April 23, 2004
Bi-Partisan Environmental Improvement?
A new study (in a biggish PDF) from PRI states that most environmental indicators in the United States have improved dramatically since the 1970's regardless of the political party that controls the White House. Notably: "CO (Carbon monoxide) levels were the lowest recorded during the past 20 years" (EPA, 2002, pg 48), ambient lead levels have fallen 98% between 1976 and 2002 (pg 46), and sulfur dioxide has fallen 70% since 1976 (pg 44). (Mostly) Happy Earth Week, right?
(Via Easterblogg)
(Via Easterblogg)
If the meek don't inherit the earth, they'll at least get a say in a fringe party's platform!
The Green Party of Canada's living platform is their party platform... in Wiki form! It seems that only party members are able to participate in the Wiki, but the rest of us are still able to rank a plank and vote for their platform's priorities in the next election. Once the election date is set, party administrators will form the input into some sort of rough fixed platform, but until then, it's "what real democracy looks like".
Save the Prudential Building!
After 25 years away, I've recently moved back to the metropolis of my birth, Houston, Texas, and have been reminded that a lot of my favorite buildings here are from the Modern Movement in architecture. However, many of these buildings--much less than a century old!--are now giving way to newer ones, and many unique residences fast being replaced with McMansions. Even the Astrodome's fate is in the air. HoustonMod is trying to preserve these buildings and their place in history. More power to 'em.
A Multitude of Maps
The truth is out there
The truth that MeFites don't want you to know. As a follow-up to this post on "the Coffins GWB doesn't want you to see," it is revealed that many of the photographs that ran rampant over the Internet and wire services weren't of fallen American soldiers, but were of the crew of the Columbia.
Israeli Border Police used Palestinian kid as human shield
Israeli Border Police use Palestinian kid as human shield. According to Rabbi Arik Ascherman: “The boy, crying, shaking from fear and eventually cold, was sat on the hood of a jeep and tied to the bars protecting the glass. The other three arrestees were bound and placed in front of a second jeep as human shields, to deter protestors from throwing stones at the jeep”.
List 'em if ya got 'em
Blender Magazine lists the 50 worst songs of all time. Wait. Before you click the link know the the geniuses over at Blender only post songs 50 (Celline Dion's "My Heart Will Go On") through 41 (Color Me Badd's “I Wanna Sex You Up.” Yeah, I'm going to go buy a copy just for this article, aren't you? Fortunately, MSN spares us the torment of not knowing what the worst song of all time might be. Ready? Starship's "We Built This City." Now recognizing that it's the job of critics to make choices, and this is an impossible one, surely we can do better than that, no? [via danieldrezner.com]
teacher freakout!
There are goofy news items every day, but once in a while you have some story that transcends them all. Teacher accused of ordering student thrown from window is quite possibly the silliest story I've seen this year. It's beyond the Onion. Teacher enters class and takes photo of students, one student objects, teacher makes a disparaging remark about the way the student looks and student hits an emergency button, then the teacher orders two boys to throw her out the window (where she suffered injuries). Best line about the boys "they threw the girl out the window because they did not want to be written up for disobeying a teacher."
Thermochemical and biochemical conversion
First it was turkey parts, then pig waste and now straw added to the camels back. Thermochemical and biochemical conversion make use of natural processes such as enzymes, heat and pressure to create oil from garbage so one day landfills may become the new domestic oil fields.
Just say no to Crack
Staking out the high moral ground, a bill would punish those wearing low-riding jeans. It seems that Representative Derrick D. T. Shepherd of Louisiana, a Democrat no less, wants to outlaw low slung pants. Plumbers beware, and stock up on Butt-Crack Caulk! Really, don't they have anything better to legislate besides fashion or holidays?
sniggle: to fish for eels by thrusting a baited hook or needle into their hiding places
sniggle.net :: calls itself a 'Culture Jammer's Encyclopedia' -- its a fabulous compendium of forgeries, fakes, hoaxes, counterfeiting, spoofs, pseudoscience, and just plain weird stuff. Perfect fodder for killing time on a Friday afternoon.
