(Misappropriated from Apophenia)

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Somehow “crazy” just doesn’t go far enough

In a fit of illogic astounding even for an organization of racist nutjobs, the Aryan Nation has declared its desire to form an alliance with Al Qaeda: “You say they’re terrorists, I say they’re freedom fighters. And I want to instill the same jihadic feeling in our peoples’ heart, in the Aryan race, that they have for their father, who they call Allah.” “I don’t believe that they were the ones that attacked us,” Kreis said. “And even if they did, even if you say they did, I don’t care!” Kreis wants to make common cause with Al Qaeda because, he says, they share the same enemies: Jews and the American government. Last I heard, Al Quaeda doesn’t number very many Aryans in its membership, but I guess hate conquers all. Geez. Link

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Christian, Muslim, and Jewish leaders in Jerusalem have banded together to protest a gay rights festival planned there for August:

International gay leaders are planning a 10-day WorldPride festival and parade in Jerusalem in August, saying they want to make a statement about tolerance and diversity in the Holy City, home to three great religious traditions.

Now major leaders of the three faiths - Christianity, Judaism and Islam - are making a rare show of unity to try to stop the festival. They say the event would desecrate the city and convey the erroneous impression that homosexuality is acceptable.

It’s always nice to be reminded that mutual fear and hatred can be erased by the shared fear and hatred of something else. Nice try, Gay People! Take your love and tolerance somewhere else. This is the Holy City. Link

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Apparently Schiavo is used to the binge-purge approach to food. Ergo, take the feeding tube out…then put it back in…then out again….

“According to the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation, Schiavo collapsed in her home not because she had a heart attack or stroke, but because her body chemistry was horribly out of balance.
Court documents state - and medical records suggest - that the then-26-year-old woman suffered from bulimia, an eating disorder. ” Link

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I feel obliged to indulge myself in what will probably be the only sports related post our blog will ever see. For the first time in over 3 years, Venus beat Serena. The superior, more graceful sister is once again on top and balance has been restored to the universe. Please return to our regularly scheduled technology porn and liberal whining.

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A British company plans to offer a borrowing/lending service based on E-Bay. Users with extra money will be able to offer it to (credit-worthy) users in need of loans, and will have the opportunity to compete on the basis of interest rates. Risk to lenders is reduced by spreading loans out among lenders, so that no borrower is borrowing any more than $375 from any one lender. They will apparently use contracts of some kind to enforce repayment. Neat idea. I guess we’ll get to see how it performs, when the opportunists descend upon it to test for loopholes. I do like the idea of cutting established banks out of the picture, though. Distributed systems are more difficult to monopolize, and monopolies are bad for everyone but the monopolists. Anyway, enough out of me. Link.

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Who’d have thought? Next thing they’ll figure out how to cure fire ants and racism. It is the only product known to remove urushiol, the toxin responsible for the reaction, from the skin after bonding, enabling the affected area to immediately begin healing. After using Zanfel, the itching and pain are the first things to be relieved, usually within 30 seconds. Link

(from Boingboing)

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Here is your gratuitous puppy picture. Use it wisely.

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(via Gizmodo)

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A pedestrian was struck by a pickup truck Thursday on the University of Georgia campus. According to the Red and Black article, it sounds like both the pedestrian and the driver, and possibly other drivers did things they really shouldn’t do. The driver of the truck (in the left of two lanes) said he didn’t see the pedestrian running across the road because his view was blocked by three vehicles stopped at the crosswalk in the right. Well, it sounds like one or more of three things could have gone wrong.

First, why did the first of those three cars in the right lane stop? Was the driver trying to be nice when he saw the guy running towards the crosswalk? The problem with stopping unnecessarily just to be nice is that it causes confusing traffic situations, situations that easily lead to danger. Of course, if it was the case that the pedestrian appeared to be running into the road without looking and there was a danger of that first car striking him, then of course he/she would need to stop.

Second, why did the driver of the truck not slow down enough to avoid this accident? Whenever you are driving and you see a car in the adjacent lane slow or stop, you need to slow enough to discover why, especially at crosswalks or intersections. A lot of drivers are so aloof that they automatically dismiss slowing drivers as idiots when it really means there is a hazard that is spotted. Of course, it is possible that the three cars stopped too quickly for the truck driver to respond, and the statement of the obvious situation that this driver didn’t see the pedestrian appears in this article without the rest of his statement to provide the context.

Third, and most importantly, why was this pedestrian running? If you can’t see a lane next to stopped traffic, you need to walk slowly to check that lane. He obviously didn’t check it carefully, which is clearly what he should have done. At this location there is no tricky curve to would have obstructed the view of this lane.

So on this third point, the pedestrian unfortunately contributed at least partly to this accident, perhaps wholly. I do not claim to know what happened here, and I realize that this article is very short with limited information from which you can not even deduce a complete account, so I have speculated on different scenarios without justification. However, the possibility that more than one person contributed to this accident is suggested, which is my point here. When someone is a little careless or dangerous — as the pedestrian most likely was, and as it is possible the truck driver was by maybe going too fast or failing to slow when the other cars did, and as it is somewhat possible the other driver at the crosswalk was by being over-cautious — then all these factors multiply enough to create an accident. This is why it is so important to drive safely and defensively all the time. Bending the rules slightly or taking small risks doesn’t increase the possibility of an accident slightly; it increases the chances of an accident greatly because everyone else on the road is also bending the rules and taking risks.

