June 09, 2006

Friday History Lesson For Y'all

I can attest to the accuracy of the video below, because I have a bunch of history degrees. It's the shit they don't tell you in school.

(It reminds me a lot of this famous site, which is also really funny.)

Via Pursuit.

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June 08, 2006

My E-Mail To Robert Redford

So you're totally not going to believe this, but I got an e-mail from Robert Redford, the famous actor!

Here is what it said:

Dear annika,

When President Bush took office in 2001, the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.47. Today the average price is $2.89 and itÂ’s much more in many places. This surge in gas prices has hit a nerve for many around the country, reminding us of an economy that is increasingly uncertain for the middle-class, a growing addiction to oil that draws us ever closer to dictators and despots, and a fragile global position with a climate that is increasingly out of balance.

It's time to rise to the challenge and Kick the Oil Habit.

Join me and thousands of others by taking action at www.KicktheOilHabit.org

We just launched a campaign to take on Big Oil companies and demand better energy solutions. Please take a moment to visit our site and watch our powerful video that shows how Big Oil and their backers in Washington are profiting while working Americans are paying more.

Our first action is to challenge oil companies to double the number of E85 ethanol fuel pumps at their stations within a year and pledge to offer renewable fuel at half of all gas stations within the decade.

Please join our effort and take action now: http://www.KicktheOilHabit.org

Thank you,

Robert Redford on behalf of the Kick the Oil Habit campaign.

I was so excited that I e-mailed him back right away!

more...

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John Kerry Declares "Mission Accomplished"

This is rich. I wonder if Kerry was wearing a flight suit when he wrote this.

Statement by John Kerry on the Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a brutal terrorist and his death strikes a blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq. This ruthless thug who abused the true meaning of Islam was an intruder on Iraqi soil and itÂ’s good news that heÂ’s dead. Our troops did an incredible job hunting him down and destroying him, and all of America is proud of their skill and commitment.

“With the end of al-Zarqawi and the confirmation of the final vital cabinet ministries in IraqÂ’s new government, itÂ’s another sign that itÂ’s time for Iraqis to stand up for Iraq, bring the factions together, end the insurgency, and run their own country. Our troops have done their job in Iraq, and theyÂ’ve done it valiantly. ItÂ’s time to work with the new Iraqi government to bring our combat troops home by the end of this year.” [emphasis added]

Time to declare victory and come home, eh? There was Caesar, Alexander, von Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Eisenhower, and now John F. Kerry: military genius.

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Death Of An Enemy

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Now that Al Zarqawi is getting fucked in the ass by his cellmates Pol Pot and Beria, I think we should celebrate the heroes who dropped the two 500 lb. JDAMs that killed him. Their victory is as historic at the one that occurred on April 17, 1943, also heralded as great news:

[A]s the mountains of Bougainville came into view [it was] 0934 when sharp-eyed Doug Canning called out "Bogeys, eleven o'clock. High." Mitchell couldn't believe it; there they were, right on schedule, exactly as planned. The Japanese planes appeared bright and new-looking to the pilots of the 339th. They jettisoned their drop tanks and bored in for the attack. Holmes and Hine had trouble with their tanks, only Barber and Lanphier of the killer group went after the Japanese bombers. All the other P-38s followed their instructions to fly cover.

. . . The Lightnings had waded into the Japanese flight, pouring forth their deadly streams of lead. In the manner of all aerial combat, the fight was brief, high-speed, and confused. . . .

. . . Both Lanphier and Barber claimed one bomber shot down over the jungles of Bougainville. Frank Holmes claimed another shot down over the water a few minutes later. From Japanese records and survivors, among them Admiral Ugaki, the following facts are certain. Only two Betty bombers were involved; Yamamoto's was shot down over Bougainville with no survivors; the second went into the ocean and Ugaki lived to tell about it. Shortly after the attack, a Japanese search party located the wreckage, including the Admiral's body, which they ceremonially cremated.

. . .

The pilots uneventfully flew back to Guadalcanal, where upon landing, the ground personnel greeted them gleefully, like a winning football team. While Lanphier and Barber briefly disagreed about the air battle, all was subsumed in the generally celebratory atmosphere. Lanphier later recalled enjoying his best meal of the war that night.

Link to the full history here.

