Category: general

This is an interesting development. From the Washington Post:

Paula Mitchell, cutting fresh flowers in the Gale Street Florist shop in east London, said she’s voting for candidates of the British National Party in local elections on Thursday — but she hopes they lose.

“If they got in, I’d be absolutely horrified,” said Mitchell, 38, who described her planned ballot for the vehemently anti-immigration BNP as a protest against what she sees as out-of-control immigration to Britain.

“We’re against people coming in and taking our jobs, taking our school places, getting priority in housing,” said Mitchell. “Everyone is fed up, and we want to make our feelings known.”

The BNP declares itself “wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European peoples.” It seeks to restore the overwhelmingly white makeup of Britain before 1948; its leader has called Islam a “wicked, vicious faith.” Support from people like Mitchell, a white mother of three whose political views otherwise appear generally mainstream, illustrates rising anti-immigration sentiment in Britain and across Europe.

Parties long dismissed by many as the racist fringe have become increasingly popular as governments that once freely accepted immigrants question how many more their nations can take.

“It should be a worry for all Western democracies,” said Nick Lowles of Searchlight, an anti-racist group that publishes a magazine in Britain. Lowles said many voters were turning to extremist parties to vent anger at their political leaders. “People are shouting out,” he said, “and they want to be heard.”

In France, a public opinion poll last month showed that more than a third of respondents believed the anti-immigrant National Front, led by the outspoken Jean-Marie Le Pen, was in line with “the concerns of French people.” Numbers like that could make the party a power in presidential elections next year.

The anti-immigration Danish People’s Party in Denmark and Progress Party in Norway, meanwhile, both reached record levels of the vote — 13 and 22 percent, respectively — in elections last year.

Will this sort of shift take longer in the US, given our country’s size?

I really find the idea of British people secretly voting for an obviously racist political party intriguing, and scary. I understand why they’re doing it, but ick. What if that happened here in the US…can you imagine the riots?

(Living in “flyover country” ;P, I might not have to deal directly with something like that, but it would still have an impact on me emotionally, and probably economically.)

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG

In response to overwhelming demand, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release attractively priced individual two-disc releases of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Each release includes the 2004 digitally remastered version of the movie and, as bonus material, the theatrical edition of the film. That means you’ll be able to enjoy Star Wars as it first appeared in 1977, Empire in 1980, and Jedi in 1983.

Via Kelly.

Man! I half-wondered if I’d ever see the original versions again, after I lost all my VHS tapes and laserdiscs in the stupid fire.

I love that we get both the cleaned-up versions and the original versions. :D :D :D :D

Note that they didn’t call Star Wars by its retcon name, A New Hope. They’ve been trying for years now to rewrite history, to say that the movie’s name is Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, or A New Hope for short. But the movie’s name is Star Wars, damn it. Maybe they’ve finally given up. ;)

Mom sent me an article by a gentleman named Shelby Steele today. It is really interesting.

White Guilt and the Western Past

There is something rather odd in the way America has come to fight its wars since World War II.

For one thing, it is now unimaginable that we would use anything approaching the full measure of our military power (the nuclear option aside) in the wars we fight. And this seems only reasonable given the relative weakness of our Third World enemies in Vietnam and in the Middle East. But the fact is that we lost in Vietnam, and today, despite our vast power, we are only slogging along–if admirably–in Iraq against a hit-and-run insurgency that cannot stop us even as we seem unable to stop it. Yet no one–including, very likely, the insurgents themselves–believes that America lacks the raw power to defeat this insurgency if it wants to. So clearly it is America that determines the scale of this war. It is America, in fact, that fights so as to make a little room for an insurgency.

Certainly since Vietnam, America has increasingly practiced a policy of minimalism and restraint in war. And now this unacknowledged policy, which always makes a space for the enemy, has us in another long and rather passionless war against a weak enemy.

Why this new minimalism in war?

It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty.

It’s a fascinating article; give it a read.

Mr. Steele has written other intriguing pieces, including the following:

Selma to San Francisco? Same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue.

