Outdated Links

Repository of Broken Dreams, Etc.Last Blood, Chainmail Bikini, Creepy Carly, Brymstone, The Zombie Hunters, The War of Winds, Monty and Woolley, Menacing House

Wrote this Forever Ago, Delayed

Sickie

Random Picatures
Deer and Cats
Weird Stencils
Warbot in Accounting
Tiny Japanese Deer

Gai-Gin
A comic I found linked the other day and read through. It's quite good, a slice of life about a girl living in Japan as part of a foreign language program. The comic is partly autobiographical and partly humorous, and the author seeks to present what she feels is a more balanced picture of the prospect of living overseas in a strange country.

I'm not expressing myself at all well. Probably due to my headcold making a resurgence. Pesky colds.

Some sample comics

Roach Motel
Stay With Me
They Can See Forever
Shark's Vagina

Nippon Basics (map)

Source: Gai-gin.com

3PS
The next comic I'm adding to my list is 3 Panel Soul. It's the latest from the guys who did Mac Hall. Very funny stuff.

Examples:

Younglings!
The Homosexual Agenda
Gay Bomb
Cherubim and Bear

Source: Three Panel Soul

Maxwell the Demon
Named after the famous thought experiment, this is a comic about Maxwell, an arch-demon of Hell, whose job is mainly bureaucratic, and who spends most of his earthly time with a long-time human love interest.

Which is not to say that he doesn't go out there and tempt people into eternal damnation.

Sadly, it JUST NOW went on hiatus. Sigh.

Source: Maxwell the Demon

Freak Angels
The new, free, web based Warren Ellis comic.

It's hard to tell precisely what it's about yet. The world came to an end, almost, and the handful of survivors are scratching out a living in the seemingly unharmed English landscape. Though almost everyone else is gone, and some of the people left have super powers.

It's weird, but that's nothing new for Ellis. It's also good, so far anyway, which is again nothing new for Ellis.

Source: Freak Angels

Banned Ad
A beauty product ad has been banned by the Brit agency in charge of, err, banning advertisements, because it offends people by satirically equating church and cosmetics.

OH NO MR. BILL!!

This is why prior restraint sucks.

Source: The Guardian

Skeleton
So some women flew into Munich with a skeleton in their suitcases.

Silly women. Germany doesn't need any MORE human remains.

Source: Raw Story
(For the record, nothing nefarious seems to have been involved. They were returning some old remains for a last-request reburial. They just did it in a very, very strange way)

Short People
They've got no reason to live. (it's a reference, look it up)

Also, they're jealous.

Short people should pray for a return to the Seventies fashion of stack heels, for the power of jealousy depends on how tall you are, the British weekly New Scientist says.

Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and University of Valencia in Spain asked 549 Dutch and Spanish men and women to rate how jealous they felt, and to list the qualities in a romantic competitor that were most likely to make them ill at ease.

Men generally felt most nervous about attractive, rich and strong rivals.

But these feelings were increasingly relaxed the taller they were themselves. The more vertically challenged the man, the greater his feelings of jealousy.

For women, what counted most in jealousy was the rival's looks and charm, but these feelings were less intense if the woman herself was of average height.

The study also finds that tall women, while also more jealous, can beat up shorter women.

So that's something at least.

Source: Raw Story

Skittle Suspension
A kid landed in trouble for buying a bag of candy off of another student.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Contraband candy has led to big trouble for an eighth-grade honors student in Connecticut.

Michael Sheridan was stripped of his title as class vice president, barred from attending an honors student dinner and suspended for a day after buying a bag of Skittles from a classmate.

School spokeswoman Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo says the New Haven school system banned candy sales in 2003 as part of a districtwide school wellness policy.

I can't really bring myself to feel bad for the guy. He's part of the problem, as they say; a member in good standing, at least formerly, of the school's Vichy government.

These people are, by and large, complete tools.

Thus it's fitting that Mikey got hoisted on his own petard.

Source: AZ Central

Weird Update

Progress toward Madness

I Want One
So an engineer boffin has come up with an implantable screen to wear under your skin, powered by the glucose in your blood. He sees it as a future cell-phone/portable device interface, as it's even touch sensitive.

I WANT ONE NOW.

Jim Mielke's wireless blood-fueled display is a true merging of technology and body art. At the recent Greener Gadgets Design Competition, the engineer demonstrated a subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the potential for 3G video calls that are visible just underneath the skin.
The basis of the 2x4-inch "Digital Tattoo Interface" is a Bluetooth device made of thin, flexible silicon and silicone. It´s inserted through a small incision as a tightly rolled tube, and then it unfurls beneath the skin to align between skin and muscle. Through the same incision, two small tubes on the device are attached to an artery and a vein to allow the blood to flow to a coin-sized blood fuel cell that converts glucose and oxygen to electricity. After blood flows in from the artery to the fuel cell, it flows out again through the vein.