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June 07, 2006

Most Horrible Thing On The Internets Ever

Victor sent me a link to the most horrible thing I've ever seen on the internets. This is way worse than the drunk dog fucking video, which at least was funny. No, this one is so horrible I almost want to cancel my internet service and never go online again. Cuz if that's what the internets have come to, if that's the kind of awfulness we are now able to witness at the click of a button -- I mean the kind of stuff that should have been burned, buried and forgotten, never to see the light of day ever again, where it will damage the eyes and ears and brains of millions of innocent unsuspecting people -- well then I think this whole internets thing has gone too far.

If you dare, click on this YouTube link. But I must warn you, It is shockingly baaad, and even Victor admitted that he was physically unable to watch the entire thing. I did, and I will forever be sorry.

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Wednesday Is Poetry Day: Ginsberg

As Tony noted, Saturday was Allen Ginsberg's birthday. There must be a Ginsberg bug going around because Strawman also suggested a poem by the great one. I can't abide his political stuff, but Ginsberg is a genuine literary icon, and a fearless poet. He's also an interesting guy to boot. Here is a perfect poem for today.


A Supermarket in California

      What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
      In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
      What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?

      I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
      I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
      I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
      We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

      Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in
an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
      (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
      Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.

      Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
      Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?


"Shopping for images," what artist can't identify with that line?

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June 06, 2006

Coolest Thing On The Internets Of The Day, Really

Now this is a special one. Pandora.com is a site that recommends songs based on objective similarities to the songs you input.

[W]e set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.
It seems a much more scientific than other internet "radio" sites that play songs based on broader categories or the buying habits of similar users whose tastes usually aren't that similar to mine.

I thought I'd try to stump it by entering the name of my favorite new musical discovery, April Verch. But the program passed my test with flying colors. Give it a whirl.

h/t to Jody.

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I Suck At My Own Game

Try your hand at Tuning Spork's version of the iPod Name That Tune meme I made up last Saturday.

His versions are here and here.

I couldn't get any of them.

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I Voted

So I voted today, proudly. While I was standing in line to get my newfangled, but not improved ballot, there was a girl in front of me wearing the standard avante garde uniform. Black hair, peasant dress, multicolored bohemian purse with buttons for obscure bands affixed to the strap. You know, dressed just the same as all the other non-conformists her age. It was her first time voting, so the elderly gentleman handing out ballots said, "congratulations."

I was curious about her party affiliation. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, since I used to look just like her, actually.* You can't judge a book by its cover. I want to know a person's politics before I judge them.

However, I had to stifle a snicker when the kindly gentleman handed her the ballot and announced, "Green." A bolder person than I might have said this:

Wow girl, I was almost hoping you'd surprise me. But alas you're "non-conformity" entirely conforms to my first impression of you. I just want to know something. Do you believe everything your professor tells you? Yah, the "cool" one who wants you to call him by his first name? It's okay. You might grow out of it someday. In the meantime keep voting Green. I'd much rather you waste your vote come November than have you vote Democrat, so thanks.
Luckily, I am not a bold person, so I continued on my merry way, and voted against 81 and 82. Perhaps I'm a little too unfair to this first time voter girl. She actually deserved her congratulations. She managed to drag her ass down to the polls, when 66% of her fellow Californians couldn't be bothered with it.
_______________

* Not today though. I wore a heather gray polo shirt, khaki capris, and spotless white Keds. Oh and RayBans. I looked so Republican as I walked down to my polling place, people must have thought I got lost on my way to Newport Beach.

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Bush Offers Nucular Technology To Iranians.

From AP:

VIENNA, Austria - A package of incentives presented Tuesday to Iran includes a provision for the United States to supply Tehran with some nuclear technology if it stops enriching uranium — a major concession by Washington, diplomats said.

The offer was part of a series of rewards offered to Tehran by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, according to the diplomats, who were familiar with the proposals and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were disclosing confidential details of the offer.

The package was agreed on last week by the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia — the five veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, in a bid to resolve the nuclear standoff with Iran.

So far, it appears AP is out there alone on this development. The New York Times reported earlier that the package contained a combination of carrots and sticks: the carrots including aircraft parts and the stick including travel restrictions.

