This is why I hate Coach

Click here:

Hat Tip Paul at Mock Turtle

Such Fun at the Lager

The handy thing about these gay frauleins is that they had already been vetted for racial purity. So if one were in wont of a wife or a girlfriend, the typist pool was (racially speaking) Kosher.

A Good Day for Gold Buggers

Gold surpasses (if even for a brief moment) the magical US$ 4 digit mark. The barbarous relic would appear to have some life left in it, alas. What next, shells?

France Loses Its Last World War I Veteran

Italian-born Lazare Ponticelli was feted at the National History of Immigration Museum in Paris last Dec. 16, shortly after his 110th birthday.

The link that provided us an unbroken chain between France today and France of the First World War is now broken.

The Zimmerman Telegram

The decrypt and translation:

On the first of February, we intend to begin unrestricted submarine warfare. In spite of this, it is our intention to endeavor to keep the United States of America neutral.

In the event of this not succeeding, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and make peace together. We shall give generous financial support, and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The details of settlement are left to you.

You are instructed to inform the President [of Mexico] of the above in the greatest confidence as soon as it is certain that there will be an outbreak of war with the United States and suggest that the President, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence with this plan; at the same time, offer to mediate between Japan and ourselves.

Please call to the attention of the President that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England to make peace in a few months.

More info on this great story here.

The National Cryptography Museum; Don't Feel Bad You Didn't Know About It. I think that's the point.

No. It's not a museum about the CRY-baby of a company cryptologic, but of Cryptography, an ever fascinating, fiendishly complex, and ever necessary practice. The farthest I have ever gotten into the subject was a visit to Bletchley Park and reading Alan Turing's harrowing biography. But when I am next at the NSA, I'll be sure to give a look in. Directions can be found here. In an unrelated matter, I met someone who had actually met Sir. William Stephenson and not just his biographer William Stephenson.

When Iraq Really Was Preparing Weapons of Mass Destruction

The reporting is a bit jingoistic (in a way that still, I am afraid, raises deep Zionist feelings in me) but the story is the most part 'true.' Give me a bunch of overladen fighter jets any day over a ground invasion.

A Trillion here and a Trillion There and the Million Millions start to add up

Stiglitz does some counting:

The cost of direct US military operations - not even including long-term costs such as taking care of wounded veterans - already exceeds the cost of the 12-year war in Vietnam and is more than double the cost of the Korean War.

And, even in the best case scenario, these costs are projected to be almost ten times the cost of the first Gulf War, almost a third more than the cost of the Vietnam War, and twice that of the First World War. The only war in our history which cost more was the Second World War, when 16.3 million U.S. troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation) of about $5 trillion (that's $5 million million, or £2.5 million million). With virtually the entire armed forces committed to fighting the Germans and Japanese, the cost per troop (in today's dollars) was less than $100,000 in 2007 dollars. By contrast, the Iraq war is costing upward of $400,000 per troop.

The Times article is here:

I had rather thought if you owned the shop you would get a deal on the goods: i.e. the oil. Evidently not. And that Koran, written in Saddam's own blood, so they used to say. So much so for a secularist Bathist regime then.

What I Think is Interesting About The Eliot Ness Mess is How Spitizer Paid for it All

Nice article from the WSJ here. What has to be the real story is where the Governor found the spare US$80k it is suggested he spent. Word has it that they're chuckling from one end of Wall Street to the Other. Makes a change these days I suppose. I bet the Dr. is smarting though.

The Japanese Really Are Different: Van Gogh in Raw Fish and Properly Made Rice

Where the rice hits the nori can be found here.

The Glee Club at Auschwitz

This photograph, taken at Auschwitz, shows “nearly a hundred officers arrayed like a glee club up the side of a hill. The accordion player stands across the road,” Wilkinson writes. “All the men are singing except those in the very front, who perhaps feel too important for it.” The group includes Richard Baer; Rudolf Hoess, who had supervised the building of Auschwitz and had been its first commandant; and Josef Mengele, the doctor who performed infamous medical experiments on twins and other prisoners. This album contains eight pictures of Mengele—the only known photographs of him at Auschwitz.

