[Americans are Sheep, revisited]
A Salon analysis on the Time Magazine article claim that Americans don't care about domestic spying abuses, as long as they are accompanied by vague, dubious, or even false claims about increased security.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
War, jobs, economy, election be damned. Britney is still huge news.
Some stars hate the paparazzi. Others use them to reinvent themselves or increase their fame. Working with the paparazzi to create memorable shots is called “giving it up,” a sexualized metaphor that neatly captures the masculine-feminine romantic dynamic of need and reluctance that characterizes the relationship between celebrity photographers and their subjects. Paris Hilton is the Queen of Giving It Up, Dano says. “She creates the beautiful shots that we need. She is the one who wants it.” Another favorite is Lindsay Lohan. “Lindsay’s OK, but she’s kind of strange, because she can be high, or in a weird mood,” he says. His least favorite subjects are surly male stars like Leonardo di Caprio, Ben Affleck, Justin Timberlake, and Tom Cruise. “Jessica Simpson, she’s really sweet, she’ll give it up. Gwen Stefani is nice. She’ll give it up.” But no one in the business compares to Britney.
Some stars hate the paparazzi. Others use them to reinvent themselves or increase their fame. Working with the paparazzi to create memorable shots is called “giving it up,” a sexualized metaphor that neatly captures the masculine-feminine romantic dynamic of need and reluctance that characterizes the relationship between celebrity photographers and their subjects. Paris Hilton is the Queen of Giving It Up, Dano says. “She creates the beautiful shots that we need. She is the one who wants it.” Another favorite is Lindsay Lohan. “Lindsay’s OK, but she’s kind of strange, because she can be high, or in a weird mood,” he says. His least favorite subjects are surly male stars like Leonardo di Caprio, Ben Affleck, Justin Timberlake, and Tom Cruise. “Jessica Simpson, she’s really sweet, she’ll give it up. Gwen Stefani is nice. She’ll give it up.” But no one in the business compares to Britney.
A good name dragged down (Washington Post)
More American consumers have gotten caught up in a special brand of watchlist purgatory because their names are similar to ones on OFAC's list of "specially designated nationals," according to e-mails and other documents released under court order yesterday. By law, businesses are barred from conducting transactions with anyone on the list. Yesterday's court-ordered release of documents to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, offers a window into the kinds of disruptions suffered by those ensnared in the process, as well as the difficulty of clearing their names.
More American consumers have gotten caught up in a special brand of watchlist purgatory because their names are similar to ones on OFAC's list of "specially designated nationals," according to e-mails and other documents released under court order yesterday. By law, businesses are barred from conducting transactions with anyone on the list. Yesterday's court-ordered release of documents to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, offers a window into the kinds of disruptions suffered by those ensnared in the process, as well as the difficulty of clearing their names.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
"Our dollar is worth maybe zero over here," said Mary Kelly, an American tourist from Indianapolis, Indiana, in front of the Anne Frank house. "It's hard to find a place to exchange. We have to go downtown, to the central station or post office."
Friday, March 14, 2008
More Evil Bush garbage
The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual, last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.
EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under federal law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials Tuesday and ordered the agency to raise the limit, according to the documents.
"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council
Coaches drive their teams hard, using long practices to teach students to know when a pig has too much back fat or if a T-bone is cut poorly... Meat team coaches say that decisiveness is a key to meat-judging success.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Band video clips are a dime-a-dozen these days, but here's a nice one by Wilco on Austin City Limits: "Impossible Germany" (thanks, Pete)
Hey Hollywood! Stop everything and cancel those production company contracts. Fred and Sharon are signing deals!
Monday, March 10, 2008
Runnin' With The Beatles.
I'm sure this'll get yanked within the hour, but it's good while it lasts...
I'm sure this'll get yanked within the hour, but it's good while it lasts...
Proposition 317 : 1000000 signatures are needed to help make St. Patrick's Day an official U.S. holiday. (sponsored by Guinness)
Sunday, March 09, 2008
The SIGUR RÓS film, Heima, is available on youtube in its entirety
'heima' is sigur rós's first ever film, filmed over two weeks during the summer of 2006 when the band undertook a series of free, unannounced concerts in iceland. they hauled 40-plus people round 15 locations to the furthest flung corners of their homeland for their debut venture into live film, to create something, well, inspirational.
on their way they went to ghost towns, outsider art shrines, national parks, small community halls and the absolute middle-of-nowhere-ness of the highland wilderness, as well as playing the largest gig of their career (and in icelandic history) at their homecoming reykjavik show.
