!christmas price index
wesley willis
happy holidays from lester
christmas choir
record-o-matic
they might be giants
santacon
holiday special
diy cards
create a tree
drunken christmas
santa says
shuffle the penguin
and a zen repeat...
chaoskitties in snowsuits
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).
[Boing Boing]
Talented net.cartoonist Goopymart has shipped this new Terror Alert Chart just in time for the latest installment in the Homeland Security Free Floating Anxiety System.
(Thanks, Goopymart!)
[Boing Boing]
The winners of the 2003 International Snow Sculpture Championships in Breckenridge, Colorado have been declared -- the photos are stunning.
(Thanks, Melissa!)
The 12 Days of Kitschmas is a gallery of twelve utterly tasteless (and apparently sincere and unironic) items of religious paraphenalia. Don't miss the five-inch-nail-Xmas-ornament, a $8.99 remembrance of the crucifiction for your tree.
(via Making Light)
[Boing Boing]
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."
Mr. Rumsfeld narrowly beat out California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's submission was:
"I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."
The crew from Intercot have been attending the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions conference in Orlando and posting kick-ass photos as they go.
(Thanks, Gary!)
[Boing Boing]
The ``living dead,'' having been cheated out of their property, cannot afford to pay bribes or even legitimate fees to get their cases dealt with.
Lal Bihari, president of the Association of the Living Dead, estimated 35,000 people in Uttar Pradesh state have been wrongly certified as dead.
(via Beyond the Beyond) [Boing Boing]
Subversive Cross-stitch: rude and snarky cross-stitch patterns to amaze and delight.
(via Making Light)
[Boing Boing]
A Magic Cube is a three dimensional Magic Square: a 3D grid in which the numbers in all the rows, columns and diagonals total up to the same number. The very first order-5 Magic Cube (previously suspected to be impossible) has been discovered.
Link
(Thanks, Johannes!)
[Boing Boing]
Seiko Epson Corp. showed off their flying micro-robot at this week's International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo. EE Times reports that ultrasonic wristwatch motors keep the 8.9 grab machine airborne. It's also outfitted with Bluetooth and several microsensors including a gyro and camera. Right now though, battery weight keeps it tethered to its power supply. (The photo is from Yahoo! News.) Link (Thanks, Gabe!) [Boing Boing]
"You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning... a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
Just in time for the holiday season: Pink Floyd: The Wall action figures. Collectible action figures. Strictly limited edition. (Limited, I suspect, to the number of units they think they can sell.)
(via Smartpatrol)
Nice Fark photoshopping contest: turn celebrities into the living dead.
Got a dead, orphaned Apple G4 Cube lying around? According to the ancient traditions of the Mac-faithful, this is a signal that you are to get out your caulking gun and turn it into a fishtank.
(via MacSlash)
[Boing Boing]
From David Barringer's site: The Dead Bug Funeral Kit comes with an Illustrated Buggy Book of Eulogies with Ribbon Bookmark, Casket, Grave Marker, White Clay Flower, Burial Scroll, and Pouch of Grass Seed.
"We are deeply saddened by your loss. We hope the Dead Bug Kit will honor your bug. We are working as briskly as we can to make these Kits, but there is a lot of grief in this world. And there are a lot of bugs. We appreciate your patience." Link (Thanks, Invisible Cowgirl!)
[Boing Boing]
The Austrian cyber-activists Quintessenz put on the local Big Brother Award ceremony. To promote it, they distributed these stickers that look like hidden cameras, encouraging people to put them up in toilets and other places where privacy matters. The caption means "The Most Shameless Surveilleur."
Bernie Simmons, a spokesman for SPSS, said it was thought the frogs migrated to the warmer climate of southern Europe during the last ice age where they separated into distinct colonies that slowly started to diverge.
Part of that diversity has emerged as regional accents.
The accents are different depending on whether pool frogs belong to the ancient Iberian, Italian or Balkan populations.