From the New Yorker Online this week.

Love These Stamps: Laika

Must Read for You Floydians Who Are Still Out There

From the blurb:

A behind-the-scenes, in-depth look at the making of one of the greatest studio masterpieces and most commercially successful albums ever recorded—fully illustrated with many never-before-seen photos.

Feels Good Doesn't It with Oil at an All Time High

While I do not defend the Hummista, the Pristas ought to know that a Hummer, over its lifetime, creates about half the pollution of a Prius. And if we really wanted to be environmentally friendly, we ought all to be driving Nanos.

March 7, 2007

Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage
By Chris Demorro
Staff Writer

The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.

...

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.

“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.

All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.

Original article here.

While the numbers may be a little suspect, Sudbury is still not a beacon of Environmental Enlightenment, though the big stack has done much to put the pollution into the upper atmosphere and out of the surrounding area. And as one wag said it, do miners not count as life?

There's Counterfeiting and there's Counterfeiting and This is Counterfeiting: A Counterfeit Ferrari

"I think this all maybe started with the DVDs and music being pirated and it has just exploded, basically, into something quite different," said model Yasmin Le Bon, an anti-counterfeit campaigner.
-- Sorry to hear that Mrs. Bowie

Built in the back streets of Bangkok, and powered by a Subaru engine, we should be worried about this stuff? What I would really like to be able to do is buy this stuff. The P4 was, is, and will always be a beaut. More info here.

Eliot Spitzer Caught With His Pants Down

More info here on today's Eliot Ness Mess.

Website of the Day: Earth Files (including Big Foot on Mars)

Linda Moulton Howe's Earthfiles

More Stephenville, Texas UFO Weirdness

Video here:

The video taken by David Caron in Stephenville Texas leaked on the internet finally! Full video and audio. Very, very interesting footage of the strange UFO blinking symbols in the sky!


05:36 - 06:08 - jet aircraft or car

06:08 - "tryin' to zoom in on it..." - videographer

06:35 - very big truck or large (cargo) aircraft

06:40 - "[you know I once] had a tripod for this" - videographer

07:08 - Video cut / return (video timestamp 9:04)

07:09 - muffled voices

07:21 - "ok...i got the camera pretty steady right now" - videographer

07:33 - intermittently loud static?

07:42 - "ain't movin' the camera it's it's" - videographer

07:51 - "I'm havin' a hard time keeping in in the frame" - videographer

07:58 - muffled

07:59 - "yeah" - videographer

08:03 - muffled voice

08:07 - "somthin' just looked funny about it and I come outside with the camcorder..." - videographer

08:12 - car/truck pass by

08:56 - car/truck pass by

09:06 - END (video timestamp 9:05 PM, JAN.19.200?

To My Good Friends That I Rolled Dice With at Hodgson

Word of the Day: Glossolalia

From Wikipedia:

Glossolalia (from Greek glossa γλῶσσα "tongue, language" and λαλεῖν "to talk") is the vocalizing of fluent speech-like but unintelligible utterances, often as part of religious practice. Its use (including use in this article) sometimes also embraces Xenoglossy - speaking in a natural language that was previously unknown to and that is not understood by the speaker.

Look up Glossolalia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

While occurrences of glossolalia are widespread and well documented, there is considerable discussion within religious communities (principally Christian) and elsewhere as to both its status (the extent to which glossolalic utterances can be considered to form language), and its source (whether glossolalia is a natural, supernatural, or spiritual phenomenon).

And guess who practices it:

Again from Wikipedia: Pentecostals

Beliefs

The majority of Pentecostals believe in order to be saved, one must repent of sin, believe in Jesus as Savior, and accept His Lordship. Pentecostals also typically believe, like most other evangelicals, that the Bible has definitive authority in matters of faith. There are two large streams into which the majority of Pentecostal churches fall.

