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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 32 to 56 of 57. Go back in thread:
Posted by Beckett on March 13, 2012, at 8:02:23
In reply to Re: Freaking » Beckett, posted by sigismund on March 12, 2012, at 18:51:22
> You win the prize!
>
> An all expenses paid trip to a Las Vegas casino!We were almost married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. Almost, I suppose is the critical word here.
The Harper's Weekly Review. It's not Lewis Lapham anymore, of course:
In Afghanistan, a 38-year-old U.S. Army staff sergeant assigned to support Green Beret village-stabilization operations turned himself in after killing sixteen villagers, nine of them children, in the middle of the night, then setting fire to eleven of the corpses, including those of four girls under the age of six. He came to my uncles home, he was running after women, he was tearing their dresses, insulting them, said a 15-year-old boy who reported being shot in the leg. He killed my uncle and killed our servant and killed my grandma. He shot dead my uncles son, his daughter. Hundreds of Afghans protested the murders outside Camp Belambay, Afghanistans lower house of parliament issued a statement saying Afghans had run out of patience with foreign forces, and President Hamid Karzai called the attacks unforgivable. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich reiterated his call for Karzai to apologize for attacks on U.S. soldiers following the burning of Korans outside a NATO base last month. Its got to be a two-way street, said Gingrich. NATO admitted that some of its officials had revealed personal information to foreign spies who friended them with a fake Facebook account for NATOs most senior commander. Three of Osama bin Ladens widows were charged with illegally entering and residing in Pakistan, where the justice ministry objected to a bill raising the age of criminal responsibility to 12, arguing that the hot climate, poverty, and spicy food made Pakistani children mature faster. Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko addressed an accusation by Germanys foreign minister that he was Europes last dictator. Better to be a dictator than gay, said Lukashenko. In Iraq, officials and human rights groups estimated that 58 young people identified as emo have been killed in recent weeks. An Iraqi police officer said police were urging clerics to help them prevent violence against the emo or the vampires or Satan worshippers. The emo of today, said a Kurdish lawmaker, could be any person tomorrow.
Voting results in ten states on Super Tuesday failed to establish a clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential candidacy. Mitt Romney won in Alaska, Idaho, Massachusetts, Ohio, Vermont, and Virginia, while Rick Santorum won in North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. After winning his home state of Georgia, Gingrich compared himself to a tortoise fighting lots of bunny rabbits as his supporters waved Newt-a-Mania banners. A Tipp City, Ohio, woman interrupted a Santorum campaign event at a hamburger restaurant with an offer to make a cash donation. Donate to Romney! the woman yelled, then handed Santorum two $20 bills. He needs our money! At a Southern Methodist University conference on the influence of first ladies, Barbara Bush called the 2012 presidential campaign the worst shed ever seen. The rest of the world is looking at us these days, she remarked, and saying, What are you doing? The grounds outside a Maryland courthouse were evacuated after a deputy spotted a suspicious-looking coconut, and residents of the English town of Saltburn-by-the-Sea theorized that an Olympics-themed scarf found tied to a local pier was the work of the Saltburn Yarnbomber, a guerrilla knitter also presumed responsible for The Secret Cardigan and A Ripping Yarn, a pair of knitted books left outside the Saltburn library earlier this year. Its a classic whodunit, said a local reporter of the knitters identity. Personally, I think its a group of people, he added. One person couldnt do all that knitting on their own.
A fox in Orpington, England, cornered a man and stole his garlic loaf. If a fox is jumping at your shopping bag, said a British wildlife expert, the best thing to use is a water pistol. Godzilla, a wild turkey, was reportedly stalking a woman in Commerce Township, Michigan. Every time I eat turkey I smile, she told reporters. Id like to do that to him. An Anchorage funeral-home owner known as the Mushing Mortician performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to save one of his huskies during the Iditarod sled-dog race. Twin sisters Patricia and Joan Miller, who appeared on the television show The Hoffman Hayride in the 1950s, were reported to have died within hours of each other in South Lake Tahoe, California, and the Canadian province of Alberta revealed that two girls born there in 2011 were named Unique. Two humanoid robots pole-danced to beats from a DJ robot with a megaphone-shaped head at a technology fair in Germany. Restaurateurs in Austria proposed changing the names of gypsy schnitzel and Moors shirt on Austrian menus to cutlet with pepper sauce and chocolate dessert with cream. An eBay bidder backed out of an agreement to pay a Nebraska woman $8,100 for a three-year-old Chicken McNugget resembling George Washington. Pat Robertson confirmed his support for the legalization of marijuana, suggesting it was something Jesus would have endorsed. I dont think he was a teetotaler, said Robertson. Barack Obamas one-time Indonesian nanny, Evie, who was born as a boy named Turdi, was found again living as a man in Jakarta, having endured years of discrimination. Now when people call me scum, she said, I can just say, But I was the nanny for the president of the United States!
