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la_belle_laideJo-chan is here, and tonight I gave her the last Growing UP Girl statue ever. I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but I've gotten her one of those statues at her birthday every year, from infancy till now. They only go up to sixteen. In the last few years I'd by one and go, "Wow, only three more to go." "Oh man. Only two more to go." "Holy crap. One more statue after this." Then last week, I bought the last one. It made me really emo.
Chris, Tim and Boychild, as well as Gran all were at my parents' house and we went up there for cake. I still owe Jo-chan a cool gift, because when I took her shopping today they didn't have what she wanted. But it was cool to get together to celebrate her 16th. Afterwards we played FFVII for a few hours because we were both feeling nostalgic for it.
I'm sorry if this is really disjointed. I'm super tired, and also I sort of pieced this LJ entry together over the last few days. It reads a little bit disconnected; sorry about that.
And now for a cute test and some news articles that caught my eye in the last few days:
A cute test: [url=http://www.quiztron.com/tests/goddess_lurks_in_sou_quiz_22388.htm]Which Goddess lurks in your soul?[/url]
[url=http://www.quiztron.com/tests/goddess_lurks_in_sou_quiz_22388.htm][img]http://www.make-a-quiz.com/quiz_images/full_529103809.jpg[/img][/url]
Demeter
You are a true earth warrior! Demeter is the Greek Goddess of the fields, grain and harvest and inhabits those souls who long to be a part of the green. You have a special connection with plants and care deeply for the Earth. You tend to be motherly and protective of those that are in your care and are not above severe aggression when one of your charges is harmed or threatened.
Changing a few answers on which I was ambiguous I got:
[url=http://www.quiztron.com/tests/goddess_lurks_in_sou_quiz_22388.htm][img]http://www.make-a-quiz.com/quiz_images/full_112261967.jpg[/img][/url]
Nyx
A child of the darkness you are! Nyx is the Greek Goddess of the Night and inhabits those souls who desire darkness. Not necessarily an evil or good person, you simply desire to surround yourself in all things mystical that inhabit the night time landscape. A fascination with the stars and celestial bodies also tends to accompany those whom Nyx has taken up residence in. Embrace the darkness baby because it’s already embraced you!
Some news stories:
2008's top 25 unreported stories.
1: No habeas corpus for any person.
The MCA effectively does away with habeas corpus rights for “any person” arbitrarily deemed to be an “enemy of the state.” The judgment on who is deemed an “enemy combatant” is solely at the discretion of President Bush.
2: Bush moves towards Martial Law.
Section 333 of the Defense Authorization Act of 2007, entitled “Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law,” states that “the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service—to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of (or “refuse” or “fail” in) maintaining public order—in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
Thus an Act of Congress, superceding the Posse Comitatus Act, has paved the way toward a police state by granting the president unfettered legal authority to order federal troops onto the streets of America, directing military operations against the American people under the cover of “law enforcement.”
9: Privatization of infrastructure.
We will soon be paying Wall Street investors, Australian bankers, and Spanish contractors for the privilege of driving on American roads, as more than twenty states have enacted legislation allowing public-private partnerships to build and run highways. Investment firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and the Carlyle Group are approaching state politicians with advice to sell off public highway and transportation infrastructure. When advising state officials on the future of this vital public asset, these investment firms fail to mention that their sole purpose is to pick up infrastructure at the lowest price possible in order to maximize returns for their investors. Investors, most often foreign companies, are charging tolls and insisting on “noncompete” clauses that limit governments from expanding or improving nearby roads.
If you don't know anything about the Carlyle group, please watch Zeitgeist.
12: Another Massacre in Haiti by UN Troops:
Eyewitness testimony confirms indiscriminate killings by UN forces in Haiti’s Cité Soleil community on December 22, 2006, reportedly as collective punishment against the community for a massive demonstration of Lavalas supporters in which about ten thousand people rallied for the return of President Aristide in clear condemnation of the foreign military occupation of their country. According to residents, UN forces attacked their neighborhood in the early morning, killing more than thirty people, including women and children. Footage taken by Haiti Information Project (HIP) videographers shows unarmed civilians dying as they tell of extensive gunfire from UN peacekeeping forces (MINUSTAH).
14: Impunity for US War Criminals
A provision mysteriously tucked into the Military Commission Act (MCA) just before it passed through Congress and was signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006 (see story #1), redefines torture, removing the harshest, most controversial techniques from the definition of war crimes, and exempts the perpetrators—both interrogators and their bosses—from prosecution for such offences dating back to November 1997.
20: Terror Act Against Animal Activists
The term “terrorism” has been dangerously expanded to include acts that interfere, or promote interference, with the operations of animal enterprises.
