:: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 ::

From the street outside of the building where I work, looking east you see the Ben Franklin Bridge, which leads to the Most Dangerous City in America (NYTimes).

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How Bush Really Won (mojones) A long, but well-reasoned article on the considerable influence of rubes, snake-oil, slight-of-hand, and old-time 'ligeon in modern politics.

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All Natural != All Tasty (from a double-bounce off the memepool)

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Science: Tiny, robot, dead-fly eating aircraft (from /.)

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70's Radio interviews with rock artists (Led Zeppelin, Cliff Richards, Steeleye Span) (RealAudio interviews)
From 1972 to 1974, Tony recorded monthly interviews with British rock artistes for Belgische Radio en Televisie (Belgian Radio and Television, the Flemish equivalent of the BBC). The interviews were for Maxi Club, a midweek evening radio show that took an in-depth view of rock, folk and progressive music. The programme was produced by Omroep Brabant (Brabant Broadcasting), the Brussels regional programme maker, for the national Flemish-language popular music station, BRT2-FM.

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Rumsfeld slip sparks conspiracy theory.

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A nice gallery of old, decorative bicycle chain-rings.

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Fundamentalists love death and catastrophe. It confirms their psychological sickness, forgives their hatred of humanity and the environment. They want it to happen.
At raptureready.com, we're at 155, which is "Fasten your seatbelts".

Here's a handy index for missed and yet-to-be-missed end-of-of-the-world lunacy.

The hard core of the Religious Right is anti-science, anti-environment, anti-public education, anti-choice, anti-feminism, anti-gay and lesbian rights, anti-sex education, anti-free-speech, anti-pornography, anti-affirmative action, anti-welfare, anti-civil rights, anti-evolution, anti-interracial relationships, anti-tax, anti-AIDs funding, anti-pluralism, anti-liberalism, anti-other religions, anti-scientific research, anti-secularism, anti-modernity... They are in fact inherently anti-democratic. But they sure are pro-death penalty, pro-guns and pro-hate, as there's much destruction and little love in the agenda of these extremists. As Randall Terry once said, "I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good . . . Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty; we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism." (p. 25) "Stoning is the form of death penalty favored by Christian Reconstructionists," writes Mr. Buckner. (p. 218) This form of cruel punishment, which is unconstitutional (but these people would abolish the Constitution in a minute and replace it by the Bible...), is corroborated by Mr. Silverman who cites William Martin, the author of With God on Our side: "[A] theonomic order would make homosexuality, adultery, blasphemy, propagation of false doctrine, and incorrigible behavior by disobedient children subject to the death penalty, preferably administered by stoning." (p. 177)

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The Bush administration dreams of a state of perpetual warfare. Intelligence was used to learn of or confirm malicious behaviour, which could lead to combat. Now, Rumsfeld has a plan for "commencing combat operations, chiefly to obtain intelligence" (NYTimes, reg. req)

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The Daily Jive is on a short break for the Holidays. We'll be back soon with more and better stuff. Merry Christmas!

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Pirate radio lives in Washington D.C.

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Been playing this puzzle I found on metafilter. Really tough.

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Macquariums at the Apple Collection

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City Creator. Very cool.

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Build a better Bush

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SHHH Cards for annoying cellphone users (printable pdf) (via coudal)

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Sketch-A-Move hotwheels (QT) Project description is here.

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It's A Wonderful Life (reenacted by bunnies in 30 seconds)

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Ghost Stories with Hidden Agendas (McSweeneys)

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[Monumental climate problem; Zero Bush Administration leadership] Shrinking glaciers evidence of global warming, while as a slap-in-the-face to the rest of the world, the U.S. won't even fully participate in world climate talks.

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Fiddling While Iraq Burns (NYTimes)
The White House seems to have slipped the bonds of simple denial and escaped into the disturbing realm of utter delusion.

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The gallery of misused quotation marks. "Cool!"

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Die Screaming with Sharp things in your Head. If you're a ceramic garden gnome.

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http://www.111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.com/

why?

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mp3 of the day: A 1977 Inspirational McDonalds employee record (mp3) featuring the voice of Ray Kroc his-bad-self, who sounds like he had a few before busting his cut. Horrible, horrible, horrible. As if working for Mickey D's isn't bad enough without having this stuff forced on you.
From the oddball music archive. There is some great stuff on this site, like this old auto-organ track.

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Apparently air sickness bag collecting is catching on. Sicksack joins the fray.