Ryann Liebenthal
Posted by sigismund on March 14, 2012, at 14:19:13
In reply to If a fox is jumping at your shopping bag, posted by Beckett on March 13, 2012, at 8:02:23
So the marxist muslim was brought up by a cross dresser?
This made me laugh, that sudden lurch into the gay issue.....
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko addressed an accusation by Germanys foreign minister that he was Europes last dictator. Better to be a dictator than gay, said Lukashenko.
Posted by Beckett on March 14, 2012, at 22:15:08
In reply to Re: If a fox is jumping at your shopping bag » Beckett, posted by sigismund on March 14, 2012, at 14:19:13
I thought you might enjoy those parts in particular.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,819458,00.html
Posted by Beckett on March 25, 2012, at 13:00:33
In reply to Re: Fracking, posted by Beckett on March 10, 2012, at 4:44:20
I feel violently cheered.
Posted by Beckett on March 25, 2012, at 13:30:30
In reply to Re: Fracking, posted by Beckett on March 25, 2012, at 13:00:33
Nothing nobody has not heard. I came across it on YouTube late night. I really like his manner, that's all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWInyaMWBY8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Posted by Beckett on March 25, 2012, at 14:18:28
In reply to More Hansen, this time on TED, posted by Beckett on March 25, 2012, at 13:30:30
There is the slight hangover, the Emsam taper, I am reading in bed.... The article has embedded a few interesting links. Babble's rule of three will now be observed. I would like to see the documentary If a Tree Falls.
Posted by sigismund on March 25, 2012, at 19:01:31
In reply to More Hansen, this time on TED, posted by Beckett on March 25, 2012, at 13:30:30
Well that was informative.
The east coast of Australia is built on close to the edge. What were those sea level rise figures? One metre? Five? By the end of the century?
It is going to be hell.
Posted by Beckett on March 25, 2012, at 19:17:12
In reply to Re: More Hansen, this time on TED, posted by sigismund on March 25, 2012, at 19:01:31
> It is going to be hell.And everyone's invited.
Posted by Beckett on March 26, 2012, at 2:25:32
In reply to Eco documentaries and more on fracking, posted by Beckett on March 25, 2012, at 14:18:28
"Ben Kessler, a student at the University of North Texas and an environmental activist, was more than a little surprised that an FBI agent questioned his philosophy professor and acquaintances about his whereabouts and his sign-waving activities aimed at influencing local gas drilling rules.
It was scary, said Kessler, who is a national organizer for the nonviolent environmental group Rising Tide North America. He said the agent approached him this past fall and said that the FBI had received an anonymous complaint and were looking into his opposition to hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. The bureau respected free speech, the agent told him, but was worried about things being taken to an extreme level.
I found the above article at this site http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/
The book Green is the New Red is good so far. DemocracyNow! has some good clips of the author commenting (with others) on various topics. One of them the existence and utilization of two CMU's (communication management units or high security prison units set apart from other prisons) here in the States.
Posted by sigismund on March 26, 2012, at 2:33:08
In reply to Dissent seen as Eco-terrorism...., posted by Beckett on March 26, 2012, at 2:25:32
> He said the agent approached him this past fall and said that the FBI had received an anonymous complaint and were looking into his opposition to hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.
I was appalled when the Mines and Energy minister of the *Labor* government charged ASIO with surveillance of fracking protesters, arguing that it was justified in the name of energy security.
This is just laughable.
The politicians in the 60's had all been in the war. They came from all backgrounds, met and knew each other under pressure, saw a great tragedy first hand and came from the experience equipped with a moderation that has served them well in retrospect.
Posted by Beckett on March 26, 2012, at 2:39:21
In reply to Re: Dissent seen as Eco-terrorism...., posted by sigismund on March 26, 2012, at 2:33:08
I see. There, too. Who is ASIO?
These CMU's are very interesting places. Speaking abstractly.
Posted by sigismund on March 26, 2012, at 2:39:37
In reply to Re: Dissent seen as Eco-terrorism...., posted by sigismund on March 26, 2012, at 2:33:08
>equipped with a moderation that has served them well in retrospect.
For example, that/those US politicians who call for the assassination(!) of Julian Assange.
It was unhinged, as today's politics are.
But there are tragedies enough in the pipeline to give them a sense of proportion.
Posted by Beckett on March 26, 2012, at 2:58:21
In reply to Re: Dissent seen as Eco-terrorism...., posted by sigismund on March 26, 2012, at 2:39:37
Wait, sigi, I can't follow. The word moderation is used facetiously here? I imagine there are tragedies in the pipeline, even the audacious whisperings and email leaks regarding Assange, though one hopes always for the best and the worst to be averted. Can you explain more fully?
