Via Drudge: CBS News is reporting that at least one of the horrific fires devastating Southern California was deliberately set.

In possibly related news an arrest has been made for a brush arson in San Bernadino.

4 dead

24 firefighters and 21 civilians wounded

640 square miles charred and a million people displaced.

Throw the book at them!

Here is what the fires look like from 708 km up....

Pic via NASA's Earth Observatory Page.

UPDATE: Big roundup of links here (via Instapundit)

Ron Coleman recommends this site.

Update 2: Via Pete in the comments, it appears at this time that the fellow who was arrested was arrested for starting a fire unconnected  to the big ones..Stephen is right, several of these fires were natural or accidental, the area is a tinderbox eg. no thermite required.

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Beta/Meta Bloggage: Keep scrolling citizens, nothing to see here....

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Still cramming....

...but took a break, saw this on iichan, and LOL'd.

Here have fun with it kids. 

Back in a few days.

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Via Gates of Vienna comes this bit of revisonist asshattery.

Yes boys and girls, its a powerpoint explaining how the Native American peoples are actually....Muslims.

Who knew?

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Last night, I got up from studying.....

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While it matters not one iota to me...

...others might find the implications distressing.

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Colleen Doran posts on the Hollywood writers strike.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand unions have been injuring US industries for years. I'm very much a right to work kind of guy.

On the other hand incidents like Matawan are NOT propaganda, they really happened. Plane old unions are INHERENTLY corrupt, but for all their inherent corruption they do (in theory) act as an important legal recourse for workers.  If organized as guilds rather than straight unions they can be forces for considerable good beyond the narrow interests of the union hall.  Additionally, if the Hollywood writers have been hosed to the same extent as some people I've known in comics and animation then I'm certainly sympathetic to their plight.

On the gripping hand.....as noted in the update to Colleen's post there seems to be a wee bit of overreach in the demands of the Writers "Guild". Via her addendum is an excerpt from a longer communication by Warren Ellis:

The strike rules declare that writers may not write animation or “new media” content. This is interesting because WGA has no jurisdiction over animation or new media. Further, they state that any non-union person found writing animation or new media during the course of a strike will be barred from ever joining the Guild.

 

It sounds a bit arrogant to say the least.

 My sympathies are shall we say...strained. 

First off, at least according to Ellis, they don't seem to have any real jurisdiction over animators or "New Media". Despite the apparent truth of this, being a private entity, it seems they can refuse membership to anyone. If one of their membership requirements is that animators starved while they struck then no animators who worked while they were on strike need be allowed in. They can certainly put a glass ceiling on peoples carrers.

And "new media"? Mmmmmkaaay....

So people getting started online or creating new mediums who don't bow down to the whims of a union they never belonged to (and might not even be aware of the edicts of)...does this mean they can never join? I'm blogging....right now.

Does this mean I can't ever join the WG?

Hell, Miss Doran (who has categorically stated that she will NOT do healthy healing growth on the wound work) is blogging about this...right now...and has advertisements on her site. Is she new media?

The difference between a Union and a Guild (in theory) is that the Guild (in theory) sets up standards and training for its tradespersons to ensure that everyone who is a member is a solid and competent expert at whatever trade they represent. They also collectively bargain just like a union to ensure that their members are treated equitably, but in maintaining standards they expel unqualified or unethical members. Like any human endeavor, they are fallible, but "Guild" carries with it an expectation of both work ethic and competence that union does not. Of course the names of organizations may have little bearing on how they operate. Some organizations called unions (pipefitters for instance)certainly work like a guild. And some organizations with the name "guild" care nothing for the quality of the work their members do and will grow in power and arrogance until they kill their respective geese and create a rust belt of one sort or another.

Which brings us to a fine place in this rant to remind people why so many of the voice actors who dub anime are Canadian. They took work from small marginal companies that couldn't pay union scale, and after a couple of times were shut out from the industry.

LOTS of productions are moving to Canada. The Canadians bend over backwards to bring them in and the expenses are far cheaper because the unions they have aren't nearly as odious.

A lot of writers well versed in the innovative and growth oriented applications  of whatever the hell "new media" is might soon be driven there too.

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Ouch!

More remarkable than the notion that someone would commit suicide by pointing a FLARE GUN in their mouth...is that Wonderduck and I IM'd each other this story nigh simultaneously.

We truely have a low opinion of each other.

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   Mostly I'm studying for Exams. So I've watched precious little anything other than the inside of my textbooks and ODU's  Blackboard site.

Fortunately Ubu has been watching crap so we don't have to.

It's not ALL crap of course but this season really has little to interest me.

Ubu does provide some important historical perspective to the new shows.

If WWII had been like this, Roosevelt would have looked like Professor X and have been crippled years ago by his quasi-enemy, Super Seiyjin Stalin; Hitler would have been the lunatic madman out to conquer/end/dominate/destroy the world, Mussolini would have been the jilted bishie lover of both Roosevelt and Stalin, Churchill would have been an angsty teenager, and Hirohito would have been a cute female high-schooler in a sailor outfit trying to end world militarism in time for this semester’s finals.

Which gives an idea of why Bridgebunnies.com should be checked out periodically

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Waugh! Aieee!!

Light Posting ahead!

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Hilarity ensues.

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1 I just had the chance to read this and I have to say that I'm glad I had put my orange juice down. (Of course said orange juice is mass produced and you can find it in any store in any state in the country...*GASP*)

Posted by: Marina at Wed Oct 17 09:17:40 2007 (z3dTy)

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This is an interesting find!

A blog by the Commanding Officer of a UK Royal Navy frigate, HMS Sommerset.

HMS Sommerset is a British Type 23 Frigate, quite likely the best ASW platform ever designed, they nevertheless have sufficient versatility to be very useful vessels in a variety of situations.

The blog includes pictures of weapons firing and an interesting look (subject to the official secrets act of course) into the life aboard one of Her Majestey's vessels.

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  Eaglespeak has found an obscure piece of US Naval History that is as impressive as it is inspiring.

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.... I really like about Oh! Edo Rocket is the music.

Don has two extended pieces up on his blog.

Go swing baby!

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...that appear to be human and prey like lampreys upon those of us with souls are more common than is generally assumed.

This is an extreme example, but I encountered, both firsthand and with varying degrees of separation, similarly bizarre stories over the past 15 years.
I must say though that this story really is a perfect storm of crazy.
In my (admittedly limited experience) fandom in particular seems rife with this sort of thing.

The victims blog.

The Monster:

via Colleen Doran who has a good discussion in the comments.

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 Via Stephen Den Beste comes this neat primer for Moyashimon. Moyashimon is apparently, this Anime seasons much anticipated attempt to tap the huge prokaryote demographic. (Yes, I know yeast are eucaryotic...but they're just tokens for EEOC rules).

No, I won't explain,....go read the whole thing.

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Thoughts on the latest from twiggy the terrible.

Anchoress...

Israelly Cool...

Bookworm Room....

Counter Column...

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