On both the top and bottom surfaces of the display is a matching matrix of field-producing pixels. The top surface also enables touch-screen control through the skin. Instead of ink, the display uses tiny microscopic spheres, somewhat similar to tattoo ink. A field-sensitive material in the spheres changes their color from clear to black, aligned with the matrix fields.

Yeah yeah, it's gruesome. So what? Some people would say having your eye peeled like a grape then blasted with a UV laser is gruesome, but it gave me perfect vision and let me chuck my glasses. This would let me, err, freak people out and more easily get nagged by my mother.

Hmm.

I still want one.

Source: Physorg.com

Morbid Auction
Ok, here's something even more gross than the tattoo thing.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - It is billed as the best pop culture collection ever assembled -- ranging from the gun used to kill the assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy to the Wicked Witch of the West's hat from "The Wizard of Oz."

...

He said the Colt Cobra revolver used by Jack Ruby to kill Oswald in 1963, just days after Oswald was arrested for assassinating Kennedy, could fetch several million dollars alone. The initials of detectives who handled the gun are scratched on it.

"The whole world saw that unfold live and here's the very gun and the hat that Jack Ruby was wearing," said Ettinger, adding that the tag tied to Oswald's toe to identify his corpse and a lock of his hair were also to be auctioned.

...

Other items to be auctioned include a Federal Bureau of Investigation badge that belonged to the bureau's founder J. Edgar Hoover, a wig worn by Elizabeth Taylor for "Cleopatra," and the leather jacket worn by actor Brandon Lee when he was accidentally shot and killed while filming "The Crow."

Ok, so, why isn't Ruby's gun in a museum? For that matter, who lifted the jacket off of Brandon Lee's cooling body?

This is sort of sick.

Source: Raw Story

World of Goo
Neat looking game where you build structures out of living blobs.

WANT IT WANT IT WANT IT

Source: 2dboy.com

Themes in Cuisine
Japan always innovates when it comes to the weirdest stuff imaginable.

TOKYO (Reuters) - At Edelstein boarding school, the schoolboys wear lip-gloss, the headmistress has a weakness for homoerotic comic books, and there is only one subject: how to serve female visitors.

Welcome to Tokyo's first schoolboy cafe, the latest in a flurry of eateries in Japan where customers and waiters role play themes from manga comics.

In keeping with the schoolboy theme, waiters with manicured hands and soft voices pretend to be teenage students, chatting and flirting with well-dressed Japanese women playing the roles of benefactresses visiting the school.

...

"I'm in the flower arrangement club," whispers one girlish, long-haired waiter at the cafe, looking up from the book of German poetry he is reading.

All's not sweetness and light, however.

Sakamaki, the schoolboy cafe manager who has tapped that market so successfully, is already onto her next idea: a cafe modeled along 1920s Japan. That would match another big trend among Japanese youth -- nostalgia for pre-war Japan.

If I was in South Korea, I'd be on the lookout for the new lip-gloss wearing vanguard of the Second Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Source: Reuters


Lost
Some nifty lost comic weirdness from Marvel over the years.

Source: Fish1000.Biz

Funny News (Also, Entertaining)

Because We All Need A Laugh

Tokyo Frogs
So there's been a bit of a kerfluffle in Japan, where the nationalist governor made some.. humorous?... remarks about French that weren't taken too well.

Tokyo's outspoken governor, who was taken to court for a jibe against the French language, insists that he in fact loves France -- and even once had a French girlfriend.

Governor Shintaro Ishihara, known for his nationalist views, said in 2004 that French was disqualified as an international language as it was impossible to count in it.

Twenty-one scholars, teachers and translators, including seven French people who live in Japan, sued Ishihara for damages, saying they were defamed and their careers hurt. A judge threw out the suit.

Ishihara, 75, an acclaimed novelist who majored in French in university, stood by his remarks in an interview with AFP.

"Even the French ambassador told me he couldn't count in French," he said with a laugh.

But he added: "I love France. I was really good at French back in the day."

The man's really not kidding; he *is* good at French, and even worked as a translator for bringing French works into Japanese at one point.

Ishihara said he was friends with French writer Andre Malraux and philosopher Raymond Aron. He was also the first to translate into Japanese some of the "Contes Cruels," or "Cruel Tales," by 19th-century author Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.

Meanwhile, it seems that the French system for counting really is pretty retarded.

The French numbers 0 through 19 are easy enough, right?

For 20 through 69, counting is almost just like in English: the tens word (vingt, trente, quarante, etc.) followed by the ones word (un, deux, trois). The only difference is that for 21, 31, etc., the word et is introduced between the tens word and one: vingt-et-un, trente-et-un, quarante-et-un, etc.

70 to 79 is trickier. In French, 70 is soixante-dix, literally "sixty-ten." 71 is soixante et onze (sixty and eleven), 72 is soixante-douze (sixty-twelve), and so on, up to 79.

80 is quatre-vingts, literally four-twenties (think "four-score"). 81 is quatre-vingt-un (four-twenty-one), 82 is quatre-vingt-deux (four-twenty-two), and so on, all the way up to ninety. 90 is quatre-vingt-dix (four-twenty-ten), 91 is quatre-vingt-onze (four-twenty-eleven), etc.