The true problem with gay marriage is that it consigns gays to a life of mimicry and pathos. It shoehorns them into an institution that does not reflect the best possibilities of their own sexual orientation. Gay love is freed from the procreative burden. It has no natural function beyond adult fulfillment in love. If this is a disadvantage when children are desired, it is likely an advantage when they are not–which is more often the case. In any case, gays can never be more than pretenders to an institution so utterly grounded in procreation. And dressing gay marriage in a suit of civil rights only consigns gays to yet another kind of mimicry. Stigma, not segregation, is the problem gays face. But insisting on a civil rights framework only leads gays into protest. But will protest affect stigma? Is “gay lovers as niggers” convincing? Protest is trying to hit the baseball with the glove.

The problem with so much mimicry is that it keeps gays from evolving institutions and rituals that reflect the true nature of homosexuality. Assuming, as I do, that gays should have the option of civil unions that afford them the legal prerogatives of marriage, isn’t it more important after that to allow quiet self-acceptance to lead the way to authentic institutions?

Hillary’s Plantation

Precisely because Republicans cannot easily pander to black grievance, they have no need to value blacks only for their sense of grievance. Unlike Democrats, they can celebrate what is positive and constructive in minority life without losing power. The dilemma for Democrats, liberals and the civil rights establishment is that they become redundant and lose power the instant blacks move beyond grievance and begin to succeed by dint of their own hard work. So they persecute such blacks, attack their credibility as blacks, just as they pander to blacks who define their political relationship to America through grievance. Republicans are generally freer of the political bigotry by which the left either panders to or persecutes black Americans.

Witness

In the ’60s–the first instance of open mutual witness between blacks and whites in American history–a balance of power was struck between the races. The broad white acknowledgment of racism meant that whites would be responsible both for overcoming their racism and for ending black poverty because, after all, their racism had so obviously caused that poverty. For whites to suggest that blacks might be in some way responsible for their own poverty would be to relinquish this responsibility and, thus, to return to racism. So, from its start in the ’60s, this balance of power (offering redemption to whites and justice to blacks) involved a skewed distribution of responsibility: Whites, and not blacks, would be responsible for achieving racial equality in America, for overcoming the shames of both races–black inferiority and white racism. And the very idea of black responsibility would be stigmatized as racism in whites and Uncle Tomism in blacks.

[…]

Bill Cosby’s recent demand that poor blacks hold up “their end of the bargain” and do a better job of raising their children was explosive because it threatened this balance. Mr. Cosby not only implied that black responsibility was the great transforming power; he also implied that there was a limit to what white responsibility could do. He said, in effect, that white responsibility cannot overcome black inferiority. This is a truth so obvious as to be mundane. Yet whites won’t say it in the interest of their redemption and blacks won’t say it in the interest of historical justice. It is left to hurricanes to make such statements.

I think I may start reading this guy regularly.

I haven’t enabled captchas on my blog, partly because I think they’re annoying, partly because I really haven’t had trouble with spam comments that I know of (I must not be popular ;_;), and partly because the Blogger captchas weren’t accessible to the visually impaired–if you can’t see, and your browser can’t read the captcha to you (which is kind of the whole point of captchas, not being machine-readable), then you can’t post a comment.

I’m pleased to say that the last issue has been resolved.

Good for Blogger!

Sushicam has an interesting captcha system: instead of being some weird warped letter-number combination that you have to read and type in, it’s a math problem. I thought that was a unique solution, though I wonder how long it will take for spam proggies to be programmed to pick out the numbers and the math terms and figure out what the answer should be.

あたしなんか悪いことを言っちゃったかな。

今日、ママは「アメリカ人は覚者じゃないて何のつもりでしょう。」ブロぐを読んで、剥れると思う。あたしはいろいろを言った。このあと、ママは何もないを言った。

気にかかる。ママが怒ってるのは絶対ほしくない。

；＿；

I basically spent this weekend organizing photos over at my smugmug.

I moved a gallery of Augusta photos from Travel to Exploring, because it doesn’t count as travel because I was living in Augusta at the time. I only had it like that because there were several different galleries; moving it involved putting all the pictures into one gallery, something I hadn’t felt like doing until now.

I added the pictures from when I went to Savannah with Aunt Bev and Cary to Travel. Unfortunately, these are smaller-size, watermarked versions that I’d had up on the Aubrey Family page. The original versions were lost in the fire.

