Jesse's Posts

Woman, 92, dies in shootout with police - CNN.com  I try not to just repost news, but I wanted to add a bit of my spin to this.  Tell me your thoughts on this, as Paul seems to believe the police were completely justified in this. 

• Police arrive at a 92 year old woman’s house, in plain clothes rather than police uniforms.
  • For all I know, Sting may have been out there.
• They yell through the door “Open up, it’s the Police.”
  • I know that I see a bunch of people with guns, who don’t look anything like police outside my door, the last thing I’m going to do is open up, not to mention this woman had people pretending to be police try to break in before.
    
• The police, not dressed at all like cops, break down the door.  The woman opens fire, and hits 3 of them, before getting shot down.
  • As far as I’m concerned, if the police had no reason to be there, which they didn’t (they didn't find any drugs) , the woman had no reason to believe these were real police.  You break into someone’s house, not at all wth the appearance of police, with your only proof of being the police being claiming to be the police vocally, as far as I’m concerned the owner of the house has every right to defend their property.

I’d also like to add some comments from a digg.com post I found highly insightful.

Comment by anonymoustroll

Yeah... that's pretty funny... she tagged each one of them (and I bet they took a good long pause trying to figure out "what the hell?" before gunning her down)... too bad she wasn't a better shot.

...but here's the thing: this stinks to high heaven; here's why:

> had a legal warrant and "knocked and announced" before they forced open the door

1 - every last one of us knows that "knock and announce" means "knock with the door breacher" and "announce your presence with a flash-bang". Perhaps it need to be "knock, announce and identify yourself to the upstanding citizen that you're prepared to shoot" (and give the citizen time to verify your credentials). Innocent until proven guilty pretty much ends when the warrant is served.

> Kathryn Johnson, was the only person home at the time, and had lived there for about 17 years.

2 - cops need to be less tactical and more strategic. Perhaps if someone had done their intelligence homework and looked at the power/phone/water/gas/cable/etc. bills they'd see *WHO* they were about to take into custody. Seems to me that they just don't know what the fsck is going on and prepare for the worse (and guess what... they get the worse outcome... surprise). You know, those warrants for paper searches aren't as sexy as the "real thing", but maybe there'd be three cops without bullets in them and one grandma who's still alive if they'd taken the time to do their homework.

> Neighbors and relatives said it must have been a case of mistaken identity.

3 - well, you know what they say... hindsight is 20/20. Good thing they had the "right" address. This is what happens when good people live in bad neighborhoods, etc. etc, cliches ad infiniutum.

> I'm sure she panicked when they kicked that door down

Don't discount the possibility that they may have been fed incorrect information (never actually trust anonymous/CI intelligence sources... always verify, cross check and do your due diligence). Obviously they weren't going off any type of reasonable intelligence. So, gun nuts beware, if I want you out of my neighborhood, all I have to do is dime you out for some heinous crime from the anonymous comfort of a payphone and a pseudonym.

Comment by theblooms

don't blame her for shooting back at all. She had been on the receiving end of criminals posing as cops many times in the past. Your home is your castle, and in America (at least in the majority of states that respect the Bill of Rights) you are allowed to defend your castle by any means necessary.

This whole thing with cops executing warrants like this has GOT to stop. Cops are supposed to be civilians. In this day in age, they are not. They are paramilitary with fully automatic weapons and tanks. Yes, tanks. We have all seen them. Police departments in the US have more tanks than most nations. Fucking ridiculous. If a situation is so god-damed dangerous that you need a tank to serve a warrant, you need to call the National Guard in. Seriously.

In even the WORST possible situation, you can always surround a house and wait for the bad guy to come out. He WILL come out eventually.

These 3 cops need to be prosecuted for murder. Mistaken identity is NO excuse for busting down someone's door and shooting them. I GUARANTEE if someone busts down my door, they will be met with a hail of lead. How the hell do I know who they are? People impersonate cops all the time.

May this lady Rest in Peace. I will pray for her and her family.

Am I wrong on this? I'd like to know your thoughts.

We're not dead yet, though looking at this chart of our hits as of late, next near. How do we draw hits? What would you do? Anyone who wants to write awesome content or knows someone who can write, or has amazing ideas for the site get a hold of me: here.

I’d just like to start this review saying I got this movie because it has Ryuhei Matsuda ( 松田 龍平 ) in it, of Blue Spring and Collage of our Life fame. Some of you may know he is my favorite Japanese actor.  He had a strange part in this film, managing to be a major character, but having perhaps four lines.  Also, I’d like to note the way he held the guitar seemed awkward in such a way as to seem almost identical to something straight out of Guitar Hero.

This movie is apparently based off a popular Japanese Manga, and in fact made for a extremely popular movie in Japan.  I had no idea of this while watching it.

This movie focuses on two women named Nana, who though complete opposites, through anomalous circumstances became very good friends. [Back Story Explanation for those of you who are lacking in Japanese:  Nana while being a Japanese name is also Japanese for the number seven.  Hachi is Japanese for the number eight, and also a common name for dogs.  The gothic Nana renamed the other Nana “Hachi” informally to keep them from getting confused and because she said the preppy Nana acted like a puppy.]  They meet on a train to Tokyo, which becomes stuck for several hours due to high snow.  Hachi is heading to Tokyo to be closer to her boyfriend who is going to art school in Tokyo, Nana is moving to Tokyo to pursue her dream of being a famous singer.  After reaching Tokyo they head their separate ways, only to meet up again when looking for an apartment when two real estate agents show them the same apartment.  Number 707 nonetheless.  After some arguing about who should get the apartment, gothic Nanas friend who is with them suggests they live together, and with little ado they agree.  

