuits and similar preferences with which they are no less concerned.</p> </div> </content>
I've just registered with Flickr! Here's my profile, and I'll be uploading some neat pictures. So stick around! ;-)
http://www.flickr.com/people/14836631@N04/
I had a sappy, treacley, saccharine blog entry here about love and how I thought I'd found it again... but instead I'm posting this dry, bitter, blistering tribute to Jerry Fallwell from Christopher Hitchens. If you haven't seen this yet, you'll thank me for it... I hope...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=52yTqMcwuQE
And just because it's the only thing I'm intimate with at the moment, I'll regale you with tales from law school. In the same way that the U.N. lost its illusion of grandeur for me when I discovered that they put the World Bank and IMF in charge of both social and economic reform goals in Mexico and other countries, I have also lost the illusion that the U.S. Supreme Court was an honorable, wise, reflective and philosophical body of thinkers. As I read their opinions over the last 200 years, I get a picture of very flawed and insecure, but also shrewd and ambitious political operators. At times they snatch power surreptitiously by merely mentioning it in an opinion about another issue entirely like Marbury v. Madison. Other times they grant unprecedented power to the other branches, based on reasoning that leaves my professor dumbfounded, like in U.S. v. Lopez and Gonzales v. Raich. He described the court by using the metaphor of a trained puppy, with Congress as the Master. I agree... when nobody's looking, it chews up the Master's new leather shoes. But its good having a puppy around... it makes the kids happy... so the Master can't take it out the back and shoot it. And sometimes it goes and fetches the paper... and its so cute when the justices sit at the Master's feet and look up adoringly at them...
Ok, maybe its not that bad, but it's a helluva lot worse than I thought it was. If this is supposed to be a triangle of powers balancing each other, the judicial corner is threatening the others with a wet noodle.
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_5qpsZbQZy5Q/Rw1DR1R-70I/AAAAAAAAALA/zBR8ESGmdaI/s1600-h/Che.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_5qpsZbQZy5Q/Rw1DR1R-70I/AAAAAAAAALA/zBR8ESGmdaI/s320/Che.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5119822325029465922" border="0" /></a>About twenty people gathered in <a href="http://www.liverpoolsocialcentre.org/">Next To Nowhere</a> on the 40th anniversary of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara">Ernesto 'Che' Guevara</a>'s murder/execution, to try and discover 'the man behind the t-shirt'.<br /><br />The evening commenced with a showing of 2004's <a href="http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0318462/">The Motorcycle Diaries</a>, a film which follows the very young Ernesto on a journey through South America in the 1950s. It shows him as a doctor rather than a revolutionary, but illustrates the dawning of his consciousness that South American people were being oppressed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism">imperialist</a> powers.<br /><br />Then we saw an hour-long documentary about Guevara, which took in his whole life, from his birth into a relatively wealthy family to his death at the hands of the CIA-backed Bolivian army. Though the feature was far too short to go into much depth, and contained such bland pronouncements as 'Che was a mystic. Che was a visionary', it was good to see the man actually moving and talking for once, as opposed to the 2D icon that everybody knows.<br /><br />After that, we finished off with some drinks, whilst informally discussing the impact that Guevara made on the world (and vice versa). Debate centred on the appropriateness of violence as a revolutionary strategy (until I had to leave and catch my train!), and though nothing was resolved, everyone went home having had their preconceptions and ideas challenged.</content>
A lot of artists I know have great ideas for videogames, but no programming skills. A lot of videogame makers I know wish there was more creativity and innovation happening in the field, but don’t know how best to foster it. I started the Artsy Games Incubator to try to address both issues.
We just had our first prototype set of sessions, with four of us meeting once a week for four weeks, and I kept notes. Using point-and-click game creation tools we made games and game elements for the sessions and invited feedback and discussion from the other members. It’s based on the writer’s-circle model that I’ve also used for movie making, but I wasn’t sure it’d work for games — but when the other members were playing and talking about my game Space Invader I was getting feedback as useful as I did with those other groups.
There’s going to be another iteration, so whether you’re a Toronto artist looking to get into the next group in January or an interested party who would like to get involved in some other way (Metanet and Queasy sponsorship are what made starting this possible), read more about it here.