100 to 999 work just like in English, except that when you have cent at the end of the number, it takes an s, but when cent is followed by another number, the s is dropped. Also, note that you cannot pause after the word cent.
200 = deux cents
500 = cinq cents
350 = trois cent cinquante
872 = huit cent soixante-douze

1,000+ are similar to English, except that the separator is a period or space, rather than a comma (learn more). When reciting a number, you can pause to take a breath at the separator (after mille, million, or milliard). Note that mille never takes an s.

So French has at least sex separate ways to organize their numbers, including four under 100.

I have to say, I'm with the Governor on this one.

Sources: Raw Story
About.com

HULK SING
SONG MAKE HULK HAPPY

HULK TURN INTO BANNER

PERFORMANCE ANXIETY MAKE BANNER ANGRY

BANNER TURN INTO HULK

HULK SING

SONG MAKE HULK HAPPY

ERROR: RECURSION DETECTED

Source: Progressive Ruin

Schlussel Part Two
So, I tore Debbie Schlussel up a bit in the last post. Something about her being a colossal retard, I dunno. Just to be fair to the, ahem, lady, let's take a bit of a biographical look at her work, shall we?

Debbie Schlussel, 37 years old, supports her pundit habit by practicing commercial law in suburban Detroit. She is among the most proactive B-list pundits. Almost daily, she emails her appearance schedule, availability or sharp-elbowed conservative commentaries to 5,000 people in media and politics.

In the wake of North Korea's recent nuclear test, a hawkish Ms. Schlussel hit the radio circuit, saying U.S. officials responded too mildly in calling the test "a provocative act." "A Paris Hilton video is a provocative act," she said. "What North Korea did was an act of war." To get noticed, Ms. Schlussel says, "I've become the master of the confrontational sound bite."

...

Ask her to survey the punditry landscape, from the A-list on down, and she gets contemplative. "Who is good who does what I do?" she says out loud as she thinks. Soon enough, the answer comes to her. "Me!"

Ahh I see. She's a useless fame whore.

That explains a lot really.

Source: The Wall Street Journal (how's THAT for making my blog 'fair and balanced'?)

Half-Baked Reasoning
Sometimes you can make the right legal decision for the completely wrong reason.

Case in point, a Canadian court considering a traffic stop and drug search.

A Saskatchewan appeal's court upheld a decision that the smell of burnt marijuana is not evidence of illegal drug possession since by definition the proof has gone up in smoke, it said Wednesday.

"The smell of burnt marijuana does not reasonably support the inference that additional marijuana is present," the three-judge panel said in newly-released court filings.

Ok, ok, that sounds logical. We don't want a world where any cop can search any person on the basis of 'odors' that could be entirely in their minds, or better yet, fictitious.

Surely that's the logical reason that the Court used to reject this search, right? That the 'cause' for the search was a completely subjective 'I think it smelled like pot' excuse from a cop?

Wrong.

Archibald's lawyer Ronald Piche successfully argued the warrantless search and seizure were "unreasonable" because the aroma of burnt marijuana -- as opposed to raw marijuana -- infers that the drug has dissipated.

"How can you say you're in possession of something that doesn't exist," Piche told the daily Saskatoon Star Phoenix.

Interesting perspective. If you test positive for cocaine in a blood test after a traffic accident, can you then argue that the cocaine no longer exists, as it's been assimilated into your blood?

Probably not. Marijuana smoke is still marijuana, pointdexter.

Except in Canada.

Source: Raw Story

They Were 11
They Were 11 sounds good. A psychodrama about 10 people who are supposed to spend 50something days alone on a survival expedition in space as a final exam for school entry... only 11 people show up on the ship, and then things start to go terribly wrong.

Duh duh DUH

Ok, this isn't so much funny. It's more entertaining.

Source: Anime News Network

Random Item Alert

Best of the Interwebs? Worst of the Interwebs?

Commentaries
First up, a lengthy examination of the merits of various superheroes and their powers. The verdict?

The Flash has the greatest powers of all time. (A bit surprising I know).

Source: Mushroomblock.com

Next up, The Onion takes on the Patriots' Perfect Season -- Perfect for Everyone Else, at least.

FOXBOROUGH, MA—As the once-invincible, still-insufferable Patriots attempt to come to grips with their 17-14 Super Bowl loss to the Giants, the death of their dream to go undefeated, and the possible end of their dynasty, almost every other person in America is reveling in what they consider the perfect ending to New England's season.

"I just couldn't imagine a better ending to the Patriots odyssey," said Simon Williams, a Kansas City-area football fan who usually watches the college game but found himself caught up in the Patriots' sheer loathsomeness during the season. "The utter lack of humility they displayed alongside an equal lack of any joy in the game, that toad of a coach, and that cologne-ad quarterback… If they have to act that badly while playing that well, you really want to see them fail in the biggest way possible. Thank God almighty, that's what we got."

I feel that way about all pro-football players, myself, but it's nice to see it in print. Thank you, Onion.

