Internet Users By Country

Billboards that Don't Belong Together

Via Buzzfeed.

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• 1. The Boobie Bungalow and Jesus

  

• 2. Cancer and Cigarettes

  

• 3. Christ and Dunkin Donuts

  

• 4. Strippers and Doing Good Things

  

  I understand this one is debatable.

• 5. Cats and Jesus

  

  Again, debatable.

• 6. Homosexuality and Funny Slogans

  

• 7. Carrots and Aerobics

  

• 8. Sausages and Skin Care

  

• 9. Racers and Jesus

  

• 10. McDonalds and Obesity

  

• 11. Guns and Caskets

  

• 12. Teen Drinking and Bud Light

  

• 13. Jesus and Problems

  

• 14. Carrots and Bending Over

  

  What's up with carrots?

• 15. Embryos and Eggs

  

Best Political Platform Ever.

Nothing screams "vote for me" as much as telling the voters you detest them.

Shatner does Palin on Conan

This has been all over the intertubes. It's hard to tell who is more brilliant, master thespian William Shatner, or Conan O'Brien for coming up with this bit.

As one post about Palin's speech mentioned, "You can really tell that all of Palin's high priced speechwriters have returned to Washington.

A Man's Home Is His Constitutional Castle

Christopher Hitchens, writing in Slate made an excellent point on the whole Henry L. Gates debacle:

I can easily see how a black neighbor could have called the police when seeing professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. trying to push open the front door of his own house. And I can equally easily visualize a thuggish or oversensitive black cop answering the call. And I can also see how long it might take the misunderstanding to dawn on both parties. But Gates has a limp that partly accounts for his childhood nickname and is slight and modest in demeanor. Moreover, whatever he said to the cop was in the privacy of his own home. It is monstrous in the extreme that he should in that home be handcuffed, and then taken downtown, after it had been plainly established that he was indeed the householder. The president should certainly have kept his mouth closed about the whole business—he is a senior law officer with a duty of impartiality, not the micro-manager of our domestic disputes—but once he had said that the police conduct was "stupid," he ought to have stuck to it, quite regardless of the rainbow of shades that was so pathetically and opportunistically deployed by the Cambridge Police Department. It is the U.S. Constitution, and not some competitive agglomeration of communities or constituencies, that makes a citizen the sovereign of his own home and privacy. There is absolutely no legal requirement to be polite in the defense of this right.

Human Bodies Produce Visible Light

Via Geekologie:
Thats right folks, the human body actually produces visible light -- and not just if you live under power lines! Unfortunately, it's not visible to us because it's 1,000 times weaker than our eyes can detect.

The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals. The researchers found the body glow rose and fell over the day, with its lowest point at 10 a.m. and its peak at 4 p.m., dropping gradually after that. These findings suggest there is light emission linked to our body clocks, most likely due to how our metabolic rhythms fluctuate over the course of the day.

DC Hip-Hop

I heard this Wale track last night at the bar. I'm not heavy into the scene, but this might be the front runner for DC Hip-Hop blowing up.

iq font by pleaseletmedesign

from Designboom - Weblog

making of iq font

belgian studio pleaseletmedesign comprised of two young graphic designers
pierre smeets and damien aresta created 'iq' font using toyota 'iq' car in collaboration
with professional race car driver stefan van campenhoudt. the idea of 'iq' font was from
skidmarks from driving the car. the 4 dots on the roof of the car was tracked in real time
using a camera and a custom software designed by interactive designer zachary lieberman.

www.iqfont.com


iq font

iQ font - When driving becomes writing / Full making of from wireless on Vimeo.

Obama Dominates the News

The New York Times notes that after six months in office, "perhaps no other president has been more attuned to, or done more to dominate, the news cycle he disparages. Mr. Obama has given roughly three times as many interviews as George W. Bush and held four times as many prime-time news conferences as Bill Clinton had by comparable points in their terms."

