Drive-By
Fresh from the People's Cube: American Agitprop Playing Cards -- Updated and Improved
"Style and aesthetics cannot rescue failed content. If the are not truthful the most appealing fonts wont’ turn lies into truth." -- Edward Tufte, Yale University
"Humans have a powerful capacity to process visual information, skills that date far back in our evolutionary lineage.
And since the advent of science, we have employed intricate visual strategies to communicate data, often utilizing design principles that draw on these basic cognitive skills. In a modern world where we have far more data than we can process, the practice of data visualization has gained even more importance. From scientific visualization to pop infographics, designers are increasingly tasked with incorporating data into the media experience. Data has emerged as such a critical part of modern life that it has entered into the realm of art, where data-driven visual experiences challenge viewers to find personal meaning from a sea of information, a task that is increasingly present in every aspect of our information-infused lives."
Where The Buffalo Roamed – How Far Can You Get From McDonald's? FOR MAXIMUM MCSPARSENESS, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota....
Then there's always "Charles Joseph Minard who was a pioneer of the use of graphics in engineering and statistics. He is famous for his Carte figurative des pertes successives en hommes de l'Armee Francaise dans la campagne de Russie 1812-1813, a flow map published in 1869 on the subject of Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign of 1812. The graph displays several variables in a single two-dimensional image:
- the size of the army - providing a strong visual representation of human suffering, e.g. the sudden decrease of the army's size at the crossing of the Berezina river on the retreat;
- the geographical co-ordinates, latitude and longitude, of the army as it moved;
the direction that the army was traveling, both in advance and in retreat, showing where units split off and rejoined;
- the location of the army with respect to certain dates; and
- the weather temperature along the path of the retreat, in another strong visualisation of events (during the retreat "one of the worst winters in recent memory set in 1861").
See it large along with a Facebook map of the world in 2013....
Continued...Blur Brain sez This Music Video Got Nearly 89 Million Views, Find Out Why "My recent post of a member of the Japanese vocal group AKB48 eating Tororo gave some of you a bad case of yellow fever so here’s one of the group’s most popular music videos. Not sure why it’s so popular, maybe it’s the catchy tune or the odd lyrics. Perhaps you can figure it out."
It is truly said that only two sexual archetypes dominate the internet: 1) The big breasted blonde and 2) the Japanese school girl. This is surely the apotheosis of the latter.
[Note: You may have to play this several times in the course of your investigation. We understand.]
Iowahawk leaving an indelible mark on his latest victim:
Archive is a documentary focused on the future of long-term digital storage, the history of the Internet and attempts to preserve its contents on a massive scale.
Part one features Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and his colleagues Robert Miller, director of books, and Alexis Rossi, director of web collections. On a mission to create universal access to all knowledge, the Internet Archive’s staff have built the world's largest online library, offering 10 petabytes of archived websites, books, movies, music, and television broadcasts. The video includes a tour of the Internet Archive’s headquarters in San Francisco, the book scanning center, and the book storage facilities in Richmond, California. -- Internet Archive on Vimeo
"It's not a thousand times the size of the Library of Congress.... but it's starting to get there."
"There is a certain number of “rounds” a gun has to hold in order to be a deadly weapon capable of ending a human life, or altering it forever. And that number is one.
Some gun-rights advocates consider the magazine-capacity limit to be among the most logical and persuasive proposals to be offered by their opposition. I strenuously disagree with this. It doesn’t even begin to make a lick o’ sense. The whole thing is a silly bunny trail. First test of a rational proposal is, can you define its objective — so what’s the objective here? Make a gun that’s safe? Ladies-and-gentlemen, boys-and-girls, guns aren’t safe. They are life-threatening and deadly. They’re supposed to be. Guns are like car insurance, in the sense that (in this context) you hope you never, ever have to use them. Those who do their responsible thinking, as opposed to feeling, realize “I hope I never have to use it” is meaningfully different from “I don’t want it to be effective if I ever have to use it.” -- House of Eratosthenes
The Great Figure
Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.
-- William Carlos Williams
Deep Inside Taco Bell's Doritos Locos Taco
I'm Thirteen and I Have Gonorrhea Debuts on MTV
“Cty of Jesey:”Where Mail With Illegible Addresses Goes to Be Read
Let’s Hope the Next Bomber is a Liberal Journalist
The Obama Borg | National Review OnlineHow “man-caused disasters” replaced Islamist terrorism in the Obama lexicon
6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person | Cracked.com
The wonderfully slow and delightfully agonizing death of the Washington Post: Ed Driscoll ｻ Through a Gimlet Eye: Studying the Washington Post Kremlinologist-Style
Ormond Gigli's best photograph – women in the windows in Manhattan: 'The building was knocked down the next day. The supervisor let us do it – provided we cast his wife'....
Continued...
