fry and laurie for my sister...

this one's for you danya...

all you need to know about english here...

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wtf nature

i really dig this community called wtf nature. they basically post bizarre things related to nature. like the weird antelope above. or this swallowing fish. or these fainting goats. or awesome lighting. you get the idea.

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kid gets crump

this little kid definitely wins this crumping contest...



for those unfamiliar with crumping, you can educate yourself here or just watch a bunch of great (and not) videos here.

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goofy republicans pt. 2

this candidate for congress from alabama thinks those rascilly billionaire sheiks need to show some graditude! harri anne, you don't think that the record profits food companies are posting has anything to do with it, do you? the way she pronounces oil as "aul" makes me feel gross.

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giant political post... ugh.

a great image from the new york times a while back...


let's play catch up here...

george w. bush - you shouldn't have missed the big tell-all book by scott mcclellan, the former bush press secretary. the reaction has been somewhat predictable. there was also, of course, his lie about quitting golf for the troops (which was a ridiculous gesture anyway, considering he didn't give up mountain biking). also ridiculous was his comparison of negotiating with iran with appeasing hitler (both of the last stories very well mocked by jon stewart here)

dick cheney - you can look at this swell expanding map of his political connections (a la mark lombardi), watch him speak with lie-detector analysis, or just plain impeach him (click this!) scumbag.

donald rumsfeld and friends - former commander of the u.s. forces in iraq, ricardo sanchez blows the whistle on rummy covering his ass for something or other. some spanish journalists (with help from an american intelligence analyst) blow a big story of the pentagon intentionally killing war journalists in the movie "hotel palestine - killing the witness". you'll be appalled to know five hundred million dollars were spent building the world's largest u.s. embassy in iraq, complete with hundreds of apartments and an olympic-sized swimming pool. your tax dollars at play... in other miltary news, the HUGE story of pentagon sponsored propaganda broken by the new york times was nearly ignored by almost all the corporate media, but you can read the military's confessions here, or oggle the immense scope of the misinformation campaign here. surprisingly, one of the only people pushing for action on this is john kerry... you can read his initial action call here, and check for updates here. oh, and a proxy war with iran is going down in lebanon (also in iran through various u.s.-backed militia groups on several borders...)

john mccain - the man with eight houses still tries to appear un-elitist and a "maverick", post-partisan visionary. that post-partisanship thing is a joke with him. he's siding with bush again with voting against the immensely popular bi-partisan g.i. bill that would guarantee a college educations for veterans after three years of service. anyway, there is a good website where you can go to learn about mccain's untruths. i still can't get enough of "the straight face express" as my favorite mocking of mccain's meme of "the straight talk express". what's your favorite?

hillary clinton - i gravitate towards this woman's fairly sexist analysis of why hillary failed. it's really essentializing, but probably close to the truth. i think honesty (or lack there-of as displayed by her situational ethics) were the single biggest reason, but the article makes some good points.

barack obama - oh yeah, that guy. well when he's not getting adopted into the crow nation (i couldn't help myself here) or brokering "peace" in nigeria, he's consolidating the democratic party, clinton supporters and potentially the country... let's hope the secret service gets a little less racist when he's the president. more facts to help unravel slanderous lies about him can be found on this website.

if you haven't had enough politics yet (masochist!), you can read arriana's great essay "probing a political paradox: why the discredited right still sets the agenda and dominates the debate" or ponder why the republicans might be against a bill allowing election recounts (or even weirder, why they crowned a king!?!?!)

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stupid plug

the new indiana jones movie was a big comic book, but still kind of fun (especially because i didn't pay...) who can resist mesoamerican myths like the crystal skulls, not to mention semi-plausible alien visitation stories or dimensional beings?

UPDATE: the boston globe has a hilarious piece on whether indiana jones is a commie.

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i've got too much today for more than one post

so i'm just going to jam it into a rambler...

checked my list of music blogs today for the first time in a while... tons of fire there.

i found a mix by the long lost (to me) d.j. ripley. it's sure to be fire, but i haven't heard it yet. she blew my mind in 2003 in brooklyn. i've never spun the same way since. via mashit.

UPDATE: this mix is good, but it's much more 4/4 than her earlier jungle/rocksteady/noise/hip hop thing... all half-tempo blends and whatnot. still good, but definitely more hipster and house than what i'm familiar with.

