My, my, my, my, my- wooh!

Stolen From Terry:
The Knack Sue Run-DMC Over Sample 20 Years After Its Release
09.18.2006

One-hit wonders seek unspecified damages for use of 'signature' riff.
On Friday, attorneys representing the Knack's Doug Fieger and Berton Averre songwriters of the 1979 chart-topping hit "My Sharona" filed a copyright-infringem ent lawsuit in Los Angeles against the members of Run-DMC, claiming the rappers did not have permission to sample the song's core riff in one of their most recognizable tracks, "It's Tricky."

The filing which also names Rick Rubin (who produced the cut for 1986's Raising Hell), Arista Records, Rush Groove Music, Rush Communications, online music retailers Yahoo, Amazon, Napster, iTunes and others as defendants claims that Run-DMC engaged in the "unauthorized copying, reproduction and distribution of [the Knack's] musical composition and improperly [profiting from]" use of the sample, which the suit claims was "willfully, or with reckless disregard, unlawfully appropriated."

The document asserts that, because of Run-DMC's sampling of "My Sharona," Fieger and Averre have "suffered actual damages, including lost profits, lost opportunities, loss of goodwill, lost publicity, attorneys' fees and interest." The suit seeks unspecified damages and related legal fees, and characterizes the "signature" riff sampled in "It's Tricky" as "the essence" of the song.

In addition, the suit requests a permanent injunction barring the sale, reproduction, and commercial release of "It's Tricky," and suggests that Fieger or Averre's "percentage of ownership in ['It's Tricky']" be determined and factored into a declaratory judgment which should also consider what profits the pair are due from the sale of the Run-DMC song. "Our clients created a unique and distinctive musical composition in 'My Sharona,' " attorney Dick Schultz said. "Others shouldn't be allowed to profit from the unauthorized use of that creation. That is what copyright laws are for, and we are protecting our clients' rights in their creation."

"That [riff] is not only the essence of 'My Sharona,' it is one of the most recognizable sounds in rock and roll," said Fieger through his lawyers.

Despite the popularity of the riff, some may wonder why Fieger and Averre waited two decades to take action against the hip-hop icons. The lawsuit claims the pair never heard the DMC classic before 2005.

No date has been set for the first hearing in the action. Representatives for Run-DMC were unavailable for comment at press time.

That's right kids the riff in My Sharona is one of the most recognizable sounds in rock and roll.

We here at SUC...

are committed to boring journal entries.... blah blah blah. I just noticed that my blog becomes the word suc when abbreviated. How nice.

Strangely enough, this is quite contrary to the origins of the Seattle Umbrella Conspiracy.

About a year ago I was downtown on a business day in late fall and the skies opened up and a deluge of quite literally biblical proportions began. The funny thing about Seattle is that it sprinkles, mists, and drizzles, but it hardly ever rains. It was chilly and people were completely soaked but about half of them still met my eyes and gave me a smile as if to say, "Well, would you look at that."

I, luckily, had brought an umbrella. About 40% of people had an umbrella, and the rest were huddled under the cherry trees. As a group of us stood waiting to cross I walked up to a stranger and offered to share my umbrella. The surprised man accepted and we stood grinning like idiots. Then another guy with an umbrella offered to share his. And soon three umbrellas had six people under them.

That's when I had this day dream. In Japan you could buy cheap plastic umbrellas for less than a dollar. If each of us could just keep a cheap umbrella in our trunks, we could give it away. That could mean something. I know it wouldn't stop world hunger or cure cancer, but maybe it could make this craptastic world just a little better.

It's like my obsession in college with the contagious smile. When you smile at someone and then they smile and sometimes it sticks. I love that concept. In college I actually kept tally and graphed progress of smile to smile growth. I used to think that maybe if I smiled at someone, they might smile at someone else and then they would smile at someone else and on and on. Then maybe that 6 second smile that I started could last for days.

Sorry to be such a Pollyanna, but that's where the name came from. Back to bitching and moaning tomorrow.

Scram!!

