Ghost Cities -- Brooklyn Bridge -- Robokopter

Google Earth photos of the Kumtag Desert in China show gargantuan earth projects in the middle of nowhere. The scale of some of these projects defy normal human perspective. One of them covers approximately two miles of width and four miles of length. The Nazca Lines immediately come to mind when viewing these photos. Of course unlike the ancient Peruvians the Chinese have machinery. Maybe a high ranking party member in Beijing had too much time on their hands and thought it would be fun to mess with the imaginations of Westerners. via Gizmodo.

The OWS Brooklyn Bridge march yesterday

Meanwhile, the occupation of many areas of major American cities has ended, but the Occupy movement won't be changing its name. These protesters have restored hope to some people in the United States that citizen activism is in the middle of a renaissance. No matter what name they take, the fact that so many people care enough to put their lives on the line for the betterment of the common working people of our country is highly admirable. The shortcomings of the movement are far outweighed by the existence of the movement itself. Occupy Wall Street has set a precedent worth more than any other grass roots movement in the past thirty years. As long as people have the knowledge that hordes of fellow citizens hold the same beliefs they do and are willing to take direct action to effect change, then the armor of big money can continue to be worn down. And maybe, just maybe, with continued work and diligence in this vein the tide of economic hopelessness will begin to turn in favor of an expanding middle class and greater opportunities.

Cheers to Occupy supporters nationwide for creating a bright spot on the economic horizon that has been bleak and dark for so long. A big part of that brightening is camaraderie -- an ideological one for those who can't make it out, and a physical one for those on the front lines. They deserve more recognition than simple words can give.



The end of the Internet as you know it is closer than you think. SOPA has a name that belies the horrible vagueness and potential for misuse in the actual bill. It would be more accurate to call the Stop Online Piracy Act the Totalitarian Internet Control Act. Ron Paul and Nancy Pelosi have both stepped forward in opposition to SOPA, and they don't agree about very many things. It will hurt our country far worse than it will help. I have been loathe to speak out against it since normally everything I condemn gets passed and everything I support gets trounced, but this matters too much to remain silent. I'm already bracing for a move to a national dimnet should this piece of legislation become law. The government will not be able to stop those of us determined to remain free of a federal stranglehold on information.



The above photograph was taken by a helicopter drone sent over streets in Poland by protesters there. The little white circles are the tops of police helmets. The protesters wanted to get a better view of police activity by filming it from above. Technology available only to the military and elite police for so long is now becoming more affordable and widespread. Turnabout is fair play. From Infowars, where footage from the helicopter drone is available.

LSU Obliterates Auburn -&- "Election"

The #19 team in the nation, the Auburn Tigers, came to Baton Rouge with hopes of upsetting the BCS #1 ranked LSU football team. Auburn did manage to put points on the board, somehow. This is the second time this season LSU has defeated a long time SEC opponent by the largest margin of victory in the history of their meetings. The score was 45-10. Alabama poses a real challenge on November 5th in a game that's sure to be a nailbiter, but right now the LSU Tigers seem like Roman's going into battle against Celts. They have continued to devastate opponents. They are a convincing top ranked team, to say the least.

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Louisiana had elections today. Before they started it was crystal clear nothing would change in this district. Groovenor Gin Doll has the big race sewed up, even with 9 people running against him (in fact he won very big). I refused to pick a different candidate because none of them really worked to win the office. They certainly did not tour Baton Rouge's inner city, and that shows how little they care. Jindal could never get my vote while remaining a member of the Glorious Oligarchy Party; the GOP has led the middle class to the brink of destruction. Gotta work hard to remember Louisiana kicks ass, otherwise some of the minor black marks against it will make the whole place seem like a detestable, poverty stricken third world country again.

A Table:

Election Winner

Governor Jindl

By a mile

No competition

What election?

Sad, really.

Sorry, activists.

A Colored box:

With elections like the one we had yesterday it's easy to understand why some people give up on the entire process, thinking it meaningless. If everyone in Tiger Stadium, Death Valley that is, had actively voiced support for change and voted to make it happen, the outcome may have been different. That's more difficult than drinking beer and watching LSU make grown men cry, however. Voter apathy may have had less to do with this election than football, to be honest. [Another meaningless comment.]

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Have been reading Templesmith's Gentleman Corpse series. It's a great little work of dark comedy. No comic book has been this enjoyable in so many years I can't remember. It follows the adventures of a corpse possessing maggot named Wormwood. The very polite and refined maggot solves ghastly crimes. Highly recommended.

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How does someone miss a spelling error in their title? Finally noticed 2 weeks later.

Louisiana ~Bans Cash

The state of Louisiana banned the use of cash in the purchase and sale of secondhand items. Antique stores, pawnshops, flea markets and yard sales will all be prohibited from using legal United States tender when doing business. Individuals engaged in commerce involving anything besides brand new goods will be forced to use credit cards, checks or money orders.

Louisiana House Bill 195 was passed and signed into law by Governor Bobby Jindal. We are now our own country. United States money is no good here. The law was passed and signed without any significant media coverage.

Legislators who support the law claim it targets criminals, and that banning cash transactions will help combat the sale of stolen property. It sounds an awful lot like treating a symptom rather than curing a problem. The sale of stolen goods could not possibly account for even an entire percentage of cash sales in the state. The legitimate 99+% will now suffer because of extremely shoddy legislation. The law is unconstitutional, idiotic and shameful. Un-be-fucking-lievable.

Glorious Oligarchy Party Declaration: All your tender is belong to us!

When entering the Republic of Louisiana, please present your papers, and while traveling remember to keep your face exposed at all red light cameras. It's for your own safety. The Party knows best. There will be no anonymity in commercial matters. "Protection over privacy." So say the elite, so must you all say.

Review-a-thon, or Not

Stumbled across perhaps the most epic music share session of all time. Considered reviewing a bunch of the albums and posting the links myself, but decided it would be a humongous undertaking. Instead decided to forward the entire spectacle and leave the burden of fair use reviews to the reader.

United States law: You can download an album. After that you have 24 hours to review the album and post your review somewhere. After that you must delete the album from your hard drive in order to remain compliant with United States copyright laws. The artists often very much appreciate the attention and the review. If you do a good job, then instead of breaking the law you have contributed to the prosperity of the musicians. It's good sportsmanship to review imports as well, even though you do not run the risk of legal action for not doing so.

God Tier Share Thread

Get out there and force a bunch of takedown letters to [file hosting service]. If nobody complains, then the musicians aren't getting any attention. Show the music industry some love.

More Fun from Wall Street

Don't feel remorse if you don't think you can handle this sort of scene. On the other hand, if civil disobedience and good clean police conflict is your idea of a good time, then Occupy Wall Street has what you're looking for. Having a clean record helps at bail hearings. Remember, it's not what you did or didn't do that determines how you'll be treated by the authorities, its whether or not you make them angry.

Gratis Iranian Pointers

Some of those attending the International Atomic Energy Agency General Convention received free laser pointers from Iran. The laser pointers are shaped like little centrifuges.


The laser pointers come with the slogan "Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapon for None." So, Iran refuses to have only one nuclear weapon, eh? Ahmadinejad will stop at nothing! Presumably it was just poor English usage, but one can never tell. From Arms Control Wonk.

Knocked Out

Some guy at Occupy Wall Street got his clock cleaned by a NYPD white shirt. It plays the scene twice just in case you missed it. One can only wonder what the guy wearing the green shirt said, because it is clear that it happened because of something he vocalized. Some of us were just born with the skill it takes to make somebody that angry using only words. O, also, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" & "Holy sh**!"



Chris Hedges wrote a fantastic piece about "progressive and liberal" orgs, and labor organizations, trying to ride OWS coat tails. Hedges very accurately described how those organizations failed voters and supporters and now look to people actually getting things done to stay in the spotlight (MoveOn's 2008 approach already showed their total irrelevance). It was a great article to wake up to and to help wake one up, in case you missed it, and that only means from sleep, not some implied haze of civil indifference.

Unrelated:
The Yellow Sea is still coming to mind two days later. It failed to overtake Old Boy for best fight sequence of all time, but it came damn close. The escape sequences are believable and two of them dragged me to my feet. It was just that intense. Hong-jin Na directed the movie, and another well worth watching called The Chaser. "Never work for the mafia. They'll never let you go."

FoundThings

While the rest of the LSU faithful were traveling to the Tennessee game and back I traveled back home to Tiger country. Now that the weekend is over I'm about to head back to the land of the Volunteers. While here I went through a lot of material, audio, written, video. I hadn't been able to do the fun thing in a long time. Inevitably I go too far, and so I stopped listing before I got to the hardcore Asian cinema (the good stuff, for the totally jaded). That will come up another time. This is just some of it. Here it is:

Japanther, Defiance Ohio, Trainwreck Riders, nonsenose (whaaa?), Turnout (Cockney fux need subtitles tho'), My Little Pony (so you can all get cancer and then give it to everyone else - I wouldn't watch it for a case of yellow cake, a truckload of C4 and a detonator, well, maybe for that), DJ Zo and Dumbfoundead, Why aren't you at OccupyWallSt protest right now? (I've got a cold, my iPod is broken, wifi in the park is bottlenecked, summer ended, the dog ate my "I Give A Fuck" badge, there's no money in it [that we can talk about], it's hipper to write about OWS than be there, dude, it's outside, and, also, there is no Occupy Small Town [I already regret writing that, but it was going around, albeit not entirely spoken, in a massive fashion last week]), keaton henson - you don't know how lucky you are, Last Life in the Universe - a movie with Tadanobu Asano (he played Kakihara, {enuff Kakihara to strangle a mofo} the stand-in boss who made "Icchi" as great as it was); this movie is too deep to relate, he plays a guy who lives, has a relationship. and finally, awesome for Ubuntu desktop.

Can contain it no longer: The Yellow Sea has mind boggling action. Asian cinema at its very best. Just a top notch wrecking ball driven storyline.

Conserveral

Thank goodness this web log is run by a pro-life Catholic with strong conservative slants in many areas. If the author passionately pursued left wing ideals and accepted purely liberal values, then the political action motivation writing could significantly weaken many core values on the periphery of our society. Those areas need a strong platform of moral stability more than anywhere else. Liberal humanism has little to do with politics and everything to do with day to day interaction and work. People who have seen the most grueling and difficult conditions in our nation can accept human behavior at levels that did not exist when bastions of political conservatism were young, and yet still cling solidly to their own old fashioned backgrounds. No conflict exists between those schools of thought, merely expanded levels of tolerance among younger people, and note that younger does not mean young.

Citizens who have reached rock bottom would find little comfort in changing governmental regulations and representation, even if they are the object of the endeavors. For example, someone who has contracted HIV through heterosexual sex or drug use may not even have known they were at risk and will be reeling from the diagnosis. They will need well established guidelines for finding care beyond diagnosis. They could very well need substance abuse treatment or shelter from domestic abuse, in the case of prostitutes will eventually find nothing but anger when they can no longer return to their "partner" with money. Liberal thinkers show great strength of character and tenacity in the face of adversity when confronting the realities of those nightmare situations alongside the people trapped in them Social workers and institutional intermediaries by category of their education demonstrate liberal understanding and knowledge, and that has nothing to do with their core values. Those living through the hardship must regain acceptance in their community, at least in their own minds, even if on the surface private matters never revealed the ostracism. In those matters they turn to churches, they turn to the solid foundations, they go back to the standards they know will not be abandoned and where they will not find themselves facing their problems alone. That's just an example. There are a myriad of ways in which liberal thought and conservative values must be inseparable to be effective.

The man who owns these written words never abandoned the old fashioned beliefs and sentiments. Yarns and stories about our nation the way it was before the cities grew and swallowed the countryside in state after state, handed down by our elders, always carry with them a special appeal and allure. That country has not been forgotten, nor have our traditions and doctrines been altered by the passage of time. The images and music of the past have a place, but nothing brings the antique back to life and makes it new again besides the power of our language. Therein true magic resides.

Make no mistake, though much fun can be had ruffling the feathers of those unaccustomed to the depths to which our society has plunged in places their faith and their ideals is never a genuine target of criticism or demands. Those depths of modern human behavior make myopic puns humorous through their intentional ignorance of context and insert the mirth into drawn conclusions that are feigned and incorrect, because by comparison the trickery of ruse gaffes and crude jabs is totally harmless and entertaining. In the end faith based works win out every time, and sincerity will always be victorious over falsehood. The commentary here can be viewed as a diversion for a lazy afternoon or held up with deadly seriousness. There's nothing that can be done about that once the words have been written and presented, but again and again clarification rescues intentions and revealed circumstances lighten heavy moral burdens. Sometimes it is difficult to reign in the zealous feeling of comaraderie with idealists of the past, but respecting the feelings and the honor of the people of the present means more than all the ideology in a stack of textbooks. And the teachings of the Jesus Christ and the words handed down through the ages in Christianity, and other wise religious paths, mean more than all this gobbledygook ever will; those ways save lives.

It is time to give this a rest. The typographical errors and more serious mistakes likely here bring a shudder to the nerves. If only the words were visible without so much effort... I claim ownership of them for the pleasure of giving them to you.

[Is there nobody to shut me up late at night? Oh, this one. Too sappy. Too explanatory. Too nice. Yuck. Wonder what I should do with it...[edits never happened, and may never]]