photos go!

God this is painful to watch… Via New Left Media On...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:24:15 -0500

God this is painful to watch…

Via New Left Media

On November 20, 2009, Sarah Palin visited Columbus, OH as part of her book signing tour for “Going Rogue.” When her supporters were asked broad questions about why they why they thought she should be president, the responses were vague: She’s “real.” She’ll “stick up for America.”

Beck, Harry Partch, MP3

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:44:31 -0500

Beck, Harry Partch, MP3:

Via Filter Magazine

Beck, Harry Partch, MP3
by Staff | 11.19.2009

Today, Beck has released a new recording of a track entitled “Harry Partch,” an homage to the composer who expanded upon the conventional tonal scale by implementing a custom 43-tone scale in his music. The track is a playful response to Matt Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces’ public tirade against Radiohead’s “Harry Patch.” In his diss, Friedberger also states that he “would have much preferred to insult Beck but he is too afraid of Scientologists.”

The track is a bizarre, experimental mash-up of pretty much every genre ever. Definitely worth a listen, if only to just hear what a song with 43 tones sounds like.

| Beck | Harry Partch | MP3 |

NPR's Carl Kasell Leaving Newscasts; But He'll Still Be On 'Wait Wait' - The Two-Way - Breaking News, Analysis Blog : NPR

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:07:30 -0500

NPR's Carl Kasell Leaving Newscasts; But He'll Still Be On 'Wait Wait' - The Two-Way - Breaking News, Analysis Blog : NPR:

Nooo!

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-22)

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:20:06 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-22):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Little Bird.. New single from END TIMES - out Jan. 19, 2010 (via...

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:09:00 -0500

Little Bird.. New single from END TIMES - out Jan. 19, 2010

(via The EElS )

Best news I could possibly get in my mailbox tonight.

Unicornfish chaser - via Boing Boing

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:39:28 -0500

Unicornfish chaser - via Boing Boing

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-15)

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:26:56 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-15):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by …

Just can’t seem to get enough Sagan these...

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:14:53 -0500

Just can’t seem to get enough Sagan these days…

topherchris:

Nice.

davidbear: ta-vie / dashedlines / fantasticbyaccident...

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:25:40 -0500

davidbear:

ta-vie / dashedlines / fantasticbyaccident / fujiidom / yerawizardharry / apriliciate / nathanieljames

Let’s do it! dlayphoto: It’s all-systems-go for the Large...

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:42:05 -0500

Let’s do it!

dlayphoto:

It’s all-systems-go for the Large Hadron Collider, just a week after a bird threatened to gum up the proceedings with a piece of bread. (via Gearlog)

More Sagan set to music 749: whileyouweresleeping: Carl...

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:23:55 -0500

More Sagan set to music

749:

whileyouweresleeping:

Carl Sagan and Sigur Rós.

Now you watch. Now you weep.

And by “you,” I mean “me.”

— Via Dynamic of Cats, from London.

“We are obscurity in so much vastness.”

A court decision that reflects what type of country the U.S. is

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:20:23 -0500

A court decision that reflects what type of country the U.S. is:

spaceships:

It’s not often that an appellate court decision reflects so vividly what a country has become, but such is the case with yesterday’s ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Arar v. Ashcroft (.pdf). Maher Arar is both a Canadian and Syrian citizen of Syrian descent. A telecommunications engineer and graduate of Montreal’s McGill University, he has lived in Canada since he’s 17 years old. In 2002, he was returning home to Canada from vacation when, on a stopover at JFK Airport, he was (a) detained by U.S. officials, (b) accused of being a Terrorist, (c) held for two weeks incommunicado and without access to counsel while he was abusively interrogated, and then (d) was “rendered” — despite his pleas that he would be tortured — to Syria, to be interrogated and tortured. He remained in Syria for the next 10 months under the most brutal and inhumane conditions imaginable, where he was repeatedly tortured. Everyone acknowledges that Arar was never involved with Terrorism and was guilty of nothing.  I’ve appended to the end of this post the graphic description from a dissenting judge of what was done to Arar while in American custody and then in Syria.

In January, 2007, the Canadian Prime Minister publicly apologized to Arar for the role Canada played in these events, and the Canadian government paid him $9 million in compensation.  That was preceded by a full investigation by Canadian authorities and the public disclosure of a detailed report which concluded “categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada.” By stark and very revealing contrast, the U.S. Government has never admitted any wrongdoing or even spoken publicly about what it did; to the contrary, it repeatedly insisted that courts were barred from examining the conduct of government officials because what we did to Arar involves “state secrets” and because courts should not interfere in the actions of the Executive where national security is involved. What does that behavioral disparity between the two nations say about how “democratic,” ”accountable,” and “open” the United States is?

