It must be Spring

I saw our resident chipmunks out on the deck this morning, so it must finally be Spring! 39° F, overcast, and some of the snow is melting. Yay! I'm going to pretend I didn't see that NOAA is predicting a chance of snow for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

LoLDeity

Zabartik and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.


Your Noodly Appendage
I haz it

Click on the picture above to see it at full size, and/or vote for it on icanhascheezburger.com.

RAmen!

Faces

I never see faces in my dreams.

I see people's hair, their clothes, bodies, etc. and I know just who they are, if applicable to the dream. It never seems odd to me in the dream that I can't see faces. But I can count on one hand the number of times I can remember seeing someone's face in a dream.

One was yesterday. One was this morning. Odd.

Yesterday, just before my alarm went off, a character wandered into my dream who had ice-blue eyes with white pupils, and who's face seemed to have bits of latex glued to it. His eyes were hard to look at (maybe because I'm not used to being able to see eyes at all in a dream?) My Mister was there (no face) and the three of us had a fairly mundane conversation (on the deck of a schooner) that was interrupted when I woke up.

This morning was one of those epic length dreams with an unusual level of continuity for a dream. It involved attending a dog show, then going to a theatrical performance that was over-rated so we left early, and ended up with us watching something on a TV in a swanky bar. My company was, of all people, Geraint Wyn Davies and a wealthy 50-something lady friend of his. There were lots of details in the dream that stand out for having been clearer than usual, like the screen and buttons on my cell phone when I turned it off at the theater. And I could very clearly see Mr. Davies' face through the whole dream.

Geraint Wyn Davies? I haven't even seen anything with him in it for ages. Most of the TV he's in is either not shown in the US, or is on the Sundance channel, which we don't have as part of our cable package.

Yes, I used to watch Forever Knight. I'm a fan of vampire fiction, film, and tv shows, and I've seen every episode of F.K. more than once. He's nice to look at. Has a nice voice. But I was always more of a Nigel Bennett fan (he played the quirky, antagonist vampire to Davies' protagonist role.) And I'm sure I haven't seen an F.K. episode in several years.

So why, of all the people who could show up in a dream actually sporting a face (his own, even) would my brain pick Geraint Wyn Davies?

Dreams. Go figure.

Tournament of Politics

Campaign 2008 as a Texas Hold'em Tournament.

We've returned from a commercial break, and now join the hand in progress at the final table.
It's still any body's game

We still haven't seen the flop. Bets are being made, three players in the hand, and the players are sizing each other up with a little not-so-friendly banter.

Clinton might be on tilt at this point, judging by her tells. But her image at the table has been a bit erratic, so it's a bit hard to read her. That bluster we've been seeing in the last few hands could be calculated for effect. Her name is well known in poker circles, but this is her first tournament at this level. Even so, she was an early favorite to make it to the final table.

McCain looks confident, and will surely play tight until one of the other two is eliminated. He was short stacked early in the tournament, but he's come back strong. He's virtually guaranteed a spot in heads up, so why waste his chips on a risky bet right now?

And Obama? He's the youngest player in the tournament, and it's also his first presidential tournament. He's holding his own, has been reading his opponents well, and has a good shot at a seat in the final two. He's got some really enthusiastic fans in the audience, and he's representing a strong hand. He's slightly ahead of Clinton, just going by their chip count. But I think he's been the more consistent player throughout, and I'm going with Obama for the win.

How about you, Bob? Who's your pick to win?

Amateur video of riots in Tibet

Question

Free Tibet
Originally uploaded to flickr.
by Kenny Maths
Click the image to visit the
original page and read
Maths' original text.

The Olympics are being hosted by China this year.

My question:

OMFSM in what way can this be seen as a good idea?

China has an appalling human rights record, and even today is carrying on a calculated ethnic cleansing campaign against the ethnic Tibetans who haven't fled the country. Death, imprisonment, oppression, and relocation of Han Chinese into Tibet in vast numbers have made Tibetans a minority in their own ancestral lands.

However, the Chinese government continues to characterize H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, who is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and was recently awarded the US Congressional Gold Medal, as a corrupt, power hungry subversive, and a criminal mastermind.

Inside Tibet, violence has broken out once again.

