click for amusing page

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How cool is this stuff?

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Random Video on Metacafe:

Adriana Francesca Lima [Brazilian Supermodel] - The most amazing home videos are here

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Sources:

Winning the war on
Mike Luckovich

State of the Union
Pat Oliphant   

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AVMs are 24/7 machines housed in standalone rooms, abutting two dispensaries and protected by round-the-clock security guards -- like ATMs for people combating psychological withdrawal with a physical one. After cinching up your doctor's consultation, hit an AVM location to get your prescription approved, fingerprint taken, and a prepaid credit card loaded with your profile: dosage (3.5 or 7 grams, up to 1oz a week) and strain preference (choice of five, including OG Cush and Granddaddy Purple, the mildly hallucinogenic forebear to Prince).

Source:
World's First Weed ATM 
Thrillist.com, THURSDAY JAN 24, 2008
http://www.thrillist.com/archives/2008/01/worlds_first_weed_atm_la_los_angeles_gadgets_midwilshire.html

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We Can Work It Out:

Posted at 09:04 AM in Music, The Beatles | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Nice:

1) Carcharodon megalodon
Last seen 1.6 million years ago.

2) Arthropleura armata
Last seen At the beginning of the Permian period (290 million years ago)

3) Meganeura monyi (Not shown)
Last seen The Permian extinction (250 million years ago).

4) Aepyornis maximus
Last seen In the 16th century.

5) Elasmotherium sibiricum
Last seen 800,000 years ago.

6) Gigantopithecus blacki
Last seen 300,000 years ago

7) Jaekelopterus rhenaniae (Not shown)
Last seen 248 million years ago.

8) Shonisaurus sikanniensis
Last seen At the end of the Norian stage (204 million years ago).

9) Doedicurus clavicaudatus
Last seen 15,000 years ago.

10) Ceratogaulus rhinoceros
Last seen 5 million years ago.

Source:
The Best: Extinct Animals, From an Elephant Bird to a 10-Foot-Long, 4-Eyed Spider
Daniel Dumas   
Wired, 01.18.08 | 6:00 PM
http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/16-02/st_best

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Freakin' hysterical:

Posted at 06:18 AM in Humor, Sports, War/Defense | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Scienceblogs (via Metasurfing) gives us this list of the top 50 Atheist t-shirts

Top Fifty Atheist T-Shirt and Bumper Sticker Aphorisms

1. Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers


2. Honk If Your Religious Beliefs Make You An Asshole


3. Intelligent Design Makes My Monkey Cry


4. Too Stupid to Understand Science? Try Religion.


5. There's A REASON Why Atheists Don't Fly Planes Into Buildings


6. "Worship Me or I Will Torture You Forever. Have a Nice Day."­ God.


7. God Doesn't Kill People. People Who Believe in God Kill People.


8. If There is No God, Then What Makes the Next Kleenex Pop Up?


9. He's Dead.
   It's Been 2,000 years.
   He's Not Coming Back.
   Get OVER It Already!


10. All religion is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.  -Edgar Allen Poe.


11. Viva La Evolución!


12. Actually, If You Look It Up, The Winter Solstice Is The Reason For The Season


13. I Wouldn't Trust Your God Even If He Did Exist


14. Cheeses Is Lard. Argue With THAT If You Can.


15. People Who Don't Want Their Beliefs Laughed at Shouldn't Have Such Funny Beliefs


16.   Jesus is Coming? Don't Swallow That.


17. Threatening Children With Hell Is FUN!


18. GOD - APPLY DIRECTLY TO FOREHEAD!


19. Jesus Told Me Republicans SUCK


20. God + Whacky Tobacky = Platypus


21. God Doesn't Exist. So, I Guess That Means No One Loves You.


22. When the Rapture Comes, We'll Get Our Country Back!


23. Q. How Do We Know the Holy Ghost Was Catholic?
    A. He Used the Rhythm Method Instead of a Condom.


24. You Say "Heretic" Like It Was a BAD Thing


25. I Love Christians. They Taste Like Chicken.


26. Science: It Works, Bitches.


27. "Intelligent Design"  Helping Stupid People Feel Smart Since 1987


28. I Found God Between The Sheets


29. I Gave Up Superstitious Mumbo Jumbo For Lent


30. My Flying Monkey Can Beat Up Your Guardian Angel


31. Every Time You Play With Yourself, God Kills a Kitten


32. If God Wanted People to Believe in Him, Then Why Did He Invent Logic?


33. Praying Is Politically Correct Schizophrenia


34. ALL Americans Are African Americans


35. I Forget - Which Day Did God Make All The Fossils?


36. I Was An Atheist Until The Hindus Convinced Me That I Was God


37. The Spanish Inquisition: The Original Faith-based Initiative


38. If we were made in his image, when why aren't humans invisible too?


39. JESUS SAVES....You From Thinking For Yourself


40. How Can You Disbelieve in Evolution If You Can't Even Define It?


41. Q. How Can You Tell That Your God is Man-made?
    A. If He Hates All the Same People You Do.


42. Every Time You See a Rainbow, God is Having Gay Sex


43. I Went to Public School in Kansas and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt and a Poor Understanding of the Scientific Method.


