In classic congressional fashion, the Senate has decided to use a crisis piece of legislation as a way to push through a massive package of other priorities forcing an inter-chamber factional battle to come to a head. The inclusion of this controversial legislation could also serve as a remedy to the current failure in the House.

Poison pill or appeasing antidote? We’ll wait and see.

read the bill

then tell everyone else to read the bill

--timball

Sunlight Foundation » The Other Provisions in the Senate Bailout Bill

OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?

BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

ha!

--timball

Op-Ed Columnist - Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

The BBC is following a shipping container around the world for a year, starting on Monday in Southampton.

Declan Curry explains why such containers are so important in the modern world.

The Beeb is doing a news show about following around a shipping container. it's an ongoing series so be sure to check back for new video content as well as an interactive map of where the container is.

Unfortunately the first shipment of scotch will be headed to asia.

--timball

BBC NEWS | Special Report | The Box

Project Golf 1.8T

I love my GTI. It's just passed 120k miles... it's been perfectly great to me. It's now time to make it go fast.

--timball

VWvortex - The Volkswagen Enthusiast Website

$150 awesome project board. A lot more expensive than avrs + thingies but look at all the miscellaneous features! I sense a HOT JOB coming up!

--timball

BeagleBoard.org - hardware

Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That (a) a revised edition of the brochure entitled ``How Our Laws Are Made'', under the direction of the Parliamentarian of the House of Representatives in consultation with the Parliamentarian of the Senate, shall be printed as a Senate document, with suitable paper cover in the style selected by the chairman of the Joint Committee on Printing. (b) There shall be printed-- (1)(A) 250,000 copies of the brochure for the use of the House of Representatives, distributed in equal numbers to each Member; (B) 100,000 copies of the brochure for the use of the Senate, distributed in equal numbers to each Member; (C) 2,000 copies of the brochure for the use of the Joint Committee on Printing; and (D) 1,400 copies of the brochure for distribution to the depository libraries; or (2) if the total printing and production costs of copies in paragraph (1) exceed $180,000, such number of copies of the brochure as does not exceed total printing and production costs of $180,000, with distribution to be allocated in the same proportion as in paragraph (1).

Most boring owner's manual ever.

--timball

HOW OUR LAWS ARE MADE -- From the Senate Documents Online via GPO Access

You give humanity a creative tool, the first thing a human will do is - well - make a tool with it. Since the Spore demo’s release, it’s become a bukkake wave sweeping the web: comedy pornographic images via Spore. Spornography - aka “Sporn”. Has it reached a climax yet? We don’t know, but we think it’s as good a time as any to stop and survey the lie of the land. And, yes, it’s sticky.

Beneath the cut you’ll find gathered a large selection of the phalluses, the pseudo-sex-acts and general disturbing animated parts of the gamers’ subconcious. For God’s sake, don’t click it at work.

Right - we’re dividing these into loose categories. There’s certainly some we’ve missed - there’s a brilliant missionary position one I can’t find again - but it’ll do for now. If you’ve got a favourite, please, post it in the comments thread and we’ll work it in later.

A bunch have been posted to YouTube and have been taken down due to terms-of-use
violations.

The funniest one is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPKvwd9vJZY

--timball

NSFW: A Beginners Guide To Sporn | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

a guy I met at hacdc has a really rad selection of bookmarks.

--timball

myself248's bookmarks on del.icio.us

HacDC is a non-profit organization and space dedicated to technical, artistic and social collaboration. We are technologists, tinkerers, crafters and codemonkeys who call DC home. We collaborate across disciplines for the benefit of cultural, charitable and scientific causes. We create, learn and teach as a group, inviting our neighbors around the block and around the world to join us!

HacDC is fun. Thus far we've had a python sprint, a lock-picking class and built some rather impressive shelves. At some point we'll have to play "the wtf-box" cause there's enough old and whacky equipment to be dangerous.

I've joined, you should too!

--timball

HACDC

The Landsat Program

The Landsat Program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Since 1972, Landsat satellites have collected information about Earth from space. This science, known as remote sensing, has matured with the Landsat Program.

Landsat satellites have taken specialized digital photographs of Earth’s continents and surrounding coastal regions for over three decades, enabling people to study many aspects of our planet and to evaluate the dynamic changes caused by both natural processes and human practices.

Awesome... the landsat program now has made available it's data in an awesome java based format!

--timball

The Landsat Program