"Under the state's smoking ban, which went into effect last July, most counties in New York were given the authority to draft their own guidelines for issuing waivers. Typically, establishments must show a financial loss above a threshold established by the county, usually 10 or 15 percent.
....A statewide analysis of the smoking ban by the American Cancer Society shows that of the state's 65,000 bars and restaurants, only 132 have been granted waivers."
NYT, June 17
this is from March
'Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute today unveiled the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind.'
Almost every panel shows oddball-shaped galaxies engaged in boxing matches with galactic neighbors.
When staying a D's house I often lament the shortage of good restaurants in not just Boulder Creek, but the entire San Lorenzo valley. The
Pozole Jalisco produced by the non-work-permitted guest workers at a local gormet-to-go shop is a welcome addition to the eco-system and is a even better use of hominy than is grits.
I went for a walk last night and came across something that rather
surprised me.
Genesis P. Orridge and Miss Jackie come down to the WFMU studios for a visit and chat with Fabio, this Thursday, June 17th from Noon to 3 PM EDT. They will be discussing their Breyer P-Orridge project, the recent Throbbing Gristle reunion show in London, Upcoming Psychic TV shows, Thee Majesty, new CD releases, book releases, and other current projects.
i heard somthing about a double gender swap op. (?!?)
g
eneral janice karpinski says she's being made a scapegoat
"...during a visit to Iraq in September, Miller - still the commander at the Guantanamo Bay prison - spoke of wanting to ``
Gitmoize'' Abu Ghraib by applying the Cuban facility's regimented detention and interrogation techniques."
g
ettleman on last nights news hour described a "growing tolerance for chaos" with neither us troops or iraq police intervening in the post bombing riot.
pornado report
+soundfile warning+ +juvenile-offcolor warning+ +stupidfunny warning+
1ndina J0nes remix
I'm excerpting this from a Counterpunch
article about Bush's responses to questions about torture after the G-8. It's great reporters (Europeans at least) are hammering the little man:
It was European reporters who
seemed most interested in pressing Bush on the torture issue,
and who were not at all impressed with his continuing assertions
that he was telling people to act in terms of the law. Bush has
no knowledge of history, but European reporters do, and all of
them at the G-8 press conference were no doubt aware how assiduously
Hitler got laws passed to authorize everything he did. Hitler's
government and its actions were all legal; it was a defect in
moral vision that undergirded their atrocities.
Nothing about the torture questions
appeared in the New York Times or any of the other major US newspapers,
but European papers were full of it. Neither did the US press
report that after Bush spoke, Jacques Chirac said that in the
war on terrorism we should not "forget the principles on
which our civilization rests, such as human rights."
Here are the torture parts
of Bush's G-8 press conference:
First time Bush was asked about
legalizing torture:
Q Mr. President, the Justice
Department issued an advisory opinion last year declaring that
as Commander-in-Chief you have the authority to order any kind
of interrogation techniques that are necessary to pursue the
war on terror. Were you aware of this advisory opinion? Do you
agree with it? And did you issue any such authorization at any
time?
THE PRESIDENT: No, the authorization
I issued, David, was that anything we did would conform to U.S.
law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations.
That's the message I gave our people.
Q Have you seen the memos?
THE PRESIDENT: I can't remember
if I've seen the memo or not, but I gave those instructions.
Second time Bush was asked
about legalizing torture:
Q Returning to the question
of torture, if you knew a person was in U.S. custody and had
specific information about an imminent terrorist attack that
could kill hundreds or even thousands of Americans, would you
authorize the use of any means necessary to get that information
and to save those lives?
THE PRESIDENT: Jonathan, what
I've authorized is that we stay within U.S. law.
Third time Bush was asked about
legalizing torture:
Q Mr. President, I wanted to
return to the question of torture. What we've learned from these
memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and
the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S.
officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the
law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international
and U.S. laws, that's not very comforting. This is a moral question:
Is torture ever justified?
THE PRESIDENT: Look, I'm going
to say it one more time. If I -- maybe -- maybe I can be more
clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law.
That ought to comfort you. We're a nation of law. We adhere to
laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws,
and that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions
out of -- from me to the government.
Yeah, I saw a red headed pheasant rooster in my front yard today, so what of it.?
nike + gawker = art of sp
eed
matisse police
isnt this more of a ny post story ?
I actually went to see
Troy, having had a long-standing interest in the
Iliad, going back to kiddie versions when I was very young. It was better than I thought, but as is typical with this sort of thing, I find it hard to go with the film while I’m focusing on all the ways it diverges from the original source. The story they constructed was actually rather elegant, though bearing little relation to the traditional one; clearly a modern audience wouldn’t be satisfied with Homer, who doesn’t even include Achilles’ death or the climactic sack of Troy. Human political machinations are substituted for godly meddling; there’s more romance, rendered in Harlequin style; and the violence is more bombastic, but no more graphic than it is in the poem. All in all it’s pretty mainstream, and I couldn’t help but think of all the missed possibilities for an “alternative” take on the material. Brad Pitt is impossibly pretty, which is fine for “god-like Achilles”, but there are no homosexual overtones: he is in contrast to the other rough-hewn Greek heroes, and the general relishing of the male body is not extended throughout the corps. Even in classical Greece there were rumors that he and Patroclus were more than just friends, but here Achilles is made to be a protective older cousin. Worse, they missed the chance to have Pitt in drag, trying to avoid conscription at the start of the war. And I won’t even mention the possibilities of the necrophilia scene with the Amazon Achilles falls in love with,
after he’s killed her…
Anyway, since JL was asking about rentals kids might like, I’ll say that while there were some impressive visualizations here, if you want a pop mythic epic nothing beats the low-tech (OK, it was high tech then) stop-motion of
Jason and the Argonauts, the 1963 sword & sandal classic with effects by Ray Harryhausen.