44. WWJD = We Won. Jesus Died.


45. The Family That Prays Together is Brainwashing the Children


46. Oh, Look, Honey Another Pro-lifer For War


47. Another Godless Atheist for Peace and World Harmony


48. God is Unavailable Right Now. Can I Help You?


49. When Lip Service to Some Mysterious Deity Permits Bestiality on
    Wednesday and Absolution on Sundays, Cash Me Out.  Frank Sinatra.


50. No Gods. No Mullets.

Posted at 11:28 PM in Humor, Philosophy, Religion, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ahhh, that's the good stuff!

WITH its brass-trimmed halogen heating elements, glass globes and bamboo paddles, the new contraption that is to begin making coffee this week at the Blue Bottle Café here looks like a machine from a Jules Verne novel, a 19th-century vision of the future.

Called a siphon bar, it was imported from Japan at a total cost of more than $20,000. The cafe has the only halogen-powered model in the United States, and getting it here required years of elliptical discussions with its importer, Jay Egami of the Ueshima Coffee Company.

“If you just want equipment you’re not ready,” Mr. Egami said in an interview. But, he added, James Freeman, the owner of the cafe, is different: “He’s invested time. He’s invested interest. He is ready.”

Professionals have long been willing to pay prices in the five figures for the perfect espresso machine, but the siphon bar does not make espresso. It makes brewed coffee, as does another high-end coffee maker, the $11,000 Clover, which makes one cup at a time. Together, they signal the resurgence of brewing among the most obsessive coffee enthusiasts.

Source:
At Last, a $20,000 Cup of Coffee
OLIVER SCHWANER-ALBRIGHT
January 23, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/dining/23coff.html

Posted at 09:03 PM in Food and Drink | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Seinfeld Reunion Show, 2027

We can only marvel at this virtuosic stunt from comic Frank Caliendo: he flawlessly acts out a promo for a fictitious Seinfeld 2027 reunion show (with sly political overtones) by playing every single character himself. It goes a long way that he already looks like a clone of Jason Alexander and Newman. Wisely, he doesn't include Kramer's Laugh Factory material. (by Rich Bailey)

Posted at 06:19 AM in Humor, Television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How very "UnChristian" of them:

Ginormous version here

Source:
Banned From Church
Reviving an ancient practice, churches are exposing sinners and shunning those who won't repent.
ALEXANDRA ALTER
WSJ, January 18, 2008; Page W1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120061470848399079.html

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The original animated special (awful picture quality)

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Rudy Giuliani

There once was the mayor called Rudy
Who went to Long Island for booty
The taxpayers paid
So that he could get laid
Did 9/11 come before Judy?

Barack Obama

There once was a man named Obama
Who avoided political drama.
But when Clintonites spoke
Claiming King was a joke,
Obama responded, "Yo mama!"

Mike Huckabee

Mr. Huck believes God’s the solution
And claims that there’s no Evolution.
It could be he’s right
God said “Let there be light,”
But he didn’t write the damn Constitution.

Fred Thompson:

Here is the candidate Fred
And these are the words that he said
"I want Law and Order
so I'm closing the border
If you want me, I'll be in my bed."

via email

Posted at 06:29 AM in Humor, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Strangely beautiful photo

A Chinese fish farmer with some of his catfish, bred on the outskirts of Hangzhou. The fish farmers are said to have turned to illegal veterinary drugs to keep fish alive in contaminated ponds.

Source:
China Says Its Seafood Is Now Safer and Better
DAVID BARBOZA
NYT, January 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/business/worldbusiness/18fish.html

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Pretty freakin cool:

Posted at 06:06 AM in Design, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Amusing 2008 Predictions via BorowitzReport:

January: After paying five billion dollars for The Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch will reduce the size of the paper by removing the facts.

February: Responding to the controversy over the CIAs’ waterboarding videotapes, President Bush will reaffirm his administration’s opposition to videotaping.

March: As the writers strike drags on, Paramount will produce the second “Transformers” film without a script, just like they did with the first one.

April: Monica Lewinsky will announce her candidacy for President of the United States. She will offer herself as an alternative to Hillary, saying, “It worked before.”

May: Attempting to bolster flagging enlistment rates, the Army will change its recruitment slogan from “Army Strong” to “I Can’t Believe It’s Not a Civil War.”

June: Population experts will warn that the world’s population will soar in 2008, largely due to the Spears sisters.