Source: The Onion

British Store Sells A Great Model
Would look great in many a bedroom.

Source: The Register

Spidey vs Lead Pipes!
Newspaper Spiderman is notoriously lousy at the actual superheroic game, but he is also, apparently, a lot less powerful than his large format self.

His previous interaction with a falling brick to the back of the head (and subsequent amnesia) is well known among a certain class of internet snarks, but twice over the last two years he has been felled by an ordinary human swinging an ordinary lead pipe.

How can the most agile and alert superhero of all time be hit by mere mortals with a bludgeoning tool? Is this an example of lame writing and terrible, terrible inconsistency in the newspaper strip? I say Nay, friends. Paper-Spidey is secretly weak against LEAD PIPES. They must block his Spidey-sense, which could indicate that it is in fact merely a form of harmful ionizing radiation that his body emits as part of his superpowers.

Thus giving everyone close to him cancer... no... wait, sorry, that's from an Alan Moore comic.

Hmm. I still say it's the pipes. Maybe the ancient Roman god of Plumbing hates Spiderman?

Source: joshreads.com
joshreads.com

MSNBC-Misogyny
Amanda Marcotte takes apart a hilariously outmoded opinion piece written by a bitter single woman about how it's better to settle for an unhappy marriage than be... a bitter single woman.

"To the outside world, of course, we still call ourselves feminists and insist — vehemently, even — that we’re independent and self-sufficient and don’t believe in any of that damsel-in-distress stuff, but in reality, we aren’t fish who can do without a bicycle, we’re women who want a traditional family. And despite growing up in an era when the centuries-old mantra to get married young was finally (and, it seemed, refreshingly) replaced by encouragement to postpone that milestone in pursuit of high ideals (education! career! but also true love!), every woman I know — no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure — feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried.

Oh, I know — I’m guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to say that the women I know aren’t widely representative, that I’ve been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I’m talking about."

Thanks for doing my work for me! In exchange, I’ll be generous enough to point out that my lack of desperation to get married and have kids has a lot to do with a general unwillingness to get married and have kids. Some people are allergic to cat hair. I’m allergic to strollers. Tragic, I know.

Me, I have a pathological aversion to screaming, wailing, and disgusting dirty diapers. So I definitely get where she's coming from there.

Seriously, read the whole thing. This is classic.

Source: Pandagon

Necking
So Hockey is showing its gruesome, crimson true color.

Florida Panthers left wing Richard Zednik was recovering in hospital Monday after he was gashed in the neck by a skate blade, the National Hockey League team said.

In a statement posted on the team website, the Panthers said the Slovakian born player continued to recover, but gave no further information on his condition.

Sportsnet of Canada reported that Zednik underwent a two-hour emergency operation Sunday night to repair a cut to his carotid artery.

Zednik was inadvertently slashed in the neck by the skate blade of teammate Olli Jokinen of Finland in a game against the Buffalo Sabres.

Oooh... nasty.

And here's the part where I say, "It gets worse"

It gets worse:

Zednik bled profusely from his neck but was able to skate toward his bench where he was met by the trainer and taken to the locker room.

The game was delayed as blood was cleaned from the ice and both coaches waited to hear if the player was all right.

Only when they were informed Zednik was in stable condition and on his way to the hospital did they decide to continue with the game which was eventually won by Buffalo 5-3.

This has happened before in Buffalo, it seems.

The play brought back memories of when then-Buffalo netminder Clint Malarchuk had his jugular vein sliced in a 1989 game against the St. Louis Blues.

BUFFALO IS CURSED

Then again, maybe it's hockey.. a sport where every player is armed with a blunt object and sails around hard ice at 30 mph on sharpened serrated knives..

This is the second skate cut incident for the National Hockey League in two days.

Veteran NHL linesman Pat Dapuzzo was injured when Philadelphia Flyer's Steve Downie inadvertently struck Dapuzzo in the face with his skate in a game between Philadelphia and New York on Saturday.

The 25-year veteran suffered cuts to his nose, cheek and jaw requiring dozens of stitches.

I *KNEW* hockey had potential.

Those Canadians know how to live, man. Violence Ball is their Kingdom's Number One activity.

(AKA, Hockey)

Source: Raw Story

Vintage Phoenix Takes My Money News

So Close To a Complete Marvel Zombies Collection

Only Black Panther #27 to go and I have every issue either in hardback or single issue. Huzzah!

Phillip Agee and the non-Kage Baker Company
So Phillip Agee, the ex-spy who wrote a tell-all book on the CIA that exposed many of its less savory assets to public scrutiny in the 70s, has died in Cuba after illness.

His legacy is an odd one. Aside from a law banning ex-spys and government types from doing just what he did, which Scooter Libby et al broke on Valerie Plame without consequence, he certainly put a wrench in some of our CIA activities in that era... which were almost universally bad, bad things.

On the other hand, he's spent much of his later years as something of a mouthpiece for the Cuban government, which is neither as bad as Americans think, nor as good as they themselves profess. Odd for a civil libertarian, at least a supposed one, to become a shill for a country without a great record on liberty.

