Cerebral Event Horizon

Is nothing sacred?

From the Sun:

Confirmed: Breast Implants Make Women Safer

Frim the Register:

A Bulgarian woman driver escaped relatively unscathed from a head-on pile-up with another vehicle when her 40DD breast implants absorbed most of the impact, Ananova reports.

Elena Marinova, 24, of Sofia, pranged her motor in the northern city of Ruse. Both cars were written off and the other driver seriously injured, local paper Standart reported.

A police expert explained: "[The implants] worked just like airbags - protecting the victim's ribs and vital organs from damage." He did, however, add: "They are not as safe as the real thing because they exploded, which airbags are not supposed to do."

Sweetie pie...don't be angry.  They're just 40DD implants--give em a try eh?  Come on...it's not that I don't think your breasts are big enough...I'm just concerned about your safety...that's all!

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Happy Birthday PRC!

Yes that's right...it's the big 57 for the People's Republic!  We wish you ten thousand glorious years, which is incidentally a turtle's life expectancy accoring to Chinese legend.  Failing that, one thousand years wouldn't be too shabby either (a tortoise's life expectancy...and the number Hitler wished upon his third reich).

Cello Rock

Ken Oak Band has just released it's new album, Vienna to Venice.  An autographed copy can be had for 15 bucks including shipping.  Now that's a bargain for an album that's packed with great songs.  Far from the synthesized and overly edited garbage you expect out of most groups, KOB presents a refreshingly unique approach to that old time rock and roll.  The mellow tones of Ken's cello provide an interesting and soothing contrast to the relatively contemporary acoustic guitar (Ed Gorski).  Their site also features a player where you can listen to all the songs from their first album, Symposium (also a great purchase!).

Ken Oak at the Santa Monica 3rd St Promenade, where I first saw them performing several months ago while waiting for our table at Monsoon Cafe.

It's getting hot in herrr...

Mother Nature: I am...getting so hot...I wanna break my ice floes off

BBC says the world is the hottest it's been in 12,000 years.  I would have to agree.  993 BC was a SCORCHER!  Man, if you had been around, your triceratops would have melted.  Me, I was still recovering from that rager back in 10000.  Only a decamillenium til the birth of baby black jesus!

You know what this means, of course...every 10000 years before God comes around he heats things up.  You know, give y'all mortals a taste of hell.  Ahh...12006...redemption at last!

and so it begins

So Friday was my first day of "real" work.  I got my assignment: document review for a quarter billion dollar loan agreement.  Billed: 3.5 hours x $180/hour for correcting minor typos in a 80 page document that could really have only been 30 pages.  The good news is I only dozed off twice...and only momentarily each time.

Dear Satan, you know that soul I sold you a while back?  Yeah...well can I get that back?  Thanks.

back from the future

Wow, it's been a while.  It's strange how you can get so caught up with one part of your life that all else seems to disappear.  In any case, the 7 preceeding months have been very busy for me.  Here's the quick version:

published my law rev article
secured post-graduation employment in NYC
graduated (nyah nyah)
moved to LA for bar prep
took the bar in NY
took a cruise around the baltic
visited friends in WA and CA
moved to NYC
flew to Chicago for orientation
9/22/06: first day of work

I hope I'm back for good.

google hits a bump

Just got back in town Monday after 5 days in NYC.  DAMN it was cold.

Anyways, CNet reports that Perfect 10 has succeeded in getting a preliminary injunction against Google for showing via its image search thumbnail images of hot-ass naked chicks allegedly purloined off of P10's website.  The distinction between this case and Kelly v. Arriba Soft seems to be that P10 derives revenue from the thumbnail sized images, while the plaintiff in Kelly did not.  This seems like a  logical, but dangerous distinction.  Granting of an economic monopoly is not the sole aim of copyright law--indeed it is merely a means.  I don't know if Google's usage will be more detrimental to promoting "the useful arts" (like porn) as Ditto's in Kelly.  However, there must be I hope there's more to it than that, as it's a 48 page opinion.  Once I take care of some stuff, I'll take a closer look.

If you don't heed the words of elders, your suffering lies before you

不听老人言, 吃亏在眼前.  A new hubbub is brewing in Beijing, with a rare public criticism of governmental policy by retired government officials and academics.  The Guardian's Johnathan Watts reports that a group of 13 old, formerly influential codgers have published a joint open letter to the Chinese government condemning its decision to shut down the (relatively) liberal Freezing Point, a weekly publication which formerly appeared in the China Youth Daily.  For more background on the Freezing Point incident, check out ESWN.  In any event, the geezers

called on the government to publish China's murky media laws, to "demolish every method of news censorship", and to protect the professional rights of the media. "Depriving the public of freedom of expression is bound to give rise to confrontation among the masses and lead to turbulence...

So, what will happen to these 老不死的?  Probably nothing--these seditious septugenarians are really too old to send to prison, and if the government locks em up, it'll basically be shooting itself in the foot--at a critical time where the world's eyes are upon it (the terrorism distraction notwithstanding).  On the other hand, if the government does nothing, it runs the risk of opening the floodgates of dissent, at least by bitter geriatrics who are bored of playing chinese chess all day.  What's a totalitarian dictatorship to do?

Well in any event, I hope this incident will highlight a truth which is largely unknown by the non-Chinese speaking world: the communist party is not a monolithic entity which is free from dissent.  Although generally dissent is not leaked to the public, the party is divided into many factions, each with differing thoughts on a great number of issues.  I hope (but doubt) this will help bridge the perception/reality gap that exists in the West.

P.S. my insolent language is not meant to disparage old people in any way...I recently watched Happy Gilmore and the nursing home imagery is still in my head.

A Blind Cat Stumbles Upon a Dead Rat

Well now, NVR blogged about the chaos which followed the end of China's Spring Festival holiday--imagine hundreds of millions of Chinese people trying to get from point A (familial home) to point B (where they work) in various parts of country all within the same day.

Makes Thanksgiving in the US seem boring in comparison.  Anyhow, the story is that the traffic was really bad, and a wedding motorcade came to a halt after the groom's car ran over some poor sob.  Originally thought to be a jaywalker by the press, it later turns out that it was a member of the wedding party!  Needless to say, the groom lost it and the wedding became the most memorable day of his life...for the wrong reason.

Tragedy aside, this post is also interesting for another reason.  Kaiser Kuo, DUDE IT'S THE KAISER KUO, posted a comment on it!  For you poor uncultured beasts that don't know who Kaiser is, he's a founding member of the band Tang Dyansty, one of China's greatest Chinese rock groups.  Kaiser has a very interesting background, and is now Red Herring's China Bureau Chief.  He wrote an widely-cited piece about half a year ago on the ever-hot topic: China's net censorship.  It's sad that Tang Dynasty is no more, as their original album is one of my favorites of all time (Chinese or otherwise).  The 1999 followup has several decent songs as well, but is hard to find now (I misplaced my copy and I'm kicking myself for not backing it up).  See here for a good musical introduction to Tang Dynasty.  I'm delighted that towards the end of it, they play a excerpt from "Your Vision" which contains one of the most beautiful metal instrumentals ever.

Incidentally, and I must say ironically, another great metal band, Guns n' Roses is releasing their first album in 13 years entitled "Chinese Democracy."  Think it'll never happen?  Think again...but not too hard.