To the first group, speaking in tongues is the sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but is not necessary for salvation. In these churches, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is viewed as a second work of grace in the believer's life, which occurs subsequent to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which occurs at the moment of salvation. This is reported to create a 'spiritual hierarchy' in the church which often resembles early forms of Gnosticism which the Apostle Paul described extensively in his epistles.

The second group emphasizes a salvation message based on Acts 2:38 which says that a person needs to repent and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and then receive the Holy Spirit. To these Pentecostals, receiving the Holy Spirit is necessary for salvation and is accompanied by speaking in tongues. In these denominations, it is widely assumed that a person who has not spoken in tongues (emphasis mine) is unsaved. Also, this group of churches teaches that the Trinitarian baptismal formula is invalid. Because these groups hold firmly to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, a person who has been baptized with the Trinitarian formula according to Matthew 28:19 (in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit) is unsaved.

Pentecostals have different views on the idea of what "tongues" actually means. Some believe tongues is a prayer language in which they themselves do not understand what they are saying. Others believe tongues is an actual language and the ability to speak the mysteries of God unto the unsaved using their language. In both views the ability to speak and the ability to interpret are separate gifts. One may be able to speak in a certain language but will lack the ability to interpret any other language they have not been gifted with the understanding to speak. Both generally believe there must be an interpreter present so the listeners will understand when a different language, or tongue, is spoken unto them.

...

Pentecostal services are usually very lively. They are characterized by spontaneous expressions of praise, either in the vernacular or in tongues. Pentecostal worshipers are also known for raising their hands in the orant style common in the early church. Some Pentecostal services have been known to run for hours in cases of particular excitement, which is viewed as the Holy Spirit "moving." Pentecostals have sometimes been labeled as "holy rollers" because of their lively worship style.

And we are to seriously consider such people for public office?

A Nice Mashup After a Crappy Day on the Hustings

Barf Bag Alert: Obamamania? Been there done that

Can't we just leave our mythical prelapsarian past behind. Evidently not at The Star when the world was good and its center was to be found in Canada. Yick.

Jeff Healey Passes Away At 41

I didn’t even know he was sick.

Jeff Healey was the first Blues guitarist I ever saw. It must have been twenty years ago.

I was also a great fan of My Kind of Music and was delighted when Jazz FM picked it up.

I remember reading somewhere that he had had to have specially built shelves strong enough to support the weight of his 35,000 78s. I hope they don’t break up the collection. You used to be able to pick up JH’s castoffs at a store on Yonge Street whose name escapes me now. I have a few.

There was even a rumor that JH could identify the record in question by feel. I give this some credence as 78s are made of quite different thicknesses and materials and look of the grooves.

I had been visiting my father at the same hospital for the same reason at the same time. Small cancer world.

Iran Will Shut Down Internet During Election

After all, according to Mr. Dinner Jacket, Iran is the most democratic country in the world. More info here.

Long But Good; Hitch et al on Religion in America

Jack Nicholson Hillary Clinton Video (Parody)

WTF didn't take long for an Answer

LINCOLNSHIRE EARTHQUAKE APPEAL PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY

LINCOLNSHIRE EARTHQUAKE APPEAL PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY

A major earthquake measuring 5.3 on the Richter scale hit Lincolnshire in the early hours today .Its epicentre was in the Market Rasen area. Victims were seen meandering around aimlessly, muttering "Faaackinell".

The earthquake decimated the area causing approximately £30 worth of damage. Several priceless collections of historic tractors were damaged beyond repair and all three of the County's compoooooters went down.

Three areas of historic scare crows were disturbed. Many locals were woken well before their press gang Transit mini buses arrived.

Lincs FM reported that hundreds of residents were confused and bewildered and were still trying to come to terms with the fact that something interesting had happened in Lincolnshire.

