Tribal government-sponsored gaming is a relatively new phenomenon dating to the late 1970s when a number of Tribes established bingo operations as a means of raising revenues to fund Tribal government operations. At about the same time a number of state governments were also exploring the potential for increasing state revenues through state-sponsored gaming. By the mid-1980s, a number of states had authorized charitable gaming, and some were sponsoring state-operated lotteries.
Although government-sponsored gaming was an issue of mutual interest,
Tribal and state governments soon found themselves at odds over Indian
gaming. The debate centered on the issue of whether Tribal governments
possess the authority to conduct gaming independently of state regulation.
Although many lower courts affirmed the Tribal view in the early cases,
the matter was not finally resolved until 1987 when the U.S. Supreme
Court confirmed the authority of Tribal governments to establish gaming
operations independent of state regulation provided that the state in
question permits some form of gaming. California v. Cabazon Band of
Mission Indians 480 U.S. 202 (1987).
Congress took up the issue of Tribal gaming and conducted a series
of hearings, ultimately culminating in the passage of the Indian Gaming
Regulatory Act of 1988 (Act). Embodied in the Act was a compromise between
state and Tribal interests. The states were offered a voice in determining
the scope and extent of Tribal gaming by requiring Tribal-State compacts
for Class III gaming, but Tribal regulatory authority over Class II
gaming was preserved in full. The Act further provided for general regulatory
oversight at the federal level and created the National Indian Gaming
Commission as the responsible agency.

Introduction To Tribal Gaming

GSA Standards are available to the general public at no cost. Draft standards will be made available to the general public after the membership has approved them, on this page. Errata sheets detail changes which will be implemented in the next revision of the protocol document. All changes are related to implementation, not function.

Standards - Gaming Standards Association

Well, slapping Iran with sanctions could very likely prompt Mr. Ahmadinejad and company to cut oil production in retaliation. Once upon a time, a drop in production from one OPEC member could be absorbed by the rest of the cartel. But today's global oil market is so tight, there is little spare capacity left. Any drop in production from a supplier can quickly send the price of oil soaring. "There's no shock absorber left," says Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. "That leaves us with zero options when it comes to leverage against these oil producers. Why do you think Hugo Ch�vez is so emboldened? Why do you think Ahmadinejad is saying, 'Go ahead, make my day?' "

Energy Impasse - New York Times

Antonio Carlos Jobim
Even if they can’t name him right away as the composer, just about everybody knows some of the bossa nova music of Antonio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim. His dozens of beautiful melodies have become part of the standard song repertoire throughout the world.
Tom Jobim, as he was known familiarly, was born in l927 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and died in l994. As he liked to tell it, he was just another middle-class Carioca "beach boy" hanging out in the bars and coffeehouses along the white sand of Copacabana and Ipanema until the day a peddler, selling roses, stopped before him one afternoon.

Antonio Carlos Jobim - Verve Records

Welcome to Churchill Grounds - Atlanta's Premiere Jazz Club

There is one phrase that stands out when most people think about Churchill Grounds - "The Good Life"
At Churchill Grounds, we strive to promote the better things in life, helping to remind you of the classics of days gone by while introducing you to those classics being created today.
America's only true native art form - Jazz Music exemplifies our commitment to this cause. There is no other form of music that embodies the sophistication, eloquence, passion, spontaneity and emotion that jazz communicates to its' audience. At Churchill Grounds we seek out only the most dedicated and talented jazz musicians to help maintain Jazz as a forefront in modern music. Our commitment to this art form is not only to accomplished jazz musicians such as Cedar Walton, Freddie Cole, Loston Harris, Chico Freeman, Donald Harrison, Marcus Printup, Philip Harper and Russell Gunn, but also to its' growth and future by locally searching for the next Wynton Marsalis, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong.

Churchill Grounds Jazz Cafe - About Churchill Grounds

The marriage of Indian religiosity and western materialism Vivekananda tried to arrange makes him the perfect patron saint of the BJP, a political party of mostly upper caste middle class Hindus that strives to boost India's capabilities in the fields of nuclear bombs and information technology and also reveres the cow as holy. A hundred years after his death, the BJP has come closest to realising his project of westernising Hinduism into a nationalist ideology: one which has pretensions to being all-inclusive, but which demonises Muslims and seeks to pre-empt with its rhetoric of egalitarianism the long overdue political assertion of India's lower caste groups.