(Thanks, Rod) [Boing Boing]
BoingBoing patron saint Bruce Sterling points our dirty minds to a website containing this suggestive series of images created entirely from mathematical algorithms. "If you find them offensive in any way," says the site's creator, "all I can say is that beauty (or obscenity) is in this case most certainly in the eye of the beholder." If high school algebra had been half this fun, perhaps I would have passed. Link [Boing Boing]
Dan Gill
mor's
on
his
annual teaching
stint
in
Hong
Kong,
or it can generate random pseudo-intellectualism:
Chaos theory: Its debt to Jesse Jackson
What is the contemporary significance of psychotic chaos theory? Psychotic chaos theory is often confused with teleological realism. Psychotic chaos theory is of particular interest to grandfathers.
other modes include Haiku, Bureaucratese, Fortune Tellers, and so forth.
(Thanks, Chris!) [Boing Boing]
BoingBoing pal Roland Piquepaille says,
"In this short article, Technology Review tells us that Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have built a new robot, named Cardea, which is able to push open doors and has the bottom half of a Segway scooter. Cardea will be five feet tall with a torso, three arms, a variety of sensors, and a human-like head with expressive features and vision, and mounted on a Segway base. More details and references are contained in this review which also includes several pictures. For even more details, go to the Cardea Project homepage."
* Nearly all American milk-cows are infected with Bovine Leukemia Virus
* One of the heroes of 'Black Hawk Down' was a convicted child molester
* The Bayer Company developed and marketed another "wonder drug": Heroin
* After 9/11, White House staff reviewed and considered a Special Ops presentation, Thinking Outside the Box: Poisoning Afghanistan's Food Supply
* Pope Pius II wrote a best selling erotic novel
* Positive HIV test results are wrong for half of all low-risk people
* Two atomic bombs were dropped on North Carolina
* You can mail letters for little to no cost using simple methods to fool
the post office
* Senior auto industry execs characterize SUV drivers as "insecure and vain... nervous about their marriages... self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities."
I'm in Barcelona at the tech/art/culture confab Artfutura, listening to the two effects masterminds behind the Matrix trilogy: John Gaeta (right-hand side of the photo below) and Greg Juby of effects house ESC (Greg's at left in this photo).
ESC is the company created by the Wachowski brothers and John Gaeta to produce the complex work of visual effects in the Matrix series. Gaeta may well be the single most influential person in the last decade of visual effects, and right now he's talking to the audience of Spanish digital artists and tech developers here about the creative process behind the films, and what to expect in the forthcoming Matrix: Revolutions:
* "What will be different in Revolutions? It's the final, ultimate manifestation of Larry and Andy Wachowski's anime dream: to make am movie as close to an anime as possible. Take the best and coolest aspects of anime -- large scale robotics, entanglements between man anad machine -- and tranform it into a feature, live action film. You'll also see lots more bullets."* "Subconsciousness needs to be redefined with every generation. Matrix is a stylized sci-fi story, but the root of the idea that you can have imagery placed into your mind is a very possible scenario, and I think that's a universe that our generation was finally ready to start dealing with. I grew up on Kubrick, Ridley Scott, Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and many other filmmakers that triggered ideas inside my mind -- that's how evolution works. One generation speaking to another. Larry and Andy [Wachowski] are preoccupied with those ideas, too, but they're also pop culture junkies and they share an obsession we also have with darker sci-fi threads in films you see in films like Bladerunner. It's no accident that some of the scenes in the Matrix trilogy are reminiscent of Bladerunner, because we've been dying all our lives to do that kind of work. "
* "I want to make an electrochemical movie.
In the year 2099 I'll be 130 years old, but I think around 2063 I'm going to have my brain taken out and have it inserted into a clone who's about 21 years old. Maybe some bionic augmentation upgrades, too. In about 40 years, I'm thinking some sort of military-industrial-supercomplex-international-intelligensia supergroup will figure out how to export imagery to people's brains. If you can see it in your head while you're dreaming -- well, that image is created somehow. Someday, someone will figure out how to place that image into your brain. It'll be some combination of electricity and drugs, and they'll call it Rosebud.
