Serving on the highest court in the land is apparently a tiring affair for at least one Supreme Court justice who caught 40 winks on the bench, literally.

According to the Associated Press, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg snoozed during testimony today over political redistricting in Texas.

"Justices David Souter and Samuel Alito, who flank the 72-year-old, looked at her but did not give her a nudge," writes Holland.

"At first, she appeared to be reading something in her lap. But after a while, it became clear: Ginsburg was napping on the bench. By Bloomberg News's reckoning -- not denied by a court spokeswoman -- Ginsburg's snooze lasted a quarter of an hour.

sigh...

WorldNetDaily: Snorer in the court? Ruth Bader Ginsburg snoozes

Masked, plainclothes police carrying assault rifles staged a midnight raid on the country's oldest newspaper and its sister television station early Thursday, burning tens of thousands of newspapers in the most dramatic attack on the press in Kenya's history.

Boing Boing: Media shutdown in Kenya -- TV station, newspaper torched

So begins the postcrash push, when all of this investment begins to pay off. Broadband Internet use in the United States jumped from 6% in June 2000 to more than 30% in 2003. Today, more than half of us have access to broadband at home or work. (Most of us, significantly, signed up for it after the dotcom crash.) Now, instead of engaging in theoretical thumb sucking about "what broadband will mean," we're doing something with it. And unlike the 1990s, when experiments failed because entrepreneurs misunderstood the Internet's usefulness, or because it simply wasn't ready, we're working with a known quantity. It took 30 years for electricity to have a serious impact on the U.S. economy, after all, but by 1930, virtually every home had juice and it was driving refrigerators, toasters, lamps, radios, and other appliances. As Henry Blodget put it, our exuberance, irrational or otherwise, builds industries.

I think the collective group here on Memestreams has been saying this for oh, about 5 years now.

Technology: Boom, Bust, and Beyond

"We manufactured nuclear weapons with our own technology, funds and raw materials from A to Z. As we are not dependent on the U.S. at all in the economic and financial fields, no U.S. sanctions would work on us," a spokesman for North Korea's said.

"As we have clarified more than once, such illegal dealings as 'money laundering' and 'counterfeit notes' have nothing in common with the policy of the DPRK and such assertion of the U.S. is nothing but a fabrication solely intended to tarnish the image of the DPRK and do harm to it," the spokesman said in response to a question by the North's KCNA news agency.

"Yes, we have nukes, but we built them with our own money."

Oh, this is just great... Like who's money they used was the central issue.. If it was done by counterfeiting USD, that's just icing . . . not the cake.

Reuters | N.Korea says made nuclear weapons

Bunch of jackass college students get on I285 in Atlanta and actually do the speed limit. Fortunately, even though there were almost several accidents, no one was hurt.

What an amazing act of civil obedience.

A Meditation On the Speed Limit - Google Video

George Friedman has written a "geopolitical intelligence brief" entitled "The United States and the 'Problem' of Venezuela." In that analysis, published under Friedman's byline, but more likely written by one of his editorial assistants, concludes that the confrontation between President Hugo Chavez and the US government is irrelevant because Venezuelan oil exports continue flowing to the US, and these oil exports won't be suspended because Chavez needs the US more than the US needs Venezuela. "Sometimes," Friedman concludes, "there really isn't a problem."

I read the dispatch referred to from Stratfor. If anyone here is interested in reading it, let me know and I'll post it to the thread. Stratfor allows that to a limited degree as long as there is attribution.

In the linked article, John Sweeney disagrees heavily with their analysis. Given the tone it's clear that Sweeney does not like Friedman much. The end of this article alleges that Venezuela is directly linking itself with nation-states firmly on our 'unhappy' list, particularly in the area of attaining nuclear weapons. Given the vast difference in opinions and the presence of questionable facts, this is becoming an item of curiosity.

In fact, the Chavez and Castro governments have jointly developed international networks to move billions of dollars of Venezuelan oil revenues into offshore bank accounts. Chavez and Castro are also aligned closely with Iran, Syria, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and, most recently, Hamas in the Palestinian territories. The Chavez government not only has purchased weapons from Russia, but has also been in secret talks with Pyongyang to buy conventional infantry weapons.

