Abbey Annex II

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-11-25/pendants-with-shonen-jump-images-recalled-by-importer

Team Work Trading's pendants with Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Death Note, as well as Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts symbols contain lead

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-11-25/pendants-with-shonen-jump-images-recalled-by-importer

Team Work Trading's pendants with Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Death Note, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts symbols contain lead

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-11-25/weekly-astro-boy-magazine-on-european-iphones-in-2010

In English, French next summer; in Spanish, Italian "soon thereafter"

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2009/11/25/november-issue-of-the-quibbler-online

Leaky's premier source for "all the news you won't find anywhere else," The Quibbler, has just published their November issue for your reading pleasure.  This issue contains special reports revolving around the St. Andrews Day holiday in Scotland with an article on wild man-eating haggis by our own Rudius Hagrid.  Additional articles delve into such topics as the long-rumored romance between Ro...

1. Tory's Meat Man freaked me right the hell out. Something about the hipbones sticking out under the skin like that. *shudder* ...On a related subject, NEVER GOING DEEP-SEA DIVING NEVER EVER.

2. Okay, Jessie's cute, I like her. ^_^

3. Adam was so totally channeling Sephiroth on that last bit, it's amazing. If my Fluffiroth muse wasn't awake and yammering at me already, this would have woken him up. ...On a related subject, I need those boots.

http://matociquala.livejournal.com/1737613.html

Pre-launch speculation about Criminal Minds episode 100 (5x09) behind the cut...



So I've been fretting all week that My Show is going to disappoint me and fridge Haley. Which is, of course, a possibility, and we're certainly being led to believe so by the advance publicity--and I will find out relatively soon if that is the case.

On the other hand, the very fact that we're being led to believe makes me wonder, because My Show is all about the advance disinformation. Which is something I'm very fond of them for--like David Bowie, they'll cheerfully lie to the press if it seems more interesting.

I'm pretty sure D.B. Sweeney is not making it out of the episode alive, anyway, but I've been wondering about Haley. It's possible that they will kill her off, and irritate me in my feminism in the process--although it would be unusual, CM has been known to make mistakes. It's also possible that they'll kill her off and make me like it. For one thing, Single Dad adds a whole set of layers to Hotch-as-guy-in-female-roles, and it could be exceedingly interesting.

What could also be exceedingly interesting (this is probably the way I would be tempted to go, if I were writing it) is to hurt her badly, and use the experience as a catalyst for character growth for both her and Hotch--her appreciating what his job really is, and him appreciating her position about his workaholic tendencies. Not necessarily bringing them back together as a couple, but offering them a chance to learn compassion for one another.

I don't think that last is beyond the pale. Foyet would want to kill her in front of Hotch, if at all possible--it fits his MO to make the victim watch awful things being done to a loved one. And then there's the issue of Foyet's bond with (and identification with?) Hotch, which Foyet is going to want to explore--and make Hotch feel, as well.

I will be kind of disappointed if Hotch just kills Foyet. It would be the CSI solution, and My Show is better at narrative than CSI.

Well, I'll find out soon enough....

http://whedonesque.com/comments/22481

http://nickbrendon.com/2009/11/25/nicholas-brendon-news-‘criminal-minds’-tonight-more-‘santaland’/

He returns for the 100th episode of CM tonight. Plus, due to the success of his play, "The Santaland Diaries", more shows have been added to the calendar.

[ edited by aaalex on 2009-11-26 00:00 ]

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2009/11/25/holiday-shopping-deals-for-infinitus-at-wb-shop-plus-new-page-for-harry-potter-spells-application

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US, which is now traditionally followed by a day (and weekend) of some great sales. As such, our friends at Infinitus 2010 have asked us to pass along an opportunity they are offering this Friday, November 27. If you register for the Harry Potter Symposium that day, you will receive a ten dollar gift certificate for use at the Infinitus merchandise table whe...

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2009/11/25/jkr-signed-deluxe-book-with-new-sketch-of-harry-potter-by-mary-grandpre-part-of-charity-auction

A young man in Florida is efforting to help the
National Multiple Sclerosis Society and his local Sarasota Habitat for
Humanity with a new auction of a special Harry Potter book. Author J.K. Rowling contributed a signed book plate for a special Deluxe edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which also features a new sketch of Harry Potter by artist Mary Grandpre which you can see here....

