Interesting item: Color notes written by a blind man. Though the author was sighted until age eleven, he apparently only started making the color notes later. File this under knowledge you don’t do anything with but just mull over. (And use to describe colors to clients.) — chain of thanks includes Boing Boing and XBlog.
| Color |
This nice blogger wished me a happy birthday!
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My friend Lynda brought it to my attention that we finally have someone to replace Reagan when we want to blame one human for everything devious in our government: Dick Cheney. Perhaps it’s the name. The last Dick we had in that high an office was rather rancid himself. Anyway, try it out for yourself.
The ugly mess in Venezuela connected intimately with United States oil interests? Dick did it.
The frightening thought that we might invade Iraq this summer? Dick’s all over that.
And, of course, the strange similarity of the rise of The Rock to entertainment super-stardom to the rise of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Lou Ferrigno? Nothing but Dick.
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I do indeed have a policy of not making fun of other people's faith-based practices, and I am indeed making an exception for this.
More Jesus sports statues here!
| Christianity | Jesus Christ | Sports | Hockey |
Patrick sent us this distrubing news:
Cancer Risk Found in French Fries, Bread
It is now truly impossible to eat anything risk free. As if the Catholic Church did not have enough problems, the sacrament of communion now revolves around an addictive drug and a known carcinogen!
| Food | Bread | Cancer | Illness |
Ah, the Timex Sinclair 1000 — with 2K of RAM! These and other nostalgic ad-goodies at adflip.com.
| Gadgets | Inventions | Design |
I like her design, I like the blog.
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Ennis alerted us to this BBC article on a new set of War on Terror Action Figures, produced by Herobuilders.com. These pictures cry out to be captioned; submit yours in the comment box.
I'll bet W has a set, don't you?
Funny, Rudy looked this way throughout most of his mayoralty.
The terrorists can be easily spotted by their small, tan, flexible bodies.
You can buy Osama in drag. Really. (But not Rudy, which probably irks him.)
| George W. Bush | Rudy Giuliani | Dolls |
Juliet sent this in:
So I was coming home along Central Park West last night around 11pm, and there was a woman sitting on a bench. She looked sane, well-dressed, not homeless, etc. On her lap was a teeny, tiny baby MONKEY. In a teeny, tiny diaper. I stopped to stare and before I knew it, the monkey ("she likes women," the owner said) took a flying leap off the bench, landed on my bag, and proceeded to climb up my arm like climbing up a vine. It then climbed onto my head and sat there with its tiny, sinewy arms wrapped me, sort of nibbling on my ear. Then it got mesmerized by my necklace - just like a human baby - and started playing with it. Then it shimmied down the other arm and swung from my bag.
I finally managed to detach it and return it to the owner, but as I started to walk away, the monkey bounded from bench to bench next to me like it was going to come home with me.
I was highly amused. (I also took a good, long shower when I got home.)
| Monkeys | New York City |
Allegedly, the new daily New York paper, the New York Sun, debuted yesterday (the 16th of April 2002 for those of you reading this in the 23rd century), but I couldn't find one to save my life. At none of five or six newsstands within ten blocks of my office was this journalistic endeavor available for purchase. Has anyone actually seen a copy? Bought one? Read it? Is it as conservative as it would appear to be, given its staff? Building on that straw man, why is it that adding the Sun will make three conservative dailies in New York. (What's the leaning of New York Newsday, back after a multi-year hiatus?) How is it that the growing media seem to be rightist? (Does anybody have any reliable stats correlating audience growth and political leanings?) And if there used to be a liberal media bias that didn't reflect the views of the majority of the country, does this mean that a dominant conservative voice in the print media masks a predominant leftist spirit among the populace?
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I joined a peer-to-peer review project, and was assigned to review this blog. Here's my review:
Continue reading "Blog review: k-t-h-x-b-YE" » 40 Acres and a Hoax
The Washington Post reports that the IRS has paid out $30m to individuals who applied for a $43,000 slavery reparation credit that doesn't exist.
[Via American Cynic.]
No, really, it's not art this time!
