making funny faces

via

post-thanksgiving linkage

- Postcards from the Future (London edition, and here, too) (via)

- great gift for the guitar player in your life.

- You have the Right to Repair.

- Mandate my ass. We're not much happier about this election than before. (via)

- Jake Christie's Small Stories (via)

- "It made sense in the moment, before I woke up."

- Assuming that you've read all of Scary-Go-Round, you should read a mini series called Giant Days, featuring the wonderful Esther. What do you mean you havent read Scary-Go-Round?! Fool! Read it Now!

- Greetings From Idiot America! (via)

- Why the Dream Act ought to be passed - for ethical reasons, for humanitarian reasons, for moral reasons, but most of all, because bullshit "incentivation of criminal acts" arguments show how small-minded the "American Dream" has been allowed to become. (via)

- Here's one of the best ideas I've ever seen for making a "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movie.

- It's after Thanksgiving day, which means that I can break out the Charlie Brown Christmas CD! Yay!

quote for Thanksgiving

"God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly"

music time

via

early Kodakchrome test

circa 1922. Color still looks great!

I also find it interesting to see how standards in "beauty" have changed, both in terms of physical characteristics and behavior.

via

Dave's Blogroll, version 5.0

Well, it's been over a year and a half since I put together my last blogroll, so I suppose it's about time to do another one. Understand, this list isnt set up for the edification of my "readers", since there are only about a half dozen of y'all out there any more, but for my own convenience. Sorry. Although, if you dont know what I read by now...

these are my mutual blogs, that is, we link to each other.
This is a shrinking group, largely through attrition. I also consider all these people, at least in a way (since I've never actually met a one of them), to be my friends.

The Omnipotent Poobah
Welcome To the Now
Saurly Yours
Death And Taxes
Lydia Valentine
Spoonfighter
Blurred Clarity
Rational Rant
Zaius Nation: damn dirty ape
Haphazard Musings

These are the blogs that I read a lot:
It's a smaller group than it used to be.

Rude Pundit
What's Alan Watching?
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Gerry Canavan
It's My Right To Be Left Of Center - New Site! LeftWing Nutjob
Electronic Cerebrectomy
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub
Contrary Brin
Boing Boing

All the WebComics I read are here now. To be honest, this is where I spend a lot of on-line time.

These are blogs that I dont read a lot, but really should:

Rant, trog69's blog
Margaret and Helen, which may or may not be written by an 80 year old woman
United Methodeviations
Russ Daggatt's Blog
Donkeylicious
(Not Only) Hotel Room Nudes
Bearskin Rug
Corrente
Sadly, No
Beam Me Up
Welcome Back to Pottersville
Blog Around The Clock - new digs at Scientific American!
Have Coffee, Will Write
Newsmericks - the news in limerick form
Ran Prieur
Focal Point
Raed In The Middle
Gus Van Horn
Little Man, What Now?
Fish or Cut Bait
The Shrewdness of Apes: a teacher blog
Missouri Loves Company: another teacher blog
Clusterfuck Nation
Andrew Sullivan
Robert Reich
The Smallest Minority
Driftglass - liberal blog
Darkblack - photoshop master
Ochlocracy In Action

The Big Boys

Colbert Report
Daily Kos
Daily Show
Huffington
The Onion

Here are some sites, not blogs usually, that contain good stuff:

Wooooomag
People of Walmart. Be afraid.
Shit My Dad Says.
Kox
Young Me, Now Me
Vivian Maier: Her Discovered Work
Bits and Pieces
The Polaroider
Leslie Miles - think of it as Found Art. (new site)
Three Frames

These are blogs which have apparently become abandoned, but which I still hope for a return of. A blog is a hard thing to maintain.

RIP, Kel, The Osterly Times
Flan: not quite jelly, not quite cake
der Hundepo
United We Lay
The Sapient Sutler
J.R. Kinnard
Consider This
123 I Love You
SPOtastic
The Neural Gourmet
The Rare Sixth Sense
Demonbaby
The Red Pants of Justice
Pop's Bucket
Angry Chimp might as well be dead
Stinkhorn Rodeo
Twitz
Spiiderweb™
The Reverend Billy Bob Gisher. (actually, Billy Bob may be thriving, but he's doing so behind an invitation wall that I wasnt given a pass for. This makes me sad.
RIP, Kel, The Osterly Times

