Karl's New Manifesto (NYTimes)
More than the Roman emperors, more than the industrial robber barons, the malefactors of the educated class seek not only to dominate the working class, but to decimate it. For 30 years they have presided over failing schools without fundamentally transforming them. They have imposed a public morality that affords maximum sexual opportunity for themselves and guarantees maximum domestic chaos for those lower down.
In 1960 there were not big structural differences between rich and poor families. In 1960, three-quarters of poor families were headed by married couples. Now only a third are. While the rates of single parenting have barely changed for the educated elite, family structures have disintegrated for the oppressed masses.

Buy a computer with an Intel chip = pay to have your rights trampled
Intel has quietly added DRM to its new chipset, and has refused to comment on the technology saying it's 'not in the interest of the company' to explain it's DRM capabilities. Sounds like policy driven by corporate collusion, rather than fair implementation of already corrupted copyright laws. Issues such as fair use, copyright verification and removal (if it is found that copyright does not apply), and actual ownership of content (I'm sorry, but I don't lease songs from the RIAA; I buy them and I'm free to do with them as I see fit) have been proactively settled in the industry's favor.

The Morris Chair - the arts-and-crafts father of the La-Z-Boy recliner

Delaware clams are the bomb.

Beer drinking curbed by prodigious weed

Previous research has shown that kudzu plant extract has helped reduce alcohol drinking in rats and hamsters, but this is the first study to show the effect in humans. The plant was introduced to the US to combat soil erosion but has now become a persistent weed.

I don't know anything about the study, but I do know that if you've got rats and hamsters in your house you're already in the red on more than a few quality-of-life scales. If you've got alcoholic rats, you need to move, pronto. What could possibly be worse? Alcoholic rats that tell you you're stupid and beat you? Or hock your TV for a case of Black Label? If you've got alcoholic rats at your place, you just might want to take up heavy drinking to dull the pain.

[There may be a little too much freedom in the world] Those wacky Japanese! When they're not intricately copying every non-Japanese skill on the planet, they're folding paper into swans, and when they're not doing that, they're folding hot dogs into cute elephants. Cultural idiosyncrasy or cry for help?

The Parade of Unfortunate Star Wars Costumes

A huge archive of music videos

Madd T3xT sK1LLz? You've got nothing on Morse Code.

Happy birthday Miles Davis (NPR) (I'm off a day)

Top 10 Conservative Idiots.
See who made the elite creep list!

11 steps to a better brain (from newscientist)

A nice little story/essay on summer, Pizza Hut, and south Jersey (Philadelphia Weekly).

More krazy rocknroll: The White Stripes new video, "Blue Orchid" (mpg)

Holy cripes! Phil Spector just saw a ghost. You can't look at this picture without making cuckoo clock noises to yourself. Try.

"In terms of raw evil, I've got nothing on George Bush" -- Darth Vader
Well, it's not an exact quote, but Hayden Christensen says that the new Star Wars movie is "absolutely" anti-Bush, as well it goddam should be.

Given Misleading Cues, Older Adults Are More Likely To 'Remember' That Misinformation
Remember that time you said you'd put me in your will?

Congrats to GMT+9, who turned 6 today. Andrew has one of the most interesting blogs out there, and consistently finds fantastic art and music that, if not for his site, I would have never known about.

Bill Gates memo: The New World of Work
No mention of zombie overlords or salt mines yet.

Scotch Ostrich Egg (via Bifurcated Rivets)

Burn vinyl

[Must... increase .... cholesterol... intake...] Deep Fried Oreo how-to Funny how they use vegatable oil as a lard substitute, though.

Japanese shirt-folding master class

Everybody has a feel-good hit they associate with lazy summers. So we asked the big names of rock and pop what songs remind them of sun-kissed days - and what they'll be listening to this time round. (Guardian)

The Picture Of Everything (if everything is a P-Funk magic marker psych ward. I'm just kidding, baby. I love this stuff) via memepool.

