Repeat after me: Iraq is fine....there are no problems...don't worry...

(click)

Sometimes my president just amazes me. Apparently, baffled by growing Americican resistance to the U.S. presence in Iraq, the White House has been turning the blame onto the American media. According to one article, government officials are now accusing reporters in the Mideast of "indulging in a morbid obsession with death and destruction, and ignoring how Iraq has improved since Saddam Hussein was toppled." While I would certainly want any news to be fair and balanced, I also want them to report the truth. And the situation in Iraq has definitely not improved since Saddam Hussein was toppled--not yet, anyway. There's still a great deal of violence and chaos in the country, aimed at virtually any foreigner who steps foot within its borders. The populace itself is embroiled in a civil war. In fact, the political and social climate there is so unstable that all it takes is a few cartoons to cause rioting and protests. And most importantly, with regard to Bush's obstinate refusal to believe his critics, the whole damn country is simply unsafe to live and travel around in. And the reporters are pissed, especially the ones actually in Iraq whose lives have been in danger the whole time, who have been forced to report from hotel balconies because it's simply unsafe to go talk with people on the streets. Now, I understand that the media has long been accused of focusing on the sensational, of peddling sex and death because it sells, but for the White House to fall back on that cliched stereotype now in an attempt to pacify us by blaming the reporters is simply irresponsible. I'm sorry, but Iraq is currently in a world of shit. And any attempt to persuade us otherwise at this point is an insult to our collective intelligence. CNN's Lara Logan tells it like it is here:

nice

Interesting pics of a butterfly with transparent wings.

Not to bug you, but also check out these close-up photos of other insects.

heheheheheeeeeeeeeeeeehheeeee

Check out these four babies.

you go, Thoreau

"Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature,—if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you,—know that the morning and the spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse."

geekcore

The Ultimate computer case-mod list. To wit:

"After three hours, the lake was drained of it's 3.5 billion gallons of water."

This is an amazing story about an oil drill which opened a huge hole in the bottom of Lake Peigneur, Louisiana, resulting in chaos and destruction. Wow.

"Parodies and caricatures are the most penetrating of criticisms." -Aldous Huxley

The "new" religion Pastafarianism now has a sacred text, according to this informative USA Today article. All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Or, as one guy at Fark put it:

Our Father, who art in pesto
Alfredo be thy name
Thy kingdom come, Al dente done,
on forks as it is on chopsticks
Give us this plate with garlic bread
be sure to give us napkins
As we give napkins to those who impress us
And lead me not to Olive Garden
but delivery from Carraba's.
For thine is the garlic,
the marinara and the oregano
Forever and ever
RAMEN.

DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK

31+ Best Time-Wasters.

oh, the irony

Yes, it's Japanese.

i'll have another, thanks

Ever wondered just how much caffeine is in a Red Bull? Or a pot of coffee, for that matter? Here's a chart.

just what i was looking for

I'm thinking about quitting this blog and expressing myself daily using one of these:

(click)
(via boingboing)

this is great

I love it. A Texas judge recently quoted from Adam Sandler's film "Billy Madison" when denying a motion. Click on the photos of the actual opinion below, and check out the footnote.

cool

This page explains how they made all the sound effects in Star Wars.

vintage hmm

Old Postcards.

luna

Interesting article on the shadows on the moon.

human gills

An Israeli inventor has developed an underwater breathing system that literally squeezes oxygen directly from seawater, doing away with the need for compressed air tanks.

grafittiology

Pictures of walls.

So nice

Missouri River, Montana (click)

The world's toughest animal

Allow me to introduce you to the water bear, an animal that lives in the most extreme environments in the world.

made

These are the top 25 inventions of 2006. My favorite by far is the Magnetic Levitation Arrow Rest, invented by Stuart Minica. The arrow 'literally floats on air, only touching the bowstring of a bow, by a special arrangement of rare earth magnets to achieve magnetic levitation.'

(click)

ye olde bookse

Care for some Medieval-era illuminated manuscripts? I thought so. These are "highlights from the collections of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and the Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum." Wow.

no thanks

Interesting story about scuba diving underwater caves in Saudi Arabia.

poor fido

This dog has lost it.

Congratulations, Erin!

Folks, my friend Erin Curran just ran (and finished) the L.A. Marathon. Ah, the thrill of victory, the agony of the feet...

oh lord

This is the new Hummer:

and the interior:

Meanwhile...
(Thanks, Jim)

the results are out

via eSolutionsData

uh oh

12 warning signs of fascism.

i reckon

Informative page on the various dialects of English.

fyi

This is how you peel a potato.

of course

According to the IMDB, Adolf Hitler was quite the movie star.

interesting article on high speed geology

Africa is splitting apart.

having trouble with your walk?