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-11-25/japanese-comic-ranking-november-16-22

Detective Conan, Fairy Tail, Tsubasa, Cross Game, Daiya no A debut in top 5

http://whedonesque.com/comments/22480

http://www.dollverse.com/2009/11/in-the-calm-before-the-storm-the-sun-is-shining-dark-and-warm-dollhouse-series-finale-details/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxdollhouse+%28Dollverse+-+Inside+FOX%27s+Dollhouse%29

The rollercoaster ride begins on December 4th.

http://cuteoverload.com/2009/11/25/ill-see-your-teh-qte-and-raise-you/

http://cuteoverload.com/?p=35549

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011912.html

Boycott Black Friday in general, for its hype and fraud; but definitely boycott Wal-Mart.

A year ago, on Black Friday 2008, a man named Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death by a crowd at the Valley Stream Wal-Mart on Long Island. Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters immediately responded by announcing that Damour was a temp worker employed by a subcontractor. They also called it a "tragic situation," but they didn't mean anything by that. "Tragic" is just the word corporate PR people automatically use when someone's been killed.

Xeni Jardin wrote about it in Boing Boing:

Wal-Mart Worker Crushed to Death on Black Friday; Union Responds
Posted by Xeni Jardin, November 28, 2008 1:19 PM

A worker at a New York Wal-Mart location was crushed to death this morning, "Black Friday," when hordes of shoppers overwhelmed to get inside for bargain-hunting. Snip from AP account:

At least four other people were injured, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island was closed. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in Bentonville, Ark., called the incident a "tragic situation" and said the employee came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store.

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," co-worker Jimmy Overby, 43, told the Daily News. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too. ... I literally had to fight people off my back."

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500, which represented the deceased worker, has called for a investigation by OSHA and the NY State labor department.

Director of Special Projects for Local 1500 Patrick Purcell called Wal-mart's comments in response to the incident both "cold and heartless." "If the safety of their customers and workers was a top priority, then this never would have happened," Purcell stated. "Wal-mart must step up to the plate and ensure that all those injured, as well as the family of the deceased, be financially compensated for their injuries and their losses. Their words are weak. The community demands action," Purcell concluded.

Purcell also suggested that people visit the website walmartcrimereport.com to review other incidents of Wal-mart not providing a safe work and shopping experience.

After the comment thread broke a hundred, I wrote and posted the comment/article that follows. It was motivated by a number of things, one of them being the amount of astroturfing Wal-Mart had thrown at Boing Boing since comments recommenced there. Still, I might very well have written and posted the article if I'd never worked for Boing Boing at all. Wal-Mart is an appalling organization.

Some of the links may be broken. I'm sure there are plenty of others that could take their place.

===

Why Wal-Mart Is to Blame for the Death of Jdimytai Damour
Comment #128, November 30, 2008 11:13 PM

Wal-Mart holds these Black Friday sales every year--and every year, there are reports from all over the country of injuries when customers get trampled in the rush, or when fights break out due to inadequate stocks of merchandise and poor crowd control. There have been some very ugly incidents.

In spite of the obvious danger, Wal-Mart continues to put a lot of effort into creating mobs of shoppers charged with an artificial sense of urgency. Over the years, they've pushed their Black Friday starting times further and further back. They do stunt pricing--advertising a new laptop or Xbox or plasma TV for a fraction of its usual price--then stocking only twenty or thirty of each those items, when they know they can expect a thousand shoppers at their door.

Wal-Mart also appears to have decided not to require crowd-calming measures at their stores, like handing out numbered chits to the people waiting in line to buy big-ticket items, or stationing enough security at the front of the line to force people to enter in a well-regulated stream rather than a mob.

Game behavior is always conditioned by the rules, and the entire emphasis of Wal-Mart's Black Friday game is that the first person with their hands on the package wins. (See above, "creating an artificial sense of urgency.") Where there's no regulation or crowd control, people who are first in line and have been waiting longest will still have to scramble if they're going to get anything, since otherwise they'll be beaten out by more aggressive shoppers.

Therefore, that mob at the door of the Green Acres/Valley Stream Wal-Mart didn't just happen. There's a mob at the door of every Wal-Mart Black Friday sale. It was engineered, and Wal-Mart did the engineering.

