...KKK?
"We are opposed to the ignorance and stupidity as displayed by the individuals that thumbed their nose at the area churches by continuing to use racial slurs, threats and avoided Christian deportment."
Members of one Klan group plan to protest another in Cullman. Via Cynical C where the People’s Front of Judea joke has been duly made.
| Alabama |
Bushs Media Slip-Ups Reach Niagara Falls. Via Frank.
| Errata | Potemkin Video |
Yet another reason why torture is bad for national security. Or, the segment in which I agree again with Andrew Sullivan and find myself wondering if either of us has a goatee ...
"Al Qaeda continues to have a deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction... I can trace the story of a sernior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to al Qaeda. Fortunately, this operative is now detained and he has told his story."The man who spoke those words was Colin Powell at the UN. The "operative", we now know, was Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libbi. He was waterboarded and given Bush-approved hypothermia treatment, i.e. frozen till he could take it no longer. It was only then that he told of al Qaeda's links with Saddam's WMDs... the CIA subsequently found al-Libbi "had no knowledge of such training or weapons and fabricated the statements because he was terrified of further harsh treatment." So I now realize that part of the reason I believed the WMD case for war against Saddam was because the Bush administration had been secretly torturing suspects and got false confessions. The biggest intelligence failure in recent US history - the WMD case in Iraq - was partly created by the torture policy. [Link]
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24 Hours Of Horror With Eli Roth. I haven't seen any of Roth's films, and I'm not sure that they would be to my taste. But this is a pretty great list of horror flicks, at least based on the ones I've seen.
This Wednesday (Netflix willing) we'll be watching The Creeping Flesh -- Debbie's choice. I mean, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee? It sounds like six kinds of awesome. No, we're not having folks over this year to watch (your invite didn't get lost, promise!). Since we've started marching in the Park Slope Halloween Children's Parade, instead of just watching it, having a movie-watching party has just been Too Much of a Muchness, as my Grandmother would say.
So, what's your Halloween film this year?
Below, Darth Pumpkin:
| Lists | Horror | Halloween |
Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin. It seems sort of far-fetched, in a poetic-justice kind of way. But I imagine that the same people who switched from vinyl to CD for the convenience (back when there was a choice) are now just as happy with MP3s.
| Vinyl | CD |
Strange squid with human-like "teeth".
| Animals | Weird Science | The Stuff of Nightmares |
My Mom has been taking photographs for years -- she's now gone pro, selling prints and cards at local craft fairs. And she has a website! Check out Natalie Searl Photography to see her new site.
Mom writes:
You realize, of course, that I was very influenced by my parents, both of who were in a camera club, complete with competitions, etc. I was most influenced by the Grandmother's taste; she loved old barns, animals and birds, etc. I think subconsciously that's what I tend toward.
I think my Grandfather would have been all over Flickr.
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I'm waaay behind on my flickr uploading. Here's an advertising poster for Dell with culturejam on it. The ad series is supposed to promote their different color notebooks (A Vegan Didn't Choose Green", "A Democrat Chose Red," etc.) here's the "Republican who chose Blue":
Before
After
| Culture Jamming |
Well, we've finally gone and done it: we're composting! Ever since we moved here with our little back yard we've talked about composting our garbage. Finally, Debbie went to a workshop at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and then drove out to Fresh Kills to pick up a composter. The NYC Dept. of Sanitation -- New York's Strongest! -- subsidizes composters in order to reduce the size of the landfill. Which is a big issue; food waste accounts for "27.6 million tons per year, or 11.7 percent by weight" of the Municipal Solid Waste stream. Which is why we're doing this. I mean, it'll be nice to have some compost soil for the garden, but really we're just trying to reduce the amount of garbage the family produces.
You might think that food just biodegrades in a landfill, but it doesn't. Landfills are airtight, and without air, food can't break down the way it normally would. So that banana peel will just stay a banana peel for a long long long time. Those biodegradable forks made from potatoesor corn? If you're just throwing them away, they may as well be plastic.
So Saturday we built the composter (the plastic parts just slide together to make what is essentially a big box), dug a shallow pit for it, and put wire netting on the bottom to keep out the critters. The boys had a great time filling a bucket with our "browns" (leaves from the garden) and we ceremonially dumped in our first load of kitchen waste!
Now we just wait for the worms to discover their new feast....
| Environment | Garbage |
.. but how many of them are named Steve?
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Wikipedia War and LOLCats ensue.
| LGBT | Wikipedia | Cats | Memes |
Here's Stephen Colbert talking with Craig Newmark about DonorsChoose.org:
Nation, the VotersChoose portion of the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge currently has Stephen Colbert as #1, with over $10,000 given in honor of his Presidential bid. And yet his challenge stands at a paltry 1% of his overall goal! The Ishbadiddle Challenge, thanks to your generosity, now stands at 80%! Let's show that upstart what a real media powerhouse* can do!
* Not really.
| Stephen Colbert | Education | Charity |
"Lemme tell you: if Bruce Schneier is even a little afraid, then I'm curled up in a fetal position somewhere rocking back and forth." It's like a good suspense movie -- the threat is just sitting there, getting bigger, but not doing anything. Yet.
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| Typos |
Emily on the destruction of Radnor Middle School and its rifle range.
