Hmmm...
So it's pretty clear that waterboarding is A-OK in this country...
whereas 11 young men ganging up on a young mentally disabled girl, sexually assaulting her, filming the assault and distributing it on DVD is not... oh wait - yes it is - sorta... though in this case it's not IN this country...

But it makes me wonder - why cant we institute waterboarding as a standard punishment? If we're not going to bother rehabilitating people anyway - lets just make their time in prison as absolutely miserable as possible. The old 'throw up a wall around manhattan' just isnt enough, not when we have a modern day Devil's Island running down in Cuba... I mean - leg irons 24x7... a constant 50db of Michael Bolton's 'When a Man Loves a Woman' on infinite replay... and hell, if waterboarding is good enough for the govt - how about making it standard when dealing with government officials guilty of fraud with public funds. Hey vice president Vader - watch your cornhole buddy...

I suppose the 'right' answer in dealing with these 11 men is rehabilitation - so it never happens again... but damn if a couple decades strapped to a chair watching Beastmaster 2 doesnt sound like a good idea.

05.11.1605 - Never Forget

Well, i could go on about what's going on in Pakistan because that's a situation that's on the verge of out of control... but hell - what am i really going to say - it's not like there's anything positive to point out - and all this negativity is bothersome somedays. So instead i'm going to post positive things. Hmmm... I like Clannad, though Bamboo Blade is probably the surprise positive for me this season (haven't seen enough Ghost Hound to cement a judgment but it has a good feel). Weather's been nice. The NE/Indy game was pretty good - almost as much fun to watch as the Horns game. Shiner Black Lager has a Pale Moon Ale thing going - which works for me. Might have some sense of movement re work this week - i'm hearing happy noises.
Still - the Pakistanis seem like they want to make a region that's already a mess even more so - so I think i'll just focus on Dango and not really worry about it.

---

While i'm on the subject - one of my favorite things about anime today is that it's become edgy - the way comic books changed when guys like Miller started pissing off Lonestar by pushing boundaries with more adult story lines (it wasnt that long ago that the mainstream distributors wouldnt carry a comic that wasnt built for the 12 yr old crowd - you younguns prolly dont remember the stink over Epic). So what you have now is an environment where the bands, as fellow artists, are recognizing the somewhat more intersting nature of anime in japan (with stuff like the fairly well exposed Lain series hopefully you understand what i mean - if not, just nod your head). So now anime is an avenue for japanese bands to nail some broad exposure (having a song leading a popular anime is almost a guarantee to making the japanese pop charts) - and the avant-garde artists that're driving the genre are happy go have them along for the ride.

For example - i give you Kojima Mayumi's song Poltergeist used by Ghost Hound in their op (i linked the OP above)
They rock. I mean damn - what a perfect smoky mysterious open... if these guys came to town I'd go see them - and this is austin, we get guys like the New Pornographers and Ted Leo rolling through without very many noticing pretty regularly... (though, that's not really fair, since i dont go see bands terribly often... perhaps i should say 'i'd make jake go see them with me' since that's probably more accurate)

L'Arc en Ciel's 'Daybreak's Bell' for Gundam topped the charts the first week it was available in japan - though that might not be fair since they're pretty old hands in the japan chart-rock scene. I'm not a Gundam person to be honest - but damn if it isn't one of the prettiest damned cartoons i've ever seen.

A couple of other examples showing different genres -
Tears Infection by Kaori - from Myself Yourself (freakin youtube and their copyright crap... i've fixed this twice) - which is better for the way they use it in the OP... but it's always interesting to watch the culture cross the pond...
and of course this season's OP for ShanaJOINT by Mami Kawada.

Some artists really belong in the old 'make a song for a cartoon' genre - and they've built a career on it... and honestly there'll always be a place for them Kotoko's OP for Hayate no Gotoku for example (though you really do begin to recognize their voices after a while...)
So as you can tell from Kotoko's resume - i'm not going to pretend all anime is edgy - but whats interesting is that the japanese music industry has noted that some of these shows sport target demographic markets - and they can sell records. Example a new manufactured band - Buono! - a young girl idol group with music for Shugo Chara - with a target demographic of 12 yr old girls (this thing will suck all your body's insulin out through your eyes - it MUST be for coming of age girls...). Then again... when you see the band doing their live 'tiffany at the mall' performance... - you'll note the somewhat disturbing nature of the actual fanbase for acts like these (give the guys credit... they're REALLY into it... - odd, if 20-something american girls go nuts like this over a boyband its just fine... but guys just dont act like this over here...). One of these 'we made a popular song for a popular anime' bands rolled through during SXSW last time - Oreskaband (and yes, they play their own instruments) - who's Pinocchio ended Naruto for a while.

