March 29, 2005
Keystone Kops Nick Numerals
"Freedom of speech does not exist, don't try to test it." Anarchist web portals Infoshop.org and flag.blackened.net are under investigation by the FBI. While site operators are under gag order and cannot discuss the specifics of the situation that prompted this action, they confirm that logged IPs have been handed over under threat of arrest and seizure. This is eerily familiar. Just how slippery has this particular slope become?
Eight column inches cut
Imbedded backdoor reporter - I like it below the fold! AMERICAblog is soliciting suggestions for protest signs to commemorate the national Press Club's panel on blogging and journalism. Dirty cracks abound. Surely some of our resident wits can add to the ribaldry. (NSFW)
Yo, books!
A Profile of Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan Takes A Bath : a profile of Greenspan
Toilet Trees
Where do you hide your nasty-ass toilet plunger so the house guests won't see it? Under an attention-getting, gawdy as hell fake plant - duh.
Illusion of Gaia and my cousin David
Mother Goose beats a man with a Bible.
So the story as I understand it is that this guy (.mp3) is a manager for a Jack in the Box restaurant. He was on his way to a meeting, was running a little late and called in to leave a voicemail message. While he was leaving the message, he witnessed an auto accident and basically gives us play-by-play of the events. It's pretty entertaining, but I'm not sure if I completely believe it. Apparently it was quite the talk within the Jack in the Box family.
Duderino
This week in ironyville
In a shocking, or not turn of events the Pope may be getting a feeding tube to match Terry Schaivo's and complement his big hat.
Brian Eno's next big thing?!
Brian Eno's next big thing?! Politics, it appears. Brian Eno, an outspoken opponent of Tony Blair's administration in Britain, has started up http://www.libdemthistime.org, encouraging prominent Brits to show their support for the Liberal Democrats. If that isn't enough, he's helping bankroll the father of a British soldier killed in Iraq to run against Tony Blair in his constituency, in the hope of unseating him. Could Labour win and Tony lose?
Audio and Visual are as one.
Time Traveling with Tetsuya Mizuguchi: an auditory interview with the producer of such classics as Rez, Space Channel 5, and Lumines. (via)
I am Kyrgyz, hear me roar.
What's going on in Kyrgyzstan? Remember what happened in Georgia and Ukraine? Now it's Kyrgyzstan's turn. Unimpressed with February's Parliamentary election, Kyrgyz stormed across the country and drove President Askar Akayev and his buddies into exile. Can Kyrgyzstan's heretofore weak and divided opposition hold together enough to make real improvements? And who's next?
Can you hear the drums Fernando? FERNANDO!!?
Ever noticed how silly those people dancing in music videos start looking when you turn the sound off? Next June, see that live as a spectator at the Glastonbury festival, which will feature a Silent Disco this year in an effort to sidestep noise curfews.
MSM + Blogs = Bad
The experiment has ended. Roughly 8 months ago, the Star Tribune joined forces with blogger Twins Geek. The hope: a productive union of traditional journalism and online weblogs. The verdict: an unholy marriage, apparently. And this was just a baseball blog.
Finally, a fitting and acquitting end
Johnnie Cochran, R.I.P. "Cochran died at his home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles of an inoperable brain tumor, according to his brother-in-law Bill Baker. His wife and his two sisters were with him at the time of his death.
"Cochran, his family and colleagues were secretive about his illness to protect the attorney's privacy as well as the network of Cochran law offices that largely draw their cachet from his presence. But Cochran confirmed in a Sept. 2004 interview with The Times that he was being treated by the eminent neurosurgeon Keith Black at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles."
Damn the doctors, get me a Bible!
Get Me a Faith Healer, STAT!
Marvin Andrews, a Trinidadian and Tobagoan defender with the Glasgow Rangers, sustained damage to his knee that team doctors say requires surgery to repair. He's decided that God will repair him and says that he will continue practicing and playing. This is on the heels of a recent faith-healed groin injury.
The question is this, if a professional athlete refuses to take the advice of the team's doctors and continues to play with an injury, is his team still responsible for his health and well-being? What about paying out his contract if the injury progresses to the point where he can no longer play?
Marvin Andrews, a Trinidadian and Tobagoan defender with the Glasgow Rangers, sustained damage to his knee that team doctors say requires surgery to repair. He's decided that God will repair him and says that he will continue practicing and playing. This is on the heels of a recent faith-healed groin injury.
The question is this, if a professional athlete refuses to take the advice of the team's doctors and continues to play with an injury, is his team still responsible for his health and well-being? What about paying out his contract if the injury progresses to the point where he can no longer play?
Constitution Restoration Act of 2005
"...God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government." The re-introduction of this bill on March 3rd seemed to have been hardly noticed. It was first brought up last year by Senator Richard Shelby, Rep. Robert Aderholt, and Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore.
I wonder if section 201 of the CRA will affect Article VI, Sect. 2. (born of, the 2004 thread (s))
Dropping science like when Galileo dropped the orange
MC Hawking's A Brief History of Rhyme (Flash) silliness for a Tuesday afternoon.
Sony
Sony Ordered to pay 90.1 million in damages, and immediately stop selling Playstation 2's that come with a dual shock controller. Why has this not been in the news?
Suppressing Free Speech
Suppressing Free Speech
On "...Monday, March 28, the Secret Service called three everyday people into their offices to discuss why we were kicked out of a presidential event in Denver last week where Bush promoted his plan to privatize Social Security. What they revealed to us and our lawyer was fascinating.
There we were - three people who had personally picked up tickets from Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez's office and went to a presidential event. But as we entered, we were told that we had been 'ID'ed' and were warned that any disruption would get us arrested. After being seated in the audience we were forcibly removed before the President arrived, even though we had not been disruptive. We were shocked when told that this presidential event was a "private event" and were commanded to leave....The Secret Service revealed that we were 'ID'ed' when local Republican staffers saw a bumper sticker on the car we drove which said 'No More Blood For Oil.'" Related Associated Press story.
On "...Monday, March 28, the Secret Service called three everyday people into their offices to discuss why we were kicked out of a presidential event in Denver last week where Bush promoted his plan to privatize Social Security. What they revealed to us and our lawyer was fascinating.
There we were - three people who had personally picked up tickets from Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez's office and went to a presidential event. But as we entered, we were told that we had been 'ID'ed' and were warned that any disruption would get us arrested. After being seated in the audience we were forcibly removed before the President arrived, even though we had not been disruptive. We were shocked when told that this presidential event was a "private event" and were commanded to leave....The Secret Service revealed that we were 'ID'ed' when local Republican staffers saw a bumper sticker on the car we drove which said 'No More Blood For Oil.'" Related Associated Press story.
Baby's named a bad, bad thing
White Power if it's a boy, Aryan Justice if it's a girl.
Who's cloning who?
Clonus (AKA Parts: the Clonus Horror) was released on DVD today. This ultracheap 1979 sci-fi thriller is about a compound where clones are raised, unaware that their purpose in life is to provide harvested organs (more detail here). MST3K sent it up, the Onion sneers at it, but this NY Times review (reg. reqd., scroll down) is respectful. You can rent it now, or you can wait until July for the megabudget, Michael Bay-directed version of the same damn story.
No need for tinfoil hats.
Mind control revealed. Derren Brown, magician turned hypnotist, performs amazing feats of mind control and then gives away the basic psychological tricks he uses. The link is to the video clips from England's Channel 4, an article is here. Via boingboing.
DJ David Byrne
We are all children in the arms of Chivas.
Laura K. Pahl is a plagiarist. In which a blogger exacts poetic justice on a spoiled little rich girl at university.
Superatoms: Disagreement Within the Clustering Field
Laser vaporization employed to create Superatoms, atomic clusters that behave like individual atoms and could be used to create new materials.
Southeast Asian refugees
Southeast Asian refugees, like other immigrant populations, have had a mix of experiences and successes since they began arriving in the U.S. in the 1970s. Among the refugees, two groups, the Mien and the Hmong, tribes who populate the mountains of Laos and Thailand, fled when the Communists took over. Today, some
Mien, also known to some Asians as the Yao, continue to live in China, where they are a recognized minority group and elsewhere. Large numbers of the
Mien people have settled in Portland, Ore., and California, and appear to be doing pretty well. The Hmong settled primarily in Minneapolis and St. Paul because their military leader, Gen. Vang Pao settled there. You may have read about the
Hmong man who killed six white hunters, claiming racial animosity, but before that occurred, the Hmong themselves have experienced one tragedy after
another.
Human Variety
The Nature of Normal Human Variety A talk with Dr. Armand Leroi (his website).
"Almost uniquely among modern scientific problems [the problem of normal human variety] is a problem that we can apprehend as we walk down the street. We live in an age now where the deepest scientific problems are buried away from our immediate perception. They concern the origin of the universe. They concern the relationships of subatomic particles. They concern the nature and structure of the human genome. Nobody can see these things without large bits of expensive equipment. But when I consider the problem of human variety I feel as Aristotle must have felt when he first walked down to the shore at Lesvos for the first time. The world is new again." (via Arts & Letters Daily)
Life Everlasting-the religious right and the right to die
Does the right to life trump the right to die? In an increasingly hysterical debate surrounding Terry Schiavo, Garret Keizer provides a thought-provoking analysis of who should decide when and how a person dies:
"The alarms raised in America’s ongoing right-to-die debate have always been characterized by a curious selectivity. You will notice, for example, how the fear of playing God operates exclusively on one side of the medical playground. Thus to help a patient end his or her life “prematurely” is playing God, while extending it in ways and under conditions that no God lacking horns and a cloven hoof could ever have intended is the mandate of “our Judeo-Christian heritage” and the Hippocratic oath."
Cat Hate
A good reason to hate cats. However if that is not enough, this guy has 32 other reasons to hate cats.
Ecrans Transparents: 'transparent' Mac screens. An homage to Magritte.
« Previous day | Next day »