What will you, the average citizen, create 3.3 tons of in your lifetime? (No, silly. Not that.)
Tonight, for HBO subscribers, there’s Bill Maher at 11PM. Bill’s guests include a fellow who was absent from last night’s press conference (who’s that?), and Sen. Charles Schumer, actor Martin Short, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, and writer Farai Chideya.
Tonight on PBS’s NOW (check local schedules), Haj Ali, the former mayor of Iraq’s Al Madifai district, who is certain he is the “man in the hood.”
: : : More below, including the answers : : :
You guessed it: Jeff Gannon, a “web blogger,” is on Bill Maher’s show tonight with Chuck Schumer, Martin Short and the rest.
_________________________________________________________
Over three tons: “The WEEE Man is made from the amount of waste electrical and electronic products (including televisions, VCRs, etc.) that an average UK citizen – YOU – will throw away in YOUR lifetime, if YOU carry on disposing of products at the current rate. Currently most of these products go straight into landfill. From January 2006 manufactures & retailers will be responsible for recycling this waste under new EU legislation called the WEEE (Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment) Directive.” What we can do about it. (Click on the image to see it enlarged.)
_________________________________________________________
If you’re really a masochist, take this test. (I refuse to reveal my score.)
_________________________________________________________
From the Vanity Fair article on tonight’s guest on PBS’s NOW:
One night as he was praying, Haj Ali was taken hooded by Graner and led to another room. “I felt there were 8 or 10 people standing around,” he says. He was then made to stand on a food box and lift his hands, as electrical wires were clipped between his fingers. “They would give me electric shocks. I could feel the pulses going even into my eyeballs. I would collapse and faint.” Upon each collapse, the guards would kick and hit Haj Ali with boots and sticks, saying, “Get up! Get up!” He believes he was shocked five times.
In other words, the electrical shock was not — as claimed — “simulated.”
I did not know that.
Neuroscientists at the Institute of Psychiatry in London scanned the brains of people eating vanilla ice cream. They found an immediate effect on parts of the brain known to activate when people enjoy themselves; these include the orbitofrontal cortex, the “processing” area at the front of the brain.
The research was carried out by Unilever, using ice cream made by Walls, which it owns. Don Darling of Unilever said: “This is the first time that we’ve been able to show that ice cream makes you happy. Just one spoonful lights up the happy zones of the brain in clinical trials.” … The Guardian
I’ll eat some tonight while I watch Jeff Gannon. It’ll help balance out the other impulses in my brain.
I’ve done alot of “research” of my own and ta duh
Chocolate
&
Sex
Both make me happy 🙂
I’m kicking myself for missing the baseball question, ugh!
But unless I die tonight in time to be reincarnated as a mayfly (and assuming souls only transmigrate into mayflies at the end of their pupal (sp?) stage)- I have serious doubts about the accuracy of the test’s predictions.
I got hosed on the 28 day question. I also got hosed on the ‘widow’.
I shamed myself. I missed the Noah’s ark question. <rocks self in corner>
For some reason the birthday one got me, just couldn’t think… 30 divided by 1/2 would have if the answer I was looking for was available.
Me too. Those were the same ones that stumped me. 9-11
I missed the “divide 30 by 1/2” one. I’m surprised I didn’t miss more, but maybe that’s because it’s not Monday…
gets another chance to show what an ass he is. Almost worth getting HBO for.
I can tape it for you. I’m the community HBO recorder … various people donate and I tape the shows (Deadwood, Bill Maher, etc.) for them.
Tomorrow night, HBO is premiering the new original movie about FDR: Warm Springs.
Some of their historical dramas are marvelous. The one about LBJ was great.
but I don’t have a VCR anymore. We are in the process of dumping things we don’t use and the VCR was one of them. I don’t even think I want to buy a used one for the rare occasion I use it. Netflix has taken over our DVD rental/purchasing (for some reason I could never get the DVD’s back to the rental place on time!).
That picture of the hooded Iraqi in Abu Ghraib will always be with me. It was a picture of the end of our country for me.
Ohhh .. it makes me sad to see you feel that way. I agree, but it’s still sad to see anyone else feel like that.
I’ll watch him at 9PM. Darcy read the Vanity Fair article in the February issue and that was enough for her…. btw, the link to the full article is in the diary. I feel I must watch, to honor him. He went through unbelievable hell. That tiny excerpt is just one small part of his ordeal.
I don’t have a DVD player so must use the VCR. Although Darcy lent me her Netflix copy of “Sideways” and I’m watching it on my computer. What a great film! You’ve probably all seen it already. Okay … back to Sideways…
Here’s the Web site for Farai Chideya, who notes that she’ll be on Bill Maher’s show toight:
http://www.faraichideya.com/
From the site about her book:
http://www.trustthebook.com/
TRUST:
REACHING THE 100 MILLION MISSING VOTERS
Farai Chideya poses a question that’s central to this country, and, given our world dominance, to almost every other country: Why is the U.S. the least participatory democracy in history? Run, do not walk, to buy this book – then act on it before November 2nd. -gloria steinem
(Guess they didn’t buy the book.)
Hope PBS keeps up the good work – though personally I don’t think I can stomach a show on torture.
The new head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (the gatekeeper between lawmakers and public broadcasters), Ken Ferree, is a staunch Republican proponent of media deregulation and a former top adviser to FCC Chairman Michael Powell. Three top CPB officials, all with Democratic affiliations, departed or were dismissed in recent months. For the first time in its 38-year history, the CPB ordered a comprehensive review of public TV and radio programming for “evidence of bias.” The CPB even tried to condition all new PBS funding agreements upon the network following “objectivity and balance” requirements for each of its programs. link
It astounds me what Bush, Inc. are doing.