FURTHER UPDATE: from the comments, d.j. ripley says "the whole theme of this one is me being dragged kicking & screaming into 4x4.. that's what the whole long spiel is about. How i don't want to, but it just happened. But never fear! the genresmashing is still there. check my blog, or this mix for more of that "

anyway, holy shit it's an awesome bomb from cauto. on the tremendous dutty artz (rupture and shadetek's label). this track starts to hint at the future melding of dubstep, techno and breakbeat jungle. the reggae aspect is my least favorite. i dig the fact that the bassline keeps changing... it's not just loops. i wasn't going to post this track, but now that palmsout.com did it, i'm gonna. buy the vinyl if you do that sort of thing.

(mp3) cauto - "bona vida" from "dutty artz remix zero ep"

i'm trying to figure out what this fast style of latin electronic music is, and i can't but i did locate kuduro, which is really cool (but different...)

also, listening to benji b fill in for the great mary anne hobbs show on bbc, i was turned on to the dorian concept, which i liked his track "the fucking formula", and the awesome jay electronica, and m.c. from the future. read that link for a really comprehensive look, or take the quick route and just watch a video (featuring a bit of alex grey... which isn't too surprising as he is signed by erykah badu and she digs grey as i've reported)... warning, graphic images in the video (of j.f.k.'s assasination, etc...)



on the video tip, don't miss this woman rocking her rights on saudi t.v., this display of schlieren photography, a taste trip with the miracle fruit, or a little electric piano jam by the very odd ronald jenkees (hello youtubes!).

oh, and i'm still ass deep in political musings, just haven't been posting much about it, because it's getting a bit old. i did hear something about obama having a white problem, but this photo seems to disagree, yeah?


love to yinz all!

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some scanned pages from world travels

these drawings are from my travel notebook in 2006. laura and i traveled to a ton of coutries in a pre-conception sweep including ireland, england, germany, denmark, netherlands, france, spain, morrocco, czech republic, austria, switzerland, italy & turkey. click on the images for hi-res scans.

this page is from dublin, ireland, where we saw the chester beatty library, a collection of rare and beautiful manuscripts. i copied this common ten-sided form from the cover of an old book.


this is a drawing of our view of the alhambra from the (illegal) rambutan hostel in granada, spain. the bad graffiti on this page doesn't do justice to the awesome graffiti of granada.


this page details some of the awesome crafts available in chefchaouen, morrocco.


this is an abstract drawing i did on the terrace of a beautiful hostel in marrakesh, morrocco listening to the prayer calls.


this semi-observational drawing was inspired by the beautiful boboli gardens in florence, italy.


most of the other pages are text-heavy or quite personal, but maybe i'll post some others sometime.

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utah phillips - rest on...

goodbye, utah. the legendary folk singer passed away in the night. he was train hopper, activist and a die-hard wobbly.

i listened to this great interview on democracy now today with him from 2004.

four things caught my ear.

1. a song he was singing about how while he might not sail on the ship, he's still gonna build it. 2. they've got the money, but we've got the time, and they'll run out of money before we run out of time. 3. make a living, not a killing. 4. donations can be given to hospitality house shelter in his memory.

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it's an old story, but bears re-examination, maybe...

with all this talk of the war on terrorism, it's easy to forget that we've been engaging in another war on a noun for many years now... the war on drugs! so let's check out a few tasty tidbits of this sordid tale.

1. this story last year my re-ignited interest in this topic... a crashed drug plane turned out to be recently owned by the u.s.

2. it reminded me of the (mostly true?) story of the cia and nicuraguan contras and the introduction to crack cocaine.

3. while there have been some improvements, the sentencing for crack vs. cocaine is very racist, 25 years vs. 5 years for 1 gram.

4. the u.s. has the highest number per capita of people in prison of anywhere in the world, mostly non-violent drug offendors.

5. according to this clock, the war on drugs cost already 20 billion dollars this year. not as much as the iraq war, but still a lot of money.

6. countries that have legalized drugs have much lower rates of use and abuse. there is far more drug use in america than in amsterdam.

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blasts from the future

city planning in dubai (slideshow)
poems evolve all day (images)
brains see beyond now (article)

kj sawka plays jungle:

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