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>I’m pleased to announce that <a href="http://fair-use.org/benjamin-tucker/instead-of-a-book/land-and-rent">Part III</a> of Benjamin Tucker’s <a href="http://fair-use.org/benjamin-tucker/instead-of-a-book/"><cite class="book">Instead of a Book</cite></a> is <a href="http://blog.fair-use.org/2007/10/09/part-iii-of-benjamin-tuckers-instead-of-a-book-on-land-and-rent-is-now-available-in-full/">now available in full in the Fair Use Repository’s online edition</a>. The section, entitled <a href="http://fair-use.org/benjamin-tucker/instead-of-a-book/land-and-rent"><cite class="article">Land and Rent</cite></a>, may just as well have been called <cite class="article">Tucker Against the Georgists</cite>, without much distortion of the contents. (There are some good exchanges toward the front that cover basic principles and make the case for an occupancy-and-use standard for land tenure. After that, the rest is occupied with piling on Henry George and some long debates with defenders of the Georgist theory.)</p> <p>Read, cite, and enjoy!</p> </div> </content>
<div style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/18347350@N00/1484702252" title="View 'Collected Sun' on Flickr.com"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1434/1484702252_93a5c98cc4.jpg" alt="Collected Sun" border="0" width="431" height="288" /></a><p>Northern Sea Oats in my garden.</p></div><br /><br />It seems that fall may finally be arriving with a bit of cool weather. As I write this 95% of our trees are still very green. It's October 10th and we're just beginning to see fall color. The past few weeks have seen most days into the low 90s or upper 80s. Scary.<br /><br />Like much of the midwest and southeast we've had a summer of severe drought so I'm doubtful that we'll have as much color as we've had in other years.<br /><br /><!-- Technorati Tags Start --><br /><p>Technorati Tags:<br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Climate%20Change" rel="tag">Climate Change</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Ecology" rel="tag">Ecology</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Environment" rel="tag">Environment</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Gardening" rel="tag">Gardening</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Global%20Warming" rel="tag">Global Warming</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Natural" rel="tag">Natural</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Photography" rel="tag">Photography</a><br /></p><br /><!-- Technorati Tags End --></content>
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_5qpsZbQZy5Q/Rw0D7VR-7zI/AAAAAAAAAK4/Aqt4FXBUPkQ/s1600-h/_44167501_post_bbc203b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_5qpsZbQZy5Q/Rw0D7VR-7zI/AAAAAAAAAK4/Aqt4FXBUPkQ/s320/_44167501_post_bbc203b.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5119752669249859378" /></a>Though the latest round of official strikes sanctioned by the Communication Workers Union came to an end at 03:00 this morning, many postal workers are defying their leaders, and are staying out.<br /><br />In Liverpool, the unofficial stoppages started at district offices, and spread to the main sorting office at Copperas Hill. Locally, there were similar scenes reported in West Lancashire and Wirral, as well as London and Glasgow.<br /><br />Workers coming off strike were hit with the news that Royal Mail is forcing through changes to working practices, preventing posties from starting work before 0600 BST and leaving before 1415 BST, even if they have completed their rounds. <br /><br />"The current Royal Mail management introduced this concept of flexibility when they were appointed," complained David Wall, a worker at the Walton office.<br /><br />"Now, they are taking it away, claiming it is because they need to modernise and save money, yet there is no sign that their bonuses have been cut."<br /><br />The wildcat strikes show that posties are refusing to be pushed around by either the fat cat Royal Mail bosses or the bureaucrats who run the CWU. <br /><br />The union's general secretary Billy Hayes <a href="http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/379330.html">accepts privatisation, supports New Labour, and is refusing to unite postal workers from around Europe</a>, all of whom face similar 'modernisation'. By wildcatting today, posties are taking some of their power out of this parasite's hands.</content>
<p>Oleh : Red Lebel Zine</p> <p>Kita sering mengagung-agungkan dan meneriakan tentang kesetaraan,equality, persamaan, all human being are equal bla&#8230;bla&#8230;bla&#8230; Tapi aku ajak lagi SEMUA untuk mengingat kembali&#8230; Ajakan ini untuk semua, perempuan dan laki2&#8230;</p> <p>Apakah bisa disebut kesetaraan jika masih banyak perempuan yang mengambil keputusan dengan keputusan dari sang pacar?!? Contohnya “Elo minta izin dulu dong ke gw kalo mao pergi sama temen2 elo�, alih2 ‘kekhawatiran’ dari sang pacar&#8230;</p> <p>Apakah bisa disebut kesetaraan jika masih banyak cowok yang menuntut sang pacar untuk bersikap seperti apa yang diinginkannya?, misalnya “Elo jangan pake baju yang kaya gini lagi ah, mulai besok gw gak mao lagi liat elo pake paju kaya gini ya�, alih2 ‘rasa sayang’ dari sang pacar&#8230;</p> <p>Apakah bisa disebut kesetaraan jika masih banyak perempuan tidak boleh pergi atau melakukan sesuatu tanpa kesepakatan dari sang pacar?, misalnya “Gw gak ikutan kereuni yah, soalnya gak dizinin sama cowok gw, nanti dia marah�, alih2 ‘takut mengecewakan’ sang pacar&#8230;</p> </content>