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Is this really the most depressing book cover of the year? Because I kinda thought this one was. [via AntiPixel]
comment posted at 1:31 AM on Sep-23-03
comment posted at 7:24 AM on Sep-23-03

The Song Is You: If ever there was a perfect singer - and I do mean perfect - it was Ella Fitzgerald. Her Songbooks (please scroll down for the listings and samples) are still - and will always be - the best collection there is of the great American standards. That is, if you don't mind crying and having the little hairs on the nape of your neck stand up and revolt. And swing. They'd be the last records objects I'd be willing to part with: they're the mother's milk of American Western popular culture. So imagine my surprise when I found their perfect counterpart on the Web: the best-ever collection of lyrics to the songs of the greatest American composers: Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and Richard Rodgers. Admirably, the compiler has gone way beyond his duty and included wonderful standards (quite a few unknown to me) that even Ella never got around to singing. Thank you, Todd. And God bless you, Sir!
comment posted at 7:38 AM on Sep-23-03

Bobby Womack - one of the last surviving soul greats from the Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding generation. A beautiful site with a deep jukebox of stirring soul classics. (Via zootoon. A flash site)
comment posted at 9:45 AM on Sep-22-03

A Frank and Sobering interview with Milton Friedman In fact, all of the progress that the US has made over the last couple of centuries has come from unemployment. It has come from figuring out how to produce more goods with fewer workers, thereby releasing labor to be more productive in other areas. (via Econlog)
comment posted at 3:39 PM on Sep-17-03

The Little Mermaid Explodes. This is only the latest in a long series of indignities suffered by Denmark's national symbol. Why are people so into this sort of thing?
comment posted at 12:21 PM on Sep-17-03

George & Laura on September 11th: a barrel of fucking laughs
comment posted at 4:29 PM on Sep-16-03

Stephen King, literary genius? "That they could believe that there is any literary value there or any aesthetic accomplishment or signs of an inventive human intelligence is simply a testimony to their own idiocy," says Harold Bloom. Mr. King to be awarded an honorary National Book Award for lifetime achievement, joining the likes of Roth, Updike, and Bellow.
comment posted at 2:22 PM on Sep-16-03
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comment posted at 11:46 AM on Sep-17-03

Cute Girls Only - The only dating web site where they actually reject the ugly chics. via [linkswarm.com]
comment posted at 12:46 PM on Sep-16-03

Old Crank: Vintage Phonographs and Ephemera
comment posted at 3:30 PM on Sep-12-03

Bush Resignation Hailed by World Leaders
[Washington] The surprise resignation of the forty-third President of the United States, George W. Bush, on the second anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, was hailed by chiefs of state throughout the world.
comment posted at 3:46 PM on Sep-11-03

A really good reality show for gay people would be five gay men dying of AIDS. Changing the channel has gotten so much easier since the invention of the remote control. Who doesn't love free speech?
comment posted at 3:33 PM on Sep-11-03
comment posted at 5:39 PM on Sep-11-03
comment posted at 5:57 PM on Sep-11-03

BlackSpotSneaker: Adbusters aims to take on Nike at their own game, by selling unionized, fair wage sneakers with the hopes of gaining marketshare that rival's Nike's multimillion dollar ad machine.
comment posted at 10:52 AM on Sep-11-03
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comment posted at 4:11 PM on Sep-11-03

Heraclitus of Ephesus, sometimes called Heraclitus the Obscure: We only know him through 100 gnomic quotes and aphorisms--I loves me some gnomic aphorisms!--all direct from or inferred in the comments of various authors of Classical literature, of which no one steps into the same river twice is the best known. Mark Cohen, J. H. Lesher and Cynthia Freeman provide excellent introductions. John Burnett's 1920 translation is another academic standard. Jonathan Barnes. whose Penguin Classic The Early Greek Philosophers has the best contemporary translation, wrote Heraclitus attracts exegetes as an empty jampot wasps; and each new wasp discerns traces of his own favourite flavour. Here are the jampots of Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger. And here, in passing, is a taste of the jampot of Jorge Luis Borges. Heraclitus coined the word enantiodromia. John William Corrington's Logos, Lex, And Law is also of interest. Heraclitus figures strongly in the Archetypal Psychology of Carl Jung and James Hillman, the latter especially in his discussion of the Soul.
comment posted at 9:57 AM on Sep-11-03
comment posted at 5:48 PM on Sep-11-03