I added a lot of keywords, including the state the picture was taken in. I realized belatedly that I could have been using multiple-word keywords this whole time, but it’s too late now. Unless smugmug comes out with a way to change the name of a keyword, I’m just going to have “southcarolina” and “northaugusta” in there ;P

(There is another unless: unless I suddenly get the urge to change them all manually. You never know. It could happen.)

I still wish smugmug allowed sub-sub-categories. A glance at my Travel page will tell you why. For that matter, so will a glance at most of my Life subcategories.

Ah well.

When the idea for this first came to me this morning, I was just going to draw some random people saying the lines. But then I thought, “Why not use Yuuri and Wolfram?”

So I did.

Screencaps lovingly borrowed from kyoukaramaou.com. If you don’t know what a Wii is, click here.

The Spanish-language version of the US National Anthem sparked a very uninspired comment from our president.

“I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English,” Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden. “And I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.”

I can see what he’s getting at, and I can even see the argument that a Spanish-language version might encourage Spanish speakers not to learn the English version, but I don’t think this is how Bush should have approached the issue.

First of all, I would have evaluated the message of the song, to see if I felt it matched the original Star Spangled Banner. Then I would have remarked that it’s great that America is such a melting pot and that we have so much creativity coming from so many different cultures. After that, I would have expressed concern that the song might detract from English language learning, and suggested that the two versions be played back to back on the radio.

I don’t think we should so easily tramp down on creativity and the desire for unity. Because that’s what this song is. It’s about inclusiveness. It’s about welcoming Spanish speakers to the US. With the current immigration debate heating up, it’s easy to go on the offensive about all things Mexican or South American or Spanish language-related. But we don’t need to alienate the people who come here legitimately.

And a dangerous subtext of the president’s remarks is, “If you come to America, you have to conform.” I didn’t think that was the message of our country at all. Shouldn’t we be proud of the mishmash of cultures that have come together to form this great nation?

I do think that immigrants should learn English, but I don’t think we should make it difficult for them to speak their native language. Our language is tied up with our identity, and people shouldn’t be forced–or even strongly encouraged–to abandon that.

[Update 5/1 7:17 a.m.]: Condi’s response is more what I was thinking would be good:

“I’ve heard the national anthem done in rap versions, country versions, classical versions. The individualisation of the American national anthem is quite under way,” she said on the CBS show “Face the Nation.”

“From my point of view, people expressing themselves as wanting to be Americans is a good thing,” she added. “I think what we need to focus on is an immigration policy that is comprehensive and that recognises our laws and recognises our humanity,” she added.

So…did Eva Longoria go into space? :P

Look at this thing.

It’s small, it’s a hatchback, and it looks like a spaceship.

I may very well have to consider this an option…

It’s a hybrid, and in fact is the most fuel-efficient car in America at 66 miles per gallon.

That is so totally cool…but it means the price is about $8000 more than I was wanting to spend. Eep.

I’m also a little concerned about the rear wheels. What happens if I get a flat tire? How high, exactly, would I have to jack it up? :>

But the design is awesome. Other hybrids are just kind of blah. The Civic, meh. The Accord just looks like a regular car…plus it’s like $30,000. The Camry is the same way, though $5000 less. The Prius looks like a Star Trek: TNG shuttlecraft, and not in a good way.

This is by far the coolest hybrid (that I’ve seen), and it’s competing with the Yaris in my mind for coolest car period.

[Update 9:56 p.m.:] I just realized that it doesn’t have a backseat. Like, at all. So I don’t know. I haven’t used the backseat of my Subaru (for people, anyway) in years…but it’s still nice to know that if I had to, I could cart three other people somewhere. So the Yaris is probably still winning.

…plus, the Insight looks a little doofy in this picture.

Toyota has started to seriously advertise the Yaris. Apparently there are TV ads (or so I hear from my coworker), and now there’s this bizarre little Flash ad on MSN.

I found out that the reason no one has the liftback Yaris is because they rolled out the sedan first. The liftbacks are being produced now. Hopefully one of the local Toyota dealers will get one in soon so I can test drive it. I know I have until November to finalize my choice for a new car, but I’m really excited about driving the Yaris :>

Last night I had a meeting with one of my clients. Rather than go to their office, I went to their house.

It’s in West Lake.

