Bad Picture.

Via Wonkette: This is just how Germans make announcements.

Dinosaur Ballet

Have a Great Weekend everyone.

More here.

God's Ice Cube

From ToothpasteforDinner.

A letter to the Conservative movement.

Read this now.

We need more intellectual debate about the ideologies behind our ideologies, than we do about the ideologies themselves.

It's a Trap!

This tee shirt by Matt Leyen sold out on Woot today

Yes, I also just have a Whipped Cream maker at home. For cooking.

Media Companies Are INCAPABLE Of Adapting.

Fuck You NBC.

As this article in the NYTimes alludes, businesses should be adapting to consumers; consumers don't need to adapt to a company's business model. NBC starts off with a big fail in the oncoming generational shift.

I suppose not...

Link: giagantor.com

From R. Sikoryak envisioning an existentialist superhero.

A Decade, As Seen On the Printed Page

Scott Brown or Why the Dems are Going to Hell in a Handbasket.

A Political Post:

So Massachusetts voted for a Republican. Surprising, but not like: Oh my god the world is ending, exciting. The Democratic candidate said she wasn't a Red Sox fan. She was doomed to lose.

But the problem that's exposed to me at least, by this is threefold, exposed by the reaction of the Democratic party to the loss as represented via the effort to reform health care. (By the way Scott Brown's position on this was disgusting. See here.):

1) Democracy in this country is no longer rule by majority. The Democrats have a bigger majority still than anyone has had in the Senate since the 70s, but they are worried they can't get their policies through. That's because rule in this country is now by the supermajority. That's a problem.

2) The Filibuster has become an abused tool in the Senate. Which is why you need a supermajority. In the 1960s, 11% of bills that came to the floor in the Senate were threatened to be filibustered. By the 1990s that had jumped to 80%. Now I think the Filibuster is probably a useful tool within our democracy, but politics has become so partisan and so win at all cost, that it actually prevents anyone from governing the country.

3) The agenda of the opposition is neither to present new or different ideas, but to obstruct the President's agenda. Thus making it impossible for the governing party to, well, govern.

stillness is the move

I've wanted to post that for awhile. I loved "Bitte Orca" last year's Dirty Projectors album. And this song was all over the place. It's a great cover Solange has. The reason I post it now is because of this interview which is awesome and fascinating about music racism and the navel gazing nature of music (and really all criticism). Check it out.

Let us have more and better fucking, fighting and bulls.”

“To hell with delicate studies of the American scene. Fuck the American scene. Fuck moers [sic], manners, customs all that horse shit. Let us have more and better fucking, fighting and bulls.”

- Ernest Hemingway, in a letter to Ezra Pound

Leno Vs. Conan

Thank god someone explained it in a way I can understand.

We're just different.

Little asian PC girl vs. MAC parody - watch more funny videos

One

Jimmy Fallon and a handful of Muppets, breakdown into an impromptu version of “One” (not Bono’s, the “loneliest number” verzh) before the actual show started taping. Cameramen assured the blogosphere that this was impromptu, but they probably lie.

Still.

Brilliant.

USB Wall outlet.

Fuck Pat Robertson.

There's no reason to go into how despicable Pat Robertson's comments regarding the recent disaster in Haiti were. I'm not even going to link or put up a clip where he insinuates the earthquake was a blessing in disguise and the result of Haitians "pact with the devil." You can Google that.

What I would direct you to are two stories: One in BoingBoing explains Haiti's real "deal with the devil" :

Pat Robertson thinks that Haiti is poverty stricken (and earthquake-stricken) because the country made a deal with Satan to help them overthrow the French.

Back in May, the Times Online provided some slightly better insight into Haiti's past. Beyond a vague assumption that Imperialism had probably screwed Haiti somehow, I didn't know much about the country's history. Reading this story has been nothing short of nauseating.

Summary: Haiti was forced to pay France for its freedom. When they couldn't afford the ransom, France (and other countries, including the United States) helpfully offered high-interest loans. By 1900, 80% of Haiti's annual budget went to paying off its "reparation" debt. They didn't make the last payment until 1947. Just 10 years later, dictator François Duvalier took over the country and promptly bankrupted it, taking out more high-interest loans to pay for his corrupt lifestyle. The Duvalier family, with the blind-eye financial assistance of Western countries, killed 10s of thousands of Haitians, until the Haitian people overthrew them in 1986. Today, Haiti is still paying off the debt of an oppressive dictator no one would help them get rid of for 30 years.

The rest of the world refuses to forgive this debt.

So, in a way, maybe Robertson is right. Haiti is caught in a deal with the devil, and the devil is us.