The Andy Warhol Tapes (mp3 dir)

Zelle: jewelry for nerds

Car commercials are usually pretty safe and non-offensive. Not this one. (wmv, sfw)

Funky Pong. Top my 11, mouthbreathers!

Custom Pez Dispensers

Bigfoot undoubtedly knows that people are real. We should drop the cynicism and return the favor. Especially in light of this. Besides, if he pops up one day and starts taking names, it's safer to be in the 'I believed in you!' camp.

Largeheartedboy has a new feature on his site where he asks musicians to write about books.
This week is John Darnielle from the Mountain Goats.

[Dylan Audio Programs] The Seatle partnership for American Popular Music is featuring a set of audio specials (downloadable .wma or RA) on Bob Dylan, each featuring commentary on a favorite song or album. All are worth hearing, but if you just pick one, let it be "Masters of War"

Stripped: giving stuff up in the name of (non)performance. High art or too much book-lernin'? You be the judge.

I decided that for 16 weeks I would try to do something that I thought I couldn't. I wanted to stop being so dependant on external things for comfort and security.I wanted to break patterns of behavior, attachment and consumption that, over the years, had become automatic responses to anxiety and boredom. Beginning January 1st, 2005 I slowly began to wean myself from my biggest addictions and dependencies.

A fascinating Paul Krugman editorial in today's NYT contrasting today's large company employment economics with that of a previous generations. Not pretty. (NYT, free reg. req'd)

Covering all of your Rent-A-German needs since 2005.

Streaking: The Victimless Crime
I'm all for it, and this awesome russian video shows how it can spice up an otherwise boring soccer game.

[Fresno: Pwned. w00t! w00t!] You know all those posts the Jive makes about politicians being filthy, vile, corrupt subhumans? Well, forget all that: Republican Fresno mayor Alan Autry lives in hiiiiiigh style - superhuman high style!. I bet you couldnt expense 422 taxpayer-funded restaurant meals in a year. It takes someone with finesse to pull of this kind of devil-may-care goldcardsmanship, and frankly, reader, you're just not fit to judge someone of this calibre. Tom Delay is jealous as hell! No receipt? No problem! No explanation? Why the hell should he? He'll just tell you rubes to look the other way, and the next thing you'll know, Michael Jackson's trial will start heat up and start grabbing your limited headspace again. Fresno is fat city, babies. Keep it comin', because Al looks hungry for some foie gras with truffle sauce over spring greens.

The city paid for some of those meals twice. The city reimbursed Autry and Council Member Henry T. Perea for at least six lunches where other city officials paid for the same meals with city-issued credit cards. Autry regularly charges personal expenses on his city credit card, then repays the city, often months after the city has paid the bill.
...
The mayor stays at luxury hotels and dines at fine restaurants on city business trips, with the bills into thousands of dollars.

Online exhibition of Gary Baseman paintings at Head(UK)

[Leavemychildrenalone.org] Protect children from military recruiters.

Everything you wanted to know about the "Nuclear Option" (Salon, adwatch req'd)
Call it a primer on the judicial confirmation process. Call it what you get when you spend way too much time reading Riddick's Senate Procedure. Just don't call it the "nuclear option" -- at least not when Bill Frist is around to correct you. The Senate majority leader doesn't want his plan to sound so explosive, but be forewarned: Unless somebody blinks first, we're in for a mind-warping set of unprecedented Senate maneuvers that could put Dick Cheney in charge of deeming the filibuster "unconstitutional" -- without a word from those folks in black robes across the street -- and grease the way for each and every right-wing extremist George W. Bush ever cares to put on a district court, an appellate court or the U.S. Supreme Court.

Let me be the first to welcome our new robot overlords. (Nature)
Lipson's robot, which is made of four cubes stacked on top of each other, has a flexible, three-dimensional design. "There is a whole world of possible machines," says Lipson, pointing out that you could make much more complex robots in the same way simply by using more cubes.