The movie ends up first going off first into Hachi’s immediate romantic life with her boyfriend, and then moves on to Nana’s past and her coming to terms.  Nana was in love with Ryuhei’s character “Ren” when they were in a band together “Blast”, but they separated when Ren joined a new band “Trapnest”, which we latter find out has become a huge hit, whereas Nana’s band has only met with marginal success, and the man they got to replace Ren looks like a Japanese Bob Dylan no less.  From reading about the original book Blast was supposed to be extremely punk whereas Trapnest was supposed to be more mainstream rock.  They both in the movie though come off as very generic soft rock though, which is kind of lame. 

From the visual side of things the movie had a very romantic feel; for example nine times out of ten when someone is outside it was snowing, and flash backs always happened to be in the winter (though this is quite possibly because the movie was filmed in a short period of time).  The inside of the Nana’s house was white.  White and snow are a recurring theme to the film.

The songs they sang were cheesy at best, mixing Japanese and english in the same sentance, as I described to kern “Blah blah blah I love you blah blah blah baby!” as it would be to the casual listener.

Overall the movie was decent for those of you saps who like pointless foreign romance/lost love flicks.

Online video game and electronics store extraordinaire Lik-Sang is no more thanks to continuing lawsuits by Sony. Their most recent lawsuit in the UK, over PSP exports threw them over the edge. Sony is quoted as saying: ?ultimately, we're trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards, due to voltage supply differences et cetera;? This is complete, for lack of a better term, bullshit. Lik-Sang provided the same universal power adapter that was sold world wide.

I, as well as many gamers world wide morn the loss of Lik-Sang where savings were king. I my self had meant to purchase Xbox extensions cords for pennies on the dollar, but have been denied this at Sony's hand. This is one gamer who will never purchase a Sony console. Heres a link to Lik-Sangs Out of Business Notice

This movie is hard to describe.  It has five main plots, hence the name, that in the end work them selves together.  One interesting aspect of the film is that as it introduces plot lines, it visually numbers them on screen.  It begins with a man burying his wife, his wife being played by the beautiful half Japanese, half Spanish Reika Hashimoto.  He returns home to find his wife sitting at his kitchen table, which sets up what is to become a pattern for his plot.  Next we are introduced to a woman who works in advertising and a hypnotist who are in bed together.  Throughout the film the advertising woman has a number of "Visions" of commercials.  Some are quite humorous while others just make you say "What!?"  The next plot is kind of a comic relief plot… do you really need a comic relief plot in a comedy?  I don't know, but it basically involves a group of friends, where a Japanese man is terrified of the prospect that his really ugly, male, friend is in love with him.  Next we are introduced to an English hit-man and his Japanese assistant on an airplane on their way into Japan, whereas he causes quite a ruckus on the airplane harassing a flight attendant about her purpose for living.  The last plot involves a man who visits the hypnotist, is hypnotized into believing he is a bird, and the hypnotist is killed by the hit man before he is un-hypnotized.  This was my favorite plot, and the way in which it connects to the first is pure genius. 

The imagery and colors of this film were beautifully intense. It felt… surreal.  They do an amazing job though of making you not realize how strangely colored things are, which the end result gives the film just an amazing feel.  For instance the airplane the hit-man came over on was bright pink, but I don't believe I noticed until reviewing the film just now. 

The soundtrack includes some interesting choices, all very rhythmic, sometimes with the scene seemingly moving to the beat.  There's an amount of western music I haven't seen in any other Asian films.  The soundtrack adds greatly to the feel of the movie.

Overall I recommend the movie highly.  It was greatly entertaining and beautifully composed.  It was a distinct comedy, which I see few of, but I found it highly enjoyable.

The oband feed has had some slight repairs, as if anyone but I cares. Also, I got tired of "Best Night Ever"'s being mixed in with my Best Week Ever video feed, so I made one that filters them out... here...

While atimes isn't meant to just percolate news from other sites... this stuns me... all I can say is "WTF, Mate?" I am shocked and appalled by this...

Oasisbands new RSS feed is operational after much fighting. As Paul put it "They dont like you, seriously, saw an aritcle about it on the web, 'RSS2.0 hates Jesse Donat' they were very in depth" I intened tto fix it up some over time, as it was a little hackishly thrown together. If you're using Firefox you can subscribe by clicking that icon on the right of the address bar, or you can use an external reader. I'll put a link to it in the side bar later. It can be found here: link Also, if you're using Firefox, but wish to use an external reader, Feed Your Reader is a great extension, available here.

"British historian David Irving has had his conviction for denying the Holocaust upheld by the Austrian Supreme Court... The historian was also on trial for claiming the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom, when Nazis attacked and torched thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues, was not the work of Nazis but of others who had dressed up as stormtroopers."(Cite BBC News)

I've talked about this before, but making it illegal to question history is THE MOST fascist thing possible. I don't agree with this mans views, but imprisoning him simply because he doesn't believe something is completely ridiculous.

Steve Irwin, the "Crocodile Hunter" one of my favorite crazy bastards died today messing with a stingray.  As Mike says “That'll teach him to fuck with stingrays” (cite BBC News) He will be greatly missed by young and old alike.