Prince Charles is bad enough, but now this?

I must confess my faith in the common sense of the English has been badly shaken. Newslite has an article which lists, according to a poll of 3,000 Brits, the 20 most useless gadgets of all time. 

Topping the list is the electric candle, which is hard to argue against. Also on it are such things as Laser guided scissors, egg boilers, fondue sets, electric carving knives and waffle irons; all which are admittedly useless things that end up cluttering the recesses of your kitchen cabinets.

So far so good. However, shockingly the Back Scratcher comes in number 7 on the list. Backer Scratchers useless? I think not! 

If you have an itch below your shoulder blades the only options you have us to become a contortionist, run into the back yard and rub your back against a tree like a cat in heat, or reach for your handy miniature wooden hand on a stick. I know the choice I prefer.   

This being the internet I'll point you to Back Scratcher World where you can buy one online. Who knew you could pay up to $30 for a Premium Back Scratcher? 

They also have pages on how to select, use and care for you back scratcher, as well as an informative Back Scratcher FAQ. What can I say -- unlike the silly English these people take their Back Scratchers seriously. 

New feature - Stratfor articles

I subscribe to Stratfor, a website that provides analysis of global affairs. As part of the subscription they email me frequent items. After a couple of years of getting them  I've recently noticed, observant devil that I am, that some of them come with a copyright that allows me to reproduce them on my website.

You may be interested in reading them, so as an experiment I'm going to start posting them. If you like the articles I'll continue to post them. Leave you comments for or against. Here is the first... 

MILITANCY AND THE U.S. DRAWDOWN IN AFGHANISTAN

By Scott Stewart

The drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq has served to shift attention toward Afghanistan, where the United States has been increasing its troop strength in hopes of forming conditions conducive to a political settlement. This is similar to the way it used the 2007 surge in Iraq to help reach a negotiated settlement with the Sunni insurgents that eventually set the stage for withdrawal there. As we've discussed elsewhere, the Taliban at this point do not feel the pressure required for them to capitulate or negotiate and therefore continue to follow their strategy of surviving and waiting for the coalition forces to depart so that they can again make a move to assume control over Afghanistan.

Indeed, with the United States having set a deadline of July 2011 to begin the drawdown of combat forces in Afghanistan -- and with many of its NATO allies withdrawing sooner -- the Taliban can sense that the end is near. As they wait expectantly for the departure of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan, a look at the history of militancy in Afghanistan provides a bit of a preview of what could follow the U.S. withdrawal.

Disturbing the peace

A blog I read regularly is Kent Frost's Nanny Knows Best. He's an English fellow who posts about the small outrages perpetrated by the bureaucrats of the Nanny State. His posts are not generally about large scale abuses, rather they cover the small absurdities of local officials gone wild.

He recently posted an item about Dominic Payne of Colchester's problems over frogs croaking too loudly in his pond. It seems somebody filed a complaint to the Colchester Borough Council about noise coming from his property.

The Council dispatched environmental health officers who lurked around his property taking decibel readings of the mating frogs croaking in his pond. Some how or another they figured out that the frogs were Marsh frogs, which are native to the European mainland, but not Great Britain.

Yoiks! Not only a rowdy bunch, but an intrusive non-native species to boot!

This lead to two police officers showing up to investigate the matter. They spent their time trying to photograph the mating frogs. They then informed him, and his neighbor who also had a pond full of the amorous amphibians, that the police were going to have to remove the frogs, either by killing them or relocating them.

Presumably, although I can't say for sure, considering the British government's squeamishness in deporting terror suspects to their home countries where they might be tortured, the Marsh frogs would not have been relocated back to France where the locals have a taste for frog legs.

Anyways, the end result of all this tomfoolery was, after a barrage of mockery from the press over their idiocy, the police dropped the matter.  I was rather surprised by that. Usually in these depressingly silly matters the bureaucrats stick to their guns as best as possible to save face.

A puzzle

Via walyou.

Mad as hell, and not going to take it any more!

Actually I'm not mad, I just needed an excuse to post the above picture of a pissed-off dinner roll with a knife in its teeth. Although not as artfully done as the bread sculptures of Kittiwat Unarromhas, it serves it purpose as one of my pointless running blog themes. I call this theme -- Fun with Bread.

The above picture comes from BreadBlog. Although not a large blog, it has a good collection of odd things done with bread, including bread furniture, boxing gloves, toast with Hitler's face on it and a sandwich made from Legos. 

More pictures below the fold.

The Things You Never Knew

So Saturday I'm sitting on the patio with the Better Two-Thirds and a neighbor and we're having a beer or two and chatting. Out of the corner of my eye I see something in the Mrs. impatiens that I take for a big wasp, maybe one of those cicada killers.

I need to pay attention 'cause maybe it is and maybe it ain't, but some wasps or bee types can render me quite ill if they decide to zap me. But this thing is very odd - there it went again.

I finally went over and looked and here's what I found - a Hummingbird Hawk Moth. Never knew such a thing existed. Lovely little critter.

Just in case you've never seen a cicada killer wasp.

Have you no sense of decency, madam?

Obama stepped into a political mine field when he waded into the Ground Zero Mosque issue. 