He apparently has been making his money arranging trips for Americans to Cuba in spite of the embargo. I approve of this as well, but on the whole, the guy seems sort of skeezy.

Ah well. Life goes on, for the rest of us at least.

Full Disclosure: I had a great-uncle who was CIA and supposedly had his career ruined by Agee's book. The family still thinks this is a horrible scandal. From what they've also told me about his 'work', I can't say I agree.

Source: Raw Story

Fox Noise: Factually Challenged
So on primary day in New Hampshire (Motto: A Rifle in Every Hand, We Matter Every Four Years), Fox ran a story saying that Paul Begala of CNN had joined the Clinton campaign, based it seems on anonymous sources. Without calling him to confirm it.

Ok, not a great practice, but not a huge deal?

Turns out the story was false, so Begala contacted Fox to tell them so, tell the 'journalist' in particular that he was not joining the campaign.

They refused to retract it, saying their sources were, err, better than Begala. They then added to the story, expanding it by saying he'd been on a conference call with the Hillary camp. That he hadn't.

Fox's official response to Begala's request not to, er, lie about him?

After I told Fox it wasn't true -- and this is the surreal part -- they kept reporting it anyway. In fact, Fox's Garrett told me he'd "take it under advisement." Take it under advisement? I realize I'm generally seen as just another liberal with an opinion, but this was not a matter of opinion, it was a matter of fact. Fox now knew their story was flatly, factually wrong, and they took it "under advisement."

Fox Noise, ladies and gentlemen.

Source: The Huffington Post

Do I Own Anything Orange?
The ACLU wants Americans to wear orange to protest the sixth anniversary of our legal netherworld in Guantanamo.

I guess I'll be making a run to Target for a nice orange t-shirt.

Source: Talk Left

Hillary Hecklers
From before the primary, some hecklers who apparently think because Hillary is a woman, that she should iron their clothes.

I don't own any clothes to iron. Or an iron. But if I did, I'd get punched a lot for trying to make the roommate do it for me.

Source: Raw Story

More Ballot Wackiness
So it seems in New Hampshire, people have very short attention spans, and will tend to vote for the name at the top of the list slightly more just because it's there.

Keep in mind in the primary this list is like 6 lines long.

Until this year, they solved this problem by having different ballots at different polling places, same candidates, different order. Studying the returns at these places is what allowed some political sciency guy to determine that the top listed viable candidate gets a 3% boost from being there.

This year, they went by random letter alphabetical order; the alphabet started at Z and wrapped around. Hillary was thus the first 'viable' candidate listed.

As the article notes though, Obama didn't lose by a 3 point swing; he lost by like a 12 point swing from early polling. Many theories are being advanced, including the old 'white guilt' one, where supposedly white voters lie in the entrance/exit polls because they don't want to be seen as voting against the black guy.

Shrug.

Whatever the case, just another random oddity of elections, and people who hate to read and yet turn out to vote. Yes, I know, there's bound to be a slight psychological effect on undecideds just seeing the name first. But if you're undecided, don't go vote! Yeesh. Random voting does not actually help the process.

Source: Raw Story

Cobra News (Not the GI Joe Sort)

So kiss me goodbye... I can see the venom in your eyes... goodbye

Watch Out For Monoliths
So apparently the Russkies have signed on to the ESA's planned Europa mission, Laplace (named after an astronomer, as is the Europeans' want; see the Cassini mission for example, or the Huygens probe).

In particular the Russkies are expressing interest in landing a probe on Europa and melting through to the watery ocean suspected to be beneath it, searching for life.

Considering the Russkies experience with solid space engineering this could be a real boon. They're also pretty good at causing nuclear meltdowns, so they can probably get a hole in the ice. Maybe not the size or sort you want though...

Source: Raw
Story

Batman, or BatMURDERER?
Shortpacked! author David Willis recently got one of these spiffy Batman First Appearance figures, and has noted the rather, err, callous approach to human life the early Batman displayed. (He mentions Batman kicking a guy in the head so hard his neck snapped too, which is just so awesome I need to see it).

It's worth remembering that it took a while for the modern, iconic Batman to evolve. Sometimes it takes a bit to find the real gem in a story or concept. Gives hope to all of us would-be creative types out there.

Also reminds me of the awesome Batman/Planetary crossover by Warren Ellis, who, when he's hot (Black Summer, Transmetropolitan, Planetary) is just unbelievably good)

Source: Shortpacked!, DC Direct

Kucinich Camp Fundraiser
Kucinich is raising some cash by selling actual Palm Beach County hanging chad voting machines from the stolen election of 2000. Apparently a collector, who sells them in his spare time, has given Kucinich a deep discount to sell the machines for his campaign. Only 200 bucks to get a machine that disenfranchised a bunch of elderly voters. It's a piece of history.

I'd ask for one, but I'm not sure where I'd put it.

Source: Raw Story

Fluff Article on Airships
They're kind of like fluffy container clouds though. So, err, it fits?