\/i@gr@ 7 for the price of 6!
update on kids got sunburn thread
Remember the woman arrested for allowing her kids to be sunburned at a county fair? What's she doing now? Sadly one of her children has died and it has been ruled a homicide.
No Communion for Pro-Abortion Politicians
No Communion for Pro-Choice Politicians
Apparently they have some issue with women having control over their own bodies so they'll deny communion to pro-choice politicians.
Hey, isn't John Kerry a pro-choice Catholic? This couldn't have anything to do with him could it?
Isn't a divisive move like this more likely to result in more people leaving the "faith"?
Apparently they have some issue with women having control over their own bodies so they'll deny communion to pro-choice politicians.
Hey, isn't John Kerry a pro-choice Catholic? This couldn't have anything to do with him could it?
Isn't a divisive move like this more likely to result in more people leaving the "faith"?
Pat Tillman
NFL player, who walked away from a $3.6 million contract in the aftermath of 9/11 to join his brother in the Special Forces, dies in Afganistan. Unselfishness personified.
GUI Olympics!
GUI Olympics! several corporate sponsors (ATI, nVidia, and others) are offering up $15,000 in prize money for the best GUI skin any designer can come up with for a few applications. while i think it's great to push for newer and better user interfaces, who do so many of the designs seem to be pushing complexity over useability? wouldn't a better use of a GUI design prize be to encourage people to improve on a design rather than make it unintelligible? maybe the people pushing the designs need to take this quiz.
Oppenheimer Centennial
J. Robert Oppenheimer Centennial: It is telling that the first atomic test would be named in reference to a poem by John Donne ("Trinity") and the next series of tests would be labeled simply alphabetically according to military protocol ("Able," "Baker," "X-ray," "Yoke," and "Zebra"). It is indicative of the changing of hands of the bomb, moving from the responsibility of intellectual eclectics like Oppenheimer into the protocols of military rank and policy.
See also the Oppenheimer Affair.
Via Science NetWatch.
State Insecurity.
A sad story of self-interest and political naivete. A Washington Post feature about a small group of Chinese students and the government reaction to their political discussion group.
Open arms
You'd think the return of the Japanese hostages from Iraq would be cause for celebration. Nope. "You got what you deserve!" read one hand-written sign at the airport where they landed. "You are Japan's shame," another wrote on the Web site of one of the former hostages. They had "caused trouble" for everybody.
Get Your Bowl On
London designers Steve Mosley and Dominic Wilcox present War Bowls. The conglomeration of warriors melted together in agonizing shapes could be taken as a statement of some kind.
Belgium View
Paper models of polyhedra
Friday Folding Fun! Paper models of polyhedra (most of which I had never heard of before). When finished they look like this. In many cases it's a toss up as to whether they're easier to fold or to pronounce; dodecicosidodecahedrons, anyone? Also: polyhedra info, indexes; and stellated icosahedra by shape and plan.
American Idols of the Nineteenth Century
"Your talent is so great that you can expect fruit and vegetables to be thrown at every performance." Long before William Hung haunted the American music scene, there were The Cherry Sisters, a Vaudeville act that people loved to hate. A review that read, in part, "The mouths opened like caverns, and sounds like the wailing of damned souls issued therefrom," so offended the sisters that they launched a lawsuit which resulted in an historic ruling regarding fair comment. Oscar Hammestein II proclaimed them "the worst act in the history of light entertainment." Alas, no recordings exist.
Reclaiming England's patron saint
Ask Elvis!
Friday nonsense: in a shock plagiarism of "Ask MetaFilter", but with added blue suede shoes, BBC Radio 2 hires Elvis Presley to answer listener's questions on moles, quantum physics, parrots and bread. Sadly, few arguments about operating systems or Iraq, but you can't have everything.... Real Player required
By-Request Music
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