Yesterday, the Second Circuit — by a vote of 7-4 — agreed with the government and dismissed Arar’s case in its entirety. It held that even if the government violated Arar’s Constitutional rights as well as statutes banning participation in torture, he still has no right to sue for what was done to him. Why?  Because “providing a damages remedy against senior officials who implement an extraordinary rendition policy would enmesh the courts ineluctably in an assessment of the validity of the rationale of that policy and its implementation in this particular case, matters that directly affect significant diplomatic and national security concerns” (p. 39). In other words, government officials are free to do anything they want in the national security context — even violate the law and purposely cause someone to be tortured — and courts should honor and defer to their actions by refusing to scrutinize them.

Reflecting the type of people who fill our judiciary, the judges in the majority also invented the most morally depraved bureaucratic requirements for Arar to proceed with his case and then claimed he had failed to meet them.  Arar did not, for instance, have the names of the individuals who detained and abused him at JFK, which the majority said he must have. As Judge Sack in dissent said of that requirement:  it “means government miscreants may avoid [] liability altogether through the simple expedient of wearing hoods while inflicting injury“ (p. 27; emphasis added).

The commentary about this case from Harper’s Scott Horton perfectly captures the depravity of what our Government has done — and continues to do — to Arar. His analysis should be read in its entirety, and he concludes with this:

When the history of the Second Circuit is written, the Arar decision will have a prominent place. It offers all the historical foresight of Dred Scott, in which the Court rallied to the cause of slavery, and all the commitment to constitutional principle of the Slaughter-House Cases, in which the Fourteenth Amendment was eviscerated. The Court that once affirmed that those who torture are the “enemies of all mankind” now tells us that U.S. government officials can torture without worry, because the security of our state might some day depend upon it.

I want to add one principal point to all of this. This is precisely how the character of a country becomes fundamentally degraded when it becomes a state in permanent war. So continuous are the inhumane and brutal acts of government leaders that the citizens completely lose the capacity for moral outrage and horror. The permanent claims of existential threats from an endless array of enemies means that secrecy is paramount, accountability is deemed a luxury, and National Security trumps every other consideration — even including basic liberties and the rule of law.  Worst of all, the President takes on the attributes of a protector-deity who can and must never be questioned lest we prevent him from keeping us safe.

— Glenn Greenwald (via unburyingthelead)

hunsonisgroovy: Absolute Zero Is the Coolest

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:16:03 -0500

hunsonisgroovy:

Absolute Zero Is the Coolest

Happy Carl Sagan Day! Sagan would have been 75 this past...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:04:00 -0500

Happy Carl Sagan Day! Sagan would have been 75 this past Saturday, Nov 12. In his honor, here’s a great music video from the The Symphony of Science.The video is composed of edited bits of Carl Sagan’s various video appearances and features the lyrical handiwork of Stephan Hawking. Hands down the most clever use of auto-tunning I’ve ever come across. Oh and if you’re really cool (like me), you can buy this track on 7” vinyl tomorrow.

I am thrilled to announce that “A Glorious Dawn” is now available on a special 7” vinyl though the great Jack White & friends over at Third Man Records. The B-side is a cool etching of the original Voyager Golden Record cover

Via The Symphony of Science

Keep checking out the sypmphonyofscience.com for more. There’s another great music video featuring scientific heavyweights Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGresse Tyson & Bill Nye.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-8)

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:08:10 -0500

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-11-8):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Will is Good - Port O’Brien from the album Threadbare

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:58:42 -0500

My Will is Good - Port O’Brien from the album Threadbare

"Twitter is not going to kill journalism. Journalism dedicated to reporting the impact of Twitter on..."

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:28:53 -0500

“Twitter is not going to kill journalism. Journalism dedicated to reporting the impact of Twitter on journalism is going to kill journalism.”

- Elmo Keep (via tmblg)

documentary: vastandgrand: 30 min Elliott Smith documentary

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:12:20 -0500

documentary:

vastandgrand:

30 min Elliott Smith documentary

dlayphoto: Iron Chef Michael Symon’s book Live to Cook has...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:11:47 -0500

dlayphoto:

Iron Chef Michael Symon’s book Live to Cook has arrived! You can get your copy at Amazon.com.

Electric Six - I Belong in a Factory from Kill Dick Valentine...

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:28:42 -0500

Electric Six - I Belong in a Factory from Kill

Dick Valentine and the boys are back with my favorite E6 album since Fire. Chock full of the absurdity and full stops that made me fall in love with them in the first place. Make sure to check out the tracks “Escape from Ohio,” and “Body Shot.”