So it was and so it is in the time of a totalitarian system. Every day brings a new heartache, a new tremor, more helplessness, and yet another reduction of freedom and free thought in a censored society already bound and gagged. In Prague: Philip Roth's PEN Remarks
Every Noise at Once
blah-blah-blah-on/
"This is an algorithmically-generated non-analytical map of the musical genre-space. Genres and artists are positioned by code and data, adjusted for legibility, but the underlying vectors are less interesting than the juxtapositions and clusters that they produce, so the axes have been deliberately left unlabeled and uncalibrated. You are invited to imagine your own qualities and magnitudes that the geometry might be expressing."
/blah-blah-blah-off
Click around on this page forever.
The Rules of Terror in Horror Movies “No one in the theater is going to walk out in the first thirty minutes, they just aren’t. So you’ve got ‘em for at least thirty minutes. Now you better deliver at the end of thirty minutes, but you’ve got all this time that you can build, build, build.”
Bruce Charlton's Miscellany: Is it possible to do good things for bad reasons? Not for long...
Many who express their admiration for Orwell today have yet to absorb his point that screaming ‘Fascists!’ in the faces of those you disagree with is not the same thing as making your case. ‘Libel’, as he concludes, ‘settles nothing’. sp!ked review of books preview | Homage to Orwell
People Whose Guts You Should Hate @ Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello
Van Gogh's true colours were originally even brighter | Art and design | guardian.co.uk
Giant Microtech Marfione Custom Halo V 3X OTF Knife (13.75" Stonewash) 2012 - Blade HQ Giant Microtech Marfione Custom Halo V 3X OTF Knife (13.75" Stonewash) 2012
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This HALO V 3X has a hand ground tanto blade, stonewashed and almost 14 inches long. The handle is black anodized aluminum with the Marfione Dagger up front. The blade is retracted using the heat anodized titanium draw bar.
The HALO V 3X comes in a huge Pelican 1700 case with a custom stainless steel plate on front labeled: "A. MARFIONE HALO V 3X 06/2012".
Specifications:
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A 16-year-old Bill Clinton, part of the Arkansas delegation to the American Legion Boys Nation, meets President John F. Kennedy in the Rose Garden on July 26, 1963. Via Bygone Americana.
Again, on the extremely thin chance that you missed it, ....
"I had a lobotomy."
"A lobotomy? Isn't that for loonies?"
"Not at all. A friend of mine had one."
In which Miller explains the weirdness that is going on:
Miller: A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.
Otto: You eat a lot of acid, Miller, back in the hippie days?
Miller: I'll give you another instance: you know how everybody's into weirdness right now?...
"I do my best thinking on the bus. That's how come I don't drive. The more you drive the less intelligent you are."
These are the days of the endless summer
These are the days, the time is now
There is no past, there's only future
There's only here, there's only now....
Plus the immortal if highly obscure "Legend of the Sail Cat!"
Continued...Life's for us to enjoy
Woman, man, girl and boy
Feel the pain, feel the joy
And side step the little bits of history repeating
Lyrics from -- History Repeating
"It's a big club, and you ain't in it...."
Continued...
"Just enough space left on the floor for Jim Carrey."
Update: File under "American males that should be shot on sight:" Once upon a time Steve McQueen defined American maledom, now the weakness spun from years of self-abuse has spawned, quite literally, a thing like Eric Ducharme: Meet the man who lives his life as a merman in Florida's natural springs.
When Eric Ducharme slips into his handmade fin to explore the crystal clear waters of Florida’s natural springs as a merman, he says he’s mentally transported as well. So is the unique, eye-catching life of this Florida man who says he eats, sleeps and breathes mermaids while physically looking and acting like one as often as time allows. 'It's a lifestyle. It's a path in life that I have chosen,' says the 22-year-old from Crystal River.Really? Pass the air-sickness bag.
Amphibious operations
Small arms maintenance
Gathered HERE @ In Focus @ The Atlantic are recent KCNA photographs of North Korea's war machine, as the country wishes the world to see it. 33 PHOTOS
Penitents light their candles as they take part in the "Humildad" (Humility) brotherhood Palm Sunday procession in Malaga on March 24, 2013. -- Pride, penitence and Antonio Banderas: Spaniards mark Holy Week with colorful processions
Matt Walsh explains his perfectly rational position and brings out the facts behind the myths. Get educated.
It's the singer, not the song.
Found at the today cuter than neater - Neatorama
"Wow, talk about “First Person Shooter” POV. This looks like a Jason Statham movie as seen through his eyes. “Language and violence warning” should be all the incentive you need to spend 5 minutes watching this clip. -- - Blur Brain
N.B. “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR per G.G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huck Finn
[You will miss much just the first time through. Especially the finer points of these:]
"Harry Weathersby Stamps, ladies' man, foodie, natty dresser, and accomplished traveler, died on Saturday, March 9, 2013.
Harry was locally sourcing his food years before chefs in California starting using cilantro and arugula (both of which he hated). For his signature bacon and tomato sandwich, he procured 100% all white Bunny Bread from Georgia, Blue Plate mayonnaise from New Orleans, Sauer's black pepper from Virginia, home grown tomatoes from outside Oxford, and Tennessee's Benton bacon from his bacon-of-the-month subscription. As a point of pride, he purported to remember every meal he had eaten in his 80 years of life."