July: China will send a new brand of rat poison to the United States under the name “Delicious Cupcakes.”

August: Sen. Edward Kennedy will abandon plans to write his memoirs, explaining, “I can’t even remember what I did last night.”

September: At the Republican National Convention, G.O.P. nominee Mike Huckabee will select Jesus Christ as his running mate.

October: O.J. Simpson will be convicted in Las Vegas, proving that it is easier to get away with murder than stealing sports memorabilia.

November: President-elect Michael Bloomberg will defend the five-billion-dollar cost of his campaign, arguing, “Rupert Murdoch paid that much for The Wall Street Journal, and I get a whole country.”

December: In his last official act, President Bush will announce an exit strategy from Iraq. The President will withdraw all U.S. troops – through Iran.

 

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Robert Deniro & Joe Pesci are Hysterical:

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Very cool -- The Beatles Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Individual tracks are isolated:

Posted at 06:56 AM in Music, The Beatles | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

There goes the neighborhood:

click for jumbo image

An Einstein Ring happens when two galaxies are perfectly aligned. The closer galaxy acts as a lens, magnifying and distorting the view of a more distant galaxy. But today astronomers announced that they've discovered a double Einstein Ring: three galaxies are perfectly aligned, creating a double ring around the lensing galaxy. The odds of finding something like this are pretty low. And yet… here it is.

Universe today via kottke

Source:
Hubble Sees a Double Einstein Ring
Fraser Cain
Universe today January 10th, 2008
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/01/10/hubble-sees-a-double-einstein-ring/

Posted at 11:36 AM in Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Awesome:

One of the strongest storms recorded in the northern Pacific Ocean pummeled the West Coast last weekend, leading to widespread flooding and state and federal disaster declarations. The storm also left behind some of the most remarkable waves ever surfed.

Cowabunga!

>

Source:
Surfers Defy Giant Waves Awakened by Storm
CHRIS DIXON
NYT, January 9, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/sports/othersports/09surf.html   

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Exactly one year ago, a Mark Cuban declared Why he doesn't wear a suit -- and can't figure out why anyone does !.   

It festered for a while, and then I forgot about it. A recent event made me revisit it.

I understand why Mark don't want to wear a suit -- he doesn't have to, having achieved that magic number of dollars that lets you say fuck you to the rest of the world without consequence.

What I can't figure out is why he does not understand why so many other people have to. Perhaps all that lovely lucre obscures one memory of life in the real world.

Suits (in a modern sense of the word) have been worn ever since Louis XIV of France and Charles II, king of Great Britain, so decreed to members of Court in the 17th Century that they must wear them.

Why did the kings so declare?  BECAUSE THEY COULD. Like an alpha dog establishing dominance over the rest of the pack, so too, the monarchs established their dominance over their domains and their subjects. Their lessers all competed for survival, significant others, and standard of living. It was, and still is, very Darwinian in nature.

Ever since then, the wearing of a suit has been a social sign of conformity and stature. It is shorthand for your place in the pecking order -- corporate, academic, fraternal or otherwise. Some discussions of this explicitly recognize this (see the book The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men's Style).   

Henry David Thoreau once noted "It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes."

You wear a suit because you must in order to earn a paycheck, join the team, win a contract, sell a product or service. It is a uniform that can at times declare "I am of lower significance than you, and I humbly wear this suit as a sign of respect and deference, so I may win favor from you, or a contract, a vote, or a raise, and please won't you buy some whole life insurance from me."

Back in the day, IBM was infamous for the blue suits their employees wore, as a sign of total subjugation to the corporate entity over the individual identity. Is it any surprise the mainframe manufacturer failed to adapt well to the era of personal PCs? It was an anathema to them. 

Those of independent financial means (like Mark)  have little need to subjugate themselves for financial purposes, and thus don't HAVE to wear suits all that often.

Even without the suit, there are ways to judge our betters and lessers by other status cues -- cars, spouses, homes, watches, shoes, etc.  Ever see two guys meet, and one flips back the others neck tie to see the label/designer? That's called (I love this expression) "The Lehman Handshake" -- and its little more than a status confirmation.

If you study a little sartorial history, as well as understand how Human Societies have functioned over the past 5 centuries, the Suit makes more and more sense.

Many expressions we hear reflect this: Clothes make the man, time to suit up, put on your Sunday best.

Now about those ugly rep ties . . .

Posted at 06:03 AM in Shopping | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

In this witty monologue, Malcolm Gladwell follows the career of a food industry consultant who uncovered a key secret to what eaters like. Running huge focus groups to find customers' truest tastes, Gladwell's hero draws a radical conclusion, an epiphany that has defined food marketing ever since. Note: The theme of the 2004 conference was "The Pursuit of Happiness" -- hence the talk's quirky presence

click to play

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Click thru for full graphic:

Sources:
A Year in Iraq
ADRIANA LINS DE ALBUQUERQUE and ALICIA CHENG
NYT, January 6, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/opinion/06chart.html

Graphic
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/01/06/opinion/06opchart.ready.html

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The Full Promo Vids filmed at Chiswick House -- you can see John is bored out of his mind

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I love this:

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If you are a fan at all of Creedence Clearwater Revival and/or John Fogerty, then check out some of the tunes on Fogerty's new disc Revival. 

