The Vault of Mystery

Friday, May 06, 2011

Joan Crawford is Coming For You

Friday Morning EDT/

Friday Evening Japan Time

I'm Melting! I'm Melting! Update

With the Assistance of Joan Crawford

"Don't fuck with me, fellas. This cowgirl has been to the rodeo before."

Superb photographs of Fukushima Daiichi can be found here. At the Cryptome website where you can find photographs and documents of all kinds on the nuclear industry in this world. The first link brings you inside Fukushima Daiichi 1 for the first time since the earthquake.

"I love playing bitches. There's a lot of bitch in every woman - a lot in every man."

CNN reports Prime Minister Kan wants to shut down the Hamaoka nuclear plant with three reactors in Omaezaki until earthquake and tsunami protections can be built. Authorities are very concerned about the high risk of earthquake at the site. Perhaps the concern would have been more appropriate when plans for construction were brought before authorities.

"The primary reason for this request is in the interest of the safety and security of the people of Japan," Kan said. "We came to this conclusion because of the grave impact on Japan's people that could be incurred as a result of a serious accident at Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant."

"During 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?', I knitted a scarf from Hollywood to Malibu."

It is now, as reported in Discovery Magazine, believed that the early African hominid Paranthropus boisei used his huge flat dentition to eat grasses rather than nuts as previously believed. Scientists cleverly pulverized the enamel of twenty two of the primates who lived 1.4 to 1.9 million years ago to determine carbon signatures of the foods consumed. The various carbon isotopes matched up with a grass and sedge diet rather than the nut diet. It sounds like an evolutionary dead end to me. Primates competing with grazing animals for grass sounds like a losing proposition. Primates had no chance until they picked up weapons and fed on the grazers, which is a much more efficient way to get nutrition from grass. Oxygen isotopes in the samples revealed the climate was “semi-arid savannah with woodlands along rivers or lakes.”

"I was born in front of a camera and really don't know anything else."

Fans of CSI will be interested in this article about forensic anthropologist Doctor Bill Bass. Bill has run a "body farm" since 1971 for the University of Tennessee where dozens of corpses of different sexes and age are scattered in various states of decay under different circumstances, such as bagged and buried or left in the open air. It is a sort of pilgrimage site for the Gil Grissoms of the world. From the article:

Law enforcement is asking two questions when bring you a body. First is: who is it? And second is: how long have they been there?" said Bass.
The corpses are placed in all sorts of positions and conditions to duplicate crimes. They're buried in mud, locked in trunks, submerged in water. They're even hanging from trees.
"Because you think about how people dispose of bodies. You wrap 'em. Wrap'em in plastic or you have trash cans," said Rebecca Taylor, assistant coordinator of the Body Farm........

"I cannot abide the odor in the body farm," said Carol Bass. "It takes you three days to get it out of your nose, it really does. I don't care what anybody says."

Highly recommended. And what Carol says about the smell of a corpse is absolutely spot on. When I was a young man living in Dorchester there was a horrendous smell coming from under a porch I had to pass on the way to the Savin Hill Station. The next day it was said that they pulled out the decomposed body of a Whitey Bulger associate.

"I, Joan Crawford, I believe in the dollar. Everything I earn, I spend."

Meanwhile, politicians are resuming meeting about the "budget crisis" and all are just so ready to work together to resolve it. From a PBS talking head show yesterday:

REP. JOHN BOEHNER [Majority Leader Of the United States Congress, in a clip] R-Ohio: When it comes to increasing the debt limit and the need to have reductions in spending nothing is off the table except raising taxes.

LORI MONTGOMERY [The Washington Post] : I don't think they are. I think what they're saying is, we recognize that Democrats have pledged to protect these programs. We believe that these are the largest drivers of future deficits -- and they're absolutely right about that -- however, we also recognize that we need to reach an agreement to pass this debt ceiling pretty quickly. Therefore, instead of arguing forever about health care and taxes, like we always do, why don't we start looking for some common ground and start from there?

LORI MONTGOMERY: That's an excellent question, and I wish I could answer it fully.
They say that they're still plowing ahead. Sen. Tom Coburn, who is a member of the gang of six, had to suddenly go home because of a family emergency. So they aren't meeting right now. But they say they're going to return to the table when they get back next week.
And I think the problem they're facing at this point is, you know, these are three very conservative Republicans who desperately believe in this goal. But the package that they're looking at would involve a tax reform proposal that raises additional revenue but it leaves to the committees to decide how that will happen. And I think they're having a very difficult time signing off on something where they can't control the particulars.

Republicans think they can balance the budget without raising taxes. No one ever mentions the defense budget. Medicare and Social Security are always on the table for these people. They are hallucinating that they even have a chance to balance their imaginary dollars. The central bank (Federal Reserve) will not let them. Debt is too profitable.

"Nobody can imitate me. You can always see impersonations of Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. But not me. Because I've always drawn on myself only."

Fox News actually used a President Obama impersonator to debate Ron Paul on the John Stossel Show. The amazing thing is that Paul went along with the farce.

"Recently I heard a 'wise guy' story that I had a party at my home for twenty-five men. It's an interesting story, but I don't know twenty-five men I'd want to invite to a party."