November 24, 2009
“ The rules for numbers below ten do not apply to 6. He is not a number, he is a free man.
@FakeAPStylebook

Lady Gaga performs “Bad Romance” on the Jay Leno Show - Not bad, but kind of tame, no?

Bitchy Facebook catfight erupts between Colombia and Venezuela

“Objectified” airs tonight on PBS - If you’re in Chicago, then it’ll be on WTTW at 10 p.m. and on Friday at 4 a.m. (this is helpful if you’re like me and can’t get home to set the DVR in time tonight).

It’s worth noting this film is edited down to 53 minutes from the original 75 minute cut.

“Johnny Hiro” Vol. 1 on sale - Quite possibly one of my favorite indie comic book in recent memory and this is an absolute steal at $9.95 from AdHouse Books’ holiday sale. Here’s what I wrote about “Johnny Hiro” back in 2007: The hero is a 20-something half-Asian guy living in New York City with his girlfriend trying to make ends meet working in a sushi joint. He fights giant monsters and a goon squad of cooks while making friends with Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Even “Good Eats” star Alton Brown makes a cameo. Chao drew upon his own life as an inspiration for this comic book, and the personal tone is layered carefully and humorfully across its pages. The art has a distinct style that reminds me of “Invincible,” while the writing is rock solid and offers a compelling narrative that’s smart and entertaining. So, buy this book if you like comics! Promise you it’s worth it. And it was nominated for FOUR Eisner awards!

“Johnny Hiro” Vol. 1 on sale - Quite possibly one of my favorite indie comic book in recent memory and this is an absolute steal at $9.95 from AdHouse Books’ holiday sale. Here’s what I wrote about “Johnny Hiro” back in 2007:

The hero is a 20-something half-Asian guy living in New York City with his girlfriend trying to make ends meet working in a sushi joint. He fights giant monsters and a goon squad of cooks while making friends with Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Even “Good Eats” star Alton Brown makes a cameo.

Chao drew upon his own life as an inspiration for this comic book, and the personal tone is layered carefully and humorfully across its pages. The art has a distinct style that reminds me of “Invincible,” while the writing is rock solid and offers a compelling narrative that’s smart and entertaining.

So, buy this book if you like comics! Promise you it’s worth it. And it was nominated for FOUR Eisner awards!

“White Dragon” art print from Nakatomi Inc., inspired by “Blade Runner” by Nick Derington and Tim Doyle. This print should be on sale soon with a small run, according to their Flickr page! If this comes with glow-in-the-dark inks and silver rain, I’m definitely shelling out for this print. Oh, who am I kidding. It’s a print depicting one of my favorite films of all time. Going to have to jump on this for sure.

“White Dragon” art print from Nakatomi Inc., inspired by “Blade Runner” by Nick Derington and Tim Doyle. This print should be on sale soon with a small run, according to their Flickr page! If this comes with glow-in-the-dark inks and silver rain, I’m definitely shelling out for this print. Oh, who am I kidding. It’s a print depicting one of my favorite films of all time. Going to have to jump on this for sure.

November 23, 2009
robots: How awesome is that? noahkai: pie0: mabelmoments: By Slingher Birds are so cool.

robots:

How awesome is that?

noahkai: pie0: mabelmoments:

By Slingher

Birds are so cool.

Hey, remember when Sarah Palin pardoned that turkey and then was interviewed in front of a bunch of turkeys getting slaughtered? Good times.

How a Thankgiving turkey gets made - Yes, I’m the kind of person that can look at all of this and still get excited about Thanksgiving. Pretty amazing how efficient the industry has become.

How a Thankgiving turkey gets made - Yes, I’m the kind of person that can look at all of this and still get excited about Thanksgiving. Pretty amazing how efficient the industry has become.

absurdlakefront: southpol: thedailywhat:

America, I Am Disappoint of the Day: Sarah Palin supporters, gathered outside a Going Rogue book signing event in Columbus, Ohio, are presented with basic questions about her policy positions.

Vacularity ensues.

[via.]

For those actually wondering, you can brush up on Sarah Palin’s policy positions here:

For the record, here’s a quick summation of the more important policy positions of Sarah Palin:

  • Foreign policy: On Iraq, supported the Bush Administration. On Afghanistan, should do whatever it takes to win. On Iran, the President shouldn’t meet with Iranian leadership without preconditions or diplomacy first. Also, the United States should fully support Israel and “not second guess” them if they take military action against Iran.
  • Oil & energy: Supports drilling in ANWR. Supported the TransCanada pipeline for natural gas.
  • Health care: Supports free market approach combined with tort reform and personal responsibility for people to make healthier choices. Supports consumers being able to have access to pricing information for treatments.
  • Immigration: Rejects amnesty, but supports path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
  • Abortion: Rejects in all cases, except when birth could threaten the life of the mother.
  • Guns: Rejects gun control laws, supports ownership of assault weapons, semi-automatics and gun-safety education for children. Also, this.

So, now you know more about Sarah Palin’s policies than any of those people in this video. Congratulations!

Why the Young are Picking Up the Tab for the Olds

Newsweek has a great example of the kind of debate over health care reform America needs to have: whether the young (and proportionally healthier and less expensive to insure) should be paying higher rates than the olds.

[The House bill] mandates that health insurance premiums for older Americans be no more than twice the level of that for younger Americans. That’s much less than the actual health spending gap between young and old. Spending for those age 60 to 64 is four to five times greater than those 18 to 24. So, the young would overpay for insurance that—under the House bill—people must buy: Twenty-and thirtysomethings would subsidize premiums for fifty-and sixtysomethings. (Those 65 and over receive Medicare.)

I think this is a reasonable objection to have to the health care reform bill in Congress. I think it’s a great policy position to stand for and say that if insurance is supposed to be based on risk, those with greater risk should pay more than those with less risk. This is the kind of level-headed, intellectual approach that America could benefit from and reflects an honest debatable perspective.

It’s better than going back to screaming at each other over some bullshit.

Sometimes technology can't overcome psychology

itsamazing:

I wish..

  • it was easy to reconnect with someone you lost contact with.

Over the years I’ve met a handful of great people. Some I still keep in close contact with, others for some reason or another aren’t in my life any more.

[…]

It seems so easy to just pick up the phone, email, IM, text, etc but I just can’t bring myself to do it for the fear that you won’t reciprocate because it’s just ‘been so long’.

Weird, isn’t it, how we have invented all of these different ways of communicating with each other, but really we haven’t invented yet a way to overcome the psychological barrier to reconnect with friendships lost.

“I am not a number. I am a free man.”

“I am not a number. I am a free man.”

So, I watched AMC's "The Prisoner"

Pretty dreadful and felt like a waste of my time. Still, I want to see the original series. I heard it’s much better and possibly makes more sense and won’t bore you to tears.

November 22, 2009

Ze Frank hosts a tea party and has some insightful analysis:

The tea-party movement has been in the news lately and the Democrats are saying, “When did the Republicans learn how to protest? Who gave them our secret recipe of walking, shouting and holding signs?” And the Republicans are finding out that protests are messy — that no matter how marginalized you are, there is always someone more marginalized than you that shows up to change the message.

Also, completely on point here:

Protest is messy and we all have our crazies, but I hear them. They’re angry. Politics is getting more emotional and the best we can hope for is that that emotion is channeled into the democratic process and more than 50 percent us start showing up to vote.