interesting knife holder in a trendy shop

Sigmund Freud Park

Very cool city-run rent-a-bike stand

seen on the way to the MuseumPlatz

Karlsplatz subway stop and cafe

From the 925 Rally Coalition:

Join us to raise your voice of conscience against religious appeasers of tyrant Ahmadinejad!

On Thursday, Sept 25, at 6pm in New York City at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, The American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, Quaker UN Office, Religions for Peace, and the World Council of Churches-UN Liaison Office will be honoring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at an Iftar (dinner to break the day’s Ramadan fast). Other organizations, political leaders and media have also been invited. Read the Text of the Invitation.

These religious leaders are about to betray their brethren across all religions, parties, and countries by honoring the tyrannical regime of Ahmadinejad and the Iranian mullahs of this terrorist state.

At the same time, Women United, the Jewish Action Alliance, Stand With Us, Center for Security Policy, the Catholic League, the The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Alliance of Iranian Women and over 30 organizations of all faiths and political affiliations will hold an interfaith rally to counter this betrayal of principles, to protest Ahmadinejad’s presence at the United Nations, and to oppose Iran’s nuclear weapons program and outrageous threats against the USA and America’s ally, Israel. See the full list of participating organizations HERE , updated daily. UPDATE - RAIN OR SHINE, THE RALLY WILL GO ON! WEATHER REPORTS DAILY ON THIS PAGE

more photos here...

..and here's a first attempt to download a video onto flickr and embed it on a web page.

A New York minute at Grand Central Station (warning - this is very loud)

Photos from Vienna's Palmenhaus

My report from an August visit to Beirut is up at Pajamas Media: Two Visits to a Fast-Changing Lebanon

...Hezbollah’s effort to take over Lebanon is often portrayed as a religious quest, but at the [2006] rally, in the tent city and in the crowd, I saw few signs of religious devotion. I saw a lot of evidence that Hezbollah’s “civil disobedience” was politically opportunistic extortion. With their ability to gain allies, with their weapons and their support from Syria and Iran, Hezbollah and friends were demanding that the rest of Lebanon give in to their demands or risk civil war, basically saying, “Nice country you’ve got; wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.”

The first time I visited Beirut, it was as a blogger and a photographer, documenting a city in the midst of an attempted putsch. When I revisited the city this August, it was as a tourist, visiting friends.

Unfortunately, many of the Lebanese bloggers I knew had left Beirut. Most people were leaving for better economic opportunities in the Gulf, Europe, or America. For those who stayed in Lebanon, goodbye parties were frequent, almost weekly social gatherings...

more..

IT WASN'T AN INCEST SKETCH!

- How many partisan bloggers does it take to screw in a lightbulb in the weeks before an election?

The proof that the SNL sketch was making fun of NYT reporters and not of Palin is that this is apparently the only political SNL sketch unavailable online...

Hmm..did NBC pull the video because of complaints from the right or because of legal action from the NYT?

Millions spend half of income on housing

Ray, 44, is looking for work and renting out a room in his two-bedroom condo in Davie, Fla., for $500, but his monthly income doesn't match his expenses and he's facing foreclosure.

"I barely have money to survive," he said.

Ray is one of more than 7.5 million people — almost 15 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage — who are spending half of their income or more on housing costs, according to 2007 data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. That is up from nearly 7.1 million the year before.

Traditionally, the government and most lenders consider a homeowner spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing costs to be financially burdened. But that definition now covers almost 38 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage — 19 million of them.

Though home prices have fallen this year, in the most expensive markets where home prices tripled during the boom, many working families still cannot afford to buy a home.

"We had a bubble," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. "This is a case where we absolutely want the market to adjust."

During the dot-com era, people were willing to invest millions of dollars on businesses that had no hope of ever showing a profit. Sure, you could 'flip' them, but everyone knew that businesses based on no profit plus 'flipping' would peak, then fall. A lot of people ignored that fact, and they lost a lot of money.

However, the government didn't finance the dot-com bubble and the majority of the population wasn't using dot coms to provide warmth and shelter. This housing crisis will move slower and it will be much larger. The dot com bust was like a tornado. The housing crisis will be more like Katrina.

Bankers were willing to lend money to just about anyone because house prices were going up. As long as house prices kept going up, the mortgage system thrived.

However, anyone who thought about this situation would have to realize that housing prices could not continue to rise indefinitely. There had to be a certain point when real estate prices would peak, then fall. This isn't rocket science, it's basic physics - economics - life.

But no one thought about it. Bankers, financial experts, stock brokers are educated people. But they didn't think about where they were going or what they were doing. They didn't think outside of their little box. Why should they, when the box had such a nice view and the $300-per-bottle vodka was so smooth?

We have to wonder why educated people don't think. Why do they base their actions and their fortunes on a obviously bad idea?

And what will the next bad idea be?

Here's the SNL video of the NY Times parody, thanks to Allah at Hot Air who says:

Think of it as a comic rendering of Saturday night’s quotes of the day. Pretty funny — you’ll laugh, more than once — but not as gratifying as it would have been if they’d zeroed in on the smearmongering.

UPDATE: Sorry, the skit has been removed. According to YouTube, it's no longer available due to a copyright claim by NBC Universal

Partisan bloggers say: "That's not funny. It is utter filth"

At the Power Line News Forum, IronDioPriest says:

OK. This is it. I HATE the Left. The Left is showing itself to be the embodiment of evil on this earth. Satan’s playthings. All you liberals can kiss my a$$. Your protestations mean absolutely nothing to me. You are all one and the same in my mind now. You are all my enemies, and you will all rot in the same hell.

Freedom Eden says: Saturday Night Live went WAY over the line in a skit on the September 20 show.

They both seem to have read this World Net Daily article on the offending skit:

Palin family ‘incest’ joked about on NBC
‘Saturday Night Live’ skit suggests husband of VP candidate has sex with own daughters

A week after a high-profile send-up of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live,” the NBC comedy show returned to making fun of the Alaskan governor in a skit where New York Times reporters sought to probe the possibility Palin’s husband was having sex with the couple’s own daughters...

Okay, I'm totally opposed to the press invading people's private lives and/or making up stupid stories. I also think SNL has a lefty bias. But I saw the Saturday Night Live skit discussed at World Net Daily, and the skit was dead-on. The whole thing was a parody of how clueless and provincial NY Times writers can be.

I wish I could find the video (according to WND, the clip of the incest sketch was never posted online). The skit starts sets the mood with the with the best joke. The editor, played by Franco, announces that he’s taking his best investigative reporters off of their current assignments and putting them on the Palin beat.

One reporter raises his hand and says: “..but I’m working on a report about the current crisis at Lehman Brothers”

The editor says “…that’s not important, Lehman isn’t going anywhere.”

So, are we supposed to see this editor as a fact-based kind of guy? Of course not.

One female Times writer is infamous for making a fortune over bogus sexual harrassment suits. One Times writer weeps when he discovers that there is only one psychoanalyst in Alaska (he sees his NY-based analysts at least twice a day). None of the writers can drive, and one had irrational fears of polar bear attacks. Most abandoned the assignment when they heard that there were few taxis and no Thai takeout in Alaska. The Palin incest rumor was provided as another example of the Times' general cluelessness.

If the media had never spread rumors about incest within the Palin family, SNL could possibly deserve a lot of grief for making this grotesque suggestion. But the media did spread those lies, and SNL was obviously parodying them.

Get a grip, people.

Mickey Mouse must die, says Saudi Arabian cleric/diplomat Sheikh Muhammad Munajid:

The cleric, a former diplomat at the Saudi embassy in Washington DC, said that under Sharia, both household mice and their cartoon counterparts must be killed.

Mr Munajid was asked to give Islam's teaching on mice during a religious affairs programme broadcast on al-Majd TV, an Arab television network.

According to a translation prepared by the Middle East Media Research Institute, an American press monitoring service, he said: "The mouse is one of Satan's soldiers and is steered by him...

"Mickey Mouse has become an awesome character, even though according to Islamic law, Mickey Mouse should be killed in all cases."

Last month Mr Munajid condemned the Beijing Olympics as the "bikini Olympics", claiming that nothing made Satan happier than seeing females athletes dressed in skimpy outfits.

A former diplomat. There are the guys who our State Department depends on to:

1. be a moderating force in the Middle East

2. keep our economy running smoothly

3. help us in the war against terrorism

..and we wonder why everything is so screwed up?

"And there's no chance [he] was making a joke."

Yeah, I'd say it's a typical example of Saudi po-mo irony. Those guys just kill at the Laff Lounge.

I mean literally. The head of Saudi Arabian Supreme Judiciary Council Sheikh Salih A-Lahidan declared that evil TV [satellite channel owners] can be killed, saying "It is legitimate to kill those who encourage corruption in faith…if their evil cannot be stopped by other penalties,"

Hey, that's the same Saudi government official who, in 2005, told young Saudis to go to Iraq and become suicide bombers. You know, King Abdullah's best friend. What a kidder.

