Apparently, my blogging on this site is like Ursula K. Le Guin.
The most recent chapter of my dissertation that I sent to my adviser indicates that I write like George Orwell.
So, there you go.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Monday, April 04, 2011
Saturday, April 02, 2011
I can't believe I never heard of Officer Bubbles before
The dude is suing YouTube for hosting the videos that show him being such a dick.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Blind spot test
I am always learning new things that make me wonder how I have gotten through life without knowing about them. This is the reason you have a blind spot:
The sheet of photoreceptors is much like a sheet of film at the back of a camera. But it has a hole in it. At one location, called the optic nerve head, processes of neurons collect together and pass as a bundle through the photoreceptor sheet to form the optic nerve (the thick black line extending up and to the left in the diagram), which carries information from the eye to the rest of the brain. At this location, there are no photoreceptors, and hence the brain gets no information from the eye about this particular part of the picture of the world. Because of this, you should have a "blind spot" (actually two, one for each eye), a place pretty much in the middle of what you can see where you can't see.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Atlantropa
Atlantropa, also referred to as Panropa, was a gigantic engineering and colonization project devised by the German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s and promulgated by him until his death in 1952. Its central feature was a hydroelectric dam to be built across the Strait of Gibraltar, which would have provided enormous amounts of hydroelecticity and would have led to the lowering of the surface of the Mediterranean Sea by up to 200 metres, opening up large new lands for settlement, for example in a now almost totally drained Adriatic Sea.Atlantropa at Wikipedia
Sörgel saw his scheme, projected to take over a century, as a peaceful European-wide alternative to the Lebensraum concepts which later became one of stated reasons for Nazi conquest of new territories. Atlantropa would provide land and food, employment, electric power, and most of all, a new vision for Europe and neighbouring Africa.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
SEC football
So now LSU is under suspicion because of that guy connected with Oregon, and Georgia just had a micro-suspension. That has got me thinking. Okay, SEC fans, we've had our time. The conference has been at the top, and things are bound to turn down. Since that's inevitable, I want the conference to go out with a little style.
Let's say that the current situation at LSU is just the tip of an iceberg, that the school has been hiring all sorts of illegal recruiters. That's LSU. I know that Bobby Petrino, Houston Nutt, and Nick Saban would cheat. I think Mean Eugene is honest, but perhaps the culture at Auburn is too corrupt for him, and also his players are obviously burglars and criminals. I know that Tennessee is inherently cheating. Mark Richt seems too goody-goody, but that's what people thought about Jim Tressel, too. Maybe Steve Spurrier is willing to bend the rules a little bit more than usual, thinking at his age he's got nothing to lose. Perhaps some of that Kentucky anything-to-win in basketball has leaked over to the football program.
What I am describing is a conference with the kind of rampant lawlessness we might associate with the old Southwest Conference. But it's on a much bigger stage, with much bigger stakes. And that's what I want to see: multiple titles, multiple probations, multiple scandals. I want serious discussions about a school getting the death penalty. I want the kind of hubris that poets would write about, or that could at least be a made-for-TV movie. I want to do this old school.
Let's say that the current situation at LSU is just the tip of an iceberg, that the school has been hiring all sorts of illegal recruiters. That's LSU. I know that Bobby Petrino, Houston Nutt, and Nick Saban would cheat. I think Mean Eugene is honest, but perhaps the culture at Auburn is too corrupt for him, and also his players are obviously burglars and criminals. I know that Tennessee is inherently cheating. Mark Richt seems too goody-goody, but that's what people thought about Jim Tressel, too. Maybe Steve Spurrier is willing to bend the rules a little bit more than usual, thinking at his age he's got nothing to lose. Perhaps some of that Kentucky anything-to-win in basketball has leaked over to the football program.
What I am describing is a conference with the kind of rampant lawlessness we might associate with the old Southwest Conference. But it's on a much bigger stage, with much bigger stakes. And that's what I want to see: multiple titles, multiple probations, multiple scandals. I want serious discussions about a school getting the death penalty. I want the kind of hubris that poets would write about, or that could at least be a made-for-TV movie. I want to do this old school.