.... He excelled at growing camellias, rebuilding houses after hurricanes, rocking, eradicating mole crickets from his front yard, composting pine needles, living within his means, outsmarting squirrels, never losing a game of competitive sickness, and reading any history book he could get his hands on. He loved to use his oversized "old man" remote control, which thankfully survived Hurricane Katrina, to flip between watching The Barefoot Contessa and anything on The History Channel.
.... He particularly hated Day Light Saving Time, which he referred to as The Devil's Time. It is not lost on his family that he died the very day that he would have had to spring his clock forward. This can only be viewed as his final protest.View Harry Stamps's Full Obituary by The Sun Herald HERE
Because... it's time. [And because here at American Digest we believe, we really believe, in recycling.]
Continued...Updated and bumped with sage commentary from Mike James on AMERICAN DIGEST: Comment on The Girls On Fox News: They Report. We Decide.
Fletcher, there are two or three lawyers, to include a former county judge, Monica Crowley has a PhD in something, and it would be my guess an assortment of various degrees of the sort that women usually get, but I doubt there's even one ethnic grievance degree, not one Women's or Gayandlesbianandtransgenderandwhycan'tIscrewboysandgirls Studies major.
But that's all just credentialism. I think they hold up against the joyless petting zoo on the other networks, once you filter out the code words and implicit assumptions of whatever it is they read from a teleprompter. There's something else as important, and that's credibility and integrity.
Fox has bothered themselves to report on some fairly serious things like the invasion of our Libyan Consulate, or the government deliberately overseeing the transfer of firearms to the sorts of drug running lowlife who behead innocents, massacre whole birthday parties, and the like. Oh, they get around to it, but only if Fox has already been reporting on something for a few weeks and makes it impossible to ignore, damn their eyes.
To be fair, I've seen them try. Not long ago one Fox competitor sent a head turning blonde to cover, alone or she might as well have been, rioting Cairenes, with the customary ugly, predictable results. The MSNBC and CNN viewers told the Fox viewers that this proved that Fox viewers are stupid.
Not that I discount things like covering speakers drinking a little water while they speak, or holding cameras on the President while he boards a huge aircraft to go to some course he hasn't played yet, while some of the girls of CNN or MSNBC describe in glowing terms the outfit his frightening wife is wearing as she boards a completely different huge aircraft because she was taking her holiday someplace else. Those things are important to find out about, too. As well the intimate, personal, one on one, maybe-I'll-get-my-friend-to-join-us interviews. I can go back to this stuff online, it seems that he wears nice suits, his wife looks good in anything, and there's nothing to worry about except for the mean people who are making it very hard for him to do things to make us all happy. This makes him sad.
Ha ha, just joking around with you, I don't take them seriously. Why should I?
And nobody, ever, is going to write a song called the "The Girls of MSNBC", or "The Girls of CNN", not a perfectly serviceable toe tapping one that I could imagine the band playing in a windowless joint somewhere when the fistfight breaks out. Wait, I take that back. I could see them getting Sarah MacLachlan to take a stab at it; MSNBC and CNN are used to people changing the channel out of revulsion by now, anyway. We are at least as well informed, better on some stories, and what could easily be a swimsuit calender; they get the likes of Chris Mathews, Al Sharpton, Ed Schultz, or that fat bag of dough named Urk, or Turk, his name evades me right now. Cenk? Ctenk? I'll remember it after I click publish, as usual, darn it.
"Has any one of them two brain cells to rub together?" Cheap shots, Fletcher? That's not how you usually play things. Grace and self-restraint, on the Internet, of all places.
That goddamned song's been playing in my head since yesterday. It doesn't stop. I want it to stop. It has to stop. I thought it would help it stop to watch MSNBC or CNN, but it hasn't stopped.
Posted by Mike James at March 6, 2013 4:58 PM
Faust. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet, make me immortal with a kiss. [Kisses her.]
Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies! --
Come, come, give me my soul again.
-- Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus.
One is speaking, of course, of our latter day Helen of Troy, ye right honorable first beard first lady of the Disunited States, Michelle Obama. Her "official" second term portrait was just released and is provided here as source material. (Standard "can't unsee the seen" warning applies.) Play nice.
Updated with a fresh spread from Michelle La Vaughn's Secret Diary via Cripes Suzette -- Dear Diary – BANGS! |
Continued...
Who says a major in English Lit is wasted? The Boston Globe decided to use the first line from Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow: See the whole front page here.
"A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.
"It is too late. The Evacuation still proceeds, but it's all theatre. There are no lights inside the cars. No light anywhere. Above him lift girders old as an iron queen, and glass somewhere far above that would let the light of day through. But it's night. He's afraid of the way the glass will fall--soon--it will be a spectacle: the fall of a crystal palace. But coming down in total blackout, without one glint of light, only great invisible crashing." -- Thomas Pynchon: Gravity's Rainbow (opening)
I'm just putting it out there because that racist Rob sent it in. Talk amongst yourselves.
