This rare footage of a live frilled shark, which is essentially unchanged since prehistoric times and is rarely seen by humans because of the depths at which they live (up to thousands of feet below the surface).
Here's a nice still shot, nicked from the Telegraph.
The hat tip for the video goes to Jill, who wonders if the shark made her way to the surface after receiving "climatological signals" about which we ought to be concerned. A good question—although, the poor girl was reportedly sick and may also just have been addled from the death throes. She died shortly after the video was taken at Japan's Awashima Marine Park.
"He was for it before he was against it" sneering aside, this is an incredible rant, and it would really do my heart good to start hearing more Democrats speak like this.
UPDATE: Interesting how Hagel still managed to vote against the troop numbers cap Shakes mentioned below. Wah-wah-wah.
My favorite Republibot, the McClellatron 3000, returned last night in all his spinmeister glory, to appear on The Daily Show. Still verbally sucking so much Bush cock he can barely eat a Twinkie, the McClellatron was in fine form. Hot damn, I didn't realize how much the cardboard cutout of a moronic snoozefest that is Tony Snow made me miss the cuddly wee McClellatron until I saw his giant, round, lyin' head again.
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. - A 101st Airborne Division soldier pleaded guilty Thursday to murdering three detainees in Iraq last year, saying he went along with a plan to make it look like they were escaping.
Pfc. Corey R. Clagett, 21, was one of four soldiers from the division's 3rd Brigade "Rakkasans" who were accused in the detainees' deaths during a May 9 raid on the Muthana chemical complex in Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.
[...]
The soldiers first told investigators they shot the detainees because they were attempting to flee _ a story they now say they made up _ and that commanders had given them orders to kill all military-age males on the mission.
Two of those soldiers, Spc. William B. Hunsaker and Spc. Juston R. Graber, have changed their stories and pleaded guilty. The squad leader, Staff Sgt. Raymond Girouard, is awaiting his court-martial.
"(Sgt. Girouard) said we were going to cut the zip ties loose and kill the detainees," Clagett told the judge Thursday. "I knew it was an unlawful order. I just went along with it."
The judge asked Clagett what his intention was when he shot at the detainees.
"To kill them, your honor," Clagett said.
He faces life in prison, but "should get a lighter sentence," which he most certainly will, because of his plea.
Just remember, it's speaking out against the President and his war of choice and horrific stories like this one, not commanders ordering their men to slaughter detainees, who then get lighter sentences, that undermines the war effort.
So now Rummy has set up shop in "a government-provided transition office in Arlington and has seven Pentagon-paid staffers working for him," under the auspices of the Defense Department as its "nonpaid consultant." Constant Comment and I were just chatting about this by email, and she's wondering if they just moved him to the "shadow government" to serve as a legitimate consultant on Iraq. I'm wondering if, since he's reportedly "sifting through the thousands of pages of documents generated during his tenure," if he isn't just being given an extended opportunity to get rid of any incriminating papers—namely, his dumbass "snowflakes," those stupid Post-It-note type thingies he sent in droves to his perennially annoyed underlings—or anything else that might be of interest to, oh say, a war crimes tribunal.
Then again, he could be multi-tasking—destroying evidence while destroying Iraq.
I'm glad to know the military is busily devising disturbing new weapons for dispersing pesky crowds like war protestors "hostile crowds."
Called the Active Denial System, [the heat-ray gun] projects an invisible high energy beam that produces a sudden burning feeling.
…The prototype weapon - called Silent Guardian - was demonstrated at the Moody Air Force Base in Georgia.
A beam was fired from a large rectangular dish mounted on a Humvee vehicle. The beam has a reach of up to 500 metres (550 yards), much further than existing non-lethal weapons like rubber bullets. It can penetrate clothes, suddenly heating up the skin of anyone in its path to 50C.
But it penetrates the skin only to a tiny depth - enough to cause discomfort but no lasting harm, according to the military.
A Reuters journalist who volunteered to be shot with the beam described the sensation as similar to a blast from a very hot oven - too painful to bear without diving for cover.
That sounds charming. At the very end of the article: "Manufacturers say this avoids injury, although long-term effects are not known." So the military's intent to use it in war theaters could conceivably be as swell an idea as a little product you might have heard of called Agent Orange.
Everyone's still talking about the gushing, manhandling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, whose rather bizarre and uncomfortably insistent clutching of the president I briefly mentioned yesterday. (Video here.)
My top secret sources got me a copy of a letter Congresswoman Bachmann sent to the president afterwards, and I think you'll find it pretty interesting.
Between Laura, Condi, Harriet, and now Michele, it's like
As I mentioned briefly yesterday, John Kerry has decided not to run for president again. If I'm honest, I've never quite forgiven him for not insisting on a recount in Ohio, from where we get news even now of convictions for vote-rigging during the 2004 presidential election recount. Would the election's ultimate outcome have been any different if the army of lawyers Kerry had supposedly amassed in preparation for a fight actually fought? That we don't know the answer to that question is why I consider Kerry's decision not to run again A Good Thing. That may be unfair, or not, but either way, that's how it is, and I can't talk myself out of it.