Incidentally, these are not presented in any particular order, so dont go reading anything into who comes first, okay?

previous blogrolls: blogroll no. 4, blogroll no. 3, blogroll no. 2, blogroll no. 1
blogtrolls: no. 8, no. 7, no. 6, no. 5, no. 4, no. 3, and no. 2 (or maybe it's no. 1, as I cant actually find no. 2 anymore in the archives). The newest blogtroll should be coming up in a week or so... I hope.

ugh

It's okay, read the rest.

saturday matinee

this one goes out to The Omnipotent Poobah.

the scale of the universe

is awesome!!!

sigh

I can only assume that Obama has decided to be a one-term president, because this is exactly the kind of thing that will result in his base staying home in droves.

Woo. President Palin, here we come.

Rah.

another half-thought

An optimist says the glass is half-full.

A pessimist says the glass is half-empty.

A pragmatist asks what's in the glass?

A really smart guy asks for a bigger glass.

another thought

 A Liberal says the glass is half full.

A Conservative says the glass is half empty.

A Republican says "It's my glass, I earned it!" while trying to figure out how to get your glass, too.

A Democrat is too frightened by the glass to take any kind of action.

a thought

Okay, so I was thinking about the strikes and protests of the 30's, and if you look at pictures you'll see cops, lots of cops. But it occurs to me that due to tax cuts we dont have the numbers that seemed to exist back in the day, so that maybe when we finally do get so fed up that we start striking or protesting or rioting or whatever, we wont have the level of violence you see from olden days.

Then I remembered all those private "security" companies, like Blackwater, or whatever it's calling itself these days.

Then I remember that many of those personnel have had plenty of training in urban warfare over the last (almost) decade.

Good thing I dont hold much faith in conspiracy theories.

Though I do believe that while the theories may be crap, you dismiss their details at your peril.

Evidence!

Onward the (Banana) Republic! (that's us, by the way).

Dont believe me? Watch Bill Moyers, though he never uses the term "Banana Republic", he uses the word "plutonomy", which is far more obscene. (feel free to skip to around 6:00 minutes to start). (transcripthere)(more or less).

factoid*

Today in History

55 years ago, Doc Brown slipped in the bathroom and envisioned the Flux Capacitor, leading to time travel.








* A factoid is something that looks like a fact, but is not, just as a humanoid is something that looks like a human, but is not. Remember that next time Fox or CNN uses the term.

a thought

Okay, so, evidence these days seems to blame the Great Recession mostly on the housing bond market. Greedy mortgage brokers and banks gave out loans to people pretty much because they could breath. They could do this because there was a hungry bond market clamouring for investment vehicles into which to put their money.
My question is as follows: how much of that money would not have been available had taxes for the wealthy and taxes on capital gains not been cut so low? Enough to have made the bubble not as bad? To have eliminated it altogether?
Tax cuts are sold to us as being good for investment in "small business"; how much of that money actually goes there, and how much of it is "invested" in the giant horse race we call the stock market?

Consider this idea as we watch the Republicans and their one-trick-pony answer to the economic crisis.

linkage

- a handy time-line for the financial meltdown. (via)

- Truthiness, ho!

- Why we're completely mother-fucked. No, really, we are fucked. Matt Taibbi depresses the hell out of me. (via)

- Tax the Rich!!! (and here's why) (via)

- College degrees (or the lack thereof) - county by county. (via)

- Reason number 37 why the economy wont be getting better anytime soon. (via)

- "Sitting in the dark corner of a DC bar is a Republican political operative who has the goods on Palin. He’s just waiting for his phone to ring with the word, “Go.” If Palin weren’t such a poisonous person, I’d almost feel sorry for her. She has no idea what’s coming her way. ". Sa-weet! (via)

- You ever see the first episode of "Yes Minister"? Now imagine freshly elected teabaggers in Washington; think anything will be different? (via)

- Will Democrats move towards the center? Do pussies cry "uncle"?

- Tea Party finance map. (via)

- The real reason for Arizona's anti-Illegal Alien law: Private contractors and taxpayer funding. (via)

- "Vintage" Star Wars posters; so cool. I'd actually pay money for one of these. I think. (via)

now that that's over

Man, I'm so depressed right now. Time for a bit of a laugh. Time for a little Star Wars, done right!

vote

heh

via the Beer Party.

quote for the day

"In a car, when you want to go forward, you put it in D, When you want to go backward, you put it in R."

Barack Obama