Try Monty Python's Silly Walks Generator.

keep scrolling

go girl

'Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the Supreme Court, has said the U.S. is in danger of edging towards a dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.'

this is good

Top Ten Movies about Writers.

effective

Whatever this guy is protesting against, I'm probably in favor of it now.

deer season's not far away

Check out the Marines' new toy: the M-32 six-shot 40mm grenade launcher.

If you like that, you'll also like the Navy Seals' new boat.

58 days of law school left

reject car hegemony!

Crazy cycle lanes.

Man hits own car, then sues himself

"When a dump truck backed into Curtis Gokey's car, he decided to sue the city for damages. Only thing is, he was the one driving the dump truck. But that minor detail didn't stop Gokey, a Lodi city employee, from filing a $3,600 claim for the December accident, even after admitting the crash was his fault."

great comeback

A Rare Moment of Sense:

"It's so rare, given the basic tenor of most arguments in politics today, but every once in a while someone says something so remarkable that's it's worth noting, without any comment at all.

Such a situation took place on March 1st in Annapolis, Maryland, where a hearing on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage was taking place. The far right wing was doing its usual best to frighten, anger, and intimidate the witnesses who dared disagree with them.

Then Jamie Raskin, professor of law at American University, testified as to why the amendment should not be passed.

At the end of his testimony, one of Maryland's most insane ultra-far-rightwingers, republican Senator Nancy Jacobs, stood up and shouted: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

To which Mr. Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

shark 1, seal 0

not sure what the point is, but

it sure is pretty.

Tsunami in Thailand

Then and Now.

for Mary Pat

deja vu

I was cruising through the very excellent World War 2 in Color gallery, which has hundreds of amazing color photographs taken from 1939 - 1948, when I came across the following familiar image:

I was reminded instantly of the same scene I saw in Athens, Greece just a few months ago (minus the tank, of course). I must have been standing right where it rolled past, 60+ years later.

DSC02932.JPG, originally uploaded by mcdowell.

wow

This is a beautiful lamp made by these people.

no thanks

Um, I like napping, but you won't find me catching any zzz's in one of these.

doppelganger art

This is cool. There's a photoshop technique called cloning whereby you take multiple pictures of someone and superimpose them all in the same photo. CrazyClones.com has a good collection of these interesting (often silly) shots. Here's an example of one I like:

(click)

Silly 'audiophile' products

Apparently audiophiles (read: stereo freaks) are extrememly prone to gadgetry fads. One guy has collected a rather funny gathering of stupid audiophile products that are actually being sold, amazingly enough. My favorite is the set of cable elevators, which allows you to elevate your cable speakers off the floor, resulting in a pure, crystalline sound untarnished by all that floor noise. Check 'em out:

putting a face on the war

Well-written article about a Canadian platoon embedded in Afghanistan. This one is quite good.

nice

My new foosball skills are unstoppable.

finally

I've been wanting to see this for years. It's the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special. You can download it using this site.

nice

After posting this, I must also refer you to this, the top 10 coolest alarm clocks.

Jason Garfield is the man

Insane juggling video clips.

too cute

50 pets in casts.

great new restaurant lingo

A good one: Flexitarian: a 'semi-vegetarian,' coined in early 1990s.

roadtrip!

Check out Google Mars.

my favorite eBay auction ever

Plastic jar with New Orleans Flood Water from Hurricane Katrina.

"This is a 5 x 2 x 3 plastic bottle with flood water from Hurricane Katrina . Filled in New Orleans in August 2005 by my Grandmother.

Own some American history in a bottle and if it buys my Grandma a new fridge that eb great too."

And I thought Pastafarianism was loopy

Long, interesting article on Scientology, the world's oddest religion.

Interesting

The Museum of Popular Hoaxes.

Tired of reading sideways in bed?

Try a Bed Book. There is, truly, something for everyone.

she'll make it

Mary Woodbridge's Everest Expedition

Dactyl Fractal Zoom

Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh

video roundup

Fear of girls: true love is but a +2 Broadsword away (This is one of the funniest videos I have seen in a long time.)
Tim Jackson's amazing I&E tenor drum solo.
Yet another amazing drum solo by Tony Royter Jr, age twelve.
Go WV go!

religion & science collaboration

Because I have not had time to adequately respond to the issues raised in this previous post, for which I apoligize, I submit the following reference to the Clergy Letter Project, a praiseworthy attempt by over 10,000 Christian clergy to convince the world that Christian and scientific doctrines ("truth") can coexist. The following is their stance, which I find well-balanced.

Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.

On that note, researchers have recently found several hundred regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection (evolution) within the last 5,000 to 15,000 years. Link to the article is here.

nice

Here's how to construct LED bike wheel images that appear as you ride.

The definition of irony:

inverse tree, originally uploaded by mcdowell.

nice spectacles

Gotta love those beautiful majorettes.

Rice Krispies, yeah yeah wooooooo

I had no idea.

calling all soccer moms

Time to sell your H2 and get the new Hummer. And this one is mine-protected, for your safety while driving to the mall.

just what we need

Try the new Faith Converter 2.2

Found an admirable tome but it's in praise of the wrong god? Faith Converter is a godsend for priests, vicars, rabbii and holy men of all descriptions. Preach next Sunday's sermon from the Vedas, Noble Eightfold Path, Torah or Das Kapital!

The premier theological plagiarism solution for OS X, Faith Converter converts text between the vernaculars of thirty different religions, encompassing Atheism, Biopsychosocialism, Buddhism, the Cargo Cult, Christianity, Communism, Confucianism, Druidism, Falun Gong, Hinduism, Islam, Juche, Judaism, Keynesianism, Linux, MacEvangelism, Mahanism, Maoism, NIMBYism, Roman, Scientology, Shinto, Sikh, Stalinism, Taoism, Thatcherism, Trotskyism, Unitarian Universalism, Veganism and Voodoo.

Converted text can be copied, saved or printed.

Sample Conversions:
'Attend church at Christmas or else God will send you to Hell, with Satan, for not reading your Bible.'

becomes:

'Attend collective farm #897 at Leninmas or else Dialetical Materialism will send you to the poverty-striken capitalist democracies, with abundant consumer goods, for not reading your Manifesto.'

'If you are a true bodhisattva, you will also appreciate the insights into the Three Baskets (Tripitika) presented by the monk. Be warned not to be a heretic or sell your soul to Mao, as this usually ends badly.'

converts from Buddhism to atheism as:

'If you are a true science-guy, you will also appreciate the insights into the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World - Ptolemaic and Copernican presented by the scientist. Be warned not to be a religious nutter or sell your reticular formation to Pope Paul V, as this usually ends badly.'"

now that's ridiculous

The Billable Hour watch

this is fun

The Geography of Seinfeld.

serious swine

Now that is one Big Hog.

I hope it's not contagious

Jupiter is growing a new red spot.

want

This bike furniture design is extremely cool.

wow

Unseen. Unforgotten.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Dozens of never before released photos from the civil rights era came to light this weekend after an intern discovered them buried in an equipment closet at the Birmingham News. The photos had been in a box marked: "Keep. Do Not Sell." But at the time they were taken, the newspaper didn't want to draw attention to the racial discord of the 1950s and 1960s, news photographers from the period said. "The editors thought if you didn't publish it, much of this would go away," said Ed Jones, 81, a photographer at The News from 1942 to 1987. "Associated Press kept on wanting pictures, and The News would be slow on letting them have them, so they flooded the town with photographers."

Thanks, Heather! These photose are incredible.

notice

To the anonymous commenter "Joseph Smith," who recently made a few immature, stupid and mean comments on this blog: go away you moron. Your pointless idiocy is not appreciated here. If you have a problem with my views or any of the views expressed on this blog, address them with respect. If you can't do that, email me and we'll talk. Actually, you can call me. My telephone number is on the home page of this site. That way I can find out who you are and where you live. If you cannot join a mature discussion, then take your dumbass teenage flamer crap back to the lame, acne-riddled cesspool where it belongs. Thanks.

I need one of these

"If you’ve snoozed through one-too-many alarms and then way overslept, Bim Bam Banana’s Puzzle Alarm Clock will give you a quick intelligence test that is bound to wake you up before it will stop its incessant honking. As soon as you can assemble the four puzzle pieces that are popped up into the air at your predesignated time, the thing will finally shut up."

Life is good.

For the past few days Mary Pat and I have been chillin' in South Bend with Pat and Riely for our spring break. I managed to find a little snowboarding action on the massive peaks of southern Michigan. Notice how everyone seems to have cleared the slope when they saw me about to come down.

show me

My friend Anne sent me this link to a cool visual thesaurus, which groups similar things in little knowledge-clouds for easier browsing. Very very cool.