I am on day two of evil Quiana. I am so grouchy.
I should hang this on my cube wall:













Oh and this came up on Google Images when I typed in "grouch:"

Confusing news

According to the Ottowa Citizen there is some kind of new system being developed to enable Canadians to cross the border using smart id cards rather than passports. Am I to assume that either we have instructed Canada to change their licensing system or that in order to facilitate travel and to creepily track our whereabouts, both countries are getting new smart ID cards by 2008? Does this mean that I am going to have to shell out another 25$ for a new license in 2008, because I've had TWO 25$ new license charges in the last year, and I'm pretty butthurt about it.
The passport rule for crossing the border isn't to go into effect until 2008, and I guess a lot of folks don't have passports due to the expense. I do feel a bit like a passport is only like 40$ and is good for ten years, so just cough up the dough and suck it up.
Incidentally, my mom mentioned a while ago that gas is over 5$ a gallon in Canada. Ponder that.
Furthermore, Pop Culture Junk Mail is reporting that some Starbucks in Canada and in New England are offering Maple Lattes. Very very jealous.

Everything Deadwood is good

McSweeneys! Deadwood! Yay!
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2006/9/12roy.html

And a little something for the ladies:

Happy birthday, Roald Dahl!

Roald Dahl hailed with birthday celebrations
By Paul Majendie Tue Sep 12, 6:35 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Children, parents, teachers and adult fans are throwing parties on Wednesday to celebrate what would have been the 90th birthday party of the darkly comic writer Roald Dahl.

"He understood children and identified with them. This is like a great big happy birthday party to acknowledge him," said his daughter Lucy, launching what she and others hope will be a day of improvised "Revolting Rhymes" and "Oompa Loompa" dances.

Exhibitions and children's reading campaigns are also being staged to commemorate Dahl, who died in 1990 and has now sold more than 100 million books in 40 languages.

Dahl initially made his name as a writer of adult fiction, but cult children's classics such as "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "The Witches" have more recently overshadowed his chilling adult work.

Children's writer Anthony Horovitz said the recent renaissance in children's literature had begun with Dahl, rather than J K Rowling, author of the phenomenally successful

Harry Potter wizard sagas.

"Dahl was perhaps the first author to take the children's side and collude against the smelly, ugly, stupid creatures that inhabit the adult world," he said.

In an echo of Potter's Hogwarts Express, a special train will take visitors from London to Great Missenden, the rural retreat in southern England where Dahl wrote in a hut at the bottom of the garden.

The Dahl Museum, which attracted 70,000 visitors in its first year, is staging walking tours around the village to locations used in his books.

Amanda Conquy, director of the Dahl literary estate, hailed Dahl as the first of children's writers to achieve 'pop star' status. "He was very much the children's choice against their parents," she said.

Some critics have attacked his books as brutish, scary and scatological, but in an interview 20 years ago with Reuters the author supplied his own fitting epitaph:

"I never get any protests from children. All you get are giggles of mirth and squirms of delight. I know what children like."

I loved Dahl, who seemed to be the only one who knew what I really wanted as a child: to have the dickens scared out of me. Every book and movie I liked as a child was good but terrifying. Gremlins, E.T., War Games, etc. movies with distrust of the adult world, or hidden dangers. I don't know if he shaped me to enjoy the quirky, crude, and scary or if he just taught me that it was ok.

Some times the word of the day is just a bit too apt.

Dictionary.com's Word of the Day:

tetchy \TECH-ee\, adjective:
Peevish; testy; irritable.

Waugh's tetchy and combative personality made him a difficult companion at arms.
-- Penelope Lively, "A Maverick Historian", The Atlantic, February 2001

Wright was in Tokyo, busy with the Imperial Hotel, firing off telegrams blaming his son, Lloyd, and Schindler for nagging cost overruns that Barnsdall, always tetchy about parting with money, was balking at.
-- Greg Goldin, "Light Houses", Los Angelous Magazine, February 2001

His every word was pure gold then, and even the chairman, who is not known to hide his light under a bushel, got a little tetchy being asked to opine on every economic subject known to man.
-- Jamie Dettmer, "Greenspan Doesn't Always Get It Right", Insight on the News, February 26, 2001

As prams trundle and toddlers bawl, bargain-hunters try to shove, grab and kick their way to consumerist nirvana, while their spouses, weighed down by bulging bags, get seriously tetchy.
-- Kim Gilmour, "Hello, good buy", Internet Magazine, November 2001

Tetchy probably comes from Middle English tecche, "a bad habit," from Old French tache, teche, "a spot, stain, blemish, habit, vice."

I have been seriously grouchy all day.

Organized sneak attacks.