...and of course, they blame her.

What are the media thugs going to do next, mug her and blame her for walking down the wrong alley? Where are the police when we need them?

Just another reason why this newsreport from the Onion is so true.

UPDATE: Gawker describes their incompetent hacking efforts while also blaming Palin:

Did the internet just cause Sarah Palin to destroy evidence? The potential Veep is in a bit of trouble for conducting state business using her personal, unarchived email address (gov.sarah@yahoo.com) instead of her official account (which is, of course, subject to laws requiring the retention of government records). Emails from that Yahoo account are already being sought in connection with the Troopergate investigation. Now comes word that Anonymous, the fun-loving Internet trouble-makers based loosely around the message board 4Chan, gained access to another Palin email account: gov.palin@yahoo.com. It looks legit! The offending posts, screenshots, heretofore unseen family photos, and emails have all been deleted from Imageshack and 4Chan. But we have them. You want to read Sarah Palin's email?

Ok, sad thing first: a good Samaritan reset the password and tried to alert Sarah. But he also posted the new password, causing multiple people to try to log in at once, freezing the account for 24 hours. And now, the account has been deleted!

I may as well come out of the closet and admit that I'm a still-on-the-fence voter who thought that it was time to have a Democrat in the White House. I don't agree with the Dems on foreign policy, but foreign policy doesn't change when the President changes, it's just marketed in a different way. Foreign policy is run by the malign unelected gargoyles of the state department, and elections can't change that. I agree with Dems on most domestic issues.

I don't object to what the press did because they're picking on Palin, I object to what they did because I think that people who hack into other people's email are criminal scum.

This is just one of many illustrations of how the press has turned into a fairly powerful thugocracy. They crow about the fact that they're above the law. They aren't guardians of our freedom, they're not the voice of the people. They haven't been for years.

If you woke up one morning to find 10 newsvans parked in front of your house and a swarm of reporters banging on your front door, would you feel:

1) apprehension and dread, as if you were about to be attacked by a many-tentacled monster

2) overjoyed that the unbiased guardians of freedom were blessing you with their attention

Most people would probably choose 1). According to a Gallup poll, most people think the media is less trustworthy than used car salesman.

I wonder what the results would have been if hackers and purse snatchers were included on the list of professions.

Jane Novak reports in the Long War Journal

Yemeni security forces repelled a complex attack on the US embassy in the capital of Sana'a. More than sixteen were killed after terrorists detonated multiple bombs then launched a ground attack in an attempt to breach the compound.

The attack begun after several bombs were detonated just outside the embassy. The terrorists then ambushed the first responders by using pre-positioned snipers. The terrorists were wearing uniforms of Yemeni security forces and driving what appeared to be police cars, which enabled them to get close to the heavily fortified compound.

..more

I've been seeing a lot of interesting articles lately about the mind-body equation. Here are a few:

Referred pain opens a research window for neuroscientists: Nerves Tangle, and Back Pain Becomes a Toothache (link thanks to Noam)

There is no mind-body dualism. "All mental processes, even the most complex psychological processes, derive from operations of the brain."

Where memory lives: The hippocampus.

Brainy Taxi drivers: Memorizing and applying extensive navigation experience can increase the size of the (adult) hippocampus

Fruit & juice stand at the Market of la Boqueria, Barcelona

More Barcelona pictures here..

..or maybe not

Alan Sullivan is blogging the latest financial news.

The worst thing anyone can do in any situation is to panic, but unfortunately, that's exactly what some might be doing. The financial markets need someone like Rudy Giuliani, who reacts to crisis by being the calmest person in the room. Hopefully, someone like that will step forward.

Find the 100% accurate answer here.

Judith just forwarded this transcript of Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin before ABC cherrypicked her quotes, editing out key parts of her responses.

Thanks to Newsbusters:

Next we see that Palin was not nearly as hostile towards Russia as was presented in the edited interview:

GIBSON: Let me ask you about some specific national security situations.

PALIN: Sure.

GIBSON: Let’s start, because we are near Russia, let’s start with Russia and Georgia.

The administration has said we’ve got to maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia. Do you believe the United States should try to restore Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia?

PALIN: First off, we’re going to continue good relations with Saakashvili there. I was able to speak with him the other day and giving him my commitment, as John McCain’s running mate, that we will be committed to Georgia. And we’ve got to keep an eye on Russia. For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable and we have to keep…

GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.

PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there. I think it was unfortunate. That manifestation that we saw with that invasion of Georgia shows us some steps backwards that Russia has recently taken away from the race toward a more democratic nation with democratic ideals. That’s why we have to keep an eye on Russia.

