The Purple Pinup Guru Platform

When purple things are pulsating on your mind, I'm the one whose clock you want to clean. Aiding is Sparky, the Astral Plane Zen Pup Dog from his mountain stronghold on the Northernmost Island of the Happy Ninja Island chain, this blog will also act as a journal to my wacky antics at an entertainment company and the progress of my self published comic book, The Deposit Man which only appears when I damn well feel like it. Real Soon Now.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Sparky: Friday's Brainy Beauty from Godzilla Final Wars

kikukawa3

Rei Kikukawa


Rei Kikukawa has penetrating eyes ...
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Rei Kikukawa (??? Kikukawa Rei), born on February 28, 1978, is a Japanese actress, model and television presenter. She was born in Urawa (now called Saitama), in Saitama Prefecture. Although she is well-known as an intellectual actress because she graduated from the prestigious University of Tokyo, she is poor at kanji, and does not know some things considered to be common knowledge. Her agency is Oscar Promotions. In addition to her public career, she has also volunteered for work with the UNHCR.
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External links

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Never know - she seems interesting enough for a followup - eh? - Sparks

Sparky: Why can't we be free of these evil greedheads addicted to power? And why can't people see that the GOP are horrible wannabe Machiavellians who have sold their grandmothers into sexual slavery for chump change?



Author of
The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli

The views expressed within The Prince may seem extreme; however, the text was written during a period of continuous conflict in Florence. Accordingly, Machiavelli's views were such that stability was paramount and the only government he believed could achieve this was a tyrannical one.

The views expressed in The Prince are often venerated as the methods an aspiring prince can use to gain power, and/or an existing prince can use to establish and maintain his reign. According to Machiavelli, moral principles must yield entirely to each unique circumstance’s requisites. Therefore, it is imperative that the Prince be willing to do anything necessary to maintain power; however, Machiavelli asserts strongly that above all, the Prince must not be hated.

The opening discourse of The Prince defines effective methods of governing in several types of principalities (for example, newly acquired vs. hereditary). Machiavelli tells the reader, assumed to be a member of the Florentine aristocracy, of the best ways to acquire, maintain, and protect a state. The methods described therein preach war and ruthlessness.

Next, Machiavelli explains the qualities the ideal prince should possess, modeled after Cesare Borgia. These are still cited in modern texts on leadership. The traits of an effective political leader are presented as:

  • a willingness to imitate the behavior of great men, e.g. those of Ancient Rome in particular, the book being written in the Renaissance
  • the ability to illustrate how government is necessary to the well-being of the populace, e.g. perhaps by demonstrating the consequences of yielding to mob rule by temporarily relaxing one's grip
  • a dedication to the art of war — if only for the state's actual survival
  • an understanding that apparent cruelties and vice may be essential to maintaining stability and power
  • prudence with respect to disbursement of one's own wealth
  • making efforts to appear religious to sway the "vulgar." Machiavelli extols King Ferdinand of Spain for using the cloak of religion to invade Italy numerous times — he praises the tactic yet hates the invasion of Italy by other monarchs.
  • the wisdom to seek advice and counsel only when it is needed

It seems that Machiavelli disregards the connection between ethics and politics, which disturbed many of his contemporaries. However, Machiavelli actually departs from the classical conception of virtue in altering the connection between ethics and politics by altering the conception of virtue for a prince. The prince should endeavor to be seen as compassionate, trustworthy, sympathetic, honest, and religious. But in reality, the duties of the Prince very rarely allow him to actually be compassionate or caring.


GOP candidates: Ryan likely to be convicted

“ ... State Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington went the farthest, saying he believed Ryan is probably guilty because U.S Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald would not have brought a case otherwise.

"I have faith he wouldn't waste the taxpayers' dollars nor his time in trial if he wasn't sure George Ryan is guilty," Brady said during an Associated Press election forum on the issues that have taken center stage in the days leading up to the March 21 Illinois primary.

Aurora businessman Jim Oberweis says Ryan likely will be convicted on some counts but not others.

He then tied it to larger issues of ethics in the state.

"I believe George Ryan, Rod Blagojevich and Judy Baar Topinka have all grown up in this Chicago political culture where they think an awful lot is OK that isn't OK," Oberweis said.

Businessman Ron Gidwitz declined to talk about Ryan's guilt or innocence because the case is likely headed to the jury this week, and he said it would be inappropriate for public figures to talk about the merits of the case. But Gidwitz did say there was an "appearance" of wrongdoing. ...

On trial for corruption

Starting in 2005, George Ryan (along with lobbyist friend Larry Warner) has been the focus of a high-profile case surrounding his alleged racketeering, fraud, and conspiracy charges.