A billion people will attend the first electrochemical movie premiere. Everyone in the audience will experience love again for the first time, and we'll become gazillionaires. I don't know how we'll make our electrochemical movie into a DVD, though. And distribution is definitely going to be a problem."* "The most difficult thing about creating effects for the trilogy? Designing choreography that could never be actualized by human beings."
The artist is now 71 years old and living in Palm Springs, Florida, enjoying his new career as a painter.
His name is Cheeta, and he's the world's oldest living primate.
* Christina James was the first to submit Koonago Factory. Comments: Several judges picked this one. Dark, violent Japorn featuring tiny cartoon fairy-doll women? What's not to like? (NSFW rating: some nudity and grossness, but nothing Rotten-grade).
* Wayne Mercier submitted The International Trepanation Advocacy Group. Comments: Invisible Cowgirl says, "Because nothing says scary like I Got a Hole Drilled in My Head personal testimonials."
* Steve Lew submitted
Mutant Midget Interracial Lemon Porn. Comments: Xeni says, "Strange fruit. Mmmmmmm."
* Steve Mills submitted Coffee Table Wife. Comments: Warren Ellis liked it. Go figure.
* Lucas Emery submitted Aussie Scrotum Shop. Comments: Made Warren smile.
* Zach Rodgers submitted Ordo Magazine. Comments: Invisible Cowgirl says, "A beauty of a blog chock full of everything that's weird and wonderful on the web." (NSFW guide: Links to some sexually explicit stuff, but links to lots of other stuff, too).
* An anonymous Link-Fu Master submitted Jesus is With You Everywhere. Comments: Xeni liked the scary trucker picture.
* Peace Rug and Wholesome Swimsuits
came from from Judson. Comments: Mark thought they were weird, silly and fun. [Boing Boing]
Gallery of black and white photographs of mental patients in a Taiwanese Buddhist sanctuary. Link
(via signormori.clarence.com) [Boing Boing]
(1) eat bunny
(2) potted meat
(3) octodog
(4) ham sculpture
(5) poutine
(6) meat shake
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank). [Boing Boing]
(1) defacer
(2) stacey as britney
(3) fishyspoon
(4) impersonators
(5) b list
(6) celine dreams
(7) more than hucknall
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank). [Boing Boing]
I’ve recently subscribed to three weblogs about books.
Bookslut [RSS]
h20boro lib [RSS]
the Literary Saloon [RSS]
Anyone know of any other good ones?
P.S. NetNewsWire tip: you can actually drag the RSS links above into your Subscriptions pane to subscribe. This works with any link to an RSS feed, and it often works with links to the home page of a site. [Inessential.com]
(via Making Light) [Boing Boing]
Stained Glass Photography is an enormous archive of beautiful photos of classical church-glass, organized by artist.
(Thanks, Neil!)
1. Dip into water until tampon expands.
2. Remove and tie at the top to create the angel's head.
3. Let hang (by handy dandy string) for several days until dry.
4. Paint face with peach or skin tone color, and draw small
black dots for eyes.
5. Add blush or pink paint to cheeks.
6. Paint "dress" with glimmer paint.
7. Criss-cross thin gold ribbon across chest (around neck) .
8. Add yellow doll hair to top of head as well as a gold
pipe cleaner for a halo.
9. For the grand finale...glue small gold angel wings to back.
(via Making Light) [Boing Boing]
There are two Elvises: pre-army and post-army. There are two Lucille Balls: one who starred in I Love Lucy, and the one who was in everything after that. There are also two Charles Shulz's: one that drew Snoopy as a quadriped, and the later one who drew him as a biped. In all three cases, I like the earlier versions better. That's why I was so excited to learn that Fantagraphics will be publishing a book of Shulz's very first Peanut strips from 1950-1952 in THE COMPLETE PEANUTS.