All that said, there's something for which I believe we all owe Kerry a thank-you:
"John Kerry made an enormous contribution to shifting the national debate on Iraq. Some of the positions Republicans attacked Kerry for in 2004 are the same ones they hold now. His advocacy of phased redeployment from Iraq and his strategies for fighting terrorism have now become accepted thinking among even some leading Republicans. Even George Will, of all people, has acknowledged that Kerry was right about how to fight terrorism." — Robert Zimmerman, a Democratic donor who personally raised over $1 million for Kerry in 2004.
Quite right. I don't think Kerry's campaign was as craptacular as has become the conventional wisdom; certainly there were problems, some big ones, but there was a lot the campaign did right, a lot Kerry personally did right, and this was one of them. Think how silly all the flip-flop gags and the snide "he was for the war before he was against it" mockery now seems, when nearly the entire country has abandoned Bush and his war, when most prominent hawks are themselves now flip-floppers, were themselves for the war before they were against it. Kerry did indeed blaze that trail—and paid a price that no one else had to, because he did.
So when I read that Kerry will not run for president and has instead "vowed to use his Senate perch to hasten an end to the war in Iraq, saying he would work with lawmakers from both parties to reverse President Bush's troop 'surge' and force him to withdraw virtually all troops from Iraq by early next year," I'm happy. I'm grateful. I think he can do that; I think he has been and still is an important figure with an important role to play in ending this war.
Thanks, John Kerry. You've made the right decision. And I, for one, am deeply appreciative for it.
Because I'm a Humorless Feminist, naturally I fail to find this amusing.
I'm going to save anyone the trouble who might be inclined to suggest that this commercial could just as easily feature a middle-aged woman whose husband was replaced with a young hawt stud. Yes, it could. But it doesn't. And the reason it doesn't is also the explanation as to why it wouldn't be the same thing even if it did—because we do not have a cultural history where men were legally considered their wives' property. We do, however, have a cultural and legal history in which a woman's civil identity was covered by or absorbed into her father's or husband's, beyond which we've barely moved in many ways.
SgtMum, who gets the hat tip, also notes: "Chrysler seems to forget that the majority of all car buying decisions in the US are made by women. Women like me who don't think the concept of wives as a possession to be 'upgraded' like a cup of coffee or a car is funny." Indeed.
And I'm frankly amazed that this kind of "humor" is still operable in this day and age, not just because it's offensive, but because its capacity to make anyone laugh should have passed its sell-by date decades ago from sheer overuse.
There's no good secular equivalent of "Amen!" as a succinct and enthusiastic endorsement of what someone's just said.
Usually I say "Snap," which may be a Britishism…???—I can't remember where I got that from. But since someone in comments thought I was accusing them of being snappish and curt, I've been reluctant to use it.
And sometimes I say "Right on," which has gotten me accused of being stuck in a past in which I never lived. I don't mind being considered anachronistically geeky, but when the antiquity of my phrase calls attention from that which I was seconding, it kind of defeats the purpose.
"Totally!" and "Spot-on," on which I heavily rely, just aren't quite the same as a good "Amen, sister!" or "Amen, brother!" And while I know many people of the faiths using amen as a sacred word have little compunction about using it in unsacred ways, I've no particular yen to do the same.
It may be time to make up a new word. As when "whatever" began to fail with regularity to fully convey my disdain, and I contracted it to "wev"—because true contempt does not warrant three syllables—I need to devise a decent substitute for amen. Short, sweet, and all our own.
I'm open to suggestions as I commence this important cultural undertaking.
"Prospects for an increase in the minimum wage suffered a setback today in the Senate, where a move fell short, at least for now, to raise the minimum by $2.10 an hour without tax breaks for small businesses. The 54 'yes' votes were six short of the number needed to shut off debate and move on to consideration of the bill, which easily passed in the House two week ago. … All 43 'no' votes on the motion to end debate were cast by Republicans."
Republican Sam Brownback didn't vote, I assume because he's running for president and doesn't want to have to explain a vote against a wage increase for hardworking Americans. Democrat Tom Carper didn't vote, for reasons I don't know, and Democrat Tim Johnson didn't vote, because he is still recovering from brain surgery. —(Updated after jhupp rightly pointed out in comments I sounded a bit flippant by not explaining Johnson's abstention.)
