Tuesday, November 13, 2007

FRESH SCISSOR DANCE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE 7:28:55 AM    comment []

Thursday, November 08, 2007

LEONARD NIMOY  /  THREE GRACES  /  THE FULL BODY PROJECT At the age of 76, Leonard Nimoy has a voice that sounds like old Bourbon should taste. I heard his voice on NPR this weekend, talking to Weekend Edition host Scott Simon about his new book of photographs, The Full Body Project. I was delighted to learn that Mr. Nimoy has not limited his artistic pursuits to acting the role of Spock, and among his non-Vulcan pursuits is fine art photography. In this series of nude photographs of the frankly obese-and-proud-of-it women of the Big Burlesque and Big Bottom Revue, he fights the good fight against the 'tyranny of slenderness.' Good on him. See also: Girth and Nudity, A Pictorial Mission, New York Times, May 13, 2007. Live long and prosper, y'all. 2:33:30 AM    comment []

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

TWO PICTURES WORTH TWO WORDS: ABOVE: Extent of Arctic ice cap September 18, 1979 BELOW: Extent of Arctic ice cap September 18, 2007 The Cryosphere Today HOLY SHIT!   9:50:09 PM    comment []

Monday, September 17, 2007

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Alan Greenspan  photo credit: AP  It was just one of those things Just one of those crazy flings One of those bells that now and then rings It was one of those things Just one of those fabulous flights A trip to the moon on gossamer wings It was one of those things If we'd thought a bit 'bout the end of it When we started to bust up the town We'd have been aware that this affair Was too hot not to cool down So good-bye, good-bye, good-bye, Ta-ta, so long and you might even add "Amen" Here's hopin' we'll do it again It was great fun But it was just one of those things Cole Porter 8:30:48 PM    comment []

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

AP Poll: 'None of the above' leads Republican field 2007-07-17 18:03:26 WASHINGTON (AP) - And the leading Republican U.S. presidential candidate is ... none of the above. The headline says it all, folks. 23 percent of Republicans in the latest AP/IPSOS Poll prefer NONE OF THE ABOVE over all the declared candidates of the GOP. Rudy 'Judy' Giuliani, Fred 'TV' Thompson, John 'Capt. Queeg' McCain, Mitt 'Headroom' Romney, they all take a back seat to...NONE OF THE ABOVE! A candidate we can all embrace, no matter how unlike minded we are on the issues. None of the Above has no issues, and takes issue with none, always in agreement in the midst of disagreement. None of the Above promises nothing to nobody...and delivers. None of the Above's past can't be mined for scandal and embarassing flip-flops, because None of the Above has no past and doesn't wear thongs. Give it up, swift boaters--Trying to pin something on None of the Above is like playing pin the tail on the donkey--with no ass. None of the Above represents the faceless and silent majority of Republicans who would just rather not think about the past six and a half years. As a matter of fact, None of the Above has no face and no comment, and therefore requires no expensive make-up artist, hairdresser, or speechwriters. None of the Above has no need for expensive consultants, requires no bales of money for pol-ops and dirty tricks, doesn't have to hang even one chad; all that None of the Above needs is for you the distressed and dissatisfied Republican voter to write in None of the Above on every ballot you cast. Listen to the dog whistles, the creatures of the right, ah, what music they make... Tired of barking every time a tighty righty purses his lips and blows? Whistle for None of the Above and you will ride with the wind. The whistle stops here, that's None of the Above's motto. None of the Above needs no bus or private jet on loan from your friendly corporate overlord; None of the Above is everywhere and nowhere...wherever you go in these United States, None of the Above is already there. Just think how much safer the world would be if None of the Above were president.   10:02:09 PM    comment []

Sunday, July 08, 2007

CELEBRATE ROSWELL DAY WITH A FRIEND. WE COME IN PEACE. 2:06:13 PM    comment []