One strange effect of the earthquake was to startle thousands of toads into action - but most residents returned to their homes within minutes

One resident - Tracy Sharon Smith, a 15-year-old mother of 5 said, "It was such a shock, my little Chardonnay-Mercedes come running into my bedroom crying. My youngest two, Tyler-Morgan and Victoria-Storm slept through it all. I was still shaking when I was skinning up and watching Jeremey Kyle later in the morning."

Another resident said, 'I was in bed with my five daughters and their grandmother, as usual, and on feeling the vibrations I nudged my mum in the back and said 'Has that disturbed the ducks, Duck?'

Apparently looting, muggings and car crime were unaffected and carried on as normal. The British Red Cross has so far managed to ship 4,000 crates of Sunny Delight to the area to help the stricken locals.

Rescue workers are still searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal belongings, including benefit books, jewellery from Elizabeth Duke at Argos and Bone China from Poundland.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

This appeal is to raise money for food and clothing parcels for those unfortunate enough to be caught up in this disaster.

Clothing is most sought after - items most needed include:
Fila or Burberry baseball caps
Kappa tracksuit tops (his and hers)
Shell suits (female)
White sport socks

Wellington Boots & Barbour jackets
Rockport boots and any other items usually sold in Primark.
Food parcels may be harder to come by, but are needed all the same.

Required foodstuffs include:
Microwave meals, Tins of baked beans, Ice cream, Cans of Colt 45 or
Special Brew.
22p buys a biro for filling in the compensation forms and their giros.
£2 buys chips, crisps and blue fizzy drinks for a family of 9.
£5 buys B&H and a lighter to calm the nerves of those affected.

Breaking news***
Rescue workers found a girl in the rubble smothered in raspberry
alco-pop.
'Where are you bleeding from?' they asked, "Scunthorpe" said the girl,
wossit gotta do wiv you?" (And who put the ---- in Scunthorpe anyway?)

Please don't forward this to anyone living in Spalding/Boston area - oh,
sod it... they won't be able to read it anyway

WTF?

This blog has not so far as I remember yet commented on the race for a Democratic nomination. It looks like a man with the unfortunate middle name of Hussein has it in the bag but there are still election ads that make you cringe. Jack looks so old in the last frame. May just have to spin up 5 Easy Pieces.

Conrad Black is to Report to Jail on Monday

My feelings are mixed. Conrad Black was a hero of mine. I thought his books were great and subscribed to his newspapers and magazines on both sides of the pond. I even lived in Crossharbour across the quay from The Telegraph's West Ferry Road Printing Plant. But Lord Tubby of Crossharbour was caught dipping deep into the cookie jar at the expense of shareholders. It's a story of almost Greek Tragedian proportions. Spending your 65th birthday in bar hotel is certainly not something to look forward to.

Oddly, Blacks two co-defendants are still on the outside while their appeals are addressed.

Syd Barrett's Speakers For Sale

You can bid on these here.

Shadowy Dark Overlords' 2008 Presidential Plans Leaked Prematurely

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

Taliban Request Cell Phone Operators to Pull the Plug Between 5pm and 7am

More info here.

When I lived in London, we had a small hand held scanner that covered the 900 mhz range. On a nice summer night -- between 5 and 7 actually -- the bands became filled with phone conversations in Arabic.

Most of these transmissions I believe were over unencrypted portable telephones and not mobiles. I didn't exactly consider it eavesdropping as I don't speak Arabic but it seemed an interesting phenomenon and the conversations went on for hours.

Now the Taliban in Afghanistan is asking that Afghani Mobile Phone Companies cease service between 5 and 7 as they believe the 'peacekeeping' forces are able to locate, sometimes with the connivance of the phone companies themselves, Taliban insurgents. I have no doubt this is true. But the whole idea of a Nation's communications -- landlines were extinguished long ago -- going down at night at the whim of a bunch of medieval clerics seems positively preposterous.

Unfortunately, if the poor cell companies do not comply, there may well be blood. This is perhaps slightly less unfortunate than the poor physically and mentally disabled Iraqi's who are being made into unwitting suicide bombers, which is not suicide at all, but mass murder plus one., but not much.

