`President Bush and the current administration have borrowed more money from foreign governments and banks than the previous 42 presidents combined, a group of conservative to moderate Democrats said Friday.
[..]
According to the Treasury Department, from 1776-2000, the first 224 years of U.S. history, 42 U.S. presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions, but in the past four years alone, the Bush administration borrowed $1.05 trillion. [..]
“No American political leadership has ever willfully and deliberately mortgaged our country to foreign interests in the manner we have witnessed over the past four years,” said Tanner. “If this recklessness is not stopped, I truly believe our economic freedom as American citizens is in great jeopardy.”‘
I should write a script that automatically adds “I’m glad I don’t live there” line to the end of the post whenever the post references America.
Anyways, I _am_ glad I don’t live there. 🙂
William Shatner is mildly amusing, playing all the roles in the end sequence of Se7en.
see it here »
I used to play Risk a lot. It’s a fun little game.
It has never occured to me to combine Risk with Google Maps. It did, however, occur to this fellow. 🙂
`An ingenious US couple is moving to bottle and sell pop icon Michael Jackson’s high-profile child sex trial – in the form of an irreverent brand of wine dubbed Jesus Juice.
A journalist who covered the four-month trial and his actress wife have applied to trademark the name for a full bodied merlot, inspired by Jackson’s teenage accuser’s claims the star plied him with wine decanted into a soft drink can he dubbed Jesus Juice.
In documents posted today on the website thesmokinggun.com, Bruce Rheins and Dawn Westlake sought to register a Jesus Juice logo which featured a photograph of a scantily-clad man in a crucifixion pose, wearing a Jackson-like sequined glove and a black fedora obscuring his face.’
`Angered by subsidies to U.S. cotton growers, Brazilian lawmakers said Thursday that they were considering suspending the intellectual property rights of American products in their country if the U.S. government did not explain how it intended to change subsidy programs by July 1.
The deadline was set earlier this year by the World Trade Organization, which found that U.S. assistance to cotton farmers distorted world prices by encouraging overproduction. If implemented, Brazil’s plan would negatively affect a range of U.S. industries including entertainment, software and pharmaceuticals.
“Essentially, the Brazilian position would be, ‘We’re going to have state-sanctioned piracy,'” said Neil Turkewitz, an executive vice president of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, the music industry’s largest trade and lobbying group.’
`Burma has a long history of being a five-letter word for bizarre. Its last military dictator, Ne Win, insisted that every denomination of the Burmese currency be divisible by his lucky number nine.
His successor and current regime leader, Senior General Than Shwe, is known to be equally superstitious.
Many Rangoon-based western diplomats take seriously the urban legend that Than Shwe’s family astrologer predicted an American invasion three years ago, prompting the reclusive dictator to begin building the new capital 400 kilometres inland.
Tough talk from US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who labelled Burma an outpost of tyranny, may have sped the process and the paranoia.
Late last week, after months of dithering, civil servants were abruptly instructed to begin moving north to occupy their new ministries.
The reluctant were motivated by a high level edict that all government workers are henceforth banned from resigning, making them, in effect, slaves to the state.’
Apparently all you need is an old car engine, some rusty steel pipe and a welder.
It’s pretty cool, I s’pose. But motorcycles are death machines even when they don’t have lots of sharp metal corners. 🙂
`What was long feared by the few military officials in the know had come to pass: Chemical weapons that the Army dumped at sea decades ago finally ended up on shore in the United States.
It’s long been known that some chemical weapons went into the ocean, but records obtained by the Daily Press show that the previously classified weapons-dumping program was far more extensive than ever suspected.
The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste – either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels. [..]
These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off at least 11 states – six on the East Coast, two on the Gulf Coast, California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.’
`This is an unacceptable development in digital rights enforcement. I don’t know how to put this any more clearly. Don’t get me wrong–we’ve long since crossed the line. It’s utterly absurd that we accept paying for music that will play on only one or two digital audio players, at best. It’s absolutely insane that anyone ever tried to put out a CD that couldn’t be ripped to a PC at all. It’s a complete joke that we’re sitting around anticipating the day when TiVo comes along to tell us when we have to watch a recorded show, and that it will choose when a recorded show might be deleted. I can’t even believe cell phone carriers think it’s OK to cripple cell phone features in order to protect their own moneymaking propositions. And Hollywood’s proposed new Analog Hole legislation, which would criminalize nearly every digital video activity you can think of, is another column unto itself, and it’s going to be a long one.
But this–using the tactics of criminals to invade our PCs without our knowledge and to expose us to further attack, just so you can keep us from, say, burning a mix CD and giving it to our friends–this is beyond the pale. And as many news sources are beginning to point out, there’s some reason to think it might also be illegal, under the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.’