Update: mgfarrelly points out another thing I didn't know—the U.S. Congress is currently considering a bill called The Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation. Part of what this bill would do is help countries like Haiti get their debt canceled, without making that cancellation conditional on things like closing down free schools or raising the cost of fresh water. Maybe a good time to contact your representatives about about this bi-partisan measure.

The second link is from TheAwl:

Pat Robertson's ability to use any natural disaster as the springboard for a provocative and deeply ignorant remark that expresses his own blinkered and bigoted worldview of "morality" is so commonplace and predictable by this point that it usually seems unworthy of noting. His comment yesterday about Haiti having caused its own massive tragedy by making "a pact with the devil" falls well within this category, and ordinarily I'd ignore it, but this response by Haitian ambassador Raymond Joseph is so perfect—direct, intelligent, filled with more history in one minute than pretty much anything you see on most news programs all evening—that it deserves as much currency as it can get. It's a shame that we live in a world where something like this is both necessary and remarkable, but there you are.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Alma

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

Worth putting on full screen,

(Get well soon AG-M).

WTF?

Cianci Mulling Comeback in Rhode Island

from Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

Former Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci -- who served more than four years in federal prison for running a criminal enterprise out of City Hall -- says he is "taking a good look" at challenging Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), the Providence Journal reports.

Cianci "also says that a legal argument could be made to allow him to run for mayor of Providence in November, but he's not saying whether he'll test it."

Amen.

Who knew the Amen Break was created here in DC? Who says DC hasn't contributed anything to Hip-Hop?

It Made My Day

IMMD.com is sort of the reverse of FML.com.



Here's some good ones of late:


I was driving down the highway and there was a sign in front of a fireworks store that read: “Even Creationists appreciate a Big Bang” IMMD.


I was at the store and there was a kid bouncing and rolling down the freezer sections doors. After a moment I heard his mother say "How many times have I told you we don’t play Katamari in public?!" (Thanks to NC for this one).

011110

Today's date is a Palindrome! It's the second palindromic date this year (01022010)!

Wikipedia has these examples of Palindromes, but there are many, many more!

A dog! A panic in a pagoda!
Ah, Satan sees Natasha.
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
Do geese see God?
I prefer pi.
If I had a hi-fi.
Ma is as selfless as I am.
Mr. Owl ate my metal worm.
Never odd or even.
No devil lived on.
No lemon, no melon.
No, sir, away! A papaya war is on!
Red rum, sir, is murder.
Rise to vote, sir.
So many dynamos!
A man a plan a canal, panama


To celebrate, watch this!

What on Lost

Can't wait til the season premier, which may get bumped by the Presiden'ts State of the Union Address. I mean seriously, who does Obama think he is?

UPDATE: Looks like the State of the Union is getting moved. Hooray White House!

O'Biden

Via Taegan Goddard's Politcal Wire:

The forthcoming book, Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, reports that McCain campaign aides had Sarah Palin refer to Joe Biden by his first name in the vice presidential debate because she had the unfortunate habit of calling him "O'Biden" when using his last name.

In fact, a Political Wire reader sends over a clip from the debate where she slipped and actually called him O'Biden.

Here's the video clip from the 2008 vice presidential debate:

UP!

UP was great, and this remix is great too. I've posted other stuff by this guy on the blog before.

Interestingly, there was an article in the NYTimes recently about UP, and how it is angling for an academy award for best picture. This in spite of the fact that there is a best animated feature category.

UP would end up competing in the animated category with Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox. As much as I enjoyed UP, I enjoyed Fox a whole lot more. UP is the perfect example of why Pixar makes kick ass movies (though my favorite is still The Incredibles), but it definitely wasn't the best movie or the best animated movie I saw last year.

Dude in Speedo Dancing.

Nope, I don't get it either.

Is America losing the free world?

From the Financial Times:

America is losing the free world

By Gideon Rachman

Published: January 4 2010

Ever since 1945, the US has regarded itself as the leader of the “free world”. But the Obama administration is facing an unexpected and unwelcome development in global politics. Four of the biggest and most strategically important democracies in the developing world – Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey – are increasingly at odds with American foreign policy. Rather than siding with the US on the big international issues, they are just as likely to line up with authoritarian powers such as China and Iran.

The US has been slow to pick up on this development, perhaps because it seems so surprising and unnatural. Most Americans assume that fellow democracies will share their values and opinions on international affairs. During the last presidential election campaign, John McCain, the Republican candidate, called for the formation of a global alliance of democracies to push back against authoritarian powers. Some of President Barack Obama’s senior advisers have also written enthusiastically about an international league of democracies.