Something that really unerved the wehrmacht during the Nazi's hubristic attempt to bring down the Soviet Union was the site of dogs with backpacks with sticks pointing upwards. Trained according to strict Pavlovian principals to run under trucks for food, with their backpacks they would run under the German vehicles with explosives. German soldiers as a result would shoot any dog or Jew or peasant on site. It really is a miserable world sometimes.

I hear our favorite finance minister is releasing an uncontroversial budget today. Yawn. Now this is a country I feel grateful to live in.

A Great Picture

David Gilmour joins the sort-lived five-piece Floyd, January 1968. Left to right: Syd Barrett, David Gilmour, Rick Wright, Nick Mason, and Roger Waters (front)
(Nick Mason's Archive)

Bentleys and Minis

$2500 Tato Nano

$299 ASUS EEE

Although a Bentley might cost you twenty times the price of a Mini, as the more Hayekian wags at the LSE would have it, the Bentley could not legally take you to your destination any faster or take you to any destination that the Mini could not. Indeed, very often the Mini could go places that the Bentley could not and no-one (not even the insufferable in pursuit of the inedible) would argue that a Bentley was any easier to park than the Mini, though I know which car I would drive.

While I haven't seen or driven a Tata Nano, I have the ASUS EEE sub-notebook and think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Indeed, 'war-driving' (looking for the eponymous Mr. Linksys open wireless connections) with the EEE really showed me just how unsecure the internet is. Of course the granola munchers will not be too happy about Indian families trading in their mules for green house gas emitters, but so what. There will still be another granola for everyone.

If There is Anyone On this Earth Who Knows What a Perfect Cupcake is, it will be DylanY

Copied verbatim from http://milque-toast.blogspot.com/

The Latest from Milquetoast

In search of 'Wichcraft's cupcake Posted: 18 Feb 2008 11:23 AM CST Perhaps number two on the List of Things That Irritate me is the "secret recipe." (Number one on the list is the non-recipe recipe; that is, telling someone how you made something but intentionally leaving out key ingredients or parts of the process. Number one is worse than number two because it's both disingenuous and selfish, whereas number two is just selfish.) Certainly everyone has a right to a secret; I'm not disputing that. But, one of my moral axioms is that one should always share knowledge with others that furthers the development of humanity, recipes included. If you have a great brownie recipe, spread it far and wide, for by doing so, you may spare many generations bad brownies. Yes, I suppose if one is in the business of baking those brownies, perhaps then one wouldn't share the recipe, although even then I would make an argument in favor of it. Those who don't cook a lot are often surprised to find out that published recipe books are often wrong or misleading. One could make a hundred chocolate cakes from a hundred baking books and still not wind up with a perfect chocolate cake; in fact, many of those recipes might wind up being wrong in the same way, because there are actually very few writers that really attempt to perfect their recipes. A corollary: commercial chefs know a lot of things that aren't published in any book. There is a pantheon of knowledge that is simply never or rarely shared. I have inifinite respect to those rare individuals who are both at the top of their craft and are also willing to share with others. If you are both excellent and generous, you are a free spirit in the Nietzschean sense. Which brings me to cupcakes. For a number of years, I have had a mild obsession with the cream filled chocolate cupcake at 'Wichcraft. In 2005, I wrote on Chowhound: "Cream filled chocolate cupcake at 'Wichcraft Visiting from LA - I had an interesting food day today in New York - most of it serendipitous. My initial plan was to have a falafel and lentil soup at Rainbow Falafel on 17th street (I ultimately did, and it was good). On the way, I passed through the farmer's market at Union Square and then 'Wichcraft around the corner.I found the sandwiches at 'Wichcraft fine, but not memorable. However, their cream filled chocolate cupcake was simply incredible. It's not a sweet cupcake, but rather an extremely intense, moist dark chocolate cake (not of the flourless ilk, thankfully) abstemiously filled with lightly sweetened cream, topped with a thin coating of dark chocolate ganche. Memorable. I'd love the recipe if it's been published." There were no responses to my question. I searched around for recipes by Karen De Masco, 'Wichcraft's pastry chef, and found a few things, including a very wonderful peanut butter sandwich cookie. But no cupcakes. Last week I was in New York and had a 'Wichcraft cupcake for lunch. I was inspried to ask again on Chowound: "Chocolate cake recipe like the one in 'Wichcraft's chocolate cupcake 'Wichcraft (locations in SF and New York and possibly elsewhere) has about the best chocolate cupcake I've ever had. It's sort of a very upscale creme filled hostess cupcake. The cake itself has the following characteristics: very moist, fine grained and soft (so I am guessing the butter and flour are mixed directly, a characteristic of fine grained soft cakes), extremely dark and chocolatey. It's quite a dense cake, but it's clearly a cake- the flour is very evident. It almost melts in your mouth. It tastes like it is made with quite high quality chocolate, like a Valrhona. Anyone have a cake recipe that sounds like this?" To my surprise, a reply came back a few days later from a poster named MatthewG: " Dylan, Here is a little treat from your friends at ‘wichcraft. The recipe comes compliments of Karen DeMasco, Pastry Chef at craft and craftbar, who originally developed this delicious dessert for us. Enjoy! ‘wichcraft cupcakes (aka devil’s food cake cupcakes) Yield: 36 cupcakes 1 ½ cups cocoa powder1 ¼ cups warm water 1 ½ cups cake flour1 ½ cups All-Purpose flour1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder1 ½ teaspoon baking soda½ teaspoon salt 1 stick + 2 tablespoons butter3 ½ cups dark brown sugar1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract 3 eggs 1 ¼ cup buttermilk Whisk together cocoa and water to make a paste. Sift dry ingredients together. In the bowl of a mixer, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add in the eggs one at a time followed by cocoa paste. Once combined, alternate adding dry ingredients and buttermilk. Place 24 paper cupcake liners into muffin tins. Fill the liners up to ½-inch from the top and bake at 325ºF for about 25 minutes, turning after the first 12 minutes. Cake should be firm to the touch and when the center is inserted with a knife, it should come out clean. Cream filling 1 ½ cups heavy cream¼ cup confectioner’s sugar½ teaspoon vanilla extract In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, whip all of the ingredients to soft peak. Ganache frosting 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate½ cup corn syrup¾ cup heavy cream In a saucepot, bring the heavy cream and corn syrup to a boil. In the meantime, with a serrated knife, chop the chocolate into uniform small pieces and place in a mixing bowl. Once the heavy cream and syrup have come to a boil, pour over the chocolate and mix until combined and all chocolate has melted. Assembly Fill a piping bag with a small round tip with the Cream Filling. Insert a paring knife through the cupcake liner into the bottoms of each cupcake making an opening big enough to insert the pastry bag tip. Slowly squeeze a bit of whipped cream into cupcake until you feel some resistance.* To frost, dip each cupcake into the warm Ganache Frosting. Swirl them so that top is covered. Set aside to let cool and harden. *Overfilling causes the cupcake to split or the top to pop off." I was extremely impressed that MatthewG took the time to respond to my question, and in great detail. I'm looking forward to making these cupcakes for my birthday next week. And Karen De Masco - you are a true free spirit. I hope you write a book one day.

A Picture That I Would Post More if It Wouldn't Look Like I Had a Problem with These Guys

Fidel Announces his 'Retirement'

WTF?!?

Slum Gothic?

http://www.slumgothic.co.uk/

Slum Gothic is a characterisation of the architectural style of the former Church of St. John the Divine in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, UK

Slumgothic is the operating system for x-church

x-church is a space where visual arts projects and other things happen

The space is run in the spirit of
I could, you could, we could... do... whatever

Whatever includes artist residencies, teenage sessions with artists, performing arts club with 30 local kids, National Allotment Week, karaoke... whatever

Contact Marcus
0790 877 1107
info@slumgothic.co.uk

Marcus must be a lucky guy.

If You're Going to Commit Fraud; Go Big 'Rogue trader to cost SocGen $7bn'

A billion here, a billion there and it starts adding up:

French bank Societe Generale says it has uncovered "massive" fraud by a Paris-based trader which resulted in a loss of 4.9bn euros ($7.1bn; £3.7bn).

More info on a new Nick Leeson here.

Only in Amerca: 'bigger than a Walmart' and in America, Texas no less, that's big

Steve Allen points to the spot in the sky where he first saw the U.F.O. in Stephenville, Texas. He estimated that it was “bigger than a Wal-Mart.” (Photo: Jessica Horton/Stephenville Empire-Tribune, via AP)

More here:

Best of Paxman

What I Love About Britain; A Public Debate About the Quality of M&S Underwear

For the English and Anglophiles in general Jeremy Paxman is the model of a great interviewer, never suffering fools gladly on Newsnight. And like most Englishmen, not only does he put on his underwear on one leg at a time, he buys his pants at Marks and Spencer. Paxman is not, however, pleased with the quality of Mark's current offerings.

"Their pants no longer provide adequate support," he was quoted as saying after an e-mail to the company was leaked.

Socks were "wearing out much more quickly" than before, the star added.

"I've noticed that something very troubling has happened," he told the newspaper.

"There's no other way to put this. Their pants no longer provide adequate support.

"The other thing is socks. Even among those of us who clip our toenails very rigorously, they appear to be wearing out much more quickly on the big toe."

So far, the story has been covered in The Sun, The Guardian, and the BBC to name three. The fact that this could be an issue of public debate -- as it has become -- is what I love about Britain.

Paxman in all his glory:

A Nutbar Without Question But A Great Chess Player Nonetheless

I thought this NYT article put it well. Everything Fischer did was controversial, but we can say one thing of him: he put Iceland on the map.

Office meets 300

Some Countries will do Anything for a Free Breakfast

Syria Attends Mideast Peace Talks For Free Continental Breakfast

ANNAPOLIS, MD—"We are here in the interest of peace," said a member of the Syrian delegation, also noting the availability of free milk, tea, and assorted juices.

You Have to Admit, This Was Funny: Gizmodo messes up CES 2008 with TV-B-Gone

A TV-Begone would be a lot of fun. Though I pity the poor geek who they suspect of raining on their parade. Grown men in front of $8,000 plasmas learning that they are not the only ones with the remote a pretty site do not make.

Number of Google Results for "Died in a Blogging Accident' as of Saturday Evening: 'About 275,000' Try it!

Try it!

From the Register, 'Polish teen derails tram after hacking train network'

LBJ Orders a Pair of Pants

Went out to lunch today with JS and SBS and the subject of Lyndon B. Johnson came up. This in itself was uninteresting as the topic of LBJ was inevitable. What was odd, however, was that the two discussions of LBJ concerned and his relation to pants. My story concerned the eloquence of the below order. SBS's concerned the peculiar fact that when ever LBJ had the opportunity -- Air Force One, Camp David, a hotel room in the middle of Texas no-where -- LBJ would remove his pants or as the British would say, trousers. For our concerned British readers, there is no evidence that LBJ ever let his pants, in the British sense, down.

Please note the burp around 2:30.

President Johnson orders pants from Joe Haggar.
Aug. 9, 1964

Listen

Operator: Go ahead sir

LBJ: Mr. Haggar?

JH: Yes this is Joe Haggar

LBJ: Joe, is your father the one that makes clothes?

JH: Yes sir - we're all together

LBJ: Uh huh. You all made me some real lightweight slacks, uh, that he just made up on his own and sent to me 3 or 4 months ago. There's a light brown and a light green, a rather soft green, a soft brown.

JH: Yes sir

LBJ: and they're real lightweight now and I need about six pairs for summer wear.