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

DICK IN A VICE: STOLEN IN ITS ENTIRETY FROM THE RUDE PUNDIT Six Other Things the Office of the Vice President Actually Is: Dick Cheney has decided that his office is a free-floating radical in DC, not quite an executive entity, not truly a legislative one, but some unholy Reese's cup of evil. Here's some other ways the Veep has untethered himself from mortal binds. 1. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but actually a Native American religion, Cheney and his staff are free to smoke peyote at the start of every morning meeting. 2. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but actually a breach in the space/time continuum, Cheney is free to enter at will his own dimension, the realm of Cthulhu and the slime beasts. 3. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but actually a motorcycle gang, Cheney is free to beat Senators with chains and blackjacks. 4. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but technically an executive bathroom, Cheney is free to wipe his ass with whatever documents are handy, memos, executive orders, Constitutions. 5. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but actually a freak show, Cheney is free to bite the heads off chickens. And nosy members of Congress. 6. Because his office is not an entity in the executive branch, but actually an insane asylum, Cheney is free to rain bedlam down on the whole of government. His Loveliness the Pope, the Reverend and Doctor Omed (SDAABS) grants absolution of mortal sin to any pilgrim and seeker that emails the above text and link to at least ten (10) recipients. One (1) absolution of mortal sin per pilgrim. Nihil Obstat. Ego Pater Omed. 8:25:56 AM    comment []

Saturday, May 26, 2007

LIVING IN THE LAND OF THE FISH PEOPLE     Coming soon on DVD:  Clint Eastwood as Christ! Never before released movie trilogy of the life of Jesus Christ, filmed in Italy in tandem with the Spaghetti Westerns Eastwood made in the Sixties:  The Spaghetti Passion: A Fistful of Souls, For a Few Souls More, and Jesus Force. Made for the Italian market and withheld from release due the objections of the then current regime in the Vatican, these films have been digitally remastered with a new vocal track in English, featuring the voice of Clint himself.  With Lee Van Cleef as Pontius Pilate, Charleton Heston as John the Baptist, and Eli Wallach as Judas Iscariot.  Thrill to the parables and sayings of Jesus told the Eastwood way:  In monosyllables through clenched teeth: "Do you want some of these stigmata, punk?  Well, do ya ?" 4:21:53 PM    comment []