"The all-Obama, all-the-time carpet bombing of the news media represents a strategy by a White House seeking to deploy its most effective asset in service of its goals, none more critical now than health care legislation. But longtime Washington hands warn that saturation coverage can diminish the power of his voice and lose public attention."

I don't know about you, but I don't have too much of a problem with the fact that the President likes to talk to us.

Music is the most natural thing in the world

Via Buzzfeed.

Lego Mystery of Chessboxin

Wu-Tang Lego: Da Mystery of Chessboxin' from davo on Vimeo.

Via Buzzfeed.

11 Billion Years is a Long Time

AS was recently saying its ridiculous how much money NASA gets to send people to the moon/Mars/explore the universe. Here is my rebuttal, Via Geekologie:

Astronomers on Wednesday [July 8] said they had found the farthest supernova ever detected, a giant star that ripped apart around 11 billion years ago.

The ancient supernova was found after astronomers compared several years of images taken from a portion of the sky, enabling them to look for objects that changed in brightness over time.

The universe is believed to be 13.7 billion years old, so the supernova marks the death of one of earliest stars in creation.

The previous supernova record was an event that happened around six billion years ago.

2007 Reno Balloon Race

The Great Reno Balloon Race 2007 Timelapse from Cal Collins

Via Urlesque.

Ha Ha, I'm an Idiot.

1) When you go to hear the President of the United States speak, turn your f*cking phone off. At the very least, turn it to f*cking vibrate.

2) You're an idiot because your ringtone sounds like a duck quacking. And you call yourself a serious journalist. Asshat.

Knight Rider Light Show

Black Francis Performs Live!

So I've been very into the Pixies for a long, long time now. This interview with Black Francis on Minnesota Public Radio, is worth a watch/listen. He explains where the lyrics for some of the songs come from and gives a few acoustic performances. I hear the Pixies are going on tour again soon, those money grubbing capitalists. Though I'll definitely shell out to see them again. I missed them in their hayday, but was overly joyed to see them in Geneva with DC and at UMASS with JR.

Listen here:

Watch my favorite performance here:

Paper Castles

Tokyo art student Wataru Itou created this huge model castle entirely out of paper. It took him four years.

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Gate to Henderson Castle

I walk by here (Florida and 16th) on a regular basis. It's awesome to see what it used to look like.

Via Greater Greater Washington:

Click on an image to enlarge.

Then (left): 1st Division grade school pupils on a field trip in front of the gate to the Henderson Castle, ca. 1899.

Now (right): Still recognizable, though altered, the wall surrounding the Henderson Castle is all that remains of the former estate.

The DC Public Library Commons contains the following information and image of the estate:

Built in 1888 for Senator John Brooks Henderson, the castle stood at the intersection of Florida Avenue and 16th Street, NW (northwest corner). Henderson was a skilled politician and was the man who drafted the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In 1949 the house was razed, with only the great stone entrance gate posts having survived the wrecking ball.

Where we came from, Where we are going.

650 Million Years In 1:20 Min.
by xchristox

from Boing Boing: Here's a nice time-lapse video simulation depicting the probable past and possible future of the Earth's land masses, "650 Million Years In 1:20 Minutes."

The Cast of Star Wars

From left to right: Han Solo, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, and R2D2.

Shorter.

Thanks to LW for passing along this cool NPR story:

A Shorter Route To Communication

by Mark Allen

Commentator Mark Allen is a writer living in New York. He says there is one word to deal with every hassling request. Can you guess what it is?

All Things Considered, July 8, 2009

Best line of the year for me? Shorter. I sent an e-mail that was four sentences long to one of my bosses, and he sent a one-word reply back from his Blackberry: Shorter—one time he jokingly mentioned that I sent long-winded e-mails (I do, sometimes). This e-mail I sent was just quick, information, work-related...and I needed answers.

At first I thought it was a weird typo, but indeed it was him, telling me to make my e-mail to him shorter. Basically re-type it, shorter, and submit it again for his "is-it-short-enough" approval. And his e-mail was an example for me on how to do that. Because he's savvier than me, that's why. Not even a period, just "Shorter". Even the "Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry" at the bottom was longer. I didn't even respond. It's probably because he's very into the one-sentence blogging social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, which he still uses constantly (but if you ask him, he'll tell you he's "over" them).