New family of mammal found in Laos. (NYTimes)

The Jive takes its responsibility as your free ice-cream informer seriously. Come hell or high water, no free ice cream will go unreported. This time, Wendy's has em for you. Finger lickin' good!

wtf?

The Residents are auctioning an eyeball.

[Least likely rock song to be used in a fast food commercial]
A Wesley Willis tribute album, which is a strange thing indeed (feat. mp3s of both Wesley, and the bands covering him). Don't dare miss Wesley's "McDonalds Rock and Roll", which you'll be singing to yourself and other unfortunates all day tomorrow.

It's easy: "McDonalds will make you fat. They serve Big Macs. They serve Quarter pounders. They will put pounds on you.", then just rip into the chorus. Loud.

Mr. Potato Head travels far and wide

Neighborhood Information System (for Philadelphia only). The interface is pretty rough, but this is a pretty cool online application that allows you to slice and dice maps by trends and a huge variety of demographic information. This data merged with google maps would be a killer.

Fans of Julian Cope's will love his blog/website, Head Heritage. He does reviews of rare Krautrock and European Psychedelic, and experimental underground bands, often with streaming mp3s. (found via littlehits, which itself is quite a nice rare-song-of-the-day spot).

Here is a link to the Bright Eyes song "When The President Talks to God" as performed on Leno last week. Incendiary, and a must-see.
(direct .mov link)

Amazing what CostCo is selling these days.

[Who the hell keeps taking my damn "V"?] If you play Fridgemagnet, play nice. Its tough. You'll see what I mean.

[Straddling the St. Hubbins Fine Line] These guys used an Evel Knievel pinball machine and a Scrambler amusement park ride to make paintings.

Jokes with realistic endings (SomethingAwful)

Elvis Costello: A life in liner notes (OnionAVClub)

[Dankscape] Don't bogart that email, pass it on. Sending email is more damaging to your IQ than smoking weed. (SFGate)
The IQ decline was the equivalent of missing a whole night's sleep, the company said.

"Some dude" responds, via email, "Then again, it could be some bogus noise from the man, trying to drop a harsh on your whole scene because they can't handle what's going down."

Someone should correlate email traffic to potato chip sales.

Those wacky Japanese have emerged from their underground labs with robot chair that'll carry you up and down stairs. From the looks of it, it had better have the ability to robotically stitch and bandage headwounds.

The 100 most daring films ever made (according to Premiere)

What happened to the great movie poster artists? (via coudal)
“In these days of floating-head posters and art-monkey Photoshop jobs, it's rare to see an original or even remotely daring design for a movie onesheet.”

THE SETTINGS THAT WOULD BEON A BLENDER TODAY IF THE BLENDER HAD BEEN INVENTED, SAY, 100 YEARS BEFORE ITS ACTUAL INVENTIONDATE OF 1922. (McSweeneys)

Creepy technology alert: F+R Hugs today; F+R Gropes tomorrow.

Scientifically proven: "You're ugly and your mom dresses you funny" (NYTimes)

Your help needed to publicize a (the) Time Traveller Convention

Rodeohead (mp3)
Yee Haww!! Well tie me to an anthill and smear my ears with jam! This'ns a flat-picked Appalachian-angst filled hillbilly hoedown tribute to them slight, pale, sim'lar-named fellers ferm England. Thanks to the orn'rier-than-a-snake-in-a-hatbox Tokyo Kid. Shit, that boy's crazier'na sack of drunk chimps... Crazier'na bucket of retarded mice. Hot dang! He's so crazy he gits a feller low on them trapped wild animal metaphors. Git on now! You heard me now shush 'n mosey. I ain't a'standin' here dispensin' all manner o knowin's fer yer likes! Git!

Superdickery has a gallery of the most stupid comic book covers ever printed.

You made your mark in the dim lights of a mall arcade in '83. You've got nothing to prove. You're a high-scorer.

I knew the Dukes of Hazzard, and these guys were no Dukes of Hazzard.