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Army Investigators Says 27 Iraqis and Afghans Killed in U.S. Custody

Apparently, the Iraq war has dropped off the US media’s radar screen since the drama of the Terry Schiavo case is soooooo much more ratings friendly.

Well….

Hopefully this is yet another reality check. It’s here! And it’s really queer (as in weirdly imperialistic). And Iraq ain’t going away anytime soon.

Thank Terry! For diverting attention away from the real news.

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This Athens101 post pointed me to this flash animation. It was submitted by Jeff Weise, the kid who shot up his high school earlier this week. It’s called Target Practice and it’s pretty damned graphic. I searched through the reviews and found where he posted this reply to one of them:

Random violence,
a suicidal mass-murderer,
and people who blame the media afterwards.

Yep, must be the 21st Century. God bless America.

Here’s his profile on the site.

Thanks, Athens 101

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So why have the Bush brothers embraced the Terri Schiavo cause you ask? Well here’s your answer:

“The judges are running this country,” Ms. Schiavo’s father said outside the hospice Thursday afternoon. “All the judges have banded together to support Judge Greer.”

The administration has been trying to force the Senate to confirm 25 radical judges that were already rejected by Congress last year. If they can convice the public that judges are activists and against life than they can use that public pressure to get their nominations through and even possibly approve the nuclear option that would ban the two hundred year old filibuster.

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This alarm clock, developed by the MIT Media lab, is designed for people who continually hit the snooze button in the morning (like me). After you hit the snooze button the first time, it rolls away and hides, in a different place every morning. By the time you’ve found the thing to turn it off, you’re awake! Genius. Link

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British artist Banksy sneaks his own work into four New York museums.

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Medical researchers at the Center for Fluorescence Spectroscopy at the University of Maryland have developed contact lenses that react to glucose by glowing in blue light. This will allow diabetics to monitor their glucose levels without having to resort to invasive methods like blood testing. Personally, I think we should have smart contacts for a whole range of things. Mood, for instance. Contacts that glow red when you’re having a really bad day would prevent a lot of fights. Contacts that change color in response to viral antibodies would let you know who not to shake hands with during flu season. The possibilities are endless, kind of. Link

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“Jesus said, ‘Whatever you do to the least of men, you do for me.’ I’m a little nervous but I think this is what God wants me to do,” said Keys’ daughter, Josie, 14. She and her brothers Cameron, 12, and Gabriel, 10, kneeled on the ground as police handcuffed them.

Where is social services when you need them?

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Check these out. The Motor Triathlon Race Car, to the left, is powered by four hydrogen fuel cell motors, each powering a separate wheel. It features smars suspension, smart tires that adapt to surface conditions, and a heads-up display that provides information about the road ahead. The i-unit, to the right, is a battery powered personal transport that can be operated in a reclining or upright mode. This dual mode design makes the vehicle ideal for navigation through small spaces. Plus, you can’t beat the artistry of both of these designs. Here’s a link to more pictures from the Japan - Aichi 2005 Expo. (via Jalopnik)

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Scientists have discovered that the plant pictured to the left was able to revert its genetic code back to that of its grandparent, in order to undo a harmful mutation that was introduced as part of an experiment. This suprising change, which occured in ten percent of the specimens, indicates that the plant has some mechanism for storing the genetic template of previous ancestors, and for rebuilding its DNA according to that template. Whatever the mechanism turns out to be, this discovery has the potential to turn conventional genetics upside-down. The scientists have indicated that this ability may be latent to some extent in humans as well, which could provide new possibilities for treating genetic disorders. Link

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This is for someone in my office.

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Hehehehe. Someone finally invented a mode of transportation sillier-looking than the Segway. Link (via Gizmodo)

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It’s no secret that Apple, like a number of other laptop makers, has been equipping their laptops with hard drives that “brace for impact”. However, Apple products do this with sensors that determine the exact angle of orientation of the laptop. A number of hackers (of the old-school expert programmer kind, not the new-fangled script-kiddie kind) have written programs that talk to those sensors, making the orientation of your computer another way to control it. Picture a graphics program that displays pictures perfectly level, even if your laptop is on a slant. Or flight simulators that you control by tilting the computer. Link

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As Texas governor, George W. Bush signed a law that allows hospitals to pull the plug on critically ill patients despite family objections - the kind of court-authorized move the president and fellow Republicans are challenging in the Terri Schiavo case.

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Finally, a condensed version of the great works of philosophy for those who lack the patience to wade through hundreds of pages of expostulation to get to the three paragraphs of point (which very much includes me). For the philosopher on the go, distilled essences of the wisdom of ages, along with estimates of how long it will take to read. Perfect for those annoying fifteen-minute philosophy breaks. Link! (Stolen from Monochrom, yet again)

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Ten usage and grammar errors that could (or should) cripple a career. (via mediabistro)

Paris Hilton can’t put two words together—okay, she can say “That’s hot”—and her book is, as I write, #871 on Amazon.com. Rappers put their words into the Shizzolator and out come Escalades. And if you read a bestseller with a pencil in hand, you’ll be tempted to conclude that the copy editor’s last job was in a pizzeria.

continue reading…

(shut up, Evil Overload)

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The new musical:

(Based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

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You’re the Artiste!
Take What sort of Hipster are you? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey’s Personality Test Generator.

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Yes, it is Friday. Why do you ask?

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