Thanks Kate.
My personal philosophy now has a catchy acronym – LOVOS.
… oriented to health and sustainability; and … critical of consumption and consumerism. …
Unfortunately it doesn’t really dovetail with my new religion, the Missionary Church of Kopimism.
“In our belief, communication is sacred.”
Firstly, I’m Canadian.
But if I could vote in the USA, I don’t think I could get past Gitmo — promise #1.
“I DON’T want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantánamo.” So said Barack Obama in January 2009, giving himself a year to do it.
Economist – How to close Guantánamo
… Despite promises to close Guantánamo and reverse the illegal policies of the Bush administration, President Obama has attempted to legitimize them. He has signed an executive order formalizing indefinite detentions at Guantánamo, resumed illegitimate military commissions, and refused to hold U.S. officials accountable for torture. …
Read Lakhdar Boumediene’s story and tell me YOU wouldn’t have freed him long ago, regardless of the political consequences.
I don’t care if the President didn’t have the power to close Gitmo. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise.
I’m reading Game Change, the story of what happened exactly 4yrs ago in the American election.
(via Kottke)
On the resort island of Boracay in the Philippines you see many of these culturally and age mismatched couples.
I don’t blame you for jumping to conclusions.
You’re probably right. 
Yet some of these couples are in Boracay to be married. Many men of European ancestry, past their prime, look for younger Asian brides.
It’s not always the case that the rich dirty old man is taking advantage of the young, naïve woman from a developing country, more interested in the bulge of his wallet than anything else.
There’s a perfectly innocent story behind some of these photos.
Dave Adlard has his own paintball course and gear. I joined in the annual tradition of doing unto others before they do unto ME.
Here’s why you ALWAYS wear a face shield.
Andy Dec. 31st, 2011
That was a fluke shot. Right?
Here’s Andy Jan. 1st, 2012.
A paintball can suck the eyeball right out of the socket.
He should resign from the campaign right after he fires the guy who recommended he post the most hated video in the history of YouTube.
Check the numbers … 9,576 likes, 403,251 dislikes (as I post).
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Pandering to his Christian, Family Values base, he underestimated the power of a viral meme gone wrong.
Amber Mac has a good write-up on the issue – Should Rick Perry’s YouTube ad be banned as hate speech?
… perhaps not “hate speech”. But he’s certainly got some of his ‘facts’ wrong.
I’m not happy with the job Obama’s done as President. But when the alternative is a nob like this cowboy, or — worse — the Newt — ’merica is in trouble.
Last February, a 19-year-old, self-described sixth-generation Iowan stood before an Iowa legislative panel to argue against a state constitutional amendment. The teenager, Zach Wahls, stood up at the podium and gave a three-minute speech about his life in a two-mothers home. …
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
After the video was posted to YouTube, Wahls became an Internet celebrity, praised for his eloquent and impassioned speech. …
… the Iowa senate was considering an amendment that would ban same-sex marriages in one of the six states in the United States that legally recognizes it. …
The publicity also helped kill the proposed amendment. …
OK, lets say you’re like this guy:
… I’ve been a Republican all my adult life. I have worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, at Forbes magazine, at the Manhattan and American Enterprise Institutes, as a speechwriter in the George W. Bush administration. I believe in free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation, and limited government. I voted for John McCain in 2008, and I have strongly criticized the major policy decisions of the Obama administration. …
I can respect that.
I’m a fiscal conservative myself. Unfortunately the USA has no Party that’s proven itself fiscally conservative.
But what the Republicans have done since the rise of the Tea Party movement is simply wrong. And terribly wrong for the USA.
Historians will look back on this era as one of the low points of American history, especially if Obama wins again and they get another 4 years.
When this lying, evil scumbag is the voice of moderation in the field of candidates, you haven’t got much to choose from.
It’s worth reading David Frum … before you go on FOX TV and call him a closet Liberal.
NY Magazine – When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?
Thanks Tom for the link.
… apologies for all the (delicious) dead animals on this blog of late. Yet here are more creatures put in pain for our pleasure.
I’d avoided the usual Japanese tourist “attractions” — fish markets … until Hokodate.
At that seaport it’s near impossible for a passerby to avoid the cruelty zoo.
Crabs and squid seem to object more strenuously than the rest.
The shark tried to make a run for it.
_____
Let’s say you believe in trying to reduce global warming. Like this guy:
… There’s not a single person who’s done more to fight climate change than Bill McKibben. Through thoughtful books, ubiquitous magazine contributions, and, most notably, the founding of 350.org (an international non-profit dedicated to fighting global warming), McKibben has committed his life to saving the planet. For all the passion fueling his efforts, though, there’s something weirdly amiss in his approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions: neither he nor 350.org will actively promote a vegan diet. …
… as a recent report from the World Preservation Foundation confirms, ignoring veganism in the fight against climate change is sort of like ignoring fast food in the fight against obesity. Forget ending dirty coal or natural gas pipelines. As the WPF report shows, veganism offers the single most effective path to reducing global climate change. …
read more on Freakonomics – Agnostic Carnivores and Global Warming: Why Enviros Go After Coal and Not Cows
Proponents of the latest disastrous IP bill , the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA) insist it only targets the “worst of the worst”: so-called “rogue” foreign websites that profit from pirating U.S. intellectual property. But the broad definitions and vague language in the bill could place dangerous tools into the hands of IP rightsholders, with little opportunity for judicial oversight. One very possible outcome: many of the lawful sites you know and love will face new legal threats. …
Etsy
Flickr
Vimeo
Anybody who thinks about SOPA for more than 15sec will realize it’s an idiotic idea.
… It’s a power play from big corporate media companies — the sort of legislation that nearly everyone strenuously opposes but which might pass because the money is on the wrong side. …
Daring Fireball by John Gruber
American legislators are mostly bought off by old media. How does that happen. Here’s one painfully obvious example just brought to light by 60 Minutes, a show that aired Nov. 13, 2011:
… The next national election is now less than a year away and congressmen and senators are expending much of their time and their energy raising the millions of dollars in campaign funds they’ll need just to hold onto a job that pays $174,000 a year.
… Most former congressmen and senators manage to leave Washington – if they ever leave Washington – with more money in their pockets than they had when they arrived …
(Peter) Schweizer says he wanted to know why some congressmen and senators managed to accumulate significant wealth beyond their salaries, and proved particularly adept at buying and selling stocks.
Schweizer: There are all sorts of forms of honest grafts that congressmen engage in that allow them to become very, very wealthy. So it’s not illegal, but I think it’s highly unethical, I think it’s highly offensive, and wrong.
Steve Kroft: What do you mean honest graft?
Schweizer: For example insider trading on the stock market. If you are a member of Congress, those laws are deemed not to apply.
Implicated are Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner and many other heavy hitters. If they were anyone other than the group of people writing the laws, they’d be in prison.
There is some hope this criminal behaviour can be slowed – Measure to ban Congressional insider trading gains steam
Tourists are sometimes disturbed by how women are depicted.
Yet since equal rights legislation went into effect after WW II, it may be that the role of women in society is paralleling what’s happened in other “western” nations:
… the fixed image of the Japanese woman has been that of the office lady, who becomes a housewife and a kyoiku mama after marriage. But a new generation of educated women is emerging, that is seeking a career as a working woman. …
wikipedia – Working women in Japan
The large eyes were actually originally inspired by American characters such as Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse, and Disney’s Bambi.
Manga (comics) are still popular in Japan. On every train car I’ll see a few people reading them.
Anime (animated cartoons) are very popular too.
Discomforting are Japanese manga and anime porn, often violent. But that’s a small subset of the industry. In 2011 strong warrior princess stereotypes are (arguably) good role models for girls. If you feel Buffy and Xena are good role models.
Better than this, I’d say:
Cosplay (コスプレ), short for “costume play“, is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan …
In Tokyo there are a subset of those called Harajuku girls:
… teenagers gather with like-minded friends in places like Tokyo’s Harajuku district to engage in cosplay.
Harajuko girls
Since 1998 Tokyo’s Akihabara district has contained a large number of cosplay cafés, catering to devoted anime and cosplay fans. The waitresses at such cafés dress as game or anime characters; maid costumes are particularly popular. …
American actress Kirsten Dunst in Cosplay
… So, it may just be all dress-up fun.
One thing is certain, Japanese women spend an incredible amount of time and money getting dressed.
I feel their pain, a fashion victim myself, agonizing over what to wear each morning.