Created by @notoserfdom.
Obama SOTU/Chris Dorner Manhunt Open Thread: Ace of Spades HQ
"Yes, alas, it's an Open Thread, and not a liveblog. I don't really feel like listening to this imbecilic gasbag. I asked around but no one else has much interest, either.
"CNN/Chris Dorner Update: No, Anderson Cooper did not ask if it's harder to find a black man at night. See the "red flag" at the end."
Meanwhile Morgan is happy to give you a translated synopsis. Excerpt:
Too many families with solid credit who want to buy a home are being rejected. Too many families who have never missed a payment and want to refinance are being told no. That’s holding our entire economy back, and we need to fix it. Four years without a budget is not holding our economy back, and bizarre new health care regulatoins aren’t holding our economy back, and the constant threat of ever-increasing taxes on “millionaires and billionaires” is not holding our economy back. It’s those darn banks telling people no.
Kate Upton fills out the cover for a second year because... well... because... because the editors were shackled by the ankles to the Upton Entity three years ago and have not yet been rescued. 2013 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue - A Full Look • Highsnobiety The full 39 (thirty-nine) photographs.
Presenting, via The Borderline Sociopathic Blog For Boys, The Zero F**ks Given RX7
Twelve minutes of automotive nirvana. Highly recommended. "Never a dull moment here."
A mistake that the Institute for Centrifugal Research** works tirelessly to correct. The ICR's "pioneering achievements in the realms of brain manipulation, excessive G-Force and prenatal simulations" are illustrated, quite vividly, in Till Nowak's short documentary, presented below. I beg you, please, wait for the "wedding cake" amusement ride.
LAPD Had "No Idea" Who They Were Shooting At In Dorner Pursuit, Says Victims' Attorney - Reason.com
"It's 100 percent clear that they had no idea who was in that vehicle and just lit it up.... This could have been anyone. It could have been you. It could have been me."
Continued...
Opportunity Passes 9 Years on Mars NASA's Mars rover Opportunity just celebrated its ninth anniversary on Mars - a mission that was originally meant to last just 90 days.
Although recently eclipsed in the news by its bigger brother Curiosity, Opportunity is still going strong and making valuable scientific discoveries. Launched into space in 2003, Opportunity bounced to a hole-in-one landing in a small crater on Mars' Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004. It has since spent 3,212 Martian days, or sols, on the surface, slowly moving from target to target, exploring craters, meteorites, unusual rock formations, and finding evidence of past water activity. Over the past 108 months, Opportunity has driven a total of 35.48 kilometers (22.05 miles) across Mars -- not bad for a mission designed to last only three months.
On First Looking Out of NASA's Rover
Written on January 25, 2004
Much have I imagined the arcing vaults of space,
And many fiery launches and cold orbits seen;
Round the darksided moon have I been
And raised a flag above Tranquility base.
Oft on one Red Planet would I place
Dreams of deep-brow'd Bradbury's Morning Green
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I saw Opportunity gaze upon our brother's face:
Then felt I like some sentinel in strange skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like those at JPL, when the Opportunity's eyes
Delivered them an image through the stars,
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
"All green" upon the dusty plains of Mars.
(Apologies to Keats. who would understand)
Who says the Supreme Being doesn't have a sense of black humor?
[From the dependably demented Sooper. Mexy. CONservative. | SOOPERMEXICAN]
Continued...Now is the parking lot of our discontent: The History Blog's Liveblogging the Richard III announcement is the best of many, many sites and news sources covering this.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here at this ungodly hour to find out as soon as humanly possible whether the skeleton discovered underneath a Leicester parking lot can be conclusively identified by a combination of DNA analysis, radiocarbon dating and forensic analysis as the remains of King Richard III."
As Richard III is now:
As Shakespeare had him:
Meanwhile, in the real America far from the malls and the maddening crowd....
One minute and thirteen seconds. Whew! I couldn't do this. Could you?
Continued...
Your answers for the inquisitor
In his wine-stained satin lace,
Are as irrelevant as answers
Deduced from deepest space.
Your presence in his universe
Confirms him of your crime.
He seeks to seal all passages
Divined from space and time.
Behind the science of his spectacles
Lives a mind reduced by power.
A gesture from his languid wrists --
All's over in an hour.
"We seek to keep our faithful
Baptized, confirmed and saved
From those dark, unknown questions
That live beyond the grave.
"Hunched within my velvet throne,
My pen controls the door
That opens to the vaults of night
Above the killing floor."
"Up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time. And I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations."
If Obamaspew be the food of fools, BRINGETH IT ON!
Give ALL excess of Him, that, surfeiting,
The Obamatrons may sicken, and so die.
That Hope and Change again! it had a dying poll fall:
O, his valved voice slurps o'er my ear like the sweet drool,
That cackles over another bank bailout,
Stealing my money while flatulating! Enough; no more;
His words sound not so sweet now as before.