NOT EVEN WRONG DEVIL GOIN' DOWN Wolfgang Pauli, Nobel Prize winning physicist, the Pauli in the Pauli Exclusion Principle, as the tale is told, once succinctly reviewed a young physicist's paper, saying sadly, "That's not right; it's not even wrong."  I heard a soundbyte of Bush on the Beeb yesterday, and those three words said themselves to me with my own mouth. Not even wrong. Almost every statement that comes out of Howdy Dubya is so dumb and delusional that his assertions (pre-programed or otherwise) do not even rise to the level of being wrong. Not falsifiable, as Karl Popper put it; not susceptible to proof, because the proposition has no testable hypothesis. The Decider doesn't have a plan or a goal, much less a strategy, he has articles of faith so slippery that they can explain any fact and elude any test. People speak of framing the debate on the war; that we must change the frame, that is to say, we must alter the rhetoric and metaphors of political discourse in our favor, ala George Lakoff. We must substitute, insinuate, and impose our memes such that we replace the Republican frame with a Democratic frame. That's OK as far as it goes. We are all soldiers on the field of memes. But a frame is just a frame; it may largely and elaborately distract from, subtly direct attention to a particular aspect of, or complement the essence of the picture; but the picture is still the same picture no matter what the frame. It's the same picture if it has no frame at all. And the picture we're looking at is ugly. It's so ugly people can't bear it. We can't face our shame. No one is putting a frame on this picture, we're all putting a good coat of whitewash on the picture so we don't have to look at it. We don't want to look in the mirror and see ourselves as we truly are. Dubya, like Tom Sawyer, is standing by and collecting our treasures one by one, as we each take our turn with the sopping brush. Every day I listen to NPR and the BBC World Service. I read the blogs, sometimes even WaPo or other MSM. If I pinched myself every time I thought, "I can't believe that Bush is President, it just can't be this bad," I'd be covered with so many welts I could get a job exhibiting myself at a freakshow as "The Pincher." I feel like I am living in some alternate reality, but that hypothesis is not testable.  Another soundbyte that has got a lot of play is John Boehner's tearful "After 3,000 of our fellow citizens died at the hands of these terrorists, when are we going to stand up and take them on? When are we going to defeat 'em?" That is not the pertinent question. Rather ask, "When are we going to stand down from these people?" We already got us right where they want us. Some Republican or other, I can't recall who, had the absolute, fatuous arrogance to assert that we will see the light at the end of the tunnel, come September. The conventional riposte is, "Yeah, and it's the headlight of an oncoming train." There is no light. We're groping in black void, hoping to find a wall, and to feel our way to the opening of a tunnel. The tunnel has already left the station. Follow the tropes. We have our ass in a crack in Iraq, and Dead Eye Dick is offering Iran the other cheek. The longer we stay, the bigger chunk we leave behind. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda has the Enemas-R-Us franchise. In all seriousness, folks, what we are facing away from is the Crack of Doom. It is too late to do our duty and get off the pot. The situation calls for a crowbar, not a plunger. Congress has handed the Plumber-in-Chief a new plunger; he's already got a fan. Open a frame shop, invest in Sherwin Williams, pray to the murderous God of Love, if conscience permits; we, as individuals, as a people, as a nation, will not make this right because we can't even make it to wrong. Well, it's a long, long time From May to December But the days grow short, When you reach September. And the autumn weather Turns the leaves to gray And I haven't got time For the waiting game. Music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Berthold Brecht, translated by Maxwell Anderson, and best sung by Lotte Lenya. 2:09:56 PM    comment []

Friday, May 04, 2007

CASSANDRA ALERT: GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE MODELS WRONG Memo to Senator Inhofe, Micheal Crichton, and all Global Warming deniers: Some of them pesky climatologers, geophysicalists, and scienterrorists have finally admitted their fancy supercomputer generated climate change models are WRONG. In a study of Arctic sea ice, they 'fessed up; it turns out, after you throw out all the big words, the North Polar ice cap is most likely melting THREE TIMES FASTER than their models predicted: Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) found that satellite and other observations show the Arctic ice cover is retreating more rapidly than estimated by any of the eighteen computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in preparing its 2007 assessments. The study, "Arctic Sea Ice Decline: Faster Than Forecast?" will appear tomorrow in the online edition of Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). Julienne Stroeve of NSIDC led the study, with funding from NASA. NCAR’s principal sponsor is the National Science Foundation. The Arctic is highly sensitive to global warming.  However, the study shows that Arctic ice retreat is happening more quickly than any of the IPCC models have indicated.  "This suggests that current model projections may in fact provide a conservative estimate of future Arctic change, and that the summer Arctic sea ice may disappear considerably earlier than IPCC projections," said Stroeve. <snip> "Because of this disparity, the shrinking of summertime ice is about thirty years ahead of the climate model projections," said NSIDC scientist and co-author Ted Scambos. Y'all can read the press release HERE. Just think. The long sought Northwest Passage will finally be open to shipping. Some Inuit village above the Arctic Circle in Alaska or Canada might become a booming freeport city, sorta like a Dubai of the North, ruled over by some Sheik of the Eskimos. At the very least they could open some casinos like the American Indian tribes of the lower 48. Hit the jackpot at Nanook's Big Igloo. Just think. Those polar bears won't have an ice floe to stand on. Just think. Instead of sushi bars, mukluk bars. All the surviving polar bears could be trained to perform in casino circus acts; Cirque du Soleil de Minuit. 7:48:37 AM    comment []

Thursday, January 11, 2007

FRESH SCISSOR DANCE THE TIME IS NOW 9:41:50 PM    comment []