‘Ashlee Simpson continues her quest to become the most ridiculed celebrity ever when she slurs her way through a late night visit to McDonald’s in Toronto.’
see it here »
`o.k. so i’m no barry white but i did pick up this little gem at a local bookstore on a recommendation from the clerk (thanks nameless clerk) which i wanted to share. it’s a slim but large format volume called the erotic coloring book published in 1975 by berlin & associates out of l.a., illustrated by a guy named craig berlin. it’s high-larious and most assuredly nsfw. possibly nsfpptdhf as well (not safe for people prone to dangerous hallucinogenic flashbacks). you might consider it the companion piece to this earlier post i suppose. see a sampling of the self proclaimed erotic pages below.’
`Sony BMG is facing a cacophony of criticism this week following the revelation that some of its CDs are packed with special copy-protection software that conceals itself with an advanced hacker cloaking technique. We think the company is getting off easy.
The firestorm began when Mark Russinovich, a computer security expert with Sysinternals, discovered evidence of a “rootkit” on his Windows PC. Through heroic forensic work, he traced the code to First 4 Internet, a British provider of copy-restriction technology that has a deal with Sony to put digital rights management on its CDs. It turns out Russinovich was infected with the software when he played the Sony BMG CD Get Right With the Man by the Van Zant brothers.’
`Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug.
The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You’ll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.
You’ll also see that the history of marijuana’s criminalization is filled with:
- Racism
- Fear
- Protection of Corporate Profits
- Yellow Journalism
- Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
- Personal Career Advancement and Greed
These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.’
`A man was convicted of murder after witnesses testified that he relied on his cat’s behavior to decide whether the victim deserved to die. [..]
Prosecution witnesses, many of them drug users with criminal records, testified that Butsch said he relied on his cat, Sam, to determine who was good and who deserved to die. When Sam refused to go near the sleeping Vavricka, Butsch shot him, they said.
Butsch’s lawyer argued that the witnesses framed Butsch and made up the cat story.’
`Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has suggested that those who deface freeways with graffiti should have their thumbs cut off on television.
Goodman, appearing Wednesday on the “Nevada Newsmakers” television show, said, “In the old days in France, they had beheading of people who commit heinous crimes.
“You know, we have a beautiful highway landscaping redevelopment in our downtown. We have desert tortoises and beautiful paintings of flora and fauna. These punks come along and deface it.
“I’m saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb,” the mayor added. “That may be the right thing to do.”‘
`One of the most significant al-Qaeda members ever captured in Southeast Asia has escaped from a maximum-security US airbase in Afghanistan in a massive “breach of security”.
Omar al-Farouq, who was a lieutenant of Osama Bin Laden and who named Abu Bakar Bashir as the leader of Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia, is on the run and believed to have returned to the safety of his people on the Afghan/Pakistan border.
News of the escape was confirmed as Indonesia denied an automatic remission for Abu Bakar Bashir, prompting outrage from Muslims who have accused the Indonesian Government of pandering to Western influence.’
`Officials are trying to determine who’s at fault after tons of concrete was poured down a Windward Oahu sewer pipe and forced raw sewage into several Kailua homes.
Liz Asteriadis suspects a black substance climbing up the walls in her home is the result of sewage that backed into her Windward Cover condominium on Oct 13.
“You could smell what it was right away. It was nasty and my friend Barbara, I called her screaming at 11 o’clock at night. ‘Ahh! We are having a sewer flood,'” Asteriadis said. [..]
The sewage backed up after a city contractor filled several manholes with concrete, thinking they were filling abandoned lines. When they realized they’d plugged Windward Cove’s sewage outlet, they built an emergency pipe. Then they started the difficult process of digging hardened concrete out of the underground system.’
‘A Superior Court judge must decide whether to believe a 21-year-old accused who says he could not have committed a sexual assault because his penis is too big. [..]
Earlier in the trial, which has been in and out of court for months, a urologist testified that Beutling’s penis is in the top 5% range for size in comparison to the doctor’s other patients. [..]
The urologist showed the court a plastic model of a penis approximating the accused’s member at a semi-relaxed state, which measured 8 1/2 inches in length and 6 1/2 inches in girth.
He said a woman who has not given birth might have discomfort or tearing if she had intercourse with a penis that size, especially if she was not sexually aroused.’
`A Japanese high school girl has been arrested for gradually poisoning her mother to the brink of death and keeping a blog of her progress – all done as a grim homage to a serial killer she idolised.
The 16-year-old student is alleged to have laced her mother’s food with increasing doses of thallium, a potent rat poison. Her mother is now in a coma and critically ill.