I dunno. Pop Mechanics is sort of like soft-core technophile porn to begin with. Their futurist articles consisting almost entirely of dreamy prose and CG mockups are sort of cute, sort of annoying. Still, there might be a future in airships. Their smaller cousins have shown themselves to be interesting in meteorology and astronomy; it'd be neat to make a go of having giant ships roaming the skies again.

Source: Popular Mechanics

Secret Comics
I'd forgotten about this Secret Comics Japan book, but now I want to buy it. I like the bizarre and experimental stuff in sequential art.. from time to time. Your Ben Templesmith unintentional comedy of incoherence doesn't count, btw, comic industry. Try harder.

Source: Anime News Network

Eve of Apocalypse News

It may be World War III in the near future, but for now, on with the news!

Progress on Paralysis
So some researchers have discovered that the spinal cord, at least in mice, can reroute around blocks in the nerves that transmit the ability to control limbs and such, and are now looking into ways to trigger this repair in people. Apparently the mice were able to get the ability to walk back, but not entirely as well as before.

From the article, I guess the spine consists of outer layers of very long nerves that hook the brain directly to areas to be controlled, and a core of shorter connections. These shorter connections can be repurposed to route around cuts or damage to the very long nerves, it seems. The scientists describe it as being like a traffic detour.

Interesting, and hopefully they can continue their research after we pull ourselves out of the rubble.

Source: Reuters

GM Stands for General Morons
So, I guess GM is desperate to generate any news other than its plummeting market share and growing irrelevance, thanks to companies like Toyota with their silly ideas about actually delivering fuel-efficient cars to the end consumer instead of jerking our collective chain with hydrogen cars and guaranteed-to-never-make-it-to-market-electric auto show prototypes.

This has led to them promoting the idea of, in the near future... automated cars. Yes, GM may not be able to figure out a working hybrid engine, but they think you should trust them to make a car that drives itself!

As the somewhat poorly written article notes, DARPA has an annual contest to produce a car that can drive itself; the military thinks that having convoys that don't require drivers to be human targets is a good idea.

Stopped clocks and all that rot.

At any rate, how does the state of the art DARPA contest fare on automated cars?

The Defense Department contest, which initially involved 35 teams, showed the technology isn't ready for prime time. One team was eliminated after its vehicle nearly charged into a building, while another vehicle mysteriously pulled into a house's carport and parked itself.

Oh yeah. That sounds swell.

If GM was serious about this they could of course attempt to win the annual contest and get a big, fat military contract to pad their bottom line. They're obviously not, though.

He said the company plans to test driverless car technology by 2015 and have cars on the road around 2018.

Ahh, the future is... never going to arrive. As usual.

Source: CNN.com

Kenya Crisis
So there's a big story in Africa, which means you're not going to see much about it on the nightly news. Kenya's latest elections degenerated into an orgy of chaos and violence as the opposition party leader accused the winner of the election of vote fraud. In response the country is flying apart on tribal lines, with the entrenched police brutally targeting tribal groups seen as allying with the oppo leader, and rioting groups forming in response, in some cases arming themselves.

The police are apparently particularly worthy of blame, shooting innocent people, burning children alive and the like.

Noor Adam begged police to spare his children as he lay bleeding from a bullet wound in front of his shop but they set fire to his store anyway, burning to death his 7-year-old daughter and teenage son inside.

...



Adam, a member of the Luhya tribe who have largely backed opposition leader Odinga, said he was sleeping in his shop with his daughter Saida and his 17-year-old son, Rashid, when the police from a different tribe arrived on Dec. 29.

"When I showed my ID, they said, 'He's from the Luhya community ... Shoot him,'" Adam said.

The police shot him in the leg, then turned their attention to his shop.

"I saw the police set the shop on fire. I told them I had children inside," said Adam who was being treated Saturday for an infected bullet wound at the Makina clinic in Nairobi's Kibera slum.

He said he couldn't bear to go back home to sift through the ashes for the bones of his children.

"I can never go back. I want to leave this country," he said, weeping. "They (police) are supposed to protect us."

Ahh, Democracy.

Don't expect to see a lot of coverage on your teevee, of course. This is occuring in one of those dark colored countries without oil. Instead, perhaps you'll get another series on the Evil Muslims Who Have All That Tasty Crude Oil That We Must Liberate For Purely Humanitarian Reasons.

Uggh.

Source: AP/Raw Story

They'll Do It Every Ye-Olde Time
Amusing.

Disney Does Something Right; Hell Freezes Over
So Disney World in Florida, it seems, has 98 separate full service restaurants. Only one of them is a formalwear required, five star joint, specializing in seven-course three hour meals starting at 125 bucks a pop.

People still, in spite of the dress code, tried to bring kids from time to time, so Disney has banned the anklebiters from the ultra formal restaurant.

They're getting some outrage over this from the lunatic fringe, of course.

Why is it a radical proposition to ban children from places they have no business being? Why must I put up with kids everywhere I go? In my movie theatre, at a play, at a nice restaurant, screaming, wailing, running and jumping around -- it's infuriating!