But the assumption that the world’s democracies will naturally stick together is proving unfounded. The latest example came during the Copenhagen climate summit. On the last day of the talks, the Americans tried to fix up one-to-one meetings between Mr Obama and the leaders of South Africa, Brazil and India – but failed each time. The Indians even said that their prime minister, Manmohan Singh, had already left for the airport.

So Mr Obama must have felt something of a chump when he arrived for a last-minute meeting with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, only to find him already deep in negotiations with the leaders of none other than Brazil, South Africa and India. Symbolically, the leaders had to squeeze up to make space for the American president around the table.

There was more than symbolism at work. In Copenhagen, Brazil, South Africa and India decided that their status as developing nations was more important than their status as democracies. Like the Chinese, they argued that it is fundamentally unjust to cap the greenhouse gas emissions of poor countries at a lower level than the emissions of the US or the European Union; all the more so since the industrialised west is responsible for the great bulk of the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.

Revealingly, both Brazilian and Chinese leaders have made the same pointed joke – likening the US to a rich man who, after gorging himself at a banquet, then invites the neighbours in for coffee and asks them to split the bill.

If climate change were an isolated example, it might be dismissed as an important but anomalous issue that is almost designed to split countries along rich-poor lines. But, in fact, if you look at Brazil, South Africa, India and Turkey – the four most important democracies in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the greater Middle East – it is clear that none of them can be counted as a reliable ally of the US, or of a broader “community of democracies”.

In the past year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil has cut a lucrative oil deal with China, spoken warmly of Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, and congratulated Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad on his “victory” in the Iranian presidential election, while welcoming him on a state visit to Brazil.

During a two-year stint on the United Nations Security Council from 2006, the South Africans routinely joined China and Russia in blocking resolutions on human rights and protecting authoritarian regimes such as Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan and Iran.

Turkey, once regarded as a crucial American ally in the cold war and then trumpeted as the only example of a secular, pro-western, Muslim democracy, is also no longer a reliable partner for the west. Ever since the US-led invasion of Iraq, opinion polls there have shown very high levels of anti-Americanism. The mildly Islamist AKP government has engaged with America’s regional enemies – including Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran – and alarmed the Americans by taking an increasingly hostile attitude to Israel.

India’s leaders do seem to cherish the idea that they have a “special relationship” with the US. But even the Indians regularly line up against the Americans on a range of international issues, from climate change to the Doha round of trade negotiations and the pursuit of sanctions against Iran or Burma.

So what is going on? The answer is that Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and India are all countries whose identities as democracies are now being balanced – or even trumped – by their identities as developing nations that are not part of the white, rich, western world. All four countries have ruling parties that see themselves as champions of social justice at home and a more equitable global order overseas. Brazil’s Workers’ party, India’s Congress party, Turkey’s AKP and South Africa’s African National Congress have all adapted to globalisation – but they all retain traces of the old suspicions of global capitalism and of the US.

Mr Obama is seen as a huge improvement on George W. Bush – but he is still an American president. As emerging global powers and developing nations, Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey may often feel they have more in common with a rising China than with the democratic US.

gideon.rachman@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/rachman

Post and read comments at Gideon Rachman’s blog

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ef8f012-f969-11de-8085-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

Baby Badass

I get weally, weally sweepy when I rock out too.

Tape Measure Master!

I like how proud of him his friends/co-workers are.

Bartitsu

I've been waiting until the new Sherlock Holmes movie came out to post this, which was on BoingBoing months ago.

[Moriarity and I] tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of Bartitsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went.
-- Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Empty House

Britain's most popular literary character of the late 19th century, Sherlock Holmes was well known for his towering intellect and need for constant mental stimulation. To satisfy his intellectual needs, he engaged in a number of trans-Golden Third activities including sword fighting, boxing, and stick fighting, as well as frequent recreational narcotic use.

Although better known for his reasoning ability than for his fighting skills, he was quite capable of defending himself when the chips were down. As the above quote suggests, the detective mastered a now little known but very effective fusion of British boxing techniques and Japanese martial arts called Bartitsu,. Bartitsu is a little known but ingenious self defense skill which I cover in my current book, Absinthe and Flamethrowers.

Bartitsu was invented by a British engineer named Edward Barton-Wright, who combined the martial arts skills he learned while building railways in Japan with the stick-and-sword fighting skills he mastered in Europe. Bartitsu drew heavily from French stick fighting techniques, English boxing, and Japanese jujitsu.) Upon his return to London from Japan in 1899, Barton-Wright set up a martial arts school to teach Bartitsu to Englishmen. Presumably that's how a Londoner such as Sherlock Holmes would have learned the technique. (FYI: There's a well done compilation of 1890s vintage Bartitsu instructions available on Amazon.)

Ancient Hebrew Universe