When avant-garde British artist Tracey Emin's cat ran away, she put up posters. Then people began tearing down her Lost Cat posters and selling them for $800. A spokesperson for East London's White Cube gallery, who is sometimes in the position of defending Emin from critics who deny that her work qualifies as "art" (Emin's most famous piece was a messy bed), told reporters that the poster was not art, even though the public might regard it as art. No word yet if the cat's been found.
[The Times (London), 3-28-02, via News of the Weird.]
No bloodhounds necessary.
Two people in Slidell, LA commandeered a Krispy Kreme truck with its back door open and led police on a chase that created a 15-mile-long trail of scattered doughnuts. Insert cop-and-donut joke here.
[Also via News of the Weird.]
Woman wants $50m of Pirate Booty's booty
A Manhattan woman is suing Robert's American Gourmet Food for $50m, because its Pirate Booty snacks were mislabelled and ruined her diet. Apparently they contained three times more fat than the label indicated. However, they still effectively prevent scurvy. Arrrrrrrrrrr.
[At Ananova, via It's a mystery.]
| Law | Art | Cats | IRS |
Patrick writes:
Good to have the blog back. With Brunch Season upon us, it is good to get a little refresher course on early morning drinking. From Dr Thomas Stuttaford, Doctor for the Times of London: "If you are going to drink early in the morning, you should have bacon and eggs, porridge and cream or a good old fashioned breakfast to go with your pints."
For this and other early drinking tips, go here.
| Food |
Ishbadiddle is back! We're settling in to our new home here at Triptronix, the brand spankin'-new domain of our friend, contributor, and now webmaster, Trip. Thanks to everyone for your patience, and for putting up with those damn X10 ads for so long. And props to Ennis for keeping content going while I did the digital move.
I'm still fixing links etc., but if you find anything awry, email me.
Latinos Call For Speedy Return: Mexican-American and other Latino groups have launched a letter-writing campaign to protest the decision by the Cartoon Network to ban the Loony Tunes character Speedy Gonzalez. In a letter to Jon Cooke, who operates an unofficial Loony Tunes website, Cartoon Network executive Daniel Wineman wrote, "The problem with [Speedy cartoons] is the references to drinking, laziness, drug use, and womanizing ('Speedy knows my sister, Speedy knows EVERYBODY's sister...'). This isn't worse than most any other WB character. However, since Speedy is Mexican, we've shied away from these 'toons. Turner Broadcasting has always been super-careful not to promulgate any of these stereotypes and this case is no different." But in a recent article posted on the Hispanic Online website [www.hispaniconline.com] one writer noted that Speedy serves as a remarkable role model. "Endowed with street smarts that match his lightning speed, Speedy has a strong sense of justice and a healthy sense of humor. He can always be relied on to come to the rescue, despite his amorous pursuits," the article observed. Several writers observed that no one complained about Speedy when he appeared on TV in the past, adding: "I think sometimes the censors are afraid of things that aren't really there." [This is verbatim from imdb.com (a practice I should stop)]
However, it's a bit murkier. Hispaniconline has just been reporting on the contraversy. For a fuller discussion, here their main discussion and an argument from somebody who is strongly opposed.
| Loony Tunes | Speedy Gonzalez | Race & Ethnicity |
Tourism officials in Rio De Janeiro, said on Saturday that they have authorized attorneys to sue the producers of The Simpsons for a March 31 episode in which the family travels to the Brazilian city to find an orphan that Lisa had sponsored. The Rio daily O Globo quoted officials as saying that the episode, "Blame It on Lisa," employed stereotypes to depict Brazilians, including a taxi driver who kidnaps Homer and beggars who attack the family. [from today's www.imdb.com studio briefs, b/c I felt like it]
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To continue a discussion on this topic from before, the two men on the sides don't really look that different from other police officers. Certainly they look recognizably like cops, and I think that people would have a hard time arguing that this difference would cause performance degredation.
| Canada | Sikhs | Turbans | Uniforms | Police |
Thanks to Trip at Triptronix, we now have a new home! It will take a few days to move in, change the links, etc., but we should be able to start blogging in earnest soon. And thankfully, no more X10 ads.
Ah, the Timex Sinclair 1000 — with 2K of RAM! These and other nostalgic ad-goodies at adflip.com.