And, Charlie, you’re in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors.We need to have a good relationship with them. They’re very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they’re doing in Georgia?

PALIN: Well, I’m giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

We also see from Palin's following remark, which was also edited out, that she is far from some sort of latter day Cold Warrior which the edited interview made her seem to be:

We cannot repeat the Cold War. We are thankful that, under Reagan, we won the Cold War, without a shot fired, also. We’ve learned lessons from that in our relationship with Russia, previously the Soviet Union.

We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

Palin's extended remarks about defending our NATO allies were edited out to make it seem that she was ready to go to war with Russia.

Judith says: "The transcript shows a depth of manipulation and contempt for the public only rivaled by Dan Rather. I look forward to unedited video so we can see the whole interview as it took place, including body language. Did they really think no one was ever going to see the transcript and compare? " They are so stupid.

This is the media that never apologized for their actions in the Duke U. lacrosse 'rape' case. They thought Mookie al Sadr was a God among men. They made Brittany Spears' fans cry , and they gave us "A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila", "The Simple Life", "Wife Swap" and "Hurl!"

This is the media that we depend upon to help us to make important election decision that will influence events world wide and they're the ones who gave us "Jackass." They probably didn't think that anyone would look at the transcripts.

Tatyana has moved from Where the Grass is Greener to Creaky Pavillion.

Rosemary K. (formerly the Queen of all Evil) has moved to The Change.

I'm changing my blogroll..now!

Via Newsweek:

T. Boone Pickens can't read his lines. Squinting at his teleprompter, he is posing in front of a mile-long ribbon of wind turbines, churning against an endless Texas sky. Pickens is in Sweetwater, a town of 12,000 that bills itself as the nation's wind-energy capital, to shoot a commercial urging Americans to put themselves on a new energy diet: cutting out imported oil—which costs $700 billion a year—in favor of domestically produced sources such as wind and natural gas. "Our dependence on foreign oil means that we are buying from our enemies," he drawls into the camera, veering from the script. At this, the director walks onto the set, frowning his disapproval. "Don't want me to say 'enemies', huh?" Pickens deadpans as he drops his head in mock shame and scuffs his cowboy boot in the dirt. "How 'bout 'Some friends and a few a––holes?' That better?"

With that kind of blunt talk—and an estimated $3 billion fortune to back it up with action—Pickens, who last made headlines for funding the Swift Boat attack ads against John Kerry in 2004, has put himself back in the spotlight in time for the 2008 presidential election. It's an audacious act of rebranding: the flamboyant 80-year-old oilman and onetime corporate raider reborn as green wildcatter and the Web's first senior blog star. Since it was launched a month ago, www.pickensplan.com has cracked the top-1,000 list of most heavily trafficked sites worldwide, according to the Internet marketing firm Quantcast.

If you haven't yet heard of the Pickens Plan, then you've no doubt been on vacation: he has flooded TV and radio with thousands of ads urging viewers to log on to his Web site and demand that Washington overhaul the country's energy infrastructure. "The American people know something is wrong as far as energy is concerned," he tells NEWSWEEK. "They don't think they are being told the truth."

Just don't mistake Pickens for a tree-hugger...

[Speaking of Green places, I've received requests from Flickr viewers for more information about solar power in Israel after they saw this picture.]

Via Yahoo:

INSIDE HURRICANE IKE - Amid the engines' roar, the Air Force Reserve pilots and navigator worked calmly as their huge plane neared the eyewall of Hurricane Ike.

The gray cloud, looming 50,000 feet into the sky like a colossal concrete barrier was four miles thick, and the Lockheed WC-130J was hurtling into it.

"It's a big one, and it's going to get bigger," said Lt. Col. Mark Carter, 54, a pilot who has chased storms for 31 years. "It's off land now, and feeding on the warm water down there while it gets itself back together."

"Down there" is 10,000 feet below, where the swirling dark water and foaming waves of the Gulf of Mexico are only visible intermittently through the clouds.

Carter, and his fellow Hurricane Hunters of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, were finishing a fourth trip across Ike, during a 10-hour, 3,000-mile trek to monitor the storm taking aim at the Texas coast.

The aircraft carved a 210-mile giant "X" pattern through Ike and its eye, just off the western tip of Cuba.

"We're the only military aircraft that has permission to fly through Cuban airspace," said public information officer Maj. Chad Gibson. "We share the information we gather with them."