Meanwhile, the Iranians are sending out positive signals.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana met Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Tehran to present the package, agreed by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

"The proposals had some positive steps in them and some ambiguities which should be removed," Larijani said after receiving the proposals. He did not elaborate on the "ambiguities".

"We hope, after we study the proposal in detail, we will have another round of talks and negotiations to achieve a balanced and logical conclusion," he said.

But are the Iranians merely stringing everybody along until they work out the bugs in their cascade process? Stay tuned.

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Ike's Message To Us

In this newsreel, General Eisenhower remembers D-Day with a message that applies equally well in 2006.

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June 05, 2006

All They Wanted Was Freedom

Seventeen years ago yesterday, the massacre happened.

More still photos here.

I'd say something about "lest we forget," but I know we already have forgotten. All they wanted was freedom.

h/t J.D.

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Peter Pumpkin The Spectacular Pumpkin, Episode 40

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June 03, 2006

iPod Name That Tune

Okay here's a fun idea I just came up with. I was inspired by Sheila's old "Guess the First Lines of Novels" game, which is a lot of fun to look at, even though the game is long over.

Then I thought about my Friday iPod post. How boring is it to just post the songs, hoping you'll think I'm cool and all eclectic and shit. Why not give my readers a chance to show how cool you are.

So here's the opening four lines from ten random songs off my iPod. Some of them should be easy, and some will probably be impossible. You could google the lyrics, but I don't know how you'd sleep at night if you did so. Anyways, if you do google, don't post the answer because someone else might want to guess.

There are no prizes in this game, just good karma.

Can you guess the title and the artist? Green means somebody got it. Good luck!

  1. We took a walk that night, but it wasn't the same
    We had a fight on the promenade out in the rain
    She said she loved me, but she had somewhere to go
    She couldn't scream while I held her close

  2. when a man is running from his boss
    Who holds a gun that fires Â’costÂ’
    And people die from being cold
    Or left alone because theyÂ’re old

  3. Well they're still racing out at the trestles
    But that blood it never burned in her veins
    Now I hear she's got a house up in Fairview
    And a style she's trying to maintain

  4. If I listened long enough to you
    I'd find a way to believe that its all true
    Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried
    Still I look to find a reason to believe

  5. There is freedom within, there is freedom without
    Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup
    ThereÂ’s a battle ahead, many battles are lost
    But youÂ’ll never see the end of the road while youÂ’re travelling with me

  6. Love, look at the two of us
    Strangers in many ways
    WeÂ’ve got a lifetime to share
    So much to say and as we go on from day to day

  7. Well, take me back down where cool water flows, yeah.
    Let me remember things I love,
    StoppinÂ’ at the log where catfish bite,
    WalkinÂ’ along the river road at night,

  8. on a cobweb afternoon
    in a room full of emptiness
    by a freeway i confess
    i was lost in the pages

  9. Oh I have been out searching with the black book in my hand
    And I've looked between the lines that lie on the pages that I tread
    I met the walking dude, religious, in his worn down cowboy boots
    He walked liked no man on earth I swear he had no name

  10. he bought a sterilized hypo
    to shoot a sex machine drug
    he got 24 hours
    to shoot all paulenes between the legs
In other news, coming in July: the return of annika's journal Jeopardy. Bigger and badder than ever. Consider this a warm-up.

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Worthwhile Reading

Much as I hate to link to the New York Times, occasionally they print something that's worth a recommendation. Here's a background story on the internal White House discussions that preceded our latest overture to Iran. It's most notable for illustrating the incredible regard President Bush has for Condoleezza Rice's advice.

[T]he story of how a president who rarely changes his mind did so in this case — after refusing similar proposals on Iran four years ago — illustrates the changed dynamic between the State Department and the White House in Mr. Bush's second term. When Colin L. Powell was secretary of state, the two buildings often seemed at war. But 18 months after Ms. Rice took over, her relationship with Mr. Bush has led to policies that one former adviser to Ms. Rice and Mr. Bush said "he never would have allowed Colin to pursue."

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The Most Amazing Thing You've Ever Seen

On Yahoo! Answers, somebody asked the question: "What is the most amazing sight you have ever seen?" Lots of people mentioned either the birth of a child or some astronomical phenomenon. It's interesting that a fair number of answers involved marine mammals, including my own answer:

i went whale watching and saw a blue whale, that was amazing. but the most amazing thing happend later that day when our boat got caught in a gigantic school of dolphins. seriously there were like thousands of dolphins jumping for like miles around our boat. i'll never forget that.
I'm curious, what is the most amazing thing you ever saw?

