a tale of two nations
an excerpt from arriana huffington’s book how to overthrow the government. it outlines the split between the moneyed elite and the rest of us. it’s incendiary, but why should propriety and restraint only apply to one side of the argument? incendiary seems to be the only adjective with a fan club any more. facts alone seem to have no effect on those legions of argumentative, thick skulls pushing orwell’s double speak closer to art form each day. anyhow, it’s an interesting read. enjoy.
pants on fire
a nice piece on “the burning question of our times… the bush administration cunning liars or deluded fools?” at the ever inciteful whiskey bar, which if your not reading already you should definantly check out.
ghost ads and eroding cities
a coworker offered a link to a site called lilek. it is a large collection of old goodies, ads, newspaper comic strips, post cards etc. the author/collector offers much sardonic commentary, and all is well with the world. what the link lead me to, however, is two words, “ghost ads”, or rather three words, really, if you include the alternate “ghost signs”.
as is usually the case with this great-big-world-wide-web-thingy i was reminded that it’s all about words. everything you could want truly is out there, it’s just a matter of settling on the right words to search with.
now walking through new york you occasionally notice a brick wall with a barely perceptible or many times overlapped advertisement from days past. for instance this one (which was beautiful in real life, but i’m not sure is still there) anyhow, i’ve always loved these things, but it never crossed my mind to look for them on the internet. would not have even known what to call them. well evidently people have decided they are called ghost ads and there are resources aplenty on the net. one which deals strictly with new york, and features all sorts of juicy treats aside from just the ads is forgotten new york, a really fun site. others, covering new york or otherwise. 1, 2, 3, and 4. now i thought about giving this last link it’s own post because i did not want it to get lost but it is directly related so… here it is: ruavista. this site has an extremely rich and beautiful selection of stuff from cities all over the world. any artists, typographers, graphic designers, or romantic city dwellers would do well to check it out. a lot to see here. very nice… and that’s it. enjoy.
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it must be said
to whomever wrote that new lexus commercial: the hoover dam does not defy the laws of physics. ok?
to the senate: you should all be ashamed of yourselves for being such incredible pussies. (except for senator robert c. byrd) your “voice vote” was just plain pathetic. what are you there for if not to voice your opinion and represent your states population? that means openly, not on the sly where no matter how the wind shifts you can still come out squeaky clean for next election season. you guys are embarrassing.
to cbs: you should all be ashamed of yourselves for being such incredible pussies. since when does washington decide what you air? or has chomsky been right all along? (that was a rhetorical question.) the saving grace is that there is little doubt your 8 million dollar show was an 8 million dollar turd anyhow. perfect for showtime right?
to paul bremmer: stop using the asinine phrase “enemies of freedom” to describe people attacking american troops in iraq. just because bush said it does not mean you need to pick up the torch on this one, be it state sanctioned or not. it is a really, really stupid thing to say. bottom line.
to aaron brown: “morning papers” is not pulitzer prize level journalism, no one cares about it nearly as much as you do, it’s not like we’re just wading through all that “annoying world news” so we can get to it, so stop wetting your trousers about it every night. and for the love of henry, wipe that smug shit eating grin off your face!
ok, that’s enough.
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in search of (1) repository
in this, our first installment of in search of, we google the word “repository” and follow the trail, sifting the results for your (our) pleasure. why repository? well, it is in keeping with the spirit of in search of which is to say, when randomly looking for interesting stuff, where would you look first but a repository? a compendium perhaps, but lets do one thing at a time. searching… searching…
1 human descent. an exercise in genetic photoshopery, some successful, some, gone horribly, horribly wrong. (see the gallery for the full brunt)
2 phone bin. aptly enough a repository for photos taken with phone cams, uploaded willy nilly by whomever. a sort of wordless zeitgeist monitor, according to which, we, as modern folk, are interested mainly in 3 things, exhibitionism, chochkies, and cars.
3 american newspaper repository. nicholson baker, of good book and nonist zeitgeist portrait fame (ya heard?), founded this. a dust bin of history in the literal sense. old newspapers in all their old, newsy glory. check the gallery for extra illustrative goodness.
4 stupid videos. just exactly what it says really. after watching a kitten nodding off i saw something that actually made me laugh. i’ll tell you what if you ask.
5 algorithms here you go oh geekus maximus! a gazillion framillion algorithms indexed graphically. yee ha. actually it’s not quite a gazillion framillion, it just felt like it.
6 open cultures. web site for some community open source artsy happening or some such. came across some fairly interesting things in the projects, and ideas sections.
7 manufacturing minutia, or how every day things are made. stanford university filling in the gaps of your capitalist swine data banks. flash movies explaining how everything from airplanes to jelly beans are made. strangely no mention of hot dogs…
8 book review repository. got an obtuse old book you love and want to keep all to yourself? no need to go beating irony obsessed hipsters with a stick to drive them away, post a rotten review here and head them off at the pass.
9 run me. at the crossroads of pointless code and useless imagery comes, what else? software art. lots of java doodads and coding knick knacks here. actually some pretty interesting automata type stuff, if your into that kind of thing… dork.
10 bomb project. an astoundingly thorough repository for all things nuclear bomb. we young whippersnappers, though often told how scared we should be, came just a bit late to actually wet our pants over it. check this site out, think of dick cheney’s scowling mug, and get wettin’.
well there you go. now you must wait with baited breath till our next fun filled installment….
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welcome to the world young master
announcing the birth of—meroe amade memphis loli craft—small bundle of boy. born after 50 hours of labour, to guilia and morgan, he is now enjoying his first days and weeks in brooklyn new york, listening to jazz, napping, and having a generally good time seeing what it’s all about. please direct all good vibes and happy thoughts toward brooklyn, where meroe, guilia, and morgan are doing the new family thing as we speak. congratulations.
photography project
the nonist photography project has gone live. there is no preloader as of yet, but be patient, it’s loading. i invite anyone to comment on the project either through the contact link, or here in this post. hope you enjoy.
burn baby burn
in case you missed it, the sun is all riled up of late. the sun, you know, giver of life, giver of tans. anyhow if you were not paying attention, or have never really seen the sun up close here are some amazing images and videos to check out. and here’s what it sounded like. the folks lucky enough to be withing eye shot of an aurora caught these images after the events. enjoy.
follow the money
a lot of news floating about in the last few months about the corporate contracts granted in the re-building of both afghanistan and iraq. most of the news seems to be strictly gut level “cheney plus war equals halliburton contracts/w.t.f?” why the surprise? i suspect it’s more at the administrations lack of tact than anything else. but what do people really expect?
the administration has gotten a lot of flak over the no-bid method of awarding contracts, which is deserved, but in the end is halliburton taking valuable contracts from our local mom and pop oil services companies? it’s sickening, but nepotism and profiteering is the way of washington, under every administration. after all, isn’t it the way of the world?
the cheney/halliburton connection is just the obvious, transparent example. the most prevalent connections, however, are sealed through campaign contributions. the fact that this is an issue right now is kind of laughable, not because it shouldn’t be called out, but because this same model applies to every domestic issue the country struggles with, every issue dealing with our rights, our national identity, and our quality of life, every single one, and VERY little stink is made about it. (gee,i wonder why)
more important, i think, than which billion dollar multinational adds to it’s billions with the spoils of war, is what legislation gets passed because of lobbyists, and special interests, bolstered by their campaign contributions. it would seem that in the modern world the easiest way to decide on a political affiliation, or decipher where a particular candidate stands on an issue (example: a / b) is to simply research who they owe their allegiance to. a hint: if you did not contribute more than six figures to someone, it’s not to you.
anyhow, if you’d like to find out more or research a particular industry, company, candidate, etc, in order to accurately forecast who will shape the world in a way your sympathetic to, try these:
open gov, open secrets, soft money laudromat, common cause, follow the money
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