The Ides of March
The Ides of March (Latin: Idus Martii) is the name of 15 March in the Roman calendar, probably referring to the day of the full moon. The term ides was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th day of the other months. The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god Mars and a military parade was usually held. In modern times, the term Ides of March is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. Julius Caesar was stabbed (23 times) to death in the Roman Senate led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and 60 other conspirators.Ides of March
On his way to the Theatre of Pompey (where he would be assassinated), Caesar saw a seer who had foretold that harm would come to him not later than the Ides of March. Caesar joked, "Well, the Ides of March have come", to which the seer replied "Ay, they have come, but they are not gone." This meeting is famously dramatized in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned to "beware the Ides of March".
Monday, March 14, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Football misbehavior week
Auburn players breaking and entering, etc etc etc, but young dudes are generally idiots, so I am not surprised they did something stupid. What I really am struck by is The Ohio State Situation.
I am trying to think of another situation in which a coach got off as lightly as Jim Tressel apparently will. He knowingly lied about eligibility-ending violations by players. That is a resign-before-you-get-fired situation. And yet Tressel is still around. The man has no shame! All that, just to beat Arkansas.
I am trying to think of another situation in which a coach got off as lightly as Jim Tressel apparently will. He knowingly lied about eligibility-ending violations by players. That is a resign-before-you-get-fired situation. And yet Tressel is still around. The man has no shame! All that, just to beat Arkansas.
higher ground
If there's been an earthquake and a tsunami is coming, you need to get to higher ground.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Saturday game
It is raining pretty hard here right now, so here is something: Tentacle Wars. It's pretty good once you get the hang of it.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Friday links
1. Fake Moon Landings: "Nice try NASA but we are not fooled that easily! Not even your reptilian overlords can help you hide the truth now!"
2. Benny Hillifier
3. Foxfire Books 1-3
2. Benny Hillifier
3. Foxfire Books 1-3
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Crazies face-off
Contender: EN - TALKS WITH TEACHINGS FROM MY COSMIC FRIENDS


Contact:Warning: Mean Gene always wins.
PREFERABLY BY RADIATING HEART
or
IVO A. BENDA
P.O.BOX 39
036 01 MARTIN 1
Slovak Republic
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Memory
“Photographic memory?” I asked.Secrets of a Mind-Gamer
He chuckled again. “Photographic memory is a detestable myth. Doesn’t exist. In fact, my memory is quite average. All of us here have average memories.”
That seemed hard to square with the fact that he knew huge chunks of “Paradise Lost” by heart. Earlier I watched him recite a list of 252 random digits as effortlessly as if it were his telephone number.
“What you have to understand is that even average memories are remarkably powerful if used properly,” Cooke said. He explained to me that mnemonic competitors saw themselves as “participants in an amateur research program” whose aim is to rescue a long-lost tradition of memory training.
Today we have books, photographs, computers and an entire superstructure of external devices to help us store our memories outside our brains, but it wasn’t so long ago that culture depended on individual memories. A trained memory was not just a handy tool but also a fundamental facet of any worldly mind. It was considered a form of character-building, a way of developing the cardinal virtue of prudence and, by extension, ethics. Only through memorizing, the thinking went, could ideas be incorporated into your psyche and their values absorbed.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
oh man we forgot it is BHM
James brown celebrity hottub
Sometimes it make me break out in a cold sweat!
One two three four!
Hot tub! Ha! Da!
Ah-full of water!
I say hot tub! Ha!
Day! Ba! Very, very hot... Very hot! Da!
Hot tub! Gonna get ya hot-a!
Gonna make ya sweat! Hey! Say!
Hot tub! Rub a dub in the hot tub!
Rub a dub with me!
Should I get in the hot tub?
(Yeah!)
Will it make me sweat?
(Yeah!)
Should I get in the hot tub?
(Yeah!)
Will it make me wet?
(Yeah!)
Well, well, well...
Hot tub! Ah!
Get in!
Gonna get in the water!
Gonna make me sweat! Ah!
Here I go in the hot tub!
HHHHIIIGGGHH!!
Too hot in the hot tub! Ma!
Burn myself!
Make it cooler!
Good God!
Gonna make me...
I'm gonna get in the hot tub..
I'm gonna get in the hot tub..
I'm gonna get in the hot tub..
Ha! Lilin! Lidilin! Eh!
A gonna make me sweat-ah!
Dah! Gonna make me sweat!
Gonna make me sweat-ah!
Dah! Gonna get me in the hot tub!
I can't stand it!
Here I go! I can't stand it!
Here I go in the hot tub!
