On Silliness: A Trans-Atlantic Approach

The BBC seems to have a knack for reporting stories that make Americans look silly. But I guess I really shouldn't blame them for our silliness. They're just doing their job.

Rich US dog hiding after threats

A dog which inherited $12m (£5.8m) from late New York hotelier Leona Helmsley is in hiding after it was targeted by death threats, US media say.

Trouble, a white Maltese that belonged to the billionaire until her death in August, was flown by private jet to Florida, the New York Post reported.

It says the tiny bitch was whisked away under an assumed name after receiving about 20 threats.

Trouble is said to have earned a number of enemies due to its habit of biting.

Under an assumed name? Have we all gone mad, or are we just kidding ourselves?

While we're on the topic of silliness, why not a bit English silliness? Have a nice day.

Alas

The pay phone's day of reckoning draws nigh.

War on Global Warming

AlterNet has a link to a Nation article by Naomi Cline about the weapons industry and environmentalism.

In the world of venture capitalism, there has been a race going on between greens on the one hand and guns and garrisons on the other -- and the guns are winning.

Anyone tired of lousy news from the markets should talk to Douglas Lloyd, director of Venture Business Research, a company that tracks trends in venture capitalism. "I expect investment activity in this sector to remain buoyant," he said recently. His bouncy mood was inspired by the money gushing into private security and defense companies. He added, "I also see this as a more attractive sector, as many do, than clean energy."

Got that? If you are looking for a sure bet in a new growth market, sell solar, buy surveillance; forget wind, buy weapons.

And for dessert, we have electrodes

Tasered on Thanksgiving. Maybe the hastiest use of a taser I have yet seen.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

After an investigation, the department’s Internal Affairs office saw no need for disciplinary action. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifBut then-Acting Chief Cathy Ellison reviewed it and ordered a three-day suspension for O’Connor, who served it and then returned to duty.

When Art Acevedo, the new chief from California, saw the video, he strongly disapproved of O’Connor’s action but saw in the footage what some would call “a teaching moment.” He released the video, told officers to watch it, and made it clear that any officer who did the same as O’Connor would be in serious trouble. The chief’s warning was appropriate and welcome.

Via Cynical-C.

Oh course they beat me

Waiting for Godot. In New Orleans.

realism

Waiting For The Guards is the first of 3 films commissioned by Amnesty to highlight the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA in the “War on Terror”.

The Directors approached the making of the film in a way that has never been done before, choosing to show the reality of Stress Positions in as authentic a way as possible. They filmed a person being put into Stress Positions over a 6 hour period. There is no acting on the part of the “prisoner” – his pain and anguish is for real.

http://www.unsubscribe-me.org/

Depletion

Radioactive Ammunition Fired in Middle East May Claim More Lives Than Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By firing radioactive ammunition, the U.S., U.K., and Israel may have triggered a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East that, over time, will prove deadlier than the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan.

So much ammunition containing depleted uranium(DU) has been fired, asserts nuclear authority Leuren Moret, "The genetic future of the Iraqi people for the most part, is destroyed."

"More than ten times the amount of radiation released during atmospheric testing (of nuclear bombs) has been released from depleted uranium weaponry since 1991," Moret writes, including radioactive ammunition fired by Israeli troops in Palestine.

Link. Via Harper's Weekly Index.

If you're happy and you know it

Kent French is the world's fastest clapper. Via Metafilter.


721 Claps Per Second - Free videos are just a click away

I once saw a slightly toned down version of this at a STOMP performance, and have since wanted to learn how to drum by double-clapping, but it is not easy.

Taser Happy

More tasers.

An internal police investigation is under way after a formal complaint was filed against a Utah state trooper who was videotaped Tasering a man who refused to sign a speeding ticket.

The officer’s conduct has been called into question after a videotape of the incident was posted on YouTube.

The video, taken from a Utah Highway Patrol dashboard camera, shows Trooper John Gardner using a Taser on Jared Massey during a traffic stop on State Road 40 in Uintah County on Sept. 14.

“We do have an open internal review, or investigation, of the case,” Sgt. Jeff Nigbur, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Public Safety, told FOXNews.com. “We’re trying to expedite that to get that done as quickly as possible. If the trooper acted inappropriately we will definitely, absolutely, take the appropriate measures to resolve that.”

Via Cynical C.

UPDATE: A commentator at Cynical-C provides a link to a truly horrifying discussion of this video by police officers. Yikes.

Drum Warfare

Buddy Rich battles with Animal on The Muppet Show.



Via BoingBoing.

Good News For Me

Who can tell me what those elitist, left-wing bastards of the ivory tower do all day? Anyone? Anyone?

A: Nothing. Except bitch and wine about capitalism and how all their precious sinecures are being taken away from them.

Well, the NYT, that bastion of libearlism, suggests that those namby-pamby, effete dillettantes are not happy about it. Apparently, the intelligentsia is getting upset. Apparently those bloviating masters of sophism are mad that all their jobs are being outsourced. Apparently doing so diminishes the quality of higher education. Who knew!

It appears those lazy, novel-reading, want-to-be-writers may have a good thing coming.

The shift from a tenured faculty results from financial pressures, administrators’ desire for more flexibility in hiring, firing and changing course offerings, and the growth of community colleges and regional public universities focused on teaching basics and preparing students for jobs.

But it has become so extreme that some universities are pulling back, concerned about the effect on educational quality. Rutgers University in New Jersey agreed in a labor settlement in August to add 100 tenure or tenure-track positions. Across the country, faculty unions are organizing part-timers. And the American Federation of Teachers is pushing legislation in 11 states to mandate that 75 percent of classes be taught by tenured or tenure-track teachers.

Via, that bastion of liberalism, the NYT.

More tasers

Your daily taser-death story. Via Thomas.

A 20-year-old man died Sunday after being shot with a Taser device during a scuffle with a sheriff's deputy in Maryland, a spokeswoman for the Frederick County Sheriff's Office said.

Amnesty International blames dozens of deaths on police use of stun guns.

Cpl. Jennifer Bailey said deputies responding to a report of a fight in progress arrived at the location in Frederick, Maryland, just before 5 a.m. ET and found four people fighting.

A deputy used a Taser device on one of the men, who fell unconscious, Bailey said.

The man was taken to Frederick Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His identity was not immediately released, pending the notification of his family.

And here's a link to Amnesty International's page on Taser abuse, including reports from 2004 and 2006, as well as recent Taser-related news. Here's the blurb on the page:

Since June 2001, there have been more than 270 TASER-related deaths in the United States. AI is concerned that TASERs are being used as tools of routine force--rather than as weapons of last resort. Rigorous, independent, impartial study of their use and effects is urgently needed.