Watched - TV this week.

NCIS, Modern Family, Stossel, Batman: The Brave and The Bold, SNL, Iron Chef America Super Chef Battle, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, House, Human Target, 30 Rock, Community, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Bill Moyers Journal, Burn Notice, The Mentalist, Archer, Smallville, Leverage, The Middle, Strikeforce Miami

Best of the week -

Iron Chef America Super Chef Battle! Featuring the White House Executive Chef and veg from the White House garden. Which was cool, since, you know, I've been there. Plus, living in Japan, it's rare that Iron Chef America shows up on those special places on the Internets where I can watch. Missed the show. You know, given my personal menu is composed only of things I can generally make with one fry pan within 10 minutes, why I love this show is beyond me. But it is awesome.

Strikeforce Miami - Nick Niaz is a phenom, Herschel Walker is an inspiration.

Bill Moyers Journal featured Nick Gillespie of Reason.com and Reason.TV Lawrence Lessig on the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. I love Lessig's work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and on copyright, but am more in line with Gillespie's position. But a great, reasoned discussion - something missing all too often from the political sphere.

Link to watch the video here - http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02052010/watch2.html

Finally, the 2hr Smallville Absolute Justice telefilm. I could pick little things apart like a true nerd, but overall, it was geektastic. Too bad the show can't always be that good, instead of devolving into bad soap opera and ennui. They laid some nice Checkmate foundation though. That might be interesting.

Choices.

What... Now...

...Bitches?

Heh.

"I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, un-available to us without such drugs." - Carl Sagan

Why is Ron Paul the only politician I can stand?

Okay, maybe Dennis Kucinich too. Put Kucinich in charge of domestic affairs, Paul in charge of of foreign, and all would be right with world. Or flip that. Either way.

Here Paul talks of the Obama administration's latest claims that they can assassinate American citizens abroad if designated "enemy combatants" without due process or trial.

Baptists steal Haitian children -- you can't make this stuff up.

10 Americans in Haiti Are Charged With Abduction - NYTimes.com:

"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Ten Americans who tried to take 33 Haitian children out the country last week without the government’s consent have been charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy, as Haitian officials sought to reassert judicial control after the Jan. 12 earthquake.

The Americans, most of them members of a Baptist congregation from Idaho, had said they intended to rescue Haitian children left parentless in the quake and take them to what they described as an orphanage across the border in the Dominican Republic. But they acknowledged failing to seek approval to remove the children from Haiti, and several of the children had at least one living parent."

My people are out there.

Joe Rogan - as usual - leads the way. Pink was pretty damn awesome.

The Joe Rogan Blog - Conduit to the Gaian Mind - Pink changed my life:

"There’s a special strain of bliss that pumps through the cerebral passageways when you know you’re in the presence of the purest expression. When a person has tapped into that frequency where their whole being has tuned in, and they’re awash in a mad dance between selflessness and ego, directed by a radiant consciousness and opened up wide in front of a multitude of strangers who came there with hopes of seeing just that very thing. With the fuel of their awe, and the energy of their appreciation it bursts to even greater heights, and if it’s captured on TV it’s a motherfucking historical moment.

It doesn’t happen all that often, and sometimes you can go years without seeing someone really nail it, but when it happens again it will be all worth the wait.

Every now and then someone steps up in front of the world and really fucking smashes it, and it makes sitting through every other uninspired performance by every wannabe, bullshit artist, and mediocre hack more than worth your time. Every now and then human beings are exposed to a new benchmark.

I search for that shit. It’s a precious inspirational fuel for me. I love it when I see it, and in all my years on this planet searching for it, very few people have ever grabbed it, held it down, fucked it, lit it on fire, and blew up the fucking solar system with it like Pink did at this years Grammy awards.

Her performance was like Jimi Hendrix doing the star spangled banner while Michael Jackson moon walked and Susan Boyle sang back up.
The shit was fucking EPIC.
I was floored.
I watched it 5 times in a row on youtube.

Even with the shitty, grainy, pixilated youtube footage and compressed sound coming out of computer speakers it was fucking stunning."

Military academies are different than when I went...

Earth religions get worship area at AF Academy - washingtonpost.com:

"The Air Force Academy has set aside an outdoor worship area for Pagans, Wiccans, Druids and other Earth-centered believers, school officials said Monday."

I tend to fall in the 'free speech trumps all' camp...

More common sense talking on the Citizens United Supreme Court decision...

Education has changed since I was a kid.

Overheard in New York | Wednesday One-Liners Are My Anti-Drug:

"Architecture professor: Everything in moderation... except for heroin. Heroin, you go for the gusto.

--Pratt Institute

Overheard by: Denali"

It's been a long day, so here's a picture of a cute dog.

"Witness the quickness, as I kick this" - actually from NKOTB...

So screw it, props to them... as a wanna be white boy of the '90s, I can't hate.



Bonus - Step by Step


Hangin' Tough

More Musical Flashbacks...

This song was the bomb...

I don't even "believe" but I love this song...

Upon further reflection and introspection...

You know one reason why I enjoy the myriad of Downfall/Hitler remixes? Irrespective of the fact that many of them are quite clever and genuinely funny... But you know what I really enjoy? The fact that a man - Hitler - a self important, evil bastard who though he'd be the fount of a 1000 year empire - has been reduced to the punchline of an internet meme. Without discounting the horror and evil the man brought upon the world, it's only fitting that he's most remembered as a joke for the internet community at large. So, yes, fuck Hitler. He deserves to be remembered as a punchline. That evil fuck.

