The proper use of gestures in a speech

A short educational film that shows
how to effectively gesture while speechifying. 

 

 

Occupy Seattle protests itself

But, but, but... aren't we all supposed to be  peace loving vegans?
Caption by me, cartoon by Mike Armstrong

This morning Instapundit linked to the Strangler's post Occupy Seattle Disrupts Pro-Occupy Wall Street Forum, Drives Away Supporters which reports on an Occupy protest at an Occupy forum discussion. If such cannibalism makes little sense to you, the beginning of the article explains:

No sooner had the panel finished opening remarks last night than a woman scampered up onto stage and yelled, "Mic check!" It was an orchestrated effort by several dozen activists to use the People's Mic to interrupt a forum at Town Hall—a forum in favor of Occupy Wall Street, featuring three wonks and three activists from Occupy Seattle. Their stunt replaced what was supposed to be an informed discussion of the movement with an uninformative, shout-a-thon about process that consumed most of the evening. They booed opinions they disagreed with and drove supporters out of the building.

"I walked in supportive and left unsupportive," said 69-year-old Mary Ann, who declined to provide her last name. "I’m turned off by the negative shouts, repetition, and all I can think about is a cult. And I believe in every one of their damn principles."

The panel had been introduced explaining the process it was going to follow before being introduced. However, the mic check people objected to the "power dynamic created by speakers on stage talking into microphones".

A vote was held as to whether to follow the original procedures or the General Assembly style procedures of people's mike, uptwinkles and what-not. The General Assembly style lost the vote. However, that was not the end of it:

By a show of hands, Nick Licata—the moderator, who some activists later claimed was a proxy for the partisan political establishment—determined the activists had been outvoted. The event would proceed as a planned, right? The activists refused to lose. They demanded another vote and even insisted that, before we could vote again, they would first explain how a General Assembly worked. So for 15 minutes, the activists read the rules and we repeated them back.

"Assembly time is precious," the man yelled without a hint of irony. "Assembly time is precious!" we all yelled back, wasting precious time.

Then they insisted that everyone discuss the issue among their neighbors. If people opposed, they were drowned out by the people's mic. So we talked about their proposal. One activist slept on the floor in front of the stage, spread eagle. The place reeked of BO. A man next to me worked through half a tin of chew. Eventually, we took another vote and activists demanded a count by hand.

It was 8:30 p.m. at this point, one hour after the event began, and we'd only heard opening statements. The forum was supposed to conclude by 9:00 p.m. "We have only a half hour left," Licata announced. "This is very interesting."

Needless to say a number of the people who came to hear the original panel discussion were furious over the turn of events. The article was written by somebody sympathetic to the Occupy movement. One of his closing remarks in it was:

Let's think if the tables were turned: These activists would be outraged if Town Hall set up a stack of speakers at the General Assembly and blasted them with an amplified panel discussion. It was equally selfish to destroy the panel with their People's Mic.

And no, neither he nor the numerous progressive commenters to the article saw the huge irony in that statement. I'll just pull one of the comments, #67 by seandr, as an example:

This sucks.

OWS started out with broad appeal, but the shortsighted and completely arbitrary theme they picked to symbolize the movement - occupying various public spaces - meant that as time passed and the weather grew cold, the movement would dwindle to the self-marginalized lefty fringe, homeless people, and junkies.

It would be nice to see this energy and organization transform into other forms of activism, such as disrupting conservative political functions and getting out the lefty vote, but that seems unlikely.

The article and the comment thread are an interesting read, and well worth your time. What frequently jumps out is that while they are livid over the small group that wrecked havoc on their meeting by trying to dominate it via screaming, chanting and intransigence, not a one of them connect the dots that this is what they do to others.

So close, and yet so far.

For the Love of Mike

Monday morning, start of the work week blues
by Johnny Shines, Honeyboy Edwards and Walter Horton.

Laying railroad track

Travel - Edna St. Vincent Millay

The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going. 
  

Man's Life magazine covers

Click any image to enlarge

 Man's Life was an old pulp adventure magazine that featured all manner of lurid covers and ridiculous articles. They were a staple of many a manly-man venue at one time. A bit of trivia, the cover pictured above was inspiration for the name of Frank Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh album.