He allowed the notion of tolerance, which by itself is a laudable goal, to trump any consideration of other issues surrounding the proposed mosque. In particular, he dismissed the skepticism much of the American public feels towards the motives and funding sources for the mosque.

His political miscalculation has inflamed the issue, and in fanning the flames he has forced many of his fellow Democrats to take a stand on an issue they would rather avoid. Perhaps the most bizarre and tone deaf of all is the reaction of Nancy Pelosi. As the Wall Street Journal reports:

Pelosi told San Francisco's KCBS radio that "there is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded," she said. "How is this being ginned up?"

Again, the American public who are opposed to the mosque being built so close to Ground Zero oppose it because they see it not as an act of outreach, but as an act of triumphalism. They also, since the backers of it are opaque, suspect that it is going to be funded by sources inimical to the U.S.

Pelosi blithely dismisses those concerns as nothing more than a smoke screen for political opportunism, and rubs salt into the wound by distastefully, and absurdly, questioning the funding sources of the people who are arguing against the mosque's location. Further, she calls for an investigation of opponents to the project.

However, we're still not done. It gets even more absurd. From the Washington Examiner we discover that at the same time she is working herself into a lather over the anti-mosque cabal her colleague  Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla, an addled-headed nitwit I'm sorry to say is from Florida, is sending out the following emails:

Fire Pelosi!

That’s the mindless mantra of Republicans and their wild-eyed Tea Party supporters as we begin the final sprint to Election Day. In fact, Republican Chairman Michael Steele just announced a “Fire Pelosi” national bus tour to distract voters and demonize Democrats.

Let’s show the Tea Party crowd that they’re no match for our grassroots strength. Stand with us against the Right’s despicable attacks and their fat cat fundraising by joining Team Pelosi — an elite group of grassroots Democrats who are leading the fight against radical Republican candidates in races nationwide.

We have set a goal of reaching 10,000 new members for Team Pelosi. House Republicans are claiming to have experienced a five-year high fundraising surge. We can’t let up now — we must keep pace. That means we need just 11 new members from Washington by our deadline this Thursday.

Please contribute today to become our newest member of Team Pelosi right now.

As a member of Team Pelosi you will receive the inside scoop on what’s happening in our campaign to strengthen and secure our House Majority. You will be invited to attend members-only phone and web-based political briefings by top Democratic experts and receive special Red Alerts about breaking campaign news.

So, at the same time she is calling for an investigation of the funding of wide spread and genuinely grassroots anger over the mosque situation, she is sending out a mass emailing begging for money and feigning popularism. Have you no sense of decency, madam, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

By the way, if you so desire, you too can bolster your grassroots, street cred by owning your own Team Pelosi tote bag. You'll have to Google for it though, I can't quite bring myself to link to the thing. 

Gone fishing...

I'm on vacation at the moment so posting will be erratic. Then again, my posting is always erratic so likely nobody would have noticed.. The wife and I flew to Manuas in Brazil. Odd airport. The runway was, outside of a dirt strip in Masawa, the roughest I've ever landed on. The plane bounced and rattle during it's entire roll out. To reduce a traveller's confidence even more, pushed onto the grass were three or four completely filthy cargo jets.  The whole place had a slap-dash feel to it.

We stayed in Manaus for only one day, and then headed for a place called Juma Lodge in jungle. The a picture is of one of their cabins. I didn't take it, I swiped it off of the internet. perhaps when I get back I'll post a photo or two of my own.

I must say the rain forest was not at all what I expected. Many more people were living in it than I expected (the place I stayed is only about 4-5 hours south of Manaus -- I imagine human habitation thins out considerably the farther upriver one goes). I expected to be swatting bugs endlessly, but they really weren't a problem at all. The heat was oppressive during the day, but at night there were nice breezes that were refreshing.

The jungle was very peaceful. Above all, it is very nice to be out of the news loop for a bit and just laze in the hammock.At any rate, 'll be off the blog for a bit, so the Chinese spambots will have a field day.

It's not as bad as it looks...

“Of course, people were shocked and thought that I was mad when they saw the works. But once they knew the idea behind it, they understood and became interested in the work itself, instead of thinking that I am crazy.”

Thai artist Kittiwat Unarromhas has a Masters degree in Fine Arts and has experimented with painting and sculpture. When he returned home to run his family's bakery, he combined that training, along with a knowledge of anatomy and trips to forensic museums, and began to bake bread shaped like body parts.

He bakes loaves shaped like heads, hands, feet, and even internal organs. He also claims to take as much care with his bread recipe as with his art, continuously refining it to make the bread as delicious as possible. If you're in Ratchaburi Thailand you can visit his gallery/bakery (many more pictures at the link).

Quite grotesque to say the least. Still, while I think it would be rather creepy eating a bread head, I think I would prefer it to edible bread shoes that somebody may have worn.

What's with this younger generation of bakers?

more and more

A turning point

As if any of us can avoid posting about, as John Hinderaker at Powerline called it,  the Breitbart-NAACP-Vilsack-Sherrod affair...