Rule of Thumb?

You know... i really cant make it more clear than this: under NO circumstance is it ok to pursue violence with your wife/girlfriend. There is nothing they've done (or you've done) that justifies violence. And girls - if the guy EVER does anything like that you need to leave him (and take his testicles with you please). That whole 'oh but he loves me' crap is just wrong - so dont make me smack you... oh wait... nm....

Grab a paperback...
look at the spine...
find the US price...
now - usually - theres a CAD price too...
Now, with the dollar at $1.04 and falling - doesnt this seem wrong?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

ok... so this one has been bothering me for a week now. JK Rowling announced that Dumbledore was gay. I've got issues with this...
1) - it's a FICTIONAL character - so it's not like Aldus is going to come to your son/husband/boyfriend and say "i like your hairy ass - wanna experiment?" It's a character in a god damned book. Why the hell would anyone be upset?! (well, except for the story about the guy with the tattoo... that was unfortunate...)
2) - the books dont actually include him BEING gay. At no point in the books does Aldus do anything homosexual. Nothing like that is described. They never catch him in an airport in a wide stance... no toilet paper stuck to the hem of his wizard robe as he leaves the King's Cross railway station bathroom strategically placed next to platform 9¾... So how, exactly, can a fictional character BE gay if he doesnt DO anything gay... this is fiction people - not reality. A character in a book STARTS on page one and ENDS on page N and if it aint ON THE PAPER then what the hell are we talking about? Sure - the author has a degree of latitude with their stories - especially when it comes to interpretation... but this? The author may have 'conceived of the character as gay' and written it that way - but once its on paper, or film, or vinyl, or canvas, the artist is left with a RESULT. Everlong is a song... Dave Grohl can tell us what he was thinking, what its about, but the song is finished - and what it means to people after all this time shouldnt be affected by an admission that it was all a lovesong about HALO's Master Chief. JK may well have written Dumbledore with the idea that he was gay and had a gay past in her mind but if it's not on paper then it really doesnt matter - it isnt IN THE FREAKIN BOOK - just like at no point does Grohl mention Cortana's unrequieted love for MC in the song itself (unless its in that garbage answering machine playback stuff hidden in the background). Must there be a canon for all this crap? Perhaps we could discuss the time Kirk banged a tribble, or Jesus blew a goat, or how Samwise was a hermaphrodite and used to hit the Prancing Pony on Ladies Night! in full drag guzzling saucers of - you get the picture... a book is NOT FREAKING MAGIC - it's a book... and there's NOTHING more to it than the ink and paper. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar - and the mental twists an artist traveled to get to the end product is not relevant to the product. Recently, they did an x-ray examination of the Mona Lisa... and found that originally it had a much more pronounced smile... does that matter?

I just dont see how a fictional character can truly BE X if he/it isnt X in the only place said character exists. That doesnt mean a character must take a crap (though it would be nice if Jack Bauer slept for half a season and suffered with a hangover for 3 or 4 weeks) and if there are never any scenes of Enterprise crew in a restroom that defacto they must be androids from planet Mudd - what i'm saying is even if the character is intended to be a womanizer, or a murderer, or a collector of hello kitty paraphernalia, then how can that be if it isnt established in the book? They're not real... Now - if we're being good Haruhists, then i suppose it could be argued that fictional characters are morphing constructs that can adapt to the wanton desires of an omnipotent albeit irresponsible god... but though i like miss suzumiya rather a lot, i tend to doubt that this sort of finnegan's wake approach to reality is something we want to apply towards our daily 'how am i going to face the cold cruel lonely truth of existence today' world - whether in our actual construct of reality, or that pen and paper fantasy we call storytelling.

