A blog that seems to appear & disappear unexpectedly
This is a picture I took just weeks after I bought my first (real) camera ever:
This picture was taken in apartment 3A of the newly renovated Chauvet Hotel, July 2007. I was using a Samsung S720 digital camera which I bought for around 100 bucks (it’s now worth less).
Hey! We can kill two birds with one stone! Since UBS is handling investments in Dubai, we can take out two US Corporate (criminal) tax havens at once!
from Aug 31, 2008, zawya.com – Middle East Business Information
DUBAI(Zawya Dow Jones)— Abu Dhabi Investment Co. appointed Vincent Gilles as the new Chief Investment Officer of ADIC-UBS Infrastructure Investment Ltd.
…ADIC-UBS is a recently formed joint venture between Abu Dhabi Investment Co. and and UBS Asset Management focusing on infrastructure investments within the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey.
Prior to joining ADIC-UBS, Gilles worked for UBS for 10 years and headed the European and Middle Eastern practice of UBS Infrastructure Asset Management, or IAM.
NOTE: April 12, 2011– I was looking through my analytics, and noticed that one of my postings was being monitored by the Swiss Government. I was, of course, curious as to what they might be interested in. I followed the link they followed, and discovered a posting I had completely forgotten I had written. Here it is: …
from Fortean Times:
Somnambulism in the Internet Age
Woman emailed party invites in her sleep
A new form of somnambulism for the Internet age has been identified by doctors and reported in the latest edition of the medical journal Sleep Medicine. Sleep researchers from the University of Toledo, Ohio, reported the first ever case of someone using the Internet while asleep, even sending emails inviting people over for drinks and caviar.
The 44-year-old woman had gone to bed at about 10pm, but rose a couple of hours later, walked to the next room and sat down at her computer. She turned the machine on, connected to the Internet and successfully logged on with her user name and password, before composing three emails and sending them to friends. She only found out what she had done when one of them telephoned the next day to reply to the email and accept the invitation.
The mails themselves were perhaps not up to the woman’s waking standard; each was in a random mix of upper and lower case characters, badly formatted and containing odd expressions. One read: “Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4.pm. Bring wine and caviar only.” Another said simply: “What the…”
The writers of the report have dubbed this new variation of sleepwalking ‘zzz-mailing’… …
Continue reading “post facto excuse for any bizarre PMs I may or may not have left in your inbox…”
1982 – George Deukmejian is elected Governor of California, beginning 16 years of Republican Rule in California.
1986 – Three justices appointed by previous Governor Jerry Brown are voted off the California Supreme Court after business intersts mount an aggressive campaign against them, ostensibly for their opposition to the death penalty, allowing Republican Governor George Deukmejian to stack the court with pro-business conservatives.
1990 – Republican Pete Wilson is elected Governor, and begins an aggressive campain to deregulate energy in the state of California.
From Wikipedia:
In the mid-90's, under Republican Governor Pete Wilson, California began deregulating the electricity industry…
The deregulation called for the Investor Owned Utilities, or IOUs, (primarily Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric) to sell off a significant part of their power generation to wholly private, unregulated companies such as AES, Reliant, and Enron. The buyers of those power plants then became the wholesalers from which the IOUs needed to buy the electricity that they used to own themselves. While the selling of power plants to private companies was labeled "deregulation", in fact… the California legislature expected that there would be regulation by the FERC which would prevent manipulation. The FERC's job, in theory, is to regulate and enforce Federal law, preventing market manipulation and price manipulation of energy markets. When called upon to regulate the out-of-state privateers which were clearly manipulating the California energy market, the FERC hardly reacted at all and did not take serious action against Enron, Reliant, or any other privateers. FERC's resources are in fact quite sparse in comparison to their entrusted task of policing the energy market. Lobbying by private companies may also have slowed down regulation and enforcement.
…
Continue reading “In case you still object to the idea of cooking these people & eating them…”
I’m kind of partial to this one. Funny thing, though: I was packing my camera away after taking numerous photos, and was thinking of where I wanted to take photos next, when this Magnolia Tree snuck up on me & bit me in the rear! (I almost bumped my head on this very branch when I stood up)
(don’t forget to zoom)
Terrorism has no place in Islamic doctrine. The Koranic term for the killing of innocents is ‘fasad.’ Terrorists are fasadis, not jihadis. In a beautiful verse, the Koran says that the killing of an innocent is akin to slaying the whole community.
–M.J. Akbar, Indian-Muslim editor of Covert, an Indian investigative journal, on the recent massacre in Mumbai, India
NY Post Defends Cartoon, Slams Al Sharpton
Here’s the full statement by Col Allan, editor-in-chief of the Post:
“The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.”
More from Mr. Rupert’s Neighborhood:
The Wall Street Journal???
Oh, how the mighty have fallen…
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
AP – NEW YORK – A New York Post cartoon that some have interpreted as comparing President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee gunned down by police drew outrage Wednesday from civil rights leaders and elected officials who said it echoed racist stereotypes of blacks as monkeys.
The cartoon in Wednesday’s Post by Sean Delonas shows two police officers, one with a smoking gun, standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimp. The caption reads: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
The cartoon refers to a chimpanzee named Travis who was killed Monday by police in Stamford, Conn., after it mauled a friend of its owner.
Some critics called the cartoon racist and said it trivialized a tragedy in which a woman was disfigured and a chimpanzee killed. Others said the cartoon suggests that Obama should be assassinated. Many urged a boycott of the Post and the companies that advertise in it.
“How could the Post let this cartoon pass as satire?” said Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists. “To compare the nation’s first African-American commander in chief to a dead chimpanzee is nothing short of racist drivel.”
