Virtual, but permanent.
General comments.
Pakistani troops fire on US helicopters at border | Yahoo! News
Ah, yes, now that Pervez Musharraff is gone and Pakistan is governed by politicians more in tune with the sentiments of the country’s population, the love fest begins. And, if there is any doubt as to how much love there is between Pakistan and the United States, read today’s statement from the Pak government.
There has been, perhaps, no love affair in more dire need of lubricant.Â
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While tasting wine in the beautiful Santa Ynez valley, Jerry and I discovered this magnificent
 specimen of bull at the Tres Hermanas winery, and neither one of us could possibly resist or argue with the notion that this beast was the perfect embodiment of the sheer virility that each one of us possessed. Consequently, we each took a picture of him from a safe distance from the sturdy barricades that contained this black mass of uncontrollable masculinity.
The running of the bulls proceeds next to Zaca Mesa winery, if memory serves. And, it probably doesn’t.
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“Certain Death” Warnings in Ancitipation of Ike | BBC News
None of this is intended to meant to diminish the misery that is about to be wreaked upon the residents of Galveston and Houston, TX, but there must be many among those former citizens of New Orleans who relocated to Houston after Katrina who are seriously questioning their lots in life. After all, what is the probability of being struck by two of the worst major natural disaster in American history in a scant three year span?
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There is very little difference between Google’s new Chrome browser and Apple’s Safari. Both are based on the fantastically beautiful and fast and open source KHTML browser foundation, and each has simply been optimized for its own particular niche. I have to admit that based on only one day of testing, I like Chrome better than Firefox. Even though Firefox’s Gecko rendering engine is fast, the KHTML engine is faster and lighter on resources, yet.
The browser wars are on, and one wonders whether Firefox will perish as collateral damage in the war against Internet Explorer.
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BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China Games ‘a broadcast record’
The Chinese Olympic games are now history, and the viewership of these games was stellar because there were so many Chinese watching the games and because the games were so magnificent. Whether the human and environmental costs of the games were greater than the $40 billion (hey, this guy uses the same template as I do) that the government is said to have spent on the games will not detract from the magnificence of the spectacle. These games were truly something to behold.
What is disturbing, however, is the remarkable reach that modern media have. As the above BBC article states, it is estimated that 800 million Chinese people watched the opening ceremonies, and that estimate may possibly place the number of global viewers at nearly 2 billion. One wonders how quickly a lie could propagate given such an immense audience. The digitally enhanced fireworks and the lip-syncing child were exposed, but what tricks were not?
Without a doubt, this is the sort of propaganda platform after which Hitler was lusting when he hosted the 1936 Olympic games. Although the Chinese regime cannot be compared with the Nazi regime, certainly it cannot be said that the zeal with which the Chinese regime pursued and conducted the Olympic games was born of pure benevolence. Most unfortunately, the remarkable success of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the phenomenal reach that its coverage enjoyed serve as reminders that the world is more vulnerable to propaganda than ever before.
Will some combination of responsibility in media management and regulatory regimes stop the ongoing decline of mass media into abject irrelevance and pure propaganda? We cannot hope so. People should take action.
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Â
On a lazy Sunday about a month ago, I spotted these Major League Baseball shower gels at the 99 Cent Store on Main Street in Ventura, and I captured the event with my trusty iPhone.Â
Why is this a big deal? Well, we finally know how much that Major League Baseball smell is worth. $0.99.
I wonder how much MLB was originally charging for “Homerun Apple Body Wash”. That product description says volumes about the marketing prowess-or lack thereof-of of MLB. I don’t think the NBA or the NFL have yet gaffed this conspicuously.
One wonders if there is someone out there who believes that he is going to “hit a homerun” on the first date with this apple body wash.
What the hell was I doing at the 99 Cents Only Store? Definitely not shopping for soap. I bought some pens.
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BBC NEWS | UK | Papers rue Max Mosley judgement
It is absolutely impossible to quibble with the entirely just verdict handed down in the Mosley case. It is indisputable that the scion of British fascism is entitled to privacy, and it is true that the tabloids went too far in order to expose Mr. Mosley’s depravities. The judge was entirely correct that the crux of the matter was not whether Aryan supremacist overtones are better than Nazi overtones. The crux of the matter is that is that even billionaire fascist white supremacists have a right to privacy in a civilized world. We can only hope that such sage verdicts serve to prevent the fascists who would deny others such rights from ascent to power.