I'm a terrorist now, did you know?
25: Who Will Profit from Native Energy?
Guess what? Not the Natives! Most outrageously, it gave the US government the power to grant rights of way through Indian lands without permission from the tribes—if deemed to be in the strategic interests of an energy-related project. Under the guise of “promoting tribal sovereignty,” the act also released the federal government from liability with regard to resource development, shifting responsibility for environmental review and regulation from the federal to tribal governments.
I thought this was interesting: Obama and McCain more or less agree on Immigration.
For those of you who are snarksexual, read this:
Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill
:
Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin at the University of California, San Francisco, has also recently discovered that sarcasm, which is both positively funny and negatively nasty, plays an important part in human social interaction....
According to Dr. Rankin, if you didn’t get the sarcastic tone of the previous sentences you must have some damage to your parahippocampal gyrus which is located in the right brain. People with dementia, or head injuries in that area, often lose the ability to pick up on sarcasm, and so they don’t respond in a socially appropriate ways.
Presumably, this is a pathology, which in turn suggests that sarcasm is part of human nature and probably an evolutionarily good thing.
How might something so, well, sarcastic as sarcasm, be part of the human social toolbox?*
Evolutionary biologists claim that sociality is what has made humans such a successful species. We are masters at what anthropologists and others call "social intelligence." We recognize and keep track of hundreds of relationships, and we easily distinguish between enemies and friends.
More important, we run our lives by social calculation. A favor is mentally recorded and paid back, sometimes many years later. Likewise, insults are marked down on the mental score card in indelible ink. And we are constantly bickering and making up, even with people we love.
Sarcasm, then, is a verbal hammer that connects people in both a negative and positive way. We know that sense of humor is important to relationships; if someone doesn't get your jokes, they aren't likely to be your friend (or at least that's my bottom line about friendship). Sarcasm is simply humor's dark side, and it would be just as disconcerting if a friend didn’t get your snide remarks....
There ya go!
*"Toolbox." Heehee. Did you see where she said "toolbox?"
Here's what I was just thinking about. And only people who are FFVII total fanpoodles and also conspiracy theorists will get.
In FFVII, the government was sucking all of the life out of the planet and destroying it, to the point where all life was threatened.
The government blew up a section of the city, killing thousands of people, and framed a terrorist group.
And now, you can hear the Earth's cries from space. "Can You Hear The Cry Of The Planet" anyone?
So it seems to me that FFVII is coming true.
Anyway, here is the entire article, for when it gets taken down:
Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, astronomers have discovered.
The sound is awful, a new recording from space reveals.
Scientists have known about the radiation since the 1970s. It is created high above the planet, where charged particles from the solar wind collide with Earth's magnetic field. It is related to the phenomenon that generates the colorful aurora, or Northern Lights.
The radio waves are blocked by the ionosphere, a charged layer atop our atmosphere, so they do not reach Earth. That's good, because the out-of-this-world radio waves are 10,000 times stronger than even the strongest military signal, the researchers said, and they would overwhelm all radio stations on the planet.
Theorists had long figured the radio waves, which were not well studied, oozed into space in an ever-widening cone, like light from a torch.
But new data from the European Space Agency's Cluster mission, a group of four high-flying satellites, reveals the bursts of radio waves head off to the cosmos in beam-like fashion, instead.
This means they're more detectable to anyone who might be listening.
The Auroral Kilometric Radiation (AKR), as it is called, is beamed out in a narrow plane, as if someone had put a mask over a torch and left a slit for the radiation to escape.
This flat beam could be detected by aliens who've figured this process out, the researchers say. The knowledge could also be used by Earth's astronomers to detect planets around other stars, if they can build a new radio telescope big enough for the search. They could also learn more about Jupiter and Saturn by studying AKR, which should emit from the auroral activity on those worlds, too.
"Whenever you have aurora, you get AKR," said Robert Mutel, a University of Iowa researcher involved in the work.
The AKR bursts -- Mutel and colleagues studied 12,000 of them -- originate in spots the size of a large city a few thousand miles above Earth and above the region where the Northern Lights form.
"We can now determine exactly where the emission is coming from," Mutel said.
Our planet is also known to hum, a mysterious low-frequency sound thought to be caused by the churning ocean or the roiling atmosphere.
You can actually hear it here.
Aside from the rather benign reason for the sound of the planet, yup, FFVII is coming true. Now if Reeve would walk in! ^_~
Well! I think it's time for me to crawl off to bed. Why the hell am I so tired at 1 AM? I don't even know.