These samples come from Vintage Everyday's article Cool “Man's Life” Magazine Covers Circa the 1950s. You can see more after the jump and at the article's link. 

I would love to be able to read some of those old articles -- they sound like they drip with 1950s wise-cracking tough guy protecting his dame foolishness. Besides, I wonder how he ever managed managed to escape from the weasel swarm attack?

Imagine the political mess this would cause

From FiveThirtyEight
click to enlarge

From the things you never knew, or at least the things I never knew, department -- when Texas was admitted as a State it was granted the right to subdivide itself into a total of 5 states. If Texas did split, it would lead to 8 new Senators which would wreck havoc with the current partisan balance. 

The Strange Maps article What's the Plural of Texas examines various bouts of "Divide Texas" fever that have struck from time to time, as well as presenting maps of proposed splits.    

However, as entertaining as the thought of Texas multiplying itself is, in reality Texas has no such right. The language about dividing Texas was put in the annexation bill because of the issue of the balance between admitting free state or slave states that so bedeviled America prior to the Civil War. In fact, the only time serious thought was given to Texas dividing was at the admittance of California as a free state. This issue, as well as claims by Texas to parts of Colorado and New Mexico were settled by the Compromise of 1850.

Finally, Texas succeeded from the Union during the Civil War and the terms of their subsequent readmission effectively moot the original annexation act. As a result they're now covered by Article IV, Section 5 of the constitution which reads:

New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

So much for Texas unilaterally dividing itself. None the less, the original terms of Texas' annexation are an interesting quirk of American history and, if nothing else, provide the chance to, from time to time, draw fanciful maps and name new States.
 

East meets West (sort of)

Mongolian throat singer Bukhchuluun Ganburged performs Waltzing Matilda.

 

Stratfor and Mary Remmy

Scott Stewart has a long piece at Stratfor analyzing the rise of the militant group Boka Haram in Nigeria. Demographically Nigeria is split in half, with Moslems in the resource poor north and Christians and animists controlling the south.

There has long been friction between the two groups. However, recently Boka Haram, a terrorist group loosely affiliated with al Qaeda, has escalated the reach and level of violence of the conflict by bombing targets in the south.

While Nigerian authorities have had some success breaking up the leadership of Boka Haram, they've so far been unsuccessful at tracking down the bomb makers. It is expected that, in the near term at least, bombings and other attacks will continue to pose a threat to soft targets, including hotels Westerners frequent, in the south.

 For this article I'm going to skip the usual foolishness that surrounds my Hot Stratfor Babe schtick. While looking through Nigerian actresses I selected Mary Remmy. While researching her biography I came across the following Nollywood Gossip article that was dated November 11, 2011:

Eucharia Remmy, the sister of fast rising Nollywood actress Mary Remmy is dead, Nollywoodgossip can confirm.

Eucharia, who graduated from the University of Nigeria Nsukka in 2010, was undergoing her youth service at Damaturu in Yobe state when she was attacked and killed by Boko Haram.  The bomb attack that killed her was said to have so far left 150 people dead.

Her actress sister Mary is famous for her roles in hit movies Beyonce and Rihanna and Blackberry Babes.

May her soul rest in peace.

 Of course I extend my condolences also. It is easy to abstract the news and forget just how horrific the bombings and violence is, and how many people suffer as a result.

As for Ms Remmy, she appears to be a popular young actress who is quickly making a name for herself in Nollywood, the local film industry. I've watched a number of clips of her and, while it is a little hard to tell because Nigerian films are so low budget and eccentric to Western eyes, she does seem to be a decent actress.

As a bonus, after the article I've included a clip of her dumping her boyfriend from the comedy BlackBerry Babes. BTW, the film is in English, as apparently are a lot of Nollywood films, so you can understand the dialog.


The Rising Thewat from Nigeria's Boka Haram Militant Group
By Scott Stewart, November 10,2011

The U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, issued a warning Nov. 5 indicating it had received intelligence that the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram may have been planning to bomb several targets in the Nigerian capital during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, also known as Eid al-Kabir, celebrated Nov. 6-8. The warning specifically mentioned the Hilton, Nicon Luxury and Sheraton hotels as potential targets.

The warning came in the wake of a string of bombings and armed attacks Nov. 4 in the cities of Maiduguri, Damaturu and Potiskum, all of which are located in Nigeria’s northeast. An attack also occurred in the north-central Nigerian city of Kaduna. The sites targeted in the wave of attacks included a military base in Maiduguri and the anti-terrorism court building in Damaturu. Militants reportedly attacked these two sites with suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs). The Nigerian Red Cross reported that more than 100 people were killed in the attacks, while some media reports claimed the death toll was at least 150.

According to AFP, a spokesman for Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks Nov. 5 and threatened more attacks targeting the Nigerian government until “security forces stop persecuting our members and vulnerable civilians.” On Nov. 7, a Boko Haram spokesman claimed that his group employed only two suicide operatives in the attacks and not 12 as reported by some media outlets.
Though Eid al-Kabir passed without attacks on Western hotels in Abuja, a deeper examination of Boko Haram is called for, with a specific focus on its rapidly evolving tactical capabilities.

Boko Haram

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful” in Hausa, was established in 2002 in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria’s Borno state. It has since spread to several other northern and central Nigerian states. The group officially is known as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, Arabic for “group committed to propagating the Prophet’s teachings and jihad.” Some in the country have referred to Boko Haram as the Nigerian Taliban in reference to the group’s call for Shariah throughout Nigeria. (At present, only the northern part of the country adheres to Shariah.) In June, a spokesman claiming to represent Boko Haram amended this demand, instead calling for what the group defines as a stricter form of Shariah in the northern Nigerian states where Shariah already is the law.

(click here to enlarge image)

With approximately 150 million people, Nigeria is the most populous African country and one of the most densely populated countries in the world. It has some 250 distinct ethnic groups, with the dominant groups being the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa-Fulani, along with a smaller but critical fourth group, the Ijaw. These groups are in constant tension as they attempt to dominate the nation’s politics and the allocation of its natural resources. Approximately half the country is Muslim and half is Christian (though many Nigerians follow traditional religions). As reflected by the adjacent map, which depicts the sites of the Nov. 4 attacks as well as the Nigerian states governed by Shariah, the Muslim population predominates in the north while Christians predominate in the south. The Muslim north is parched and devoid of significant resources (agriculture is the north’s economic mainstay). This contrasts sharply with the economic environment in southern Nigeria, an area that includes Lagos, the country’s vibrant commercial capital and the business hub for much of West Africa, and the Niger Delta region, home to about 90 percent of the country’s large crude oil and natural gas sector.

In addition to ethnic tensions, Nigeria has experienced frequent and intense bursts of sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims, especially in the areas where the two religions overlap, like Jos in the northern tip of Plateau state. This struggle pits the powerful Hausa-Fulani from the north, which tends to be Muslim, against a number of smaller local ethnic groups that tend to be Christian. Indeed, Boko Haram has been involved since its inception in several outbursts of inter-communal violence, including the November 2008 violence that saw some 800 people killed in Jos, the July 2009 violence that saw more than 700 people killed in Jos, and the January 2010 violence in Jos that claimed 450 lives.

Following the July 2009 violence, which brought Boko Haram to the world’s attention, Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf and his deputy, Abubakar Shekau, were both killed. Yusuf died in police custody, allegedly during an escape attempt, though his followers have called his death an extrajudicial execution. [continues after the jump]

Rooster

On this Veterans Day get ready for the weekend with an acoustic Alice in Chains.

 

Transparent devices

Click any image to enlarge

 The Spanish artist Max de Esteban has created a series of photographs called Proposition One. At first appearance they seem to be an odd combination of pencil sketches and x-rays of old consumer devices. 

He achieved the effect by disassembling the devices, painting their parts white, and taking numerous pictures during their reassembly. Those photos were then combined into the final form.

There are more samples of his pictures from the series after the jump, and of course at the link above.  

Speedometer design

 

The details of design, when looked at closely, are often fascinating. Things that are taken for granted, but which have had a lot of thought put into them.

The designer Christian Annyas, looks at the evolution of speedometer faces over a 60 year period in his post Chevrolet speedometer design. Above are three samples, of course his post has more. 

