Holler over here.
Who's with me?! Let's add some water to a grease fire this holiday! Yum!
click image to watch video(s)
Either way, some narcos (La Familia Michoacana) are offering to negotiate peace with the government:
MORELIA, Mexico — Banners hung on pedestrian bridges in several western Mexican cities Thursday expressed anger that the government has ignored a drug cartel's offer to disband if authorities improve security in the gang's home state.The "narco-banners" appeared in at least five towns and cities in the Pacific coast state of Michoacan, including the colonial capital of Morelia, the state attorney general's office said in a statement.
They carried the same message: "La Familia Michoacana ... is saddened about the lack of interest from government institutions in our proposal."
The banners refer to a letter, dropped on streets of several Michoacan mountain towns and e-mailed to journalists earlier this month, that said La Familia would disband if the government negotiates with the cartel on protecting Michoacan citizens.
Sounds like the government isn't having any of it. They haven't responded to the appeals and a former Mexican president is urging a state of "permanent" warfare. Because, you know, the drug war is just going so well for the U.S. and the narcos and the citizens of both countries. That former Mexican president with a hard-on for the drug war happens to be Carlos Salinas, whose brother was accused of being heavily involved in narco-capitalism and convicted of orchestrating a hit against their brother-in-law.
Salinas is also the president who signed NAFTA, which basically handed the Mexican narcos jetpacks, into law. Funny how he's so fond of the drug war.
In other news, U.S. businesses and the U.S. government are thinking about pouring investment money into post-coup Honduras despite the coup's dubious legality and record of human-rights abuses:
After [former President] Zelaya was ousted, a de facto government took over and promptly shut down media outlets and banned basic liberties like due process. A day after the coup, President Barack Obama told reporters that, “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras,” sparking hope that the US government’s historic policy of supporting coup d’états in Latin America had changed. However, during the November 2009 elections in Honduras—which were held amid a climate of “intimidation, torture, illegal detentions and in extreme cases, assassinations”—Lobo was declared the winner with the State Department backing the results. Those opposing the coup and the government continue to be tortured, arrested, and murdered, while the Lobo administration ignores the human rights abuses.A few days before the breakfast the chamber ["The Chamber of the Americas," a U.S. nonprofit] had planed to hold a similar event in San Pedro Sula, Honduras that would have featured Lobo, Bill Clinton as a keynote speaker, and Carlos Slim, according to Cisneros. Slim, a Mexican businessman who has invested millions in enterprises like the New York Times, is now the richest man in the world. The event was rescheduled for unspecified reasons and is now being planned for sometime in the Spring.
Chow
Failed to preplan your oppressors' feast? The divey 5 Point's got you covered: big bird and all the sides with pumpkin or pecan pie for $25 (with happy hour from 6 to 8 am, if necessary). If you're feeling fancier, Earth & Ocean at the W Hotel will feed you a $65 dinner (Terra Blanca wine pairings: $30) with multiple classic or contemporary options for each of three courses (e.g., roasted salt prawns with Anson Mills polenta and bacon pan gravy or smoked Vashon Island pastured turkey with chanterelle-hazelnut stuffing and cranberry chutney). Bonus: a take-home box of house-made petits fours, cookies, and candy. And if you must be vegan on this day (ingrate!), Plum Bistro promises a "traditional" T-giving for $35 per person—wine and booze to ease the pain cost extra. (Call ahead! Info at thestranger.com/chow)
BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT
But whoever is responsible for the turkey cakes at QFC should not expect a presidential pardon. That person needs to do serious time.
Permalink | Post Comments (18)
...by our emails:
Seriously, you fucking piece of shit. I don't care if gay kids kill themselves. I'm glad they kill themselves. I don't like gay people. Homosexuality is fucking stupid and is an evolutionary dead end. These people are sick in the head and they either need to get help or fuck off and leave the rest of us NORMAL people alone.Furthermore, bullying has been going on for YEARS, DECADES, even CENTURIES and for a variety of reasons. Kids are bullied for being fat, for being Jewish, for wearing glasses, for being disabled, for being Christian... but all of a sudden you give a shit about bullying because some fucking fags kill themselves? Where the fuck were you when teenage girls were killing themselves because the creep they slept with started spreading nasty rumors about her? Oh, they don't matter because they can't be exploited for political gain.
