thank god for free drinks.

word.

Tammy Faye Starlite

Tammy Faye is the hot new old time gospel music sensation. Her songs include such Christian Favorites as "Did I Shave My Vagina For This?" and "Lord, If You're Coming Down, Won't You Come All Over Me?"

Best of all, she's playing at the Back Booth Friday, August 23rd.

I'm going to get a shirt from Landover Baptist and get ready for some of that old time religion.

artfags.org - The Artfag Nature Hunt

A site run by some kid in Orlando. Hilarious. Can you spot anybody you know? I can. :) A quote:

"ARTFAGS:
If you are an artfag, please consider donating your picture to science. Only when we can fully understand you can you truly be appreciated for your individuality.'

Granta: 'Confessions of a Middle-Aged Ecstasy Eater'
"Perhaps there are those who feel no need to do so, to experience such ecstasy, that they are blessed with a sufficiency of it in their daily lives. Perhaps there are those who feel that such ecstasy, because it is ‘unnatural', induced artificially, chemically, ‘under the influence', cannot possibly be ‘existentially authentic', and must therefore be false, a fraud and a lie, and that it cannot possibly be sustained. Perhaps there are those who suspect that the disparity is too great, that having experienced such ecstasy, they will find it too daunting to endure the rigours and asperities of a mundane, largely prosaic, often overwhelmingly corrupt and ugly world. Perhaps there are those who feel that such ecstasy cannot be reconciled with their religious, political, philosophical or domestic agendas, that it threatens or violates the very essence of that in which they are so wholly invested. Perhaps there are those who are reluctant to risk engaging in what our culture defines as socially unacceptable, even legally trangressive behaviour. Perhaps there are those who are afraid of footing the physical and emotional toll, or of becoming psychologically addicted. And perhaps there are those who simply, unapologetically, are flat-out scared. Scared of beauty. And of bliss."

A Government Report I Actually Appreciate

"Towards Unifying Science and Converging Technologies. The evolution of a hierarchical architecture for integrating natural and human sciences across many scales, dimensions, and data modalities will be required. Half a millennium ago, Renaissance leaders were masters of several fields simultaneously. Today, however, specialization has splintered the arts and engineering, and no one can master more than a tiny fragment of human creativity. Convergence of the sciences can initiate a
New Renaissance, embodying a holistic view of technology based on transformative tools, the mathematics of complex systems, and unified cause-and-effect understanding of the physical world from the nanoscale to the planetary scale."

via boingboing. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. Extremely long.

Interplanetary Superhighway Makes Space Travel Simpler

The New Republic Online: He Ain't Heavy

"It is difficult to overestimate the importance the Bush administration places on Florida. It is the largest swing state in the country, the ground on which Bush won his contested victory in 2000, and a cornerstone of the White House's reelection strategy in 2004. But more than any of these things, it is the state in which the president's younger brother Jeb is running for reelection as governor this November. No matter what else happens at the ballot box this fall, if Jeb loses to the eventual Democratic nominee--either Janet Reno or Bill McBride--it will be seen as a humiliating defeat for the president and a vote of no confidence for his administration. As a result, it seems that no federal grant, no business loan, no tinkering with federal policy that might give Jeb a political leg up is too small to merit White House attention."

via fark

This Week's Conspiracy

Check out this new feature that I've just added to this site. It's called the "Conspiracy of the Week". This week's conspiracy is the USA PATRIOT Act. Check it out.

House Votes to Stiffen Cybercrime Penalties

"By a vote of 385 to 3, the House approved a bill that seeks to better coordinate efforts to fight cybercrime while increasing recommended sentences for those found guilty."
This bill also says that service providers have to keep copies of every email you send for at least a year, and some civil libertarians believe that this is the first step on the road to having all your online activities accessible to "authorities" without a warrent, and on the least bit of suspicion.
Note that only three representatives voted against it.

Edge: SMART MOBS

"Smart mobs use mobile media and computer networks to organize collective actions, from swarms of techo-savvy youth in urban Asia and Scandinavia to citizen revolts on the streets of Seattle, Manila, and Caracas. Wireless community networks, webloggers, buyers and sellers on eBay are early indicators of smart mobs that will emerge in the coming decade. Communication and computing technologies capable of amplifying human cooperation already appear to be both beneficial and destructive, used by some to support democracy and by others to coordinate terrorist attacks. Already, governments have fallen, subcultures have blossomed, new industries have been born and older industries have launched counterattacks.'

via boingboing

Winners of the Fourth Bad Writing Contest

"The Bad Writing Contest celebrates the most stylistically lamentable passages found in scholarly books and articles published in the last few years. Ordinary journalism, fiction, departmental memos, etc. are not eligible, nor are parodies: entries must be non-ironic, from serious, published academic journals or books. Deliberate parody cannot be allowed in a field where unintended self-parody is so widespread. "

Domestic "Security"
"the U.S. will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police." One in every 24 Americans will be a snitch, which means that, assuming your acquaintance list is 150 names long, you will know six rats personally.

-via fark

Palladium to Hijack the Internet?
MS is trying to take away the open nature of the Internet with their recently announce Palladium initiative. A quote from the article:

"Under Palladium as I understand it, the Internet goes from being ours to being theirs. The very data on your hard drive ceases to be yours because it could self-destruct at any time. We'll end up paying rent to use our own data!"

Shift.com - profile - R.U. SIRIUS UNPLUGGED

An interview with R.U. Sirius, in which he talks about his work on Mondo 2000, the Thresher, Smart Drugs and The Revolution as well as his more current projects.