Last year Caracas and Tehran signed bilateral agreements worth about $8 billion of investment. They also signed a secret bilateral protocol to support each other in developing nuclear weapons capability. Iranian and Cuban geologists are already prospecting in Bolivar state's jungles for uranium deposits.

There are now over 40,000 Cuban nationals in Venezuela on official missions. However, our sources in the Chavez government and FAN report that DPRK has deployed between 100 and 200 elite Special Operations Forces troops to Venezuela to train elite FAN troops in asymmetrical insurgent warfare tactics and strategies that now form the core of Venezuela's new Bolivarian National Security Doctrine. Also, Iran and Syria have deployed more personnel into Venezuela, many allegedly as immigrants. Arab immigration to Venezuela from the Palestinian territories and southern Lebanon is also growing rapidly. Radical Islamic influence in Venezuela's Foreign Ministry is so pronounced that the two most radical Imams in Venezuela are routinely asked by the Foreign Ministry to review and approve all Venezuelan diplomats posted to embassies in the Middle East.

Friedman writes that the only thing about Venezuela that matters to the U.S. is oil. However, Venezuela's oil exports to the U.S. dropped by 300,000 b/d last year, the first year after Chavez announced he will break Venezuela's oil supply dependency on the U.S. Anyway, it's no longer just about oil. Our sources in Caracas confirmed recently that Chavez is quietly seeking through his Iranian and DPRK contacts to acquire one or two nuclear warheads and the systems to deliver those warheads to the U.S. mainland. With an estimated $30 billion deposited in secret offshore bank accounts, Chavez has enough cash to buy such weapons secretly. His loud support for the Iranian and DPRK nuclear programs seeks to hasten the day when Chavez (and Castro) may secure the one or two WMD they need to have a credible nuclear deterrent against the U.S. They may never succeed in acquiring such weapons, but the likelihood they may fail won't deter them from seeking them.

Hugo Chavez, George Friedman and Stratfor

The recent escape of 23 suspected al-Qaeda inmates from a maximum security facility in Yemen has spawned some baroque theories about their prison break. One theory presently circulating in Yemen is that the escape was orchestrated to transfer them into U.S. custody, thereby circumventing extradition laws.

One of the most corrupt states in the world, Yemen is plagued with embezzlement, smuggling, mismanagement, and corruption, which in the aggregate have ruined its economy. Unemployment and poverty rates are very high. Land ownership, business ownership, political and military power are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small elite.

The E.U. has called Yemen "the forgotten crisis."

Of the four million children under the age of five, half are physically stunted from malnutrition, half never enter first grade, and 11 percent die before their fifth birthday-about half of those deaths from diarrhea. Nearly 90 percent of the population does not have access to clean water.

Yemen has good odds of developing into a giant problem at some point. Calling the government corrupt isn't strong enough. This article uses the term "kleptocracy".

So far to the best of my knowledge, we have only appeased Yemen in order to get cooperation from them. It doesn't look like its been working. They seem to view terrorist insurgent style fighters as a key national asset. Fitting for the ancestral homeland of Osama Bin Laden... Yemen continues to be one of the largest sources of foreign fighters in places like Iraq. Yemen is also one the the major arms trading ports in the world, and does business with some of the nasty nasties. I remember back in 2002 a vessel was stopped shipping SCUD missiles (hidden under concrete slabs) to Yemen from North Korea. The ship was let go after determining that there wasn't a way we could legally stop it.

Yemen was not, in the opinion of the United States, "looking for missiles for terrorism," a senior administration official told CNN, adding that Yemen is "in an area of the world where respect, prestige and protection come from the barrel of a gun."

Well gee.. When taking that into account, I guess that since Yemen has an AK-47 for every man, woman, and child, they are attempting to build their society based on fundamental respect for all people. Maybe I should stop being so darn ethnocentric.

The Two Faces of Yemen

I've covered the progress of this movie on here before.