A left hook from God - Sugar Ray Robinson knocks out Gene Fullmer.

@8:50. A thing of beauty.

Timothy Geithner is a huuuuuuuuuge douche. Marcy Kaptur, otoh, well freaking done.

Via Representative Marcy Kaptur Chews Up Tiny Tim Geithner And Spits Him Out | Disinformation

"Hitler responds to the iPad."

I never get tired of these Downfall remixes.

Best protest ever?

Via Rubin110 on Flickr.

But Vermont is so cold!

Otherwise, this is kinda cool/funny/filled with win. When the article gets into the nuts and bolts of how it would work and how VT could be self-sustaining, it's pretty fascinating.

The Secessionist Campaign for the Republic of Vermont - TIME:

"The President on Wednesday may have reassured Americans that the state of the Union is "strong," but, just the week before, a group of Vermont secessionists declared their intention to seek political power in a quest to get their state to quit the Union altogether. On Jan. 15, in the state capital of Montpelier, nine candidates for statewide office gathered in a tiny room at the Capitol Plaza Hotel, to announce they wanted a divorce from the United States of America. "For the first time in over 150 years, secession and political independence from the U.S. will be front and center in a statewide New England political campaign," said Thomas Naylor, 73, one of the leaders of the campaign.

A former Duke University economics professor, Naylor heads up the Second Vermont Republic, which he describes as "left-libertarian, anti-big government, anti-empire, antiwar, with small is beautiful as our guiding philosophy."

...Second Vermont Republic's gubernatorial candidate is Dennis Steele, 42, a hulking Carhartt-clad fifth generation Vermonter and entrepreneur. He owns Radio Free Vermont, an Internet radio station, and honchos an online venture called ChessManiac.com. Steele says that, if elected, his first act in office would be to bring home Vermont's National Guard from overseas deployments. "I see my kids going off to fight in wars for empire 10, 15, 20 years from now," said Steele, who served three years in the U.S. Army. "People in Vermont in general are very antiwar, and all their faith was in Obama to end the wars. I ask people, 'Did you get the change you wanted?' They can't even look you in the eyes..."

Steele and the secessionists have nothing but contempt for Vermont Senators Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy, who are otherwise considered among the most liberal members of Congress. "They've done nothing to stop the wars," says Steele flatly. Thomas Naylor was more pointed: "Every time a Vermonter serving in the National Guard gets deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, likely to be hurt or killed, Bernie and Patrick are there to commemorate the departure and have pictures taken."

...the candidates each stood at the podium to deliver a remarkably unified message: The U.S. government, they said, was an immoral enterprise — engaged in imperial wars, propping up corrupt bankers and supersized corporations, crushing small businessmen, plundering the tax-base for corporate welfare, snooping on the private lives of citizens — and they wanted no more part of it. "The gods of the empire," Steele told the room, "are not the gods of Vermont."

...Seven secessionist candidates declared for seats in the state senate."

More and ongoing willful stupidity and ignorance.

Mind numbingly stupid.

Culpeper, Virginia Schools Pull Diary of Anne Frank Because of Vagina Reference | Popehat:

"...[in] Culpeper, Virginia. School authorities there pulled the full version of the Diary of Anne Frank, apparently with the intent to replace it with the bowdlerized version that Otto Frank originally published in 1947. The school had been using the definitive, complete version released upon the fiftieth anniversary of Frank’s death in a concentration camp.

So — why did they pull it? Were there grim stories of Nazi atrocities? Vivid descriptions of heaps of dead spied out of the garret window? Horrific but apt speculations about the millions of Jews who were not hidden?

Nope. Anne mentioned her Bad Bad Place in a context other than identifying it as a font of pure evil, and a parent was offended."

Stupider than Congress' baseball investigations.

Really, Mr. President? This?

Justice Dept.: President Obama's administration may take action on BCS - NCAA Football - SI.com:

"The Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series, the Justice Department said in a letter Friday to a senator who had asked for an antitrust review."

Robert B. Parker, RIP.

I'd just finished up the 21st novel in the Spenser series, which I've been devouring since early last year, and I checked in at Wikipedia to see which was next, to find that the writer had passed away about 2 weeks ago. It's always strange to feel sad that someone you didn't even know has died, but he had a tendency, according to reports, to write a lot of himself and his family and his relations in his novels. And while they're entertaining, and suspenseful and fun, the best thing about them is that they have heart. Really outstanding books. He was an exceptional writer.

He was found, apparently, at his writing desk. Which seems somberly appropriate.

Mystery novelist Robert Parker dies at 77 - Local News Updates - The Boston Globe:

"Robert B. Parker, whose spare, eloquent sentences turned the tough private investigator Spenser into one of Boston's most recognizable fictional characters, died in his Cambridge home Monday. He was 77.

Publishing 65 books in 37 years, Mr. Parker was as prolific as he was well-read. He featured Spenser -- 'spelled with an 's,' just like the English poet,' he said -- in 37 detective novels. He also wrote 28 other books, including a series each for Jesse Stone, the police chief of fictional Paradise, Mass., and Sunny Randall, a female PI in Boston."

Watched - TV this week.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold, NCIS Season 3 - which is the perfect "play in the background while you're doing something else" TV, Jersey Shore, The Daily Show, House, Bill Moyer's Journal, Human Target, Stossel, Archer, Burn Notice, Leverage, Men of a Certain Age, Dollhouse, Smallville, Castle, The New Adventures of Old Christine

Best of the week - Archer, Leverage, Men of a Certain Age, Dollhouse, Castle