: "Down on Thee"

The Bush administration practices warrantless surveillance, as well as rendition to Guantanamo Bay.

Perhaps this policy should be called "Big Brother and the Holding Company".

The Ten Percent Solution

from Today's Papers . Slate.com

The Washington Post fronts news that Scrabulous, a popular Facebook application, was disabled for U.S. and Canadian users of the social networking site.

The companies that own the Scrabble trademark, Hasbro and Mattel, had been asking Facebook to take down the application since January, but the action was taken only after a lawsuit was filed last week accusing Scrabulous of copyright infringement.

"I was getting creamed, so it's probably a good thing in that respect," a Scrabulous fan tells the Post. "The country is probably 10 percent more productive today."

Holy Batgear!

10 New Gadgets for Batman's Utility Belt

Catching an evil genius requires sophisticated tools. Here are some tech toys we think the Dark Knight really ought to be carrying

http://tech.msn.com/products/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=8712526&GT1=40000&vv=600

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My favorite?

The Wi-Fi Dectector Shirt.

" plug a couple of AAA batteries into a pouch on the shirt, and it lights up like a Christmas tree as the cowled criminologist nears a Wi-Fi source."

just in case you missed this one...

from http://nevergetoutoftheboat.blogspot.com/2008/07/dylan-hears-whohtml

Dylan Hears A Who (2007)
Dr. Seuss Via Dr. Zimmerman Parody

You probably know the story. It surfaced last year on a web page - a mixture of Bob Dylan's Highway 61 style and Dr. Seuss' other-worldly visions. Beyond that, it really all comes down to whether you get the (well done) joke or not.

Apparently, Dr. Seuss' estate didn't, as reports surfaced that there were legal ramblings afoot over the use of the Doc's words. Dylan didn't seem to care one way or the other. Since the original web page has now been "retired," here are the site's original MP3s for your amusement.

http://sharebee.com/987e80a5

wasn't there a better way to say it ?

from the Tuscon Citizen:
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/opinion/91751.php

Sen. Larry Craig gave a Senate speech that raised eyebrows. He said the U.S. shouldn't let other countries jerk us around by the gas nozzle.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vqANJCATrE

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I'm glad he's taking a very wide stance on the issue...

what matters most

"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an
airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer. "

-- Frank Zappa

Animation of space station assembly

Hey Kids!

You can build your very own space station in low Earth orbit!

http://www.tietronix.com/anim/MoviePlayer.asp?myMovie=movies/assembly640x360.swf

...of course, you'll need a pretty big tube of Testor's glue...

Quote for the Day

My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared.

- PJ Plauger Computer Language, March 1983

40-foot long, 4-foot tall model

In Philadelphia's Franklin Institute, there's a model of a heart that you walk through. When I was a kid, walking through it kinda freaked me out.

I'm glad I didn't walk through this model:

http://www.colonclub.com/colossalcolon.html

Gordon Brown gets it right

BBC News item:
(excerpt)

Britain is determined to prevent Iran developing nuclear arms, Gordon Brown has warned in an address to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

He said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel "to be wiped off the map" was abhorrent.

His expression of support for Israel comes a day after he and the country's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, voiced differing views over settlements in Palestinian territories.

But Mr Brown, referring to his father's "lifelong affection" for Israel, said: "For the whole of my life, I have counted myself as a friend of Israel."

He said the nation's achievements over the last 2,000 years, in the face of war, terror, violence, intimidation and insecurity were "indeed truly monumental" and Israel's partnership was "strong and getting stronger".

full @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7516580.stm

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Note his view of the historical timeline: "the last 2,000 years"
God Bless You, Mr. Brown.

Some Presidents get a library.

George W. Bush Sewage Plant plan is on ballot

07-17) 14:57 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco voters will be asked to decide whether to name a city sewage plant in honor of President Bush, after a satiric measure qualified for the November ballot Thursday.

full @ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/17/MN7A11QU1S.DTL

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Personally, I think they have it backwards.

