The videos on Japander.com are so freaking bizarre. See the Gov. shill for Cup o Soup Noodles and – what I can only call an “Arnold-Juice/Baste-Flavored” – energy drink.
Shame on you Ewan McGregor – the last ad plays off the Heroin Chic vibe a la Trainspotting..
“You were the chosen one!”
Touching on an interesting new concept and asking the question, “Are cameras the political firearm of the 21st century?”
But when we surveil the state and its officials, especially those enforcement officers who routinely act in an unprofessional manner with impunity, we could very well find ourselves on the receiving end of a felony wiretap charge. In no fewer than 12 states, it is now illegal to videotape police officers (Watching the Watchers, Popular Mechanics, http://bit.ly/9LPinc). You can face felony charges, much like Christopher Drew, who was arrested for a misdemeanor charge of not having a peddler’s license and peddling in a prohibited area on the streets of Chicago. Both original charges were dropped, but now Drew faces a Class I felony charge of illegal recording and a potential sentence of 4 to 15 years in jail (Are Cameras the New Guns? McElroy, Wendy http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.3315).
I’ve recently begun studying the nature of Public Relations (Propaganda) and I believe I’m beginning to learn how to spot PR when I see it. I am fairly certain that Japan’s choice of astronaut is a deliberate effort on their part to convey to Japanese women the message that it is possible to have both children and a career.
One of them is a Japanese astronaut, and her space flight is making people back home question the traditional roles of men and women.
Faced with a dwindling fertility rate Japan faces an increasing burden of supporting an older generation with a small working age group than at any time in the history of any modern industrialized democratic nation.
Japan has for nearly half a century now been a world leader in the march of technology. Is it possible that their woes are a harbinger for the future rest of the consumer world?
Will other nations choose shopping over breeding?
via BBC News – Japan’s first female astronaut changes gender roles.
Today I realized: I stopped posting articles not long after The Gulf Spill (I believe that is the moniker that will stick). I think it was too much for me and I kind of shut down on a lot of levels when that happened. One of these was filtering out most visual news. I let my NYT and FT subscriptions run out and I haven’t renewed them.
I don’t know when the visual imagery’s potency will wane (as it seems to have done with the War in Iraq), but it’s hitting me pretty hard right now and I’ve only just begun trying to confront it.
Dr. John Lanza, director of Escambia County Health Department, said the reason for leaving the decision up to beachgoers on whether to swim is because the oil situation on the beach is “very dynamic.”
I’m still contemplating if any generation from any nation has ever perpetrated any man-made environmental disaster on a scale of this size.
The only thing I can compare it to is nuclear in scale: Chernobyl, or some of the Pacific Atoll atomic testing of the 1950s. So when I hear people talking about how crazy it would be to use a low-yield nuclear device (as have been tested in Georgia in the 20th century for mining and construction purposes) I have to wonder how long it will be before we, the more forward-thinking individuals among our country’s intellectual elite via, recognize that no aspect of the impact of this cataclysm will be any worsened by such an attempt.
In my Marxist opinion it’s time to let Bechtel tell us where to put a nuke to stop the oil well. I’m betting the bright folks over at Rand would not hesitate to agree with me on this salient point. They’re always ready to recommend we let loose the nuclear arsenal to bust open a stubborn jar of pickles.
It seems that much of the oil is still hitting newer beaches as time goes by. Much of the Caribbean island community is terrified of the effect this is going to have, even before the start of Hurricane season. It is time to acknowledge the nigh-global scope of the effects of this event.
So, the scale of this problem is going to require the full-time resources of some of the brightest construction engineers in the world. Fortunately, they all work for the same organization.
Consequently, let me be the first to propose that we loose the nukes on this sucker – and let The Thunderbirds take a crack at the problem.
Oil spill: Is Gulf safe for swimming? | pnj.com | Pensacola News Journal.
Earn your coworkers’ respect and extra (hazard) pay! Get the adrenaline rush you crave and take the fast track to an exciting career in domestic counterintelligence!!!
Groups of undercover police were repeatedly identified by protesters at marches occurring between Monday and Wednesday. Some were reportedly wearing black baseball caps, bandannas with marijuana leaf-designs on them, and patches with Che Guevara on them. When asked by journalists if they were police, none denied it. Several arrests were made each day, habitually after the days’ demonstrations had dispersed and people were leaving the scene.
Then I caught wind of this little gem:
A number of police cars were set on fire. They were abandoned in the middle of intersections beforehand, and stripped of all their equipment by police–the cars were discovered to have been damaged previously, which led to reports that the police had purposefully left the cars there as bait, hoping to tempt protesters to set the cars on fire, in order to justify their own violent acts. Later accounts led many to believe that the fires themselves were set by undercover police, or agents provocateurs.
That’s a new one; the guy who thought up that one just made sergeant.
via The Erosion of “Rights”: a quick descent | Toronto Media Co-op.
QuantumTom