You only give a shit about these fucking fag suicides because it gives you an ample opportunity to demonize Christians and conservatives to the mushy middle. You're an opportunistic piece of shit and I hope you burn in hell right along the stupid worthless faggots that did humanity a favor and removed themselves from the gene pool.
Can't you just feel the love-the-sinner/hate-the-sin?
There's a lot to pick apart here—but, hey, it's Thanksgiving and I wanna get my fucking fag ass to the gym before I inhale a month's worth of food over six hours. But if homosexuality is an evolutionary dead end... then it seems to me that suicide would be unnecessary as we fags have already been removed from the gene pool, right? But science—science!—tells us that homosexuality is not an evolutionary dead end. Far from it. So citing evolution to justify your hatred of homos is pretty fucking stupid. And does anyone else find it ironic that the only time Christians haters lean on evolutionary science—science!—or Darwin or natural selection is when they wanna justify their anti-gay bigotry? Why not stick to Leviticus? The word of OTG—Old Testament God—isn't good enough for them?
And for the record: this is the kind of email that conservative Christian haters send when the presumption of anonymity—gee, what should I do with this person's email address?—frees them to drop their dishonest love-the-sinner/hate-the-sin routine. This is what they really think. They don't love, they hate, and it fills them with glee with 13-year-old boys blow their brains out.
I don't know how you get from Mark 12:28-31 ("Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.") to taking delight in a child's suicide but, hey, I'm not a Christian.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
Permalink | Post Comments (58)
Posted by news intern Matt Luby
Yesterday was the busiest flying day of the year. Naturally, then, it was also the perfect day for me and many others to protest the Transportation Security Administration's onerous new security measures for passengers.
National Opt-Out Day protests took place today across the country, organized at the grassroots level through sites like WeWontFly.com and OptOutDay.com. The idea was to inform fliers of their right to opt out of the new full body scanners, and hopefully bog down TSA checkpoints with lots of slow pat-downs and long, long lines. And I was pumped for it.
As you might guess, I have no use for the TSA and these new regulations have me even angrier at them.
But then a funny thing happened: I got to SeaTac and the airport didn't seem all that busy. The protesters were supposed to meet up at the terminal's Seattle's Best Coffee shop, except no one was there. Luckily, I was directed by the baristas to find them inside of a "free speech zone" established next to Security Checkpoint 3, where long lines were expected.
Interviews with protesters after the jump!
Permalink | Post Comments (22)
If you don't want people smoking dangerous "synthetic" pot...
Reacting to what it called complaints from law enforcement and a surge in medical emergencies, the Drug Enforcement Administration said on Wednesday that it would ban several chemicals used to make so-called synthetic marijuana products, which resemble herbs or potpourri but mimic the effects of the drug when smoked.
...legalize the real stuff. Today's NYT story about the federal government's glorious and never ending war on getting high goes on to quote the acting head of the DEA—“Makers of these harmful products mislead their customers into thinking that ‘fake pot’ is a harmless alternative to illegal drugs"—but then NYT reporter Jesse McKinley does the unimaginable: he goes and gets a balancing quote from someone on the other side of this "law enforcement" story:
Tony Newman, a spokesman for the Drug Policy Alliance, which seeks to liberalize the drug laws, said the ban seemed to be the wrong approach. “The D.E.A. says that prohibiting synthetic marijuana will ‘control’ it—yet we know from history that prohibition is the complete opposite of drug control,” Mr. Newman said, adding that regulating and setting age limits would be a better approach than “relegating it to the black market.”
That's how it's done, credulous fucking hacks.
Permalink | Post Comments (20)
You could be thankful you're not the new managing director of Intiman, who has to sort out the old managing director's mess.
Come to think of it, you should be thankful you're not the old managing director who is, at this point, probably frozen in a position of permanent cringe. Nobody has said exactly why and how Brian Colburn wrecked Intiman's finances, but his "sudden departure" for "personal reasons" is starting to look like he was extraordinarily checked out for a long, long time.