'heima' (icelandic for "at home" or "homeland"), truly, shows sigur rós as never before. whereas seeing the group live is normally a large-scale and sometimes overwhelming experience, making full use of lights and mesmeric visuals, 'heima' was always intended to reveal more of what was actually going on on stage. it does this via long-held close-ups and a rare intimate proximity, without ever once breaking the spell.
loosely based on a documentary format - and including personal reflections from the band - 'heima' also serves as an alternative primer for iceland the country, which is revealed as less stag destination-du-jour and more desolate, magical place where human beings have little right to trespass.
'heima' features performances of songs from all four sigur rós albums, many radically reworked, as well as two exclusive new songs in 'guitardjamm', which was filmed inside an abandoned herring oil tank in the far west of the country, and the traditional 'a ferd til breidarfjardar 1922', performed with poet steindor andersen.
'heima' was directed by dean deblois, a long-time fan of the band and director of the oscar-nominated animated feature 'lilo & stitch', using an icelandic crew.
'heima' is sigur rós's first ever film, filmed over two weeks during the summer of 2006 when the band undertook a series of free, unannounced concerts in iceland. they hauled 40-plus people round 15 locations to the furthest flung corners of their homeland for their debut venture into live film, to create something, well, inspirational.
on their way they went to ghost towns, outsider art shrines, national parks, small community halls and the absolute middle-of-nowhere-ness of the highland wilderness, as well as playing the largest gig of their career (and in icelandic history) at their homecoming reykjavik show.
'heima' (icelandic for "at home" or "homeland"), truly, shows sigur rós as never before. whereas seeing the group live is normally a large-scale and sometimes overwhelming experience, making full use of lights and mesmeric visuals, 'heima' was always intended to reveal more of what was actually going on on stage. it does this via long-held close-ups and a rare intimate proximity, without ever once breaking the spell.
loosely based on a documentary format - and including personal reflections from the band - 'heima' also serves as an alternative primer for iceland the country, which is revealed as less stag destination-du-jour and more desolate, magical place where human beings have little right to trespass.
'heima' features performances of songs from all four sigur rós albums, many radically reworked, as well as two exclusive new songs in 'guitardjamm', which was filmed inside an abandoned herring oil tank in the far west of the country, and the traditional 'a ferd til breidarfjardar 1922', performed with poet steindor andersen.
'heima' was directed by dean deblois, a long-time fan of the band and director of the oscar-nominated animated feature 'lilo & stitch', using an icelandic crew.
Friday, March 07, 2008
POSSESSED (film)
A look at the mental health consequences of when collecting becomes hoarding
A look at the mental health consequences of when collecting becomes hoarding
Thursday, March 06, 2008
The Wire's War on the Drug War
If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun's manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.
Jury nullification is American dissent, as old and as heralded as the 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger, who was acquitted of seditious libel against the royal governor of New York, and absent a government capable of repairing injustices, it is legitimate protest.Wednesday, March 05, 2008
The National Academy of Engineering has released their "Grand Challenges in Engineering" list (see sidebar)
Clean water and affordable solar are great... but Enhancing VR?
Clean water and affordable solar are great... but Enhancing VR?
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
I found the NYTimes Migraine Art slideshow today as I coincidentally have a pounding headache that won't go away. Images like this definitely don't help.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Right now, deep in the GOP dungeons, they're planning their racist, disgraceful assault. Whatever will it be? (sfgate)
It won't be easy. Because at the same time, they must make their own unlikely candidate, a feisty but fuzzy 71-year-old war hawk whose entire campaign is apparently now being fueled by a giant hunk of Cold War phlegm, the nauseating notion that not only is a perpetual state of war and aggression desirable for America, but is actually essential to a healthy and functioning nation, they must make John McCain's musty, patriarchal brand of regurgitated Republicanism seem fresh and visionary and not horribly regressive and embarrassing.
Wish them luck. Or, you know, don't.
So then, here's the fun little game all progressives can play until the election itself. Assuming Obama gets the nod, just how will they attack him, smear him, paint him as an evil and untrustworthy force for the nation, the way they did Al Gore and John Kerry? How nefarious, racist, draconian will they get?
