May 6, 2004
NeuroFilter
Weightless Animals
Electorometrics?
More Election Predictions. Not based on ideological politics, but on the way they speak, or perhaps on the way the economy moves, on top of futures markets. Are we moving toward Electorometrics?
Moore admits Disney 'ban' was a stunt
Michael Moore admits Disney 'ban' was a stunt.
Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it.
"Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."
Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it.
"Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, the chairman of Disney, Michael Eisner, told my agent he was upset Miramax had made the film and he will not distribute it."
Knowledge is power
Ever wondered about Islamic law? This site hosts a series of essays and papers on various areas by Mohammad H. Kamali and others on topics such as Freedom of Expression in Islam and critiques of contemporary attempts at huddud implementation. All nicely indepth and referenced, some good, some not so good, but all intriguing.
NES Controller Belt
"to avenge honour"
Pakistani council aproves rape to avenge honour. "A village council in Pakistan permitted a landlord to rape the sister and sister-in-law of a man he accused of an illicit relationship with his daughter, police said Thursday. (...) The council members, all of them landlords themselves, ruled that Ghaffar, who uses only one name, could avenge his honour by having sex with the farmer's daughter, who is 16, and daughter-in-law, who is 22."
(BBC version here).
"An estimated 80 percent of women prisoners in Pakistan are in jail because they failed to prove rape charges".
Why choose the lesser Evil?
The Most Important Press Conference of This (US) Election Cycle! (It's not quite Friday, but it's Flash. Really flash)
For Sale: Your very own ready room!
Where does Number 1 go? Interior designer/nerd gives his apartment the "Away Team Eye" once over and manages to make something pretty darn interesting. Sure it makes a great conversation piece, but could you live there? More photos make the "future perfect" world of Star Trek look a little too busy for actual living.
Buddhist Art and the Trade Routes
Roaring 78s, Roaring '20s
Joe Bussard is the self-proclaimed king of record collectors (pre-war 78s, of course). He'll even make you a tape. According to Bussard, jazz died in 1933. Were the '20s America's golden age? Great art, architecture, movies, and even coins.
Allah forgive them--they're imbeciles
Have You Prayed Today?*
Today is the National Day of Prayer in the US (I had never heard of it). Oliver North!?! is the honorary chairman this year. Here are the President's remarks today. Meanwhile, Larry Flynt is calling for a different sort of prayer today.
*Muslims and Mormons need not apply.
"We're in an election year, and we believe God cares who's in those positions of authority," said Mark Fried, spokesman for the National Day of Prayer Task Force. "But we're not endorsing a candidate, just praying that God's hand will be on the election." The private task force, which operates from the Colorado headquarters of the Christian organization Focus on the Family ....
... since the mid-1980s the ceremony has been organized by the nonprofit task force headed by two prominent evangelical women: Vonette Bright, widow of Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright, and Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. She also made no apologies about the task force's exclusion of Muslims and others outside of the "Judeo-Christian tradition" from ceremonies planned by the task force on Capitol Hill and in state capitals across the country. "They are free to have their own national day of prayer if they want to," she said. "We are a Christian task force."
Today is the National Day of Prayer in the US (I had never heard of it). Oliver North!?! is the honorary chairman this year. Here are the President's remarks today. Meanwhile, Larry Flynt is calling for a different sort of prayer today.
*Muslims and Mormons need not apply.
"We're in an election year, and we believe God cares who's in those positions of authority," said Mark Fried, spokesman for the National Day of Prayer Task Force. "But we're not endorsing a candidate, just praying that God's hand will be on the election." The private task force, which operates from the Colorado headquarters of the Christian organization Focus on the Family ....
... since the mid-1980s the ceremony has been organized by the nonprofit task force headed by two prominent evangelical women: Vonette Bright, widow of Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright, and Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. She also made no apologies about the task force's exclusion of Muslims and others outside of the "Judeo-Christian tradition" from ceremonies planned by the task force on Capitol Hill and in state capitals across the country. "They are free to have their own national day of prayer if they want to," she said. "We are a Christian task force."
F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements
F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements Shit happens? Or does it? " At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording that day describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said today."
Lions, tigers and bears. Oh my.
Polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba. Wildlife photographer Ken Bereskin has a nice collection of polar bears
frolicking in the snow. This itchy bear
is so frustrated, he's using the rippled ice of a frozen lake to
scratch himself. If you need a change of temperature, he also has over 500 images
of wildlife from Uganda and Kenya, including big
cats (a mother cuddling
with
her cubs, a cheetah chomping
down on a gazelle, and a young lioness shredding
a skeleton to pieces), great
apes, and
other wildlife (the
lowly hyena eating the cheetah's leftovers, a black-headed heron eating
a venomous boomslang snake, and a scary-looking
vulture taking it all in from above). He also has a smaller
collection of desert wildlife from the dunes of Etoshia National
Park in Namibia. (His real job is working for Apple, and he has a
Panther blog
that hasn't been updated in eons, but evidently that's not as much fun
as chasing after hungry carnivorous animals in the sweltering heat, or
risking frostbite in the snow).
Increasing the vote virally
Strive for Five wants to infect the US with a voting virus.
ups and downs and all-arounds
Will they call Rosie courageous? Will she be as compelling and nuanced as Benny Stulwicz? Can this sort of portrayal come anywhere close to the real thing?
one if by land, two if by sea...
Cirque de Sore Legs may have won the people's choice award, but the competition [including a giant poodle, a bird's nest, and Kafka mid-metamorphosis] wasn't half bad. Baltimore's annual Kinetic Sculpture Race, an unholy amalgam of engineering and art, occurred last week. Created by Hobart Brown in 1969, kinetic sculpture races require participants to build human-powered vehicles that can traverse a racecourse over land and sea, not to mention mud and sand. And they have to do it in style. Don't live near the Chesapeake? Then visit similar races in Arcata, Boulder, Ventura, Corvallis, and even Perth, Australia. Too tame for you? Perhaps you'd like to try a flugtag or the Providence or Bognor birdman competitions.
A leash to shake the White House ?
"Pull out, pull out", she cried, "Before it's too late!" - Sex sells. Amidst the ongoing PR conflagration - as newly released imagery of the psychosexual humiliation, by US guards at Abu Ghraib, of imprisoned Iraqis (a naked Iraqi man on a leash held by a female American soldier, notably) provokes widespread outrage (and the Red Cross says things are much worse than those pictures show), the BBC reports on informed speculation that the perfect storm of a growing insurgency, political reversals, and a PR debacle will lead to a hasty coalition pullout from Iraq. A frustrated and tense "Machine Gun Cheney" achieves release, via his wheelbarrel load of 30 guns (including a Thompson), blasting away at a Secret Service gun range. His aim, they say, is very good. But will Cheney bite the bullet and level with the American public about what it will now take for the US to prevail in Iraq ?
Morons for Bush?
2000 Election results ranked by avg statewide IQ. Shame on me for even posting this here in this slavering den of liberal fervor, but if it's true, it certainly is kinda fascinating.
........
Walking DNA Scientists have created a microscopic walking robot using only the building blocks of life. The robot’s DNA legs move along a DNA footpath, taking a nanostroll in a bath of a liquid called a "nondenaturing buffer", which stops the DNA from falling apart.
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