It strikes me that nobody involved in the mess has exactly covered themselves with glory: Breitbart seems to have tarred her a bit unfairly to make his point about the NAACP, the NAACP fumbled about and looked like idiots as usual, Vislack acted precipitously in firing her, and Sherrod seems still enamored with the notion of dividing people into Us and Them as she babbles on and on.

Still, that out of the way, there is one part of the story that has caught my attention. This is the first story I can think of that broke with such speed and was driven by the new media.

As such, this story is a turning point. In the past, and for that matter with the current Journolist story, the MSM would have, in their role as gatekeepers, sat on the story until it died or was stale. Now, they can no longer rely on the fact that the control which stories get spiked or which get column inches.

Credit has to be given to Breitbart for how he has manipulated the legacy media's weakness against itself. The speed at which this story grew is a direct result of how he rolled out the ACORN story. The legacy media has lost its monopoly on what is news and what is not. I think that will prove to be the real significance of this kerfuffle.

An ancient riddle has been solved

"British scientists believe they have cracked the answer to the age-old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg? 

Researchers have found that a protein called ovocleidin (OC-17) is crucial in the formulation of eggshells, and it is produced in the pregnant hen's ovaries, the Daily Express reports."

 As the article 'Chicken or egg' question finally answered  points out, scientists have established that a chicken's body chemestry is necessary for the formation of eggs. Therefore it is clear that chickens had to have come first. Whew, finally I can scratch that off my list of mysteries to ponder.

Still, I expect there will many Egg-Firster zealots who refuse to admit the truth. Lord knows, they've always been a deluded lot. We can only hope they don't turn violent when they hear the news.

Well, now that you mention it...

Somebody called Squid314 posted a hilariously creative rant about the History Channel's TV show "WWII" being unbelievable and full of plot holes. Read the whole thing.

Probably the worst part was the ending. The British/German story arc gets boring, so they tie it up quickly, have the villain kill himself (on Walpurgisnacht of all days, not exactly subtle) and then totally switch gears to a battle between the Americans and the Japanese in the Pacific. Pretty much the same dichotomy - the Japanese kill, torture, perform medical experiments on prisoners, and frickin' play football with the heads of murdered children, and the Americans are led by a kindly old man in a wheelchair.

Anyway, they spend the whole season building up how the Japanese home islands are a fortress, and the Japanese will never surrender, and there's no way to take the Japanese home islands because they're invincible...and then they realize they totally can't have the Americans take the Japanese home islands so they have no way to wrap up the season.

So they invent a completely implausible superweapon that they've never mentioned until now. Apparently the Americans got some scientists together to invent it, only we never heard anything about it because it was "classified". In two years, the scientists manage to invent a weapon a thousand times more powerful than anything anyone's ever seen before - drawing from, of course, ancient mystical texts. Then they use the superweapon, blow up several Japanese cities easily, and the Japanese surrender. Convenient, isn't it?

...

So yeah. Stay away from the History Channel. Unlike most of the other networks, they don't even try to make their stuff believable.

When coffee in a bag just isn't good enough

Here's an interesting video showing how astronauts, inspired by rocket fuel tanks, have figured out how to create coffee cups usable in zero gravity. Naturally, I wondered how ice cubes and little paper umbrellas would work in them, but sadly they kept the demonstration booze free.

By the way, if you're a Moslem in need of some NASA self-esteem boosting, he mentions you could drink tea out of it too.


HT: Neatorama

For this, the Founders risked powder and ball?

There is a Washington Post Review, Norman Rockwell exhibit opens at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, by Blake Gopnik that's making the blog rounds and receiving much well deserved mockery in the process. 

I'm not a huge fan of Rockwell, I think he is rather schmaltzy, but it is clear he is an excellent and influential illustrator.

Glopnik on the other hand goes well around the bend in his disdain for Rockwell. He uses the 4th of July as an excuse to opine on the courage of American artists: Emily Dickinson for experimenting with her poetry, Louis Armstrong for playing jazz, and finally Jackson Pollack for splattering paint on canvas.

You can probably imagine what somebody who is a big enough twit to spin panegyrics about the heroism of Pollack's painting style thinks of Norman Rockwell. To put it mildly, he comes across as an insufferable snob.

What captured my eye in his piece, particularily in light of my last post Lopsided Democracy, was the following:

Rockwell's vision of "Freedom of Speech," included in the Smithsonian's show, doesn't invoke a communist printing his pamphlets or an atheist on a soapbox. It gives us a town hall meeting of almost interchangeable New Englanders, no doubt agreeing to disagree about something as divisive as the rates for those new parking meters. For this, the Founders risked powder and ball? 

First off, to answer Glopnik's question, yes, that is why the Founders risked powder and ball. The picture shows a common working man standing to speak at a meeting. On either side he is flanked by men, who are dressed in suits and looking up and seriously listening to what he has to say. That is about as simple an image as one could paint of Jefferson's subversive and revolutionary notion that "all men are created equal".

That dignity, afforded to all men to both speak and to order their own affairs --the affairs of the nation as well as the town hall town meetings that Glopnik so cavalierly dismisses -- is precisely why they fought the Revolution. The idea that no man is above another in either station, caste or dignity is the axiom from which all else American flows.