Leni Riefenstahl, dead at 101 In response to her film making for the Nazi regime, she said "It reflects the truth as it was then, in 1934. It is a documentary, not propaganda." (more inside)
comment posted at 2:07 PM on Sep-9-03

Why Hindu's make better teachers than gays. Eric Rasmusen, professor of Economics and Public Policy at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, has been allowed by the University to continue to update his occasionally homophobic weblog in the interests of free speech. Should this be allowed? Allowing due consideration for free speech, how does this type of speech disrupt open participation in an academic setting?
comment posted at 2:20 PM on Sep-8-03

Just how rich are you? The worlds 225 richest people have a combined wealth greater than the poorest 2.5 billion people. Where do you fit into the picture? via b3ta
comment posted at 5:19 PM on Sep-5-03
comment posted at 5:55 PM on Sep-5-03

1930 Shanghai style advertising posters
comment posted at 3:27 PM on Sep-5-03

While there may be controversy over global warming, whichever side of the fence you stand on, you can't help but enjoy the colorful spectacle that is temperature variation from 1970-1999, presented as a MPEG from NASA (4.5 Mb). Yellow-to-red means higher temps and the last few years are a doozy. [via the Viridians]
comment posted at 2:13 PM on Sep-5-03

Disneyland obsessives. Some people live out their lives on Main Street.
comment posted at 12:17 PM on Sep-4-03
comment posted at 1:58 PM on Sep-4-03

Ozu Yasujiro.com: "This site is non-profit, based in England, and maintained as a shrine and resource dedicated to the late director."
comment posted at 9:24 AM on Sep-3-03

The Gallery of Monster Toys. "...for all those boys and girls who grew up watching Creature Features and Chiller Theaters (embedded QT clip), reading Famous Monsters of Filmland, and playing with these cherished toys...and for all those who wished they had."
comment posted at 1:04 PM on Sep-2-03

A gallery of photos showing celebrities with and without make-up.
comment posted at 12:02 PM on Aug-29-03

When all dot-com companies existed in full power (late 90's), none of us could actually use them (because of our lazy dial-up modems), now that we could use them they don't exist. "Which leads me to think that there might be another dot-com flourishing just around the corner." Is Moby right?
comment posted at 4:36 PM on Aug-28-03

Last words of fictional characters. [cached]
comment posted at 3:39 PM on Aug-28-03

The Bombay(Mumbai) blasts. Why detonate two car-bombs in Bombay? Destabilize the economy creating a climate for terror. Terror attacks have become commonplace in parts of India. The US condemned the Bombay attack- Powell called Indian officials. But, it seems like India should do more before if it wants broader US support. As the WSJ editorial page put it- "We think India could have helped build even closer U.S. ties had it decided to send troops to Iraq. The U.S. has driven a wedge into the center of Muslim terrorism with its occupation of Iraq, and it is looking to see who its friends really are." What is the lesson from all of this to the Indian government? What would you do if you were running India?
comment posted at 10:11 AM on Aug-28-03
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comment posted at 2:33 PM on Aug-28-03

Lies and the Lying Presidents Who Tell Them. The Washington Monthly publishes its "mendacity index" of the last four U.S. presidents, ranking their overall history (and severity) of lying. TWM's site also lets you rate them yourself, just in case ranking the 20 worst Americans got boring.
comment posted at 1:41 PM on Aug-27-03
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comment posted at 3:36 PM on Aug-27-03
comment posted at 3:37 PM on Aug-27-03

Cool watches through history. A series of profiles on important watches in the history of the electronic watch. From one regulated by a tuning fork, to the once-omnipresent Swatch.
comment posted at 12:54 PM on Aug-27-03

So you know all those worms that have been circulating recently? Well, turns out that they mean that the Internet has failed. (via the Obscure Store)
comment posted at 10:34 AM on Aug-27-03

Even Presidents need to apologize from time to time. Other lesser politicians and business people need to learn the fine art of apology as well. There are sorry poems [warning: bad midi music]. And of course, for those who can’t think of anything to say, there’s an apology generator
comment posted at 1:02 PM on Aug-26-03
comment posted at 1:18 PM on Aug-26-03