The girl, who is from rural Shizuoka, in central Japan, was apparently inspired by Briton Graham Young, the notorious Teacup Poisoner of Bovingdon who, in 1962, aged 14, slowly killed his stepmother with what was thought to be the same lethal substance.’
Update: I found another article with text from the poisoning blog.
`On Halloween night, New Orleans will be very, very dark. Well over half the homes on the east bank of New Orleans sit vacant because they still do not have electricity. More do not have natural gas or running water. Most stoplights still do not work. Most street lights remain out.
Fully armed National Guard troops refuse to allow over ten thousand people even to visit their property in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood. Despite the fact that people cannot come back, tens of thousands of people face eviction from their homes. A local judge told me that her court expects to process a thousand evictions a day for weeks. [..]
Dr. Arjun Sengupta, the United Nations Human Rights Commission Special Reporter on Extreme Poverty, visited New Orleans and Baton Rouge last week. He toured the devastated areas and listened to the evacuees still in shelters and those living out of town with family.
Dr. Sengupta described current conditions as “shocking” and “gross violations of human rights.” The devastation itself is shocking, he explained, but even more shocking is that two months have passed and there is little to nothing being done to reconstruct vast areas of New Orleans. “The US is the richest nation in the history of the world. Why cannot it restore electricity and water and help people rebuild their homes and neighborhoods? If the US can rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq, why not New Orleans?”’
Also worth a read is Ethnic Cleansing, GOP-style.
`The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.’
`This is the first photograph taken by a microsatellite of another object in space that has ever been released to the general public. The object near the center is the upper stage of a Minotaur I rocket that was used to launch the Experimental Satellite System-11, commonly known as XSS-11. The photograph was taken by the digital “witness camera” aboard XSS-11, a dishwasher-size microsatellite developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory.
XSS-11 was launched in April and has since conducted numerous “proximity operations”—approaching and maneuvering around the spent Minotaur rocket stage at distances as close as 500 meters (the distance at which this photo was taken, about a third of a mile). Over the next year, the spacecraft will rendezvous with several other U.S.-owned dead or inactive objects in space.’
`A female teacher who had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student has been sentenced to five years jail in the Victorian County Court.
Cindy Leanne Howell, who has pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child under 16, sobbed loudly today after receiving the jail sentence with a minimum term of two-and-a-half years.
The court was told the 36-year-old was employed as an integrated aid teacher at a high school on the Mornington Peninsula and assisted the student with a reading difficulty.
The mother of four began a sexual relationship with him over eight months last year after he started dating her daughter.’
`For 40 exhausting minutes, Wayne Goldsberry battled a buck with his bare hands in his daughter’s bedroom.
Goldsberry finally subdued the five-point whitetail deer that crashed through a bedroom window at his daughter’s home Friday. When it was over, blood splattered the walls and the deer lay dead on the bedroom floor, its neck broken.
Goldsberry was at his daughter’s home when he heard glass breaking. He went back to check on the noise and found the deer.’
`Rampaging youths shot at police and firefighters Thursday after burning car dealerships and public buses and hurling rocks at commuter trains, as eight days of riots over poor conditions in Paris-area housing projects spread to 20 towns.
Youths ignored an appeal for calm from President Jacques Chirac, whose government worked feverishly to fend off a political crisis amid criticism that it has ignored problems in neighborhoods heavily populated by first- and second-generation North African and Muslim immigrants.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called a string of emergency meetings with Cabinet ministers throughout the day. He told the Senate the government “will not give in” to violence in the troubled suburbs.
“Order and justice will be the final word in our country,” Villepin said. “The return to calm and the restoration of public order are the priority our absolute priority.”‘
`President Bush may be burdened with the world’s problems, but his pockets are pretty light.
It turns out the leader of the free world doesn’t have to worry about carrying all the essentials of the common man.
Bush revealed the contents of his pockets Tuesday to an Argentine newspaper reporter who was interviewing him in advance of a presidential trip to Latin America later this week. [..]
“Es todo,” Bush told the Spanish-speaking reporter, meaning the handkerchief was all. “No dinero, no mas. No wallet.”‘
`Bob Dougherty, 57, of Nederland, said he became stuck to a bathroom toilet seat on which somebody had smeared glue on Oct. 30, 2003, and felt “tremendous panic” when he realized he was stuck.
“They left me there, going through all that stress,” Dougherty told The (Boulder) Daily Camera. “They just let me rot.”
His lawsuit, filed Friday said Dougherty was recovering from heart bypass surgery at the time and thought he was having a heart attack. A store employee who heard him calling for help informed the head clerk via radio, but the head clerk “believed it to be a hoax,” the lawsuit said. [..]
The lawsuit said the toilet seat separated from his skin, leaving abrasions.’