By the way Mr. Glopnik, all the archetypes on your list that you get misty-eyed over: communists printing pamphlets, atheists on soapboxes, Latino socialists, disgruntled lesbian spinsters, foul-mouthed Jewish comics and metrosexual half-Canadian art critics are free to speak their mind in this country which you seem to think is full of vapid bumpkins.

Perhaps you should scrub the cliches from your writing, and your list was certainly a string of cliches if I ever saw one, before you presume to tell other people what a shallow, maudlin fools they are for liking an illustration.

Lopsided Democracy

Below is an old post of mine. In light of the election it seems relevant. Indeed, "People will come together and cry: enough! ". Only it wasn't in fond nostalgia of the wise old elite, instead it was a lot of people who resented being called simpletons for their opinions. Anyway, the election brought this song and post to mind...



Above is the song Dimonkransa sung by Myra Andrade of the Cape Verde Islands. Cape Verde received their independence from Portugal on July 5th, 1975. The liberation movement was led by the socialist African Party of Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV). Andrade's father was a member of it, and in fact she was born in Cuba.

Upon independence Cape Verde was a single party government, but in 1990 at a party congress the PAICV approved the introduction of multiparty democracy. In the election that followed the opposition fared well, and Cape Verde has evolved into a stable multi-party democracy.

However, this is not a post about her politics, nor the sort of third world socialism that bubbles through the undeveloped world. It seems to me there is a deeper strata, a bedrock so to speak, which lies under the languid melancholy of her lyrics.

It was said that democracy,
Lopsided democracy,
It was said that democracy
Was like a hidden treasure,
But now that it has been found.
We have all opened our eyes
And each one, relying on his judgment,
Confidently declared that what was round was in fact square,
And went to work, with a great many theories,
To prove that he was right.

(lyrics from the version she sung on her first album Navega)

Andrade is ill at ease with democracy, but for social rather than political reasons. Early in the song she calls it 'lopsided democracy' and as its lyrics unfold her complaint is that each person, not matter how foolish they are (and she clearly thinks many if not most of them are fools), now express a cacophony of opinions and arguments that bury the truth. 

She ends the song singing of English businessman and listing names from Cape Verde's past, some who have been elevated and some who she fears are being forgotten, and expresses distress at this reordering of authority. 

Stripped to its bone, the song is about a lost elite. Andrade is expressing nostalgia for a short-lived one party rule and for an escape from European domination. Of course it is her party that should rule and she now makes her home in Paris. Perhaps it is she that is lopsided, rather than all of the happy fools she mocks?

The time will come when old Náxu’s opinions
Will not be held in higher esteem than those of a babe in arms.
People will come together and cry: enough!    

Americans forget how revolutionary we are. Jefferson's "all men are created equal..." is both intoxicating and destructive. It is a hell of a thing not to have to step into the gutter to clear the side walk for a swaggering aristocrat. Andrade is intimidated by and dismissive of people who have opened their eyes, and each one, relied on their own judgment, but a free man knows better.

As for coming together and crying "enough"? That is exactly what our 4th of July celebrates and we'll have our Gadsden flags mingled with the Stars and Stripes. Happy 4th of July to you all.

Flight of Passage

"Our original plan called for skirting the north edge of the Allegheny Mountains, where the peaks are lower and there would be less turbulence, following the gently rolling valleys of central Pennsylvania into Youngstown, Ohio. But that course was now obstructed by clouds and the weather had formed a narrow, irregular chute forcing us to divert south through Harrisburg and the lower Susquehanna Valley. That would mean facing the Alleghenies head-on in rough air, but we would have to worry about that when we got there.

On the map I found a rail line just south of Pottstown that meandered west to the Susquehanna, up through Reading and Hershey. If clouds blocked our way there were several intersecting power lines that we could pick up. Wiggling the stick to signal Kern, I ruddered over for the tracks and pointed them out on the map. Throwing open the side windows, I kept my head out of the slipstream to look for landmarks. The ceiling was dropping again and we didn't have a lot of airports in front of us. I didn't have the luxury of guessing at our position and I focused like a gnome on the land and then back to the map.

That's how we flew the first leg, like a pair of old airmailers. While Kern manned the plane and kept us straight and level from the front seat, I hung out the side from the rear, battered by the rain and slipstream as I concentrated on the terrain."

The plight of Abby Sunderland, the 16-year-old sailor who was attempting a solo circumnavigation of the globe, has been a compelling news story. She ran into heavy weather in the Indian Ocean, lost radio contact and had to activate her emergencies two hours later. Fortunately she's been found, her boat de-masted but still afloat and help is steaming towards her and less than a day away.

Her age, coupled with the thought of her trying to sail solo around the World, has drawn considerable criticism. Many people have argued that her parents were irresponsible for allowing her to attempt such voyage.

In following the story I've been reminded of a book I read, Rinker Buck's Flight of Passage.

The book is a memoir of Rinker (age 15) and his brother Kern's (age 17) flight across the continental U.S. At the time they were the youngest pilots to cross the country. They had bought an old Piper Cub for $300 and carefully rebuilt it for the flight.

