The Minnesota Supreme Court has ordered that Al Franken be certified as the winner of the November Senate race. Can we move on now? Minnesota has its Senator, right? Surely Norm Coleman and the Republican party aren't going to deny the state its senator any longer by taking this to the final stage, being the Supreme Court when already every stage of the way everyone has said that Franken won, even their Governor said ok if the courts say certify then I will and hey okay I guess yeah we need a senator already. Man imagine if we could have done this with FL. Seriously, it's almost the 4th of July holiday... November... 4th of July... no one seated in that seat. Tons of votes, major ones. Minnesota DESERVES to have this settled.
*edit* sorry technically they didn't order he be certified, they just declared he's won and said he's entitled to be certified. Since the Governor has said he'd do it if the courts ordered him to, I suppose since it's not actually an ORDER I guess the Republican party can say welllll it's not an order...
*edit 2* Coleman says he will "abide by" the ruling. So congrats to Franken, MN finally DOES have a second Senator -- well after they can swear him in.
What's your favorite Michael Jackson song? Bonus points if you share the video.
Since they'd disabled embedding on the official video, I decided not to search for the another copy of the actual video but instead I searched for the famous performance of the song... And while we're still on the topic of MJ, his daddy dearest needs to stay out of the out of the public spotlight. He makes me want to throw things at my tv. No wonder why his son ended up such a mess. Hi, my son is dead, but hey who wants to talk about that, big deal who cares about that when I got me a record company to pimp, don't you guys wanna talk about that instead? Asshole. I hope the kids are kept away from that man.
January 5th, I'm suuuure you'll all remember that we took Lister to the vet and he had to stay overnight because he had serious tummy probs which required three enemas. Today they didn't even have to do x-rays before deciding he had to stay overnight to have enemas done again. We took him again because Brian noticed his tummy twitching again, then while he was outside with us he made sounds like he wanted to throw up (not unusual for a cat), but then when he got inside Brian felt his tummy and he kind of growled (unusual). So when they felt his tummy at the clinic, even without x-rays done yet, they could tell he was FULL -- all of the way full, not just a little like some kitties get when they feel sick but totally full.
They think he has a tummy disorder which can be common but uncomfortable (obviously) and he'll now likely have to be on canned food only along with daily meds. The only other possibilities are things like tumors which could maybe show up on the x-rays but like humans the only way to know for sure if full workups like with scopes, etc. And isn't likely needed so far as they think it's the tummy disorder so meds first. Also if it is the tummy disorder and if meds don't work there is a surgery to be considered lately but so far it sounds like even if meds and canned food doesn't work, Brian can stop blaming himself, some kitties just have tummies that don't want to work right and Lister could be one.
For now though, tonight they're keeping him and getting him cleared out... again. I'm not sure but I think he actually hates the car ride more than the vet. At the vet's office he just looked confused, like huh where am I? He's such a nice kitty he was fine with them carrying him around even while in pain. I told Brian it was lucky for them that it was Lister and not Dutchie (who we were gonna go get fixed during Brian's week off but now it can wait -- she's never gotten outside and she hates all people and animals except for lister so getting her fixed is just so we don't have to listen to her). Dutchie gets really mad when Lister gets home from the vet smelling like other animals, she hisses at him for weeks.
Oh, this clinic is good, bit expensive but is open 24/7 so people are around him always.
Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail. So a life sentence for ripping people off for $65 million. Good. Of course there's people who rape, etc that don't get sentenced that harshly and ruin lives just the same. Hence I shall never get our justice system no matter how fascinating I find it. Not one person submitted a letter on behalf of Madoff for his sentencing, not even family. I suppose if I were his family I'd not want to write a letter saying what a great guy he is either.
Clearly I didn't buy it...
[Me] ooh and while everyone was busy covering MJ. they missed this gem
[Me] GHADIRI (through interpreter): We say that the bullet that was found in her head was not a bullet that you could find in Iran.
These are the bullets that the CIA and terrorist groups use. Of course they warned that there would be a bloodshed in these demonstrations and then they could attribute that to the Islamic Republic. This is part of a common act of CIA in various countries.
[Me] the CIA killed that girl Neda in Iran!
[Mijn Favoriet] hm
[Mijn Favoriet] doesn't even sound too far-fetched!
[Me] they said that on CNN. I think they need to keep that stuff on Iranian tv
[Me] American TV we just go un huh suuuuure
[Me] the Iranian govt can't get bullets, we probably sold them to them at some point knowing us
[Mijn Favoriet] haha yeah
I saw this interview live, I'd link you to YouTube video, but somehow no one noticed this as it's not there. It's barely in Google news. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/06/neda-cia-cnn-killing.html
I looked it up, I first mentioned the Jena 6 in 2007. And here we are in 2009.
Their case has now ended with no contest pleas and reasonable sentences. It's about friggin time.
When Twitter trends collide. No, really. I saw people complaining that OMG MJ is beating #iranelection, what is wrong with the world. Others, from Iran seemed to be saying they didn't mind as they were still there and they liked MJ's music too and were fighting to be free enough to talk about anything they wanted, yes, even MJ so they weren't bothered if others talk about MJ instead of them for a bit. Well someone figured out how to blend the two in a way I'd never have imagined.
*Warning* May be too graphic for you if you've not been following the pics / videos from Iran and/or just watch the US blurred versions on tv.
And
Is anyone surprised? From this LA Times story:
"This is simply unprecedented," said Bill Carr, vice president of music and video at Amazon.com Inc., which sold out of Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 CDs minutes after news broke that the pop star had died Thursday. "We've seen the death of Johnny Cash and Frank Sinatra and many other artists, but none of them compare to what we're witnessing today."
As of Friday afternoon, Jackson-related DVDs filled the top seven spots in Amazon's "Bestsellers in Movies & TV" list and Jackson albums accounted for all 10 of the "Bestsellers in Music" list, with the 25th-anniversary edition of "Thriller" taking the No. 1 spot, Carr said.
"In the last 24 hours, we've actually sold more Michael Jackson albums in our MP3 and CD stores than we have in the 11 years since the launch of our music business," he said.
And they aren't kidding, the charts on Amazon are all MJ. Then again, I've been rediscovering how cool some of his videos were. And Brian suggested I go look up Captain Eo to see if I remember it from Disneyland, I told him it sounded familiar. Oh my, Keegan would love that.
So as I slept during the day both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died. Farrah was not a surprise. This morning they were talking about how she'd taken a turn for the worse and it was minute by minute. RIP to her, her special about her battle with cancer at least inspired people to fight their own battles.
Michael Jackson though, that one surprised the hell out of me. Most recently he's of course known for that trial, which put my hometown on the map for a brief moment. He dangled his baby out a window. He was clearly... off. And yet, before all of the crazy wtf??? stuff I also remember that his Thriller record (yes vinyl) was the first one my sister owned, when she was oh 3 or 4? and she walked around in a too big Michael Jackson shirt with MJ buttons, singing those songs telling us she'd marry him when she grew up. Shhh don't tell her I'm posting this she'll kill me.
And there's his videos. He made awesome videos back when MTV was still a channel for videos that is. He was a mess and brilliant both. RIP to him.
And now he's gone and has left behind kids which is really what should be the big concern now, especially since there is a lot of talk about drugs and "handlers" and enabling.
Also reports that people are leaving flowers / tributes at the wrong MJ star on the walk of fame. His is covered by a red carpet for the Brüno premiere.
Between it and my art site, I think I've got every major country covered (when you factor in the misc and unknowns of course). Though my art one is even more popular in the US percentage wise:
