KB toys has transcended any cynic’s wet dreams by offering a George Bush action figure. It’s not Bush in the oval office or gazing with steely resolve into the distance; it’s Bush dressed up as a fighter pilot and designated as an “Elite Force Aviator”.

Go to the link and read the text; it’s not a joke. A more fitting symbol of the deep illness of America society would be hard to find. A wonderful sign of the hope for American society would be if people boycotted KB toys because of this. I hope... [More]

I learned a new word today; it means “the study of flags”. I was pointed to a cool site by a Plastic post, New EU Logo Looks Like TV Test Pattern about an article pointing out EU may get new ‘bar-code’ logo on Ananova. The logo has not been accepted yet (nor is it likely to be, if you look to the left). The current logo is 12 stars in an circle (like a clock face) over a blue background. EU rejects call to change flag (also on Ananova) reports:

“All the ideas put forward at our meeting have been... [More]”

There’s a new world record holder for largest rollercoaster: the Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point in Ohio is “420 feet” (128 meters) high. It shoots up a “90 degree”, pure vertical climb into a 400 foot vertical drop that takes you from 0 to almost 120MpH (193KpH) in just “4 seconds”. The ride was manufactured by “Intamin AG of Wollerau, Switzerland”, and they say the Swiss are boring.

The whole thing is basically a long loop that has one end vertical. The cars are look like dragsters and each... [More]

You may have heard rumblings recently about an Oscar of some sort being awarded to the actor that played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. You may have thought that it was ridiculous since the character is complete digitized; nothing of the actor himself remains. However, The Next Reel − December 18, 2002 on Green Cine has a very good (and long) article about the filming.

The last page, Gollum, contains a lengthy explanation of how this character was brought to the screen and... [More]

When you start reading Service Tension on Salon by Mary Elizabeth Williams, you find yourself agreeing with her. Her tales of “rude, pathological or clueless service people” resonate with our own experiences. It’s an article about what it’s like to exist in a world supported by service industry staff, and having to put up with it all. In many ways, I’m sure it sounds just like the kind of “you just can’t find good help these days” griping that’s accompanied the upper classes since the dawn of time.... [More]

Plastic has an article called A Circle Jerk Of L33t 8ull5h1t, which is about the increasing tendency of a portion of the computing culture to use an extremely abbreviated shorthand typing language to communicate electronically. To some, like the author of o my fkng gd, this is an abhorrent bastardization of the English language. That’s almost an oxymoron, though, isn’t it? English is probably one of the least consistent, bastardized languages already. Where do you think ‘quake, shake, quiver,... [More]

Here is some fun reading:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13650

This is the story of a company started by two men who wanted to sell condoms via catalog in the US. When they began in the 1970's, sending condoms via mail was illegal since condoms were classified as obscene under the Comstock Law. As a result, business boomed. As it turned out,

“
“We tried to get our customers to buy leisure wear, shipbuilding kits, belt buckles, model airplanes,” Harvey recalls. “But they just... [More]”

This article, on Ars Technica was incredibly positive about “Universal Music, the largest of the world’s big five record labels, [releasing] about 1,000 of its hard-to-find back catalog albums through its online music subscription subsidiary, EMusic.com”. They refer to an article on SFGate that first broke the news, Universal Music provides alternative to file sharing…

For those of you that are into music and are having trouble finding good-quality music on Gnutella, this looks like a viable,... [More]

Here’s a great reference site with scanned images of currencies from all around the world. It’s called Ron Wise’s … Paper Money. Clicking through the continents, there seems to be unbelievable coverage here, with over 70 bills just from Tonga alone, for example. The one to the left is the beautiful 50 Gulden note (back side) from the Netherlands, which is, of course, no longer legal tender in that country with their conversion to the Euro. If you look at the replacement, you’ll have to agree... [More]

The New Scientist has a Marijuana Special Report that covers Decriminalization, Addictiveness and affects on memory.