Aside from being a good travel yarn, the book is a look back by the adult Rinker on his relationship with his brother, and beyond that his relationship with his father. It is an altogether touching book and in the end it reminds one of what it is like to be a teenager with the horizon before you and a nest to leave.

Thinking of the story told in the book, and having watched one too many helicopter moms in amazement, I think I come down on the side of Abby's parents who left her try her luck in that boat. There are certainly worse things a young girl could aspire to achieve. I wish her fair winds and trailing seas in her future.

Anyways, those were simpler days. In digging around for material for this post I bumped across a couple of videos of young Kern and Rinker Buck on the old TV show To Tell the Truth. They're after the jump. Click "read more" to watch and enjoy. 

I have been remiss for multiple days

Gah! It has been a lot longer than I thought since I've last posted.

In the past I have posted pictures of people blending themselves with record album covers and money. Recently I discovered another small internet photo fad -- multiplicity. People take multiple pictures of themselves and then photoshop them together to get an image with themselves appearing numerous times in it.

Most just turn out to be people making funny faces and what-not, but I like the three shown here because each told a little story.

In the top one we view a string of hims trying to suppress giggles as they are about to execute a prank on their sleeping self.

Next we have the young girl looking on in horror as she sneaks up on herself with a knife in her hand

Finally, the man fights himself, grabbing his face and arm in the process. Technically, it is probably the best of the lot.

For more view 35 Surreal Examples of Multiplicity Photography.

Mohammed Descending a Staicase

Whoops, I forgot Draw Mohamed Day. I never drew a picture of Mohammed which naturally makes posting one a bit of a problem. 

Facing that quandary I consider myself lucky to have remembered Marcel Duchamp and his readymades. A readymade is an "ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist."

So, to solve my lack of a Mohammed drawing on this most solemn of Draw Mohamed Days, I found a copy of Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase and have readymaded it into a new piece of art which I call Mohammed Descending a Staircase. That's it to the left.


If you happen to be a jihadist, rest assured -- even though the details are a bit obscured -- it is a very, very offensive picture of Mohammed and you should be deeply outraged by it.

For the rest of us that are sane, well yes... I suppose I am torturing the definition of readymade a bit. It is a stretch to call me an artist, and I'm not sure that elevating a piece of art into another piece of art is quite within the rules of readymades. Still, Draw Mohamed Day is upon us, and so an artist has to do what an artist has to do.

 

I'm outraged a Moslem won the Miss USA Contest!

Well, ok... actually I'm not. In fact, I don't even know if she's Moslem.

I'll admit, since I've goofed off for a couple of weeks and not posted anything, that this post's headline and the picture to the right are just a cheesy attempt to lure some traffic back.

Beauty pageants are pretty vapid affairs. After all, they are just an excuse to parade a bunch of good looking young women around and pick which is the prettiest. Not that I object to that mind you.

The effort to make them seem more serious than they are leads straight to talent competitions, goofy simple-minded questions and political correctness run amok.

I hate to sound cynical, but because of that political correct imperative to be taken seriously, I have a passing suspicion that her name was far from an obstacle to winning.

Anyways, congratulations to Rima Fakih for her victory.

The Mongolian Death Worm goes Hollywood

If you're a monster, you know you've hit the big time when the SyFy Channel makes a movie about you.

Thirty Seconds of Fury

 

The above video is of the first 30 seconds, from the ignition of the engines to the rocket clearing the tower, of the launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969.  Slowed down it takes 8 minutes to watch (the video is narrated).

was the mission that landed men on the moon for the first time. The film was shot at 500 frames per second and focuses on the base of the launch pad. As such, it is not so much a film of the launch as film of the tremendous punishment the launch pad took when the rocket's engines were lit.

There were assemblies called Hold Down Arms that held the rocket in place until its engines had fully fired up. The Hold Down Arms had to unlatch and retract to allow the rocket to leave the pad. Needless to say, the heat the engines put out punished the launch pad and those assemblies. They had to pour huge amounts of water on the pad to try to cool it down and minimize damage. 

It is an interesting view of a small piece of the engineering that went into putting men on the moon.   

From PetaPixel.

Will the insults ever cease?

As soon as I read the title of the article, The World's Ugliest Statues, I knew it was coming. Sure enough, weighing in at Number III was Saparmurat Niyazov, a.k.a. The Turkmenbashi (apparently now also known as Turkmenbashy the Great), who's golden visage is forever twirling about in search of the sun.

To add insult to injury, his beloved vassals seem to have moved the monstrosity to the suburbs as soon as he was six feet under.  Geez, next thing you know they'll unplug the electric motor that spins him around.
 

And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Twenty strokes of the bamboo

Once again Obama bows.

"So it is you!" said Xi-feng with a chilling smile. "I suppose you thought that because you have a somewhat more lady-like job than the rest, that you could afford to disobey my orders!"

"Oh no, madam, indeed not!" said the woman. "I've been coming extra early every day. It's only today, because I overslept, that I'm a bit late. Please let me off this once, madam! It really is the first time."