Gonna get in the hot tub!
Gonna get it wet-ah!
Good God!
HHHIIIIGGHHH!! Ha!
Good God!
Rub a dub!
In the hot tub!
Rub a dub with me!
Good God!
Rub a dub in the hot tub!
Gonna set me free!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Food critics

It has always been crucial to the gourmet’s pleasure that he eat in ways the mainstream cannot afford. For hundreds of years this meant consuming enormous quantities of meat. That of animals that had been whipped to death was more highly valued for centuries, in the belief that pain and trauma enhanced taste. “A true gastronome,” according to a British dining manual of the time, “is as insensible to suffering as is a conqueror.” But for the past several decades, factory farms have made meat ever cheaper and—as the excellent book The CAFO [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations] Reader makes clear—the pain and trauma are thrown in for free. The contemporary gourmet reacts by voicing an ever-stronger preference for free-range meats from small local farms. He even claims to believe that well-treated animals taste better, though his heart isn’t really in it. Steingarten tells of watching four people hold down a struggling, groaning pig for a full 20 minutes as it bled to death for his dinner. He calls the animal “a filthy beast deserving its fate.”[...]
The moral logic in Pollan’s hugely successful book now informs all food writing: the refined palate rejects the taste of factory-farmed meat, of the corn-syrupy junk food that sickens the poor, of frozen fruits and vegetables transported wastefully across oceans—from which it follows that to serve one’s palate is to do right by small farmers, factory-abused cows, Earth itself. This affectation of piety does not keep foodies from vaunting their penchant for obscenely priced meals, for gorging themselves, even for dining on endangered animals—but only rarely is public attention drawn to the contradiction. This has much to do with the fact that the nation’s media tend to leave the national food discourse to the foodies in their ranks. To people like Pollan himself. And Severson, his very like-minded colleague at The New York Times. Is any other subculture reported on so exclusively by its own members? Or with a frequency and an extensiveness that bear so little relation to its size? (The “slow food” movement that we keep hearing about has fewer than 20,000 members nationwide.)The Moral Crusade Against Foodies
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
In the all-time history of bad ideas:
Project Pluto:
The proposed use for nuclear-powered ramjets would be to power a cruise missile, called SLAM, for Supersonic Low Altitude Missile. In order to reach ramjet speed, it would be launched from the ground by a cluster of conventional rocket boosters. Once it reached cruising altitude and was far away from populated areas the nuclear reactor would be turned on. Since nuclear power gave it almost unlimited range, the missile could cruise in circles over the ocean until ordered 'down to the deck' for its supersonic dash to targets in the Soviet Union. The SLAM as proposed would carry a payload of many nuclear weapons to be dropped on multiple targets, making the cruise missile into an unmanned bomber.Also known as the Flying Crowbar:
Pluto's namesake was Roman mythology's ruler of the underworld -- seemingly an apt inspiration for a locomotive-size missile that would travel at near-treetop level at three times the speed of sound, tossing out hydrogen bombs as it roared overhead. Pluto's designers calculated that its shock wave alone might kill people on the ground. Then there was the problem of fallout. In addition to gamma and neutron radiation from the unshielded reactor, Pluto's nuclear ramjet would spew fission fragments out in its exhaust as it flew by. One enterprising weaponeer had a plan to turn an obvious peace-time liability into a wartime asset: he suggested flying the radioactive rocket back and forth over the Soviet Union after it had dropped its bombs.I can't believe this was never completed.
[...]
Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, Pluto's sponsors were having second thoughts about the project. Even before it began dropping bombs on our enemies Pluto would have deafened, flattened, and irradiated our friends. The noise level on the ground as Pluto went by overhead was expected to be about 150 decibels. Ruptured eardrums, of course, would have been the least of your problems if you were unlucky enough to be underneath the unshielded reactor when it went by, literally roasting chickens in the barnyard. Pluto had begun to look like something only Goofy could love.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Philosophy experiments
These kinds of internet quiz things are fun to do, but ultimately I think they're pretty silly. It is almost always necessary to grossly simplify situations, construct some false analogy, or find non-existent contradictions in order to create these easy-to-answer yes-or-no kinds of questions. I need room for nuance in answers. As is, they're only useful to suss out the extremes -- to find people who are, say, 100% utilitarian in every situation.