The Times has dug in and gotten more specifics about exactly how screwed the theater is:
The financially troubled Intiman Theatre plans to reduce its $2.3 million debt through negotiations with creditors and budget-cutting, said the company's acting managing director, Melaine Bennett...Intiman hopes to end 2010 with more cash on hand and its debt reduced by about $300,000, said Bennett. Achieving that would mean quickly raising $800,000 in ticket revenue and donations. (The company is running a production of "The Scarlet Letter," and in December will present the popular holiday show "Black Nativity," at the Moore Theatre.)
The theater, which has operated this year on a $5.5 million budget, will also trim expenses by at least 20 percent in 2011. "Both the board and staff have agreed that if we need to do more cutting, we will," said Bennett.
Permalink | Post Comments (15)
Alright Nerds, almost there.
By popular demand we will have two guilds, Horde and Alliance. The Horde guild will be called the "Tech-Savvy At-Risk Youth" and the Alliance guild will be called the "Good Giving Gamers".
I am arbitrarily picking the Durotan server since that's where I have the most available resources for managing two guilds. I am open to suggestions if other people have the gold for bank tabs and the like, but we'll take this discussion off-Slog.
Right now you can join the Facebook group, Sloggers of Azeroth, for more info. If you don't have a Facebook account you can look up the Twitter feed until we get a joint guild website up. I'll post all future information at both these locations. See you all in-game!
Permalink | Post Comments (10)
Posted to The Stranger's Flickr pool by Alessandro Fantini.
The new security screening procedures at airports are a particular nightmare for the transgendered.
And right-wing Christian haters aren't very pleased with me or with CNN.
Permalink | Post Comments (51)
This looks bad (warning: this footage includes images of dead people).
After Limbe, where cholera has killed at least 100 people, we came to the biggest “barikad” yet in the highway. Thick trees lay across the road and hundreds of people, a few holding machetes, blocked the way.The bus driver once again descended to negotiate, but didn’t appear to be making any progress. Most passengers grabbed their belongings and got out.
I decided to go too. As I gathered my things, there was a debate among the remaining passengers:
“He’s a blan (foreigner), he’s going to get hurt.”
“No no no, he speaks Creole, he’ll be fine.”
“They’re going to think he’s MINUSTAH. They’re not logical.”MINUSTAH is the acronym for the UN peacekeeping mission. As I stepped off the bus, people standing at the road called me over and urged me not to go. It was the third day of so-called “cholera riots” against foreign troops blamed for introducing the disease into the country.
Someone said the protesters are violent “chimere,” a word for political gangs. I explained that it’s my job as a journalist to go talk to them.
Then two Haitian journalists who were on the bus pushed their way through the crowd and wrapped their arms around me. Everyone agreed, finally, that together with the two guys I could get through the barricades.
Some Haitians are blaming the UN for the cholera outbreak (which has killed over 1,000 people so far—that we know of). Reporters aren't sure whether this is being organized by political parties and gangs simply to destabilize the political system or whether this is somehow based on a genuine mass delusion. (My brain is not prepared to accept the possibility that the UN intentionally tried to poison the entire nation of Haiti—though it is true that Europeans introduced cholera to the New World. But that was an accident.)
The first Haiti-related cholera case has now been reported in Florida.
And if any of you out there are thinking of going to the Dominican Republic—or know people who are going to the Dominican Republic—don't worry:
But he [Dr. Jordan Tappero, team leader in Haiti for the CDC in Port-au-Prince] said cholera was unlikely to spread widely in the United States or in the Dominican Republic, since both countries have public health infrastructures — i.e., chlorinated drinking water and intact sewage lines — that are more robust than those in Haiti.In addition, health officials in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, have been watching the epidemic spread across Haiti for several weeks, during which they have been preparing by putting into place a surveillance system and educating the populace about what to do if they should come down with symptoms, he said.
Everything's gonna be just fine. Unless you're in Haiti.
Permalink | Post Comments (21)
Predict yourself before you wreck yourself.
Permalink | Post Comments (10)
Boeing announced today that it will be making minor design changes to the 787's power distribution panels following an electrical fire that resulted in an emergency landing in Texas Nov. 10.