O Story of O! how tired and boring art thou,
That, notwithstanding his venal verbosity,
Deceiveth as the devil, nought truth enters there,
Of what no validity soe'er,
But falls into debasement and low approval,
Even in a joint session bleat: so full of shapes is his fancy
That he alone is high and fantastical.
And to start it off with a bigger bang than she's had in decades, I've designed this special bumper sticker that carries her message to a grateful nation!
Looking back at 2013.
Taking the blame for this is Morgan @ House of Eratosthenes
It cannot be noted or said too often: There is something deeply and seriously wrong with Russians. It goes back centuries and it abides.
Found at Russian Icebreaker - Neatorama
Continued...Here at American Digest we are always eager to study the laws of the physical universe extremely closely. For some, slow-motion is a gimmick but for us it is a serious scientific tool.
Continued...
Socialism, so caring, so "fair," so humanity based, so green... and so wonderful for the environment! Especially when all the parasites run out of money: Smog hits Athens, residents resort to wood-burning for heat
A haze of smoke hangs over the city skyline in Athens, early Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013. The cloud is the result of a massive switch to wooden stoves and fireplaces for heating as many households, already hard hit by the economic crisis, can not afford to buy heating oil after the cash-strapped government decided to harmonize taxes on heating oil and diesel fuel, leading to a 40 percent rise in the price of heating oil.File under "Coming Attractions." Soon to be playing at an Obamaville near you.
"The survey ship Magellan, bearing with it the last legacy of a long-dead people. A legacy to be kept and cherished and, in time, bequeathed to a world still unborn. From the current inhabitants...of the Twilight Zone."
"6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." -- Ephesians 5
Continued...Translation: "Sexiest chef who prepares plum pie."
"Look at my kaake. I vish you cold smell it."
To master this video will probably take most men ten to twenty viewings .... as well as remember what it is you are supposed to be cooking in the first place. Especially the part where she uses "dis round wood to rall oot der doe."
Presented below the fold in deference to those who may not need to learn -- in large measure -- what this chef has to teach.
Continued...
Meanwhile.... barbarians keep showing up everywhere with their hands out for more Danegeld: Brazilian farmers demand that the government cancels their debt and gives them additional assistance to help offset the effects of a devastating drought that hit the region this year.
Meanwhile... Jennifer Granholm had a worse economic strategy than Lindsay Lohan, and Lindsay Lohan had to beg for money from Charlie Sheen. But did you know that Michael Moore received $1 million bucks in welfare for anti-welfare film?
Meanwhile... is there a Conservative purge in the House Republican caucus? Does a bear.... and is John Boehner a dickless asshole?
Meanwhile.... Muslims a 'culture of peace'? Cut The Crap, Culture Of Peace
Meanwhile... Obama's in the basement mixing up the medicine....Recipe for Violence in the Middle East... but I'm on the pavement thinking 'bout,"More rubble less trouble."
Meanwhile... who was surprised when Susan Rice just disclosed that she is worth considerably over $30 million? Not Victor Davis Hanson.
Meanwhile... Mary Granville Delany was an an artist that bloomed at 72. so all is not lost.
Meanwhile... speaking of Lost, the story of how 'Lost' got found: "The island has to be a character in the show, and something's wrong with the island."
Meanwhile... the Church that baptized Ben Franklin considers selling 1640 psalm book for $20 million to $25 million. “It’s the most famous unknown book in the world.”
Meanwhile... The Russian Rush Limbaugh observes: I heard that soon the word "Woman" will be banned for sexual discrimination, and replaced by "Vaginamerican".
The Fable of the Final Hour by Dan Propper
After a decade of high flying prosperitythe American economy fell to earth and began tunneling to an awful volcanic core of despair, food riots, cloying folk songs, and lava ....
Found at Homo Sum ｻ Blog Archive ｻ Their great chicken-bone and moonshine empire will rise again:
The text of Hodgeman’s documentary comes, of course, from his book The Areas Of My Expertise, as do so many things. The full text is behind the jump.Continued...
"In the not so distant future an over-populated planet requires that every birth be balanced by a death. When Edward K. Whelig, Jr.’s wife births triplets he needs to find three people willing to enter a local suicide booth and give him the receipt…"
Everything was perfectly swell.
There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars.
All diseases were conquered. So was old age.
Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.
The population of the United States was stabilized at forty-million souls.
One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K. Wehling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many people were born a day any more.
Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average age was one hundred and twenty-nine.
X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first.
Young Wehling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air, too. Chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls. The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths.
The room was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered to die.
A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepladder, painting a mural he did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so. Aging had touched him that much before the cure for aging was found.
The mural he was working on depicted a very neat garden. Men and women in white, doctors and nurses, turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer.
Men and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves, carried refuse to trash-burners.
Never, never, never—not even in medieval Holland nor old Japan—had a garden been more formal, been better tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air and nourishment it could use.