(Xi-feng is interrupted by other business for a minute, and then returns her attention to the woman)

"Tomorrow another one will be late and the day after that it will be somebody else," said Xi-feng turning to the still waiting offender, "and before we know where we are we shall have no one turning up at all. I should have liked to have left you off, but if I'm lenient with you the first time, it will be that much harder for me to deal with somebody else the second time; so I am obliged to make an example of you." Her face hardened as she pronounced sentence: "Take her out and give her twenty strokes of the bamboo!"

Seeing X-feng was really angry, the servants dared not show themselves slack in executing her command. The wretched woman was half-dragged from the room and the flogging administered in full view of the waiting throng, after which they came in again, the executioners to report that they had discharged their duty and their victim to thank Xi-feng for her punishment.

From that day onwards the staff of the Ning-guo mansion realized just how formidable Xi-feng could be and went about their duties in fear and trembling, not daring to idle or delay.

That scene is from the Chinese literary masterpiece, The Story of the Stone. The novel covers the affairs of two entwined high caste families, living in adjoining mansions, and their numerous servants (who are actually slaves of the families). 

One of the young wives of one of the families has died. Her mother-in-law is too ill to attend to the pomp and ceremony of her funeral, so Xi-feng, a cousin from the other household, is assigned the task of managing her household during the funeral. Xi-feng considers the household she's been tasked to manage as being lax in their discipline. She thinks the servants are allowed too much latitude and she is determined to enforce order. This leads to the caning of the old servant woman who overslept. 

Xi-feng's rationalization of what she has to do, the caning, and the requirement that the beaten woman 'thank' Xi-feng for her punishment is the ugly face of aristocracy, the ruling class, and status bought through bloodline. Through out history it was the condition of the common man. Even today it is still the condition of the common man in many places. There are betters and there are underlings, and that is just the way it is and will always be. Forget that and there is a bamboo staff, or worse, to remind one of the proper order of things.

We forget at our peril how revolutionary and subversive to the old order the United States is by simply being.

"All men are created equal" is a direct slap in the face of Divine Right and the attitude of To the Manor Born. It is beyond all else what we as Americans are all about. We are not a bloodline, or a clan, or an ethnicity; we are believers in the idea that all people are sacred. All people are born equal. We are all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without the fear of our betters caning us on a whim and expecting our gratitude for the act.

It is that which makes Obama's bow and scraping so teeth gritting. He may consider it politeness, or civility, or whatever; but free men do not bow and scrape to potentates and dictators. If only he had a bit of Alice Frazier in him. She understood what seems to be a mystery to him -- she understood her and a Queen's place in the order of things. 

This man is vapid and an embarrassment to the office. 

Linkage

A real Turing machine.

All by themselves, words can cause pain.

iPad lockin.

Chinese quality strikes again.

The newest Gulf war.

Are we living inside a black hole?

Why we hold onto things.

A tale of two health cares.

The art of the steal.

Neither a bull nor a bear be.

Cigarettes and coffee

At first I thought that was a can of beer bundled with the two packs of cigarettes, but it turns out to be a can of coffee. Regardless, forty cigarettes to go along with a single can of coffee seems a bit much to me. Are Japanese really such dedicated chain smokers? 

Anyways... as long as they're pushing retail tobacco product partnerships, why not go all the way? A pack of cigarettes, a six pack of beer and a package of Trojans is another combination that springs to mind.

As an aside, of course Marlboro is an American brand and it turns out that Georgia Black Emblem Coffee is a leading brand of Coca-Cola Japan. Can you imagine the ruckus such a promotion would cause in the United States? I wonder if they have a Hollywood celebrity pushing this in Japanese TV ads?

From the post Taboo Product Partnerships at Trendhunter Magazine.

Hellooooo visitors from Maggie's Farm.

Ghana Movie Posters

In the 1980s the appearance of VCRs lead to the growth of Mobile Cinemas. These were small operations which would travel from one small village to the next and set up temporary cinemas. They would set up televisions, often powering them with mobile generators, and screen films.

To advertise their show they hired artists to paint posters for their films. You can see more of them, as well as buy one if you want to, at ghanamovieposter.com. The book Extreme Canvas: Movie Poster Paintings from Ghana is also available which has many more examples.

Life and Death in the Late Cretaceous

67 million years ago a snake coiled in a nest of dinosaur eggs and ate the babies as they hatched. A landslide buried the scene and time and conditions fossilized it.
 
The discovery and identification is described in a Wired Science article:

"Geologist Dhanajay Mohabey of the Indian Geological Survey first unearthed the fossil 26 years ago in a rocky, limestone outcropping in the northwestern Indian village of Dholi Dungri. He thought all the bones at the site were those of dinosaur hatchlings.

But in 2001, University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson, took a second look at the fossils. The team then recognized they had actually found a snake coiled around a broken egg, with a hatchling and two other eggs nearby."

Linkage

Why we dream.

The joy of mephedrone.

Vix doesn't seem to be worth much.

Electromagnetic armor.

Where's the missing oil?

Why we're fat.

Cold Fusion still coming back.

What you can do with all that data.

Statistics isn't so good. The experts should take a look at this.

The top prospects in energy stocks.

Occasional Links

Bad stuff coming out of China.

Google's delusional arrogance.

Chinese jets for Chavez.

Travel like a human.

Grant redux.