The case has come into the national spotlight at times, such as when former Texas Senator and presidential candidate, Texan Phil Gramm, accused Ryan, who had endorsed his campaign for president, of being a "prostitute", taking cash in return for official endorsements. Ryan denied the charge.

Prostitution

Prostitution is the sale of sexual services for money or other kind of return, generally indiscriminately with many persons. A person selling sexual favors is a prostitute, a type of sex worker. Most prostitutes are women offering their services to men. Male customers of prostitutes are known as johns in the United States or punters in the United Kingdom.

So was Phil comparing himself to being a “John”?


Bah - this is more interesting to me —


Daisuke Enomoto will be the fourth space tourist at the ISS
Char Aznable, as appeared in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack

Char Aznable, as appeared in
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's
Counterattack

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Enomoto "Dice K" —
Former Livedoor Exec.

March 10, 2006
Japanese entrepreneur Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto, 34, is set to become the fourth private citizen in space. The Arlington, Virginia-based company "Space Adventures", which specializes in spaceflight-related travel, announced on March 7 that Enomoto was approved by the Russian space agency as a flight candidate.

Enomoto has now passed the physical examinations necessary to be cleared for training, finished the medical preparation, and signed the contract for the flight. His training with the Russian Federal Space Agency will include physical and aeronautical preparation as well as Russian language instruction.

Enomoto will be the first Japanese person to fly to the International Space Station (ISS). His trip, to take place in a Soyuz TMA-9 rocket, is scheduled for September, with a ticket price of US$20 million.

United States entrepreneur Gregory Olsen returned from the ISS in October 2005; previous space vacationers were American Dennis Tito in 2001 and South African Mark Shuttleworth in 2002.

Dice-K made international news when it was revealed that he intends to go into space wearing a Gundam costume of Char Aznable. Japanese pop culture holds Char Aznable in very much the same way western pop culture views science fiction icons Darth Vader and Mr. Spock. If one looks at popular Japanese culture as well, one can see the impact the Red Comet has made even outside of Gundam. For instance, one may note the characters of Ken Masters of the Street Fighter series and of Zero of the Mega Man seris of video games, both of whom are crimson clad blondes who play the role of the "second main character" or "rival" to the protagonist. Even going further, another example could be Seifer Almassy of Final Fantasy VIII. Although not clad in red, Seifer bears a resemblance to Char as he appears in Char's Counterattack and has a scar across his forehead to symbolize his eternal rivalry to the games' protagonist Squall Leonhart. In fact, the symbol of a "Red Rival" has become one of Japanese pop cultures' most widely used archetypes. Even suggestions of Char's influence can be traced to Armored Core, in which, the ace pilot Nine Ball is known to sport red, and is the genre's mancing identity. Char is truly an iconic character to the Japanese.

External links


Brokerage executive linked to Livedoor deals found dead


January 19, 2006
Note: Not JTB's President with the same name.

Hideaki Noguchi, 38, a close aide to Livedoor president Takafumi Horie was found bleeding in a hotel bed with cuts to his wrists on Wednesday in Naha, the capital of the southern prefecture of Okinawa. He was later confirmed dead and the police suspect that he committed suicide. Hideo Sawada, the president of HS Securities, told reporters in Tokyo that Noguchi's family had identified the body.

Noguchi was a board member at Japan M&A Management Co., a unit of H.S. Securities Co. The firm was raided by prosecutors earlier this week in connection with fraudulent practices at Livedoor, according to the Kyodo News agency. He was a graduate of Tokyo's Meiji University, and joined Livedoor in 2000. He had previously worked at Kokusai Securities Co. as an adviser in financing. Livedoor was publicly listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in April 2000. Noguchi then set up the investment unit Capitalista Co., which merged with HS Securities.

News of the suicide is being featured in the Japanese media in connection with what is being termed the "Livedoor Shock". The problems at Livedoor have led to the loss of a third of its $6.3-billion value in the stock market. Livedoor maintains that its own investigation reveal that it did not violate any securities laws.

Some view the affair as an outcome of the larger struggle between competing business cultures in Japan. Takafumi Horie is part of a new generation of Japanese entrepreneurs with little patience for the customs of a traditionally cautious business culture. Horie has shown an appetite for publicity through his internet blogs and appearances on TV shows while living a rock star lifestyle that includes private jets and actress girlfriends.

Horie is also credited with popularizing stock trading among individual investors. The practice of day trading is relatively new in Japan. The Nikkei index was up about 40% last year, its best performance since 1986.

Related Wikinews

Sources


We'll look at GODZILLA FINAL WARS' Rei Kikukawa when we return —
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- Sparks

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Jack Wild R.I.P.

