two doors down

Two Doors Down (from Today's Megatokyo)
(Note the awning in the far right of the splash image;
compare to the awning on the left of this photo.)
I have pics of the actual Animate as well - I earned Gainax points there - but it's in video form so large and annoying to post. Also, I think we stayed in the building behind Piro in the last panel, but I'm not 100% sure. (It's either the hotel or another of the Sunshine City towers; from the angle I'd think it's the hotel, but it looks more like one of the other towers.) We walked up and down those stairs around where he's sitting several times; they have special troughs built in to the tiling for water runoff during typhoon season. To get to Namjatown from where Piro's sitting, you go in the entrance at the bottom of those stairs, turn left, and walk to the end of the shopping block, past the cluster of restaurants on the right. You can't miss it.

ETA: I took this photo from in front of the small park you can see in Google Maps view. The triangular shaped building in the wedge-shaped block across the street is the Animate in question.

torture states love deciding who isn't a person today

Warrantless wiretapping will extend to email, web browsing, file transfer - basically, they aren't going to even be pretending there's a 4th Amendment anymore. But that goes along with everything else - torture, extraordinary rendition, "disappearances," elimination of habeas corpus, the "unitary executive," executive rewriting of legislation via so-called "signing statements," and all the other kinds of crap I used to write other countries complaining about on behalf of Amnesty International. I'd ask how the hell we became one of those countries, but why? I already know. I should, I've been fighting it my whole life.

And hey, while I'm still digesting the full legal opinion - I was planning on posting about it, but I don't know whether I'll bother - you should know that pending appeal to the Supreme Court, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Gitmo prisoners aren't even - for legal purposes - persons. That includes the ones eventually let go because even the military admits they weren't terrorists at all. That's real important because the bill doesn't say they aren't persons; the court just made that up themselves. For bonus points, torture is a "foreseeable consequence" of any military detention and somehow there's no way you as a member of the armed forces or other government branch could know it might be illegal, so the "we were just following orders" defense is not just back, but affirmed in Federal court, baby! Champaign for everyone! At least, everyone in the government.

So hey, Americans, don't think you have a Constitution, or a government with limited powers, because you don't. That's over. A Constitution the government doesn't even pretend to follow isn't a Constitution at all, and you aren't citizens, and this isn't a Republic. You can still flap your pie hole all you want - it's not like they need to care about that - and it's still reasonably democratic in theory.¹ But unlike a lot of parliamentary systems, the system isn't architected for this kind of game, so don't expect the "goddamn piece of paper" to provide a lot of resistance if someone decides to take a swing at that part sometime down the road from now. Really, though, they won't - there's no need. Why do that, when things are working so well now? They do whatever the hell they want and the New Court at Versailles dances merrily along, at least, until it can't.

Me? I'm sick to death of it. I'll still be keeping an eye on things and throwing up occasional notices of the latest travesty of justice, but frankly, the noise merchants have managed to convince most of the people who vote that nothing will ever happen to them, so why should they care? Trust The Government, By Which We Mean the President, And We'll Keep You Safe. The pathetic cowards who buy into that deserve what they get - I'm just bitter about those of us who get dragged along against our wills. And for most of the the rest of the active voters, politics has devolved to petty tribalism, so I'm not going to look for much there. The independent activists - well, the government has learned (partly as a response to Vietnam) that for the most part, we can be safely ignored.

So when you go out, don't forget your internal passport, "citizen" - or, if you prefer, your state-themed national ID Card, now available in a wide array of security measures and decorator colours. Enjoy.

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¹ and PS: ("Don't blame me - I voted for Kodos!")

Why bother? Nobody pays attention to it anyway.

Oh man, I can't pass this one up - Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Republican Frontrunner:

Huckabee: Amend Constitution to be in 'God's standards'
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday January 15, 2008
Raw Story

The United States Constitution never uses the word "God" or makes mention of any religion, drawing its sole authority from "We the People." However, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee thinks it's time to put an end to that.

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

[Meanwhile, all the hosts at MSNBC could come up with is the tepid...]

Scarborough finally suggested that while he believes "evangelicals should be able to talk politics ... some might find that statement very troubling, that we're going to change the Constitution to be in line with the Bible. And that's all I'm going to say."

[More at link]

ETA: There's some limited context from First Read, here. In particular, he's talking about amendments mandating discrimination against same-sex relationships (and, by the very nature of such things, removing queers from equal protection law) and to eliminate recognition of abortion rights, which would - by the nature of the way they do these things - would almost certainly strike against most forms of contraception as well.

My flutes, they have covers

I've only had one sleeve for any of my flutes, and it was wearing out - aside from just being dirty and very old, it had worn through in one spot. Time to make some!


Slipcases

The rose pattern on the smaller sleeve is a fabric ribbon, premade, stitched to the dark green cloth that's the colour of rose leaves, and which I got from an old, torn shirt. I thought it was fitting as colour and, also, as materials reuse. It's a nice fabric. There's a drawstring on the top of the case; I should find a bead to use as a friction tie. I'm also curious about how the ribbon will hold up to this kind of use; I have doubts about the durability of the metallic thread.

The longer cover (for a longer flute) uses the same fabric and same basic sleeve construction, but without the fabric ribbon. Instead, it has a a minimalist line of decorative stitching which is intentionally reminiscent of a sound wave. When I get better at using the sewing machine, I'll try one with more variance in the stitching, to see how that works (and to make it more realistic). But for now, I like the minimalism.


Decorative stitching, detail

And now my two smaller regularly-played flutes have new sleeves. I want to make a few more sleeves, and later, I want to make a bag that can hold several flutes.