Why surprises blind us.

Is China spoiling for a fight?

Your mind and your money.

Incentives rule the world.

Once bitten....

CNN Basically Prints a Press Release

Described as a "huge success" folks sat in coffee shops to talk politics. Turnout was higher than expected with an overwhelming 60 people showing up in Decatur, GA (suburb of small town Atlanta). One hates to ask how many they were expecting. A Political Movement is Brewing reads the headline. In Asheville, NC, 35 people gathered. Thirty showed up in Raleigh, NC. (about as many who are in the bathroom at any one time during one of Duke's preseason basketball games-- too much coffee). Coffee News Network. Res Ipsa Loquitor.

Occasional Links

Atrazine emasculates frogs.

It's raining men fish.

How to solve health care.

All your news are belong to us.

Grandma in Hubei.

Behind every great fortune....

"The only way you build an economy is through savings and investments."

Jihad Jane.

Seeing through the opaque—they do it with matrices.

The spread of goodness.

Unsurprising perhaps

This morning, while driving to work, some blather coming out of the radio clued me in to the fact that the Oscar awards happened last night. Not that it matters to anyone or anything but I got an odd, if momentary, sense of wellbeing from the fact that I'd been blissfully unaware of the Oscars. Not that I ever pay much attention to them, but ZERO attention was a new high water mark.

Pride may cometh before the fall, but may I be proud for this?

Occasional Links

Why the recession is lasting so long.

Communicating through touch.

Revolution in China?

Fairness is hard-wired into the brain.

What makes unemployment go down.

Noah's Ark was round.

Evolution is driven through constant warfare, not adaptation to the environment.

The rise of Asia.

Data über alles.

"The British are our friends."

Occasional Links

Real lives in North Korea.

Quark soup at 4 trillion degrees Celsius.

Japan's Mengele experiments.

The mathematical formula for movie shots.

How to watch the Olympics live.

How to deal with the recalcitrant public-sector unions.

Don't even think about having an abortion.

Finding the lowest fares.

The scale of the universe.

Europe is made in the USA.

Let me count the ways...

Retort

Thou art a fool," said my head to my heart,
"Indeed, the greatest of fools thou art,
To be led astray by trick of a tress,
By a smiling face or a ribbon smart;"
And my heart was in sore distress.

Then Phyllis came by, and her face was fair,
The light gleamed soft on her raven hair;
And her lips were blooming a rosy red.
Then my heart spoke out with a right bold air:
"Thou art worse than a fool, O head!"

The poem is by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The sign amidst the painted flowers of Big Johnson Bail Bonds' window says, "Get me out of the slammer and I'll be your Valentine." Valentine's Day is over, but I suppose it is too good of a slogan to waste.

Occasional Links

The oil export crisis has already arrived.

Iran will punch Western powers.

China starts to dump.


Is the Sahara blooming?

Spray-on liquid glass.

The social graph of the United States.

Two cheers for insensitive bosses.

We've misjudged China.

Why California is in trouble.

Is Beijing vacant?

The Sound of English

Adriano Celentano, an Italian singer and comedian, sings his song Prisencolinensinainciusol. The lyrics are gibberish, but are meant to sound like English. It is a quite convincing attempt, and an English speaker's ears end up struggling to put the syllables together to form coherent words. Very odd.

It is from the post What English Sounds like to People in other Countries,  which has several other clips of people simulating the sound of English.

Another entertaining clip at that post is a woman, on the Bulgarian version of American Idol, singing Mariah Carey’s “Without You”. The phonetic subtitles of what she is actually singing are a hoot.

What might have been

Ah, the grand future we were promised...

 

These pictures of our glorious future, and more that follow after the jump,

are from Black and WTF which has an extremely eclectic collection of old pictures.

By the way, I wonder why the woman is holding a chicken in the first picture?

Occasional Links

Life among the Taliban.

20 reasons why the US economy is dying and will not recover.

Four crashes, inflation adjusted.

Vegetative patients may be able to think after all.

The future of music?

Darwin's genetics uncovered.

Kill all the subsidies.

Natural gas for all.

What's the matter with Microsoft.

iPad, Take 3

The Two Charts That Explain Where We Are

Red is spending, blue is income.

Total US debt as percent of GDP.

H/T Henry Blodget.

Another View of the iPad

Hitler responds to the iPad

Yeah, I know these things are getting old, but it's the scene that keeps on giving. It's the thousand year rant.

Foot in Mouth Disease

Occasional Links

Peak oil? No, but expensive oil, yes.

What the Google fiasco tells us about China.

Not a single oil company trusts Chavez. Who woulda thunk it?

Paying people not to work—does it extend the recession?

270 earthquakes in 2 days--bad news for the caldera?

15 books every entrepreneur should read.

The theory of conjoint measurement.

Just a little shade can kill your solar cells' output.

But who will save them from Jeffrey Sachs?

Time to learn Mandarin.

She just needs to make lemonade out of lemons

Oooops. I guess that coronation campaign didn't go according to plan.

My advice to Martha Coakley is that she just needs to look at the bright side. Turn that frown upside down. At least now she'll have plenty of free time to catch a ball game or two at Fenway next season.