..more

The immediate reaction of most Americans to 9/11 showed me how important unity is, how essential it is to support the organizations that help people in need. Like many people, I tried to donate blood, I donated money and time to the red cross, and any and all fire departments and police organizations. Like most New Yorkers, I worshipped the FDNY for the sacrifices they made. I still do.

I also got more involved in politics, and I learned more about how our politicians deal with issues like terrorism, our oil supply and Islam. I started blogging, got a chance to talk to some people in the State Department and the CIA, visited the Middle East. I talked to people from all sorts of religions. (which I did before 9/11 too, we just didn't feel the need to identify ourselves by religion then. We all weren't as obsessed with the subject as we are now)

From these discussions, I learned that some of the most conservative Muslims can be the most pro-American people on earth (Kurdistan). I learned that the press has a tendency to be completely clueless about how powerful terrorists are (al Sadr). I learned that the CIA spends an awful lot of time wrangling our press. And I learned that our State Department puts the interests of Saudi Arabia before everything else. I also learned that, when we remember 9/11, dreams of justice against the people responsible for 9/11 will always remain just dreams.

Al Qaeda was always a Saudi operation, staffed, sponsored, financed and run mostly by Saudis. (although other Gulf Arabs, and the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood chips in). When, after 9/11, the US government researched the groups who had financed al Qaeda, they investigated Saudi banks, religious organizations and charities. In a poll taken immediately after 9/11, 95% of educated Saudis stated that they supported Bin Laden’s goals.

That's ninety-five percent.

How many Saudis have been sent to jail or even arrested for their involvement in the attacks? How many Princes from the Emirates have been arrested?

If our government, Republicans and Democrats, has anything to say about it, none. The Republicans criticize the democrats for supporting terrorism as Bush kisses King Abdullah at Crawford. The Democrats criticize the Republicans for their friendships with the Saudis while ignoring the millions of dollars that Sauds have donated to Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and others.

Both sides worry about illegal immigrants while ignoring the fact that most of the hijackers entered the country legally, through our state department’s "visa express" program. The state department is currently welcoming tens of thousands of Saudi students to study here. Most of the press calls the Saudis our allies in the war against terrorism.

The horror of 9/11 should have opened our eyes to the violence and to the military disasters that will result from allying with our enemies. But it didn’t. For whatever reasons, the people who carry out our foreign policy lack the ability to learn from their mistakes. Mourning is about all we can do.

Michael Totten's insightful and somewhat terrifying report, "From Baku to Russian-Occupied Georgia"

...I slowly paced back and forth while Goltz spoke jovially to the soldiers in their own language. The Russians joked and laughed with Goltz. They were very nearly the only people I saw in the entire country who laughed or smiled. The Georgians certainly had little to smile about. Honestly, though, the Russian soldiers didn't have much to smile about either, and I was slightly surprised to see it.

Whether it's true or not, I have no idea, but I heard from many Georgians that some Russian soldiers were furious when they came upon Georgian military bases and saw that their Georgian counterparts had superior food, clothing, and living conditions. I might be tempted to dismiss this as self-serving propaganda that makes the Georgians feel better, but Russian soldiers really are notoriously underpaid and underfed even inside their own country.

My sometimes traveling companion Sean LaFreniere visited Russia a few years ago, and he saw uniformed Russian soldiers begging for money and food on the streets. And he met a Russian woman who told him about the ordeal her younger brother endured in the army.

“[She] told me that her little brother had recently returned from his first few months of ‘boot camp’ in the Russian army,” he wrote. “When he arrived home for a holiday dinner, his family found him a broken shell. He had been physically, psychologically, and even sexually abused as part of his ‘training.’ His parents and siblings refused to let him return. They have been hiding him for months while trying to acquire papers to get him out of the country. Many Western newspapers have documented similar suffering by Russian soldiers. The BBC and the Guardian recently ran stories on one Private Sychev. He lost his legs and genitals to gangrene after ritualized abuse by the comrades in his unit. Other recruits are forced into pornography and prostitution to enrich their superior officers.”

I never heard any expression of hatred toward the people of Russia by Georgians. I didn’t even hear any complaints about, let alone hatred for, the Abkhaz or Ossetians in the breakaway regions. Georgians are, of course, unhappy with the Russian invasion, but they didn't seem to be making it personal. I heard much more serious denunciations of Armenians from Azeris every day in Azerbaijan than I heard even once from anybody in Georgia toward anyone. Azerbaijan’s anger toward Armenia is understandable, though a bit unhinged and over the top in some quarters, so the muted reaction toward Russians among Georgians surprised me...

...more

..a top video on Austrian MTV