One by one I'll knock you out

Execution and crazy people

Certainly there were other details that made the crime uniquely memorable. For one thing, Andre had cut out the children's hearts and returned home with the organs in his pockets. For another, he was careful to use three different knives so that the blood from each body would not cross-contaminate, thereby ensuring that the demons inside each of them would die. He then stabbed himself in the chest, but he did not die as he had hoped. In fact, he was well enough to leave a message on his wife's parents' phone explaining that he thought he was in hell, and he managed to confess to the police what he had done before they took him in for emergency surgery.

The entire episode had biblical overtones—Andre had convinced himself that his wife was Jezebel, his son the Antichrist, and her daughter just plain evil. In short, the case had enough spectacular aspects to keep the most jaded of court watchers buzzing for months, but it was the eyeball issue that garnered most of the attention. And that was only the beginning.

How Crazy Is Too Crazy to Be Executed?

Oh, every week there's a canal

Alternate title: "Quiet! I will not hear another word against the boat."

Friday links

1. Fantastic Contraption is great and I like the original best.

2. Neat story

3. Ant comics

4. One tiny hand I do not know why this is so funny.

5. This is a good list thought by no means perfect.

here's me

I'm pretty sure we've played this before, but somebody was talking about WindowsXP

Dr. Hook

I'm not saying this little live DVD by a largely forgotten band is better than the abovementioned films by the likes of Scorsese, Godard, Pennebaker, and Bogdanovich. What I am saying, though, is that none of these films has provided me with the same feeling of entertainment verging on sheer life-affirming joy as has Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show: Live, and that none has so consistently reminded me what playing music onstage should, at its very highest point, feel like.

I want to explain why to you but, before writing another word, I'd like to promise you something: At no point will I make any kind of postmodern bid to revise the 1970s rock canon to place Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show anywhere remotely near its creative center. A strained case could be made I guess, but to make such a case would involve a kind of pretense that is the direct antithesis to the music of Dr. Hook, which is possibly the most unpretentious rock music ever recorded. Furthermore, I promise to make no attempt to paint Dr. Hook as anything other than what they were: a down-and-dirty Jersey bar band whose tunes more often than not crossed the line into novelty rock, an outlet for the pop-lyrical efforts of countercultural humorist and children's author Shel Silverstein, and, later, a banal disco band specializing in workmanlike ballads such as "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman."

“Dennis, We’ve Been Crying Too Much”: Dr. Hook and the Untold Story of the Best Rock Movie Ever | Part Two

this is a fun song to put people's names into the lyrics

WESLEY.

WESLEY ROBERT.

*********

Somehow, Foghat has led me to this.

Worth reading, post-Super Bowl

What happened next was the strangest encounter of Lemming’s 28-year career as a football scout. Michael Oher sat down at the table across from him. . .and refused to speak. “He shook my hand and then didn’t say a word,” Lemming recalled. (“His hands — they were huge!”) Lemming asked a few questions; Michael Oher just kept staring right through him. And soon enough Lemming decided further interaction was pointless. Michael Oher left, and he left behind blank forms and unanswered questions. Every other high-school football player in America was dying for Lemming to invite him to play in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. Michael Oher had left his invitation on the table.

What never crossed Tom Lemming’s mind was that the player he would soon rank the No. 1 offensive lineman in the nation, and perhaps the finest left-tackle prospect since Orlando Pace, hadn’t the faintest notion of who Lemming was or why he was asking him all these questions. For that matter, he didn’t even think of himself as a football player. And he had never played left tackle in his life.

The Ballad of Big Mike

WITH GASOLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNEE

Moon hoax

Pulled one over but I stole her fair and square

Moooooonday Links

1. Free language lessons 2. Free college courses 3. Vintage booze 4. Long Tarantino interview 5. Sloth attack

"Killing in the Name of" in a major key

Fake girlfriend

Upon receiving the news of the two deaths, Te'o went out and led the Fighting Irish to a 20-3 upset of Michigan State, racking up 12 tackles. It was heartbreaking and inspirational. Te'o would appear on ESPN's College GameDay to talk about the letters Kekua had written him during her illness. He would send a heartfelt letter to the parents of a sick child, discussing his experience with disease and grief. The South Bend Tribune wrote an article describing the young couple's fairytale meeting—she, a Stanford student; he, a Notre Dame star—after a football game outside Palo Alto.

Did you enjoy the uplifiting story, the tale of a man who responded to adversity by becoming one of the top players of the game? If so, stop reading.

Manti Te'o did lose his grandmother this past fall. Annette Santiago died on Sept. 11, 2012, at the age of 72, according to Social Security Administration records in Nexis. But there is no SSA record there of the death of Lennay Marie Kekua, that day or any other. Her passing, recounted so many times in the national media, produces no obituary or funeral announcement in Nexis, and no mention in the Stanford student newspaper.

Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking And Inspirational Story Of The College Football Season, Is A Hoax

this just in

I'm hated, confrontated for the juice that I have

hey i'm still over .500

I'm 16 - 14, which I guess makes Choorles 22 - 8. Pretty spiffy, bud. Vegasbot, btw, is 17 - 11 - 2, straight up.

Robots

We have preconceptions about how an intelligent robot should look and act, and these can blind us to what is already happening around us. To demand that artificial intelligence be humanlike is the same flawed logic as demanding that artificial flying be birdlike, with flapping wings. Robots will think different. To see how far artificial intelligence has penetrated our lives, we need to shed the idea that they will be humanlike.
Consider Baxter, a revolutionary new workbot from Rethink Robotics. Designed by Rodney Brooks, the former MIT professor who invented the best-selling Roomba vacuum cleaner and its descendants, Baxter is an early example of a new class of industrial robots created to work alongside humans. Baxter does not look impressive. It’s got big strong arms and a flatscreen display like many industrial bots. And Baxter’s hands perform repetitive manual tasks, just as factory robots do. But it’s different in three significant ways.

Better Than Human

we'll get 'im next year, boys