We do also need to give props to Kerry for his inadvertent role in this Democratic fiasco. Had the Democrats never changed the law in anticipation of his Presidential win a Democrat would have been appointed to the Senate seat instead of giving a concession speech.

I guess God, or the universe, or whatever, does have a sense of humor after all.

Occasional Links

Ok, so I've gotten into the habit of reading the news again and finding stuff that I'm moved to share with the world. I'll start putting some of them up again, at least for my benefit.

Here's today's list:
Flattery works better than you thought.

A site to automatically analyze the psychological profile of your favorite Tweeter based on their word-usage.

They tied light in knots.

How galaxies came to be.

China may end up monopolizing all rare earth elements. This has scary implications for both high-tech and green-tech, where these elements are used extensively.

Will China rule the world?

Obama's scary totalitarian tendencies.

A wallet full of Wilsons

The blog Mental Floss has a post, A $100,000 Bill? The Story Behind Large-Denomination Currency, that discusses large denomination American legal tender. Before wire transfers, banks used them to exchange large amounts of money.

The faces on the bills were William McKinley ($500), Grover Cleveland ($1,000), James Madison ($5,000), Salmon P. Chase ($10,000) and Woodrow Wilson on the largest, $100,000.

Interestingly enough, Salmon P. Chase was also the face pictured on the first dollar bill. Why you ask? He was the Secretary of the Treasury who was charged with designing the first greenback and, in a fit of humility that reminds one of our current day politicians, he put his own face on the bill.

Well, who knows, a trillion dollar debt here, a trillion dollar debt there, and maybe inflation will kick in and fill all our wallets with enough Wilsons to be barely able to afford a carton if eggs.

As a parting thought, I was reminded of the Simpson's episode where Monty Burns had stolen the trillion dollar bill meant to pay for the Marshall Plan. Fleeing from the law he ended up in Cuba with Homer. Alas, like you know who, he was rather too trusting of dictators:    

Mr. Burns: All we ask is preferential treatment because of my fabulous wealth!

[Burns holds the trillion dollar bill up.]
Castro: May I see?
Mr. Burns: Ho ho ho, see with your eyes, not with your hands!
Castro: Please, we are all amigos here!
Homer: Mr. Burns... I think we can trust the president of Cuba.
Mr. Burns: [hands it to Castro, and waits a couple of seconds.] Now, give it
back.
Castro: Give what back?
Mr. Burns: D'oh...

Science, Christmas and Rocketry

Two young fellows came up with a clever way of disposing of their old Christmas tree and they dispense some philosophy along the way. Alas, in the end they only managed to move the tree a couple hundred feet, and from the looks of it nearly caught their field on fire in the process, but none the less one has to give two thumbs up to such ingenuity.

Below is their video. Here is their post detailing the Christmas Tree launch.

The Problem with State Budgets Clarified

[HT: Calafia Beach Pundit]

Beautiful Schlock

That is how I refer to Avatar, James Cameron’s new epic to encourage self-loathing for human beings. Many have commented about the anti military angle and the enviro-worship. Rather than repeat that, I suggest reading those links for very interesting commentary. Rather, I’ll address the anti-human angle.

Of course the humans are thinly disguised Americans, but it is the human-beingness that is of interest to me. Humans are the invaders who have ruined their own world, paraphrasing what the avatar-guy says. Humans have nothing to offer the Na’vi, while the Na’vi have everything to offer humans. There is no opportunity for some kind of relationship, only a form of power and control vs. longing. One human takes an interest in Na’vi culture, but none of the Pandoran clans are interested in humans, only interested in getting rid of them. That one human has tried to educate the Na’vi, but about what is totally unclear. The Na’vi are presented as essentially fully evolved; they can develop no further because they are, in essence, perfect. They show only the most minimal of inventions (essentially bow-and-arrow and riding techniques). They neither want nor need technology. They have universal healthcare by tapping into Pandora. The Avatar can become Na’vi and stay but cannot remain human and stay (let alone be loved as a human).

In essence Cameron has penned an anti-human manifesto, similar to those who decry human beings as a plague upon the earth and become apoplectic about the fantasy of overpopulation. The technophobic Na’vi are made the heroes of a movie that showcases the most advanced technology the film industry has ever seen. It is a deeply cynical piece of film-making, as Cameron celebrates a society that in essence has a king and queen and a whole lot of drones, while he is a meglomaniac director who tries to control everyone and everything he comes across. Better to be on top, I guess.

The scenery is extraordinary and the visual effects are magnificent. Of course, so were those for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, possibly the most watched television program in history. Does that mean everyone desires to become a communist? I think not. People are paying to watch a spectacle, and Cameron hopes to sneak in his propaganda. Of course, his work is filled with contradictions. Only a human could have made it.

The Best Global Warming Thought of the Year

I'm not sure where I picked this up, so I apologize for the intellectual theft, but here's the gist of it:

If someone asks you whether you "believe in global warming" then you know they are talking about belief systems, not science.

A study of two mixed messages

Beer goggle resistant message from the Ladies of the

Women's Temperance Movement

  Picture on the front page of the White House website during the aftermath

of the failed Christmas Day airline bombing attack