His comments are also interesting. He ends with the following observation about modern speedometers which strikes me as being quite valid. The modern digital designs he criticizes do seem to place style over function, and in this case the step away from the utility of a needle does seem to be unwarranted.

The design of speedometers hasn’t changed much over the decades. Recently, however, there’s a trend towards digital meters. They’re probably supposed to look fresh and new, but due to the use of stopwatch-like (the digital stopwatch was invented in 1971) typefaces they actually look extremely primitive and dated.

It’s easy for a driver to get used to a needle that rises and passes numbers that are located on fixed positions. A quick glance is all it takes to see and understand the value it represents. With the most recent design it’s different. The value of the ‘stopwatch’ constantly changes while driving. Some characters of the typeface look very similar to others (for instance 0, 6 and 8), which makes it harder to figure out whether you’ll get a speeding ticket or not. Not an ideal situation.

Germans use trickery in an attempt to humiliate a humble Chinese farmer

As we know Chinese farmer Shu Mansheng is trying to create the first craft that will allow octocopter-assisted human flight. As the above viedoe demonstrates, it appears that the Germans have entered and won the latest aeronautical race with their E-Volo Multicopter. As they reported in a recent press release:

At the end of October 2011, Thomas Senkel of e-volo had completed a series of unmanned tests and was ready for the first manned flight on an airstrip in the southwest of Germany. The flight lasted one minute and 30 seconds, after which the constructor and test pilot stated:

"The flight characteristics are good natured. Without any steering input it would just hover there on the spot".

This could be the future of flight, piloting a device as simple as a car.

That's all very impressive sounding until one carefully examines the film and notices that, not 8, but 16 little electric engines power their flying machine. Aha, so the whole mutlicopter name is just a clever ruse to try to conceal the fact that they're cheating by flying a sixteenocopter instead of an octocopter. Shame on you Germans -- shame, shame, shame!
  
(via The Escapist)
 

A murmuration of starlings

Above is a video of two young ladies who while canoeing in Ireland encounter a huge flock, called a murmuration, of thousands of starlings. 

Flocking behavior is caused by each individual bird turning with its neighbor. What's interesting about watching these starlings is that they seem to keep breaking into sub-flocks that ripple like sheets and then recombine. 

(via Open Culture)
  

Stratfor and Eva Green

The European Union was an attempt to subsume European nationalism under its banner and bureaucracy. The intent was to forestall the wars that had bedeviled the continent as well as to position Europe as a monolithic economy the counter-balance U.S. influence.

In this article Friedman argues that the present European financial crisis has essentially ended that experiment. European nationalism always existed just under the EU veneer and the crisis is bringing it back to the front. Friedman argues these forces will result, over the course of the next generation, of the EU fracturing -- the only question being how many parts it eventually breaks into.

Since the topic was Europe I looked to European actresses for the article's Hot Stratfor Babe and, after my usual due diligence, I selected the French actress Eva Green for the honor.

Ms Green has been in the movies since 2003 and has worked her way into starring roles in major studio films, including roles a Bond girl is a couple of 007 films. However, I selected her for her role in her first movie, The Dreamers, because it was an international French/British/Italian production.

The synopsis of The Dreamers has a young American film buff meeting Eva nad her brother, also film buffs, and they end up frequently naked in a faintly incestuous threesome while the 1968 Paris riots occur outside of their fantasy world. I haven't seen the movie, but I can't imagine that it ends well.

The description of the movie led me to suspect there was, aside from a lot of romping around nekkid, much European film philosophical twittery in it. The single work-safe clip I found, which I've embedded as a bonus after the article, certainly would seem to support that suspicion.



Europe, the International System and a Generational Shift
By George Friedman, November 8, 2011

Change in the international system comes in large and small doses, but fundamental patterns generally stay consistent. From 1500 to 1991, for example, European global hegemony constituted the world’s operating principle. Within this overarching framework, however, the international system regularly reshuffles the deck in demoting and promoting powers, fragmenting some and empowering others, and so on. Sometimes this happens because of war, and sometimes because of economic and political forces. While the basic structure of the world stays intact, the precise way it works changes.

