ZED

Damn!

Good evening…)

Clinton!

Ugh.
Saw some of that mess today.
Ugh.

Hi ES, all.

Cat got me awake, chasing a mouse in the house. Now she’s asleep (mouse got away) and I’m awake.

ES, this Alamaba3 is just great.

Populous — wow ES, love this!

I missed it but Janes report was almost infuriating.

A pleasure. I don’t recall seeing you in these parts.

The vids really go well together. Both popped up within a day or two of each other. I love it when that happens.

Blame it on da mouse.

Mine’s inside at the moment.. which is really odd. She eats a mouse or rat, a rabbit and one or two birds most every day this spring.

She must be full.

It’s rare that I stay up this late. I think I’ve had a low grade something, so I’ve been sleeping a lot. Being well rested and jolted by the chase, I’m bright eyed & bushy tailed. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Aloha Ya’ll…!

Pentagon issues downbeat assessment on Afghanistan

…only one in four Afghans in strategically important areas currently back President Hamid Karzai’s government even as the Taliban expand their insurgency and install shadow local governments.

*Gah*

I really need new music now — the great escape.

True, and I love what you do.

But I’m forming a fairly negative commentary about #2, not so much about the music, but the content.

Hey ES! I can’t stay and play, but since I made it up this long, I thought I’d say hello.

Look no further. I have a lot of new music…)

HOLLYWOOD – MARINA and the Diamonds at SPUTNIK unplugged

Oh dear… low grade something makes me think of Lyme this time of year. Be careful.

Hi demi…)

Mine seems not to be a very good hunter. Not for lack of trying. She really tore around trying to get the critter. Interestingly, pre-cat, the mice came in the house in the autumn when the weather turned cold. I didn’t have a single one this year (Cahnstance arrived in November) until tonight. We’ve had cold rainy weather for the past couple of days. Today was around 50 with beautiful sunshine, but very windy, so I stayed indoors & read. And made guacamole & cerviche. Guess the mouse thought the inside would also be more comfortable inside. Probably had second thoughts when it started getting chased.

Do tell?

Juan Cole had an interesting post on the Taliban topic.

She is too good!

Waiting with baited breath…

Hey, Chris. Drumming my fingers on the desk, myself.

Hiya!

And I should be asleep — bad on me.

Negative was a wrong description.

I struggle for words.

The music and the video is right, it’s all about the Vatican is dumb, verging on evil.

I need to check out more of her work.

Also, reading a biography of Goya. He lived through Napoleon’s invasion of Spain, which resulted in the coining of the word guerilla. It was one of the first successful insurgencies in the western world. All the vocabulary and actions on both sides are very similar to modern usage. Atrocities on both sides. PTB protecting their turf. R.C. church managed to demonize Napoleon as being both foreign as well as anti-Catholic, so population was on side of insurgents, which is the key to their success. It is an interesting example, because R.C. church & Spanish monarchy that was reestablished after French were expelled were much less progressive than Napoleon with his legal code would have been wrt the peasants.

That’s what I was thinking you were going to say.
Alas, my tea is cold and I’ve got a good book calling my name.
Ta! Pups!

peanut butter, for the mouse that is.

Interesting. Admittedly I know next to nothing about Catholicism, but I didn’t take it to be so specific. But i knew it was something many would interpret many ways… intersting take.

Lyrics here.

I read the Rand report too and really doesn’t bode well…

But, Carl Forsberg at the Inst. for The Study of War released a real bombshell…(PDF)

Politics and Power in Kandahar

Thanks, ES. I couldn’t really hear them all. Gonna have to roll those around a bit. I can understand disappointment, but it’s a little too sad for me. Call me a big baby.

Interesting idea. I think I’ll put a dab out by the catfood dish when I go downstairs to fill up my wine glass. Maybe that will make a more stationary target for the cat. She lived on the streets of Manhattan for a year or so (but her sweet personality got people to feed her). She must have learned to hunt, but I have seen no signs of her skills at it in the 5 months she’s lived with me.

We both bailed out of the Iran thread just in time.

I think my computer is picking up someone’s phone conversation. Some fellows girlfriends dog died.

I’m still saddened and upset by the Terry Childs verdict.

“The jury deliberated for several days before a lone holdout against conviction was removed from the panel, for reasons that were not disclosed. After an alternate was put in that juror’s place, the panel started over and reached a decision in a matter of hours.”

and

This case should have never come to be. (…snip…) I personally, and many of the other juror, felt terrible coming to this verdict. Terry Childs turned his life around and educated himself in the networking field on very complex technologies. One different decision by him, or more effective management by the city could have completely avoided this entire scenario. But those are not factors we could consider as a jury. We applied the law as it was provided to us and our verdict was the unfortunate, but inevitable result.

and

While you are allowed to look at testimony differently and debate that, you can’t decide that a legal definition as provided by the judge is something you don’t agree with and therefore won’t follow.

Taken together they’re an illustration of how the judicial equivalent of the Nuremberg Defense is perfectly acceptable when it’s used (however unintentionally) on behalf of the state, and how when it’s used along with Lavrenti Beria’s (Stalin’s chief of the secret police) maxim “Find me the man. I’ll find the crime” we have tyranny here at home.

“The Law” is most fundamentally not about “justice,” but about enforcing the rule of the powerful.

Goodnight all!

If I was Larue, I woulda said that you were spot on there, Hoss!!

You were.

Too heavy for me to concentrate on at this hour. But scanned the exec summary. Not surprising that local power brokers fill the void and foreigners can’t make headway. Who coulda anticipated?

Night demi.

Night CE, sleep well.

“The Law” is most fundamentally not about “justice,” but about enforcing the rule of the powerful.

Gee, that’s just what I said in voir dire last I showed up for federal jury duty. Funny, I didn’t get selected for an actual jury.

I’ll just say this.

The reason why I am really good in ancient languages is not by MY choice.

The Jesuits grabbed me, and really tried hard to hold onto me. I was with them, for quite a while. Why wouldn’t I be? I really liked how their worldview worked, for quite some time.

Language, and a scientific view towards God, in the realm of Teilard de Chardin, was almost in their purview in the early ’80s.

They lost me.

*heh* And the Karzais’ are the main problem…! ;-)

You & I live in the real world. The empire PTB live in the reality creation world. Let’s give 3 cheers for govt-in-a-box. As long as I live, I think I won’t hear a more ludicrous foreign policy concept.

It’s certainly in the top five…! I wonder if Webster’s will treat it as a euphemism for failure…?

It undoubtedly made a good PowerPoint chart. Prolly had 4 or 5 bullet points under it.

Think I’m ready to turn in again. G’nite everyone.

I think we just killed the thread…! ;-)

Aloha, M’dear…!

Gee, that’s just what I said in voir dire last I showed up for federal jury duty. Funny, I didn’t get selected for an actual jury.

Did you remember to conclude with “And I’d be happy to help!” ?

Good night eCAHN

The lawyer for the little old lady who was arranging marriages for immigrants was desperate to have me on the jury. He sadly asked: You’ll make up your mind (against the govt) before you even hear the evidence?

Now I’m gone.

Just driving by to say good night— went to do the dishes and take out the garbage, and Windows went and installed an update – and of course, shut down and restarted the ‘puter. Grrrrrr. I had a bunch of pages open, some of which I wanted to bookmark but hadn’t yet.

I.hate.Windows.

Someday perhaps I shall be rich enough to own an Apple.
(that said, did anyone see TDS, with Jon’s plaint to Apple/Jobs?) Loved the “Appholes” graphic…re busting in the door of the Gizmodo guy’s house to seize his computers.

Awww. Wonder how that came out? Prolly seemed like a victimless crime to the defendant…(ducking before we get into another anti-immigrant thread…or maybe those folks have already gone to bed)

I’d better go myself, before I get caught up in another lovely LLN.

Oh, and Kelly – no wonder you have such a breadth of knowledge. I once knew some Jebbies – they were very smart and very well educated. It was a long time ago, of course.

I’m just gonna go out on my porch, have a smoke, say goodnight.

Love, K

Aloha, Kelly…!

I missed it.

Evening all. ES I like those music choices !! Thank you. The second one reminds me of Marianne Faithful in her delivery. Very interesting. And I’m always a fan of retro-Vietnam songs. How else will we connect the dots between our generations and drive home what our current foreign policy IS ?

The youngsters really collected/recycled a lot of old gems didn’t they?

Yeah, I’m trying to find One Republic doing “For What It’s Worth” [ PBS Soundstage version with the psychedelic lighting]. I have to get better at this Toobz stuff!
Or accept that not everything is retrievable.

ES, have you heard a Cambodian band called Dengue Fever? I like them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQYOGkCk2DA

evening, firegods

hiya ES … margot … eCAHN

Are we feeling dyslectic tonight? I’m good with that. :>

CLick on video on this page.. i think it must be the whole show, not just one song.

no more than usual, OH

Hi Margot..) Could have sworn I posted them once upon a time… but I can’t find it on teh google.

Hiya PPDCUS

Hey ES and LLNers.

Great evening here – got myself ejected from a condo assn meeting. Too funny…. humorless authoritarians!

Thanks, that’s what I was doing but I couldn’t single out the song. Now I know it’s not me being inept. C’est la vie.

Do tell…! ;-)

Good on ya !!!! Just don’t let it stop you from going to the next meeting. Liberty requires vigilance….

*laughing* Good evening Sunny. Reminds me of old Frasier episodes. He was always giving and getting hell at condo board meetings.

Hi PPDCUS and all, and to all a good night. :-)

Aloha, Margot…!

I merely suggested an audit… ;-)

Sweet dreams, Margot.

Oh,fuck! That’s the same issue we’re embroiled in. An Audit seems to signify a lack of faith in the Treasurer. Gasp.
We are close to going ahead with an impeachment if the Treasurer continues to obstruct. Very dicey.

‘nite margot.

Uh oh… Take notes of those who protested loudest! :)

Merely, eh…? I’m sure that went over like a lead balloon…! ;-)

Well firedogs…it’s so windy here tonight I may have to tie myself into bed like it’s a sailboat on the high seas.

Good night all.

Here it seems there is no treasurer. He who approves the expenditures also writes the checks :-/

Aloha, ES…!

I shall bid ya’ll a fond adieu too…!

Windy Nights.

Whenever the moon and stars are set
Whenever the wind is high
All night long in the dark and wet
a man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?

R L Stevenson

Our bylaws require an audit on a regular basis and it was blown off when a certain “clique” controlled the community politics because no one else wanted to. For 7 years.
We are relearning our own bylaws.
1] Officers have fancy titles but actually hold less power than a Trustee. Just because you’re the president doesn’t mean you’re cock-of-the-walk. You have no control or use of Community Assets without a quorum.
2] Trustees hold the power of the Assets to a point. They aren’t the Labor Force that we’ve come to accept. They’re job is to control the Officers and oversee maintenance of the Hall.
Wow, are we a community in a learning curve. It’s interesting because all the power personalities want to be/have been officers. And the people who want to be on the council for oversight always choose to be Trustees.
This had the potential to be a dog fight. We avoided that by introducing a free community dinner before the meeting. Cuz the Trustees have control of the assets, we’re DFH and voted to spend up to $150 for food at our monthly meetings. We have a volunteer cook sign up sheet and we’re solid until August on volunteers.
It’s made an ENORMOUS change in the tenor of our meetings. It’s not just 2 opposing sides sparsely attending meetings and fighting when we do.
Now we are civilized with food, music, conversation for 45 minutes before the Community Business comes under discussion. We even encourage Dine and Dash for those who aren’t ready to go to a fucking meeting just yet. The bitter taste is still there.
Attendance is slowly increasing as people hear that it really is just a community meal, for free, the library open for children who want to be there or play in the yard [under supervision], if you can’t do a meeting-don’t. If you reach the point of wanting to leave during the meeting-feel free to go.
We’ve gone from 6-8 people in attendance to 50.
I guess I’m passionate about this, yes? Kind of late to comment sooo long.

I re-read this and realized why some in our community are so upset. This looks like Democratic Socialism.
But it’s not. Wish it was.

Just got back online for the first time since early yesterday morning and I was hoping to catch any of the several people who’d helped me through my difficulties today. I thank you one and all if you’re reading this.