music

Living With War

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Neil Young’s new album Living With War is available on the ‘Net right now. Even if you aren’t a huge Neil fan (I’m not), the songs and especially the lyrics are powerful enough for you to pull up the album, turn on your speakers or plug in some headphone and lisen to them. “After the Garden” (track 1) is incredibly catchy and “Let’s Impeach The President” (track 7) and “Looking for a Leader” (track 8) are especially damming. Actually, the whole album is pretty much a big FU to our current administration and you know what? Good. They deserve it.
Can you believe that we invaded Iraq over 3 years ago? Mission Accomplished my fucking ass.

science

Little Mermaid Update

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Milagros Cerron, Peru’s very own little mermaid, turned 2 and to that I say “mazel tov!”. She is basically doing fine – all things considered – and literally is a walking miracle (milagros means miracle in spanish and she has taken her first steps).

vert.milagros.ap.jpg

I know a number of readers, especially for some reason teenage girls in the UK, have been interested in tracking her progress and have left well wishes on WGTCTIP2. After the jump, feel free to read the CNN article about her.
Via Phyl
Peru’s ‘Little Mermaid’ making strides at 2: Doctor says girl should be able to walk on her own by year’s end
LIMA, Peru (AP) — Smiling, blowing kisses and taking small assisted steps, Peru’s “miracle baby” celebrated her second birthday Thursday, nearly a year after doctors successfully performed risky surgery to separate her fused legs.
Milagros Cerron, whose name means “miracles” in Spanish, was born with a rare congenital defect known as sirenomelia, or “mermaid syndrome.”
The condition is almost always fatal, but Milagros has not only survived but also grown into an alert, vivacious little girl who can pull herself from a seated to a standing position.
“We have managed to develop the muscles in the inferior extremities,” said Dr. Luis Rubio, head of a team of surgeons who operated on her in June. “The girl can now stand by herself and has started taking her first steps.”
He predicted she would be able to walk on her own by the end of the year.
To demonstrate her progress, Rubio held the child’s hands as she took small, shuffling strides during the party in the public hospital where her surgery took place.
He said that on May 25, Milagros will undergo another operation to separate a remaining 2 inches (5 centimeters) of fused tissue just below the child’s groin.
“That will permit the child to perfectly take a long step,” he said.
She will need 10 more years of reconstructive surgeries and rehabilitation, he said.
Milagros’ hips are narrow and small, and she has a deformed left kidney and a small right one located low in her body. In addition, her digestive and urinary tracts and her genitals share a single tube.
Dressed in a hot-pink shirt and blue jeans, Milagros enthusiastically blew out candles on a birthday cake shaped like the Walt Disney character “Little Mermaid,” the nickname she is known by in Peru.
Born with her legs fused to the ankles and her feet splayed, she resembled one of the mythical sea creatures before her operation.
Rubio said Tiffany Yorks, a 17-year-old American girl, was the only other person known to have undergone a successful surgery to correct the rare congenital defect, which is almost always fatal within days of birth.
Milagros is small for her age, about the size of a 1-year-old, and all of her time spent with physicians has taken a toll.
A team of speech specialists are now working with her to assure her linguistic skills develop normally, Rubio said.
“It is normal that a child says ‘mama’ at the beginning, or ‘papa,’ but the girl instead of saying ‘mama’ was saying ‘doctor.’ Her first word was ‘doctor,’ ” Rubio told The Associated Press.
But Milagros’ mother did not appear concerned with the detail.
“She does everything. She is a normal girl in her activities,” said Sara Arauco, 21, who gave birth to Milagros in a hospital in Peru’s Andes mountains. “The only thing is the small problem with her legs, and that’s nothing because everything else is normal. She knows more than 50 words.”

ramblings

I've Got Nothing I Tell You – Nothing!

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David Copperfield was robbed at gunpoint on Sunday night but “despite being possessed of a large amount of cash, the illusionist showed nothing but empty pockets to armed gunmen who targeted him and two female companions Sunday night in West Palm Beach, Florida, police said.”
What would have been even better is if he made the robbers disappear a la the Statue of Liberty. You can’t make this stuff up. You just can’t…

ramblings

Chevy Tahoe: Die Hippies Die!

