Venn-diagram format
Who in the Bush Administration broke the law, and who could be prosecuted?

You know it's bad when you need diagrams to keep up with this stuff.

Battling the early stages of a kidney infection. Fortunately I've discovered a totally awesome doctor who is, well, awesome, and now I have appropriate medications. Fortunately I have today off.

Here's a little fabulous brain something from radiata_prime:

At first glance, Cesare Bonizzi looks like the archetypal Capuchin monk - round-faced, stout, with twinkling eyes and a long flowing white beard. But beneath his robes beats a heart of metal.

Brother Cesare is the lead singer in a heavy metal band which has just released its second album.

A former missionary in the Ivory Coast, he lives in a small friary in the Milan hinterland.

The 62-year-old monk's love affair with heavy metal began when he attended a Metallica concert some 15 years ago.

"I was overwhelmed and amazed by the sheer energy of it" he says.
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Anyone know where I can find locally, or online, the most fully fleshed out music for System of a Down - Chop Suey? So far I've found tons of guitar tab, which isn't very useful. Ideally I'm looking for 1) just that song and not the entire album 2) all the parts.

Someone else's transcription will save me a bit of time.

Edit: Damien has brought this into my world, and it must be shared.


Also, if you want to see some Spongebob/Eminem editing which is surprisingly good, check here

is easy and I'm not certain why some people get upset about it. Meat juice on your cutting board? Do you know what else is on that thing? I eat foods covered in pesticides all day long, and frankly, they're probably far more destructive to my system than any accidental amounts of meat that I might encounter. One throws my digestion temporarily higgly piggly, the other ever so slowly breaks down pretty much my entire body and the ecosystem.

Sure, yeah, meat is dead. So are all the bugs that's in your food that you may not be aware of. Somewhere I missed the memo to be outraged.

I have to admit though that I knew that I really liked J when the thought crossed my mind that I'd happily make him a meat dish. Of course, I wouldn't be able to taste it, and I have no idea how to cook the stuff, but the thought was there.

OK I'LL STOP BLUSHING NOW and try to regain some street cred:
A Blind Eye to Guantanamo?
Book Says White House Ignored CIA on Detainees' Innocence.

Quick take-to-party thingy:

almonds
blueberries
shaved bits of lavender chocolate
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For my birthday, Mimosa has decided to announce her official 2008 run for President of the United States of America. Her platform is LOVE.

Some issues that she cares deeply about:
Health - Clean litterboxes for everyone!
Family Life - Give profusely, ask for only what you need.
Defense - Never underestimate the power of naps.
Energy - Fur, the new biofuel?

What: Sideshow: Full Radius Dance in Concert
When: Friday, June 6 at 8:00 PM; Saturday, June 7 at 2:00 PM & 8:00 PM
Where: 7 Stages Theatre, 1105 Euclid Avenue NE, Atlanta, GA 30306 (Little 5 Points)
Tickets: $15.00 Adults; $12.00 Children 12 & under, Seniors 55 & over, and working artists; $8.00 Groups of 10 or more

Contact: For reservations and information: 404-724-9663, FullRadiusDance@aol.com

Anyone else care to join me?

Moving is hard Portrait of an Insomniac

Rivendell Woodworks. They have Voysey!!! And Gingko chandeliers!! And and and and...

*weak at knees*

Atlanta police are investigating the stabbing death of a 40-year-old Buckhead man.

Police were called to the Darlington Apartments at 2025 Peachtree Street around 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, police said.
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Goal: use up canned mandarin oranges, and anything else that happens to be laying around the kitchen
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from alagbon

I'm about to follow suit, but was struck by a question: how new is the strain of anti-intellectualism in American popular culture? After reading radiata's latest political post, I just wondered about the role of rationalism in the American psyche. Certainly humans have always been given to passions, yes even Americans. But there's also this mythos of the Founding Fathers being... wise. Is this sense of wisdom left only for the long dead? Nowadays the old are usually just seen as senile, unhealthy, as something to be pitied for being so close to death. The concept of wisdom gained through experience is somehow translated, in the political landscape, as someone corrupt and out of touch. Perhaps the cynicism borne out of Nixon's era has done more to damage progress than even any of Bush's policies. People no longer even seem to want to think about their politics, assuming that they ever cared to do so, it's all about how a candidate makes them feel. It's how we got Bush in the first place.

Have we always been like this?

The BBC breathlessly reported this morning that Burma is allowing food aid to rot in warehouses, and that the World Food Bank has, in deep desperation, suspended shipments. From what I can gather, the Burmese government is concerned about losing face, not that as a military dictatorship there's much left. An important referendum will continue on Saturday, involving a new constitution, which pretty much just gives the junta even more power.

The Burmese news show clips of their military handing out aid, and saying that everything is perfectly under control. Meanwhile aid experts around the world are pretty much freaking out, as crucial time continues to be lost under this farce that no one is buying. The people are writing out messages on the ground, saying things like, "we're hungry." The death toll is expected to rise. The infrastructure has been decaying there for years under the military, and now it's pretty much wiped out in these areas - which incidentally, also serve as the bread basket for the nation. There may not be anything surviving to harvest.

The death toll is expected to rise.

A PENTAGON CAMPAIGN Retired officers have been used to shape terrorism coverage from inside the TV and radio networks.

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.
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How to Make an Anatomically Correct Brain Cake (from Mind Hacks)

OK, yes, cooking on gas stoves *IS* definitely superior to electric. It just took some time to figure it out. This realization hits me as I wonder if I'll have to go back to electric again...

Tonight: Curry Thingy to Help Fight Vague Icky
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Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
Sallust