Raccoon forces student to miss homework
Mon Sep 11, 9:31 PM ET

LARGO, Fla. - Stephanie King had to tell her music teacher that a raccoon was to blame for her missing homework. "I explained that the raccoon fell from the ceiling in my bathroom and it ran into my bedroom," the 13-year-old seventh grader at Osceola Middle School told the St. Petersburg Times.

"Animal control came out to get it and they couldn't catch it and they said we couldn't go in my room."

Stephanie's grandmother vouched for her story Friday with school officials. "I told them she can't get her homework, her books, because everything is locked in the bedroom," Natalie King said.

The female raccoon and its babies crashed to the Kings' bathroom floor Wednesday night. Until that moment, the family didn't know the roof was leaking, much less that a family of raccoons was living in their ceiling.

The mother raccoon escaped into Stephanie's room. It finally made its way Thursday night into the trap set by Pinellas County Animal Services officers, who picked up the critter the next morning.

I'm just a bit nervous that these raccoons are organizing- nationwide, no less.

Science on Tap.

"Science on Tap" presents:

Matthew Strassler
UW Department of Physics
"Beyond the Hype: The Weird World of String Theory"
September 25th 2006, 7pm

More information on this talk go to:
http://www.phys.washington.edu/users/strasslr/

• What to expect: meetings usually last about one to two hours. The speaker gives a short talk about their area of interest, followed by a breakto fill up on coffee and a time for small group discussions. Afterwards there will be a question and answer session and general discussion of the topic with the speaker and the audience at large.
• Monthly meetings take place the last Monday of every month at the Ravenna Third Place Bookstore in Seattle at the corner of 20th Ave NE and NE 65th Street. Free parking is available.

Please join me if you have any interest in String Theory. I will admit I'm fairly dorkily excited.

Stealing from the poor.

According to Beau over at The Daily Brain Stew, pay-day loan outlets made $1.2 billion in revenue in 2004, likely because the average APR on a pay-day loan is 390%.

Why do we let the short term loan assholes fleece our poor? How can this possibly be legal? I would be willing to bet that you can get better interest at a pawn shop.

I want to see some legislation. Come on Democrats, we're still the party of the proletariat, right? How about instead of finding new ways to steal from the poor, we start protecting them. Maybe we wouldn't need so much Welfare if we protected our poor from predatory lenders.

Just a thought.

today

Happy Monday folks, go home, eat some cookies, call your mom, but don't watch the crap on tv.

Please don't wallow in 9/11 like a dog rolls in crap. It makes me ill.

As for my plans, fajitas, ice cream sundaes, and disc one of season two of Veronica Mars will do quite a lot better for me than all the death, destruction, and bitter vitriol that will be splattered across tv tonight.

Not wailing, is not the same as not caring.

Weekend Movie Update.

The Notebook was predictable, cheesy, and most unfortunately kind of boring. It was a story that has been told numerous times (several times more interestingly), this time by actors who cannot carry the movie. I know that I am on occasion a Surprise Slut, but I like many utterly predictable romantic movies. I think the difference between The Notebook and other romance movies that I have enjoyed, such as While You Were Sleeping, Last Holiday, and Sweet Home Alabama was how seriously the latter movies did not take themselves. The Notebook was trying so hard to make you cry that they may as well have sent a studio gopher to the theaters to cut onions.

In Hollywoodland, a movie also shown in flashbacks (though much more effectively) I found it to be a refreshing portrayal of one of the most famous unsolved mysteries of all time. It is hard for me to understand the so-so reviews of this movie. It was well written, visually interesting, organized in an interesting manner, and very well acted. Ben Affleck was particularly good. I suppose playing a middle aged over-promoted has-been isn’t a stretch; but I found myself actually swept up into his belief that he could be a star, his wasted charm, his helpless dependence on an older woman, and his sorrow upon realizing he had hit the undesired climax of his life and was on the downsweep. Contrary to most critic’s reviews, I found the personal aspects of the detective’s (Adrian Brody) life added another layer of interest in the story. I wonder if people’s displeasure with the movie was that it didn’t reveal some new theory, or highlight a murder scenario; they left the viewer with no solution to the puzzle. I hope those complainers don’t bother to go see The Black Dahlia.

In other crap-that-I-watch news: I caught a couple of episodes of Eureka, the new comedy on the Sci-Fi Chanel and liked them a great deal. If you’re into silly pseudo-sci-fi I recommend checking it out. Yesterday I started a new British mystery series called Murder in Suburbia and it is also quite nice and available on dvd. I’ve also been watching Scrubs, a show I thought would be juvenile, boring, sit-com garbage; but was actually smart and laugh-out-loud funny (though still deliciously juvenile).