3) So Dumbledore is gay... not that there's anything wrong with that... and even if one took personal exception on the grounds of some twisted hate-filled religious screed - this is a FICTIONAL character (much as your god... or do you want to go there...). Like i said - DUMBLEDORE IS NOT REAL... so why do we care?! And - if the idea that an old man who puts on his robe and wizard hat in a book you liked had a thing for polesmoking bothers you... i really think you need to get out more.

S: "So... why Duessa?"
V: "What? oh... you mean as a costume?"
S: "Yeah - why not Una?"
V: "Well, the dress is black and Una is virginal so that just didnt seem to work"

I dont get my ass handed to me in that game very often...

So I'm watching Katie Couric tonight - dont ask me why - i'd been watching the local CBS news about how those assholes at BFI lost the right to build a landfill the size of Mt Bonnell in NE Travis county and i didnt bother to change the channel...

it was the combination of 2 stories that has me posting. First, there's a continuing stink at the SCOTUS today over what constitutes child pornography - and whether representing something as child pr0n that isnt should be a 5-20 offense. I gather some grandfather sent a 'poorly phrased' email with a subject header having to do with pictures of his grandchildren... and another guy had some pr0n with 18 yr olds who look younger... or somesuch... i dont know - the news story wasnt very good... and i think it was only there to tease the viewer into thinking there might be something sexual in the news.

So then the second story is a long feature on Rockstar's latest 'Manhunt 2' for the Wii - where you get to physically act out the part of being an escapee from a mental institution where you dismember policemen with an axe. They let kids play it, they had psychologists, they mentioned in passing that there was no scientific evidence linking the playing of violent video games and acting them out IRL... showed in detail how to lock your console so kids couldnt play mature themed stuff... then she let loose with her opinion - that she didnt know what sort of people would like these games.

Hmmm... well katie... i dont personally care for this stuff - but then i dont like 'Battle Raper 2' either(no, i'm not linking to that one)... still, if some demure little girl wants to practice her axe-chopping on a couple of virtual policemen (with her parents permission) i dont see how it's any business of yours. This is amurika... we solve all our problems with violence - best to train em young. (note - this game was banned in the UK... and though i'm not really a nanny-state person, i can sorta appreciate where they're coming from)

The stories were right next to each other... i really think at some point someone needs to say 'virtually ripping skulls out of people with a meathook isnt something we need to see' - or at least put some of the energy they put into protecting us from people who think they have underage pr0n but dont... Of course, Katie doesn't see that - but she's a spineless moron.

You know... i dont wake up every day and say to myself 'i'm going to post in my blog and sound like Simon' - it just sort of happens sometimes...

that said - WTF is THIS crap. How many times have i personally seen asshole DHS agents... how many asshole DHS agent stories have i read... but i swear they're getting worse. These guys need to be cockpunched - repeatedly - by an angry Mike Tyson wearing a too tight flank strap. No doubt they'll be considered for promotion instead - since thats what you get for being a prick working for this government. When foreigners look at me, as an american - much less from texas, i get frustrated by the first impression i have to overcome. It's getting worse - and i'm sick of it.

I've been told - if you pick a naked Mann up by the armpits - expect the same...

Saw something I havent seen out here tonight... midnight... full moon... and a pack of coyotes was standing in the middle of my street (saw 3, think there were others in the brush). Why is it that i see a coyote and the first thing that comes to mind is Anthony Kiedis and the second is Homer Simpson... You're welcome here my trickster friends - just be sure to leave the foxes alone. There's a Kitsune out there with my name on it ;)

that's a lot of money....

this is going to destroy the dollar
i think i need to go somewhere else for a decade or two - not because of anything political - but because my ability to get paid overseas is going to be dramatically higher. Sad. Very sad.

So I've been thinking about Proposition 15. It's 3 billion dollars... and to me it feels like the sort of thing that's just another taking of public money and moving it into private hands. Govt capital outlays for things the private sector is working on/researching seem to me to be things one should reserve for things the private sector isn't going to accomplish properly (space travel... clean energy so we dont destroy the planet...). I dont know if I trust Texas to spend $3b without it just being a giant boondoggle. I'm going to have to research this one (though from the polling numbers it doesnt look like it's going to pass anyway).

Seems to me spending that 3b on the schools might be a better idea... not that i be panicking or anything.