<q>Most people think of marijuana users as dreamers with the attention span of a gnat and no memory worth the name. Wrong. The picture emerging from psychology labs is that there is at most a kernel of truth in this stereotype, while some studies find no evidence of even subtle mental impairment in heavy users. And even those that do are open to a range of interpretations —... [More]

Lars Petrus, the Swedish national speed-cubing champion, has a nice website on solving the Rubik’s Cube like a pro. There are a lot of Java animations that you can rotate with your mouse and play to show how each step of his method is done. His method involves solving the cube, not layers of the cube:

<q>Most people solve the cube layer by layer. This is a simple way for the human mind to approach the problem, but it is useless for speed cubing. No matter how good you are, you will use more... [More]

There’s a great site about propaganda with step-by-step examples and small experiments to help you start approaching information with a healthy amount of skepticism. In order to be objective, you should have the same amount of skepticism for, and requirements for proof for all sources, regardless of whether you agree with the information or not. However, simply doubting everything you hear, regardless of facts, is also wrong (not to mention lazy).

I highly recommend this site because it spells... [More]

Start off with Humor:

There’s a cartoon at Salon.com spoofing the strong-arming going on in the government as bill after bill if shoved through with little to no comment and/or argument from the Senate of Congress.

This picture of a bomb signing got coverage at Yahoo News. It would have been pretty funny if they would have spelled hijack correctly and could have avoided disparaging ‘fags’ at the same time. Got to keep your message on target and let’s not sully it with other bigotries,... [More]

Does this post belong in Current Events? Or Humor? Depends on your point of view and/or sense of humor, I suppose. I’ll put it in News. Michael Moore has a new rant on AlterNet called All I Am Saying Is Give War A Chance. If you need background music while you read it, try similar satire from Bob Geldof, from the Vegetarians of Love (released in 1990), called The Great Song of Indifference. Lastly, the Onion urges us to let our “Freedoms [be] Curtailed in Defense of Liberty”.

The Boondocks is a popular comic strip created by Aaron McGruder that is available in the New York Newsday (and syndicated in over 200 other newspapers). When reading it this week, I got an overwhelming feeling of deja vu. The comics were repeated from a year ago. It seemed strange since there was no note saying that the ‘author is on vacation’ as is usual in these cases.

Checking the online version of the comic strip revealed that there are comics for this week, but the Newsday isn’t running... [More]

Swissair has been in trouble for a while now, but on September 30, they went into intense discussions with the Swiss government in attempt to deal with impending bankruptcy brought on by the worldwide passenger slump following the WTC attack. However, the final solution will involve Switzerland’s major banks, notably UBS and Credit Suisse:

<q>‘We think that it wouldn’t be right for the government to participate in a solution, and we don’t think that it would be necessary,‘ UBS Chairman Marcel... [More]

Here’s an interesting article from the Detroit Free Press answering a lot of questions about Arab Americans.

Think you’re taking advantage of frequent flyer miles? Check this guy out.

http://www.snopes2.com/business/deals/pudding.htm

Here’s a web site that lets you see who says pop and who says soda. This is only of interest if you have ever left your hometown and you’ve ordered a ‘soda’ only to get soda water.

You can even participate.

http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~almccon/pop_soda/

Seanbaby takes on the world while defending Jackass (MTV):

http://www.seanbaby.com/news/jackass.htm

The growing trend of speaking like the president.

This is an interesting one on the manufacturing of a new type of screw head.

Can you imagine working at the following Company?

This company has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics:

• 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
• 7 have been arrested for fraud
• 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
• 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses
• 3 have been arrested for assault
• 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
• 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
• 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
• 21 are current defendants in lawsuits
• In 1998 alone,... [More]

http://www.theonion.com/onion3701/infograph_3701.html

http://avclub.theonion.com/savage.html

At the end, someone asks him to ‘refrain from trying to make George Bush look stupid’:

“…As for trying to make George W. Bush look stupid, that’s not something anyone has to
break a sweat “trying” to do, not with W. himself doing most of the heavy lifting. Quoting our next Commander-And-Thief verbatim (“They misunderestimated me”) makes him look plenty stupid….“

Go to http://www.somethingawful.com/ for a nice analysis of a typical news report in America today.

The piece is from 6/16/2000 (Today).

http://www.crazy-bitch.com/

How do you vote?