Basically, the GOP is holding minimum wage workers hostage and refusing to give them a wage increase, unless another tax break is tied to it. They argue that small business owners have to be given a tax cut to "help offset the costs of the increase," to which I'm sympathetic, except for the fact that the GOP has made no provision whatsoever to account for the extension of another new tax cut to businesses. If you're going to reduce federal revenue by offering a tax cut here, then you'd better raise taxes there (big business, top 2%, etc.), or justify it with spending cuts for programs that don't steal federal dollars from the poor (try looking at that huge honking defense budget).
The irony, of course, is that they argue the tax cut is necessary to offset small businesses' losses due to pay raises—and yet they don't seem to give a rat's behind when it comes time to making sure the government's expenditures in the form of tax cuts are offset by increases somewhere else. And they wonder why we think they're fucking morons.
As a final aside, I love how conservatives are unswayable social Darwinists when it comes to individual Americans—Stuck on your roof after a hurricane? Tough shit—should have gone to college, Schmucko!—but are suddenly all about a safety net at the mere thought that some business owners might succumb like the sickly antelope because they can't keep up with the cost of doing business in America after a federal minimum wage increase. Amazing how survival of the fittest only seems to apply up to the point where the weakest of the fit become threatened.
…when you're reporting about a man thought to be responsible for the murders of nearly 50 women and currently on trial for six of them, is go for the pun. You know, really highlight what a cunning wordsmith the accused serial killer is.
What makes this extra funny is how the hilarious Mr. Pickton butchered the women just like he did his pigs.
Mr Pickton also described the process of butchering pigs, telling police how they are shot in the head and placed in hot water to remove their hair.
On Monday, prosecutors told the court that Mr Pickton had admitted to killing 49 women and told an undercover police officer he wanted to kill one more to make it an "even 50".
Prosecutors also told the court that Mr Pickton had butchered the women after he killed them.
They said split skulls and other body parts had been discovered in the farm's freezer.
Which would have been really horrible, if most of his victims hadn't been disposable, anyway—"prostitutes and drug addicts living in Vancouver's impoverished Downtown Eastside," our general cultural contempt for whom is probably what allowed him 49 fucking victims in the first place.
In his rebuttal to the SOTU, John Edwards made two points in particular I really liked.
1. Bush is an incompetent liar. "[T]he president once again made it clear that we cannot count on him to be honest about our challenges or offer the bold solutions we need to meet them." That point really can't be made enough.
2. Bush has left a giant stinking mess that necessitates a unique clean-up crew. "President Bush has left us a legacy of challenges that can only be met with courage, conviction and bold change." This point, lesser made, is no less important. It's not going to be Business As Usual for the next president. S/he is going to be tasked not only with the immense job of being president, but also with undoing a fuckload of damage done by his/her predecessor. We really do need someone who's up for the job—which surely begins with addressing the scope of that job in precisely this way.
Other stuff…
This is a full-page ad running today in Roll Call, placed by John Edwards. Sign the petition to tell Congress No Funding for Escalation here. Also, you can join Edwards tonight for a live discussion of the SOTU.
"It's not really happening," Fanning said of a rape. "It's a movie, and it's called acting. I'm not going through anything. Cody and Isabelle aren't going through anything, their characters are.
"And for me, when it's done it's done," she said. "I don't even think about it anymore."
On PBS recently there was a four-hour documentary called "China From the Inside." … One part of the documentary addressed the problem of pollution in China, specifically toxins in the rivers. … One of the primary effects of river pollution is cancer. The documentary showed some cancer victims. One of them was an old woman in the final stages of esophageal cancer. She was skeletal; her skin had shrunk away from her ribs, leaving her looking like an anatomical drawing. She was suffering, hardly conscious; the narrator said the woman died a few days after the segment was shot.
But here's the thing: The woman's breasts had been digitally blurred. Because she was so thin, she didn't really have breasts, but she had nipples, and those were apparently arousing enough to cause the PBS censor to step in. See, it's not prurience that's bad; it's not sexual exploitation that's bad; it's breasts that are bad. Any breasts, even the breasts of an elderly Chinese woman dying of cancer. Your breasts are bad. Speak to them severely.
I don't think that the government had to order this documentary altered. The FCC probably didn't know anything about it before it aired. No, PBS is so terrified that it didn't need a cautionary letter; it went ahead and did it anyway, just in case someone's mother somewhere writes the FCC saying, "My son saw the breasts of a terminally ill Chinese woman, and now he's playing in a heavy-metal band."
The whole article is worth a read.
This kind of stuff drives me insane. I'm a big nerdy documentary-watcher, and I've noticed in recent years that women's naked breasts are increasingly getting blurred where they weren't before. What bothers me about it is that by responding to the demands of people who can't regard the naked human body as anything but erotic, the notion that the naked human body is always erotic is reinforced. Instead of there just being, inevitably, some infinitesimally small group of sad weirdos who are titillated by seeing the naked breasts of a dying old woman, now everyone who watched that documentary had their attention drawn to what they weren't allowed to see.
We're such puritan assholes in this country, honestly.
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