In crap-that-I-read news, I just read Roman Blood, by Steven Saylor and was quite impressed. Check it out especially if you are a Roman history dork. My next read is going to be a two foot pile of comics, followed by The da Vinci Code. Yes, I know that everyone else in the known universe read that a long time ago, but I was evading the hype. Now that I’ve seen the movie and I’m a bit curious about the book, so don’t judge me.

We'll just see if he'll be back....

Schwarzenegger apologizes for remark
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer 58 minutes ago

SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Gov.

Arnold Schwarzenegger apologized Friday for saying during a closed-door meeting that Cubans and Puerto Ricans are naturally feisty and temperamental because of their combination of "black blood" and "Latino blood." He said the tape-recorded comments "made me cringe" when he read them in Friday's Los Angeles Times.

"Anyone out there that feels offended by those comments, I just want to say I'm sorry, I apologize," Schwarzenegger said. He added that if he heard his children make similar comments, "I would be upset."

The furor comes amid a re-election campaign in which the Republican has tried to mend fences with Democrats and moderates and look more statesmanlike and less like the swaggering action hero he played on screen. Schwarzenegger has a history of making off-the-cuff remarks that get him in trouble. He called California legislators "girlie men" and "losers" and talked of kicking nurses' butts.

During California's 2003 recall election, he was accused of groping or otherwise mistreating women on movie sets and other locations. He apologized for having "behaved badly sometimes."

The statements about Hispanics and blacks were captured on a six-minute tape made during a March 3 speechwriting session between Schwarzenegger and his advisers. On it, Schwarzenegger and chief of staff Susan Kennedy speak affectionately of state Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia and speculate about her nationality.

"I mean Cuban, Puerto-Rican, they are all very hot," the governor says on the recording. "They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it."

Garcia, who is Puerto Rican, appeared with Schwarzenegger on Friday and said she was not offended by the governor's comments. Garcia earlier told the Times that she often calls herself a "hot-blooded Latina."

Schwarzenegger also said he called leaders from ethnic groups, who he said were not upset.

"All of them understood it was an off-the-record conversation," Schwarzenegger said. "It was not meant to be in any negative way."

A spokesman for Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez declined to comment directly on the remark but said the governor "has always been very respectful toward Latinos."

"These are hardly Nixon's Watergate tapes," Nunez spokesman Richard Stapler said.

However, Schwarzenegger's Democratic challenger, Phil Angelides, said the governor should "conduct himself with dignity."

"Once again, Gov. Schwarzenegger has used language that is deeply offensive to all Californians and embarrassed our state," Angelides said in a statement.

Schwarzenegger aides routinely tape his speechwriting sessions so the writers can keep a record of his thoughts and speaking patterns.

The newspaper did not say how the tape was obtained. The participants suggest during the meeting that they know they are being recorded.

Hooooooooo dogie. That's it. That's all I've got. It must be my Irish temper, mixed with my part black feistiness, being tempered by my Native American uhm... laziness? Actually I am three stereotypically lazy races. Luckily the Croatian can come through in the nick of time... to be taken over by communists? Sooooo confused.

I am a terrible person.

Panda accidentally crushes cub in China
1 hour, 34 minutes ago

BEIJING - A new panda mother who gave birth to twins this week accidentally crushed one of her newborns in her sleep, state media said Friday.

Ya Ya, who lives in the south China's Chongqing Zoo, delivered the twin cubs about an hour apart on Tuesday. One was taken to the Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center, also in Sichuan province, while the other cub stayed with Ya Ya.

After falling asleep late Thursday for the first time since her labor, Ya Ya apparently crushed her newborn while it was nursing, the official Xinhua News Agency said on its Web site.

A zoo handler noticed the cub, which weighed only about three ounces, had fallen away motionless from her mother's nipple, it said. Zoo staff took the cub away while Ya Ya was still asleep and an autopsy showed that its heart, liver and other organs had been crushed.

The report said that Ya Ya searched around for her cub after waking up, then appeared depressed, laying listlessly in her zoo enclosure.

The report did not say if zoo staff would try to reunite the mother with her other cub.