As for Mrs. Mosley, let us hope that this verdict will provide her with some consolation for the embarrassment that she has had to endure during this ordeal. After all, her husband has been an absolutely ideal partner for the past forty odd years, and this is undoubtedly the first incidence of infidelity and the first public humiliation that she has had to endure. May the Lord provide solace for her soul. It is so clear that her husband loves her.
As for Formula One racing, why would anyone care what the CEO does? There is little evidence that such matters ever entered the minds of the beer guzzling masses who show up to watch the races. In fact, it may even increase attendance by increasing white supremacist fan base. These revelations should have no effect on the “normal” fan base. Where else can they get their fix?Â
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Bennigan’s, Steak & Ale Close, File for Bankruptcy Protection | WSJ.com
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BBC NEWS | Americas | Drug stash found in US police car
We are led to believe that the huge stash of cocaine found in this undercover Dallas police officer’s car was an accidental discovery. The car in question was an asset seized from a drug operation, and the police claim that drug traffickers have become so sophisticated in their means of concealing contraband within the various open spaces of a car that the police had no idea that nearly $400,000 worth of cocaine remained hidden protected by various hydraulic schemes inside this car which was seized from a drug dealer.
The NPR series on how drug seizures have become a means for police departments–especially those in the south states of the United States–to fund themselves casts serious doubt on the authenticity of this claim of accidental discovery. Incidents in which police seize private assets legally but illegitimately are on the rise, and the impetus seems to be the independence that the departments gain from the municipalities and constituencies that support them. Confined by meager budgets that restrict their hiring practices and their appetites for high-powered fire arms, police departments have found a bounty in poorly written laws that empower them to declare private assets as ill-gotten arbitrarily and to seize those assets thus declared illicit. Thus, the poorly written drug-related asset seizure laws have become a means for police departments to disentangle themselves from the accountability that binds them to the communities that they serve. If these drug seizures are appreciable, police departments no longer need popular support to receive additional funding. They can simply seize what they need.
At least, one can only pray that this is not the destination toward which we are headed. For if it is true that police departments do view and employ drug seizure in the manner outlined above, then the war on drugs has been transformed from the politicians’ wet dream to a perverse vehicle that empowers the most corrupt elements of society against the society that created them. If any of the foregoing has any truth, then the war on drugs is what the war on drugs is seeking to protect.
In other words, the war on drugs is no longer the pursuit of the protection of the public. It has become exactly what the most pessimistic among us had predicted. The war on drugs has become a power grab that seeks only to perpetuate itself. More drugs lead to more war which leads to more power to those who are waging the war.
Put away that joint, if you know what’s good for you. In truth, this means “put away that joint if you want to keep your car and your house”.
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BBC NEWS | UK | Women deny Mosley ‘Nazi theme’
Our wealthy hero must have struck a very resonant cord today in court when he managed to get one of his sadism and masochism partners to confess in court that calling the proceedings “Nazi” constitutes overreaching. After all, one of the lovely maidens tending to Mr. Mosley testified that:
Witness B said that during the session she played a guard wearing a German Luftwaffe jacket, which she had previously bought in Camden Market to wear to a concert.
Naturally, she didn’t mean a Nazi guard, because there must have been Luftwaffe officers who were not officially in the Nazi party. Ergo, the depravity lies in the minds of those who would be so presumptuous as to associate a Luftwaffe leather jacket with Nazis.
Yes, the British are clearly superior to the Germans, and especially to the Nazis, and more especially to Nazi sadomasochists.
Mea culpa. The concept seems to have been lost on the obscenely wealthy.
Shakespeare, a mighty famous Brit, famously declared that that which we call a rose, if we called by a different name would smell as sweet. The ugly parallel of this maxim seems not to hold for Mr. Mosley. That which we call depravity is more depraved if it happens to smack of racist role playing, and he really needs to clear his name because he is not that depraved.
It is precisely these sorts of revelations that make one take comfort in the fact that the world is more and more ruled by the spectacularly wealthy.
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