     Vivekananda's modern-day disciples are helped considerably by the fact that the Indian bourgeoisie is no longer small and insignificant. It is growing—the current numbers are between 150-200 million. There are millions of rich Indians living outside India. In America, they constitute the richest minority. It is these affluent, upper caste Indians in India and abroad who largely bankrolled the rise to power of Hindu nationalists, and who now long for closer military and economic ties between India and western nations. The new conditions of globalisation—free trade, faster communications—help them work faster towards the alliance Vivekananda proposed between an Indian elite and the modern West. As a global class, they are no less ambitious than the one which in the Roman empire embraced Christianity and made it an effective tool of worldly power. Hinduism in their hands has never looked more like the Christianity and Islam of Popes and Mullahs, and less like the multiplicity of unselfconsciously tolerant faiths it still is for most Indians. Their growing prominence suggests that Vivekananda may yet emerge as more influential in the long run than Gandhi, Nehru or Tagore—the three great Indian leaders, whose legacy of liberal humanism middle class India already seems to have frittered away as it heads for intellectually and spiritually oppressive times.

Interesting article on the historical roots of the BJP fascist ideology.

The invention of the Hindu

The reality is that Paris and its "difficult" banlieues [impoverished suburbs] are two worlds that are completely foreign to each other. They don't even speak the same language: polished, accent-free French on one side, the verlan, or "reversed" speech, of the housing projects on the other.

I was intrigued by the notion of verlan and decided to look it up.

Verlan is a form of French slang that consists of playing around with syllables, kind of along the same lines as pig Latin. Unlike pig Latin, however, verlan is actively spoken in France - many verlan words have become so commonplace that they are used in everyday French.

Verlan was invented as a secret language, a way for people (notably youths, drug users, and criminals) to communicate freely in front of authority figures (parents, police). Because much of verlan has become incorporated into French, verlan continues to evolve - sometimes words are "re-verlaned."

About verlan, [2], Wikipedia adds:

Generally speaking, creating a verlan word on the fly from any random French word will result in smirks.

A brief clip from NPR's On Point about verlan is available.

Fascinating.

The French Disconnection

What is Devil Facial Tumour Disease and how does it affect devils?
Devil Facial Tumour Disease is a term used to describe a fatal condition in Tasmanian devils which is characterised by the appearance of obvious facial cancers. The tumours or cancers are first noticed in and around the mouth as small lesions or lumps. These develop into large tumours around the face and neck and sometimes even in other parts of the body. Adults appear to be most affected by the disease - males the first affected, then females. Badly affected devils may have many cancers throughout the body.

Oh FUCK! TAZZZZZZZZzzzzzieeee!

I heard spinning causes cancer.

DPIWE - Disease Affecting Tasmanian Devils

This is the video of the cop kicking Kimbo's ass. I thought he was invincible, but no man can fight when he's winded. Plus that cop used his knee to great effect. Anyway, a friend linked me to this new location of this old fight and I thought I'd meme it since... my Kimbo links are like some of the greatest traffic suckers this site has. Not that this is neccessarily a good thing, but hey, check this Kimbo fuck out if you haven't already because he is the toughest motherfucker on planet earth, and this is what he looks like when a fat white cop kicks his fucking ass.

kimbo slice vs. Sean Gannon in a bare knuckle fight - Google Video

BANGALORE, India — A professor was killed and four others were wounded at a science conference in India on Wednesday (Dec. 28) by a gunman with possible ties to a terrorist group, according to police.

Police said the gunman sprayed automatic gunfire during a conference at the Indian Institute of Science, based in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. Professor M.C. Puri from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, was killed in the attack, according to police.

Several others were seriously hurt, including Vijay Chandru, founder of the Indian-developed palm-computer, the Simputer, according to a report from the BBC News service.

The Indian Institute of Science is a leading postgraduate college in India's technology hub of Bangalore.

I've previously memed about the TATA Bookhouse at the IIS. This happened right next to it on the idyllic campus there. A damned shame. Murderous sons of bitches. Guess all those armed guards at the gates didn't equal security. I hear they don't even have bullets?

India's Science Institute Attacked By Suspected Terrorists | December 28, 2005