tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55054912011-11-02T14:16:36.027-07:00Behold the boasted world has come to nothingK.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.comBlogger4181100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-32919583893011769052010-07-15T17:24:00.000-07:002010-07-15T17:25:47.716-07:00

london's clogged veins

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-60397493525046020792010-05-16T12:32:00.000-07:002010-05-16T13:07:26.812-07:00

Russia 'plans to stop asteroid' The Signalman on Youtube 'World's best job' man stung by tiny, lethal jellyfish First case of highly drug-resistant TB found in US Australian bees 'mummify' their beetle enemy alive Auschwitz death camp sign stolen Cormac McCarthy’s Typewriter Brings $254,500 at Auction No Country for Old Typewriters: A Well-Used One Heads to Auction Galileo's Finger 'Body

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-68348421194341650492010-03-02T14:46:00.000-08:002010-03-02T14:59:22.247-08:00

"Up until 1940, when you started taking legitimate clients, about how many professional criminals did you help evade the law?""I have no idea.""More than a hundred?"Smile. "Oh, yes. Far more.""Aren't you afraid of the retribution of justice?""At this late date? Hardly.""You will never be punished by the law.""Never. I'm sure of it.""And you obviously haven't lost your money or your social

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-7488845365337191132010-01-30T13:28:00.000-08:002010-01-30T13:36:33.510-08:00

The hope of the future [rests] in the invention of new weapons and tactics that will be so cheap to obtain and so easy to use that they will increase the effectiveness of guerrilla warfare so greatly that the employment of our present weapons of mass destruction will become futile, and on this basis there can be a revival of democracy and of political decentralization in all three parts of our

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-90210947866374483992010-01-25T18:24:00.000-08:002010-01-30T13:37:32.294-08:00

“While American democracy is imperfect,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, “few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”link

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-89835425933963896572010-01-21T20:56:00.000-08:002010-04-09T14:55:03.780-07:00

history will call today the last nail in the coffin of american democracy.the most laughable quotes:"We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavoured speakers," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.[rebuttal] corporations are "speakers?" it's not censorship to stifle the speech of a business. the government

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-15749883829160262892009-12-08T14:08:00.000-08:002009-12-08T14:10:13.717-08:00

Cormac McCarthy’s Typewriter Brings $254,500 at Auction

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-62714003434335987482009-12-02T00:00:00.000-08:002009-12-01T23:57:00.108-08:00

Cormac McCarthy's typewriter is for sale.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-22053752719241386642009-12-01T00:30:00.001-08:002009-12-01T00:34:32.276-08:00

.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-52288280971377100982009-09-19T16:42:00.000-07:002009-09-19T16:46:32.147-07:00

You do not return from the world of war. You yearn for its sleek and powerful weapons, its speed and noise, its ability to abolish the lines between sanity and madness. You long for the alluring, hallucinogenic landscapes of combat. You miss the visions of carnage and suffering, the smells, sounds, shrieks, explosions and destruction that jolt you back to the present, which make you aware in ways

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-55242921700972080192009-08-25T16:40:00.000-07:002009-08-25T16:44:39.016-07:00

Craigslist is old-fashioned in any number of ways. It relies on email and the telephone in an era of SMS and social networks. It sticks to traceless transactions in an industry that makes its living collecting data from every touch. And just as people who run technical companies are reaching an apex of confidence in their ability to invent new forms of community based on sharing everything,

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-27471208123413875352009-07-30T00:58:00.000-07:002009-07-30T01:21:48.479-07:00

I want to stay away from political topics, but when someone hits the bullseye on a vital issue, quoting them saves me the trouble of repeating the whole thing multiple times. That's what Matt Taibbi's done on health care reform: This whole business, it was a litmus test for whether or not we even have a functioning government. Here we had a political majority in congress and a popular president

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-35086749047370739822009-07-16T17:04:00.000-07:002009-07-16T17:05:44.720-07:00

Keiser's a bit of a clown, but that don't mean he's wrong.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-61200845647050345492009-07-02T18:28:00.000-07:002009-07-02T18:38:52.083-07:00

Kentucky, circa 1960

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-18907614213368686502009-06-11T23:32:00.000-07:002009-06-11T23:39:35.654-07:00

A Spanish bakery accused of barbaric behaviour towards an illegal worker will face "the full weight of the law", the government has vowed.The statement comes amid shock over the case of a Bolivian worker whose arm was cut off in an accident at work.Bosses at the bakery in Valencia are accused of dumping him 100m (330 feet) from the hospital entrance and throwing the severed limb in a rubbish

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-67833897477870123072009-05-26T19:42:00.000-07:002009-05-26T19:44:48.562-07:00

The finest statue of a man would be a horse that has thrown him off.-Elias Canetti

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-801984503425925432009-05-07T15:09:00.000-07:002009-05-07T15:14:18.970-07:00

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Vice Chairman Charles Munger, whose company is the largest private shareholder in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co., said banks will use their “enormous political power” to prevent changes to the industry that would benefit society.“This is an enormously influential group of people, and 90 percent of that influence is being spent to gain powers and practices

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-21044244503068328102009-04-18T17:27:00.000-07:002009-04-18T18:19:39.898-07:00

What does it say about us when the whole nation rejoices because the U.S. Navy, the most powerful navy on earth, defeated four Somali teenagers?-William S. Lind

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-39220694869221897222009-03-23T13:47:00.000-07:002009-03-23T13:51:23.640-07:00

Years now without coffee, without alcohol, without tobacco... Luckily, there is anxiety, which usefully replaces the strongest stimulants.-E.M. Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-5507600540490178722009-02-12T14:36:00.000-08:002009-02-12T14:54:51.316-08:00

"I will never forget the sight of that thin short man, wearing nothing but cotton underpants, strapped into a harness arrangement, disappearing down into a dark manhole beneath the streets.When I looked down that hole into the drains of Delhi, the smell was overwhelming. Down below, he was coughing, trying hard to keep breathing.He was struggling to clear a blockage with his bare hands. All of a

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-88945007726452475472009-01-25T10:49:00.000-08:002009-01-25T10:49:00.112-08:00

"The key thing is that the process essentially makes carbon into smoke, but because the smoke particles are long thin nanotubes, they entangle and hold hands," Windle said. "We are actually making elastic smoke, which we can then wind up into a fiber."

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-832089050366245502009-01-24T13:17:00.000-08:002009-01-24T13:27:56.432-08:00

So it has been done and a series of such lighthouses has been erected. They had to be fully autonomous, because they were situated hundreds and hundreds miles aways from any populated areas. After reviewing different ideas on how to make them work for a years without service and any external power supply, Soviet engineers decided to implement atomic energy to power up those structures. So,

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-49318823729766823292009-01-14T14:40:00.000-08:002009-01-14T14:44:21.072-08:00

Patrick McGoohan dead at 80.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-89595231439416301582009-01-10T14:17:00.001-08:002009-02-04T17:30:50.754-08:00

"A Texas death row inmate with a history of mental problems pulled out his only good eye and told prison officers he ate it.Andre Thomas, 25, was arrested for the fatal stabbings of his estranged wife, their young son and her 13-month-old daughter in March 2004. Their hearts had been ripped out."Many disturbing things about this story, not least of which is that there's a psychiatric prison in

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-27259315643817897132008-12-20T14:11:00.000-08:002008-12-20T15:59:22.659-08:00

Decades after a notorious experiment, scientists have found test subjects are still willing to inflict pain on others - if told to by an authority figure.US researchers repeated the famous "Milgram test", with volunteers told to deliver electrical shocks to another volunteer - played by an actor.Even after faked screams of pain, 70% were prepared to increase the voltage, the American Psychology

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-43156925282031993872008-12-13T14:57:00.000-08:002009-01-24T13:33:39.582-08:00

“Wendy and Lucy” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has some swearing, a little drug use and a brief implication of violence, but no nudity, sex or murder. The rating seems to reflect, above all, an impulse to protect children from learning that people are lonely and that life can be hard.Soundtrack by Will Oldham.update 1/24/09: According to an Oldham radio

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-50556570939604419922008-11-24T15:02:00.001-08:002008-11-24T15:03:41.812-08:00

There is something of the charlatan in anyone who triumphs in any realm whatever.-E.M. Cioran, Anathemas and Admirations

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-3171110959010004872008-11-15T15:46:00.000-08:002008-11-15T16:11:27.042-08:00

Some anthropologists hesitate to make direct links between ancient and modern societies, deeming it out of academic bounds. Not Webster. "In common with the Maya, we're not very rational in how we think about how the world works. They had their rituals and sacrifices. Magic, in other words. And we also believe in magic: that money and innovation can get us out of the inherent limits of our system

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-85571130002437739142008-10-26T15:18:00.001-07:002008-10-26T15:21:49.056-07:00

Andrew Lahde's $80m Los Angeles-based firm Lahde Capital Management in Los Angeles made a huge return last year by betting against subprime mortgages.Yesterday the 37-year-old told his clients that he had hated the business and had only been in it for the money. And after declaring he would no longer manage money for other people, because he had enough of his own, Lahde said that instead he

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-24879763399206365182008-10-21T13:34:00.000-07:002008-10-21T13:57:58.979-07:00

Bendy-buses with the slogan "There's probably no God" could soon be running on the streets of London.The atheist posters are the idea of the British Humanist Association (BHA) and have been supported by prominent atheist Professor Richard Dawkins.The BHA planned only to raise £5,500, which was to be matched by Professor Dawkins, but it has now raised more than £36,000 of its own accord.It aims to

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-88175464594716513672008-09-27T16:26:00.000-07:002008-09-27T16:33:52.583-07:00

The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-39378361234408962622008-08-17T01:52:00.000-07:002008-09-27T16:31:11.207-07:00

As we talked, I noticed a fellow mortarman sitting next to me. He held a handful of coral pebbles in his left hand. With his right hand he idly tossed them into the open skull of the Japanese machine gunner. Each time his pitch was true I heard a little splash of rainwater in the ghastly receptacle. My buddy tossed the coral chunks as casually as a boy casting pebbles into a puddle on some

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-48733801719497431862008-08-04T16:52:00.000-07:002008-10-26T15:24:17.828-07:00

The total amount of suffering in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute it takes me to say these words, thousands of animals are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, feeling teeth sink into their throats. Thousands are dying from starvation or disease or feeling a parasite rasping away from within. There is no central authority; no safety net. For most

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-75037101286645697552008-08-01T15:49:00.000-07:002008-08-01T19:39:18.489-07:00

Something strange in the water today at the BBC:A woman caused uproar in court when she pulled two fingers from her handbag claiming they had belonged to one of her six children.The court heard Fakorede, who holds joint Nigerian and British citizenship, invented 20 aliases to make 39 false tax credit claims over a five-year period.Fakorede blamed the fraud on unknown "forces of darkness", who she

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-3616297637067803182008-05-27T19:08:00.000-07:002008-05-27T19:19:08.421-07:00

A 34-year-old farmer in Kumamoto, Japan, killed himself by ingesting the agricultural chemical chloropicrin. Hospitalized before dying, he injured 54 people by vomiting toxic chlorine gas.- from Harper's weekly updateChloropicrin was used as a chemical weapon in the Great War.Also mentioned: resomation

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-49940994377506702912008-04-12T15:14:00.000-07:002008-04-12T15:16:32.991-07:00

An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey.The naked body of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, 33, known as Pippa Bacca, was found in bushes near the northern city of Gebze on Friday.She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-59460819423669292252008-04-01T13:49:00.000-07:002008-04-12T15:18:09.214-07:00

The village of Roecken, Germany, [this week] debated moving Friedrich Nietzsche's grave in order to extract the coal underneath his remains.-from Harper's Weekly

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-13833985611369181772008-03-27T13:44:00.000-07:002008-03-28T13:28:44.563-07:00

The 10-second recording was made by a Parisian inventor, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on April 9 1860, when Emperor Napoleon III, the last monarch of France, was on the throne.It was made a whole 17 years before Thomas Edison made his historic message, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on a phonograph, which is the landmark event in the history of recorded sound.Scott de Martinville's gadget, a "

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-65304815759375925832008-03-26T23:50:00.000-07:002008-03-26T23:54:29.333-07:00

On March 23, 2006 the Federal Reserve ceased publication of the M3 monetary aggregate, in line with an announcement it made in November, 2005. The M3 is a measure of money supply in the United States.The M3 is most general of the many measures of money supply, the quantity of money available within the economy for purchasing goods, services, and securities. The money supply is monitored and

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-34944244152172407692008-01-22T23:57:00.000-08:002008-04-01T15:06:12.067-07:00

British researchers determined that children universally dislike clowns, finding them "unknowable." It was observed that Tahina spectabilis, a giant palm tree of Madagascar, commits suicide when it flowers at the end of its century-long lifespan, and Hungarian scientists created a computer program that, based on its analysis of 6,000 barks from 14 Hungarian sheepdogs, can exceed human capability

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-7038200325372540882007-10-27T15:04:00.000-07:002007-10-27T15:18:05.977-07:00

Got obsessed by The Wire earlier this year- and by creator David Simon's bleak take on urban life, drugs, etc. Couldn't recommend the show more highly, but it's not garden-variety dark, it's 91% cacao dark - that is to say, bitter. And it offers few answers. Every time someone tries to make things better, the law of cosmic redress (in the form of irony, fate, human nature, what have you)

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-78956841226114710202007-09-29T17:54:00.000-07:002007-09-29T18:00:28.452-07:00

Charlie Brooker's still got it:This time it had lost part of its face. More blood, but still no body. Clearly, this wasn't a rat trap. It was a rat whittling machine.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-918668078479080282007-08-28T13:10:00.000-07:002009-01-10T14:26:45.698-08:00

What a difference a month makes! Well, you may see no difference, but it's there, all the same. She's plumper, more alert, and almost certainly blue-eyed. She can almost always hold her head up now (she forgets sometimes), and if she's not sitting up, you'd better get her sitting up. She retails for $49,995 and easy payments can be arranged.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-11873188827705086872007-07-31T12:36:00.000-07:002008-12-09T15:36:32.452-08:00

Well, papa takes a little mess. He wipes it off with a warm washcloth, re-diapers, and swaddles to the best of his ability. Her name is Florie, and she couldn't be any better.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-7872652298243880592007-05-21T12:31:00.000-07:002008-12-09T15:36:34.052-08:00

Some shitwit set the Cutty Sark on fire last night. A tea-clipper; frequent sight in the South China Sea in the days of Jack Tar; in dry dock now and forever more; a reminder of things lost, a symbol of things vital to be preserved. Some photos taken there July, 2004 follow. Last shot is of the creepy eyeless man they keep (kept?) in one of the cabins. Love to Doug and Kat, who were on that

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-19422093891484288432007-04-12T12:24:00.000-07:002008-08-05T19:15:18.514-07:00

The idea that the human race is going anywhere is a childhood myth, like Santa Claus.- Kurt Vonnegut

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-20764621526182924812007-03-30T12:06:00.000-07:002008-12-09T15:36:34.173-08:00

With a lead like that, who needs a post?It wouldn't be difficult to rant against this particular transgression of the natural order, this mixture of the sublime and the insipid- but nature, one should remember, orders herself variously. In my preferred version, Cormac McCarthy isn't aware that Oprah Winfrey or her fans exist. His novels have readers who understand and sympathize with the

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-31154374747988216102007-03-23T12:59:00.000-07:002008-12-09T15:36:34.307-08:00

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-78327021137579760062007-03-16T13:57:00.000-07:002008-12-09T15:36:34.496-08:00

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-86826048764225589352007-02-23T12:16:00.000-08:002007-02-23T14:35:28.206-08:00

Decline is hard to define. There are usually countervailing trends — we grow older but also smarter. Right now we clearly are not living in as brilliant an age as classical Greece, the 18th century or even the turn of the 20th century.(1890-1910 was an enormously creative period of Western civilization: in science, art, performing arts and respectable literature. In fact, nearly all the

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-9664269884413779682007-02-14T15:27:00.000-08:002007-02-14T15:38:09.163-08:00

When the three had eaten food, the boy said to the old woman:"Grandmother, cut me in two!"But she demurred, saying that she did not wish to kill one whom she loved so dearly."Cut me in two!" demanded the boy; and he gave her a stone ax, which he had brought from a distant country, and with a manner of great authority he again commanded her to cut him in two. So she stood before him and severed

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1169238234151423372007-01-19T12:04:00.000-08:002007-01-19T12:26:17.816-08:00

Some Sphex wasps drop a paralyzed insect near the opening of the nest. Before taking provisions into the nest, the Sphex first inspects the nest, leaving the prey outside. During the wasp's inspection of the nest an experimenter can move the prey a few inches away from the opening of the nest. When the Sphex emerges from the nest ready to drag in the prey, it finds the prey missing. The Sphex

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1168898846435234172007-01-15T14:06:00.000-08:002007-01-15T14:10:50.786-08:00

Among the unpleasant scents often reported by those suffering from parosmia or phantosmia are the smells of death (rotting flesh), feces, vomit, garbage, and smoke. Research done at the Monell Chemical Senses Center has identified the smell of rotting flesh as the worst scent in the world, across cultures. Interestingly, the United States Department of Defense has a stake in this research, for

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1164870786210175772006-11-29T23:12:00.000-08:002006-11-29T23:16:50.263-08:00

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1163102594663420632006-11-09T11:59:00.000-08:002006-11-09T12:05:38.260-08:00

Douglas McDougal, from the NEAS, said: "We received a call stating there was a male who had a firework in his bottom and it was bleeding."

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1163020041144380282006-11-08T13:00:00.000-08:002006-11-08T13:07:22.180-08:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } , originally uploaded by minta.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1160101617416849282006-10-05T19:26:00.000-07:002006-10-05T19:44:01.970-07:00

From IMDB news:R. Lee Ermey, the actor who played the menacing drill instructor in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987), says that two weeks before his death, Kubrick phoned him to express his despondency over Eyes Wide Shut, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, which reportedly had taken longer than any film in history to film and which was only in a rough-cut state. "He told me it was a

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1159906693304926302006-10-03T12:39:00.000-07:002006-10-04T12:39:49.546-07:00

Air crash survival! Have you heard a funnier one-liner recently? Because I haven't. There are a million reasons this is a knee-slapper, but to pick just one, there's the life preserver under your seat. Why is this funny? Because there's not a single documented case of a wide-body jet (the kind most of us fly in) landing successfully on water, as a recent Economist article pointed out. Not

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1157832043036487732006-09-09T12:54:00.000-07:002006-09-09T13:00:43.050-07:00

It was the first time I had seen him since 1927 when I covered his arrival at Le Bourget. Surprised how little he had changed, except that he seemed more self-confident. Later we went for a ride in Germany's largest land plane, the Field-Marshal von Hindenburg. Somewhere over Wannsee Lindbergh took the controls himself and treated us to some very steep banks, considering the size of the plane,

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1156361426225816532006-08-23T12:22:00.000-07:002006-08-23T12:34:54.673-07:00

... is cockney.Cows have regional accents like humans, language specialists have suggested.The farmers in Somerset who noticed the phenomenon said it may have been the result of the close bond between them and their animals.Farmer Lloyd Green, from Glastonbury, said: "I spend a lot of time with my ones and they definitely moo with a Somerset drawl.Follow the link and hear the cows moooooo!

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1155350630741816502006-08-11T19:40:00.000-07:002006-08-11T19:48:50.900-07:00

Little dose of reality from William Lind:One pointer to a shift in the tactical balance is the comparative casualty counts. According to the Associated Press, as of this writing Lebanese dead total at least 642, of whom 558 are civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers (who, at least officially, are not in the fight) and only 55 Hezbollah fighters. So Israel, with its American-style hi-tech “precision

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1154986194747529352006-08-07T14:19:00.000-07:002006-08-07T14:34:37.333-07:00

My edit of Michael Chabon's excellent article on the Clock of the Long Now:Ten thousand years from now: can you imagine that day? Okay, but do you? Do you believe “the Future” is going to happen? If the Clock works the way that it’s supposed to do—if it lasts—do you believe there will be a human being around to witness, let alone mourn its passing, to appreciate its accomplishment, its

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1154659341697794052006-08-03T19:41:00.000-07:002010-05-26T16:13:47.579-07:00

IMAGE REMOVED BY REQUEST OF INTERESTED PARTIESEver wondered what Tony Millionaire looks like?

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1154294737768950592006-07-30T14:06:00.000-07:002006-07-30T14:25:37.903-07:00

I'm finally reading Herzog on Herzog, mentioned back in March, and it's filled with bizarre tales - as might be expected. I hadn't known Herzog was such a physical filmmaker - but he was an athlete in his youth - and he purposefully brings himself into bodily contact with his actors and crew, often staying glued to his cinematographer, virtually dancing with him through camera moves. Which has

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1152386651620795452006-07-08T12:08:00.000-07:002006-07-08T12:31:56.516-07:00

He pictured the United States as a land of gross and greedy materialism, utterly lacking in literary and artistic originality or refinement. He also included personal recollections that suggest some of the sources of his resentment.In particular, he was offended by the exaggerated patriotism of Americans, their continual boasting of themselves as the freest, most advanced, most intelligent

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1151695158657308322006-06-30T12:17:00.000-07:002006-08-04T15:36:05.213-07:00

The time-dilation effect of free enterprise continues... don't know if I'm having fun, but tempus sure is friggin' fugit. The books come, the books go. That Mein Kampf finally sold a couple of weeks ago after being pawed by half the city. Two pretty girls were just in and oohed and ahhed over a pricey Vargas pin-up girl book I have in the window. They didn't take it, but at least they were

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1150743057912679162006-06-19T11:50:00.000-07:002006-06-19T11:52:48.016-07:00

But will the Cockroach-Men know where to find it?

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1149104247257200322006-05-31T12:05:00.000-07:002006-05-31T12:37:27.510-07:00

Oh my... long time, no post. The shop is pretty busy these days, not saying I make any money, mind you. The road to profitability is callin' though, and my ramblin' feet have begun to itch, if you take my meaning. In the last couple of months, I've picked up four collections - the first two of a few hundred books each, all of a pretty high quality. The last two have been quite large by my

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1147991656215634792006-05-18T15:33:00.000-07:002006-05-18T15:36:10.053-07:00

"If I heard the Lord right about 2006, the coasts of America will be lashed by storms," Robertson said May 8. On Wednesday, he added, "There well may be something as bad as a tsunami in the Pacific Northwest."

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1146180051418096572006-04-27T16:17:00.000-07:002006-04-27T16:21:17.923-07:00

In La Mancha he mopeth,With beard thin and dusty;He doteth and mopethIn library fusty-'Mong his old folios gropeth:Cites obsolete sawsof chivalry's laws-Be the wronged one's knight:Die, but do right.So he rusts and musts,While each grocer greenThriveth apace with the fulsome faceOf a fool serene.-Melville

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1144913721427768992006-04-13T00:17:00.000-07:002006-04-13T00:35:21.470-07:00

Dante situates Mohammed in the ninth chasm of the Malebolge for having sown division in the Church. He is seen slashed open from his chin to his anus and with his innards spilling out.In retaliation, Muslim fundamentalists in the early 1990s threatened to blow up Dante's tomb in Ravenna.Seven hundred years after the fact.-David Markson,Reader's Block

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1144018247832279302006-04-02T15:48:00.000-07:002006-04-02T15:50:47.846-07:00

Dr. Eric R. Pianka and an unidentified woman from the University of Texas at Arlington following a recent speech before the Texas Academy of Science in which Pianka endorsed airborne Ebola as an efficient means for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population. Pianka received an enthusiastic and prolonged standing ovation. Later he received more applause from a banquet hall filled with more

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1143245702872402702006-03-24T15:58:00.000-08:002006-03-24T16:32:42.786-08:00

Werner Herzog keeps popping up for me lately. The White Diamond, recently rented, seemed pretty heavily fictitious, or at least exclusive of large pieces of reality surrounding his subject. Still recommended, still a really solid piece of filmmaking. Also stumbled onto a copy of Paul Cronin's Herzog on Herzog, which I'm eager to get reading... but today, I found out about his new film, Rescue

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1142631070251813402006-03-17T13:18:00.000-08:002006-03-17T13:31:10.296-08:00

To understand war we have to get at its myths, recognize that war is a mythical happening, that those in the midst of it are removed to a mythical state of being, that their return from it seems rationally inexplicable, and that the love of war tells of a love of the gods, the gods of war; and that no other account- political, historical, sociological, psychoanalytical- can penetrate (which is

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1141677647400012692006-03-06T12:38:00.000-08:002006-03-06T14:08:18.216-08:00

It's still there, I guess. But hanging on by a thread. The BBC's John Simpson certainly thinks so:In 1978, as the revolution in Iran unfolded, it was clear to those of us who spent our days out in the streets, seeing the mounting violence for ourselves, that the demonstrators were losing their fear of the Shah and his forces.At the time I often used to visit the highly intelligent and generous

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1141262184972847492006-03-01T17:16:00.000-08:002006-03-01T17:16:25.033-08:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } , originally uploaded by minta.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1140916532648130862006-02-25T17:09:00.000-08:002006-02-27T11:44:14.773-08:00

John Holtum, known around the world as the Cannonball King, was perhaps the stellar attraction. He was a 38-year-old Dane who had developed the skill of catching a cannonball fired at him from the far side of the circus ring. The first time he tried this, the ball, which weighed fifty pounds and at the time it struck him was moving at more than a hundred miles an hour, took off three of his

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1140728624142432982006-02-23T12:59:00.000-08:002006-02-23T13:09:56.700-08:00

While we're in the midst of this uncharacteristic positive phase, Minta would like to take the opportunity to cheerlead for Charlie Brooker. His column offers regular reassurance that other sane individuals exist. Unless he's a figment of my imagination. Brooker on the Winter Olympics:My favourite events are those which, to my ill-informed eyes, appear to involve no skill whatsoever beyond a

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1140555688065663282006-02-21T13:01:00.000-08:002006-02-21T13:01:28.066-08:00

For more reasons than can be mentioned, Minta loves the Athanasius Kircher Society. When membership opens up, my check is in the mail. The below is only the tip of the iceberg: On July 2nd, 1982, Larry tied 42 helium-filled balloons to a Sears lawn chair in the backyard of his girlfriend’s house in San Pedro, California. With the help of his ground crew, Larry then secured himself into the lawn

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1140468933362383052006-02-20T12:55:00.000-08:002006-02-20T12:55:33.410-08:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } , originally uploaded by minta.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1140206419342983032006-02-17T12:00:00.000-08:002006-02-17T12:00:19.390-08:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } , originally uploaded by minta.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1140122103318830232006-02-16T12:33:00.000-08:002006-02-16T16:20:04.570-08:00

From The Guardian, Feb. 16, 1880:There was at Leeds on Friday night a performer at one of the public halls who caught, or pretended to catch, not in his teeth, but in his hands, a ball discharged from a cannon, and offered a reward of £50 to anyone who would imitate the feat.The invitation was accepted by a spectator and the missile struck the luckless amateur on the head with such force that he

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1140057171130663492006-02-15T18:28:00.000-08:002006-02-16T11:40:23.016-08:00

At other times [James] was convinced that his final agony was the result of the hoodoo his girlfriend in Tunica had set upon him. In his last weeks of life he was perpetually picking at the stools in his bedpan and secretly scrutinizing them for reptiles. The bloody shreds he saw swirling in his water looked like living things to him. "Does that look like a scorpion to you?" he would ask me.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1139288031305975812006-02-07T08:53:00.000-08:002006-02-06T20:56:57.266-08:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } , originally uploaded by minta.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1139213259747946372006-02-06T00:07:00.000-08:002006-02-06T00:07:39.746-08:00

I don't care where you may be: in the sea, they got to give up the dead, your body's dead and sunken, you done been cremated; them ashes got to come up and give an account. You got to take your deeds there to be weighed on an even balance. The deeds that I have done, I got to carry them up in a bag. Dirty deeds. Good deeds. I may have one bag on this shoulder, one on the other ...if that

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1138486686163181762006-01-28T14:18:00.000-08:002006-01-28T14:18:06.166-08:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } , originally uploaded by minta.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1138226456136649932006-01-25T13:39:00.000-08:002006-01-25T14:04:12.270-08:00

Dehydration, muscle damage, and failing kidneys. That's what took down the London bottle-nosed whale - that and ten million pounds of sludge from York and Jersey. The charity that spent 5,000 GBP ($8,900) attempting to rescue the beast is trying to recoup the expense by auctioning the watering can used to keep the whale "hydrated". Prank bids have hit the auction, taking the can up to 115,000

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1138138893456934162006-01-24T13:37:00.000-08:002006-01-24T14:11:05.636-08:00

Keeping the whale theme alive (though the same could not be done for the London whale), there's news of an Australian couple made rich by finding a lump of ambergris weighing over 30 lbs. Expelled from the abdomen of the giant sperm whale, often while hundreds of kilometres away from land, ambergris is a natural excrement thought to be used by the whale as a digestion aid. The hard beaks of giant

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1137780502050522652006-01-20T10:07:00.000-08:002006-01-20T16:43:25.273-08:00

So it is that a whale has swum up the Thames and is cruising around central London. This sort of thing doesn't happen every day, you know. Melville treated upon such cetacean coastal and estuarial matters in chapter 90 of Moby Dick:"De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam." -BRACTON, L. 3, C. 3.Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with the

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1137436023239004102006-01-16T10:21:00.000-08:002006-01-16T10:27:03.250-08:00

Lots of times the parents would be in your presence, and you couldn't talk this old stuff they're puttin' out now. You had to talk stuff that you'd studied in school: stuff that was logical... In case you got any kind of vulgarity in your idea, you better not manifest it. I don't care what kind of secret you had up your sleeve; you couldn't dispose of it. If anything in your line of

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1137209247990787782006-01-13T19:24:00.000-08:002006-01-14T15:21:36.586-08:00

Within a large concrete room, hewn out of a mountain on a freezing-cold island just 1000 kilometres from the North Pole, could lie the future of humanity.The room is a "doomsday vault" designed to hold around 2 million seeds, representing all known varieties of the world's crops. It is being built to safeguard the world's food supply against nuclear war, climate change, terrorism, rising sea

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1137026656822402912006-01-11T16:32:00.000-08:002006-01-11T16:56:24.733-08:00

So you might have gotten the impression from my last post that we haven't seen the sun for a while here in Seattle. That impression would be correct. We're quickly approaching a record, though one I'd rather not see broken. Constant rain ain't good for your walk-in custom. But somewhere the sun shines brightly - and I claim one of those places for my own, and for the hopes I have resting on

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1136340525204679632006-01-03T18:08:00.000-08:002006-01-03T18:16:10.993-08:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } , originally uploaded by minta. ... but not recognized. Can anyone help?

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1135625033292041662005-12-26T10:53:00.000-08:002006-01-03T17:45:46.393-08:00

Been too busy sucking the bloody marrow of my "customers" lately to enjoy the season... the days just seem to slip by. But I've picked my beard clean of clingy bits, put on my Christmas best, and compiled a year-end list of sorts. If it was encountered in 2005, it counts. Grab your hat, reef the topsails, it's all here, look no further, x marks the spot.Best sound recordings by artists other

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1134516706709041522005-12-13T15:31:00.000-08:002005-12-13T15:31:46.726-08:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } , originally uploaded by minta.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1134154729463345072005-12-09T10:54:00.000-08:002005-12-09T11:23:22.443-08:00

Today's the last day for London's Routemaster bus.They're replacing this instantly recognizable icon with the same bendy bus every other city on Earth uses. If London can't have its own bus, what city can? Two people a year die falling out the back of Routemasters - but is this too high a price to pay for the advancement of mankind? I think not. The only solace I can offer is this: Your very

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1133984124094565402005-12-07T11:07:00.000-08:002005-12-07T19:45:36.106-08:00

Ok, a routine begins to fall into place and internet service is once again stable... I therefore have no choice but to press onward. To the many thousands who have waited, I thank you for your patience.So the last time I looked up, it was October. I kind of missed autumn. Running a bookshop may sound like fun and games to some, but the intricacies of starting any business (and I won't digress

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1133247198610346432005-11-28T22:37:00.000-08:002005-11-28T22:53:18.793-08:00

Wellll... I might have gotten back to a normal pace by now but for the idiocy of Qwest. For those who don't know, Qwest is a phone company recently in the news for having replaced all their support staff with highly-trained amoebas. Last week, one of those critters really had its pseudopod up its vacuole, let me tell you. It screwed up our DSL at the shop but good. Still out, in fact. And I

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1132457452440960802005-11-19T19:30:00.000-08:002005-11-19T19:30:52.480-08:00

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } , originally uploaded by minta.

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5505491.post-1131667747241688082005-11-10T15:48:00.000-08:002005-11-10T16:09:07.296-08:00

So Seattle has a new book shop. So what? These little vanity projects come and go all the time. True, but this one's got more than 10 years experience behind it and a philosophy. But it needn't concern all of you... However, it must take up a great deal of my time. Oh, for the days of leisure! When a cool breeze was just that- not some irritating, gusting earth-breath, making me .6 seconds

K.http://www.blogger.com/profile/03809387785511588671noreply@blogger.com0