Chris, Tim and Boychild, as well as Gran all were at my parents' house and we went up there for cake. I still owe Jo-chan a cool gift, because when I took her shopping today they didn't have what she wanted. But it was cool to get together to celebrate her 16th. Afterwards we played FFVII for a few hours because we were both feeling nostalgic for it.
I'm sorry if this is really disjointed. I'm super tired, and also I sort of pieced this LJ entry together over the last few days. It reads a little bit disconnected; sorry about that.
And now for a cute test and some news articles that caught my eye in the last few days:
A cute test: [url=http://www.quiztron.com/tests/goddess_lurks_in_sou_quiz_22388.htm]Which Goddess lurks in your soul?[/url]
[url=http://www.quiztron.com/tests/goddess_lurks_in_sou_quiz_22388.htm][img]http://www.make-a-quiz.com/quiz_images/full_529103809.jpg[/img][/url]
Demeter
You are a true earth warrior! Demeter is the Greek Goddess of the fields, grain and harvest and inhabits those souls who long to be a part of the green. You have a special connection with plants and care deeply for the Earth. You tend to be motherly and protective of those that are in your care and are not above severe aggression when one of your charges is harmed or threatened.
Changing a few answers on which I was ambiguous I got:
[url=http://www.quiztron.com/tests/goddess_lurks_in_sou_quiz_22388.htm][img]http://www.make-a-quiz.com/quiz_images/full_112261967.jpg[/img][/url]
Nyx
A child of the darkness you are! Nyx is the Greek Goddess of the Night and inhabits those souls who desire darkness. Not necessarily an evil or good person, you simply desire to surround yourself in all things mystical that inhabit the night time landscape. A fascination with the stars and celestial bodies also tends to accompany those whom Nyx has taken up residence in. Embrace the darkness baby because it’s already embraced you!
Some news stories:
2008's top 25 unreported stories.
1: No habeas corpus for any person.
The MCA effectively does away with habeas corpus rights for “any person” arbitrarily deemed to be an “enemy of the state.” The judgment on who is deemed an “enemy combatant” is solely at the discretion of President Bush.
2: Bush moves towards Martial Law.
Section 333 of the Defense Authorization Act of 2007, entitled “Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law,” states that “the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service—to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of (or “refuse” or “fail” in) maintaining public order—in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
Thus an Act of Congress, superceding the Posse Comitatus Act, has paved the way toward a police state by granting the president unfettered legal authority to order federal troops onto the streets of America, directing military operations against the American people under the cover of “law enforcement.”
9: Privatization of infrastructure.
We will soon be paying Wall Street investors, Australian bankers, and Spanish contractors for the privilege of driving on American roads, as more than twenty states have enacted legislation allowing public-private partnerships to build and run highways. Investment firms including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and the Carlyle Group are approaching state politicians with advice to sell off public highway and transportation infrastructure. When advising state officials on the future of this vital public asset, these investment firms fail to mention that their sole purpose is to pick up infrastructure at the lowest price possible in order to maximize returns for their investors. Investors, most often foreign companies, are charging tolls and insisting on “noncompete” clauses that limit governments from expanding or improving nearby roads.
If you don't know anything about the Carlyle group, please watch Zeitgeist.
12: Another Massacre in Haiti by UN Troops:
Eyewitness testimony confirms indiscriminate killings by UN forces in Haiti’s Cité Soleil community on December 22, 2006, reportedly as collective punishment against the community for a massive demonstration of Lavalas supporters in which about ten thousand people rallied for the return of President Aristide in clear condemnation of the foreign military occupation of their country. According to residents, UN forces attacked their neighborhood in the early morning, killing more than thirty people, including women and children. Footage taken by Haiti Information Project (HIP) videographers shows unarmed civilians dying as they tell of extensive gunfire from UN peacekeeping forces (MINUSTAH).
14: Impunity for US War Criminals
A provision mysteriously tucked into the Military Commission Act (MCA) just before it passed through Congress and was signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006 (see story #1), redefines torture, removing the harshest, most controversial techniques from the definition of war crimes, and exempts the perpetrators—both interrogators and their bosses—from prosecution for such offences dating back to November 1997.
20: Terror Act Against Animal Activists
The term “terrorism” has been dangerously expanded to include acts that interfere, or promote interference, with the operations of animal enterprises.
I'm a terrorist now, did you know?
25: Who Will Profit from Native Energy?
Guess what? Not the Natives! Most outrageously, it gave the US government the power to grant rights of way through Indian lands without permission from the tribes—if deemed to be in the strategic interests of an energy-related project. Under the guise of “promoting tribal sovereignty,” the act also released the federal government from liability with regard to resource development, shifting responsibility for environmental review and regulation from the federal to tribal governments.
I thought this was interesting: Obama and McCain more or less agree on Immigration.