The Department of Pre-Crime (Mother Jones)
New dangers of non-mainstream political thought
New dangers of non-mainstream political thought
Thursday, February 28, 2008
The Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Inside the world of war profiteers. (Chicago Tribune)
U.S. soldiers are fighting only for the sustainability of lucrative back-room deals for Republican-connected war contractors.
U.S. soldiers are fighting only for the sustainability of lucrative back-room deals for Republican-connected war contractors.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Boy, George Bush sure does hate Europeans
The US Transport Security Administration has also asked the European airlines to supply personal data on "certain non-travelling members of the public requesting access to areas beyond the screening checkpoint".
The AEA said this was "absurd" because the airlines neither obtain nor can obtain such information. The request was "fully unjustified".
If the Americans persevere in the proposed security crackdown, Brussels is likely to respond with tit-for-tat action, such as calling for visas for some Americans.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
George Bush is a liar and a fascist (crooksandliars)
A brilliant piece by Olbermann
A brilliant piece by Olbermann
It is bad enough, sir, that you were demanding an Ex Post Facto law, which could still clear the AT&Ts and the Verizons from responsibility for their systematic, aggressive, and blatant collaboration with your illegal and unjustified spying on Americans under this flimsy guise of looking for any terrorists who are stupid enough to make a collect call or send a mass e-mail.
But when you demanded it again during the State of the Union address, you wouldn’t even confirm that they actually did anything for which they deserved to be cleared.
“The Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America.” Believed?
Don’t you know?
Don’t you even have the guts Dick Cheney showed in admitting they did collaborate with you?
Does this endless presidency of loopholes and fine print extend even here?
If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business — come out and say it!
There is a dictionary definition, one word that describes that toxic blend.
You’re a fascist — get them to print you a t-shirt with “fascist” on it!
What else is this but fascism?
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Like Google Earth, but pointed directly at your head and with cops, the government, and their wrongdoing-immune private security firms watching your every move.
A plan to use U.S. spy satellites for domestic security and law-enforcement missions is moving forward after being delayed for months because of privacy and civil liberties concerns.
A plan to use U.S. spy satellites for domestic security and law-enforcement missions is moving forward after being delayed for months because of privacy and civil liberties concerns.
The charter and legal framework for an office within the Homeland Security Department that would use overhead and mapping imagery from existing satellites is in the final stage of completion, according to a department official who requested anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about it.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Desperate Man Blues
A story of the mania of the king of 78RPM record collectors, Joe Bussard, subject of a documentary film of the same name.
Twenty miles later and deeper into the mountains, Bussard pulled up to the old man's house, and from the first glance he knew he'd hit pay dirt. It was a little shotgun shack, no paint on the faded wood, junk scattered all over the yard, with a broken-toothed fence that remained standing through sheer stubbornness. A little ramshackle, but not too. Lived in. Perfect. He could almost smell the old records waiting for him inside.
In his years of canvassing for 78s, Bussard had learned the myriad signs‹old lace curtains, flowerpots on the porch, smoke snaking from the chimney‹that meant a home's current residents had been there for decades. These were the people who had long ago bought the records that Bussard was now after. And they would still have them, because mountain folks never throw anything away, whether it be a broken refrigerator, a tin coffee can, or old Victrola records they haven't played in years.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
80% of cartoons deal directly with the occult!
I'm more scared of Phil and his Plasti-Koat hairdo than the occult. What were you doing in the toystores, Phil?
I'm more scared of Phil and his Plasti-Koat hairdo than the occult. What were you doing in the toystores, Phil?
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Thunderbird has a great theme for his youtube gallery: He's got a huge collection of 60's/70's pop 45's. He spins and films. Ton's of forgotten favorites in here, like this.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
"Terror" alerts intended to bury real headlines? (Rolling Stone)
The real story behind 5 years of high alerts.
The real story behind 5 years of high alerts.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Engineers have a "terrorist mindset"? (EE Times)
However, contrary to popular speculation, it's not technical skills that make engineers attractive recruits to radical groups. Rather, the authors pose the hypothesis that "engineers have a 'mindset' that makes them a particularly good match for Islamism," which becomes explosive when fused by the repression and vigorous radicalization triggered by the social conditions they endured in Islamic countries.