This first volume, covering the first two and a quarter years of the strip, will be of particular fascination to PEANUTS aficionados worldwide: Although there have been literally hundreds of PEANUTS books published, many of the strips from the series’ first two or three years have never been collected before — in large part because they showed a young Schulz working out the kinks in his new strip and include some characterizations and designs that are quite different from the cast we’re all familiar with. (Among other things, three major cast members — Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus — initially show up as infants and only “grow” into their final “mature” selves as the months go by. Even Snoopy debuts as a puppy!) Thus THE COMPLETE PEANUTS offers a unique chance to see a master of the artform refine his skills and solidify his universe, day by day, week by week, month by month.
The book is being designed by Seth, creator of the fabulous comic, Palookaville. Many of the strips have never before been anthologized. Publication date is April 2004.
"Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose that you resolved to effect." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
"Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
"One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
ESC is the company created by the Wachowski brothers and John Gaeta to produce the complex work of visual effects in the Matrix series. Gaeta may well be the single most influential person in the last decade of visual effects, and right now he's talking to the audience of Spanish digital artists and tech developers here about the creative process behind the films, and what to expect in the forthcoming Matrix: Revolutions:
* "What will be different in Revolutions? It's the final, ultimate manifestation of Larry and Andy Wachowski's anime dream: to make am movie as close to an anime as possible. Take the best and coolest aspects of anime -- large scale robotics, entanglements between man anad machine -- and tranform it into a feature, live action film. You'll also see lots more bullets."* "Subconsciousness needs to be redefined with every generation. Matrix is a stylized sci-fi story, but the root of the idea that you can have imagery placed into your mind is a very possible scenario, and I think that's a universe that our generation was finally ready to start dealing with. I grew up on Kubrick, Ridley Scott, Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and many other filmmakers that triggered ideas inside my mind -- that's how evolution works. One generation speaking to another. Larry and Andy [Wachowski] are preoccupied with those ideas, too, but they're also pop culture junkies and they share an obsession we also have with darker sci-fi threads in films you see in films like Bladerunner. It's no accident that some of the scenes in the Matrix trilogy are reminiscent of Bladerunner, because we've been dying all our lives to do that kind of work. "
* "I want to make an electrochemical movie.
In the year 2099 I'll be 130 years old, but I think around 2063 I'm going to have my brain taken out and have it inserted into a clone who's about 21 years old. Maybe some bionic augmentation upgrades, too. In about 40 years, I'm thinking some sort of military-industrial-supercomplex-international-intelligensia supergroup will figure out how to export imagery to people's brains. If you can see it in your head while you're dreaming -- well, that image is created somehow. Someday, someone will figure out how to place that image into your brain. It'll be some combination of electricity and drugs, and they'll call it Rosebud.
A billion people will attend the first electrochemical movie premiere. Everyone in the audience will experience love again for the first time, and we'll become gazillionaires. I don't know how we'll make our electrochemical movie into a DVD, though. And distribution is definitely going to be a problem."* "The most difficult thing about creating effects for the trilogy? Designing choreography that could never be actualized by human beings."
Possessing a rare combination of wisdom and humility, while serenely dominating your environment you selflessly use your powers to care for others.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
Galadriel is a character in the Middle-Earth universe. You can read more about her at the Galadriel Worshippers Army.
Like Gus Mueller, I ended up as Jean-Luc Picard in the “Which Fantasy/SciFi Character are You?” test.
If I hadn’t ended up as Picard, I probably wouldn’t have admitted taking the test. If you ever want to or need to flatter a geek, call him Jean-Luc. Geeks are so easy. [Inessential.com]
"You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
I don’t usually like to descend to the level of taking potshots (or participating in Mac versus PC debates), but I just can’t resist mentioning Bill Gates’s official “home page” (thanks to my brother Bobby for turning me on to this, by the way). The site, which collects a number of Chairman Bill’s most vital essays and speeches, is a revealing glimpse into what passes for deep thought in Redmond these days.
The tone is immediately set by a photo of our hero, hand clenched at his breast, staring off into the distance, the mildly smug expression of a man who “gets it” on his face. And what does he get? Well, just take a look at the witty anecdote emblazoned in big bold letters beneath his portrait:
“My daughter and I were walking down the street and I said, ‘Let’s go to the record store,’ and she said, ‘What’s a record?’”
How insightful! Truly, he is a man with his finger on the pulse of technology and youth culture!
What’s that—you’re not convinced? Then scroll down the page a little further and marvel at the profundity of his Wall Street Journal op-ed/marketing piece, provocatively titled “Why I Hate Spam!” Only a truly bold leader would be willing to take such a controversial stand on something so near and dear to the hearts of email users everywhere. Obviously, Bill has an almost preternatural ability to home in on and analyze the important issues of the day (Spam == Bad)!
All of this sarcasm may sound a bit snotty, considering I’m picking on targets as easy as Bill Gates and the notoriously wooden Microsoft marketing machine, but it gets at an annoyance I’ve had for a long time: the tendency of average people to think of Bill Gates as some sort of all-knowing technological oracle whose every utterance is a glimpse into the future (witness, for example, the late night TV ads that offer a quote from Bill Gates as evidence of the growing market for public access Internet terminals). Let’s get this straight people: Bill’s record as a businessman is stellar, but when it comes to bleeding edge technology, most of the better webloggers out there are a lot more savvy!
(Update: Here, for the benefit of posterity, is a PDF of the Gates home page as it stands today.)
[Sci-Fi Hi-Fi]"Eat a third and drink a third and leave the remaining third of your stomach empty. Then, when you get angry, there will be sufficient room for your rage." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
"As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
weezer sumo
hangman
catch a fly
beat the quilters
internet tennis
bubble trouble
monkey moon lander
diner
office space
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank). [Boing Boing]
Someone at the door? Click your remote and send His Robot to check it out. His Robot's voice circuitry can deliver your greeting, and His on-board video camera gives you a view of the visitor, who can hop onto His platform and be delivered to you in the den. Need some help getting the groceries into the house? Her Robot is happy to help. Need to leave a message for the spouse or kids? Tell it to Her Robot, and she'll spread the word. In fact, His Robot is designed to respond empathetically to us humans and features programmable technology. Our exclusive package includes much more, like preprogrammed messages and sequences of movements, and training for the humans.
Written by a professor of Urban Planning, the book seems to have been written from the perspective of utopianism in urban design, with Walt as a kind of Bizarro-world Jane Jacobs. This is a subject that's always fascinated me -- the idea of a top-to-bottom Disney-mediated utopian community. There was a generation of Americna entrepreneurs who dreamed of these things -- Ford reportedly built planned communities in Brazil called "Fordlandia" where he subjected his rubber-plantation workers to his utopian vision (which included the banning of the local booze in favor of Tom Collinses, which were inherently Utopian in Ford's eyes).
"Mannheim does a remarkable job in detailing the Disney's revolutionary urban planning contributions that shape most of the modern world."
Edward J. Blakely, Dean, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University, New York, USA
"The book is the first to reveal Walt Disney's deep personal concern for the urban "crisis" of the time..."
Gerald Gast, Associate Professor, Portland Urban Architecture Program, The University of Oregon
Posted by MacDood
The PETA people are sure to get their panties in a bunch over this one: fur coats from Elmo pelts, and wall-mounted game trophies of the googly-eyed one's decapitated head. Elmo say, "owie." But don't throw blood at your monitor -- it's only the work of artist Kelly Heaton, who purchased 64 previously-owned Tickle Me Elmo dolls on eBay.
Link to photo series, Link to eBay art auction (Thanks, Tim)
[Boing Boing]
No more devices. Sorry, I don't want still one more device attached to my television set. And I certainly don't want to pay for it. Yet, there goes Disney (DIS:NYSE) , offering Operation MovieBeam, under which you can add a device to your television that costs you money every day so you won't have to pay late fees at Blockbuster. Huh? Who thinks about this stuff? Who creates it? And at what point do companies stop dreaming about the wonders of video on demand? (...)Link [Boing Boing]
My prediction: There's a $100 million write-off headed Disney's way. This venture reminds me so much of those Disney ventures I was involved during the dot-com period. Everything they touched turned to stone. They had no feel for the marketplace or for what consumers wanted. It's just amazing how bad they are.
The World Beard and Moustache Championships are coming to Carson City, Nevada on Nov 1 -- this'll be the first BeardCon on US soil in over a decade! Maybe the first EVAR!
(via Geisha Asobi)
I was so wrong. This is a really loving, thorough, adult history of the Haunted Mansion, an appredciation by someone who is clearly a dedicated fan of the ride and who has spent an enviable amount of time talking to some of the principals involved and digging through the Disney archives (the archival material reproduced in the book is stunning, and includes a lot of stuff that I've never seen in a lifetime of Mansion fandom). I'm enjoying the hell out of it. I take it all back. This does not suck.
My own view of the Metaweb is pretty straightforward: I don't think that the Internet, as it currently exists, does a very good job of explaining things to people. It is great for selling stuff, distributing news and dirty pictures, and a few other things. But when you need to get a good explanation of something, whether it is a scientific principle, a bit of gardening advice, or how to change a tire, you have to sift through a vast number of pages to find the one that gives you the explanation that is right for you. Generally this is not a problem with the explanations themselves. On the contrary, it seems as though a lot of people like to explain things on the Internet, and some of them are quite good at it. The problem lies in how these explanations are organized.
We have been looking for a way to get an explanation system seeded for a long time, and it occurred to us that a set of annotations to my book might be one way to get it started. At first, the explanations here will be strongly tied to characters and situations in QUICKSILVER and so may be of only limited interest to those who have not read the book. However, with a few clicks we might move on to more general explanations. For example, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle appear as characters in QUICKSILVER, and so early on we might see annotations concerning specific things that they are shown doing in the book. But later these might link to explanations of Boyle's Law. Such an explanation need not refer to QUICKSILVER in any way, and so it could be useful to, say, a high school student who has never heard of me or my book but who needs to understand Boyle's Law and why it is important.
(Thanks, Jeremy!) [Boing Boing]
When you see me going in to the bank and walking out with my new gun in "Bowling for Columbine" #8211 that is exactly as it happened. Nothing was done out of the ordinary other than to phone ahead and ask permission to let me bring a camera in to film me opening up my account. I walked into that bank in northern Michigan for the first time ever on that day in June 2001, and, with cameras rolling, gave the bank teller $1,000 #8211 and opened up a 20-year CD account. After you see me filling out the required federal forms ("How do you spell Caucasian?") #8211 which I am filling out here for the first time #8211 the bank manager faxed it to the bank's main office for them to do the background check. The bank is a licensed federal arms dealer and thus can have guns on the premises and do the instant background checks (the ATF's Federal Firearms database—which includes all federally approved gun dealers—lists North Country Bank with Federal Firearms License #4-38-153-01-5C-39922).
Within 10 minutes, the "OK" came through from the firearms background check agency and, 5 minutes later, just as you see it in the film, they handed me a Weatherby Mark V Magnum rifle (If you'd like to see the outtakes, click here).
And it is that very gun that I still own to this day. I have decided the best thing to do with this gun is to melt it down into a bust of John Ashcroft and auction it off on E-Bay (more details on that later). All the proceeds will go to The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence to fight all these lying gun nuts who have attacked my film and make it possible on a daily basis for America's gun epidemic to rage on.
(via K5) [Boing Boing]
The bad thing about this film is that it never really wants to scare you too much. When you are a kid and you go on The Haunted Mansion for the first time it scares the shit outta you! Waiting in line, standing in that sinking elevator, checking for exits, your heart beating fast, hands sweaty-I wanted that feeling when I saw this movie! Sure you get a few jumps, a few scary looking skeletons but that is pretty much it...