Most importantly, and I'm thinking specifically of the "Should you kill the fat man?" quiz, these kinds of discussions lack what I think is the key fact of the human condition: sometimes there is no right. People are in situations (all the time, in fact) in which there is no morally right answer, and whatever you do, you've done something wrong. There might be less wrong answers, or decisions that are a different kind of wrong, but you're wrong either way.
Most importantly, and I'm thinking specifically of the "Should you kill the fat man?" quiz, these kinds of discussions lack what I think is the key fact of the human condition: sometimes there is no right. People are in situations (all the time, in fact) in which there is no morally right answer, and whatever you do, you've done something wrong. There might be less wrong answers, or decisions that are a different kind of wrong, but you're wrong either way.
Monday, February 07, 2011
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Friday, February 04, 2011
Friday links
Boxcar2D is pretty cool. There has to be a math or science teaching moment in there.
The Diving Board "is a Panel of football fans that have set out to instill awareness of the simulation and diving that inevitably occurs during most football matches."
The Diving Board "is a Panel of football fans that have set out to instill awareness of the simulation and diving that inevitably occurs during most football matches."
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Droid is from Android
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
So...
I just finished RE-reading Gravity's Rainbow. That's twice. Your erection is understandable.
RIP George Plimpton!
RIP George Plimpton!
"he would sometimes spot his opponents 15 points for a game up to 21 and during every point, recall a painful experience from his childhood."
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist is one of my favorite TV shows ever, and there's no good reason it shouldn't still exist. Via the youtube you can find many. Also, Jonathan Katz has multiple sclerosis.
He was the New York ping pong champion in 1964.
He is a close personal friend of renowned playwright David Mamet, with whom he attended Goddard College. Katz co-wrote House of Games with Mamet and had small roles in the Mamet directed films Things Change, Homicide, The Spanish Prisoner and State and Main. They used to travel around college to college hustling people over games of ping pong. Katz would let Mamet beat him. They would pretend to play for money then Mamet would say "If you want to play me, you have to beat my friend first." To keep the game moderately close, he would sometimes spot his opponents 15 points for a game up to 21 and during every point, recall a painful experience from his childhood.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Atlanta
Since big-time professional sports arrived in 1966, teams sailing under the Atlanta flag have completed 149 seasons. (We won’t count baseball in 1994, when the World Series was canceled by a players’ strike, or the 2004-2005 NHL campaign, which was scrubbed due to a lockout.) Only one has yielded a championship. That’s a batting average of .007, which is nice if you’re James Bond, less nice if you’ve invested financial and emotional capital in any of those 148 misses.Atlanta's Sad Sports History
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Seeing Caleb Hanie reminded me of great gunslingas of Colorado State past...
...and that discussion begins and ends with Bradlee Van Pelt.
Apologies for the soundtrack but the two options were that or a video with the actual live commentary from Pam Ward.
Apologies for the soundtrack but the two options were that or a video with the actual live commentary from Pam Ward.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Wikipedia Wednesday
1. Dunning-Kruger effect: "The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence. Competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding."
2. Narcotizing Dysfunction: "Because the individual is assailed with information of issues and problems and they are knowledgeable about or discuss these issues, they believe they are helping in the solution. Society has confused knowing about an issue with doing something about it. Society’s conscience is clear as they think they have done something to remediate the issue. However, being informed and concerned is not a replacement for action."
3. List of animals with fraudulent diplomas: "Oreo C. Collins (born circa 2007) is a tuxedo cat who gained notoriety when she received a diploma from Jefferson High School Online in 2009, although her age was misrepresented in order to qualify. The sting was an investigative operation by the Better Business Bureau of Central Georgia headed by Kelvin Collins, Oreo's owner. Representatives from the school cited the cat's "formal and professional appearance" as grounds for accepting his otherwise suspect academic credentials."
2. Narcotizing Dysfunction: "Because the individual is assailed with information of issues and problems and they are knowledgeable about or discuss these issues, they believe they are helping in the solution. Society has confused knowing about an issue with doing something about it. Society’s conscience is clear as they think they have done something to remediate the issue. However, being informed and concerned is not a replacement for action."
3. List of animals with fraudulent diplomas: "Oreo C. Collins (born circa 2007) is a tuxedo cat who gained notoriety when she received a diploma from Jefferson High School Online in 2009, although her age was misrepresented in order to qualify. The sting was an investigative operation by the Better Business Bureau of Central Georgia headed by Kelvin Collins, Oreo's owner. Representatives from the school cited the cat's "formal and professional appearance" as grounds for accepting his otherwise suspect academic credentials."