The directorial debut of Tim Sullivan (Rattle's cousin), 2001 Maniacs, goes on sale March 28th. Check out the trailer.

So far all the reviews have been good. In short: B-Movie horror cinema at its best. Congratulations to Tim! It was a very long slog for him to get this move made and released.

"Refreshingly vulgar, completely un-PC, and, much like the original, an expected excuse for extremely sadistic humor and gore, 2001 MANIACS has all the elements of a good time and still raises a dialogue among viewers that not many have had the balls to address in horror, or filmmaking in general, since the 70's. You'll squirm, screech and then writhe with laughter." - Shane French, FANGORIA

A re-imagining of HG Lewis' drive-in cult classic, 2001 MANIACS keeps tongue firmly in cheek as it tells the twisted tale of the small Southern town of Pleasant Valley, brought low during the Civil War by the North, now doomed to eternally extracting bloody revenge on unsuspecting Northern travelers.

2001 Maniacs now available for pre-order on Amazon

In his recent appearance on the Charlie Rose Show, Donald Rumsfeld talked about how the DoD needs MemeStreams:

Rose: Did you get what you needed from the budget in order to carry out the kinds of thing that is you think are a part of this battle against terrorism, this long war, and this attitude that you're reflecting now? In terms of the kind – how you're shifting from a Cold War to a different war.

Rumsfeld: The budget is fine. It's going to --
Rose: You can live with it?
Rumsfeld: We can live with it and we ought to do a better job of spending it. In other words, it is --
Rose: In terms of weapon systems?
Rumsfeld: Well, no. Weapons systems are one thing. Everyone talks about this airplane or that ship.
Rose: Right.

Rumsfeld: I'm more interested in intelligence gathering, connecting intelligence to the operations in real time so that you can actually stop something from happening. That's what we need to get better at. It is the soft stuff. It is the connectors. In linking the services in a way that you leverage that capability. Increasing precision in your attacks. Speeding data to the user, the person who needs it. The operator of that -- to have that data in his hands so something good can come of it. That's what we need. Sure, we have to worry about platforms and ships and guns and tanks and planes and that stuff. That is not what the department of defense has to be about.

Interview with Secretary Rumsfeld on the Charlie Rose Show

I had to make one. How can I grow old as an artist and have people ask "What did you do during the Cartoon War?" and have nothing to show for it except a thumb up my ass. How many calls to arms will artists get in a lifetime? Artists should have a duty to make their own personal Muhammad Cartoon! Causing fear is how terror extremist groups gauge if they are winning or not. The world needs to stop being afraid of these idiots and paint them up like clowns with guns. Any group which cannot respect another world view deserves to look stupid. They need to start taking themselves much less seriously. Remember The Guru Maharaj ji ? He ripped off his followers for decades and promised to levitate the Houston Astro Dome with "Green Energy"(where was this bastard during Katrina???). I understand that people like to believe in their magic little spiritual worlds, to get the rush you get when you feel self important for no good reason at all. And everyone should have every right to do so. However, not acknowledging fundamentals of reality makes you look like an idiot to people who see things differently. Do you think some people are stupid? So do I! It's not about morality, right or wrong, or any self-righteous platform... It's about TRUTH. If you want yours to Dominate someone else's, those people are going to look at you either like a big fat DUMMY or a God (as if you have to ask which you might look like!). Getting irate, belligerent, and violent doesn't change the fact that some people are not interested in your Kool-Aid! This goes for you neo-right-wing-jesus juice slurping-fascist-christians as well. If your spirituality is not a PERSONAL experience... There is a large chunk of the world who considers you an ASSHOLE and your way of life ANNOYING! If you don't like having your bible-bubble burst, then SHUT the fuck up and it's a non-issue! When you open the panel for discussion, you will learn that "religion" does not equal "reality" and you will deserve it.

T-Shirts and other merchandise of my cartoon are available HERE. I think that the fact that I made one when there are Fatwas going around prooves that my balls are big enough to warrant your support.

This is by far the best Muhammad cartoon yet.

Muhammad Cartoon for the Cartoon War