I can only hope that all the advocates supporting the prison torture/abuse soon realize that karma is such a bitch.
Gawd, I hate Bush and Bushittes.
Again SusanHu, YOU ROCK!
Out for the weekend as we’re going to snuggle, stick around home and recoup from this week.
Kitty is still nursing Wesley since his 1st ever bike crash with a side order of stomach virus.
Lessee if I can figger outta this pixer here on Boo.
WESLEY! Hope you feel better soonest! Nice kitty help you.
Well, let’s see 20/20 and Dateline etc. put him on — where he will be seen by milllions of Americans who haven’t got a clue what that man and thousands like him went through (and that thousands are STILL going through in U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo). Instead of airing ridiculous shows about exorcisms and snake handlers. 20/20 last week was a rightwing tirade against alternative medicine … i just glanced at it for a few minutes but they were tearing apart Dr. Weil, saying that sugar does not cause hyper behavior in kids, etc.
Sugar doesn’t make kids hyper? Are they insane? Sugar is bad bad bad news. Here’s my thought pattern about what the Gov says about food and drugs/medicine.
It’s all bullshit what they say.
They say one thing – you can damn well bet they are lying and you should do the exact opposite.
They’re wanting the kids to be hyped on sugar in school so that Daddy Bush can start giving them Ritalin and all sorts of other drugs with his new bill (I forget the name of it – the mental health one that states our kids can be dosed up without our permission)….
But didn’t they just say our kids can’t decide about their bodies/health/future without parental and government permission?? ahhh there’s the rub.
My husband is just sick to death at how the military is being used once again. He’s a lurker over the shoulder kinda of guy here. He likes the green here he says 🙂
I’ve given up on Bill Maher. It all began when I started yelling at him instead of his guests. He was slipped some KoolAid on hiatus. It’s the only explanation.
He has joined Dennis Miller in the woulda, coulda been a contender. Jon Stewart is the last one standing. When he falls I’ll know the end is near.
I guess there is always Ted Hitler.
Ice cream goes better with warm triple chocolate brownies smothered in hot fudge, whipped cream and a couple of cherries on top. Food nirvana.
For some unknown reason, he keeps saying he wants to attract conservative viewers. That’s kind of silly. For one thing, he’s hardly the type — usually — to beg, let alone ask, for anything. I.e., it’s out of character for him to ask conservatives to watch.
I wish he could control his guests a bit better. Usually one dominates. Last week, it was Joe Scarborough. Which was kind of alright because he actually said some great things.:
“There are some people out there who are Christians…who believe that homosexuality is a sin. You know what? I’m a Christian. I do believe that it’s a sin. You know what else? I believe divorce is a sin. Guess what? I’ve been divorced. Guess what? Jesus talks about divorce a lot more than he talks about homosexuality. I don’t know why people obsess over it so much, but they do. Wait a second, I do know why they obsess over it. Because they get votes bashing gays.”
Maureen Dowd was rather quiet. Simpson was his typical self: a buffoon.
with Al Pacino. I watched this at our local cinema last night after Bush’s press conference. Now I hardly remember a word that he said.
The script in this movie version of The Merchant of Venice is spoken as conversation which adds to the drama but it can make one miss the soliloquies, the ones we had to memorize in high school. But the settings make the drama come alive. Ah, English is a great language.
Portia’s soliloquy
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
[…]
—
In this movie version, Shylock is shown to be a victim and the anti-semitism of medieval Venice is explained in the beginning of the film with scrolling script.
I hadn’t been watching NOW because I was just too sad that Bill Moyers was gone and the show got chopped in half and Kid Bowtie inserted in the second half hour. But I did make a point of watching the “torture special” tonight and it was well done. “Sparky” was only a small portion of it; also included was basic background on why the widespread torture probably happened (the Gonzales memo, general blurring of the definition of torture, endorsement of extreme interrogation techniques that spread beyond their officially approved settings, the similarly degrading and abusive atmosphere at domestic prisons), suggestions that abused detainess who may have been wrongly swept up were radicalized by their experience and fought the Americans after their release, and a rather interesting tour of the Gitmo facilities culminating with Brancaccio’s observation that the prison for “high value” prisoners was clearly designed for long term use. He feels that physical abuse has probably stopped though psychological abuse goes on, and he’s concerned that the conditions at Gitmo are generally not as good as those in domestic prisons, and none of the detainees have been charged with a crime. He was permitted to sit in on one detainee’s hearing, which he describes but was not permitted to film. He notes that the military says some detainees do get released but that they have no legal representation and no right to investigate the evidence against them or to appeal the decision.
Wasn’t that good?! For a short half-hour, he packed a lot in, and explained it all very well.
And just as I left my computer to watch, I saw a headline that Lynndie England is pleading guilty to almost all the charges against her.
I find that an utter travesty. She may get 11 years in prison. As NOW explained, they just did what they thought all their higherups — even to the “Minister of Defense,” as the Iraqi said — expected them to do.
If I could pick a punishment for her — something is in order — it’d be that she be required to work in the offices of Human Rights First or the ACLU or CCR-NY for two years.
And that she get to be with her baby. I wonder what’s become of her baby.
http://www.pbs.org/now/feedback.html
I’m going to tell them that that was an excellent program.
Good idea, I’ve done the same.
Does he always blink so strangely? He looked like he was having a hard time adjusting to light.