Every year, Wal-Mart's had ugly incidents, scuffles, and injuries at Black Friday sales. It was a foregone conclusion that sooner or later, one of these stunt sales would result in serious injury or death. Wal-Mart has known that. They've done nothing to avert it, and much to encourage it. They're responsible for Jdimytai Damour's death.

Why would they set up a system like that? Simple: they're raking it in. People who come to Black Friday sales spend freely once they're inside. (If they've stood in line for that long, they're damned well going to get something.) They tend to have a rough amount in mind they've budgeted for Christmas, and Wal-Mart gets first crack at it.

The mob rush at the Green Acres/Valley Stream store could just as easily have killed customers as Jdimytai Darnour. Crush incidents can form surprisingly quickly and kill a lot of people fast. All it takes is a chokepoint, an approach to the chokepoint that doesn't let the crowd in the back see what's happening in front, and a crowd with a strong motivation to get through that chokepoint. At its simplest, that's a locked door, a dogleg corridor, a crowd of protesters or sports fans, and one tear gas grenade.

The Black Friday opening rush is a natural occasion for such events, but it's not the only point of vulnerability. There've already been a couple of incidents of pepper-spray being used on crowds of Black Friday shoppers. You could readily come up with lots of further scenarios. The death of Jdimytai Darnour was awful, but it was just one death. We may see incidents with more.

Connie H. @82:

Human-chain formation in front of the doors was a supremely dangerous maneuver - it was an incipient stampede at a choke point. People moving from the back of the crowd couldn't see what they were getting into ... There seem to be disparate reports as to what went on with the doors--it's quite possible that the crowd movement pushed people into them, then they gave way.

That is: the surge of the crowd--an annual event which Wal-Mart has engineered--was pushing forward against the doors. If the doors had not given way, there might well have been crush injuries among the customers outside the doors. If the doors did give way, the human chain of Wal-Mart employees were going to be in the direct path of the stampede. One way or another, there were going to be injuries.

Why Wal-Mart knew this was going to happen:

Note: I started researching at 2005, and found far more material than I expected, so 2005 is overrepresented and 2006-2007 are underrepresented. I'm sure you'll still get the picture.

Raking it in:

2003: Bentonville, AK: Wal-Mart reported a single-day sales record for sales of $1.52 billion the Friday after Thanksgiving at its domestic stores. This represented a 6.3 percent gain over last year's single-day sales record, also on Black Friday, of $1.43 billion.

2006: El Cajon CA: Footage taken "about five minutes" after the start of the 2006 Black Friday sale in El Cajon. Note the amount of merchandise already in carts.

ND: Black Friday in a Texas Wal-Mart. The ambient sounds are interesting.

2008: Secaucus, New Jersey.

2005 Incidents - compilations:

Nationwide Black Eye Friday wrap-up. Of 23 news reports about Black Friday violence, 16 involved Wal-Mart stores. Locations included Mountain View CA, Orlando FL, Oak Grove KY, Elkton MD, Cascade Township MI, Grandville MI, Hamilton Township NJ, Mays Landing NJ, Wallkill NY, Atlantic County PA, Warwick R.I., Kingsport TN, Beaumont TX, Lynchburg VA, Renton WA, and Puyallup WA.

ConsumerAffairs.com compiles shopper complaints and reports from all over the country, including inadequate or nonexistent supplies of advertised merchandise; store managers refusing to honor advertised offers of rain checks; customers trampled in the opening rush; and poor organization and crowd control inside stores, leading to shouting matches, pushing and shoving, fights, and a pepper-spray incident. Locations included Tigard OR, Chicago IL, Beaumont TX, Wilton, IA, and Gilroy, CA.

More complaints logged by ConsumerAffairs.com, plus some repeats in more detail. Lots of complaints about inadequate or nonexistent merchandise that had been advertised, and flyers offering rain checks which store managers refused to issue. Locations included Montgomery County MD, Chicago IL, Gulf Shores AL, Lincoln NE, Wilton IA, Memphis TN, Hinesville GA, and Gilroy CA.