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Andrew Sullivan lays it down on torture. I wish our presidential candidates would speak out as clearly and unequivocally
First: I do not believe that torture does save people's lives, because I do not believe it gives us reliable intelligence and because the use of it historically leads to its becoming the primary method of intelligence gathering, and so undermines our extreme need to develop better intelligence gathering, especially human intelligence... And I do not trust those in power who tell me otherwise, because there is no check on them whatsoever, no oversight that they have not cheerfully avoided, and any admission of guilt on their part would lead to war crime prosecution...But secondly: yes, I do think that in a choice between legalizing torture and the loss of American lives, I would choose the loss of American lives, including my own.
This is not righteous victimhood. It is righteous self-defense. There are some things worse than avoiding all casualties in warfare. One of those things is abandoning the core meaning of what a country and a civilization stand for. If America does not stand against the torture of individuals seized without due process by an unchecked executive power, then American stands for nothing. In fact, if this standard had applied two centuries ago, America would not exist at all... To destroy the constitution, the rule of law, and habeas corpus and to legalize torture in the false hope of saving lives is the action of those who do not understand freedom and who do not understand America. It is the action of cowards and slaves.
What part of "Live Free Or Die" do these people not understand? [Link]
| Constitution | National Security State | Andrew Sullivan |
So after many years of loyal service, our answering machine finally died. And by "many years," I mean, "bought for our first apartment after college graduation." This was one of the first retail digital answering machine machines -- it's kind of amazing to read this review in the NYT from when it first came out in 1991. I bought it because it was tapeless and because it looked really cool. If you threw one of these into a (pre-digital effects) science fiction miniature prop city it wouldn't look out of place. (The only picture I could find on the web was at this page telling you how to take one apart.)
But, it finally gave up last week and refused to take any more messages. It was only when I threw it away -- ready to replace it with a cheapo Radio Shack model -- that I noticed the AT&T model number on the bottom: 1337.
Farewell, 1337 Machine!
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So I tried using Webolodeon, a Greasemonkey script that would ping me every 5 minutes and ask for a reason that I should continue using the web. Good, but not great, since a good chunk of my work is on the web, and it was more annoying to keep typing in "I'm working I'm working I'm working" (or usually "aksjfd;lakjf;lkajf;alksdjf") every 5 minutes. So I ended up not using it.
Enter Stealth Kiwi, a script that does exactly what I want it to do to keep me on task:
Stealth Kiwi is a GTD tool that blocks access to all "Included pages" during work hours. Because a script is so easy to get around, SK relaxes its guard every hour. By giving yourself a future break time, you have less incentive to break your rules, and more chances to Get Things Done.Responding to popular demand, I've reworked Stealth Kiwi so that you can take a break any time after the hour has passed, instead of just during a scheduled period. You will have 10 minutes from whenever you start the break to play, after which SK will block you until an hour has passed. This way, you can focus on work instead of the clock, taking breaks when you really need them, not just when the internet comes back.
Since I get to define which domains are blocked (bloglines, gmail, and of course this blog are usually my 3 biggest time drains) during work, the script doesn't bother me when I'm doing DonorsChoose.org stuff. If I try to access a "restricted" site, it will helpfully tell me how long I have until my next "surfing break."
Oh, and why "Stealth Kiwi"? Because it's based on an earlier script called Kiwi Cloak:
After modifying the Invisibility Cloak script to do this, we couldn't think of a good name for it, so we're calling it Kiwi Cloak, in honor of a mysterious fruit/bird/nation fondness of Lucy's.
Plus, "I'm using Stealth Kiwi" is just fun to say. Highly recommended!
| Firefox |
Let's celebrate Hangul Day!!! I mean, how many alphabets have a birthday? Hat tip to Lynn.
| Alphabet | Korea | Holidays |
Thanks everyone! You stepped up to the plate and gave $1,158 to the Ishbadiddle DonorsChoose.org Challenge, busting my goal of $1,000! And you all fully funded one of the most expensive projects, the class set of globes. I'm truly touched.
But since we've got all month... I've raised the goal from $1,000 to $1,500. Heck, we're 77% of the way there! Let's see if we can make a few more classroom projects happen!
Thanks again, everyone. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.
| Education |
So outside of me and one other generous donor, the Ishbadiddle Challenge has gotten no love from you, our loyal readers. Come on, people -- it's for the kids. Do I need to go in blogstrike? Here are the projects I've picked, you can click directly on these to give to the challenge:
Picture This: Knuffle Bunnies and Talking Pigeons. Inspired by Mo Willem's book "Knuffle Bunny," kids will take pictures in Prospect Park and make their own books.
"Of Mice and Men" for Everyone! Speaking of rabbits... 34 copies of the book, plus the audio book.
Globes: Class Set. Help our kids get smarter than Miss Teen South Carolina. I know some of you out there like globes. This is for the school down the street from us.
How Do You Spell D-I-C-T-I-O-N-A-R-I-E-S?. Buy 100 dictionaries. It's that simple.
Young Artists Would Love to Paint! They need paint.
Who's Got Game? I really like this one, it's for board games, blocks, and jump ropes.
OK people, now get out your credit cards and go help some kids!
| Education |