Many thanks to Disney for taking a stand.

Source: AZCentral
Hat Tip to Nidoking's own daily news.

Insert Newsy Title Here

If you've ever wandered lonely through the woods..

Three Hour Tour
So some Russkie fishermen got 'lost', more like stranded, at a Russian military base after horrid weather during a fishing trip in October off the Kamchatka. They made their way to the base and survived off of old rations until some recently ventured out and found help.

Oddly, they still face charges, as technically they were fishing in military waters. Come on, guys, I think they learned their lesson. How about '3 months time served' and be done with it?

Source: Raw Story

Writer's Strike Progress
After Letterman's production company struck a deal with the WGA, it seems the floodgates may be creaking open. Now, what's left of United Artists, after it was converted into a vanity studio for Tom Cruise, is looking to cut a deal with the WGA, which would serve as a prototype for other studios. Supposedly the Weinstein Company and Lionsgate arelooking for a similar out.

I guess we can see who's going to win this one.

Source: The LA Times

Women In Refrigerators
So Gail Simone, famous for penning the 'Women in Refrigerators' rant, is now helming Wonder Woman. I'm a bit torn on this one. On the one hand, it's good to see someone who bitches about the comics industry step and try to help solve the problems, rather than just making a buck at the expense of the medium's flaws; on the other hand, having checked out their list of grievances for female comic characters, I'm a bit... underwhelmed.

Sure, women were treated badly for much of the history of American comics. Your point? How were minority characters treated during this time? Not terribly well, I can assure you. It was a big deal that Marvel, in the 80s, started having minority heroes on big teams. Marvel. You know, the least stodgy of the comic companies.

Besides, in their long list of things that female characters have suffered, they fail to note that the longest and greatest suffering hero of all is a male: Spiderman.

Let's see what I can think of, off the top of my head, without being by any means a Spidey scholar:

Spiderman: Gained powers through negligent science experiment; long-standing survivor's guilt; alcoholic; villains routinely target and kill his friends and family; best friend went insane, tried to kill him, died; wife routinely targeted; may be sterile due to spider-DNA; bones broken (countless times), eye gouged out, turned into spider-man-monster with 6 arms; violated and DNA used to make army of lame clones; clone took over life and relationship with mary jane; lost powers and ceded title to clone; violated mentally and physically by alien symbiote, which stole his memories and powers, conferred them to professional rival; endlessly humilated in work life by boss, who is rabid spiderman hater.

etc. etc. etc.

Face it, nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has taken it like Spiderman. He's the Christ of Comics; he suffers for the sins of the other heroes.

Sources: WIR Rant
Slashdot


Magic Typewriters, But Not Like Stephen King's Story
A frontpage Slashdot article, probably a paid one, links to two new word processors for writers, claiming to be the best thing since moveable type (not the blogging software, you sad nerds). One has every whizzy design feature under the sun; the other claims to remove distractions from you and your work by essentially turning your modern computer into a terminal from the good old days.

I guess different strokes, and so forth, but I'm not sure that your word processor is going to solve a lack of attention span. The words should come from your brain, and if they don't, then not much is going to help you. On the other hand, a comfortable writing environment...

*shrug*

Just musing, no conclusion here, let alone a point.

Sources: Whizzy Scrivener
Ultra Simple Writeroom

That Word Doesn't Mean What You Think It Does
So I sort of bought this Brandi Carlile CD, "My Story", thinking she did a song that I wanted that in the end was by someone else. No problem, it's a decent cd of its own. I particularly like the way the one song, 'Turpentine', that has been all over the radio, sounds.

Here's the thing though: part of the lyrics of said song really bugs me.

These days we go to waste like wine
That's turned to turpentine

Here's the problem: turpentine isn't made from wine. It comes from tree sap that's been fermented. When wine goes bad, it turns into vinegar.

Not turpentine.

Someone should have told her before they recorded this, I think. Surely another rhyme could have been worked out.

Sources: ME
Wikipedia on Turpentine
Wikipedia on Vinegar

Sunday Morning Stomachache News

Apple juice it soothes the pain...

I Just Hope It Doesn't Mean Another Costume Change
So the United Nations is teaming up with Marvel to do a comic promoting UN humanitarian efforts to children, starring Spiderman.

I've actually seen worse; I acquired for my brother in law a copy of a Target/Marvel comic to promote reading, when I worked at that hellstore. The plot involved traveling through time and reading hieroglypics, which were intrepreted as sequential art, thus proving that you had to have both literacy AND comics to defeat the villain and save the world.

Compared to that, this sounds positively restrained. Unless, of course, you get a new villain, Doc Republican, who tries to cut UN funding because he thinks that an army of black helicopters is going to invade his stately mansion, where he conducts illegal cloning experiments on puppies.

Hmm. I take it back; that could be entertaining, and couldn't be any worse than the original Spiderman Clone Saga..