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Chevy recently ran a promotion with “The Apprentice” where people got to make their “own” Tahoe commercial by piecing together video clips of the Tahoe provided by GM and adding their own copy to that new montage. While there were a lot of the expected anti-SUV pro-environment entries, the one titled “Die Hippies Die” is obviously the very funny exception. Enjoy.
Via John “Mr. DEE-troit” Thornton

tech

Dot Net Nuke

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My friend Sam told me about DotNetNuke, a fully customizable and scalable open source web platform that I deem cool enough to share. It is exactly what I was looking for as I have been trying to figure out how to help my friend Steven take his Democratic Lawyer Council org to the proverbial next level. For my goals, its much better than doing something simple in Ruby.
At first, the idea of building 51 commonly themed web sites – one for each state plus one for the national chapter – each with their own special characteristics was a daunting proposition. After watching the 20 min video on what DotNetNuke can do, I’m really ready to fully geek out and try and change our country for the better. Sam and I are planning to use this platform to tackle a completely separate business idea. Man, it just keeps getting easier to do all the cool tech stuff I want and as I don’t love to code that much anymore, this platform makes me really excited. Check it out for yourself.

ramblings

JetBlue Easter Egg

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An easter egg has been discovered on JetBlue’s web site. If you go to their route map page, select a route, hold down the “control” and type the letters p-b-j you get a “Family Guy” clip where Brian is doing the “Peanut Butter Jelly Time” dance. There is a debate going on in my office about whether or not it’s supposed to be there or if some JetBlue programmer slipped it in there as his own private joke. I for one don’t know and don’t care. I just think its cool.
4/28 UPDATE: The easter egg is gone – I guess it wasn’t supposed to be there after all. This is why you need to read WGTCTIP2 every day!

politics

Military Officiers Starting to Revolt?

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An article on Slate talks about how high ranking officials and former generals are fed up with Donald Rumsfeld and how their voices are starting to echo and gather weight behind them. You’ve got to love an article, and the state of our country, our military and our foreign policy, when said article starts with “It’s an odd thought, but a military coup in this country right now would probably have a moderating influence.” Here is a quote from the latest former General to finally publically air his views:

I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat—al-Qaeda. … [T]he Pentagon’s military leaders … with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military’s effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction. … It is time for senior military leaders to discard caution in expressing their views and ensure that the President hears them clearly. And that we won’t be fooled again.

What I want to know is where have you been Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold since you retired in 2002? Why only speak up now? Still, its better late than never.
In other political news, the latest flare-up about our president’s inability to listen to views that differ from his pre-conceived notion of what’s going on is picking up some steam. It’s about how when captured trailers were touted to the public as mobile WMD labs back in ’03, the Pres, Veep and everyone in the WH knew that intel was false but went with it anyway because everyone was wondering where all the WMDs were. My question is why is it taking so long for these lies to come to light? For those keeping score at home, here are 3 other instances where the WH didn’t care about what others in our government had to say:
1) The administration claimed an al Qaeda prisoner reported that Saddam had trained al Qaeda in bomb-making, but the Defense Intelligence Agency reported before the war that the prisoner was “intentionally misleading the debriefers.”
2) The administration claimed aluminum tubes in Iraq were irrefutable evidence that Saddam had a nuclear program, but the experts at the State and Energy Departments dissented from that view.
3) The administration claimed that Iraqi drones capable of delivering WMD could attack the U.S., but the experts at the Air Force dissented from the view.
I wish i lived in the same world that the WH does. It must be full of gooey gumdrops and lollypop lanes. It must be. Oh yeah, and Jesus is there too, kicking it with his righteous homies.

sports

1986 WS Game 6 Reborn in NES

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This game featured one of the all-time classic NY sports moments – the famous Bill Buckner error (though everyone seems to forget that 3 singles and a wild pitch proceeded that momentous event). To pay homage to it, somebody reenacted the bottom of the 10th inning of the 1986 World Series using the classic NES game “RBI Baseball.” Now, its not just the players and the action that was recreated. Oh no, that would be too easy. Also included is Vin Scully’s audio perfectly syncronized to the action on the field, I mean in the game, which makes this simply fantastic. I have no idea how much time this took but I sincerely thank San Diego Serenade making this bit of sports nut/nerd art.
UPDATED on 4/17: Yahoo! Sports today had a great article about the RBI Baseball re-creation that Conor Lastowka, aka San Diego Serenade, put together. It just goes to show that WGTCTIP2 is truly ahead of the Mainstream Media (MSM) curve.
Via Monty