Anyway, it's now my new favorite response to anyone, at anytime, for anything. I've been saying it to my boyfriend all day. I just say "shorter" and walk away. Next time someone you don't like hassles you about something and uses more than two syllables to do it, just calmly say "shorter" and walk out of the room. Try it! It's brilliant!

Lil' Rhodie

The smallest state, with the largest name. That's always been one of the coolest things about being from Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (the full official name of the state). Now there are moves afoot to drop the "and Providence Plantations." I feel there are three ways to look at this:

1) I can fully understand the term "plantations" despite having a non-associated meaning to the image of slave plantations, conjures up a dark period in America's history for many people. I also understand that RI was very involved in the slave trade, and that this is a constant reminder of that blight on the states history of acceptance and freedom.

2) That all being said, the full name of the state appears in very, very few places. Changing it would likely cost a whole ton of money that doesn't need to be wasted for something that is barely used.

3) Ultimately my feeling is that one of the reasons I like Rhode Island is because it is quirky. Being the smallest states with the longest name is one of those reasons. The below op-ed from the New York Times is a good take on this:

A Plantation to Be Proud Of

By SARAH VOWELL

Published: July 4, 2009

LAST month, Rhode Island’s Legislature approved a proposal to allow a ballot referendum in 2010 to change the state’s official name from “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” to simply “State of Rhode Island.” According to The Providence Journal, “Proponents of the name change say the word ‘plantations’ is offensive to the African-American community because it conjures up images of slavery.”

On the one hand, as a person who spends a minimum of 20 minutes a week furious with President William McKinley, I feel that these, the historically minded, bleeding-heart hand-wringers leading this movement, are my people.

On the other hand, as New York City’s biggest, or perhaps only, fan of the founding of Providence Plantations, I feel compelled to stick up for its noble legacy of religious freedom.

As your average Rhode Island government spokesman and/or persnickety history buff will point out, in 17th-century English, “plantation” was a synonym for “colony” or “settlement” — just as a legal charter was a “patent” and “whore of Babylon” was a kicky pet name for the pope.

In his farewell sermon to the colonists leaving England to settle Massachusetts Bay in 1630, “God’s Promise to His Plantation,” the Rev. John Cotton evoked the word’s biblical roots, quoting the second Book of Samuel: “I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them.”

Providence Plantations’ founder, the young Puritan theologian Roger Williams, arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631. The Boston church immediately offered him a job as a minister, which he turned down because he deemed the congregation not quite puritanical enough. In a community of religious fanatics, the outspoken Williams became the guy who all the other Puritans wished would lighten up about religion.

Williams harangued the Bay Colony’s government for making everyone, even nonbelievers, attend church; he denied a government’s legal authority to prosecute violations of the Ten Commandments having to do with worship, including keeping the Sabbath holy.

He bristled when the magistrates made everyone, even nonbelievers, swear an oath at court; he considered an oath to be a covenant with God and thought that a nonbeliever making a simple pledge to tell the truth in the eyes of God about the 17th-century equivalent of a parking ticket was taking “the name of God in vain.” He wrote of a “wall of separation” between the church and the state long before Thomas Jefferson did, though to opposite ends. Williams yearned to separate “the garden of the church from the wilderness of the world.”

Because he refused to shut up, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay banished Williams from the colony in 1635. Terrified and rejected, he fled south on foot through the snowy wilderness. It was perhaps the loneliest march in American history up until pretty much every day in 1962 that James Meredith walked into the University of Mississippi’s cafeteria for lunch.

Upon his arrival in Narragansett Bay, Williams was supposedly greeted by an Indian who called out, “What cheer, netop?” It was a mishmash of old English and Algonquian meaning, “How’s it going, friend?” Without the friendly aid of the Narragansett, Williams would have surely perished.