Jack Wild (30 September 19521 March 2006) was a British actor, born in Royton, Oldham, England, who achieved fame for his roles in both stage and screen productions of the Lionel Bart musical Oliver!. For the latter performance (playing the Artful Dodger), he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 16, but the Oscar went to Jack Albertson for his performance in The Subject was Roses.
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It was at the premiere of the 1968 film version of Oliver! that he met brothers Sid and Marty Krofft, who thought Wild would make a good lead for a show they were developing called H.R. Pufnstuf. Wild starred in this American family TV series that launched in 1969, and also in the spin-off movie. He also embarked on a recording career, cutting one album for Capitol Records and two for Buddah Records in the early 1970s.
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Excessive drinking at an early age derailed Wild's career. Sobering up in 1988, he returned to the big screen in a few minor roles, such as in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. He was also reported to be developing a TV situation comedy with Suzi Quatro around the same time, but those plans never materialised in an actual series. For the most part, though, Wild spent the remainder of his career working in theatre.
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Wild died at age 53, after a long battle with oral cancer. Diagnosed with the disease in 2000, he underwent surgery in July 2004 and had part of his tongue and both vocal cords removed. Because of this surgery, he had lost his speech[1] and had to communicate through his wife.

Sources

  1. Celebrate Oliver!, BBC1 television programme, broadcast 1 January 2006.

External links

Sparky: Politicians Don't Get It!

Vice President Cheney can shoot a pal (to threaten him quietly about Funeralgate and his extramarital affair with U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland Pamela Pitzer Willeford [1]); And, it's official that recreations of the incident were enacted by George Gongora, a photographer for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times [2], a writer for Whidbey Island News-Times [3], and by Alex Jones, a journalist best known for creating anti-establishment conspiracy theory writings and documentaries [4]. All tests seemed to prove that the distance was much closer than the 90ft claimed. Many familiar with quail hunting have also argued that the range was closer [5], while others, such as forensic expert Jon Nordby, confirm the plausibility of the official reports. [6]
On February 27, CBS News released the results of a poll conducted after the incident that revealed Cheney's approval rating had dropped to 18%. According to CBS, the hunting incident "appears to have made the public's already negative view of Cheney even more so." [7]

It's also likely true Cheney would have to commit bestiality to raise his ratings above the VP who formerly was the most hated - Spiro T. Agnew. And the idiot still is letting our troops get killed in a phony and preventable Iraq War.

1. Bob Cesca: Was Cheney Hiding His Lewinsky?


South Dakota governor signs abortion ban into law

Republican Governor Mike Rounds of South Dakota signed South Dakota House of Representatives Bill 1215 into law today, banning all abortions in the state except to save the life of the mother (with no exceptions for rape and incest). Rounds signed the act on March 6, with the ban due to take effect from July 1, 2006. However, the ban is likely to face a legal challenge as it contravenes the Supreme Court's judgement in Roe v. Wade.

When another idiot in power decides to make the wombs of all the women in his state property of the state — he has effectively declared women 2ND class citizens — if that high or indeed even still citizens. I think every freethinking woman in South Dakota should start leaving the state as now. And I think the Government of the United States should step in and rescue any woman left behind or be charged with violating their civil rights. They can use the FEMA buses unused from Hurricane Katrina.

I'll take odds are Rounds is doing something "funny" with his four kids. His kind always do.


SCIENCE: Largest mass extinction in 65 million years
March 8, 2006
MEGAFAUNA: Extinct -  diprotodonts were hippopotamus-sized marsupials.

MEGAFAUNA: Extinct - diprotodonts were hippopotamus-sized marsupials.

Environmental scientists say they have concrete evidence that the planet is undergoing the "largest mass extinction in 65 million years". Leading environmental scientist Professor Norman Myers says the Earth is experiencing its "Sixth Extinction."

Scientists forecast that up to five million species will be lost this century. "We are well into the opening phase of a mass extinction of species. There are about 10 million species on earth. If we carry on as we are, we could lose half of all those 10 million species," Myers said.

If we do not do more, Myers says, the planet will continue to lose around 50 species per day compared to the natural extinction rate of one species every five years. He projected this rate in the late 1980s to much criticism, but the figure is now widely accepted by scientists. "The whole thing is taking place in what you might call a flickering of an evolutionary eye," said Myers. "It's hard to keep up with unless we damp down on some of the causes of the evolution."