Here is a link to a DemocracyNow! segment on CMU's. The transcript is available if it doesn't queue properly.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/17/little_guantanamo_secretive_cmu_prisons_designed
Posted by sigismund on March 26, 2012, at 4:25:08
In reply to Re: Dissent seen as Eco-terrorism.... » sigismund, posted by Beckett on March 26, 2012, at 2:58:21
> The word moderation is used facetiously here?
I don't mean now.
The politicians of the 60s had better (let me say it, just for fun) values.
Not much better, but it was a real difference, and it was because they had been in the war and mixed with their (to use the jargon of the times) social inferiors and become better people as a result.
In the moratoriums how many marched? And they are worried about opposition to fracking?
The tragedies in the pipeline? Big ones anyway, defence of basic things. Like climate, biosphere, idk.
Posted by sigismund on March 26, 2012, at 4:26:37
In reply to Re: Dissent seen as Eco-terrorism.... » sigismund, posted by Beckett on March 26, 2012, at 2:39:21
ASIO is the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation. It does the domestic stuff.
Posted by Beckett on March 26, 2012, at 7:51:25
In reply to Re: Dissent seen as Eco-terrorism...., posted by sigismund on March 26, 2012, at 4:26:37
Thanks :)
Posted by sigismund on March 26, 2012, at 17:17:11
In reply to Re: Dissent seen as Eco-terrorism...., posted by Beckett on March 26, 2012, at 7:51:25
I was fortunate enough to be taught by the last of those servicemen who had gone to university after the war. They were a respectable, opinionated and (I see now) eccentric, a blessing in a country as Australia then was.
My senior English teacher was also my house master. He had gone to university after the war and done an MA on Kant and ended up staying at the school. He had everything needed to be a good English teacher......curiosity, knowledge, kindness and unhappiness, perhaps a sense of failure.
He had quite a reputation when I first went there. His rooms were on a bridge between two buildings and from his balcony he could see over the school grounds. From there he could use his parade ground voice to bark at the boarders, and on one night to fire his shotgun over the head of someone he thought to be an intruder.
Every year he would select around two boarders. This meant, for me, that he would ask me up to his rooms to talk, mainly about books and politics. He was interested in our opinions and how we came about them. He asked me up to his room by yelling out "Mathter Thigithmund" (he had a lisp) and I would walk out the front of the prep room and up the stairs to his rooms. For 2 years I did this two nights a week, for a few hours each time. I can recall him standing on his verandah with RD Laing's 'The Politics of Experience', underlining parts and making margin notes, and then handing it to me saying 'Read thith, Mathter Thigithmund'. I recall he underlined the fact that in the C20 100,000,000 or so of us had been killed by our fellows. It was said (not very knowledgeably) that he was a Nazi, but this was because he was the German master and a lover of German culture. He had the entire norse sagas and introduced us to the Lord of the Rings in 1966.
With his deep understanding of tragedy he was well suited to teach King Lear on which we spent two years. He read the entire play out with considerable feeling and gave up two inches of foolscap notes of his own. Years later my son was also doing King Lear. His teacher had been the first woman to do engineering at university. She was rational, relatively optimistic and uniquely ill-suited to teach it. My son made me promise, at the teacher student interviews, to never mention King Lear, but when she said 'I think it is a terrible play to teach and to learn' my son could not resist and said 'Dad thinks it is the greatest thing ever written', which led to a friendship with that teacher.
In his time after work my English teacher/housemaster drank steadily. As he drank more his lisp increased. One night he called for me and was sitting in his underpants with his feet in front of the radiator, trying to dry out the white fungus. He said 'I thuppothe you think I'm a p**ft*r. I am not a fucken p**ft*r.' For two years he cooked for us, fed us, gave us books and talked to us as adults. In a school such as I was in, this was a blessing beyond words. Later he would have done the same with the next lot of smart vulnerable kids.
That is what I mean by good values.
Posted by Beckett on March 27, 2012, at 2:16:35
In reply to Re: Dissent seen as Eco-terrorism.... » Beckett, posted by sigismund on March 26, 2012, at 17:17:11
For this wonderful story I thank you. You are fortunate to have known him. And to have spent such time on King Lear! That is really the only Shakespeare I truly love, and I learned to love it in solitude. That's not nearly as worthwhile.
There is something about the older generations. Oh, why generalize? There were always bastards. Maybe I idealize. But there is something. There was something once. Was it before the advent of endless spin? And image upon image?
Remember him on your travels. Lift a cup of happy tea to your eccentric self-directed English master.
Posted by Beckett on April 3, 2012, at 15:59:10
In reply to Re: Fracking, posted by Beckett on March 25, 2012, at 13:00:33
No real comment right now.
