chronovore: (mouthy)
Octuplets stun doctors at California hospital | Reuters:
By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California woman shocked doctors by giving birth on Monday to octuplets, believed to be only the second set of eight babies born in the United States.

The six boys and two girls were doing well and were in stable condition in the neonatal intensive care unit, said Dr. Karen Maples at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in the Los Angeles suburb of Bellflower.

But two needed some help to breath with ventilators, she told a press conference.

The eight babies were born nine weeks prematurely by Caesarean section over a five-minute period, stunning a 46-member medical team that was expecting only seven babies.

They weighed between 1 pound 8 ounces (680 grams) and 3 pounds 4 ounces (1.47 kg) and doctors initially identified them by the letters A through H as they were born.

"We decided to proceed with the delivery in anticipation of seven babies. We had done some drills, some preliminary dry runs," Maples said.
Read more... )
chronovore: (furious)
goodbye bush - Google Search:
Results 1 - 10 of about 9,120,000 for goodbye bush. (0.18 seconds)
hello obama - Google Search:
Results 1 - 10 of about 15,600,000 for hello obama. (0.14 seconds)
chronovore: (Default)
UFC 91 Video: Brock Lesnar, Randy Couture Talk to ESPN's Mike and Mike (via MMA FanHouse)
chronovore: (furious)
I was honestly hoping to be graceful in victory, even with as little faith as I'd had that victory was possible, much less assured.

Now that Obama has won, I suddenly find that I want to subject all of the Neocons and all of the republicans who, even though they might not have agreed with Bush and Cheney, have spent the last eight years either smugly confident and supportive of all their crap, or even worse -- silent despite feeling an unease about the course our government has taken -- and subject them to the same behavior.

I remember when the Shrub got up in front of the nation and said something along the lines of, "I'm the President now. I'm the President of America; I'm even the President of those of you who didn't vote for me." That smug, petty, revealing remark about what a power-hungry, selfish President he would become has been ringing in my head for 8 years. Cheney trying to cast the Vice Presidency as some kind of exercise in quantum state logic problem, claiming whatever suits him when he should have been convicted for contempt of court. Rummy. Man, just... Rumsfield. And Rove perhaps more than anyone else: "The Architect." These lying scum had been in charge of the country for too long, and so proud about hijacking our grief over 9/11 and trotting it out whenever we needed to be scared into submission enough to agree to their agenda.

I've grown so sick of it over the last eight years I had no idea how much I've been bottling up. I've been in despair, been angry, and been ashamed over the course of things. And part of me wants to be as graceless in victory as the opposition has been now, for 1/5th of my years on this planet, for a third of my time as a voter. Part of me wants to get all testosterone-poisoned jock on the losing players, and humiliate them. Rub their face in the mess they've made, and put them outside. Begin shouting "America, love it or leave it!" back in their faces. Someone once told me that anger is just another face that fear takes. I'm not sure I agree, but I've been angry for awhile, and afraid that we would not recover, that perhaps the more reasonable among us, those with enough common sense to be conflicted on complex issues, might never have the power in our own hands again. That fear nearly allowed me to become as shrill and intolerant as those that have been in power for the last 8 years.

In the end, people taking the high road are setting enough of an example that I'll try and refrain from teabagging anyone crying into their McCain/Palin commemorative hankies. This article, in particular makes me more hopeful than vengeful: eastside93's Blog | Talking Points Memo | I Didn't Vote For Obama Today
I have a confession to make.

I did not vote for Barack Obama today.

I've openly supported Obama since March. But I didn't vote for him today.
chronovore: (OMFG)
I have chills all over my arms and back. I am so electrifyingly happy right now; I no longer have to believe that most Americans are idiots, that we fear change, and that we would rather ride a sinking ship than try and swim for safety. My heart is racing.

I honestly feared, after Gore giving up so easily after the first Bush win, that any election could be stolen. With another Bush election in 2004, that Americans were so afraid of change that they'd re-elect the very man that had given them the ill-advised war in which we were entrenched. What would it take to bring change?