The title -- obviously referring to CCR -- is his first new disc in three years. The sound is unmistakably Creedence with little bits of swamp rock, blues, country, folk and soul.

Fogerty is more than a "just" a great song writer; He comes in at #40 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.   

This is Fogerty's return to politics with songs like "Long Dark Night, I Can’t Take it No More, It Ain't Right, and Longshot.

For those of you who want a sample the work, Fogerty's my space page has 4 streaming tunes from Revival. You can also see a few videos below (YouTube has tons of his earlier work).

In addition to CCR, I am a very big of the latter solo work: 1985's Centerfield, with its chooglin' one-chord jams. This is the album which led to his former label suing him, claiming that the songwriter had plagiarized himself. Fogerty eventually won the lawsuit.

I also really like 1997's roots rock shuffle, Blue Moon Swamp.

Both of these are must haves for CCR fans. ($7.97 at Amazon -- about time the recording industry figured out dynamic pricing).

The reviews of the new disc have been pretty good:

"Full-bore return to choogling swamp-pop." —USA Today, Edna Gundersen

"Revival is no rerun. It is Fogerty getting back to work—and finally acting on his own advice, in a song he's actually named after his old band: "You can't go wrong if you play a little bit of that Creedence song."  —Rolling Stone, David Fricke

"Fogerty's muse comes fully alive, nodding gently to his estimable legacy while moving firmly forward."   —Harp, Fred Mills

"Still making his guitar twang, still singing in that rockabilly yowl, John Fogerty is angry about the war, the president, American culture and vanished youth on his new album, 'Revival,' and it just makes him rock harder."  —New York Times, Jon Pareles

"Mr. CCR has created a masterpiece and Revival is unquestionably one of the ten best discs of 2007."   —Relix, Lou Friedman

Don't take my word for it, there are enough streaming versions of the new songs to almost sample the full CD.

click for the surprisingly upbeat:  "Don't You Wish It Was True"

>

Letterman Performance of Revival

Interview about the new album

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via infectious greed

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Whew! We didn't make the list. Might as well shave & shower  . . .

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Good advice:

1. Learn what is the "It" in "Use It or Lose It".

A basic understanding will serve you well to appreciate your brain's beauty as a living and constantly-developing dense forest with billions of neurons and synapses.

2. Take care of your nutrition.

Did you know that the brain only weighs 2% of body mass but consumes over 20% of the oxygen and nutrients we intake? As a general rule, you don't need expensive ultra-sophisticated nutritional supplements, just make sure you don't stuff yourself with the "bad stuff".

3. Remember that the brain is part of the body.

Things that exercise your body can also help sharpen your brain: physical exercise enhances neurogenesis.

4. Practice positive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mindset and you look forward to every new day in a constructive way.

Stress and anxiety, no matter whether induced by external events or by your own thoughts, actually kills neurons and prevents the creation of new ones. You can think of chronic stress as the opposite of exercise: it prevents the creation of new neurons.

5. Thrive on Learning and Mental Challenges.

The point of having a brain is precisely to learn and to adapt to challenging new environments. Once new neurons appear in your brain, where they stay in your brain and how long they survive depends on how you use them. "Use It or Lose It" does not mean "do crossword puzzle number 1,234,567". It means, "challenge your brain often with fundamentally new activities."

6. We are (as far as we know) the only self-directed organisms in this planet.

Aim high. Once you graduate from college, keep learning. The brain keeps developing, no matter your age, and it reflects what you do with it.

7. Explore, travel.

Adapting to new locations forces you to pay more attention to your environment. Make new decisions, use your brain.

8. Don't Outsource Your Brain.

Not to media personalities, not to politicians, not to your smart neighbor, not to this blogger... Make your own decisions, and mistakes. And learn from them. That way, you are training your brain, not your neighbor's.

9. Develop and maintain stimulating friendships.

We are "social animals", and need social interaction. Which, by the way, is why the Baby Einstein series has been shown not to be the panacea for children development.

10. Laugh. Often.

Especially to cognitively complex humor, full of twists and surprises. Better, try to become the next Jon Stewart, and create your own unique humor.

Source:
10 Habits of Highly Effective Brains
ALVARO FERNANDEZ
December 18, 2007 | 03:47 PM (EST)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alvaro-fernandez/10-habits-of-highly-effec_b_77369.html

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The End of the World

We Will Rock You

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