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Red State Cuisine (found on Retro Randy)

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Fantastic site profiling Czech Book Covers from the 1920's-30's (from GMT+9, who always seems to get the inside line on these things)

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Battlefield Earth: Bill Moyers explains why fake-Christian fundamentalists feel justified in treating the environment like a toilet. (speech transcript, well worth reading)
Mr. Moyers article quotes the online environmental site, The Grist, the current issue of which profiles Bill Clinton's recent activity in helping to mobilize environmental activism.


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Twin sisters have twins on the same day

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Santarchy: Santas Gone Wild! From a NYTimes article about Santas behaving badly.

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The strange art work of Ray Caesar.
A cross between pop surrealism, 3d modelling, and parlour portraiture. Ray's own site is here.

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Attention lazy, hipster, loungecrawlers: it's not too late to add the "Lazy Drinker" computer controlled cocktail mixer to your list.

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After a 9 year break, American Music Club is back with a new album, Love Songs for Patriots, which is available for free, streaming mp3 download on their web site.

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A Rube Goldberg physics assignment page (with the long Rube Honda Commercial video, and video links to past class projects)

Here is another duct-tapey device that isn't pretty, but does a lot.

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Winner of this month's ultra-descriptive url contest: oldmencrying.com

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Kerowack's insane roller disco dance party video (.mov, courtesy of memepool)

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An update to the Kitaoka optical illusions page. (caution: eye-hurt)
Original page here.

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A nice little flash jumper game featuring the ultra-rare bearded character. His beard is so prominent in his mystique, they named the game after it.

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You caint make yer corn-squeezins without a copper moonshine still (warning: horrendous midi that sounds like a cross between 'turkey in the straw' and a hobbit folk dance)
Or, you could make your own.

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Terri Gross's interviews David Johansen on the New York Doll's, their reunion at this year's UK Meltdown Festival Reunion, and his Buster Poindexter alter-ego (NPR.org, full audio interview link)

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When Bad Things Happen (To Bad People) (Mother Jones)
We’re not torturing people. (And even if we were ... they’re bad people.)
This, essentially, is the logic of the Bush administration's defense against the charge (by now conclusively documented) that the treatment of detainees in the war on terror has been, and continues to be, illegal. It's a defense that was pressed into service once again this week, when a confidential International Committee of the Red Cross report was leaked to the press citing treatment of detainees at Guantanamo as “tantamount to torture.”

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Instructions on how to make this enormous ape-friendly keyboard

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"That song was written with a hunger that can break down stone walls. That was the motivation."
Bob Dylan, on "It's All Right, Ma" in a new Rolling Stone interview
Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" tops their list of the best 500 songs ever written.

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[Christmas Party.mp3] An odd Christmas song, courtesy of the Walkmen

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Bush sets out to dismantle 30 years of environmental protection
In little over a month since his re-election, they have announced that they will comprehensively rewrite three of the country's most important environmental laws, open up vast new areas for oil and gas drilling, and reshape the official Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

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Interview with Fugazi's Ian MacKaye

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"Access to networks like the World Wide Web might need to be limited to those who can show they take security seriously"
-- George Tenet, Dec 2, 2004

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Comedian Patton Oswald talks to NPR's Terry Gross (streaming RA)about what it's like to do political comedy in front of an angry mob of rednecks who are screaming "Bush Rocks!".
His page has some good stuff on it, too.

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The Covers Project Longest Chain (a covered b; b covered c...)
But wait: The Rancid song "Everything Sucks" was covered by Ray Charles ??? No he didn't.
a: Its a Descendents song. b: Ray Charles didn't cover it.

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Australia has a browsable National Public Toilet Map

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A full-featured virtual oscilloscope.

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12 days, $66,344.46

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I'd like one of these, please.

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Toast, toast, toast, toast, toast, toast, toast, toast. What do you put in a toaster?
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Bread, stupid!
Toaster Museum

The process of scorching bread to preserve it spread through many cultures. The word toast comes from the Latin Torrere, Tostum - to scorch or burn. The Romans, in their conquests, took their love of toasted bread with them and spread the custom farther, even up into Britain. Later, English colonists brought the tradition to the Americas.

Any page that defines its subject "from the Latin" is alright by me.

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Huge Mineral and Gem Gallery

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[VLDTV] The world's earliest television recordings from the late 20's - early 30's done on Silvatone and Phonovision shellac discs (capturing a 30 line horizontal scan!)

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Lessons in Virtual Tour Photography (McSweeneys)

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