What business do we, the United States, as a "freedom loving" country, have participating in the Olympics in China? As we become increasingly dependent on China for its products and manufacturing services, we paint ourselves into a political corner, in which we don't dare to speak up against blatant abuses against human rights. This isn't helped by the fact that the Bush administration stepped down off what moral high ground we might have had when it started using and trying to justify the use of torture.

More info:

China says 13 people were killed by rioters in Lhasa. Tibetan exiles say 99 have died in clashes with authorities.

Tibetan activists have released images they say support their claim of heavy casualties and Chinese brutality.

They say the pictures depict protesters killed by Chinese security forces at Kirti Monastery in Sichuan province on Sunday - but the BBC is unable to verify these claims.

A representative of the Chinese embassy in London, Yu Jing, said it was "hard to judge from the pictures" but that if they were accurate, there would be an explanation.

Earlier, Mr Wen [Jiabao] said the Dalai Lama's claim of "cultural genocide" in Tibet was "nothing but lies".

Mr Wen defended China's handling of the crisis, accusing protesters of robbery, arson and violence.

"There is ample fact and plenty of evidence proving this incident was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique," he said.

Mr Wen also said the protesters "wanted to incite the sabotage of the Olympic Games in order to achieve their unspeakable goal".
-BBC News

●●●

At the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1987 in Washington, D.C., [the Dalai Lama] proposed a Five-Point Peace Plan regarding the future status of Tibet. The plan called for Tibet to become a "zone of peace" and for the end of movement by ethnic Han Chinese into Tibet. It also called for "respect for fundamental human rights and democratic freedoms" and "the end of China's use of Tibet for nuclear weapons production, testing, and disposal." Finally, it urged "earnest negotiations" on the future of Tibet.
- Wikipedia

●●●

The goal of the Olympic movement is to build a peaceful and better world and promote international understanding by educating the youth of the world through sport and culture. ICT will therefore actively oppose any attempt by China to misuse the Games or its athletes to misrepresent the relationship between China and Tibet or appropriate what is Tibetan and portray it as “Chinese.”
Beijing 2008: Race for Tibet

●●●

Rights group Reporters Without Borders urged officials on Tuesday to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics over what it called brutal repression in Tibet, and France said it could examine the idea.
- Francois Murphy, PARIS (Reuters)

●●●

China accused the Dalai Lama on Tuesday of orchestrating Tibetan riots to wreck Beijing's Olympic Games, but the exiled spiritual leader denied the charge and vowed to stand down if the violence spiraled out of control.

The Tibetan government-in-exile said from the Dalai Lama's base in the Indian Himalayan foothills that it now believed 99 people had died in clashes between Chinese authorities and Tibetan over the past week, including 19 on Tuesday alone.
Premier Wen Jiabao defended the security crackdown imposed on Lhasa, capital of the predominantly Buddhist mountain region, and on neighboring Chinese provinces where rioting by Tibetans erupted over the weekend.
- Chris Buckley and Lindsay Beck, BEIJING (Reuters)

●●●

More than 2,000 Tibetans gathered from all over northeastern India on Tuesday for their biggest rally in the area in years, demanding the United Nations investigate reports of killings of protesters in China.

Led by hundreds of shaven-headed Buddhist monks in maroon robes, some as young as eight, they waved Tibetan flags and marched through the streets of Siliguri, chanting "We want justice, we want freedom".

"The U.N. is watching what is happening in Tibet but it is doing nothing," said Dawa Gyalpo, who runs a library of Tibetan culture in the India village of Salugara and helped organize the protest.

"We are asking the U.N. that there must be an investigation."
-Simon Denyer, SILIGURI, India (Reuters)

Also visit:

• The International Campaign for Tibet
• Race for Tibet
• Free Tibet
• Australia Tibet Council
• Tibet Protest in Amsterdam
  

Attack of the 50 foot project

Work. Work. Work.

Still at work after a very long day working on a project that, like some undead B movie monster, refuses to die. Little bits of it break off, become unnaturally animated, and then crawl around on their own, terrorizing the peasants.

I can't figure out if I'm in the role of the unlikely heroine who saves the day despite overwhelming odds, or if I'm one of the peasants.

To change anaolgies, one of the orc peons from the original Warcraft seems more likely.

Zug zug.

Ok, break's over.