He got the tribal chiefs’ permission to live there, and named his new home Providence. One of the Puritans’ favorite words, it conveys the generosity and wisdom of their God while at the same time admonishing lowly mortals to suck it up and accept God’s will even if one had a bone to pick with the magistrates of Massachusetts Bay.

Proud that no money changed hands between the Narragansett and himself, Williams later boasted, “Rhode Island was purchased by love.” By which he meant Providence Plantations! His community would eventually join forces in the 1640s with towns like Newport and Portsmouth on the nearby island known as Aquidneck or Rhode — possibly named for either the Greek isle of Rhodes or the Dutch word for red, not that anyone is sure. The whole shebang appears as the official name Rhode Island and Providence Plantations on the royal charter of 1663.

African and American Indian slaves were eventually forced to work in towns and on farms both in Providence Plantations and on Rhode Island. The ports of Providence and Newport were both major points in the slave trade triangle. In other words, Rhode Island itself has as much culpability in the history of slavery as Providence Plantations. But the supporters of the referendum object to the tone set by the word “plantation,” even though there was no slavery at Providence Plantations’ founding — just one weird white man with a dream.

Williams’s settlement offered what he called “soul-liberty.” A man with the narrowest of minds presided over the most open-minded haven in New England. His own unwavering zealotry made him recognize the convictions of others, however wrong-headed. Others not sharing his beliefs would be tortured eternally “over the everlasting burnings of Hell,” and this, he figured, was punishment enough. And so Providence and its environs soon became a refuge for regional outcasts — Puritan dissenters like Anne Hutchinson who got kicked out of Massachusetts, as well as Quakers, Baptists and Jews. (Newport boasts the country’s oldest, and perhaps prettiest, synagogue.)

In 1663, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations obtained an unprecedented charter from Charles II that guaranteed its residents would not be “molested, punished, disquieted or called in question for any differences in opinion in matters of religion.” This sentiment, written more than a century before the First Amendment, is a premonition of one of the finest ideals of the imperfect country that was to come. If there is anything to be learned from the life of an admirable crank like Williams, it’s just how wise the founders were to link freedom of speech and religion together in one legal guarantee.

Granted, I’m just an out-of-stater living in a city purchased with a measly string of beads and not with love, but I hope the citizens of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations vote against erasing the grandest part of their state’s name from the margins of subpoenas and Web sites. Silent, bureaucratic antiquities have their charms. Even though I would never call Sixth Avenue its official name out loud, sometimes when I’m walking home past those grandiose Avenue of the Americas street signs, I feel a momentary kinship with Peru. That never happens on Third.

Sarah Vowell is the author of “Assassination Vacation” and “The Wordy Shipmates.”

DC, too stupid for the vote? Bullshit.

Following another Marion Barry scandal, there were comments by conservative pundits that this is proof that DC shouldn't be allowed to have a vote that counts in Congress. why.i.hate.dc skillfully refutes this dumb and fucked up idea.

As the Marion Barry scandals continue, we will undoubtedly hear more about how this is why DC doesn't deserve voting rights. Clearly, the people of the District of Columbia are not ready for democracy, because they keep electing Marion Barry.

Let's follow this line of thinking and identify others who do not deserve voting rights simply because we don't approve of who they elect, or they elect people who have tainted reputations.

The State of Illinois

Elected Rod Blagojevich governor in 2002 and 2006 (later indicted for corruption)

Elected George Ryan governor in 1998

Elected Dan Rostenkowski to Congress, 1959-1995

Elected Richard J. Daley mayor from 1955-1976 and Richard M. Daley from 1989-Present

