Awesome Channel Cat

Check out this great link stumbled to me by Chief Tanto. This channel cat is monster, and needs to be noodled immediately. scourge of the southern waterways!

CLICK ME!

Music Vid for realz

This is an awesome video that Julz Shnieder posted on facebook. it's hilarious, and answers the age old challenge of a song that describes what is actually happening in the music video. the twine have met my friend, the twine have met.

Dangerous Alliance?

I recently wrote about the misguided intentions of evangelical christian zionists. Here is an interesting cartoon by Eli Valley on the topic sent to me by aaron, that is "ruffling some feathers."

Kristallnacht

Today marks 70 years since Kristallnacht, kicking off the wholesale murder, vandalism, and deportation of Europe's Jews. I hope that we as humans have advanced from that terrible point 25,550 days ago. I hope we have. I recommend viewing chief prosecutor for the US at Nuremberg Ben Ferencz's speech on inhumanity and war crimes. Here is a choice excerpt that I particularly like:

The most impressive thing to me at Nuremberg and in my other experiences in Germany was a complete absence of remorse on the part of the defendants. They argued that they were justified in doing what they did. The simple soldiers argued superiors' orders; the higher ups who were on the policy-making level argued that what they did was in self-defense - that they knew or feared that the Soviet Union was about to attack them and therefore they felt justified in a preemptive first strike. And the additional argument was then made, then why did they kill all the Jews? According to their own reports, they killed millions of Jews.

The trial in which I was the chief prosecutor against the special extermination squad, the lead defendant there was a general in the SS, Doctor Ohlendorf. He explained it very clearly: "We had to kill the Jews," he said, "because we knew that they were supportive of the Bolsheviks so therefore we had to kill them to eliminate any increased opposition to us." And why did you have to kill the children? "If we killed the parents, then the children would grow up to be enemies of Germany." Why did you kill the gypsies? "No one trusted the gypsies so we had to kill the gypsies as well." These arguments that supported justification of killing millions of human beings left me very, very cold. And they still do today.

To commemorate, I found a nice piece of atonal jazz, by Gary Lucas, that melds the sounds of Hatikva with Deutschland Uber Alles, combining the two with electronic shrieking and screams.

Verklarte Kristallnacht

Tani describes it as a combination of sculpture sound and musique concrete.

Post-Script

This is an addendum to the post below:
Many Jews lately have sided with the republicans because they feel they better represent their interests in Israel. I suspect that this is because the republican party has closely allied with the Evangelical Christians and Christian Zionists. This is a VERY dangerous alliance. While the christian evangelicals are God-Fearing, moral, and what they believe to be well-intentioned, Jews must not forget what the ultimate reason for their recent love for Israel is: as part of a messianic end-game. I know that there will be no return of Jesus, so that end-game does not exist, and one could argue making these followers eternally supportive of the jewish people without end. However, the christians have been the primary oppressors of the Jews in the name of Jesus for much of Jewish history, and it is with a very reluctant hand that the jewish people as a whole have recently joined forces with them. Compounded onto this is the old war addage, "your enemies' enemy is your friend," and having a mutual enemy in radical islamic terrorists, the american christian zionists and the jews have joined forces. But the commonalities end there. The Jewish faith allows for abortion in certain circumstances, provides for end-of-life issues much more liberally than does the conservative christian theology, provides for birth control in certain circumstances, would allow stem cell research using embryonic stem cells, to name a few examples. Jews do not need to vote democrat, or republican, but to ally with a party simply because it will implicitly follow the whims of the christian right is not a good reason whatsoever. Living in a very christian place, I can assure you that the respect of all religions is NOT granted by a religious majority, and in fact the majority's views will prevail. See my other blog posts about evangelizing at MCG ( a state-run institution), par example.

Islam, Universal Healthcare, and Gov't Control

I will start off with this video:


Colin Powell should win a fucking prize, cause he's awesome and dead-on in so many ways. I recommend watching that entire segment (which is available on youtube), because he speaks so many truths in it. I recently had a group discussion at school, moderated by two pediatricians working the wards at MCG Hospital, which serves a very large very sick and very indigent population. The topic was universal healthcare. Many student postulated the typical for and against. Everyone clearly recognized that there IS a problem, with millions of regular, "joe the plumber" americans without any coverage at all. The interplay between the insurers and the providers has falsely driven the cost of healthcare into a "bubble realm," making the uninsured functionally unable to pay fee-for-service for any procedure or visit. I believe that everyone should have healthcare, but I don't any idea how to provide it. All I know is government-controlled healthcare is not the answer. We are currently in a war on terror, specifically the brand brought to us by islamic fundamentalists. What Powell touched on in the above video, is that we are (hopefully were) only inches away from being in a war on islam. some people in this country might not realize that difference. 9/11 was terrible, and domestic terrorism is the worst thing on earth. I know, I've seen it first hand in Israel. It is awful. But we are NOT in a war on islam. We are in a war against those who wish to kill Americans and have declared war on America...namely Al-Qaeda and its supporters. Islam and terrorism are not synonymous. So, should the government be in control of our healthcare, what happens if they decide that we are in fact in a war on islam? It is not out of the realm of possibilities. what if they decide to no longer insure muslims. After all, America interned Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during WWII, siezed their property along with their rights. It only takes a charismatic and morally erratic fundamentalist christian leader to bring the conservative christian base (and voting block) into a slightly more terrible direction, and America could see wholesale disregard for race, creed, and color. That is why it is important to LIMIT the powers given to government, to not provide them with more control over our lives. The merits of self-reliance were established by this country's forefathers early-on, and we must not forget them. We must remember to defer to common sense, to our own abilities, to the ideals we were founded on. It is absurd that 30 million of our American brothers and sisters cannot access healthcare in a meaningful way (that is, outside of an emergency room), and it is our duty to provide a solution for them, for ourselves. But more government control is not the answer. As I've said before, the only good government is a castrated one.

First Appointment

I applaud Obama's choice of Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff. Emanuel's father was a member of the Irgun, and Rahm himself attended Anshe Emet Jewish School in Chicago as a child, and currently attends an orthodox shul. He served as a senior advisor to clinton, and though he was horribly mistaken in striking accords with the snake Arafat (which disintegrated into Intifada II and thousands of dead israelis and palestinians), there can be no doubt that Emanuel has a vested interest in Israel's success. I have heard many times that Obama's election will mean death to israel (presumably from Iran). Obama's appointment of a Jewish congressman with experience in modern Israeli-American foreign relations, as well as a father who was a member of the praised Irgun, who himself was named after a Lehi figher named Rahamim , speaks well of Obama's intentions for his relations with Israel. 

sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emmanuel and http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/31/prominent-jewish-congressman-floated-obama-chief-staff/

Why I Love the South

This picture epitomizes my love for this land and culture. Any place where the meat of a beast described (by wikipedia) as  a"living fossil from the age of reptiles," is sold at a mainstream supermarket (in this case, kroger), alongside such standard fares as sock-eye salmon and shrimp, any place where that is unquestioned is my kind of frontier. God bless the south!

Ramones + Spiderman = Enjoyment

I love cartoons, and I love the ramones. This is a great synthesis of the two. and its hilarious. and catchy. and the ramones. Woot!