Eideard

Worn out by a fast-paced life and faster-paced television shows but lack a vacation budget? Take a five-day cruise along Norway’s scenic fjords, all free and streamed live on Norwegian public television.

For 8,040 minutes straight — including all the boring bits — viewers can follow the Hurtigruten MMS Nordnorge cruise ship and its roughly 670 passengers and crew as the vessel steams north along Norway’s jagged coastline.

The “minute-by-minute” coverage started on Thursday and includes all on-board announcements and views from 11 cameras focusing on the spectacular fjords, boat traffic around the ship, officers on the bridge and the mostly elderly passengers strolling the decks and taking in the scenery.

“It is slow, it is very slow,” said Rune Moeklebust, the project manager for the show running on the NRK2 channel.

“It is the opposite to everything else on TV — that’s why it stands out and why, apparently, people want to watch.”

Preliminary viewing data is encouraging, Moeklebust told Reuters, with 1.3 million of Norway’s 4.9 million residents at least “stopping by” NRK2 between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m. on the first day…

“Some say it’s like watching paint dry but it’s so fun to sit in the master control room and mix the cameras,” said Moeklebust, adding that 22 NRK crew were aboard the vessel providing the non-stop coverage.

Moeklebust said the idea for the cruise livecast came after the success of his previous minute-by-minute coverage from a train making a 7-hour trip between Oslo and Bergen, which was viewed at least in part by 1.2 million people in 2009.

Just as “slow food” satisfies a need that much of today’s society ignores, this slow experience is especially enjoyable.

I used to record it so I wouldn’t miss an episode.

Prius V – American name for Toyota’s Prius station wagon

File this one under the category of unexpected. According to Integrity Exports, Toyota logged an outrageous 52,000 orders for its Prius Alpha hybrid over in Japan since the vehicle launched on May 13th. That’s astronomical considering that Toyota set a monthly sales target of just 3,000 units for the gas-electric MPV.

Toyota says that it will ramp up production of the Prius Alpha in response to soaring demand, but boosting output from 3,000 to 5,000 vehicles per month (Toyota’s modified production levels) by summer’s end still doesn’t seem like it’ll be enough.

Despite Toyota promising that the enormous demand for the Prius Alpha won’t affect the launch of the Prius V here in the States, Integrity Exports begs to differ…

Even my barely functional remembrance of things mathematical tells me this critter ain’t landing on time in the United States. Unless Toyota decides to [1] stop taking orders in Japan, right now, and [2] decides to screw some of the people with orders already in-house in Japan.

Hind and Najet, who keep their features hidden at all times and refuse to identify themselves beyond their first names, were due to appear before a judge outside Paris.

Both are accused of violating France’s so-called “burka ban”, which came into force earlier this year and prevents anyone covering up their faces in public.

But when Hind, a 31-year-old mother, tried to enter the court building in Meaux on Thursday, police held her back, telling her to take her head-covering off.

Najet, meanwhile, simply stayed at home, with the 34-year-old saying she knew she would be stopped from entering. “For the hearing to go ahead, you must remove the veil. Justice must be administered in a calm atmosphere,” police commissioner Philippe Tireloque told Hind.

Hind, who had brought her own handcuffs to wear as part of an organised protest at the court, replied: “I’ll keep my veil on at all times. It’s non-negotiable.

“The law forbids me from expressing myself, and indeed from defending myself. It forces me to dress a certain way, when all I want to do is live according to my religion.”

Police are under strict orders not to remove face coverings themselves, meaning Hind was simply told to leave.

Their court appearance was accordingly abandoned, as state prosecutors began trying to work out how they can deal with the challenge to the new law. They are expected to come to a decision in September.

Or maybe some other year – after Sarkozy and his conservative bubbas discover how they do in the next national elections. The populist model for bigots espoused so often and loudly by the Republican Party/KoolAid Party here in the USA, after all, is why they passed the law.

An off-duty Chicago police officer dressed up as a clown for a South Side fundraiser shot and killed a teen who held him at gunpoint tonight after the event, authorities said.

The officer…was in his clown outfit for a fundraiser for a day-care business. The event, attended by a group of 50 children, was near West 87th Street and South Damen Avenue.

At 10:10 p.m. after the event ended, the officer went to his car and a teen approached him, asking him for money, authorities said. When the officer said he had no money, the teen pulled a gun on him, authorities said.

During a struggle with the teen, the officer grabbed hold of the gun, opened fire and killed him.

The officer sustained minor injuries, according to a release from police News Affairs.

Don’t carry a gun unless you’re prepared to use it. Don’t pull a gun on someone unless you’re capable of using it. Don’t get close enough to let someone take your gun away – and use it on you.

In this case – I’d say instant justice was meted out.

Reenactment honor guard of the 173rd Regiment N.Y.S.V.

With their riders dressed in pressed shirts and denim, sleek, shiny horses clip-clopped through quiet residential streets in East Austin on Saturday, headed for the starting point of the annual Juneteenth parade.

But at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Comal Street, the serenity of a weekend morning soon gave way to an ebullient street party. There, rainbow-colored candies rained from the sky, and children rushed the street to snatch them. From the back of a convertible, a teen beauty queen in a pink gown and silver tiara waved royally. Two dozen line dancers shook their hips, and seven men slapped African drums to a pulsating beat. In his parked cruiser, a police officer rocked and swayed in his seat to the bass-heavy thump of “Billie Jean,” and some of those same early-rising horses pranced in place for the thousands lining the streets.

These were just a few of the sights, sounds and rhythms of Juneteenth in Austin.

Juneteenth commemorates the bittersweet anniversary of the day — June 19, 1865 — when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger landed at Galveston to deliver the news that the Civil War had ended and that blacks were free from slavery. The news was old. President Lincoln had delivered his Emancipation Proclamation some 2½ years earlier, but slavery continued in Texas and the South.

Commemorating the struggles of forefathers and the slaves is the cornerstone of all Juneteenth events, festive or otherwise, said many lining the parade route.

“I think it’s important that we remember our history. Therefore we can always face the future,” said Rudy Hicks of Pflugerville, who with Judy Connor and her 6-year-old granddaughter Jasmine, watched from the shade of a tent outside a family member’s home. Hicks said he has attended the parade since he was a child.

Read the rest of this entry »

The tiny southern French hamlet of Bugarach has drawn scrutiny from a government sect watchdog over droves of visitors who believe it is the only place in the world that will survive a 2012 Apocalypse.

A report by the watchdog, Miviludes…said the picturesque village near Carcassonne should be monitored in the run-up to December 21, 2012, when many believe the world will end according to an ancient Mayan prophecy.

Miviludes was set up in 2002 to track the activity of sects, after a law passed the previous year made it an offence to abuse vulnerable people using heavy pressure techniques, meaning sects can be outlawed if there is evidence of fraud or abuse.

Surrounded in legend for centuries, Bugarach and its rocky outcrop, the Pic de Bugarach, have attracted an influx of New Age visitors in recent months, pushing up property prices but also raising the threat of financial scams and psychological manipulation, Miviludes said in its report.

“I think we need to be careful. We shouldn’t get paranoid, but when you see what happened at Waco in the United States, we know this kind of thinking can influence vulnerable people,” Miviludes president Georges Fenech told Reuters.

Bugarach, with a population of just 200, has long been considered magical, partly due to what locals claim is an “upside-down mountain” where the top layers of rock are older than the lower ones.

If there is a critical mass of nutballs clustered in Bugarach – or anywhere else – who are in such despair over the world NOT coming to an end that they feel required to commit suicide, I do hope they are at least civil enough to be tidy.

Barn Owl in flight, Norfolk, England

 
The major fires are something many of you have seen on television, e.g., the Wallow fire rolling in from Arizona, the Loop fire surrounding Carlsbad Caverns, the Track fire up at Raton on the Colorado border. Like most wildfires, they seem to have been started by careless, thoughtless human beings.

People have no concept of responsibility for their actions. The same fools have even less concern for what their actions visit upon other human beings. Many people have lost their homes and livelihood over recent weeks.

At the time I’m composing this – an hour-and-a-half before posting – this fire, the Pacheco Canyon fire is only several hours old. First spotted at one acre – near the Santa Fe ski area – it grew to 200 acres in a couple of hours. It was 83⁰ this afternoon and 5% humidity. Winds steady at 15mph with gusts to 40mph. The first chopper over the fire reported flames 40 feet in the air.

I imagine it’s up around 400-500 acres right now and no containment whatsoever.

We’re lucky because we’re southwest of the fire, about 25 miles away and there is a whole city in between us and the fire. The city is fortunate in that prevailing winds are blowing away from Santa Fe.

The air tankers are landing at the municipal airport for the night, right now. Winds are supposed to be gusting up to 50mph, tomorrow. Going to be a long season.

In a step few politicians would take, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle…declared the nation’s decades-old war on drugs a failure…

“Rather than invest in detaining people in the Cook County Jail at almost $150 a day . . . we need to invest in treatment, education and job-skills training. That’s the only way . . . we are going to reduce crime and stabilize our communities,” she said…

“We all know that the war on drugs has failed to end drug use. Instead, it’s resulted in the incarceration of millions of people around the country, and 100,000 here in Cook County on an annual basis,” she said. “Drugs and the failed war on the drugs have devastated lives, families and communities. For too long we’ve treated drug use as a criminal justice issue, rather than a public issue, which is what it is.”

Academics, religious leaders and social-service providers spoke out, but Preckwinkle was the sole politician to address the crowd, which cheered her on.

Kathleen Kane-Willis, director of Roosevelt University’s Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy, kicked off the rally by citing recent statistics indicating Illinois leads the nation when it comes to putting far greater percentages of African Americans behind bars for drug crimes than whites.

“The sad thing about the war on the drugs is that most people know it has failed,” added Rev. Alexander Sharp of Protestants for the Common Good. “They just don’t have the courage to say so…”

Preckwinkle’s call for more treatment and less punishment was in keeping with her statements on the campaign trail, when she often talked about diverting drug users into treatment programs. She said she now is working with the courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys and the sheriff’s office to find ways to do that.

“If 70 percent of the people in the jail are there for non-violent offenses, and 83 percent of the people who walk through the door have illicit drugs in their system, clearly the issue we’ve got is around addiction as much as it is around criminal justice,” she said after making her speech. “It is a public health issue.”

American politicians lead the Western World in hypocrisy. Moralizing based upon myth, laws carrying sanctions better suited to the Dark Ages, characterize the unproductive foolishness that our jurisprudence and book of laws has become.

Most drug use should be decriminalized. Take crime and drug cartels out of the equation altogether – and treat simple addictions for what they are. A product of many causes from genetic sensitivity to social and economic despair.

 
I knew Keith’s show was starting up next week on Current TV – Al Gore’s TV station. I’d let it slip to the back of my mind since I’d already scheduled my DVR to start recording it – but, I didn’t think he and Current would be badass enough to advertise his return to nightly television by buying space and time – on MSNBC – the chickenhearts who bailed on him for doing unseemly things like donating money to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords election campaign.

This is gonna be fun.