A hospital orderly came down the corridor, singing under his breath a popular song:
If you don't like my kisses, honey,
Here's what I will do:
I'll go see a girl in purple,
Kiss this sad world toodle-oo.
If you don't want my lovin',
Why should I take up all this space?
I'll get off this old planet,
Let some sweet baby have my place.
READ THE FULL TEXT OF 2 B R 0 2 B, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. HERE
Or listen to audio reading to the story:
All landings at San Diego International Airport on Black Friday Nov 23, 2012 between 1030am and 300pm condensed into 26 seconds:
Continued...
A teacher gives his students lesson about democracy that they'll never forget.
Give it four and a half minutes and you'll listen for twelve and a half minutes.
Made by the brilliant ensemble at The Truth: Movies for Your Ears
The director of this work, Jonathan Mitchell, discusses the origins and shaping of this story in a comment on Something Gripping: That's Democracy:
I didn't write the story, it came form an outline by Louis Kornfeld, which we developed collaboratively through brainstorming and improvisation. I directed and produced the story, so I'm the author of it in the way a film director is the author of a film.
The idea was to make a horror story that was set in the world of electoral politics. We wanted to create a situation in which there was a monster threatening a group of people, and the people has to use democracy to solve their problem. We thought it was an interesting twist to set it in a classroom, and make the teacher the monster.
What interests me most is putting characters in compelling situations, and learning about who those characters are through how they react to the situation. I like it best when stories can have many layers of meaning, and when the meaning is a bit abstract and dependent on each audience member's perspective. So really, whatever meaning you get from it as an individual is fine with me.
Having said that, I don't feel that this is a recommendation against democracy. In the story, I'd argue that democracy worked, in that the students were all saved. Also, it's worth pointing out that the students were given the option of voting for a pacifist approach, which would've required much more bravery and faith in that position. What would've happened had Margaret been chosen? Would the teacher really have killed them all? Or would he have stuck to his word (as he did by killing himself) and let the representative decide the fate of the class? Pacifism takes faith, and faith does not come easy. And I think the perspective of this story is that pacifism would've been the best approach, but it's often not chosen out of fear that it won't work.
I think of the speech at the end as a postscript -- this character went on to use the situation to his advantage, to get into a good college. This is a cynical comment on how politicians often use their positions for personal gain. For me, this is not the main point of the story, but a twisting of the knife. It's meant to be a horror story, after all. -- Posted by Jonathan Mitchell at November 28, 2012 5:51 AM
Having produced a number of radio dramas for the Pacifica radio network in the 1970s, I've long had a place in my heart for this most evocative of dramatic mediums. This one is in the finest traditions of that art.
"The gods of wisdom and virtue have had enough. And now... they want their stuff back."
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
Rockets over Tel Aviv - YouTube
"Watch the sky as the Iron Dome shoots down a rocket over Tel Aviv. Note: this video was sent to me by a friend immediately following the sirens in Tel Aviv by MMS. I did not film it, I was in shelter."
Often imitated. Never duplicated. And strangely gets better the more he recedes into the past. Funny how that works, isn't it?
Sippican knows more and knows the important things:
Sippican Cottage: Still Dead Not Fat Elvis The Fat Elvis costume has become as recognizable as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Hell, Uncle Sam. It screams: AMERICA. And not fussy America, or political America, or The New York Times Book Review America, either. He's strip mall/chrome fin/corn dog/hayseed/ghetto blaster/swimming hole/fried chicken/AM radio/concrete block church/Vegas whore America. He's the whole ball of earwax in Jesusland.
But I knew Elvis because I knew rockabilly. Elvis Presley arguably invented it; at the very least he personified it before he went Hollywood. He was the sun around which Sun records revolved in the fifties. Long before Elvis become the guy that showed up in adjustable waistbands and spangles, and was Elvis, he was great. Not just great. Important.
Undefeated - The Toughest Bridge in the World
The Durham train trestle has stood its ground for the last 100 years. This fact doesn't deter some drivers from challanging the bridge about once a month. all of them fail.
UPDATE: Currently trending at 1.5 million views in one day.
First the rant:
Then the response:
Continued...You load 16 tons of bullshit and whadda ya get? Washington Tops List of America's Richest Cities: D.C. area residents have a median household income of $86,680, well above the national average of $50,502.
Finally there's hope for snoring women who "hate their necks."
Elsewhere Sultan Knish notes that speech and religions are hardly free in America, but the ability to get other people pay for your birth control and provide a space for your gay wedding are doing well.
Continued..."Real rootin' tootin' rainfall here.... I luuuve it!"
Simple truths from a simple mind:
"Over the weekend, Snoop Dogg (who, the media conveniently forgot had changed his name to Snoop Lion when he discovered that he was the reincarnation of Bob Marley, even though Bob Marley died in 1981, and Snoop was actually born ten years before that) posted a list of ten reasons why he would vote for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney." -- Everyone still hates dancing horses. :: Naked DC
Maddow: You started anchoring at what time?