A Democratic Underground reader posts a compilation of the full texts of news stories about violent incidents during Black Friday 2005 at Wal-Marts in Orlando FL, Cascade Township MI, Hamilton Township NJ, Puyallup WA, and Oak Grove KY.

The Scotsman on Wal-Mart Black Friday violence in Orlando FL, North East MD, and Cascade Township MI.

BoxTank's compilation of stories.

Luke the Obscure's Wal-Mart Trampling Roundup:

Wal-Mart Black Friday Trampling is here to stay! I was able to track down a Wal-Mart trampling account in nearly every one of the fifty states, and the lack of any class-action lawsuits speaks volumes about the corporate influence of everyones favorite corporation.

Locations included Cascade Township MI, Hamilton Township NJ, Kingsport TN, and Orlando FL. My favorite:

CNN Money - Calls made to several Wal-Marts around the country revealed that one of the hottest items on the holiday sale list, a $378 Hewlett-Packard laptop, sold out within the first hour the stores were open. "They trampled each other for 'em," said one Wal-Mart employee at a Maryland store. "It was great."

2005: single incidents

Footage: Stampede in Cascade Township, Michigan (near Grand Rapids), with shoppers (mostly women and children) falling and getting trampled. There were several injuries.

Orlando FL: shopper gets into fight with plainclothes security officers.

Security guards wrestled a man to the ground and handcuffed him, this morning at an Orlando Wal-Mart. Eyewitnesses told Channel Nine that the man cut in line to get laptop computers that were on sale.

The man started arguing with people inside the store, and then scuffled with plain-clothed security guards.

One man told reporters that the laptops were being thrown into the air and people rushed toward them, collapsing on each other. Another man described the scene as crazy.

"It was absolutely pandemonium in there. They were throwing laptops twenty feet in the air, and people were collapsing on each other to grab them. It was ridiculous," said shopper Brian Horwitz.

"A guy came on top of me and hit my head," said Wal-Mart shopper, Jennifer Harris. "When he did it bounced against the other two people. I got hit on both of my ears."

Some people weren't fazed in the least. Many customers simply carted their stuff out of the store and passed right by the man in handcuffs, without any reaction.

When a Sheriff's deputy arrived, he gave the man a trespassing warning and let him go. It turns out, in the confusion, he fought off the plain-clothes security guards, when they grabbed him, because he thought they were other customers.

Oak Grove, KY: A woman is trampled and hospitalized when a crowd waiting for laptops goes out of control.

Hamilton Township, NJ: a fracas breaks out in a Wal-Mart over inadequate stocks of desirable items. Police have to call for backup.

Lincoln, Nebraska: a scrimmage over laptop computers turns ugly.

Beaumont TX: A security guard pepper-sprays customers waiting in line in the electronics department. Beaumont TX, two years later: Customers who were pepper-sprayed are suing Wal-Mart.

Renton WA: Police have to be called in to deal with a crowd in the electronics department.

2006 Incidents

Footage: Chokepoint stampede at Wal-Mart in South Philadelphia. Two shoppers go down and can't get up. A policeman wades in and rescues them.

Footage: A West Bend, WI store manager makes a crowd of waiting customers race to a row of chairs to determine who gets xbox systems. By report, people in the crowd were begging him to use some other system, like a simple lottery. Many people are hurt in the race. One is seriously hurt, and is hospitalized. See also: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on the West Bend Wal-Mart footrace fiasco.

Another bad system for allocating scarce goods is to let the shoppers in early to take up positions near the items they want, but not allow them to lay claim to those items until the clock strikes. The results are predictable. Footage: A fight breaks out over six computers.

Lewis Center, Ohio:

at the Wal-Mart outside Columbus, customers dashing toward 5 a.m. deals pinned employees against stacks of merchandise.

"Oh, my god, stop pushing me, oh, my god," screamed Linda Tuttle, a 47-year-old employee at the store.

Grace Smith, a 22-year-old customer in the store, was stunned by the scene. "I heard it would be crazy but I never thought I'd see anything like this," she said.

Lafayette LA: Man suffers broken leg in the Black Friday rush.

2007:

Footage: opening rush, Wal-Mart Store 5450, North East Maryland. I suspect this "informal YouTube video" was made by Wal-Mart. All is sweetness and light. You'd never guess that two years earlier, on Black Friday 2005, this same store was the site of a melee that took ten policemen to settle, caused by atrociously bad crowd control measures on the part of the manager.