politics

Christian Politics

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Garry Wills, professor emeritus of history at Northwestern University and the author, most recently, of “What Jesus Meant,” wrote a great op-ed piece in today’s NY Times titled “Christ Among the Partisans.” Long story short, he goes point for point on how Jesus would not be happy with the way that Republicans, and maybe soon Democrats as they try to play catch-up, are perverting his teachings for their own moralistic and political ends. For instance:
>> [Jesus] avoided those who would trap him into taking sides for or against the Roman occupation of Judea. He paid his taxes to the occupying power but said only, “Let Caesar have what belongs to him, and God have what belongs to him” (Matthew 22:21). He was the original proponent of a separation of church and state.
>> Those who want the state to engage in public worship, or even to have prayer in schools, are defying his injunction: “When you pray, be not like the pretenders, who prefer to pray in the synagogues and in the public square, in the sight of others. In truth I tell you, that is all the profit they will have. But you, when you pray, go into your inner chamber and, locking the door, pray there in hiding to your Father, and your Father who sees you in hiding will reward you” (Matthew 6:5-6). He shocked people by his repeated violation of the external holiness code of his time, emphasizing that his religion was an internal matter of the heart.
The first thing I thought of when I read this was the Amazing Race of all things. On the Amazing Race Family Edition (last season’s incarnation of the show), one team extolled their “Christian values” at every chance they got and felt that when no one liked them, they are being persecuted for being the only “Christian” team. The obvious answer of “you are so damn annoying!” obviously didn’t get through their thick Christ loving skulls. Aside from praising Jesus anytime something went their way or praying to Jesus to help them complete challenges, they were probably the most un-Christian team in race primarily due to their poor sportsmanship and bad behavior. Their utter hypocracy bothered me to no end. They surely weren’t exhibiting Christ-like values when they sped by other teams on the highway and chucked food at their cars or when they insulted and mocked other teams or when they plotted their vengence on teams that “hurt” their chances. Where was the lovingkindness that Christ preached? When players thank Jesus at the end of a basketball game, I go crazy. I mean, the nerve to think that Jesus had nothing better to do than to sit around and ensure that your buzzer beater went in. He frankly doesn’t care. By the way, the same player praising Jesus’s love for his jumpshot will obviously think that Jesus isn’t paying attention to him when he is blowing lines with a hooker later back at the team hotel.
Unfortunately, being a good Christian to many in America simply means, “Jesus loves me, I’m going to heaven and I can do whatever the hell I want until then, which includes actingly like a total and utter prick, because I go to Church each week.” I’ve seen this in politics. I’ve seen this in the intolerance shown towards certain segments of the US population and when people vote against their own interests based on politicians playing on their moral fears. I even saw this on the Amazing Race. It all comes back to the fact that more people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other reason. America was founded on the principal of tolerance for all and unfortunately, religion when used incorrectly, breeds intolerance and hate, the old “My God can kick your God’s ass.” Don’t even get me started on how this relates to terrorism in its present fundamentalist incarnation. We’ll save that for another post.
The article itself is very interesting and shows how the true nature of WWJD is not being applied by those that say that they are exhibiting Christ-like values. Christ preached lovingkindness, tolerance and support for all. He didn’t preach the intolerance that many in the Moral Majority lovingly exhibit. As for the op-ed piece, I’ve grabbed it and put it after the jump for those that find this post after the NY Times archives it because I think its important for all to read it.
April 9, 2006
Christ Among the Partisans By Garry Wills (Op-Ed Contributor), Chicago
There is no such thing as a “Christian politics.” If it is a politics, it cannot be Christian. Jesus told Pilate: “My reign is not of this present order. If my reign were of this present order, my supporters would have fought against my being turned over to the Jews. But my reign is not here” (John 18:36). Jesus brought no political message or program.
This is a truth that needs emphasis at a time when some Democrats, fearing that the Republicans have advanced over them by the use of religion, want to respond with a claim that Jesus is really on their side. He is not. He avoided those who would trap him into taking sides for or against the Roman occupation of Judea. He paid his taxes to the occupying power but said only, “Let Caesar have what belongs to him, and God have what belongs to him” (Matthew 22:21). He was the original proponent of a separation of church and state.
Those who want the state to engage in public worship, or even to have prayer in schools, are defying his injunction: “When you pray, be not like the pretenders, who prefer to pray in the synagogues and in the public square, in the sight of others. In truth I tell you, that is all the profit they will have. But you, when you pray, go into your inner chamber and, locking the door, pray there in hiding to your Father, and your Father who sees you in hiding will reward you” (Matthew 6:5-6). He shocked people by his repeated violation of the external holiness code of his time, emphasizing that his religion was an internal matter of the heart.
