Happy daylight savings time
I like daylight savings time, but this does seem to be pushing a good thing a bit much. At least it seems to be getting more spring-like every day. It's even a tad warmer this morning than yesterday. Not quite warm enough for the grow light to ignite instantly. I still need to warm up the house a little for that. I have twelve tomatoes sprouting so far. After three weeks I'm guessing the other eight need to be restarted. One pepper has sprouted and the pumpkin and one melon. I know melons typically are seeded in the ground directly when it's warm enough but I like to start indoors. I usually don't have a problem with transplanting, but they don't do much after that. I don't know if the bees aren't working or the weather isn't hot enough or what.
Another weekend for our cooking group. This weekend was Irish because St. Patrick's Day is next week. It's hard finding recipes for (traditional) Irish food. The hosts made corned beef and cabbage. I brought soda bread. There was a pretty good chocolate cake with potatoes as one of the ingredients. There was Irish coffee which was made plenty strong. Those are some of the highlights, anyway.
Friday night I took in another theater production from the Japanese students. They did three short plays. Master Beef involves a bartender who is a cow--yes, a dairy cow. The English summary doesn't say if that's supposed to be symbolic of something. The way I see a lot of Japanese stories which involve fantasy elements, is that the fantasy doesn't seem to have any symbolic value. It's just there. Each Time definitely required understanding the language. It was more of a poem recited by two characters. Masterpiece involves the exploits of a policeman at a railroad station. The audience seemed to like it. A lot of laughter over that one. I like seeing these Japanese productions, even if I don't speak the language. I just pick up what I can and don't worry about the rest.
Arthur Silber ... limns with brutal accuracy the inability of our movers and shakers--and most of the public they manipulate so thoroughly--to comprehend the true nature of this bloodsoaked hell: that it is a monstrous crime, conceived in evil, steeped in murder, breeding death, brutality and corruption in everything it touches.
--Chris Floyd
Audio Newsletter #1
Breaking and Entering suffers from a schematism. Minghella has a conception of things, but it only loosely fits reality. His inventions, for the most part, fail to satisfy entirely. They rely a bit too much on clichés. His Bosnian refugee, Amira, is congealed anxiety and discomfort. Often people get on with their lives, without a great deal of fuss. We are not allowed to forget for a moment her history. Her desperation becomes a little tiring. Her in-laws, so to speak, Bosnian Serbs, are inevitably brutish. Winstone could hardly be broader as a London cop. It goes on. The qualities of almost every character are overdrawn, tied up too neatly. The piece lacks spontaneity. There are some genuine moments between Liv (Robin Wright Penn is a remarkable performer) and her daughter.
--David Walsh
The conviction of former Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis Libby is the first case in which a top Bush administration has been found criminally culpable for lies related to the war in Iraq, but it should not be the last. A Washington jury handed down the guilty verdicts on four counts Tuesday, after ten days of deliberation.
--Patrick Martin
Beware the empty compromise. There are also times when the middle ground is worse than either extreme. There's an old, old fable about an ass who starved to death halfway between two bales of hay because it couldn't make up its mind which one to eat first. Sometimes you just have to choose, because a compromise won't work. The only way to tell is to examine the entire system carefully and try to anticipate what the results of different decisions will be.
--Sara Robinson (quoting Kauffman's Rules)
The only good thing about the trial is that it removed one of the main instruments of the Cabal from the White House. It is easy to underestimate Libby, as he appears to be unaggressive and unthreatening. In fact, he was one of the most dangerous men in the world. It is not a coincidence that the White House lost its track at the same time that Libby was forced to leave.
--Xymphora
Forty-two years after the historic civil rights crossing of nearby Edmund Pettus Bridge on the road to Montgomery, the Barack and Hillary Show reveals that the last vestiges of the Black Freedom Movement are going nowhere. African American political luminaries from around Alabama and the nation, eager to become part of the pageant, arrayed themselves in the box seats of their favorite's church venues, validating the candidates' vacuous presentations as if they actually contained something of substance worthy of the occasion.
--Glen Ford
As far as the U.S. economic interests I think we have to make a distinction. The primary interest, and that's true throughout the Middle East, even in Saudi Arabia, the major energy producer, has always been control, not access, and not profit. Profit is a secondary interest and access is a tertiary interest.