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Cooking
Earlier, you will have ground 3 3/4 lbs of fish with a mortar and pestle-heads, tails bones, and all-and forced them through a coarse sieve. Do not use a grinder, blender, or cuisinart. The sieve of La Tour Lambert is an elegant sock of meshed copper wire, with a fitted ashwood plunger. It is kept immaculately bright. Its apertures are shrewdly gauged to crumble the bones without pulverizing the flesh. Into the strained fish,mix small amounts of salt, white pepper, nutmeg, and chopped truffles--fresh ones, if possible. (See truffle.)Country Cooking from Central France: Roast Boned Rolled Stuffed Shoulder of Lamb (Farce Double)
Stir fish and liquid into an even paste.
Two hours before, you will have refrigerated 1 cup of the heaviest cream available. Here, of course, access to a cow is a blessing.
The breathtakingly viscid cream of La Tour Lambert is kept in specially excavated cellars. Those without one use the town chiller, in the middle depths--cool but not cold--of the cave mentioned earlier. Often I have watched the attendant women entering and emerging from that room, dusky figures in cowls, shawls, and long gray gowns, bearing earthenware jugs like offerings to a saint.
Monday, January 17, 2011
More Metal Monday
Too much singin and not enough yellin on the new albums, but this one has grown on me a little bit.
Arguably the stupidest thing written after the BCS title game
Charles Hollis, "Hot Corner: Here is some recruiting advice for Oregon's Chip Kelly:"
Second, his advice to the coach at Oregon is just "recruit better"? That's like telling someone trying out for the NBA to "just be taller." The best team in the Pacific Northwest is rarely (never?) going to be more talented than the best team in the South. That's just the way it is, with population and team history and such.
Additionally, while it's always nice to have better players, I don't think talent is Oregon's problem. They did play just about even with the best offensive and defensive players in America, and their starting running back is the nation's leading rusher and 2010 Heisman third-placer. Since 2007, Oregon has had three recruiting classes in the top twenty. They're not the most talented team in the country, but Oregon has some NFL talent. And you know what? If it were just about talent then Texas would have been playing Florida for the national title.
Third, Oregon did better on defense than the average SEC team did in handling the Auburn offense, one of the best in conference history. A lot of that has to do with having so much time to prepare, the poor field, Newton getting banged up, etc etc. You know what it didn't have anything to do with? Trick plays! Statistically, Oregon's defense played better than most SEC teams against Auburn. Only Mississippi State held Auburn to fewer points, and that was early in the season before Auburn really got going.
Oregon was so close to beating Auburn in the BCS National Championship Game, so whatever the Ducks are doing is working just fine. But don't expect them to play for a national title again any time soon. Just too much trick football.First, two out of those three fake plays worked, which Hollis actually recognizes. I don't think Les Miles has had much trouble with the trick plays this year, and he's doing alright, without retards accusing him of using too many trick plays and not relying just on talent to win. And doesn't Gus Malzahn have a bit of a reputation for trickery and misdirection?
Take your pick from Monday's game: Fake extra-point conversion, the reverse (or fake reverses) on back-to-back kickoff returns, or the crazy fake punt they converted into a first down.
What they need are fewer tricks and more big, fast defensive linemen, big and physical offensive linemen, and a couple of fast wide receivers wouldn't hurt.
Second, his advice to the coach at Oregon is just "recruit better"? That's like telling someone trying out for the NBA to "just be taller." The best team in the Pacific Northwest is rarely (never?) going to be more talented than the best team in the South. That's just the way it is, with population and team history and such.
Additionally, while it's always nice to have better players, I don't think talent is Oregon's problem. They did play just about even with the best offensive and defensive players in America, and their starting running back is the nation's leading rusher and 2010 Heisman third-placer. Since 2007, Oregon has had three recruiting classes in the top twenty. They're not the most talented team in the country, but Oregon has some NFL talent. And you know what? If it were just about talent then Texas would have been playing Florida for the national title.
