The Ultraviolet Garden

In December ’08 I posted a video about Bugliosi’s book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” here. (Truly awesome.)

I bought Dad the audio version (failing vision) and he sent it to me after he “read” it. I’d read Helter Skelter and Outrage years ago, so I was already aware of how awesome Bugliosi is.

Today I learned that his “Prosecution of George W. Bush…” has been made into a movie! It’s due out February of next year. I’m happy as hell.

Here’s a trailer:

Hot damn. I hope Vincent gets the support he needs for this endeavor. If I were rich I’d be his benefactor.

War is now a permanent export of the USA. So are the attendant war crimes.

And anyone who thinks US security interests are being improved by those ghastly facts on the ground is a damned fool. —jk

Read more here.

These are some courageous people. Chief Gee’s lost some weight. And his smirk is gone. He actually looked kind of nervous. Click here to read about it and listen to the rest of what happened.

They are why I could never be a misanthropist. Not that I haven’t been tempted.

Here’s a clip I made from the movie Four Rooms. I love this movie. The first room I could do without but the rest of them are great. This is room 309. The Misbehavers.

I’m behind in a couple of things I need to do, but I’ve actually been making progress.

New photos of the cats.

I wonder if linking to one of my own pages will cause a trackback to appear. I’m about to find out.

Nice try, Michael. Not unexpected. I suppose you don’t have much else to do, legally. There’s not a lot of options open to you. It’s that damn video tape. If only it would go away.

Thanks for the heads-up, Noble.

Wow. Two budding serial killers in Humboldt?

(Maybe they need to get together with Tyler Weinman of Florida.)

They may have more than killing animals in common. (They might also be fire starters who wet the bed past an acceptable age. The so called Terrible Triad, which includes cruelty to animals.)

One thing’s for certain, this guy probably also tortured animals.

I’m concerned about what we might have to look forward to, as these sadists grow up in the community.

Have there been any more car fires set in McKinleyville? The last I heard they suspected at least two persons (“two suspicious young males”). They were working together, one fire would be set in one location while another would be set in another location.

What strikes me about this is how much personal conflict the test subjects had. Especially the ones who, despite being clearly upset, went all the way to the strongest shock. They simply didn’t believe they could say no to an authority figure.

I noticed more than one of the “teachers” went straight for a cigarette afterwards. I think I would too.

I appreciate that afterwards they let the subjects in on the fact that they weren’t actually hurting the “learner”, but that had to have fucked with them. Especially if they went all the way. Apparently many of them reported later that they were glad to have participated.

If you want to download the whole thing, right click here and “save as”.

Youtube pulled the video of Deputy Paul Schene and Travis Brunner. Good thing I downloaded it beforehand.

Again, here’s the video. I reposted it.

If you’d like to d/l it, right click and “save as”.

Unlike the others, this vid has sound. I wouldn’t have it up any other way. See, I don’t think it’s okay to sanitize things so we don’t have to experience any trauma. As long as we, as a collective, support the police/policy; as long as we accept the principle of qualified immunity for cops, then we should be made to witness the results of that mistake.

Sound and all.

“Be made to” isn’t the best way to put it. I’m not talking about forcing anyone to witness anything. I’m referring to its availability to those who actually do want to know what these cretins get up to while they’re supposed to be serving and protecting the public—a public which includes Malika Calhoun. Of course that’s not what this goofy asshole did.

I think it’s pretty obvious that the testimony of the police hasn’t lived up to the good faith and qualified immunity bestowed upon it.

The guy in that video assaulting Malika is the same guy who shot two persons (1 of them to death) in ’02 and ’06. He has been under investigation for those shootings. Might want to look at this guy’s entire career. He’s apparently had it made… like a serial killer in a horror film.

I can’t think of any good reason for giving police officers special privileges. In fact, considering the special powers and resources they already have, it makes sense to hold them to a higher standard than the public at large. A crime committed by a police officer, if treated differently than one committed by anybody else, should carry a tougher penalty, not a lower one.

And we should get rid of those special charges and penalties for people who victimize police officers, too.

Frankly, if regular paychecks, taxpayer-issued guns and armor, and backup a radio call away aren’t enough to keep Paul Schene and his buddies happy in their work, they’re welcome to try their hand at really dangerous jobs, like driving taxis or working on commercial fishing boats. —J.D. Tuccille, Civil Liberties Examiner

You can read the rest of J.D.’s article here.

The house feels empty as hell without Lucky. We’ll always remember her sweetness. She came with her own sound effects. Sometimes she sounded like General Cornrow Wallace! She’d roll up on you like that.

Ptttttttdddddddddrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

That’s when she felt playful.

*sigh*

Onward.

I’ve been piddling around with wordpress themes. I’m using “LightWord” now.

I modified it slightly. I’m actually quite satisfied with it. It meets all of my requirements now. I still don’t understand why so many ppl place the comment section in the byline area.

In this case the theme didn’t even have a byline; it was easy enough to add.

I’ve also added a “like/dislike” plugin but only the comments are showing the rating. I need to figure out how to make it work on posts. If you use wordpress, maybe you’ll find these useful:

Like/Dislike Comment Rating worked for me.

Like/Dislike Post Rating didn’t work for me. I’ll figure it out eventually. Probably something minor.

I never know which plugins I’ll end up keeping. Usually I just play with things, if they are useful they’ll be kept. I liked “The Wall” plugin, but since it had to keep refreshing to load the most recent wall items it made my logs practically useless.

Although a simple filter would fix that problem. I’m just too lazy to do that. Maybe later.

Right now I’m working on the RWA Scale (see “Altemeyer’s Authoritarians“). I can’t use his questions. But if I come up with my own questions it should be fine. Check out his book if you haven’t. (It’s free. Also he prefers that ppl be introduced to his RWA Scale via the book. In this way, they learn that it may—or may not—be useful for individuals; it’s more geared toward getting average trends in groups of persons.)

When he asked me to remove the RWA survey, of course I complied. Nothing to do with copyright it’s just general courtesy. But, as his own survey predicted in my case, I have my own opinion on this.

Given that, do I even really need to take the survey myself? (Of course, I did. I scored very low, obviously.)

I’m also interested in doing an equivalent of the Social Dominance Scale as well. I can’t use his exact questions, but again you can’t copyright an idea, only the expression of it. And as long as I’m not using his questions, I should be okay. I’ve actually got a good idea about this but we’ll see. What I’d like to do is use actual things authoritarians or their followers have said—quotations, in other words—as the items on the survey. Looking at many of these, I could easily come up with quotations from “The Georges”. (Of the Bush persuasion, of course.)

There’s not exactly a shortage of folks who are quotable in this respect.

Have a good day all.