Wait ... what?

MSNBC just posted a story about terrorists attacking a government building with chlorine gas bombs.

And how did they title the web page? "Iraqi police go on killing spree; 45 killed". What?

Turns out that, in a completely unrelated incident, a Shiite militia which included some off-duty Iraqi Police officers went on a rampage in a Sunni town and shot a bunch of people. A Major-General from the Iraqi Army division that put a halt to it observed that "army interference" prevented a larger carnage. Can somebody please 'splain to retarded little me how "terrorists using chemical weapons" gets essentially ignored, while "Iraqi army does their job and puts down militia attacks" gets spun as if the Iraqi Police forces conducted an official operation of murdering?

Bah!

HamNation: Better living through activism.

Whoosh! Boom! Splat!

I'll be ordering one, thank you

I'm not a photographer

I look at a work of genius like this and realize I'm not really a photographer; I'm just a guy who takes snapshots of stuff. It's inspiring, though. Go and see.

Yet another "300" review

Neal Stephenson reviews "300" which I haven't yet seen. I will be seeing it, but likely without the company of my wife or my best friend. They probably won't see it until it comes out on DVD, and perhaps not even then.

But I will.

Beatbox-a-palooza

Beatbox-a-palooza!

First up, "Naturally 7" performing on the Metro:

Concert sauvage dans le métro !
Uploaded by lapapsprod

"Naturally 7"s actual video for this arrangement

Here's a beatboxer trying out for French "Pop Idol". Good job, dude.


Roxorloops (a Belgian dude) showing off

I'm noticing a pattern here.


Beatboxer at an "Australian Idol" try-out (this dude's seriously working it)


SHLOMO throwin' it down


Beardyman in the kitchen! Woo hoo for Beardyman!

Beardyman on his own page

And now you can buy DVDs to learn how to beatbox.

(Most of this lifted straight from bOing bOing)

BSG mash-ups

I still haven't actually seen an episode of "Battlestar Galactica," but Lee assures me it's good. I might have to watch it once or twice, since they're apparently pomo enough to have a BSG mash-up toolkit with an associated contest.

I might have to put "MOTORMOUTH" on hold and see what I can do with these high-production-quality bits of stuff.

Calyx and Corolla are the best.

I ordered some flowers for my sweetie last week, and they arrived today. They were from Calyx & Corolla, whom I highly recommend for all flower purchases. We have never had any problems with them, and the flowers look super spectacular, and they last approximately eleventeen hundred billion times longer than grocery store flowers.

The new flowers arrived today and, as usual, they look staggeringly gorgeous (I'll take a photo when I get home tonight and post it). Unfortunately the vase got broken during shipment. So I called their customer service number and told the lady who answered the phone that the flowers looked great but the vase was broken. I said I needed to arrange to send back the broken vase and get a replacement out. She said "never mind ... just throw away the old vase. We'll send you a new one out."

She didn't ask me my sooper-seekrit customer number. She didn't ask me my order number. She repeated my name, asked my ZIP Code, and verified that this was about the tulips I sent to Kathy. Now THAT'S customer service.

Now go buy some flowers. http://www.calyxandcorolla.com

UPDATE:

Econ 101 in 5 minutes

10 Principles of Economics, Translated

So there you go ... he just saved you two whole semesters of your life.

Nobody ever tells me nothin'

Charlie the Unicorn.

How come nobody ever tells me about these things, huh?

P.S. Shuuuuuunn the non-believer! Shuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnn

Social networking ftw

Don't have enough hawt chyx as friends on your MySpace page? Feel like it might keep you from looking like a playa? FakeYourSpace.com can fix that for you for a small fee.

BWA ha ha ha ha!

Net Neutrality redux

Let me state right up front that I'm in favor of Net Neutrality. I believe strongly that my contract with my ISP is for delivery of bits, and I really don't want them trying to shape my traffic based on the source for those bits. I paid for bit delivery, and I've asked for those particular bits, and I expect my ISP to send me those bits at the agreed-upon terms for speed and bandwidth. If they didn't like that contract, they should have tried to negotiate different terms beforehand.

My friend Dan has argued the other side of this on several occasions. I suspect he's doing it just for the fun of arguing (I'm guilty of that myself quite often). I'll have to ask him to remind me of his most compelling argument so that I can write it down and demolish it with vim and vitriol.

Fair Use insurance for documentary film makers

Lawrence Lessig announces legal support for documentary film makers who abide by a few guidelines for ensuring they're not running afoul of "Fair Use" of copyrighted materials.

Someday I hope to have need of this service.

If the robots win ...

If The Robots Win We'll Have To Listen To Techno

Oh, that Tim Blair

Tim Blair talks about his nation's efforts to enable lightbulb-smuggling criminals, including this choice quote

Australia’s output of greenhouse gases amounts to 1.6% of the global total. A reduction of 4 million tonnes in one year will cut that output to ... 1.58%. Not a bad trade in exchange for becoming a half-illuminated nation of squinty mole-people.

Hot Air edits Hillary's latest speechification

+1 on continuing the conversation

See. Listen. Understand.

A message to the Republican party from the modern world.

To be honest, I'm of two minds about this. First, the message is a bit dilute because I could easily see it being a message to the DNC from the modern world; there's nothing inherently conservative or small-government here. It isn't even strongly individualistic, although it at least suggests that individual people can matter through its repeated use of "I" and "me" rather than "we" and "us".

Second, the message doesn't seem to have much message to it. What exactly do you want the RNC to take away from viewing this?

Maybe I'm just a moron; that interpretation is always present and you could probably get at least some of my friends to agree with you on that topic.

Graphics tablets RAWK!!!

I've got this old Wacom graphics tablet. (It isn't actually that one, it's the model before that one; the Sapphire CTE-430 but, as I said, it's old). I hadn't actually used it much until recently, when I decided I was going to use it enough to form an actual opinion.

I have now decided that this thing is the bee's knees. It's amazing the difference it makes in Photoshop. Go buy one now and start using it.

Bonus style points

I think beatboxing is kind of interesting, but a little goes a long way. I'm awarding 100 bonus style points to this guy, though, for creativity plus mugging.

Dixie Chicks? Rly?

My beloved wife TiVo'd a bit of the Grammys for me to share, including the Red Hot Chili Peppers performance (woo hoo!). She told me about the Dixie Chicks "wins", to which I replied "fark them ... that was nothing but cheap political posturing on the part of the Grammy voters, whomever they may be." Looks like other people have the same dim view of Grammy voters.