The fundamental patterns of European domination held for 500 years. That epoch of history ended in 1991, when the Soviet Union — the last of the great European empires — collapsed with global consequences. In China, Tiananmen Square defined China for a generation. China would continue its process of economic development, but the Chinese Communist Party would remain the dominant force. Japan experienced an economic crisis that ended its period of rapid growth and made the world’s second-largest economy far less dynamic than before. And in 1993, the Maastricht Treaty came into force, creating the contemporary European Union and holding open the possibility of a so-called United States of Europe that could counterbalance the United States of America.


The Post-European Age

All these developments happened in the unstable period after the European Age and before … well, something else. What specifically, we’re not quite sure. For the past 20 years, the world has been reshaping itself. Since 1991, then, the countries of the world have been feeling out the edges of the new system. The past two decades have been an interregnum of sorts, a period of evolution from the rule of the old to the rule of the new.

Four things had to happen before the new era could truly begin. First, the Americans had to learn the difference between extreme power (which they had and still have) and omnipotence (which they do not have). The wars in the Islamic world have more than amply driven this distinction home. Second, Russian power needed to rebound from its post-Soviet low to something more representative of Russia’s strength. That occurred in August 2008 with the Russo-Georgian war, which re-established Moscow as the core of the broader region. Third, China — which has linked its economic, political and military future to a global system it does not control — had to face a readjustment. This has yet to happen, but likely will be triggered by the fourth event: Europe’s institutions — which were created to function under the rules of the previous epoch — must be rationalized with a world in which the Americans no longer are suppressing European nationalism.

With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the 2008 financial crisis initiated the last two events. The first result of the financial crisis was the deep penetration of the state into those financial markets not already under state influence or control. The bailouts, particularly in the United States, created a situation in which decisions by political leaders and central banks had markedly more significance to the financial status of the country than the operation of the market. This was not unprecedented in the United States; the municipal bond crisis of the 1970s, the Third World debt crisis and the savings and loan crisis had similar consequences. The financial crisis, and the resultant economic crisis, hurt the United States, but its regime remained intact even while uneasiness about the elite grew.

But the financial crisis had its greatest impact in Europe, where it is triggering a generational shift. Since 1991, the idea of an integrated Europe has been a driving force of the global economy. As mentioned, it also has been presented as an implicit alternative to the United States as the global center of gravity.

Collectively, Europe’s economy was slightly larger than the U.S. economy. If mobilized, that inherent power made Europe a match for the United States. In the foreign policy arena, the Europeans prided themselves on a different approach to international affairs than the Americans used. This was based on a concept known as “soft power” — which relied on political and economic, as opposed to military, tools — an analog to the manner in which it saw itself managing the European Union. And Europe was a major consumer of goods, particularly Chinese goods. (It imported more of the latter than the United States did.) Taken together, Europe’s strengths and successes would allow it to redefine the international system — and the assumption for the past generation was that it was successful.

In the context of the ongoing European financial crisis, the issue is not simply whether the euro survives or whether Brussels regulators oversee aspects of the Italian economy. The fundamental issue is whether the core concepts of the European Union remain intact. It is obvious that the European Union that existed in 2007 is not the one that exists today. Its formal structure appears the same, but it does not function the same. The issues confronting it are radically different. Moreover, relations among the EU nations have a completely different dynamic. The question of what the European Union might become has been replaced by the question of whether it can survive. Some think of this as a temporary aberration. We see it as a permanent change in Europe, one with global consequences.

The European Union emerged with the goal of creating a system of interdependency in which war in Europe was impossible. Given European history, this was an extraordinarily ambitious project, as war and Europe have gone hand in hand. The idea was that with Germany intimately linked to France, the possibility of significant European conflict could be managed. Underpinning this idea was the concept that the problem of Europe was the problem of nationalism. Unless Europe’s nationalisms were tamed, war would break out. The Yugoslav wars after the collapse of Communism comprised the sum of Europe’s fears. But there could be no question of simply abolishing nationalism in Europe. [continued after the jump]

Working glass steam engine

Glassblower Michal Zahradník built a working, blown glass model of George Stephenson's steam engine. I don't know anything about glass blowing, but I'm guessing that was no mean feat. Below are comments that accompany the YouTube video:

• The crankshaft is glass. The piston is glass. The counterweight that makes the wheel spin evenly is glass. Imagine that everything is made out of glass.
• There are no sealants used. All is accomplished by a perfectly snug fit. The gap between the piston and its compartment is so small, that the water that condensates from the steam seals it shut!
• Notice the elaborate excessive steam exhaust system next to the piston.
• The piston is the most arduous part to make due to to extreme level of precision needed. Its parts have to be so accurate that no machinery is of use here. The piston and its cylinder must be hand sanded to perfection, and they are very likely to crack in the process! On average, three out of four crack.

