/Ambivalence

Zatoichi - #3

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 00:04:06 -0700

Zatoichi - #3

"GOING WITH THE FLOES Last summer, warming temperatures melted more of the Arctic ice cap than at any..."

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:26:39 -0700

“GOING WITH THE FLOES Last summer, warming temperatures melted more of the Arctic ice cap than at any time since measurements have been taken. This summer’s data indicate that 2007’s melt was not a one-year anomaly. With the ice still melting, the total amount of Arctic sea ice was approaching last year’s low, and polar bears, which use ice floes as platforms on which to fish and rest, were spotted swimming in the open sea. Some were headed toward the edge of the ice shelf, 400 miles away — far beyond their endurance. In as little as five years, said a NASA scientist, Jay Zwally, the North Pole in summer will be ice-free. “Climate warming is also coming larger and faster than the models are predicting,” Dr. Zwally said. “Nobody’s really taken into account that change yet.””

- Op-Ed Contributor - The Two Weeks You Missed - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

"Palin, whose state is more pork-laden than a barbecue stand, actually turned against the bridge..."

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:22:58 -0700

“Palin, whose state is more pork-laden than a barbecue stand, actually turned against the bridge project because she thought Washington might make Alaskans build it themselves. If she ever agrees to talk to a reporter, the interviewer should ask Palin whether she thinks a state that is extremely wealthy from oil and gas revenue should not be forswearing federal aid entirely so that less fortunate places can have more. Really, a governor who puts her country first might think about that.”

- Op-Ed Columnist - McCain’s Grizzly Politics - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

"The 1948 Cheju-do Civil War Some crimes are too terrible to be forgotten. From August 21 to 25,..."

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:15:28 -0700

“

The 1948 Cheju-do Civil War

Some crimes are too terrible to be forgotten. From August 21 to 25, 1998, the Cheju April 3 50th Anniversary Pan-National Committee sponsored an international scholarly symposium at the Cheju Youth Hostel in Cheju City on the South Korean island of Cheju-do. The keynote speaker was Dr. Jose Ramos Horta, the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize laureate from East Timor.

As a whole the conference focused on Cold War human rights abuses in South Korea, Taiwan, and Okinawa that were backed or perpetrated by the U.S. government. But the main object of the conference was to bring world attention to one of the darkest yet least-known chapters of postwar Asian history—the horrific genocide of 30,000 innocent civilians on Cheju-do between 1948 and 1949. In the space of one year, fully ten percent of the island’s total population of 300,000 was massacred—literal Roman decimation. Privately the governor of Cheju told American intelligence at the time that 60,000 were killed. Some contemporary Japanese sources claim that the number of the dead is closer to 80,000.

This mass murder, in the guise of an anti-Communist civil war, was undertaken by the South Korean army, the Cheju-do police, and the U.S. military, which directed the counterinsurgency operation, providing military advisers, naval and air support, and U.S. ground troops. Prof. Bruce Cumings of the University of Chicago, America’s foremost authority on contemporary Korea, is the scholar in the United States who has been trying to notify the American public about the 1948 genocide in Cheju-do. In 1990 he wrote in Volume II of The Origins of the Korean War, published by Princeton University Press:

“Other evidence demonstrated active American involvement in attempting to suppress the rebellion: daily tutoring of counterinsurgent forces, interrogating prisoners, and using American spotter planes to ferret out guerrillas. One newspaper reported that American troops interceded in the Cheju conflict at least one instance in late April [1948], and a group of Korean journalists charged in June that Japanese officers and soldiers had secretly been brought back to the island to help in suppressing the rebellion.”

The last assertion is shocking indeed. Allegedly these “Japanese officers and soldiers” were World War Two veterans who were recruited as mercenaries, either by the U.S. occupation forces or the South Korean government. Ex-Japanese servicemen also served as mercenaries in Indochina and Indonesia after the war. If these Japanese troops were actually offered by the Tokyo government at the time (which seems unlikely), it would have represented an obvious violation of Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution, which after World War Two forbid Japan from engaging in any sort of military activities.

”

- Wolcott Wheeler

A little research after a mention of Jeju (or Cheju, in the old Korean roman script) by Bruce Sterling, touting the island as a new Hong Kong.

joelaz: San Francisco Earthquake Susceptibility Map Areas most...

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:10:44 -0700

joelaz:

San Francisco Earthquake Susceptibility Map

Areas most susceptible to liquefaction, where earthquake waves cause sediment and grains of sand to loose their strength and behave like a liquid (via USGS).

I guess I had better move up to Potrero Hill.

iodized: Timex disposable fingernail watch concept. Link.

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:08:56 -0700

iodized:

Timex disposable fingernail watch concept. Link.

Jah Wobble / Bill Laswell - RadioAxiom: A Sacred Dub...

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:26:57 -0700

Jah Wobble / Bill Laswell - RadioAxiom: A Sacred Dub Transmission

Laswell has recorded over 200 albums.

susannawolff: Here’s a dumb-sounding complaint, but really, if...

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:15:32 -0700

susannawolff:

Here’s a dumb-sounding complaint, but really, if you’re not going to write them correctly, you just shouldn’t use Roman numerals at all.

[via fred-wilson] Here’s my tumbltape

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 10:04:34 -0700

[via fred-wilson]

Here’s my tumbltape

ARTIST: Travis Lampe TITLE: Misery on XB9-42 SIZE: 11-3/4 inches...

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 09:42:24 -0700

ARTIST: Travis Lampe
TITLE: Misery on XB9-42
SIZE: 11-3/4 inches x 11-3/4 inches
MEDIUM: Acrylic on Wood
PRICE: $850
(To appear in BLAB! #19)Image 1 of 8

http://www.blabshow.com/