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Terrorist Cell In Toronto

In case you've been in a cave, here's the latest news on a terrorist cell arrested by the anti-terrorism squad of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

A counterterrorism sweep Friday resulted in the largest arrest ever made by the nation's anti-terrorism forces and raised, for the first time, the spectre of homegrown terrorists striking Canadians from within our borders.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell announced the arrest of 12 Ontario men who were to appear in court later Saturday in Brampton, west of Toronto. The men ranged in age from 19 to 43, and are residents of Toronto, Mississauga and Kingston.

. . .

Media reports Saturday alleged that the suspects engaged in terror training camps north of Toronto. It was further alleged that the group was plotting to attack targets in Toronto, including the headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

. . .

Police have recovered three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the raids. Commissioner McDonell noted that this amount was three times the amount used by Timothy McVeigh to destroy the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

[from Globe and Mail]

Certainly the most disturbing aspect of this story, and one that will probably be ignored by the evil right wing bloggers, is that the Canadian intelligence services were apparently snooping on these suspected terrorists' private websites!

The chain of events began two years ago, sparked by local teenagers roving through Internet sites, reading and espousing anti-Western sentiments and vowing to attack at home, in the name of oppressed Muslims here and abroad.

Their words were sometimes encrypted, the Internet sites where they communicated allegedly restricted by passwords, but Canadian spies back in 2004 were reading them. And as the youths' words turned into actions, they began watching them.

This is a clear violation of terrorist rights, and it certainly makes me glad to live in America where such domestic surveillance, while still possible, at least generates sufficient outrage among our enlightened class.

Who will step up in Canada to protect terrorist rights? Where is Canada's Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid? More proof, I guess, of how backward them Canadians are.

h/t Dr. Rusty.

More from Canadians Skippy Debbye and RightGirl.

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Friday iPod List On Saturday

People have been doing the Friday iPod thing for a while, so I thought I'd give it a try. You know where you set the iPod at random and list the first ten songs that come up. I couldn't do it yesterday because of mu.nu's denial of service attack.

So here's my list.

  1. Right Now, Van Halen

  2. Geek USA, Smashing Pumpkins

  3. Love Shack, The Knitters

  4. Temple Of Love, Sisters Of Mercy

  5. Monkey Man, The Rolling Stones

  6. Move Your Feet, Junior Senior

  7. California Dreamin, The Mamas & The Papas

  8. Dirty Boots, Sonic Youth

  9. Enola Gay, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

  10. A Real Fine Place To Start, Sara Evans
For what it's worth.

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June 02, 2006

Peter Pumpkin The Spectacular Pumpkin, Episode 39

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June 01, 2006

Happy Shavu'ot!

For my Jewish friends, a Shavu'ot poem:


Autumn Season

Truth
is the
Sword of Gevurah
that the Just Warrior wields with Mighty Power!

I say unto Thee:

Defend Thy Honor fiercely
with Noble Courage that Towers above the Tide.

I say unto Thee:

Feed the Hungry of Body and Spirit,
Give them Hope for Health and Livelihood.

I say unto Thee:

Protect the folk from those who would seek to steal away
their precious rights!

I say unto Thee:

Be Thou Swift to shine the Light of Truth upon
those who deceive, delude and dishonor,
hiding behind the dark veil of privilege.

Shine the Light now,
so that Ye may walk with Honor to Thy Destiny.

Rememberest Thou:
whatsoever is the will of man...
the Lord God demands Truth and Justice
from those who would seek to serve
Heaven...

Understand why it Rains, Know why the Wind Howls:
Be Wise when you are offered the Hand of Redemption!
Justice must prevail!

You are the Servant
that must Right the great Injustice that has been wrought.


(by Rabbi Alyjah Navy)

I'm not Jewish, but I will enjoy the traditional Chalav observance tonight by eating a bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with my favorite chocolate syrup and a big glass of water. mmmmm. Not exactly kosher, but that's the advantage of being Catholic.

h/t Linda at Something and Half of Something.

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