Obama is a human being, and he's coming into a very difficult presidency, but I believe that HE believes in what's best in all Americans, and he will help us raise ourselves to become what we are capable of becoming.
chronovore: (Default)
Obama to leave campaign trail to visit ailing grandmother - CNN.com:
(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama will take a break from campaigning Thursday so he can visit his ailing grandmother in Hawaii, an Obama spokesman said Monday.
Part of me is waiting for McCain to get nasty and churlish and start talking in a snide voice, "(presidents need to) deal with more than one thing at once." That'd be great. I'd love to see how well it goes over with the voters to make fun of someone for taking time to look after a sick relative.

There's a really childish part of my head which wants to call my incessantly Republican uncle, who is himself a lobbyist for a trucking organization, and say "Dude. Get ready to lose."

WPA:TNG

Oct. 20th, 2008 07:12 pm
chronovore: (Default)
Note to Next President: Modern-Day WPA Will Save the Economy | Autopia from Wired.com:
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama have been all but silent when it comes to repairing America's failing infrastructure, and with all that's going on in the world right now, they might be forgiven for it. They shouldn't be. Investing heavily in our infrastructure is just the thing for reinvigorating our tanking economy.

The candidates can talk all they want about shoveling money into alternative fuels, electric cars and high-speed rail, but none of that will mean much if our roads, bridges and rails can't support them. The next president must commit to fixing our infrastructure. Such an investment will create jobs, strengthen our economy and make America more competitive.

"(Congress) should invest in the more than 3,000 ready-to-go highway projects that could be under contract within the next 30 to 90 days," says John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. "Funding these ready to go projects offers Congress a tremendous opportunity to put Americans to work and help cash-strapped states repair and replace our crumbling infrastructure."

History shows us the time to act is now.
I'm bookmarking this for a later read-through, but I've seriously been wondering about the WPA as a solution for the past few weeks as the news about the economy continues to worsen. Looking at the bailout, it is at its core a means of turning private debt into a public burden. There has to be some way to have the government invest in America itself, not just hand money to the banks which has come directly from our taxes. Then again, I'm a closet socialist with strong capitalist leanings.
chronovore: (mouthy)
Reuters: North Korea said to be deploying missiles
VIENNA/SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea deployed more than 10 missiles on its west coast apparently for an imminent test launch, a South Korean newspaper said on Thursday, and Pyongyang halted U.N. monitoring of its nuclear complex.

The potentially destabilizing moves followed reports that the United States had offered to remove North Korea from its terrorism blacklist this month in an effort to keep a nuclear disarmament pact from falling apart.

It would be an unprecedented test if North Korea fired all 10 of the surface-to-ship and ship-to-ship missiles. Intelligence sources quoted by the Chosun Ilbo paper said they thought the North may launch five to seven of them.

North Korea has forbidden ships to sail in an area in the Yellow Sea until October 15 in preparation for the launch, an intelligence source told the paper.

A South Korean defense ministry official declined to comment on the report but said the government had no indication of unusual activity in the North. remainder of article at website
I really dislike Kim Jong Il; the little shit and his puffball hairdo seem really out of touch with reality. I mean, like CRAZY. He's either crazy, or wants to be perceived as crazy, which is in itself potentially worse than being crazy. If the world were a big neighborhood, USA would be the big, rich house with the loud jackass in charge of the local neighborhood association who always told everyone else how to keep their lawn straight, and when they needed to rake their leaves or repaint their porch -- but North Korea would be the lonely shack at the end of the block with the batshit guy who is rumored to have a shotgun, and may or may not have been killing the neighborhood pets.

Here, we really have something of a terrorist nation; a government which seeks to use fear as a means of being allowed to participate in the world theater, to shape other nations policies and plans.