2008:

Footage: A mad scramble for a small number of 360 XBoxes.

Rapid City, SD: A teenage girl was holding an Xbox 360 was struck in the throat by a man who was yelling and pushing his way through a line of shoppers. He may face assault charges.

Secaucus NJ: a woman's leg was injured in the scrum, and she had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance.

The Consumerist bingo card, which predicts everything but the killing.

In summary: Wal-Mart makes Black Friday happen. Wal-Mart knew something like this death-by-trampling would eventually happen. The blood's on Wal-Mart's hands.

http://whedonesque.com/comments/22478

http://www.cantstoptheserenity.com

Make sure to check out the really cool items on auction for Equality Now!

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/11/more_holding_patterns.html

If you're wondering what this week's excuse for scanty blog updates could possibly be, it might have something to do with me being 40,000 words into the (projected) 100,000 word first draft of 2011's novel, "Rule 34". It's a sequel to "Halting State", set some five years after the earlier novel, and focusing on the way our definitions of crime and morality (not to mention the practice of policing) change over time. (Yes, the title is an explicit call-out to you-know-what. The term "Hitler Yaoi" has been used with intent ... but only after I googled, rubbed my eyes, and concluded that rule 34 was in effect.)

So it's with some interest that I spotted this news item on the web today. Nutshell version: Dennis O'Connor, HM Chief Inspector of Police, has issued a report on the conduct of public order policing (commissioned in the aftermath of the G20 protests in April). It's damning in its condemnation of heavy-handed tactics adopted primarily by the London Metropolitan Police, in emulation of crowd-control techniques used on the continent and in the United States: "The report, published today, called for a softening of the approach and urged a return to the "British model" of policing, first defined by 19th-century Conservative prime minister Sir Robert Peel. O'Connor advocated an 'approachable, impartial, accountable style of policing based on minimal force and anchored in public consent'."

All I can say is: it's overdue. The Americanization of British policing has visibly been in train for a decade now — and not in a good way. The culture of Britain's police forces sprang from very different roots, and the increasing emphasis on bureaucratization, pre-emption through the threat of massive force, and alienation from the public that has characterised the current government's tinkering with the machinery of law and order is a radical and unwelcome departure. It's given us such travesties as the RIPA Act, with its implicit abolition of the right to silence (the first victim of whose anti-terrorism provisions appears to be a harmless schizophrenic), the practice of police routinely arresting people in order to justify collecting DNA samples, and the use of police intelligence apparatus to help corporations snoop on protestors. The creeping expansion of police surveillance and suspicion of legitimate political dissent — I'm not talking about bomb-makers here, but simply people who want to demonstrate in public their disagreement with government policies — is deeply worrying. Let's hope that the O'Connor report marks the beginning of a sea change in the relationship between the British police forces and the public, away from the American/European paramilitary model and back towards "the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence."

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-11-23/funimation-starts-initiative-for-co-producing-anime

Update: Funimation has confirmed with ANN that its new co-production initiative will bring in anime studios to adapt non-Japanese franchises. This is different from co-producing original Japanese titles as a production committee member, as some of the other North American anime distributors have done.

Similar Japanese-animated adaptations of overseas properties have included several Rankin/Bass productions (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Hobbit, The Last Unicorn, Thundercats), Sin: The Movie, The Animatrix, Witchblade, Batman: Gotham Knight, Halo Legends, and the upcoming Dante's Inferno video project.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-11-23/funimation-starts-initiative-for-co-producing-anime

Chris Moujaes to head effort to acquire, develop titles based on properties

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-11-25/aya-hirano-speed-star-is-no.4-on-weekly-album-chart

Character voice's 2nd top-10 album sold 20,342 copies

http://whedonesque.com/comments/22477

http://moondog-themoonblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/angel-sketchbook.html

"The book itself is 84 pages and costs 10.00 euro. The postage and packaging(anywhere in the world) would be another 5 euro, so you're looking at 15 quid altogether".

He and the others from Ecclectic Micks' have also released a sketchbook that you might be able to order.

http://cuteoverload.com/2009/11/25/i-missed-the-642-again/

http://cuteoverload.com/?p=35533