Matthews: Early, just before the first debate started. I had to sit down with a napkin from dinner in my lap. I knew I would see Obama soon and I was to aroused to stand up.
Maddow: You listened. Then something shook you, didn't it? Was it a nightmare? What was it?
Matthews: I heard a strange garble.
Maddow: What was it?
Matthews: It was... stuttering. Some kind of stuttering, like a moron's babble... but it wasn't Republican. It was like somebody blowing through a Flexstraw into a drool cup.
Maddow: What did you do?
Matthews: I went limp, flaccid, tingleless. I crept up into debate chamber. I was so scared to look inside, but I had to.
Maddow: And what did you see, Chris? What did you see?
Matthews: Obama. Obama was blathering.
Maddow: He was blathering at the podium?
Matthews: And voters were vomiting.
Maddow: And you ran away with him. You eloped with him at last?
Matthews: First I tried to free him. I... I opened the gate to his podium, but he wouldn't run. He just stood there, confused, a stuttering clusterfuck. He wouldn't run.
Maddow: But you could and you did, didn't you?
Matthews: Yes. I took Him. Held Him very very close to me, and I ran away as fast as I could.
Maddow: Where were you going, Chris?
Matthews: I don't know. I didn't have any food, any water and it was very cold, very cold. I thought, I thought if I could save just Him, but... He was so heavy. So heavy. I didn't get more than a few miles when the Network's car picked me up. The Network was so angry it sent me to live at Al Gore's station. I never saw MSNBC again.
Maddow: What became of your lamby-pie partner, Clarice?
Matthews: They killed him.
Illo and inspiration from Morgan
In these hard times men are forced to take all sorts of degrading jobs such as this one:
HT: Joan
"Happy Daze Are Here Again!" U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, seen in an image taken from between a video camera and its cameraman, attended a joint news conference with her Chinese counterpart at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Wednesday.
"Until non-liberals understand that hate and violence are the fundamental characteristics of the "liberal" they have no hope of defeating them.
"As someone that grew up poor and lived and schooled among minorities, anti-white racism is endemic among them. In many "communities" the highest achievement is to demonstrate in every way they are apart from Whitey. Not once in private have I heard one minority scold/correct another minority for even vicious anti-white racist statements.
"Today's "liberalism" is about raw power. There may be a few "liberals" that still think "giving stuff away" will help someone. Mostly, being on the left is about getting on the right side of the billy club swing. In their mind all of US history has been you, or people like you, beating them with the billy club. The Left really believes you, and others like you, need to be beaten by any means necessary. You are sub-human in their mind and their pursuit of "social justice" justifies whatever they have to do to you. This is why the bad habit conservatives have of exempting contempt for the liberals near them is so destructive.
"Liberals have the hate to power a 24/7 fight. We think we only need to fight on election day every few years and then go back to our lives. That is how we've gotten into our current position. Things won't change until we change. Stop deciding what is comfortable and then adjusting your action to remain comfortable." -- ScottM: Side-Lines: Male Flight Attendant Down on Glenn Beck? Wonder Why?
The corrupt media has a constant agenda to help Barack Obama
The reason Obama won in 2008 was because so many white people wanted to feel good about themselves and prove they were not racist that the raced to vote in the first black president. They were thrilled to do it and wanted to make history. At the same time, there was a giant slice of Republicans who didnât like McCain and also somewhat didnât feel good about standing in the way of the first black president. So they let Obama win, thinking it would not be that bad. They joked "What's the worse than can happen? He can't be worse than Carter!".
There's no pressure for suburban white people to prove they aren't racist again by re-electing President Disappointment. At the same time, those Republicans who stupidly sat the election out in 2008 aren't going to do that again. If someone is sitting out this year too, that person is just brain dead. AND that person just wants negative attention and is likely to never vote. Ignore that person from now on.
Blacks are the most racist voters in this country at the moment and will indeed support Barack Obama in the 90-100% range…but how many will really turn out on Election Day? They won’t vote AGAINST Obama, but they might not bother to go vote for him.
Large yard blob identified as mushroom
ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich., Aug. 30 (UPI) -- A Michigan family said a "weird looking" white blob they discovered in the yard turned out to be a large mushroom.
Linda Key, 53, of Rochester Hills, and her husband, Glenn, 52, said the blob, which is about the size of a basketball and weighs nearly 2 pounds, was first spotted Sunday among the rocks lining their flower bed, the Detroit Free Press reported Thursday.
"We didn't know if it was going to start walking away or what. It was so weird looking," Glenn Key said.
The couple's son, Wyatt, 13, likened the object to something out of a sci-fi movie.
"The whole experience has been very weird ... looking at it, thinking it's an alien egg," he said.
However, mushroom experts identified the object as a fungus commonly called a puffball.
Ah, those orientals. Masters of imitation!
Last 'blue moon' until 2015 lights up night sky tonight Tonight's blue moon also happens to fall on the day of late astronaut Neil Armstrong's memorial service.