--Noam Chomsky (interviewed by Sameer Dossani)
Israel and 9/11: The disappearing story that's too hot to handle
The Sadrist hierarchy has demonstrated its willingness to accommodate itself to Iraq’s transformation into a US client state. Nevertheless, there have been incessant calls in US political and military circles for its political influence to be shattered and the Mahdi Army eliminated.
--James Cogan
Another weekend for our cooking group. This weekend was Irish because St. Patrick's Day is next week. It's hard finding recipes for (traditional) Irish food. The hosts made corned beef and cabbage. I brought soda bread. There was a pretty good chocolate cake with potatoes as one of the ingredients. There was Irish coffee which was made plenty strong. Those are some of the highlights, anyway.
Friday night I took in another theater production from the Japanese students. They did three short plays. Master Beef involves a bartender who is a cow--yes, a dairy cow. The English summary doesn't say if that's supposed to be symbolic of something. The way I see a lot of Japanese stories which involve fantasy elements, is that the fantasy doesn't seem to have any symbolic value. It's just there. Each Time definitely required understanding the language. It was more of a poem recited by two characters. Masterpiece involves the exploits of a policeman at a railroad station. The audience seemed to like it. A lot of laughter over that one. I like seeing these Japanese productions, even if I don't speak the language. I just pick up what I can and don't worry about the rest.
Arthur Silber ... limns with brutal accuracy the inability of our movers and shakers--and most of the public they manipulate so thoroughly--to comprehend the true nature of this bloodsoaked hell: that it is a monstrous crime, conceived in evil, steeped in murder, breeding death, brutality and corruption in everything it touches.
--Chris Floyd
Audio Newsletter #1
Breaking and Entering suffers from a schematism. Minghella has a conception of things, but it only loosely fits reality. His inventions, for the most part, fail to satisfy entirely. They rely a bit too much on clichés. His Bosnian refugee, Amira, is congealed anxiety and discomfort. Often people get on with their lives, without a great deal of fuss. We are not allowed to forget for a moment her history. Her desperation becomes a little tiring. Her in-laws, so to speak, Bosnian Serbs, are inevitably brutish. Winstone could hardly be broader as a London cop. It goes on. The qualities of almost every character are overdrawn, tied up too neatly. The piece lacks spontaneity. There are some genuine moments between Liv (Robin Wright Penn is a remarkable performer) and her daughter.
--David Walsh
The conviction of former Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis Libby is the first case in which a top Bush administration has been found criminally culpable for lies related to the war in Iraq, but it should not be the last. A Washington jury handed down the guilty verdicts on four counts Tuesday, after ten days of deliberation.
--Patrick Martin
Beware the empty compromise. There are also times when the middle ground is worse than either extreme. There's an old, old fable about an ass who starved to death halfway between two bales of hay because it couldn't make up its mind which one to eat first. Sometimes you just have to choose, because a compromise won't work. The only way to tell is to examine the entire system carefully and try to anticipate what the results of different decisions will be.
--Sara Robinson (quoting Kauffman's Rules)
The only good thing about the trial is that it removed one of the main instruments of the Cabal from the White House. It is easy to underestimate Libby, as he appears to be unaggressive and unthreatening. In fact, he was one of the most dangerous men in the world. It is not a coincidence that the White House lost its track at the same time that Libby was forced to leave.
--Xymphora
Forty-two years after the historic civil rights crossing of nearby Edmund Pettus Bridge on the road to Montgomery, the Barack and Hillary Show reveals that the last vestiges of the Black Freedom Movement are going nowhere. African American political luminaries from around Alabama and the nation, eager to become part of the pageant, arrayed themselves in the box seats of their favorite's church venues, validating the candidates' vacuous presentations as if they actually contained something of substance worthy of the occasion.
--Glen Ford
As far as the U.S. economic interests I think we have to make a distinction. The primary interest, and that's true throughout the Middle East, even in Saudi Arabia, the major energy producer, has always been control, not access, and not profit. Profit is a secondary interest and access is a tertiary interest.
--Noam Chomsky (interviewed by Sameer Dossani)
Israel and 9/11: The disappearing story that's too hot to handle
The Sadrist hierarchy has demonstrated its willingness to accommodate itself to Iraq’s transformation into a US client state. Nevertheless, there have been incessant calls in US political and military circles for its political influence to be shattered and the Mahdi Army eliminated.
--James Cogan