Senator Dick Durbin: "The bankers own congress" (salon)

40,000 frozen baby mammoth

10 minute Monkey Fist (knot)
via instructables

Michael Jackson Auction: My favorite items
Sweet Jesus.

IBM plans to enter computer in Jeopardy! (nytimes)

A Glimmer of Hope?
The Economist gets pessimistic

Tracking the Mexican Swine Flu outbreak geographically with Google Maps

Not quite up to TimeCube levels of bat-shit insanity, ISYM is nonetheless an oddball treasure trove of wacky conspiracy and preachy screed. (via metafilter)

Plus, if PBS's Electric Company did web design, this is what it would look like.

If topics like weather control, black helicopters, will subversion, and robot armies are your bag, definitely check out crank.net, which is ground zero for these sites.

Another fine Maira Kalman art/essay in the NYTimes

Spacebuster

The paper sculptures of Jen Stark

Not her day.

Fossil Fuel industry buried climate change evidence (nytimes)

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

I hope these jerks arent so callous as to actually execute their layoffs today, which is Take your Child to Work Day

UrbanEcoMap will clock carbon emissions by zip code. SFgate article on same.

Amazing Cassini pictures (boston.com)

More on banning Comic Sans (wsj)

Pulp Photography (via metafilter)

PBS Frontline: Inside the Meltdown
A great summary of the events of the past year in finance.

mindblowing

Conservatives can now shut their tea-bagging mouths.

NSA Wiretaps exceeded law. of course they did.
File under: never trust a Bush Administration policy, ever. Obama - get this shit off of our books.

After a contentious three-year debate that was set off by the disclosure in 2005 of the program of wiretapping without warrants that President George W. Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress gave the N.S.A. broad new authority to collect, without court-approved warrants, vast streams of international phone and e-mail traffic as it passed through American telecommunications gateways. The targets of the eavesdropping had to be “reasonably believed” to be outside the United States. Under the new legislation, however, the N.S.A. still needed court approval to monitor the purely domestic communications of Americans who came under suspicion.

Nice garage find. I only turn up rusty bolts and half-used bags of fertilizer.

Class Dismissed: The Atlantic on the American class system.

Real Life American Psycho: Life imitates art (vid)
via designobserver

PG&E makes deal for space solar power

Peeps Show III
Quite a few topical entries this year.

Ebert let's O'Reilly what's on his mind about the Sun-Times cancelling the right-winger's column.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

EFF on The Obama Administration's shocking bait-and-switch on accountability for warrantless wiretapping.

Accompanying article, where the EFF claims that the policy is 'Worse than Bush'

"Around Cape Horn" (Google Video, 36:00)
Narrated 1929 Documentary by Capt. Irving Johnson, during the final days of sea trade aboard tall ships

Bailout for Life Insurers?! (wsj)
All of our money is going to produce-nothing/contribute-nothing "industries", while manufacturing and technology continue to circle the drain for lack of investment. What's next, free cash for the opportunistic liars in big oil?

"I am under a lot of pressure not to diagnose PTSD" (Salon)
A secret recording reveals the Army may be pushing its medical staff not to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder. The Army and Senate have ignored the implications.

The Bush Six (newyorker): Will Obama step up and arrest the Bush Torture Squad?

It is hard to predict what will happen next, but, if arrest warrants are issued, the Obama Administration may be forced either to extradite the former officials or to start its own investigation. Sands, who admires Obama, said, “I regret that I have added to his in-box when he has so much else to sort out. But I hope he does the right thing. There’s not much dispute anymore: torture happened, and the law is clear—torture must be punished.”

Meanwhile, Sands reiterated a warning that he made in his book. “If I were they,” he said, referring to the former officials in question, “I would think carefully before setting foot outside the United States. They are now, and forever in the future, at risk of arrest. Until this is sorted out, they are in their own legal black hole.”

TV studio sets in miniature. because.
(flickr, via coudal)

Robotic mimicry of infant learning

Chinese cave school

Frog table

This should stimulate the economy

200 MPG Aptera

Strange snippet in riot/protest news from London's pre-G20 summit this morning:

"Fearing they would be targeted by protesters, some bankers swapped their pinstripe suits for casual wear and others stayed home. Bolder financial workers leaned out their office windows Wednesday, taunting demonstrators and waving 10 pound notes at them."

WHAT?! Taunting an angry, violent mob with a symbol of greed and excess during a recession-gon-depression?! If that's not a death-wish, I don't know what is.

Much deeper coverage on the riots at The Guardian

Finally, some bright news.

The Quiet Coup (the atlantic)

Legends of Zork goes live today. I spent many hours in the early 80s on Zork I and II.