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Refrain:
J'entends le moulin
Tique, tique, taque
J'entends le moulin, taque.
The one-and-a-half minute spot, which can be viewed below, features a multicultural line-up of speakers explaining why they participate in iWatch, a "neighborhood watch for the whole city," as the ad describes it.
"If you see, hear, or smell something suspicious, report it. Reporting is easy. Use the web or the phone," the speakers state. "A single report can lead to actions that can stop a terrorist attack. Think about that. Think about the power of that. Think about the power of iWatch."
And indeed plenty of people are now thinking about the power of iWatch, and many observers are not impressed. Allison Kilkenny, on her TrueSlant blog, says it won't be long before iWatch will be exploited by people for their own purposes.
Tina Dupuy at the media-affairs blog MediaBistro writes that the ad "is universally thought to be creepy and not unlike we've imagined PSA's on Orwell's telescreens to be like."
The full story.....But our reaction is why did this take so long? Hello! September 11th 2001 was like eight years ago. It's taken the LAPD this long to ask Angelenos to be on the look out for anything suspicious in regards to terrorism?! What, did they get stuck in traffic for the better part of a decade?
"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And, hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Both the text above (extracted from "Saint Anthony's Vocation" and "Choose your own Dream") and the illustration ("The Endless Wave", which its author calls a Tomograph, a 3-dimensional scenes created using a variety of real elements mixed with hand painted cutouts) are from Patrick Woodroffe's amazing collection, Hallelujah Anyway.
Its extraordinary images explore and celebrate the border between reality and illusion; a realm of wild wonders and bizarre beings, brought to life through a combination of paint, etching and highly unconventional photographic techniques.
Published: 1987 (currently out of print)
Enter the eccentric Golden Retriever breeder that fell jinto my lap. I was never one for touting breeders as my philosophy was always to shun the profit of animal sales. They aren't pets to me, they are companions. Ahhh... but this gent was different & jinto my life he brought a gorgeous red/golden on the night before Xmas Eve.
She wasn't even 2 months old- far too young to be away from her mother so I knew she needed extra special care. I raised her on a holistic vegetarian diet much like my own, with mass quantities of research into all the additional things she needed to grow into a strong healthy pup, of course. I named her Brioche after the traditional French eggy breakfast bread because her fur was the sheen of a fresh baked fluted boule.
I swore I would do everything right this time round so she'd live a long & happy life. In fact, no spaying for her as I thought one day I might have adequate living space for a batch of mini Brioche's... *sigh*
She grew to be strong, healthy & very very very happy. She got me through the rest of the marriage & I made sure I retained custody of her in the divorce. She was kind, gentle & utterly selfless. She was my familiar. Anyone who met her was absolutely stunned by her intelligence & love. She radiated love.
...and now she's gone. Didn't even make it to her 4th birthday. I had to make the decision to put her to sleep this past Saturday eve. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in this lifetime.
She had started limping about 2.5 months ago & I assumed she took a tumble down the stairs when I wasn't home. I don't even care to speak of the incompetent vet who originally misdiagnosed her. *sigh*
It got worse & last Tuesday I tried a different vet. He seemed hopeful that it was operable & we brought her in on Wednesday for the surgery. The results came in on Friday morning. A very rare form of terminal, untreatable, blood bourne cancer found mostly in goldens (hereditary). He suspected she only had a few days to live. Evidently they were amazed she had lasted this long without it filling her body. They didn't come out right & say it... but it was inferred that how I raised her had something to do with how amazing she still looked. She didn't look sick at all... except for the massive rear leg.
She went peacefully in my arms & she looked so damn beautiful, so unbelievably perfect. Yet now I've a terrible void in my heart and a normally stoic jin, under any & all trying circumstances, can't seem to stop the tears from filling all of your beers.
"The Christian goal for the world is the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics, in which every area of life is redeemed and placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the rule of God's law."Frank Schaeffer also warns:
Those who say that the Religious Right and the far right have lost their power are looking through the lens of rule-obeying democratic liberalism. They don't understand that their opponents will always carry the proverbial lead pipe in his or her back pocket. To the progressives who think that the Religious Right and the right wing has lost its power I say this: You're correct when it comes to political facts (for the moment) of the last election, but you're dead wrong when it comes to the way revolutions work.
Who are Glenn Beck's foot soldiers? In effect what we have is a group of indoctrinated people who have never actually lived in America because they were brought up deliberately cloistered from it by their parents and churches. Because they are legally "Americans" they can move freely around our democracy trying to destroy it working within the United States. Today they are acting like a fifth column, no, they are a fifth column. Some of them have not just seceded metaphorically, there is even a growing movement for states to secede literally.
Today the right wing America haters actually are doing to America what no "illegal" immigrants ever do: work to overthrow our democracy and replace it with a theocracy. The home-schooled, privately educated brainwashed horde are an antidemocratic, fundamentally anti-American political movement. For a start they do not accept the results of the last election.
Read the full story...
Swans mate for life and in City Park New Orleans we had two mated pairs of white swans and a mated pair of black swans. Over the last couple years there has been one white offspring and one black one. In the last month or so these two solos have found each other and now you never see them apart. Can't wait to see what happens when these two produce offspring (assuming that they can). We may soon have creole swans - we already have creole ducks. In the post Katrina evolutionary pressure cooker our different species of ducks started cross breeding to produce an amazing variety of new creole ducks! Ain't life grand!