 
[via Bored(ish)]
  

Good is dumb

Above is Dark Helmet taunting Lone Star when they finally meet, below is Andrew Klavan, although admittedly he's buttering the bread kind of thickly, reminding us why things are the way they are. By the way, ring or no ring, Dark Helmet lost in the end.

Not only is the news coverage of alleged sexual misconduct different according to political affiliation, the consequences of actual misconduct are often quite different as well. Republican congressman Mark Foley sent suggestive emails to male pages; he resigned under GOP pressure. Democratic congressman Gerry Studds actually had sex with one of the boys, then flung defiance at the House when they censured him; he was re-elected by Democrats until his retirement.

And what if a drunken Republican senator had accidentally dropped a car containing his adultery mate into the water? What if he had sauntered back to his hotel to clean up while the poor woman desperately pounded on the car window until she drowned horribly? Would conservatives have re-elected that man? Would they have declared that man “The Lion of the Senate?” The very idea makes one ill. Conservatives would have demanded his arrest and trial with a single voice.

So the double standard continues with Cain. Not only have the reliably left wing news sites like ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN been acting as if this were the story of the decade, but right wing sites like Fox and our own PJMedia have added fuel to the fire, eagerly tracking down more details. You can be sure that will keep happening as the story proceeds. And if Cain turns out to be guilty, you won’t be hearing any excuses for him here.

And yes, it’s unfair. But there’s a reason it’s unfair—a reason it should be unfair. There’s a reason we right wingers vet our candidates while the left adulates theirs, a reason we condemn our miscreants while the left elevates theirs, a reason our news outlets cover stories that the left covers up.

The reason is:  we’re the good guys. We have to do what’s right. The left doesn’t. Sorry, but that’s the way it works. It’s the price you pay for defending what’s true and good, the price of holding yourself to a high moral standard. Our politicians have to be better than their politicians. Our journalists have to be more honest. Even our protesters have to behave with decorum and decency—and still suffer being slandered—while theirs can act like animals and commit acts of violence and lawlessness and spew anti-semitic filth and still find themselves excused and glorified.

  

Shake'em On Down

Monday morning, start of the work week blues
by R.L.Burnside & the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

 

Chinese playing Americans in Chinese movies

In the old-timey days Hollywood used to use western actors to portray orientals. Chinese films of the same era used Asian actors in makeup to portray big nosed, round eyed, Yankee barbarians. The Asia Obscura post Prosthetic Noses, Red Wigs, and Whiteface… American Characters in Chinese Films gives a number of examples of these characters, with pictures and entertaining comments about the films and the Americans they portray.

A sample comment about one of the films:

This is The Boss. His hair and eyebrows are dyed red, his shnoz peaks two inches long, and his pistol will crush any Chinaman who dares question his ways.  He may resemble a British lord out for a hunt, but this murderous foreign devil commands the “President Wilson” ship — he’s a Yank, for sure. And since it’s a Cultural Revolution ballet, he doesn’t just whip and shoot — he dances, too.

 

Jockey's eve view of a horse race

The comment attached to the video said it was the 4th race at Del Mar on 9/1/10 and the jockey was Joel Rosario. I was surprised by how quiet it was, especially when they were in front of the grandstands because it looked like a good finish. Maybe it was just the way the microphone was setup.

Origami from money

 

Nick Cannon, in his post Insane Money Origami, has a number of origami creations from folded bills. Some of them are so elaborate it is hard to figure out how he managed to create them with only a single bill. I guess it is a demonstration of another meaning to the old phrase "stretching a dollar".

There are more examples and after the jump, and of course many more at his original post.