Spectres of the Spectrum

"Spectres of the Spectrum is a feature-length 16mm film utilizing old 'kinescopes' (filmed records of early TV broadcasts before the advent of videotape, mostly from the late Fifties' educational show called 'Science in Action') to create an eerie, haunted "media-archaeology" zone for a sci-fi time-travel tale, wherein live-action actors search for a hidden electromagnetic secret to save the planet from a futuristic war-machine, inspired by HAARP the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. (Though fictionalized for Baldwin's film, HAARP is, in fact, a very real phenomenon. On the surface, it is a data-gathering tool to explore the Aurora Borealis in detail. But in fact, HAARP doubles as one of the most sophisticated components of the Star Wars weapons arsenal, a particle beam device that can be accurately targeted on specific sites in the ionosphere)."

Bush American Psycho T-Shirts Are All The Rage in Canada

VANCOUVER (CP) - When the bombing in Iraq began, Naomi MacDougall dressed a mannequin in an American Psycho T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of George W. Bush and strategically positioned it in the window of her downtown shop.

Ever since, they've been selling in Canada like duct tape in the United States: fast. "American Psycho, it pretty much sums up what's going on," said Scott Matthews, a clerk at Toronto's Exile where the shirt also has sold out several times in the last two weeks. The $10-decal, which can be ironed onto an array of clothing items, officially became the shop's hottest seller when Susan Sarandon sauntered in and bought one, he said.

AlterNet: Cool Commodities

" There's no question that dissent has become cool, and nothing sells quite like "nonconformity." Billboards across the country encourage us to "think different" in a campaign that features none other than Mahatma Gandhi himself stitching his own clothes (khadi) in an explicitly anti-colonial, anti-capitalist gesture. Other icons selected for these Apple ads include Cesar Chavez, the farmworker organizer who led the struggle against capitalist forces in California's Central Valley, and civil rights heroine, Rosa Parks. Curiously, Jesse Jackson publicly complained that Parks is too 'sacred' to be included in fictional jabs in the film Barbershop, but apparently finds nothing sacrilegious about her image being used to sell neon-colored computers."

Remember when America was cool?

"Before you knew it, America was, officially, the big dickhead. We went from being the fun-loving character, who would get drunk and pretend we were fucking a lamp, to the guy talking on his cell phone at the gym. Now we wear purple-tinted sunglasses inside the mall and wife-beaters to the bar (to show off our barbed-wire tattoo). Nobody likes us anymore; when the world sees our name on caller I.D., they just let it go to voicemail. Look at who we hang out with now—England. Fucking England! How long has it been since England was cool? The only chicks that call England have chipped teeth and pockmarks."