Catchy headline of the day from the oneCʘsmos' most demented wordsmith: The Satanic Fecundity of Envy
"College graduates should not have to live out their 20s in their childhood bedrooms, staring up at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can move out and get going with life." -- Paul Ryan
Power Politics in less than 24 hours. By XG | Crossroads Generation
UPDATE: This just in from Flickr: BKeyser_'s Photostream
"The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry"
It may be said that "Not all who wander are lost," but the overweening ego that looks to redesign a common interface that has been taught to hundreds of millions guarentees that "all who read this will become lost if not injured and dead."
No profession other than politics has more raw hubris sewage sloshing about in it than "graphic" design. Manual is such a design firm; a firm so deeply sunk in slop that you know without looking that it has to be based in San Francisco and hence already targeted for nuking from orbit. But before they go out on the downstroke they'd like to take a crack at the road signage system. Why? Because they can ultimately write "an app for that."
All current drivers from 16 to 99 know what these mean.
Nobody knows what these mean. Care to figure them out at 70 MPH?
We took on the task of redesigning the US road signage system. For a country so heavily reliant on cars, we feel the current signage system is confusing, inconsistent and messy. Our plan is to modernize and add clarity to a signage system that millions of road users rely upon every day. .... For a country so heavily reliant on cars, we feel the current signage system is confusing, inconsistent and messy. Our plan is to modernize and add clarity to a signage system that millions of road users rely upon every day. The current use of shields feels dated and too “police state”, so we have abandoned them in the main system. However, we have retained a simplified shield for historic routes as we appreciate they may have a certain Americana charm. -- Manual / Icon Magazine - RethinkShields. So retro. So "police state," don't you know? Odds are whatever staff pretend to work at Manual have no problem voting for the current PC police state of San Francisco. And how does the so-edgily named operation known as "Manual" define itself? Via post-post-modern bullshit, of course: "Manual is a design and visual communication studio. Our work strives to uncover the intangible essence of a brand and express it through unique visual solutions. In doing so, we give brands more value and distinction." So would you trust your day and your life at 70 MPH to this "branding bullshit" group? If so, pre-deploy your airbags and make ready for impact with the median!
HT: Tim George
"American tourist Ella uses an iPad while riding a Wi-Fi-outfitted donkey lead by her brother Aaron, in Kfar Kedem, a biblical reenactment park in the village of Hoshaya in the Galilee, Israel, on August 22, 2012. Visitors riding donkeys through the Old Testament landscape can now also surf the web while being transported across the land of the Bible. Organizers are hoping to connect the younger generation to ancient Galillee life while allowing them to like, share, tweet and snap it instantly to their friends." -- Animals in the News - In Focus - The Atlantic
Photon packet [Right] transiting bottle
Ramesh Raskar presents femto-photography, a new type of imaging so fast it visualizes the world one trillion frames per second, so detailed it shows light itself in motion. This technology may someday be used to build cameras that can look "around" corners or see inside the body without X-rays.
Perhaps America, needs to suffer a disastrous, doomed coup attempt that gets lots of good people killed for nothing, after a resentful Black President loses in a landslide. Maybe only that horror show will shock America into confronting the truth of Black (and White elite) dysfunction and absolute, complete, and utter failure on every level imaginable.
Weeds cover a deserted theme park north of Beijing
China's ghost towns and phantom malls
The Disneyesque castle and medieval ramparts of this theme park north of Beijing, conceived nearly 20 years ago, lie abandoned. Local farmers grow crops among the empty buildings.Continued...
"Instructions were too vague. I woke up in Tijuana with no pants on."
For Sale: Check Out Card Signed by Elvis Presley
In 1948, the Man Who Would Be King checked The Courageous Heart, a biography of Andrew Jackson, out of the library at Humes High School.Continued...
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- American Agitprop
- Edward Tufte & The Art of Data Visualization: "You want to see to learn something, not see to confirm something."
- They Said Nobody Could Update "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." They Were Wrong.
- Most Lethal Tweet of the Year
- Something Wonderful: The Internet Archive in the Christian Science Church -- "The web is, in fact, infinite..."
- Resist and Ignore Evil Laws: Why You Would Want to Have a High Capacity Magazine
- Fifth
- Fourth
- "That's not a knife. THAT'S a KNIFE."
- One-Liners: Pre-Mortem and Mortem
- An Earth Day Tradition: George Carlin - Saving the Planet
- The Persistance of the Sixties: "Ambition's debt is paid."
- Pop Goes the Culture: Repo Man (1984) " The life of a repo man is always intense."
- Something Wonderful: Van Morrison - These Are The Days
- Jonathan Winters (November 11, 1925 – April 11, 2013) : All Three Stooges in One
- Miss Shirley Bassey - History Repeating
- George Carlin -"Who Really Controls America"
- Steve McQueen: Of "Mermen" and When Male Stars Were Actually Men
- Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid: North Korea Puts Its War Machine on Display
- Easter Rituals Unlikely to Be Imported to the USA Anytime Soon