Focused Rambling

G20 protests, will bankers be swinging from lampposts?.... not sure, but I'm betting there will be cool puppets

Protests are underway at the G-20 summit ... There's always a festive and fun mood at the protests surrounding world leader summits (with some anger mixed in), and this one doesn't disappoint. Of course, it has drawn some attention after a professor from the University of East London predicted that bankers "could be hanging from lampposts during the protest . Professor Chris Knight is no longer employed after that statement. Check here for more from The Guardian on the G20 in general, and the protest specifically... Here's early video from the protest

Think you know Ireland?

Happy St. Patrick's Day, here's your Top 10 things you didn't know about Ireland ...and the top 10 tourism sites in Ireland ...

Baseball cards can make you rich...

Bernice Gallego found a baseball card from the first professional baseball team, the Red Stocking B.B. Club of Cincinnati. This reminds me of that terrible moment when I realized that someone had stolen the most precious stack of baseball cards from my collection during a "happenin'" party in the 80's. Mickey Mantle, Joe Dimaggio, Ted Williams, Sandy Koufax, etc., all pilfered. I should have learned to have smaller parties with invitations and such, but instead I learned to not care about baseball cards as much...

Not everyone gets to come home for Christmas...

While you enjoy the holidays, remember those Americans that are spending them in Iraq...

Dear Alanis Morrisette, this story has irony (not rain on your wedding day)

Anti-kidnapping expert kidnapped... I'm not making light of this or mocking the gentleman involved, it's just hard to ignore the irony. Other ironic situations: bullets fired by John Hinckley bounced off of the bullet-proof glass of Reagan's limousine to hit him... or how about that guy in the Coleridge poem that had "water,water everywhere, but not a drop to drink". It's not quite a fly in your chardonnay or a free ride when you've already paid, I'll admit. Where is Alanis? I miss her...

Taking a second to think about Human Rights on the 60th anniversary of the UDHR...

Take a cool animated run through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed into existence 60 years ago today.

Rent-a-military

Farming out your military responsibilities to the highest bidder should get you in trouble. Taking cash to randomly shoot people that pose no threat to you should get you in trouble. At least it'll get you a trial . So 5 Blackwater contractors are indicted for mowing down a street full of Iraqi's , including blasting away on a Doctor and medical student slowly approaching their checkpoint unarmed. Interesting that they attempted to have the trial moved to Utah by surrendering there, because they knew that Utah was more likely to understand their plight. I'm not even in the mood to give some kind of qualifier statement about tough situations and scared kids, because these are paid mercenaries, and the testimony of one of the Blackwater contractors in this case pretty clearly says that they were shooting unarmed civilians for no good reason. Once you enter into the cash for services arena, you can't hide behind any of those "gee whiz I wish I hadn't been there", or "I was just trying to do my job". What does it say about the world that our most stable job market is war? I mean, having sex with people (thereby providing pleasure) for money is illegal, but it's legal to get a private-sector job where you go to war-torn areas and kill people for money? Again, I'm not arguing the necessity, since it's pretty obvious that if we're going to start more wars than we actually have soldiers to fight them, there's going to be opportunities for roided up gun-lovers with tribal tats to find a private firm to give them a piece of the action. And I'm also sure that there are Blackwater employees that are regular joe's just making a living and not killing innocent civilians. But those employees should recognize a screw-up when they see one and call out these guys. If you say that everything that happens is justified, then it kind of makes us paint you with a broad brush. It's just hard to defend someone once they willingly take a job in a crazy situation, and then this happens. Of course, I have no doubt that these guys will get off, and someone will use that as validation that this isn't so bad, that these guys are just patriotic Americans doing a job. If these are just good America lovin' Patriots hoping to help us out back home by serving in wars, why not join the military. I have to assume it's because the pay is less and you have rules (again, not their fault, they're just enjoying the fruits of capitalism). But when it will start to matter is when US military leaders in areas where these private companies roam are held responsible for the mayhem that can be caused...

Step in the right direction...

This seems like a good idea , but why for only one year? Would it really be that hard to convince people to recognize the true past experiences of Native Americans every year? Or are we really that divorced from reality that we can't enjoy an overblown meal while acknowledging the pain wrapped up in our traditions?

Your daily links to our economy slipping into the abyss

And people think that the economy is like a machine, it just works because it's built on such solid principles and there's no reason to doubt anything about how we structure our systems or our lives or our... oh, oh, ahhhhhhhhh, whoooooaaaah, make it stop, make it stop... OK, back to Christmas shopping and not opening retirement account statements.

The Russian equivalent of the guy that stood in front of the tank that time in China...

Anna Politkovskaya dared to report on Putin's abuses of power, and in particular on the human rights abuses in Chechnya. So I guess it wasn't shocking, although sickening, when it was announced that the trial for the the three men accused of organizing her murder (she was gunned down) was going to be closed to the media because jurors were afraid, which did seem rather convenient for the Kremlin... but one juror has called them out. Man, I feel like I barely knew you, Yevgeny Kolesov, but I'm definitely not expecting to have you as a fellow human on this planet for long. Thanks for standing up for something, though.