Free Time + Cleaning out my Files = A Rather Busy Post.
How I was keeping my mind clean this week:
- Nevada bans chicken suits from polling stations. They haven't learned from the British: if you making voting fun you'll have a higher turnout.
- New Pomplamoose video. An excuse to hook you on Pomplamoose.
- Sesame Street Fighter. (h/t David Malki)
- Warner Brothers is sued for pirating Anti-Piracy software. To quote Half-Life 2: "I always bring a little irony to a gunfight."
- Real-life manhacks. Okay, I've been playing Half-Life 2 lately...
- With more smackdown: this time using Norwegian Black Metal to stick it to David Frum and Richard Perle.
- With Where's Waldo as read by Werner Herzog. Even better than Curious George. Or the Werner Herzog's gender-studies Madeline.
- With this sentence: "New York: 38,000 homeless and a goddamn dog night club."
- "Put This On a Billboard: Droopy Pants Can Kill."
- A chronological timeline of Pulp Fiction.
How I was keeping my mind fit this week:
- With this 1972 TED-style talk by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankel, in which he argues that if you believe in the possibility of man at his best, you can help him become at his best.
- With this important article on historical districts as opposed to landmark buildings, which makes a compelling argument against reigning in over-preservation.
- This iconic image of Francois Mitterand and Helmut Kohl honoring the dead of Verdun. A reminder that history can move forward.
Important facts:
- I linked to this above, but holy crap, the British had almost 80% turnout in a 1950 election?
- The Mars Lander has finally died.
- The average cost of car ownership is $5,925 a year. However, there's no statement on what degree of deviation from that cost can be expected.
- 80% of Americans are in favor of repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell; a majority of Americans consider homosexuality morally acceptable.
- Broadway profits are up 1.5%, although actual attendance was down 3%. In other words, since we can't appeal to more people, let's try charging the people who show up more! I look forward to the day that Broadway gives private performances to Trump-style billionaires.
- You can't just call yourself a co-op -- there's a legal definition, and if you don't uphold to it, you can get sued by any legitimate co-op.
- Colors mean different emotional things in different languages. Alright, fine, maybe you knew that. But you didn't have this handy chart.
Things to watch in the future:
- RVCBard continues work on a self-produced show.
- OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THE WORLD CUP IS STARTING SOON!
- Isaac got married. Not so much a thing to watch as a thing to applaud.
- Obama wants to be able to propose spending cuts to Congress after bills have passed. This could give him cred among the "reign in waste" crowd without having to open up the Line-Item Veto battle again. Also: here's an Yglesias guest-blogger on Kagan's role in this kerfuffle.
- The great upshot about this Baptist preacher who has been praying for Obama to die ("Make his children fatherless" is part of the prayer) is that every day that Obama lives is a direct rebuke to that man's faith.
Updates on previous posts:
- On my update about banning the iPad in Israel, the iPad ban is now lifted. Their explanation still reeks of bullshit. Better explanation is that the son of the Israeli President runs iDigital, which imports Apple products to Israel... and he wasn't making money off of these iPads.