Ya Ya was mated with 11-year-old Ling Ling from Wolong in April. The pandas watched a mating video before breeding.

Last month, the government announced the birth of four sets of panda twins. China has more than 180 pandas living in captivity, according to the government.

A 2002 government census found there were just 1,596 pandas left in the wild. But state media has said a new study by Chinese and British scientists has found there might be as many as 3,000.

So I was very sad when reading this article. Until I hit the following:
"The pandas watched a mating video before breeding."

Panda porn. No wonder the damn things are endangered. Did they have to light some candles and play mood music too?


Ok fine. I feel a bit bad about mocking pandas, so here, to make up for it:


If that isn't the cutest thing you've seen in a month I am bitterly jealous.

The things that you learn when your pride dies.

Michael Franti and Spearhead play a song called "Never too Late" and I have been meditating on it. The Live at KEXP version has a little story at the beginning about a man trying to turn his life around after having a stroke.
My own grandfather was a hard man. An alcoholic. Late in his life he had a stroke and began to reach out to his children. My mother never accepted his apology before he died. I think a lot about that.
We all make mistakes in life. Sometimes life rides us hard and makes us sour. I think it is an amazing thing for anyone to apologise, to try to move on. I really don't think it's ever too late. I know you can't undue your wrongs, but sometimes all it takes is an apology to move the wronged from a place of wounded bitterness, to acceptance.

Michael Franti and Spearhead are in concert in Seattle at the Paramount on the 13th of October, in case you'd care to join me.

Anyway, I put the lyrics below.
*********************************************

Don't fear your best friends,
because a best friend would never try to do you wrong.
And don't fear your worst friends,
because a worst friend is just a best friend whose done you wrong.
And don't fear the night time,
because the monsters know that you're divine.
And don't fear the sunshine,
because everything is better in the summertime. (summertime)

And it's never too late to start the day over,
it's never too late, pick up the phone.
(pick up the phone and call me)
never too late to lay your head down on my shoulders,
never too late to come on home.
(come on home)

Don't fear the water,
because you can swim, inside you, within your skin.
don't fear your father,
because a father's just a boy without a friend.
And don't fear to walk slow,
don't be a horse race, be a marathon.
And don't fear the long road,
because on the long road you got a long time to sing a simple song.
(sing along, come on)

And it's never too late
to start the day over,
it's never too late,
pick up the phone.
(pick up the phone and call me)
never too late to lay your head down on my shoulders,
never too late to come on home.
(come on home)

Don't fear your teachers,
because if you listen you can hear music in a school bell.
And don't fear your preacher,
if you can't find heaven in a prison cell.
don't fear your own self,
paying money to justify your worth.
And don't fear your family,
because you chose them a long time before your birth.
(yes you did, come on)

And it's never too late to start the day over,
it's never too late, pick up the phone.
(pick up the phone and call me)
it's never too late to lay your head down on my shoulders,
never too late to come on home.

Hold to your children, hold to your children, hold to your children, let them know.

Alexander Downer, you can bite me.

Use of secret jails draws mixed reaction

By ROHAN SULLIVAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SYDNEY, Australia -- Staunch U.S. supporter Australia on Thursday backed Washington's use of secret CIA prisons to interrogate terrorist suspects, but Muslim critics in Asia said President Bush's defense of the practice amounted to a tacit approval of torture.

Lawmakers at the European Parliament, meanwhile, demanded the U.S. give the locations of the secret detention facilities.

Bush acknowledged for the first time Wednesday night that a small number of detainees had been held in secret CIA prisons overseas, and he defended the program by saying it forced terrorist leaders to reveal plots to attack the United States and its allies.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said information from one secret prison detainee had led to the arrest of Riduan Isamuddin, a key leader of Southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, as well as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaida's alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush had also mentioned Mohammed's capture in his defense of the program Wednesday.

"A great deal has been achieved through these kinds of programs," Downer told Parliament.

Australia has troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq to support coalition military operations.

But Muslim politicians and activists decried Bush's secret prison program and the types of interrogation techniques used on detainees.

Asma Jehangir, a senior member of Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, demanded Washington end the program immediately and apologize for ever bringing it into existence.

"They have to admit that what they did was wrong," said Jehangir, who heads a U.N. panel that recently issued a scathing report about the detention of suspects at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "They cannot justify it in the name of terrorism and frightening people."

She noted that Bush had said in his speech that militants were trained to resist interrogation. "It doesn't mean that you can lower the threshold and start torturing them," she said.

In his speech, Bush said that interrogation techniques used were tough, but did not constitute torture. He also said the secret prison program would continue because it "has been, and remains, one of the most vital tools in our war against the terrorists."

China, which has five citizens among the Guantanamo Bay detainees, also criticized the secret prisons. "China advocates ... that anti-terror efforts should observe the principal of the U.N. charter and the basic norms governing international relations," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.

In Europe, the head of a European investigation into alleged CIA prisons in Europe said he believed the timing of Bush's disclosure was politically motivated. "It probably has to do with the fact that the elections are coming up in the United States," said Swiss senator Dick Marty.

Marty said Bush's speech was "just one piece of the truth," without elaborating. "There is more, much more to be revealed," he added.

Marty said in July that evidence suggests planes linked to the CIA carrying terror suspects stopped in Romania and Poland and likely dropped off detainees there, backing up earlier news reports that identified the two countries as possible sites of clandestine detention centers. His report said European governments failed to fully cooperate to establish the facts.

"The location of these prison camps must be made public," said Wolfgang Kreissl-Doerfler, who sits on a special EU assembly committee investigating the secret prisons. "We need to know if there has been any complicity in illegal acts by governments of EU countries or states seeking EU membership."

Some activists and defense attorneys said Bush's acknowledgment illustrated progress on the administration's part.

"President Bush has finally realized that American values are the way to win the war on terror - the values of true openness, a commitment to having fair trials and not allowing the torture of detainees," said lawyer Zachary Katznelson, who represents 36 Guantanamo detainees.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator on torture, said the transfer of 14 detainees from clandestine centers to Guantanamo Bay was "an improvement," but warned that "of course there are many others."

Nowak, who reports to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the global body's top right watchdog, has said the use of secret prisons violate anti-torture commitments under international law because keeping detainees in such places is a form of enforced disappearance.

Ahmad Nader Nadery, spokesman for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, which has sought to gain access to the U.S. military's prison in Afghanistan where an estimated 500 "illegal combatants" are held, also welcomed the new guidelines.

"We have been looking for an improvement in the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo and Bagram and any improvement in that direction would be welcomed. It will build more confidence in the war on terror," he said.

Are you shitting me? A great deal of good was accomplished by secret prisons run outside the mandate of the prison system, UN, or Geneva Convention? I want to live in the country that doesn't put secret gulags in foreign countries. I don't want to live in the country where I am protected through the torture of POWs. Thanks though. I don't know who this Zachary Katznelson dude is, but I would totally make out with him for his above statement. American values are sexy. Rawwwwr call me when you get back from Cuba, baby.

Oh, additionally, we are being criticized on human rights by China. CHINA! Who else here is blushing? I am mortified. This is like the time I wore the same dress as Susan Hanson to homecoming, except replace homecoming dress with secret gulags in countries with lax laws on torture.

Things I don't care about that are dominating the news:

Suri Cruise
Lindsay Lohan's hoo-ha

I don't mean to be a jerk but Lindsay Lohan's cooch is old news.

Furthermore seeing what a beautiful child Suri Cruise is just makes me feel more foreboding for her future.

Fall.

Chill of light rain.

Wet evergreen tree fresh scent.

Pumpkin Truffles from Godiva.

Key Lime Pears from Recchiuti Confections.

New lessons- this year, Hula.

Pumpkin or Gingerbread Lattes from Starbucks.

Decorating for Halloween.

Making costumes.

Making scary sugar-cookies.

Pumpkin pie.

Leaves falling.

Candy corn at work.

Halloween socks.

Christmas shopping.

Thanksgiving with the parents in October.

Thanksgiving with family in the States in November.

Left-overs from two Thanksgivings.

Sweaters.

Gourds, Indian corn, and tiny pumpkins.

Picking a pumpkin from the patch.

Carving pumpkins.

Hot buttered rum.

Hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps.

Sleeping under the winter weight comforter.

Stews and casseroles.

Fondue.

Planning the family Christmas celebration.

Christmas shopping downtown whilst in a sweater and simultaneously drinking a gingerbread latte.

Add one more person to the list of people who can blow me.

'Crocodile Hunter' exploited animals, critic says

Feminist author Greer says 'It’s no surprise that he came to grief.’

(Why must they ALWAYS throw in the word feminist. This isn't about gender, but throwing in feminist makes it look more like she is a freak-- which she is, don't get me wrong. But I'm a feminist and my views on documentaries about animals have nothing to do with gender.)

SYDNEY, Australia - Feminist academic Germaine Greer said on Wednesday she hoped the death of Australian “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin would mark the end of what she called exploitative nature documentaries, a discordant note amid floods of tributes.

Irwin died in a freak diving accident off Australia’s northeast coast on Monday after he was hit in the chest by the serrated barb from a stingray’s tail.

Echoing comments she made this week in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Australian-born Greer likened Irwin to a lion tamer and said he had intruded on the habitats of animals and treated them with “massive insensitivity.”

“It’s no surprise that he came to grief,” Greer told Nine Network television. “We now have enough respect for lions to be embarrassed if we see someone trying to crack whips at them and wave chairs at them. Jumping all over crocodiles is the same kind of thing.”

(Yes, it isn't particularly surprising, however, caging lions and dragging them around the midwest is entirely different than the amazing education about conservation- especially of the most dangerous and frightening of creatures- that Irwin undertook. Those kinds of creatures have a great appeal to young men, and I think that interesting more men in conservation is imperative.)

Greer, an award-winning author, is a frequent critic of personalities like British soccer star David Beckham and social trends like reality television.

In 2003 she criticized J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy for attracting “spaced-out hippies, environmentalists, free-market libertarians, social conservatives, pacifists, new-age theosophists, sexists and racists the world over.”

(Oh please.)

Irwin’s death has prompted outpourings of grief and sympathy from around the world, dominating local newspapers and clogging Internet news sites.

His “Crocodile Hunter” documentaries for U.S.-based television company Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet were seen by tens of millions of viewers around the world. He became famous for flirting with death as he wrestled crocodiles, swam with sharks and handled some of the world’s deadliest snakes and spiders.

Greer said she found the Irwin phenomenon "embarrassing," although she understood the sadness at his death.

“I’m not saying that’s not sad, I’m saying what might be over now is this kind of exploitation of animals,” Greer said.

(Not like eating them. Or keeping them prisoners in your house and making them wear little sweaters. Or riding them. Or milking them or stealing their eggs. Or wearing various bits of them.)

“I am sick and tired of programs that tell me that the world is full of wicked, nasty, powerful, deadly creatures. Why does Australia set itself up to be made into this hellhole?” she said.

(The world is full of powerful and deadly creatures. Sorry about that. I wouldn't go so far as to say a shark is wicked or particularly nasty... as it is an animal. Furthermore, every animal in Australia can kill you. Poisonous everything. People in England sent their prisoners there. I'm just saying. I still want to go there. I'm just not going to rub myself in honey and go lay in the lawn.)

Very angry.

Rape law rankles some Pakistan lawmakers
Tue Sep 5, 5:25 PM ET

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Lawmakers from a coalition of six Islamic groups threatened on Tuesday to vacate their parliamentary seats if Pakistan's government changes a rape law criticized by human rights activists.

A walkout by the 68 lawmakers could destabilize the government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, criticized by Islamic parties since his ruling party last month presented a bill to amend the law in a bid to protect women's rights.

Pakistan's National Assembly has 344 members. A walkout could force by-elections.

Under the current law, approved by a former military dictator in 1979, prosecuting a rape case requires testimony from four witnesses, making punishment almost impossible because such attacks are rarely public.

A woman who claims she was raped but fails to prove her case can be convicted of adultery, punishable by death.

Maulana Fazalur Rahman, a leader of the Islamic coalition, said Tuesday that lawmakers in his group would vacate their seats in the National Assembly if the government tries to get the assembly's approval to change the law.

"We will render every sacrifice for the protection of the Shariah (traditional Islamic) laws," he said at a news conference.

However, the ruling Pakistan Muslim Party — which has a majority in the assembly — has praised Musharraf for taking steps to amend the law and end the four-witness requirement.

Ready for a Bryn Mawr moment? Great. I absolutely cannot believe this garbage is going on to this date. I am doing the typing equivalent of sputtering in sheer anger. Let me just put it this way, if the Islamic Coalition vacates their seats, I'm not complaining. Incidentally, I hope these guys enjoy heat because they are going to be chilling with Warren Jeffs in that special place in hell. I'm so frustrated, I don't even know what to do. I know what I'm not going to do though: go to Pakistan.