The music was great, assuming we heard the soundtrack that will be in the finished film. The FX although some unfinished were tight. Rick Baker's make up was sweet as always. And the cinematogaphy was great too. Interesting lighting, clean shots, taking great advantage of 2:35.
Stefan sez, "Oh, wow: 'Her!' is a delightfully nasty, minimalist web comic about a little girl, a pig, and various walk-ons."
(Thanks, Stefan!)
So perhaps we haven't paid enough attention to how many holes have popped open in his domestic socks.
Joblessness that was supposed to be stanched by the Bush tax cuts. Urban food kitchens overwhelmed by the demand from people who are working but underemployed and end up out of money three weeks into the month. A domestic Peace Corps program (AmeriCorps) that is praised publicly by the president as admirable volunteerism but is being starved of money by the White House and congressional Republicans. But, still, you wouldn't think he would stiff children and their schooling. That's maybe the most disappointing thing this president has done here at home."Looks like the "No Child Left Behind/'accountability is the true foundation of education reform'/Texas education miracle" is just another Texas tall tale. [metafilter.com]
One of the funniest bits in Al Franken's brilliant and scathing Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right is the comic-strip "Supply-Side Jesus." Now the strip's online -- enjoy!
Tons of wacky spoofs on the latest iPod ad campaign, courtesy of somethingawful.com.
The Scarlet Pimpernel sends this example of Los Angeles freewayblogging:It's about 10'X10' and reads "Dear America,
Thanks for all the money, sorry about your kids. -- Halliburton Oil" on one
side and "Nobody Died when Clinton Lied" on the other. Somebody's
opened a website dedicated to this mysterious group, and I'm thinking of
doing the same. In the meantime, check out Nobody Died.
From Smart Money:
Halliburton Corp.'s (HAL) U.S. government contracts to restore Iraqi oil production and provide support services to troops will cost taxpayers an estimated $2 billion and are expected to rise, Army spokesmen said.An Army Corps of Engineers contract to rehabilitate the country's oil fields, controversial because it wasn't competitively bid, now is valued at $948 million, more than $200 million above the level projected last month. One particularly expensive item: importing fuel to the oil-rich country, at a cost of as much as $6 million a day.
Meanwhile, ex-Halliburton chief Dick Cheney continues to receive deferred compensation payments from Halliburton.
Gangstah Pirate fo'ties bottles o' rum bling bling booty Yo! Avast! Homey Matey Bee-atch Scurvey dog
(via Making Light) [Boing Boing]
[A] way-too-short informative clip (you want it to go on for days) features a typical Marin County self-help group talking about actualizing your dreams. The story goes that, halfway into filming, the leader of this bizarre yuppie cult decided “everything has to be destroyed – RIGHT NOW!” The filmmakers managed to salvage this 15 minutes before the rest was lost forever.
HIGHLIGHT: A man rests on his knees and, after being encouraged to say what he feels no matter how much it hurts, bursts into sobs and screams, “I want to touch people. I want people to TOUCH ME!!!!”
Link, (Thanks, ESC) [Boing Boing]
MODDER: Rainer Wingender
Manager, BITS-Consulting
Siegenburg, Germany
SPECS: left side: 1.8-GHz AMD XP Thoroughbred 2200, 512 Mbytes RAM, Nvidia GeForce4 graphics card, 110-Gbyte hard disk, DVD-ROM; right side: 450-MHz AMD K6-2, 256 Mbytes RAM, 44xCD, CD-RW, 40-Gbyte hard disk.
COST: $1,000 in cooling plates, exhaust, intakes, and gauges; $2,000 in computer components
TIME: 250 hours over three months
INSPIRATION: "A 1971 Ford Mustang I owned when I was 18. If you've ever driven a V-8, you know the feeling."
CHALLENGE: "Designing good-looking feet. Early tries seemed too small, but when I added the punched bars, it balanced just right visually."
BBC story about a gizmo that cuts out external sensory stimulation so you can make a phone call. Involves getting into a warm pool and sticking your head in a lightproof bubble. Link (via Smart Mobs)