However, contrary to popular speculation, it's not technical skills that make engineers attractive recruits to radical groups. Rather, the authors pose the hypothesis that "engineers have a 'mindset' that makes them a particularly good match for Islamism," which becomes explosive when fused by the repression and vigorous radicalization triggered by the social conditions they endured in Islamic countries.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
100 Best Signs from Roadside Art online
(via GMTPlus9)
Illustrated approximations of the gyro-wad inverted meat-cone thing should never be attempted. Ever. It's not possible to represent in anything that even comes close to a visually appealing way. Plenty of 'em in this gallery.
L'Eau Life: Animating water in motion in watercolor (NYTimes)
Cool effect, but seizure-inducing in its non-fluidity.
Cool effect, but seizure-inducing in its non-fluidity.
Stop the Spying!
Your Congress isn't representing you. Their agenda has been compromised by corporate telecom interests to the point where ignoring or actively circumventing the Constitutional Law they were sworn to uphold and defend is common practice.
Show them that as an American, you're not going to stand for it anymore.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Yet another reason that Fox News hosts should be fried alive in their own rendered jowl-fat. Pure intellectual blight.
Thanks to Tom Tomorrow's blog for pointing this out.
Thanks to Tom Tomorrow's blog for pointing this out.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Bravo! BoingBoing's Joel Johnson uses an AT&T-sponsored gadget talk show to talk about AT&T's evil Internet filtering scheme in light of their shameless and illegal collusion with the NSA to spy on Americans without cause or warrant.
As you can see from the video, the crew ended up scrubbing the interview about half-way through. Figuring that might happen, I asked my steely-nerved friend Richard Blakeley to tape the first take. I wanted to make sure that we had a record of the event, primarily to ensure that AT&T would have no reason to try to bury the interview entirely—the same reason I am running this clip now, while discussion about what to do with my segment in post-production is surely underway.
As you can see from the video, the crew ended up scrubbing the interview about half-way through. Figuring that might happen, I asked my steely-nerved friend Richard Blakeley to tape the first take. I wanted to make sure that we had a record of the event, primarily to ensure that AT&T would have no reason to try to bury the interview entirely—the same reason I am running this clip now, while discussion about what to do with my segment in post-production is surely underway.
PoliticalMarket: CNN has a neat little online app that lets you invest (bet) futures, in play money of course, for or against the political candidates. Granted, the average investor on this site is going to a) be a bit wonkish, and b) bet with their heart rather than their wallet because real money isn't at stake, but I'm curious about how the market's predicted outcome aligns to pollster predictions.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Repress U - College campuses are the new battlefield in the so-called "war on terror"
(The Nation)
(The Nation)
The Last Empire: China's pollution problem goes global
(printable version here)
(Must-read 5-part article in Mother Jones)
So omnivorous is the Chinese appetite for imports that when the country ran short of scrap metal in early 2004, manhole covers disappeared from cities all over the world—Chicago lost 150 in a month. And the Chinese are not just vast consumers, but conspicuous ones, as evidenced by the presence in Beijing of dealers representing every luxury-car manufacturer in the world. Sales of Porsches, Ferraris, and Maseratis have flourished, even though their owners have no opportunity to test their finely tuned cars' performance on the city's clotted roads. The catch is that China has become not just the world's manufacturer but also its despoiler, on a scale as monumental as its economic expansion. Chinese ecosystems were already dreadfully compromised before the Communist Party took power in 1949, but Mao managed to accelerate their destruction. With one stroke he launched the "backyard furnace" campaign, in which some 90 million peasants became grassroots steel smelters; to fuel the furnaces, villagers cut down a 10th of China's trees in a few months.
(printable version here)
(Must-read 5-part article in Mother Jones)
So omnivorous is the Chinese appetite for imports that when the country ran short of scrap metal in early 2004, manhole covers disappeared from cities all over the world—Chicago lost 150 in a month. And the Chinese are not just vast consumers, but conspicuous ones, as evidenced by the presence in Beijing of dealers representing every luxury-car manufacturer in the world. Sales of Porsches, Ferraris, and Maseratis have flourished, even though their owners have no opportunity to test their finely tuned cars' performance on the city's clotted roads. The catch is that China has become not just the world's manufacturer but also its despoiler, on a scale as monumental as its economic expansion. Chinese ecosystems were already dreadfully compromised before the Communist Party took power in 1949, but Mao managed to accelerate their destruction. With one stroke he launched the "backyard furnace" campaign, in which some 90 million peasants became grassroots steel smelters; to fuel the furnaces, villagers cut down a 10th of China's trees in a few months.