But doesn’t Jesus say to care for the poor? Repeatedly and insistently, but what he says goes far beyond politics and is of a different order. He declares that only one test will determine who will come into his reign: whether one has treated the poor, the hungry, the homeless and the imprisoned as one would Jesus himself. “Whenever you did these things to the lowliest of my brothers, you were doing it to me” (Matthew 25:40). No government can propose that as its program. Theocracy itself never went so far, nor could it.
The state cannot indulge in self-sacrifice. If it is to treat the poor well, it must do so on grounds of justice, appealing to arguments that will convince people who are not followers of Jesus or of any other religion. The norms of justice will fall short of the demands of love that Jesus imposes. A Christian may adopt just political measures from his or her own motive of love, but that is not the argument that will define justice for state purposes.
To claim that the state’s burden of justice, which falls short of the supreme test Jesus imposes, is actually what he wills — that would be to substitute some lesser and false religion for what Jesus brought from the Father. Of course, Christians who do not meet the lower standard of state justice to the poor will, a fortiori, fail to pass the higher test.
The Romans did not believe Jesus when he said he had no political ambitions. That is why the soldiers mocked him as a failed king, giving him a robe and scepter and bowing in fake obedience (John 19:1-3). Those who today say that they are creating or following a “Christian politics” continue the work of those soldiers, disregarding the words of Jesus that his reign is not of this order.
Some people want to display and honor the Ten Commandments as a political commitment enjoined by the religion of Jesus. That very act is a violation of the First and Second Commandments. By erecting a false religion — imposing a reign of Jesus in this order — they are worshiping a false god. They commit idolatry. They also take the Lord’s name in vain.
Some may think that removing Jesus from politics would mean removing morality from politics. They think we would all be better off if we took up the slogan “What would Jesus do?”
That is not a question his disciples ask in the Gospels. They never knew what Jesus was going to do next. He could round on Peter and call him “Satan.” He could refuse to receive his mother when she asked to see him. He might tell his followers that they are unworthy of him if they do not hate their mother and their father. He might kill pigs by the hundreds. He might whip people out of church precincts.
The Jesus of the Gospels is not a great ethical teacher like Socrates, our leading humanitarian. He is an apocalyptic figure who steps outside the boundaries of normal morality to signal that the Father’s judgment is breaking into history. His miracles were not acts of charity but eschatological signs — accepting the unclean, promising heavenly rewards, making last things first.
He is more a higher Nietzsche, beyond good and evil, than a higher Socrates. No politician is going to tell the lustful that they must pluck out their right eye. We cannot do what Jesus would do because we are not divine.
It was blasphemous to say, as the deputy under secretary of defense, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, repeatedly did, that God made George Bush president in 2000, when a majority of Americans did not vote for him. It would not remove the blasphemy for Democrats to imply that God wants Bush not to be president. Jesus should not be recruited as a campaign aide. To trivialize the mystery of Jesus is not to serve the Gospels.
The Gospels are scary, dark and demanding. It is not surprising that people want to tame them, dilute them, make them into generic encouragements to be loving and peaceful and fair. If that is all they are, then we may as well make Socrates our redeemer.
It is true that the tamed Gospels can be put to humanitarian purposes, and religious institutions have long done this, in defiance of what Jesus said in the Gospels.
Jesus was the victim of every institutional authority in his life and death. He said: “Do not be called Rabbi, since you have only one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, the one in heaven. And do not be called leaders, since you have only one leader, the Messiah” (Matthew 23:8-10).
If Democrats want to fight Republicans for the support of an institutional Jesus, they will have to give up the person who said those words. They will have to turn away from what Flannery O’Connor described as “the bleeding stinking mad shadow of Jesus” and “a wild ragged figure” who flits “from tree to tree in the back” of the mind.
He was never that thing that all politicians wish to be esteemed — respectable. At various times in the Gospels, Jesus is called a devil, the devil’s agent, irreligious, unclean, a mocker of Jewish law, a drunkard, a glutton, a promoter of immorality.
The institutional Jesus of the Republicans has no similarity to the Gospel figure. Neither will any institutional Jesus of the Democrats.
Garry Wills is professor emeritus of history at Northwestern University and the author, most recently, of “What Jesus Meant.”

music

Let My Paltrow Go…

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Apple Paltrow has a new brother named Moses, just in time for Passover. Along with sister Apple, all Moses needs is for a few of his meshuganeh and movie rock star relatives to hang out together to form a family charoset ensemble.
Via Jessie