Third, Oregon did better on defense than the average SEC team did in handling the Auburn offense, one of the best in conference history. A lot of that has to do with having so much time to prepare, the poor field, Newton getting banged up, etc etc. You know what it didn't have anything to do with? Trick plays! Statistically, Oregon's defense played better than most SEC teams against Auburn. Only Mississippi State held Auburn to fewer points, and that was early in the season before Auburn really got going.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
3E Presents: Catchphrase Friday
You want to be the coolest cat on the block? You've got to have a catchphrase! With the weekend coming up, 3E is here to help. We know everybody wants to make you work hard when you're getting winded just polishing off other people's empties. So the next time somebody wants to make you ride a mechanical bull, or move out of the way for the bathroom, just hit them with a catchphrase:
"Sorry, but I got a condition -- real bad case of dignity."
Be the coolest guy around this Friday, 'cause it's Catchphrase Friday.
"Sorry, but I got a condition -- real bad case of dignity."
Be the coolest guy around this Friday, 'cause it's Catchphrase Friday.
Harry Potter edited
LinkPurely in the interests of science, I have replaced the word "wand" with "wang" in the first Harry Potter Book Let's see the results... "Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry. "Oh, well -- I was at Hogwarts meself but I -- er -- got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wang in half an' everything A magic wang... this was what Harry had been really looking forward to. Harry took the wang. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wang above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls He bent down and pulled his wang out of the troll's nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue.
'Get - off - me!' Harry gasped. For a few seconds they struggled, Harry pulling at his uncles sausage-like fingers with his left hand, his right maintaining a firm grip on his raised wang.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The United States of Autocomplete
This is a football- and college-friendly country. Also this.
Surprises: North Carolina furniture, Delaware Water Gap, Nevada Smiths.
Surprises: North Carolina furniture, Delaware Water Gap, Nevada Smiths.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Saturday, January 08, 2011
Supermax
James, who is in his twenties, has been beaten all his life, first by family members: “I was punched, kicked, slapped, bitten, thrown against the wall.” He began seeing mental-health workers at four and taking psychiatric medication at seven. He said he was bipolar and had many other disorders. When a doctor took him off his meds at age eighteen, he got into “selling drugs, robbing people, fighting, burglaries.” He received a twelve-year sentence for robbery. Of the four years James had been in prison when I met him, he had spent all but five months in solitary confinement. The isolation is “mental torture, even for people who are able to control themselves,” he said. It included periods alone in a cell “with no blankets, no clothes, butt-naked, mace covering me.” Everything James told me was confirmed by other inmates and prison employees.The Worst of the Worst: Supermax Torture in America
James’s story illustrates an irony in the negative reaction of many Americans to the mistreatment of “war on terrorism” prisoners at Guantánamo. To little public outcry, tens of thousands of American citizens are being held in equivalent or worse conditions in this country’s super-harsh, super-maximum security, solitary-confinement prisons, or in comparable units of traditional prisons. The Obama administration— somewhat unsteadily—plans to shut down the Guantánamo detention center and ship its inmates to one or more supermaxes in the United States, as though this would mark a substantive change. In the supermaxes inmates suffer weeks, months, years, or even decades of mind-destroying isolation, usually without meaningful recourse to challenge the conditions of their captivity. Prisoners may be regularly beaten in cell extractions, and they receive meager health services. The isolation frequently leads to insane behavior including self-injury and suicide attempts.
Friday, January 07, 2011
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Bowl prep
Auburn is practicing at Scottsdale Community College. You know what their mascot is?

That's right: The Fighting Artichokes.
That's right: The Fighting Artichokes.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Monday, January 03, 2011
where we at
CRISIS games (Tha Captainz Pix listed firzt):Bolded the winners. That puts Tha Captain at three wins, Tha Charlie at six. BUT!
12/21: Louisville v Southern Miss
12/27: Ga Tech v Air Force
12/28: Iowa v Missouri
12/29: Arizona v Okie St
12/30: Tennessee v UNC
12/31: Clemson v USF
12/31: Florida St v South Carolina
01/01: Penn St v Florida
01/01: Michigan v Miss St
01/03: Va Tech v StanfordWe have three games left. If Tha Captain puts the team on his back, cross the plane, touchdown, then we go to the tiebreaker. If Samford takes care of business tonight, or if either SEC Western Division representative wins, then that's it.
01/04: The Ohio St v Arkansas
01/07: TAMU v LSU
Of course, the real winners are the good people of Birmingham, Alabama, who will be hosting the potential tie-breaker match next weekend.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Saturday, January 01, 2011
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