Daft Punk: robots with a human side - Los Angeles Times
Topic: Miscellaneous
2:51 pm EDT, Jun 29, 2007
With zero dialogue and none of Daft Punk's own propulsive beats, "Electroma" has been met with some ire by critics and fans expecting one of the group's high-energy music videos, such as the Michel Gondry-directed "Around the World" or Spike Jonze's "Da Funk." Most of the audience walked out during the movie's screening at last year's Directors' Fortnight, a sidebar of the Cannes Film Festival.
De Homem-Christo isn't bothered by the reaction. "We wanted to make a different kind of movie, one that would leave more question marks than answers," he said. "With American blockbuster cinema, everything is very fast, there's a lot of action and narration…. Here, there are all these gaps the audience can fill."
Color me curious... I'll definitely be looking for this come September, or sooner if they do a screening.
As usual, when scientists tell you something, you can usually find the truth if you look in the opposite direction. What scientists label “positive”, the protons, actually- by their own theories- huddle in the center of the atom, slothful and lazy, sheltering the morally timid neutrons. The ones who go about, energizing things and spreading the Gospel, are the electrons. This leads me to believe that electrons are actually the positive moral force here, not the lazy, good-for-nothing neutrons and certainly not the vile, wicked, electron-counteracting, equivocation-enabling protons.
Electrons are the positive force in the atomic world. They are God’s servants. What, then, could they be, if not angels? Doesn’t this explain how the Lord is at work in every piece of technology we currently operate? Electrons power them all; ergo, the Lord, through the direct intercession of His servants, the angels, powers it all. It also explains smiting; thousands of angels come down from the Heavens and enter the skulls of the evildoers.
Bradrocket adds: I’m fairly certain Blogs4Brownback is parody at this point. Sadly, his basic premise about science isn’t too different from what Jeff Jacoby wrote in yesterday’s Globe:
Girl's feet severed on ride at Six Flags in Kentucky - CNN.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
11:33 am EDT, Jun 22, 2007
A girl's feet were cut off Thursday when a free-fall thrill ride malfunctioned at the Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom Amusement Park in Louisville, Kentucky, police said.
A cord wrapped around the 16-year-old's feet and severed them at her ankles while she was on the "Superman Tower of Power," a police dispatcher said. The girl was taken to a local hospital.
Boing Boing: Creep's threats shut down library reading program
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:58 am EDT, Jun 21, 2007
Jean says: "A news story from the School Library Journal describes how threatening emails and phonecalls saying that the library's summer reading program was promoting "withcraft" and "drug use" led to the librarian decided to cancel the program to keep preschoolers safe from picketers and threatened violence."
The Pickens County Library System’s half-hour summer programs for middle and high school students were supposed to take a light-hearted look at the topics "Secrets and Spies: How to Keep a Secret by Writing in Code or Making Invisible Ink" and "What’s Your Sign?" Another program was to examine astrology, palmistry, and numerology; and others were to feature tarot cards, tie-dying t-shirts, how to make a Zen garden, and yoga.
Now the programs are cancelled in the wake of phone and e-mail threats from the community, believed to emanate from a single local Baptist church. The astrology program was labeled as "witchcraft" by callers, while the Zen garden and yoga programs were objected to as "promoting other religions." The t-shirts workshop? "Promotes the hippie culture and drug use," callers said.
"If you have an anonymous call of a bomb, what do you do?" asks Library Director Marguerite Keenan, explaining her decision to cancel the YA programs. "You clear the building, you close the building for the protection of the children. And that’s hugely sad."
Domestic terrorism. It's not just for abortion clinics anymore!
Missing Soldier's Wife Faces Deportation, As Military Searches For Kidnapped Soldier In Iraq, U.S. Threatens To Send Wife Back To Dominican Republic - CBS News
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:57 am EDT, Jun 21, 2007
While the U.S. military searches for a soldier missing in Iraq, kidnapped by insurgents possibly allied with al Qaeda, his wife back home in Massachusetts may be deported by the U.S. government.
Army Spec. Alex Jimenez, who has been missing since his unit was attacked by insurgents in Iraq on May 12, had petitioned for a green card for his wife, Yaderlin Hiraldo, whom he married in 2004.
Their attorney, Matthew Kolken, said 23-year-old Hiraldo illegally entered the United States in 2001 to reunite with her husband, whom she had met in her native Dominican Republic and later married at his New York State Army base in 2004.
Junkiness » Blog Archive » Law and Order: Supreme Court Unit
Topic: Miscellaneous
12:55 am EDT, Jun 21, 2007
In yet another sign that the American system of government has gone deep down the rabbit-hole, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has cited the television show 24 as precedent in arguing for the legality of torture:
“Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand. “Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Scalia challenged his fellow judges.
'Voters are going to be mad with us until we end the war.'
Topic: Miscellaneous
2:40 pm EDT, Jun 18, 2007
"I understand their disappointment," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "We raised the bar too high."
This pisses me the fuck off. You raised the bar too high? Fuck you, Harry. Dems took congress because people were fed up with the war, and then on the first major opportunity, a giant funding bill you could have simply refused to pass, you FUCKING CAPITULATED to the president.
I'm sick of this bullshit talk about working together. The Republicans didn't give a flying fuck about working together when they were in power, and they're using current Democratic good will to continue fucking the country in the ass. It's time to stop being polite. It was time about 5 years ago.
Fuck them. Don't pass any more funding for the war, period. Make the public understand that the reason there's no money for domestic priorities like health care, research, roads, or anything else is because Bush and the Republicans refuse to listen to the American public and GET THE FUCK OUT NOW. Stonewall until we get what we fucking elected you for.