It will also make updates to the systems software that manages and protects power distribution on the aircraft. The changes are a result of an investigation into the onboard electrical fire that led to the loss of primary electrical power on the test plane ZA002.
"We have successfully simulated key aspects of the onboard event in our laboratory and are moving forward with developing design fixes," said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of the 787 program. "Boeing is developing a plan to enable a return to 787 flight test activities and will present it to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as soon as it is complete."Engineers have determined that the fault began as either a short circuit or an electrical arc in the P100 power distribution panel, most likely caused by the presence of foreign debris. The design changes will improve the protection within the panel. The P100 panel is one of five major power distribution panels on the 787.
There is currently no word from Boeing on when test flights will start again. The 787 team is assessing the timeline for the design changes and software updates to be completed. Boeing is expected to finalize a revised 787 program schedule in the next few weeks.
Here's an underwear ad from Brazil that desperately needs an English tag line from YOU.
Can you help?
via
Permalink | Post Comments (40)
This month, news that Rupert Murdoch is launching an iPad-only newpaper called The Daily started leaking everywhere. (Murdoch reportedly wanted to call it The Daily Planet, but those killjoys at DC Comics reportedly lawyered up.)
Now Engadget says that Richard Branson is about to get into the iPad-only publishing business with a new magazine called Project that "will cover entertainment, travel, business, design, and international culture." Some are wondering if this means Apple will announce an update to the iPad's IOS that will allow in-app subscriptions.
If you're furiously anti-Murdoch, you might want to read Valleywag's post titled "Why the iPad Newspaper Is Doomed." Here's just one reason of many:
Since The Daily is an iPad app, there will be no inbound links, and reportedly no outbound links to the web, either. And there will be no web version. That isolation instantly kneecaps the paper's ability to promote itself; the web will convert The Daily's big scoops into blog summaries, tweets, Facebook rants and even iPad screenshots — but not into traffic for the publication that generated the buzz in the first place.
I was expecting to see this kind of media wrangling at the iPad's launch, but it seems that magazine publishers and papers wanted to try something closer to the current model to see if they could make it work. Now people are starting to re-envision the way papers and magazines will work on a tablet. The beginning of 2011 is going to be very interesting for media analysts.
Posted by news intern David Trujillo
Random attacks propagated by strangers is a fear that most people share—unless you happen to be 6'5" or a Spartan (or a shark). The reason this fear is so universal is because you can't prepare for a random attack, or guard against it. When such an attack happens—when a man is killed by a stranger with a hatchet—it is simply horrifying.
But there is a spectrum to the horror—that is to say, some attacks are gruesome, others are simply bizarre (though at the time, no less fear inducing). According to a police report, on Sunday, November 21nd, a man and his mother were walking down the 900 Block of Denny Way (near the Whole Foods market) at 1:35 p.m. when, out-of-the-fucking-blue, a woman approached the couple and started screaming at them, “in what appeared to sound like an Asian language,” the police report states. Before the couple could react, the woman allegedly “picked up dirt from the planting strip and threw it” at the mother and son, striking them in the face and head. In horror, the victims tried to avoid the woman, but the suspect allegedly “continued to throw dirt at them, striking them with it,” even hitting the mother on the head and giving her a headache.
Permalink | Post Comments (11)
The final drawing is Saturday at 5. For your pre-browsing convenience, here's the Flickr set of most of the art. Hell, if you win, you could deck out your entire house, or be all set for holiday gifts for every single person on your list. Plus, every one of the works is worth far more than $10. The proceeds help keep the lights on in the gallery.
This came across Facebook with a note that says, "DECEMBER 18. Hedreen Gallery. Save the Date." You've been alerted, and I'm trying to figure out who's the owner of that cigarette-toting hand.
"Our concern is that homeless people out on the streets may not have access to phones or the news," says Sgt. Paul Gracy, who's driven the so-called cold weather outreach wagon, along with four other officers, since the program began four years ago. "They may not know there’s a cold front coming in or where the emergency shelters are."
Permalink | Post Comments (14)
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