They've test fired rockets toward Japan. Shit-howdy, wasn't The Bay of Pigs more or less about keeping a test firing from even being feasible?
chronovore: (furious)
Reuters: U.S. to announce $1 billion aid for Georgia: official : I'm so US-centric that at first I thought, Did the state of Georgia get hit by a hurricane?! Or is this to address the report that they rank 41st out of 50 for "smartest state"? Then I remembered it's not the only Georgia in the world, and I felt like a clod.

Then again, it's also a brand of canned coffee here in Japan, so I could have done worse, and assumed that the US is trying to get itself really high on caffeine and sugar.

And just to maintain the rambling tone: During my trip to the USA, I found a copy of Max Max WITH The Road Warrior new for 10 bucks, American greenbacks. I have been sour on Mel Since he started made that romantic comedy with Helen Hunt, and she'd hinted in the PR tour that Mel's an abhorrent human being, and then much later he did that "sugartits/jew" thing in Los Angeles, confirming that he's bad... BUT IT WAS THE ROAD WARRIOR! I bought it, watched it while making tonight's dinner (before going to work), and it turns out to be 1 DVD, two-sided, and pan-and-scan 4:3, and a miserable transfer to boot.

Epic. Fail. I gave Mel Gibson 10 dollars, and didn't even get what I want.
chronovore: (mouthy)
Homeland Security: We can seize laptops for an indefinite period | The Iconoclast - politics, law, and technology - CNET News.com: (via LifeHacker)
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has concocted a remarkable new policy: It reserves the right to seize for an indefinite period of time laptops taken across the border.

A pair of DHS policies from last month say that customs agents can routinely--as a matter of course--seize, make copies of, and "analyze the information transported by any individual attempting to enter, re-enter, depart, pass through, or reside in the United States." (See policy No. 1 and No. 2.)

DHS claims the border search of electronic information is useful to detect terrorists, drug smugglers, and people violating "copyright or trademark laws." (Readers: Are you sure your iPod and laptop have absolutely no illicitly downloaded songs? You might be guilty of a felony.)

This is a disturbing new policy, and should convince anyone taking a laptop across a border to use encryption to thwart DHS snoops. Encrypt your laptop, with full disk encryption if possible, and power it down before you go through customs.

Here's a guide to customs-proofing your laptop that we published in March.

It's true that any reasonable person would probably agree that Customs agents should be able to inspect travelers' bags for contraband. But seizing a laptop and copying its hard drive is uniquely invasive--and should only be done if there's a good reason.

Sen. Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, called the DHS policies "truly alarming" and told the Washington Post that he plans to introduce a bill that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches.

But unless Congress changes the law, DHS may be able to get away with its new rules. A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled that an in-depth analysis of a laptop's hard drive using the EnCase forensics software "was permissible without probable cause or a warrant under the border search doctrine." (full article at initial link)
chronovore: (Default)
I'm so out of touch with what's going on in America, I didn't know that the Writer's Guild strike has been over since February.

I just assumed my copy of "TV Shows.app" was no longer downloading because the strike was still going on. And now apparently there's an actors guild strike?
chronovore: (Default)
Starbucks closing 600 stores in the US:
Starbucks Corp. said Tuesday it will close 600 company-operated stores in the next year, up dramatically from its previous plan for 100 closures, a sign the coffee shop operator is still feeling the pain from the faltering U.S. economy. full article )
But will closing a mere 0.5% of the stores really help? I kid; I kid because I drink. Er, "love." "Like"? I'm more of a Peet's man, meself.

much ado

Jun. 30th, 2008 04:24 pm
chronovore: (mouthy)
Listening to The Savage Lovecast again today, and remembered [livejournal.com profile] chernobylred condemning Loveline's Dr. Drew. Driving home late at night during crunchtime, I really used to enjoy Loveline when it was Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla. The two of them were a great pair, because Adam is hilarious and Drew always seemed very insightful in terms of being able to identify trauma in someone's past that they'd not brought up in the question. And they were always at each other's throats, Drew largely through scathing silences, and Adam coming down on Drew for not loosening up a little.

surprize! buttsecks! )

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