Posted by sigismund on April 4, 2012, at 2:20:56
In reply to Obama's commitment to southern Keystone, posted by Beckett on April 3, 2012, at 15:59:10
As the leader of the opposition here memorably said
Climate change is crap.
He will be PM for 10 years.
Questions arise.
Posted by Beckett on April 4, 2012, at 12:01:21
In reply to Re: Obama's commitment to southern Keystone » Beckett, posted by sigismund on April 4, 2012, at 2:20:56
> As the leader of the opposition here memorably said
>
> Climate change is crap.
>I take it I'm not to assume this means climate change is the sh*ts.
Ten years and one might still leave office with one's reputation intact.
Posted by sigismund on April 4, 2012, at 15:01:58
In reply to Re: Obama's commitment to southern Keystone, posted by Beckett on April 4, 2012, at 12:01:21
>Ten years and one might still leave office with one's reputation intact.
Depending on the weather.
We have had the wettest period on record........3 years of rain......all of Australia is green....it has not been seen in my lifetime or at any time since white settlement.
I did not expect it to last so long.
I assume a drought is coming. Before this wet period there was a 10 year dry.Inland Australia is full of marine fossils.
Posted by Beckett on April 10, 2012, at 0:54:06
In reply to Re: Obama's commitment to southern Keystone, posted by sigismund on April 4, 2012, at 15:01:58
Your weather is difficult for me to grasp. It seems very spiky as in extreme. My guess is this been an extended La Nina.
When I read McKibben he mentions Australia often, but I am not sure why. I think it has to do with so much land mass being north of the equator. I'm trying to grok this all....
Is it beautiful (and maybe not too humid)?
Posted by sigismund on April 11, 2012, at 4:26:40
In reply to Re: Obama's commitment to southern Keystone, posted by Beckett on April 10, 2012, at 0:54:06
>Your weather is difficult for me to grasp. It seems very spiky as in extreme. My guess is this been an extended La Nina.
Yes. With other things no doubt. The la nina has come to an end, they say.
>When I read McKibben he mentions Australia often, but I am not sure why.
Because he comes here and because we are a canary in the coal mine?
>I think it has to do with so much land mass being north of the equator.
Of course you meant south.
>I'm trying to grok this all....
A new verb!
>Is it beautiful (and maybe not too humid)?
Australia, being (I think) the oldest continent, does not have the majestic landforms of newer continents. We make up for it in plants and animals. When I go to other places I feel the plants and animals are kind of all of one group, and Australia's are part of another group. There are, for example, marsupials in other parts of the world farther away from us than New Guinea like maybe Madagascar. Australia was once joined to South America....I don't know if that has any relevance.
Where I live is humid but cool. The further south and west you go the less humid it is.
Posted by Beckett on February 13, 2013, at 9:08:37
In reply to Re: Obama's commitment to southern Keystone » Beckett, posted by sigismund on April 11, 2012, at 4:26:40
This in my inbox this morning.....
Dear friends,Right now, 50 or so of our friends and allies are on their way to risk arrest at the White House to encourage President Obama say no to the Keystone XL pipeline. If he is serious about his words last night in the State of the Union, stopping the pipeline is the first and simplest way for him to show it.
Among the group at the White House today are people whose homes and communities are affected by the pipeline; who have suffered the impacts of extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy; who lead companies in the clean energy economy; who lead advocacy organizations, and who lead communities of faith.
Each of them tell part of the story of climate change: its causes, impacts, and solutions -- as well as the movement to stop it. Together, they are delivering a message to President Obama.
I am inspired by these stories, and our web team has set up a page where you can read some of them, and share them with your social networks to show your solidarity. Click here to get to know some of the folks at the White House today: 350.org/February13
This Sunday on February 17, the force of this movement will come together in bigger numbers than ever before. That action, combined with the serious message on display in Washington today, are our best tools to push the President to make his words real.
Right about now, Bill is risking arrest alongside our friends, but he wanted me to pass on this message:
"I'm very glad to see leaders and celebrities standing up to Keystone, but I don't forget for a moment that it was 1,253 ordinary Americans going to jail who built this momentum in the first place. And it's the tens of thousands who descend on DC this weekend who will push this to the next stage.
We really shouldn't have to be put in handcuffs to stop Keystone XL -- our nation's leading climate scientists have told us it's dangerous folly, and all the recent Nobel Peace laureates have urged us to set a different kind of example for the world, so the choice should be obvious. But given the amount of money on the other side, we've had to spend our bodies, and we'll probably have to spend them again."
I hope you can share their stories from today -- each person participating represents a key part of this fight. I also hope you can come to be heard yourself this Sunday when we gather for our big action on the National Mall.
Take a moment to appreciate the commitment these folks are making today, and share their messages with your friends -- this is such an important time for us and our movement: 350.org/February13
Onwards,
May
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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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