JH: yes sir

LBJ: I want a couple, maybe three of the light brown kind of a almost powder color like a powder on a ladies face. Then they were some green and some light pair, if you had a blue in that or a black, then I'd have one blue and one black. I need about six pairs to wear around in the evening when I come in from work

JH: yes sir

LBJ: I need...they're about a half a inch too tight in the waist.

JH: Do you recall sir the exact size, I just want to make sure we get them right for you

LBJ: No, I don't know - you all just guessed at 'em I think, some - wouldn't you the measurement there?

JH: we can find it for you

LBJ: well I can send you a pair. I want them half a inch larger in the waist than they were before except I want two or three inches of stuff left back in there so I can take them up. I vary ten or 15 pounds a month.

JH: alright sir

LBJ: So leave me at least two and a half, three inches in the back where I can let them out or take them up. And make these a half an inch bigger in the waist. And make the pockets at least an inch longer, my money, my knife, everything falls out - wait just a minute.

Operator: Would you hold on a minute please?

[conversation on hold for two minutes]

LBJ: Now the pockets, when you sit down, everything falls out, your money, your knife, everything, so I need at least another inch in the pockets. And another thing - the crotch, down where your nuts hang - is always a little too tight, so when you make them up, give me an inch that I can let out there, uh because they cut me, it's just like riding a wire fence. These are almost, these are the best I've had anywhere in the United States,

JH: Fine

LBJ: But, uh when I gain a little weight they cut me under there. So, leave me , you never do have much of margin there. See if you can't leave me an inch from where the zipper (burps) ends, round, under my, back to my bunghole, so I can let it out there if I need to.

JH: Right

LBJ: Now be sure you have the best zippers in them. These are good that I have. If you get those to me I would sure be grateful

JH: Fine, Now where would you like them sent please?

LBJ: White House.

JH: Fine

LBJ: Now, uh, I don't guess there is any chance of getting a very lightweight shirt, sport shirt to go with that slack, is there? That same color?

JH: We don't make them, but we can have them made up for you.

LBJ: If you might look around, I wear about a 17, extra long.

JH: Would you like in the same fabric?

LBJ: Yeah I sure would, I don't know whether that's too heavy for a shirt.

JH: I think it'd be too heavy for a shirt.

LBJ: I sure want the lightest I can, in the same color or matching it. If you don't mind, find me somebody up there who makes good shirts and make a shirt to match each one of them and if they're good, we'll order some more.

JH: Fine

LBJ: I just sure will appreciate this, I need it more than anything. And uh, now that's a..about it. I guess I could get a jacket made outta that if I wanted to, couldn't I?

JH: I think that - didn't Sam Haggar have some jackets made?

LBJ: Yeah you sent me some jackets some earlier, but they were way too short. They hit me about halfway down my belly. I have a much longer waist. But I thought if they had material like that and somebody could make me a jacket, I'd sent them a sample to copy from.

JH: Well I tell you what, you send us this, we'll find someone to make it

LBJ: - ok

JH: We'll supply the material to match it

LBJ: Ok, I'll do that. Uh now, how do I - can you give this boy the address because I'm running to a funeral and give this boy the address to where we can send the trousers - don't worry, you'll get the measurements out of them and add a half an inch to the back and an give us couple of an inch to the pockets and a inch underneath to we can let them out.

JH: What you 'd like is a little more stride in the crotch

LBJ: Yeah that's right. What I'd like is to give me a half a inch more then leave me some more. Ok here he is.

JH: Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the others

Listen

Life is (on occasion) a Beach

I know that there are those out there that hang on every word that this blog publishes. To them, I apologize. We were nearly two weeks stateside without a computer. For those who would like to see what we were up to, do check out our internet vanity here. One thing we did happen to notice, even without a PC is that it would appear there is an election in the works.

Yes. We're back from Florida!

Yes. We're back from Florida, where you don't need a sun bed, though the effect is often the same.