Saturday, August 23, 2003

Collapse of Moral Authority A selection from The Lunablog: The New Watergate. Allison's Uncle Rich pointed this article out to us. It's the type of article that we all need to read. It was written by Sam Dash, who the article let's us know, was chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Hearings.... [The Lunablog] Excerpt: -- The most serious horror was that Nixon and his aides believed that Nixon as president had the absolute power and right to order these crimes to be committed. Nixon told an interviewer, "When the president does it, it can't be wrong." -- 9:47:15 PM

Grassroots Touchdown in Milwaukee Discussion Thread: The Grassroots Express Has Landed in Milwaukee. The Grassroots Express just landed in Milwaukee! We hear that the Governor and the crew are completely energized by the extraordinary Falls Church crowd -- the Milwaukee rally starts in 10 minutes. Use this thread to talk about the Milwaukee rally. [Blog for America] 8:10:10 PM

Remembering 90's Culture - 'Ghost In the Shell' (1995) and Other Notes "It Found A Voice... Now It Needs A Body" - Ghost In the Shell Glorious Japanese visuals. In light of today's nice note from Shoji Ikeda and with a link to the flower cards themselves, this(*) is the purple hyacinth intended for the Wildcat. Things Japanese constituted a good part of a quiet day. Except that 'Ghost in the Shell' (IMDb; 'Kôkaku kidôtai') gave the Kid's computer and my speakers a testing time. At last I've caught up with this 1995 anime cyber-thriller, on DVD (the Kid wasn't interested, but now wants to see it tomorrow) and I'm glad to have done so. Sure, it was hyped up on first release and adds nothing new in sci-fi to an abundant literature which preceded it, but the 3-D visuals remain stunning and the music that plays an important part is bewitching. Composer Kenji Kawai first left his mark on me with 'Avalon' (IMDb;' 2001), an extraordinary "love it or hate it" cult movie with a mainly Polish cast from the same writer/director team, Mamoru Ishii and Kazunori Itô. That's another one I'd readily see again for the soundtrack and visuals alone. _____ (*No credit, simply because the search engine kept the picture from a now "dead" page.) [taliesin's log] 7:42:12 PM

Reporting Via 'Joho the Blog' Sleepless Summer 6:00. Sleepless Summer 6:00pm Gov. Dean enters as U2's "Beautiful Day" plays. The crowd chants. Dean starts strong. After saying that the Sheriff estimates the crowd at 4,000, he says: "The president is sleeping comfortably in Crawford tonight. And while he's sleeping, we're going to take our country back." I'm not going to blog his entire speech. But it's good. It's focused on issues, with passing funny jabs at Bush. But, more important, he's doing a good job of flipping the cliched expectations. For example, he warns us that the Republicans just don't know how to handle money: "Borrow and... [Joho the Blog] 7:28:06 PM

From Falls Church, VA: Sleepless Summer Tour Kickoff - Live Feed is UP Sleepless Summer News. Howard Dean will kick off the Sleepless Summer Tour at 6 pm ET tonight in Falls Church, VA. The live stream is up-- you can watch people gathering for the event now. Also check out Nedra Pickler's great preview of the tour for the Associated Press, "Dean Promotes Himself Like a Rockstar." For those of you planning on attending the New York Rally of the Sleepless Summer Tour on Tuesday-- have you considered jogging to the rally? Sign up to run to the final stop on the Sleepless Summer Tour and help spread the word that we are taking our country back! [Blog for America] 2:30:25 PM

in-spirit Noise....... This picture literally started with nothing, a blank new Photoshop file to which I added visual noise, which I then shaped. [Ottmar Liebert] 1:42:42 PM

More About Lies and the Lying Liars A quick note to the Great American Fox News Channel (who's company is technically headquartered in Sydney, Australia) on the Al Franken book title. IT'S CALLED SATIRE. ;o) O'Reilly- 0, Franken- 2: Fox Blocked In Suit Against Al Franken Book. O'Reilly- 0, Franken- 2: Fox Blocked In Suit Against Al Franken Book A federal judge told Fox News today not to let the courthouse door hit them on their corporate ass when they slink out of the building. Their suit against Al Franken's use of "fair and balanced" in the title of his new book is "without merit, both factually and legally." Actually, that sort of describes the whole network, doesn't it? Meanwhile, thanks to Fox's almost Biblical display of inanity, Franken's book is now ranked #2 at Amazon. Buy it by itself, or bundle it with Big Lies for title="What would you do with a brain if you had height="43" width="53" border="0"> and the word "child" advisedly ? of Fox whiner-in-chief Bill O'Reilly, who was unhappy at Franken's verbal assault on him at the Los Angeles BookExpo, televised on C-SPAN last May. Result: O'Reilly looks like a petulant adolescent and Franken probably earns an extra million bucks or so in book sales. Who knew C-SPAN had such power? UPDATE: Franken, reached by telephone immediately after the ruling, called the ruling a victory for the First Amendment and satirists everywhere -- "even bad satirists." [Via New York Newsday]  [Earl Bockenfeld's Radio Weblog] 11:34:00 AM

Great Spirit "Robbery and Evil and the stealing From the Body and the Mind for the healing The Spirit & the pride & the will & the will of the Land" "I love my brother - I must share the seed That falls through fortune at my feet The fate of Nations and all their needs Lies trapped inside these hearts of greed." - Robert Plant 1993 12:19:47 AM

atmosphere Tonight's Sunset. [Ottmar Liebert] 12:15:17 AM