Dr_Evil_Mouse

And yet they still won't let Elizabeth May in on it. Shows where the priorities are, I guess.

You ever notice how many people pick their nose when they're in their cars? I think that's a good metaphor for our political climate, but I can't quite put a fine point on it.

Those are brilliant ^

Can't help but be reminded of this .

It might fuck with the tempo of the party, but I think The Rheostatics 'Stolen Car' is crank worthy.

"Self-Serve Gas Station" has been on rotation the last few days as I've been driving to work along with the sunrise. Perfect .

or he's using his acting chops to his advantage.

This is what the better part of me hopes. I mean, he's a very decent actor, so how could he have become pinned down to something as absurd as Two and a Half Men for so long? And then, who knows, maybe there is some groundswell of mania going on within that's behind this need for a radical shift. There's a lot of literature out there about the crazy shit people will do when they've become crazy enough about their situations to unconsciously force a change to come about.

I've been compiling ideas for this for my Public Speaking class, and would like to know if there might be any floating around hereabouts - any ideas around what you could imagine talking about on the fly for two minutes in front of an audience? The more physically/vocally animated, the better. Current favourites have involved talking about a moment of being completely surprised by something, relaying the highlights of a favourite teacher, discussing pet peeves, describing a favourite book/movie - that kind of thing.

Simply put: if you were thrust in front of a crowd and had to talk about something for two minutes, what kind of topic would work for you?

Japan Facing Biggest Catastrophe since Dawn of Nuclear Age

AMY GOODMAN: Japan is facing its biggest catastrophe since the dawn of the nuclear age, when the U.S. dropped two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the wake of the massive earthquake and tsunami Friday, a second explosion has hit a Japanese nuclear plant. Monday’s explosion, caused by a hydrogen buildup, blew the roof off a containment building at Fukushima Daiichi’s reactor 3, two days after a blast hit reactor 1. Eleven people were injured in the blast.

Officials say the reactor core inside was undamaged, but now a third reactor at the plant has lost its cooling system, and news agencies are reporting a meltdown of the fuel rods cannot be ruled out.

While Japanese officials are playing down any health risk, Pentagon officials reported Sunday helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked up small amounts of radioactive particulates, suggesting widening environmental contamination. And the U.S. Navy moved one of its aircraft carriers from the area after detecting low-level radiation 100 miles offshore. The New York Times reports radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from the area around the plant. At least 22 people have tested positive for radiation exposure, with the number expected to rise.

Technicians have been battling to cool reactors at the plant since Friday. They’re using an untested method of pouring in a mixture of seawater and boric acid. Re-establishing normal cooling of the reactors would require restoring electric power, which was cut in the earthquake and tsunami and now may require plant technicians working in areas that have become highly contaminated with radioactivity.

The New York Times reports, quote, "In a country where memories of a nuclear horror of a different sort in the last days of World War II weigh heavily on the national psyche and national politics, the impact of continued venting of long-lasting radioactivity from the plants is hard to overstate."

(Interesting, and unnerving, interviews follow.)

Very happy birthday to you, Carrie

I'm glad to hear that Dave's out of the fray, Jaimoe; I haven't heard from him in a little while.

It's unbelievable what's going on there, and it's not just the tragedies that have already happened. "The threat of multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns" isn't one of those phrases one runs across every day.

Sweet - wish I were able to check it out. Someone please record!

Happy very belated, Marge . Much love and big hugs.

Pretty friggin' inspiring stuff, by any standard. Qaddafi will be the most interesting, imo, and potentially lethal of these guys to go. Clock's ticking.

Egypt Regime Offers Talks with Muslim Brotherhood

We were just traveling, and at the time living with an Egyptian deadhead we'd met whose business was making Land Rovers. When things were starting to get really dodgy and they were starting to cancel flights out of the country we played around with the idea of hopping into one of those jeeps and skipping off through the Sudan towards Kenya or somewhere. Then one night we made the mistake of watching CNN, panicked, and hopped instead onto one of those disappearing flights.

I'd say the Brotherhood is a genuine danger, despite the good stuff they do that the government could never be bothered with; Sayyid Qutb is someone worth knowing about, partly because he was an interesting character, partly because his arguments have fueled groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Not surprisingly, his arguments are a lot more subtle than what his current followers use him for, but I'm sure there are people in the Brotherhood who cover all the possible (mis/)interpretations.

CJ and I were living in Cairo exactly this time 20 years ago, when Gulf War I broke out. We had to field calls from panicked family members asking whether we were caught in the middle of exploding bombs or raging gunfights, while all we could hear were dogs barking in the streets. We'd ask Egyptians what they thought, and their answer was always, "That's somebody else's problem."

This stuff going on right now is very much Egypt's problem, and I fret deeply for them. Mubarak was in power then, and still there now, and there've been way too many reasons for people to get plenty fed up with it all in the years between. He's also the strongman of the region, keeping the Muslim Brotherhood in check, and sustaining the peace with Israel, the only Arab country in the region to do so. So yes, it's completely fucked up.

Schwartzenegger bit at 1:12.

wlLpCh-lE54

Lift the heavy thing!

"I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers." -Khalil Gibran

Too many notes.

dCud8H7z7vU

Where has this album been all my life?