I’ve been to West Lake before, but I entered on the Fury’s Ferry side, and the house I visited wasn’t grandiose, it was just a little big, and old. It was one of those rustic cedar houses that would fit on a mountaintop.

My client’s house, on the other hand, is on the Steven’s Creek side, which seems to be newer, and filled with sprawling homes on oversized plots of land.

The home is massive. And gorgeous.

It’s beige/pink stucco, with Spanish-style arches. It’s two story, but the first floor was very tall. I’m talking 15 feet or more. I parked on a huge pad that curved in towards the house around the broad front lawn, and entered the estate at a side door that seemed a little more welcoming than the grand front entrance with its high porch and incredibly thick columns.

The side door opened on a small foyer and wide staircase. I was led off to the left, through a kitchen larger than my living and dining room area, and to a small marble-topped desk nestled against a wall between the kitchen and a sitting area.

What I didn’t notice until I was leaving was the view from the kitchen. Beyond the huge marble island there was another sitting area, and the back wall was dominated by three massive, ceiling-to-floor oval windows. These looked out on a huge pond surrounded by grassy yards, gardens, and forest. The scene was breathtaking, especially in the dusk.

As I got into my car I had to force myself not to take a picture of the place. I discussed aloud with myself how amazingly huge and beautiful it was all the way to the exit gate.

(By the way, to enter West Lake you have to get a permit that you hang from your rear-view mirror. You just have to tell the guard who you’re visiting and they’ll give it to you. West Lake is the only gated community I’ve ever been to; I’m still not sure what I think of the concept.)

I used to want to live in a mansion. Big houses always filled me with covetous thoughts. Of course, that was back before I had my own place, and realized that you have to clean your house. Now I’m a little more pragmatic, and would prefer to simply have enough space to live comfortably. Which I do.

What I do want, though, is to be able to visit beautiful places…so seeing that mansion was pretty nice :)

Reuters has two versions of the same story, as they often do. One is entitled “China faces storm in a D-cup as bust sizes grow“, and the other is “Tempest in a D-cup as bust sizes grow“. I’m still not sure why they have two different versions, but that’s not what interested me today.

This is:

Apparently the “romanized” symbol for currency is the same in Japan and China. I did not know that.

However, the Chinese symbol is 元, and the Japanese is 円.

I wonder if any other countries use the ￥ symbol for their currency.

I’m not that much older than she is, either o_o

Just…wow. Look at this thing!

The Tesla Purple Energy Shield outer shell is made of aluminium, which is first anodised (electrolytic oxidation) and then colored. The spin of the atoms and electrons of the aluminium is thus changed in such a way, that The Tesla Purple Energy Shield is said to vibrate in resonance with the fundamental energy (Chi, Prana, Orgon) of the universe. The Tesla Purple Energy Shield coating was developed by Ralph Bergstresser after a patent and from the knowledge / information and ideas of Nikola Tesla, with whom he worked in the 1940s. With anodising, the field of the plating is changed and interacts with tachyons. The surface of the plating has a unique crystal-structure.

The chemical composition of the outer purple shell is the same as that of rubies and sapphires, which also consist of aluminium oxide. We know that rubies give energy and thus were called “life-stones” in the Middle-Ages.

[…]

The Tesla Purple Energy Shield incorporates several future technologies as a basis for its creation and capsular design. The Tesla Purple Energy Shield is a functional scientific creation based on the principles of sacred geometry , zero-point energy, orgonomy, superconductivity, and harmonic frequencies of light.

The properties of The Tesla Purple Energy Shield are such that a “positive” light field is produced uniformly in all directions from the centre of the capsule. This light field is actually visible in a dimly lit room and is immediately recognisable to psychics or clairvoyants.

The device incorporates a special Ethero-Magnetic caduceus orgone generating coil which utilises the magickal and sacred ‘lost cubit’ measurement, a meaurement so profound that its precise value can not be found in ancient or modern literature. Only select few individuals and scientists are aware of its actual value.

This has to be the most awesome thing I have ever read. And it’s only $89.95 during this special introductory period!

:>

I wonder if No-Dogs “vibrate in resonance with the fundamental energy (Chi, Prana, Orgon) of the universe”. They are anodized aluminum, after all…