A water treatment plant takes shitty water and hands it back to you clean.
Bush takes something he's handed and turns it into shit.

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great YouTube video

This is worth a look - may be the best ever!

File this

To clean up a messy desk, first start with the small stuff:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/supplies/9d84/?cpg=ab

Darwin Rules !

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs

a friend of mine turned me onto this blog

read the following entry for a taste:

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/06/lesson-in-badges.html

Pickin' more than Peanuts

"I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times."

Jimmy Carter, The Playboy Interview, Nov, 1976

A random thought...

A random thought...

Should the Bush administration's program of secret wiretapping and rendition to Guantanamo be named "Big Brother and the Holding Company?"

"Nuking the fridge"

No doubt you've heard the phrase "Jumping the Shark", which describes the point at which a TV show does something so preposterous that it loses all credibility.


"Nuking the fridge" is the term used when a movie does the same.

It comes from the movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where Indiana hides in a refrigerator to escape a nuclear detonation. The refrigerator, hit by the blast, is hurled high into the sky. The town is demolished, yet Indiana emerges from the refrigerator unscathed.


http://www.nukingthefridge.com/

Fw: fun with magnetic fields

from a friend:

(note: "Exposed" means "you can actually see lots of ghostly wavy lines in constant motion"

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Magnetic fields exposed

Natural magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic, ever-changing geometries as scientists from NASA's Space Sciences Laboratory excitedly describe their discoveries.

The secret lives of invisible magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic, ever-changing geometries. All action takes place around NASA's Space Sciences Laboratory, UC Berkeley, to recordings of space scientists describing their discoveries.

Actual VLF audio recordings control the evolution of the fields as they delve into our inaudible surroundings, revealing recurrent 'whistlers' produced by fleeting electrons.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5ddrr_magnetic-fields-exposed_tech

Animal Tales

From a recent issue of the New Yorker.
My favorite is the Dalmatians.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2008/06/30/080630sh_shouts_rich

Don't ruin it for me!

In 1964, Andy Warhol made a movie titled "Empire"

Filmed from a single vantage point from an unmoving camera, the film is eight hours of footage of the Empire State Building.

If you visit the IMDB page on the film, it says:

Synopsis:

A single shot of the Empire State Building from early evening until nearly 3 am the next day. [link to full synopsis] warning! may contain spoilers!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0196530/

Just what you DON'T need this 4th of July weekend

It's a Laptop Grill !

It's Easy!
It's Fun!
It sears your thighs!

http://caravan-kamperen.marktplaats.nl/kamperen-toebehoren/176868720-nieuwe-laptop-barbeque-grill.html

Shades of Stephenson's Snow Crash !

from slate.com's Today's Papers:


"In a Page One piece, the WSJ notes Zimbabwe's government is about to face a potentially big problem as a Germany-based company that provided the government with lots of special paper to print its currency said it will no longer do business with Mugabe.

With an annual inflation rate estimated at more than 1 million percent, Zimbabwe was a good customer. The currency gets devalued so quickly that new bank notes are introduced all the time, and Mugabe relies on this new money to pay loyalists.

Meanwhile, the citizens have to deal with the consequences. The treasurer of Zimbabwe's opposition party notes that even billions are rarely used in his line of work and have been replaced by quadrillions. "Our economy is too crazy to understand," he said."


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From Wikipedia's entry on SnowCrash:

Hyperinflation has devalued the dollar to the extent that trillion dollar bills — "Ed Meeses" — are nearly disregarded and the quadrillion dollar note — the Gipper — is the standard 'small' bill.

Enter Now!

George Carlin's "The Planet Is Fine"

A thought-provoking George Carlin piece, transcribed for your convenience...

http://www.chaparyan.com/2005/04/george-carlins-planet-is-fine.php

And, of course, a video of those Seven Words:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTyzTJTNhNk