Posts with Recent Comments
“For that money, we could buy up TV stations...not just TV ads."
Via Americans of Conscience Checklist: Rural organizers and grassroots leaders in the U.S. form the Rural Defenders Union to support under-resourced anti-authoritarian actions. [more inside]
....He just looked down at the floor and said, “Alabama, son. Alabama.”
What Happened in Alabama?
"is a [podcast] series born out of personal experiences of intergenerational trauma, and the impacts of [American] Jim Crow [laws] that exist beyond what we understand about segregation.
"But while my dad was happy at church, nightmares interrupted his sleep sometimes. He’d wake up screaming, startling the whole house. It scared me so much as a kid. "One morning, I got the courage to ask him what he was dreaming about...."[more inside]
Potentially appealing at first, yet predominantly unoriginal and flawed
Over the years of designing and printing business cards and calling cards, there is one famous card that is referenced time and time again. This card’s celebrity status comes from a three-minute movie scene and is visible for about four seconds, yet it has become one of our most requested cards. The card we’re referencing is, of course, Paul Allen’s Pierce & Pierce business card from the 2000 horror/thriller film, American Psycho. We’re going to take a closer look at the design of this simple business card, along with the other four cards featured in the film, and try to distill why it remains such a popular and beloved card. from The Business Cards of American Psycho [Hoban Cards]
Thousands of breeding flying foxes stopping planes from landing
Thousands of breeding flying foxes stopping planes from landing.
Next to Rockhampton Airport is a large botanical garden filled with thousands of flying foxes, and when the sun sets these creatures come alive and cause headaches for incoming flights.
Disarrayed Democrats Debate DC Defunding Dilemma
The US federal government is about to run out of cash to operate (or not). Democrats hoped a House Republican budget plan would faceplant, but Speaker Mike Johnson improbably held his razor-thin majority together to pass a blueprint that would further slash social spending, boost defense, and reinforce an ongoing executive power grab. After House Democrats united (save one) to oppose this, it initially looked like the Senate Dems would follow suit, leveraging their 47 seats to deny the GOP cloture on the continuing resolution (CR) and trigger a government shutdown. But this proved to be an attempt by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to finesse a symbolic protest vote that would ultimately allow the budget bill to pass. His gambit's messy and very public unraveling has led to a fracture in the caucus: on one side, Schumer and a coterie of establishment figures insist that a shutdown would further empower Trump and Musk to gut the civil service, with no clear offramp. On the other hand, the progressive wing (and even some centrists) believe that endorsing the Republican budget would be political malpractice, weaken attempts to challenge DOGE's moves in court, and do nothing to stop Trump's seizure of the spending power. With the final vote scheduled today, both sides see a defining moment for what Democratic opposition to Trumpism will look like over the next few years. And it's not too late to make your voice heard.
Noteworthy reports and resources
If you're super into detailed documents that governments and international bodies publish, maybe you already know about the Notable Government Documents lists selected by the American Library Association's Government Documents Round Table (GODORT). For example, 2017's list honored The Windbreak Cookbook Featuring Fruits of Prairie Forests by North Dakota State University, and 2011's list honored European Drug Prevention Quality Standards: A Manual for Prevention Professionals. [more inside]
Autocracy, Fast and Slow
From Orban to Trump, Part II With Trump, the other metaphor I keep using, and I forget if I said this in our first conversation, but if you think of the government as being like a fish tank. And all these different fish are swimming around and, you know, maybe it's a little chaotic looking, but sometimes they swim in patterns, but it was a fish tank. And Trump comes in and he's just very visibly sticking a blender into the fish tank, right? And he's making fish soup. And so the problem is that, first of all, everyone can see it. So there is much more pushback, there's much more alarm, including from Republicans and so on. But the second problem is: it's much harder to recover the aquarium when you've made the fish soup, you know? < [more inside]
Meta-Streisand
Meta [the other one] is trying to censor Sarah Wynn-Williams' new book Careless People, a "tell-all" about her time as a senior exec at the company. Her publisher stands behind her and the book is now a best-seller. [more inside]
That's no bee
Ethiopian wolves may be pollinating Ethiopian red hot poker plants. The wolves have been observed moving[YT] from plant to plant licking nectar and coincidentally getting a muzzle full of pollen. If the wolves are confirmed to be pollinating these flowers they'd be the largest carnivorous mammals to act as pollinators by far. [more inside]
Vangelis' "Blade Runner"
Nick Soulsby: The soundtrack to Blade Runner remains a singular achievement; a soundtrack that invoked the past and the future, that remained suspended like Schrödinger’s cat in a state of unresolved being, that plays ancestor to an impressive clutch of modern musical forms while simultaneously sounding like a product of the modern age, or the first fruit of music yet to come. [more inside]
1-800-CALL-ATT
The AT&T Tech Channel on YouTube posts videos from the telecom giant's century-old archives, including some legitimately interesting documentaries. Reconnecting 170,000 Phone Customers in NYC After a Major Fire (1975) and The Life of a Telephone Operator in 1969 are both fascinating time capsules of corporate America. A wide variety of other videos, from interviews with famous Bell Labs alumni to advertisements and trainings, are scattered across the channel's uploads.
What's Shakin', Bacon?
The history of the pig is the history of humanity. The Book of Leviticus contains a warning that the pig “is impure to you; from their flesh, you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch.” And yet … pigs were consumed by ancient peoples despite the prohibitions. So, why the animosity toward the unholiest (or holiest, for some) form of meat? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pirate Attempts To Pirate The Village
Hold My Snacks: Pirate’s Booty Founder Attempts a Seaside Coup: A snack food magnate declared himself mayor of the Village of Sea Cliff, on Long Island. The voters said otherwise. "But elections these days don’t always end when they’re over. And so even before the final vote had been counted, that snack food mogul — who professionally uses the title Captain Bootyhead — declared that the election was “rigged” and that he was the mayor of Sea Cliff." [more inside]
Crabs could be key to tackling secret army of starfish
Crabs could be key to tackling secret army of starfish destroying the Great Barrier Reef (Australia). Researchers have found crabs are key predators of juvenile crown-of-thorns starfish and could be a hidden link to what controls their destructive spread.
Impossible pigments, clumsy brushstrokes and suspicious signatures
The divergence of opinion between the museum's experts and those who doubt the work's authenticity opens a curious space in which to reflect on intriguing questions of artistic value and merit. Is there ever legitimacy in forgery? Can fakes be masterpieces? from Rembrandt to Picasso: Five ways to spot a fake masterpiece [BBC]
Twin foals make for a full house
In an unusual event, a Thoroughbred mare gave birth to healthy twin foals. I saw this and just wanted to share it for the cute picture. And for the fact that it, temporarily, sent me down a rabbit hole I haven't revisited for a while: horse colour genetics, since (I'll admit), I was a bit surprised that one foal was chestnut and one was bay.
How do you make a decision? (Weekly Free Thread)
How to master decision making in a world of uncertainty What kinds of decisions are you trying to make lately and you don't know what to do about them? Commiserate, ask for advice, or just talk about whatever else is going on for you in this week's free thread.
Blue balls
On a sunny July day in 2005, a frog jumped out of a rain gutter to see an unexpected sight: an avalanche of thousands of colorful bouncy balls careening down a San Francisco street. Although San Francisco has been the setting for plenty of cinematic chase scenes, there had never been any quite like this. Filmed as a British commercial for Sony Bravia TV sets, 250,000 bouncy balls were launched down San Francisco hills in one of the most surreal weeks in the city’s history, resulting in a short film that swept the advertising awards circuit and racked up a cumulative 5 million YouTube views. from 'It was chaos': The history of San Francisco's most unforgettable TV ad [SF Gate]
I'm not your father, Luc
Maarten Larmuseau of the Laboratory of Human Genetic Genealogy at K.U. Leuven in Belgium traces family trees from archival sources and then invites living members of the family to swab out their mouths to see if their Y-chromosome matches their surname. His research suggests 1% extra-pair paternity (EPP) [leaky paywall Science] aka paternal discrepancy . . . in Flanders. Same story same author Trends in Ecology & Evolution PDF 2016. Rates differ in other cultures.
"the way forward is to be ethical"
Protean Magazine, "The End of Resistance History." Historian Charlotte E. Rosen considers the legacy and project of "resistance historians," primarily focused on Heather Cox Richardson but also Kevin Kruse and others. "But after the election of Biden in 2020, these historians found themselves in a new position. Having helped vanquish their enemy, many of these figures were welcomed into the Democratic Party and Biden administration fold."
[more inside]