Source: The BBC

Catholic Hospital Says Yes to Breast Implants, But Only for XX Women
Ok, long story short, a transgendered person wants to get breast implants. Their hospital says no, Catholic doctrine only allows us to give regular women breast implants. They're suing under a California law that prohibits religious discrimination in healthcare.

Honestly, it's about time. First we had to have an actual debate in Connecticut over making Catholic hospitals stock emergency contraception for rape victims, now this, and of course they still ban abortions and sterilization procedures. Why do we let any church dictate health policy in this country? If they want to help people by providing quality healthcare, fine, dandy; but they need to do it on reasonable, scientific terms, or they can pack up their game and go home to the Vatican already.

Source: PageOneQ

Fascism is What you Make of It?So, despite recent non-seller Liberal Fascism by that Doughiest of Pantloads, Jonah Goldberg, it seems that real world fascists remain stubbornly conservative. Sadly, No! highlights a recent ad by the Gathering of Eagles group, comparing anti-war protestors COde Pink to a lethal bacteriological strain, and noting how similar that was to certain Nazi propaganda tools... like....

The Jew will be identified! The same battle which Pasteur and Koch had to fight must be led by us today. Innumerable sicknesses have their origin in one bacillus: the Jew! Japan would also have got it had it been remained open any longer to the Jew. We will get well when we eliminate the Jews. --Good Old Liberal Adolf

Yeah, I think we win this one again, Jonah.

Source: Sadly, No!


This Had Better Not Stop Me From Getting Eureka 7 Vol. 11 On Time
There used to be defective runs of dvds like this all the time, but these days it's so rare it's actually newsworthy. A bunch of Bandai dvds for their January 8th release window have a very high rate of defect; reportedly as much as 10-25% a title being unplayable. That's a fairly astonishing quality assurance problem.

But like I said; this had better not stop me from getting Eureka 7 Vol. 11. I need to know what happens to *blank* when they get to *blank* after *blank* *blankity blank*

Spoilers removed for your convenience.

Source: Anime News Network

Riches: Update

Went with the Angel comics. Feh. It's a mix of confusing and goofy. Maybe it just can't be made to work without good acting and directing, but it feels terribly weak overall.

I think I'll decline future issues of this particular series.

An Abundance of Riches

So today I've been hitting the comic haul from the comics store, both some leftovers from a while ago before Naruto ate my soul, and the last trip.

Today I read Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness (very nice), Marvel Zombies 2 issues 1-3 (extremely nice), and Black Summer 2-5 by the great Warren Ellis.

Now I'm trying to decide what to read next. The first two issues of the new Angel comic book series by Whedon? Volume 2 of the horror manga Alive? A selection or two from one of the roommate's extensive Lovecraft collection?

Soon I have to go place a custom order at the comic store though. The back of the Warren Ellis comics lists a ton of new releases and collections of his that I want, as well as a bunch of new Night of the Living Dead comics.

First on my list: the Blackgas hardbound trade.

Ellis + Zombies + Hardbound == Bliss
Literacy is fun. More Americans should try it.

Humor News

Apparently I've become a bit menacing, what with the sneaking around on the roommate and random Sweeney Todd singing.

I still say it's not really sneaking if you announce your presence with song.

What if the Beatles had done Stairway?
A question for the ages has now been answered.

Source: And Yet I Persist

Ron Paul is Hilarious
Paul got into a thing with Tim Russert over his assertion that the United States is sliding into 'soft fascism'.

Aside from the characterization of fascism of any sort as 'soft', he's not really wrong. But Paul as the anti-fascist crusader? He raises money from Stormfront!

Pot, meet Kettle.

Source: Raw Story

Department of Rove
I'm pretty sure they already printed this one, but what the heck. Still funny.

WASHINGTON—Longtime political adviser and Republican strategist Karl Rove announced Aug. 13 that he would step down from his role as White House deputy chief of staff to spend more time in the shadows and devote his energy to the things he really cares about, such as creeping, slithering, and disappearing for all time into an ever-darkening realm shut off from hope and goodness.

Source: The Onion

His Grandfather Was Even Better
Modern day Lupin wannabe and master thief now faces life in prison. Alas, to be Lupin you really need your chief adversary to be a guy like Zenigata, especially these days. You can't outrun the radio, as they say; fleeing with your loot is just so much harder in the postmodern age.

Source: The Guardian

Be On the Lookout
Creepy Carly warns of holiday dangers.

Source: Creepy Carly

There. Is. No. God.

There will be a shojo X-Men manga series.

Just shoot me now. Please.

The first, X-Men, was described as a shōjo title — "X-Men meets Fruits Basket or Ouran High School Host Club" according to one panelist — features Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning as an all-boys' school, with the only female student being Kitty Pryde. The work will be aimed at a manga audience; while the characters will be based on famous X-Men heroes, the manga will not require any prior knowledge of the original X-Men comics. The manga is scripted by Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman, with art by Indonesia-based artist Anzu.

What's next, a Harlequin novel? Isn't the 30 Days of Night franchise enough punishment inflicted on us by the comic industry?

Source: Anime News Network