Thursday News

Lead singer of Blues Traveler, John Popper, totally crazy, also no longer fat.
His car was pulled over and the picture below is what the police seized from secret compartments (?!) of Popper's Mercedes SUV. Said Popper, "I didn't want to be left behind, [in case of natural disaster]."

Also said Popper, "I have big man boobs."

No seriously, I'm not making that up.

I'm Free.

John Inman, the actor who portrayed Mr Humphries in the BBC comedy, Are You Being Served passed away in a London hospital, after battling Hep A. John Inman was a very funny man, and I am sad at his passing.

Bitch Please.
Japan is starting an internal probe of the "comfort stations" run during WWII.

Last week Prime Minister Abe said there was no proof the women were coerced into sexual slavery. Abe claims Japan has apologised already for the program of institutionalized brothels, and will not apologise again. In spite of a wealth of evidence that Japanese agents kidnapped or coerced thousands of Korean and Chinese women into sexual slavery (including living survivors of the program and former soldiers) Japan has never properly apologised.

The previous apology was along the lines of "we are sorry about institutionalizing brothels." Rather than "we are sorry and will never again kidnap or coerece women into sexual slavery."

I do not believe in reparations for acts so far in the past, but I am damn tired of Japan trying to pretend that none of their war crimes occurred. I don't think that anyone believes that Japan can make up for what the past regime did, but saying it never happened is absolutely shameful.

I wanted to end this on some point about the sex trade, treatment of women, or treatment of Koreans in Japan, but I can't express what I want to say. I think I'm too disgusted.

You can't undo things by failing to admit them. You can't learn from your mistakes be declaring that they never happened. Looking at the acts of my own government, it isn't a stretch to believe that Japan could repeat their war atrocities.

It's pretty sad that I have to post more news about Comfort Women on International Women's Day.

Boring crap, about which, only Lynn and I care.

So Lynn and I were pondering Hannibal and his elephants. You know the war-elephants, they tried to cross the Alps. Whatever, you either are a dork and know, or you don't know, but I am too lazy to go into it here.
Anyway, Lynn thought they must be Asian elephants because of Alexander the Great. You see he ran into war elephants of the Indian variety. She also believed that African elephants cannot be tamed, while Asian elephants have been tame for thousands of years.
I gave her the tamed point, I certainly had never heard of tamed African elephants. But I also decided that the Indian elephants were Indian because at that point Alexander was in... India. Further, I know that Hannibal was from Carthage- which is in Northern Africa. I also recalled that he sent for elephants from Carthage, so I reasoned that they must be African plains elephants.
We were both wrong. They were African forest elephants, which are extinct, although some distant cousin of that breed, now apparently called African pygmy elephants, is endangered, but not yet extinct.
At any rate, when Lynn came over to discuss this wondrous elephant discovery, she accidentally touched one of Gargoyle Toe's numerous filthy abandoned soda bottles which then knocked over all of the bottles on the desk like dominoes.
Result: awesome.

On this date in 1803...

we totally ripped off Napoleon.

Thomas Jefferson signed the Louisiana Purchase garnering the US 828,000 square miles for just over 23 million dollars (including interest). This was very controversial at the time, but I think that we can now agree that it was worth the money-- especially to make the French further kick themselves in hindsight. (Perhaps all this hindsight kicking is why the French only work like 10 hours a week. Also this may explain mimes.) Though I say this was a good deal, I am not entirely certain of the monetary value of Oklahoma, but I guess it came in handy later.

This of course brings me to the Lewis & Clark Expedition. The LCE didn't actually come about because of the purchase, it was already planned (because Jefferson was a sneaky bastard); however Jefferson was eager to see what he got for his 15 million dollar debt. (Hey Kansas.)

Captain Meriwether Lewis was chosen by Jefferson to lead the expedition and he, in turn, chose William Clark to co-head the Corps of Discovery (as it was called). Being an American, Lewis decided to bring his dog, a Newfoundland named (and I am not making this up) Seaman. Being a Southerner, Clark brought York, a slave whom he had inherited from his father. Along the way they picked up a chick, Sacajawea.

Three years after the Expedition Lewis died of a gunshot wound to the chest in some sleazy bar, after threatening to jump off a bridge. Clark became an administrator of Indian Affairs and spent the majority of his post-Corps time subjugating the natives and played a roll in the Trail of Tears. After their return, York asked Clark to free him. Clark was ticked about York's cheek and rented him out to hard labor. York died of cholera whilst traveling to re-join Clark. Five years after the expedition Sacajawea died of "the putrid fever." Seaman never made it home.

Seaman and York share a statue at Quality Hill, in Kansas City, Missouri. Sacajawea has an elementary school in Richland, Washington named after her (go trailblazers!). Lewis' memorial is along the Natchez Trace Parkway which links Mississippi and Arkansas. Clark has a trout named after him.

And that is about as much as anyone needs to know about the Corps of Discovery.

I'm not superstitious, but...

I don't know if I could live in the Clutter House.

You may remember the entire Clutter family was murdered by Dick Hickock and Perry Smith as documented in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.

I don't care how nice the breakfast nook is, all I see are the crime photos.

Here is the real estate agent's description.