Elected Dan Walker governor from 1973-1977

Elected Otto Kerner governor from 1961-1968

The State of Alaska

Elected Ted Stevens to the U.S. Senate from 1968-2009

Elected Sarah Palin governor from 2006-Present

Elected Frank Murkowski to U.S. Senate and governor 1981-2006

The State of Ohio

Elected Jim Traficant to Congress, 1985-2002

Elected Buz Lukens to two terms in Congress

The State of Florida

Elected Katherine Harris as Secretary of State and to Congress, 1999-2007

Elected Mark Foley to Congress, 1995-2006

The City of Detroit, Michigan

Elected Kwame Kilpatrick, 2002-2008

The State of Idaho

Elected Larry Craig to the House and then Senate, 1981-2009

The State of Pennsylvania

Elected Joseph P. Kolter to Congress, 1969-1993

The State of Minnesota

Elected David Druenberger to the Senate, 1978-1995

The State of California

Elected Randy "Duke" Cunningham to Congress, 1991-2005

From the Jack Abramoff Scandal, the State of Texas (Ohio and Pennsylvania also included)

From the Keating Five, the States of Arizona and Michigan (and Ohio, again)

From Abscam, the States of New Jersey and South Carolina (Pennsylvania and Florida included)

The State of South Carolina, again, for electing Mark Sanford

The State of Nevada

Elected John Ensign to the House and Senate, 1995-Present

The United States of America

Elected George W. Bush president, 2001-2009.

Democracy isn't something 'earned' by passing a test of electing 'good' people. The right to self-governance isn't something that is bestowed upon us by a benevolent Congress. The right to govern ourselves, and either fail miserably or do a decent job, is inherent. If it wasn't we should all lose our right to vote because collectively, we've all made some pretty bad choices.

Here, Here.

World's Fastest

Auto-Tune the News

There's been a bunch of these now. The most recent one's far and away the best.

Electronic Music from Kids Movies

ViaUrlesque:
Pogo is an Australian musician who composes songs from sounds sampled from kids movies like Mary Poppins, The Sword In The Stone, Harry Potter, and Alice in Wonderland.



Expialidotious


White Magic


Alohamora


Alice

How a Baby is Made (Some Nudity Involved)

Via Jezebel: Denmark is very socially progressive—the first country to legalize pornography and same-sex unions—so it's fitting that a Danish author, Per Holm Knudsen, wrote How a Baby Is Made, an incredibly detailed children's book that depicts penetration and crowning.
For MM and MC. Congratulations!

Originally titled The True Story of How Babies are Made, the book was first published in 1973.


This is a baby.


This is the baby's parents, both of whom are fond of horizontal stripes.


Mom's carpet matches the curtains.


The father's definition of "large" seems relative, if not completely inaccurate, but the mother is OK with that, because the large ones kind of hurt anyway.


Danish kissing is just like French kissing, minus the tongues.


Shrinkage can be a problem for some men, but Danish kissing can take the focus away from the crotch. Magicians refer to this as "redirection."


When parents are very much in love, they hang out together in the nude.


Like all the time.


And the vagina in the middle of the father's chest doesn't even freak out the mother.


The father, however, is sometimes freaked out by the mother's see-thru belly.


But that's no reason to put on clothes.


After all, passionless nudity is natural.


But when it's time to go to the hospital, the parents have to put on the clothes they removed nine months earlier.


Because it would've been weird to drive around naked, even if they do own a hippie love van, and people in town expect that kind of thing from them.


The mother appears unperturbed by labor pains, or the fact that her doctor has blood-drenched shoes.


The doctor nervously grips the candlestick holder that he bought at Ikea, and prepares himself for the worst, in case the baby is evil and needs to be clubbed.


The baby exits the vagina kind of drunk. Luckily he isn't a violent drunk, but one of those happy drunks who just wants to hug everyone in the room. The doctor feels relieved about this.


The father, a known nudist, would like to remove his clothing like the rest of his family, but the doctor, whose behavior has been odd, won't leave the room.


The family is happy to be at home, and the father is happy to see a breast, even though he isn't the one who gets to suck on it.


Their friends and relatives, although happy about the baby, are not pictured here because they don't want their names or faces to be associated with any of this.


Real talk.


If you view this sideways, it looks like a tampon exiting a vagina, which is kind of the opposite of a sperm going into an egg. So this is like one of those optical illusion illustrations on display at the Franklin Institute.