Hotspots

GLOBAL WARMING: Global mean surface temperatures 1856 to 2005

GLOBAL WARMING: Global mean surface temperatures 1856 to 2005

The Australia Museum's Frank Howarth says "There are over 30 extinction 'hotspots' across the globe. He says up to 80 per cent of crucial habitat has been wiped out. Biodiversity hotspots are areas that have more than 1500 endemic plant species and which have lost more than 70per cent of original habitat." Hotspots feature, according to Myers, "exceptional concentrations of species that are found nowhere else in the world."

Evidence shows that insects, which account for more than half the described species on earth, are disappearing faster than birds. "Many areas of Australia's ecosystems depend on the work of insects... we put a lot of effort into looking at these hotspots, about what insects actually occur there, whether their numbers are increasing or decreasing, because they tell us a lot more about some of the high level effects," Howarth said.

Myers argues that we are destroying the Earth’s biodiversity quickly enough to witness the beginning of a mass extinction of species—one of only six such events in the Earth’s history. He says around 30 hotspots contain the last remaining habitats of at least half of Earth’s land surface.

He says more parks and reserves are needed, and while warnings are desperate, he believes the situation can be turned around. "We would be the first generation in the whole of human history since we came out of our caves to tackle a mass extinction head on and cancel it... and if we do, I think people will cheer for us from thousands of years ahead." Myers projects that safeguarding the hotspots would cost one billion dollars per year.

Where are the frogs?

EXTINCT: The Golden Toad of Monteverde, Costa Rica was among the first casualties of amphibian declines. Formerly abundant, it was last seen in 1989.

EXTINCT: Golden Toads of Monteverde, Costa Rica was among the first casualties of amphibian declines. Formerly abundant, it was last seen in 1989.

The Global Amphibian Assessment, an international convention of amphibian biologists, indicated in 2004 that over a third of the world's amphibian species are threatened, making them the most threatened group of animals on the planet. More than 120 species have likely become extinct since the 1980s, and around two-thirds of the South American harlequin frog species vanished in the 1980s and 1990s. The decline of amphibians in protected habitats has puzzled conservation biologists for nearly 20 years.

Recent research suggests that climate change may be driving widespread frog extinctions. Results of a study published in the January 2006 Nature journal reveal how warming alters a fatal skin fungus affecting frogs. The article says hundreds of species around the world are teetering on the brink of extinction or have already become extinct.

"Disease is the bullet that's killing the frogs," said J. Alan Pounds, the study's lead scientist from the Tropical Science Center in Costa Rica. "But climate change is pulling the trigger. Global warming is wreaking havoc on amphibians, and soon will cause staggering losses of biodiversity," he said.

According to the study, rising temperatures favor the chytrid fungus, which seems to kill frogs mostly in cool highlands or during winter—implying that low temperatures make it more deadly. National Science Foundation program director Sam Scheiner said their study "demonstrates the complex nature of global climate change, including how climate affects the spread of disease, and why these must be integrated if we are to understand and reduce threats to species extinctions."

Scheiner says the message goes beyond amphibians: "global warming and the accompanying emergence of infectious diseases are a real and immediate threat to biodiversity and a growing challenge for humankind."

"The Sixth Extinction"

OVERHUNTING: American bison skull heap. There were as few as 750 bison in 1890 from overhunting.

OVERHUNTING: American bison skull heap. There were as few as 750 bison in 1890 from overhunting.

Scientists are warning that by the end of this century, the planet could lose up to half its species, and that these extinctions will alter not only biological diversity but also the evolutionary processes itself. They state that human activities have brought our planet to the point of biotic crisis.

In 1993, Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson estimated that the planet is losing 30,000 species per year - around three species per hour. Some biologists have begun to feel that the biodiversity crisis dubbed the "Sixth Extinction" is even more severe, and more imminent, than Wilson had expected.

Professor Myers and colleague Andrew H. Knoll say that what we do now will define a course for evolution. In their 2001 American Institute of Biological Sciences report, Myers and Knoll forecast that the effects of a Sixth Extinction will leave gene pools so depleted that species may not bounce back. Species such as rodents and cockroaches that have adapted to human environments will dominate.

Niles Eldredge in his paper The Sixth Extinction says that with the high rate of extinction, there is little doubt left in the minds of professional biologists that the biosphere is currently facing a mounting, unprecedented loss of species.

Wikipedia
Wikipedia has articles about the ongoing Holocene extinction event.

Whilst previous mass extinctions were due to natural environmental causes, research shows that wherever on Earth humans have migrated other species have become extinct. Human overpopulation especially in the past two centuries is said to be the underlying cause of the Sixth Extinction.

Sources


Live life now — Fuck those who steal freedoms - Sparks

Monday, March 06, 2006

Sparky: while flickr rests ...






Life is funny and takes you interesting places ... clean images found while googling "Japanese girl" - heh