For those of you who are snarksexual, read this:
Sarcasm Seen as Evolutionary Survival Skill
:
Neurophysiologist Katherine Rankin at the University of California, San Francisco, has also recently discovered that sarcasm, which is both positively funny and negatively nasty, plays an important part in human social interaction....
According to Dr. Rankin, if you didn’t get the sarcastic tone of the previous sentences you must have some damage to your parahippocampal gyrus which is located in the right brain. People with dementia, or head injuries in that area, often lose the ability to pick up on sarcasm, and so they don’t respond in a socially appropriate ways.
Presumably, this is a pathology, which in turn suggests that sarcasm is part of human nature and probably an evolutionarily good thing.
How might something so, well, sarcastic as sarcasm, be part of the human social toolbox?*
Evolutionary biologists claim that sociality is what has made humans such a successful species. We are masters at what anthropologists and others call "social intelligence." We recognize and keep track of hundreds of relationships, and we easily distinguish between enemies and friends.
More important, we run our lives by social calculation. A favor is mentally recorded and paid back, sometimes many years later. Likewise, insults are marked down on the mental score card in indelible ink. And we are constantly bickering and making up, even with people we love.
Sarcasm, then, is a verbal hammer that connects people in both a negative and positive way. We know that sense of humor is important to relationships; if someone doesn't get your jokes, they aren't likely to be your friend (or at least that's my bottom line about friendship). Sarcasm is simply humor's dark side, and it would be just as disconcerting if a friend didn’t get your snide remarks....
There ya go!
*"Toolbox." Heehee. Did you see where she said "toolbox?"
Here's what I was just thinking about. And only people who are FFVII total fanpoodles and also conspiracy theorists will get.
In FFVII, the government was sucking all of the life out of the planet and destroying it, to the point where all life was threatened.
The government blew up a section of the city, killing thousands of people, and framed a terrorist group.
And now, you can hear the Earth's cries from space. "Can You Hear The Cry Of The Planet" anyone?
So it seems to me that FFVII is coming true.
Anyway, here is the entire article, for when it gets taken down:
Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, astronomers have discovered.
The sound is awful, a new recording from space reveals.
Scientists have known about the radiation since the 1970s. It is created high above the planet, where charged particles from the solar wind collide with Earth's magnetic field. It is related to the phenomenon that generates the colorful aurora, or Northern Lights.
The radio waves are blocked by the ionosphere, a charged layer atop our atmosphere, so they do not reach Earth. That's good, because the out-of-this-world radio waves are 10,000 times stronger than even the strongest military signal, the researchers said, and they would overwhelm all radio stations on the planet.
Theorists had long figured the radio waves, which were not well studied, oozed into space in an ever-widening cone, like light from a torch.
But new data from the European Space Agency's Cluster mission, a group of four high-flying satellites, reveals the bursts of radio waves head off to the cosmos in beam-like fashion, instead.
This means they're more detectable to anyone who might be listening.
The Auroral Kilometric Radiation (AKR), as it is called, is beamed out in a narrow plane, as if someone had put a mask over a torch and left a slit for the radiation to escape.
This flat beam could be detected by aliens who've figured this process out, the researchers say. The knowledge could also be used by Earth's astronomers to detect planets around other stars, if they can build a new radio telescope big enough for the search. They could also learn more about Jupiter and Saturn by studying AKR, which should emit from the auroral activity on those worlds, too.
"Whenever you have aurora, you get AKR," said Robert Mutel, a University of Iowa researcher involved in the work.
The AKR bursts -- Mutel and colleagues studied 12,000 of them -- originate in spots the size of a large city a few thousand miles above Earth and above the region where the Northern Lights form.
"We can now determine exactly where the emission is coming from," Mutel said.
Our planet is also known to hum, a mysterious low-frequency sound thought to be caused by the churning ocean or the roiling atmosphere.
You can actually hear it here.
Aside from the rather benign reason for the sound of the planet, yup, FFVII is coming true. Now if Reeve would walk in! ^_~
Well! I think it's time for me to crawl off to bed. Why the hell am I so tired at 1 AM? I don't even know.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-03 12:38 am (UTC)Lots of cool links, thanks for sharing.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-03 05:12 am (UTC)I love your icon, BTW.
Dude, I was plaing FF7 again tonight and thinking of you, and how you'd just totally get that this game is coming true. O_o
no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 12:43 am (UTC)Dude, if this game really does comes true, then I call dibs on all the Turks! I'd heard about the voice of the earth before, but never got a link for it, so that was verrah cool.
We need to get together one day for a feast of epic FF gaming! I need to think of a way to shrink the distance between. Nobody does much with Ohio or Virginia anyway. ;)