Get Cynical

In 1967 the Philco-Ford Corporation released a short film titled 1999 A.D. In it the inevitable advances of the future are demonstrated. This clip of the kitchen of the future showcases a world of automation, maximized health, and a push-button culture; themes we see throughout the film.

(via Boing Boing)

The latest from the artist who brought you Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug:

NEW YORK, April 26 /PRNewswire/ — Paris Hilton’s naked “corpse” could
provide an invaluable service to students preparing for prom this season.
An interactive Public Service Announcement featuring the graphic display of
a tiara-wearing, autopsied Paris Hilton with removable innards is designed
to warn teenagers of the hazards of underage drinking. The display also
features Tinkerbell, Hilton’s forlorn pet Chihuahua with matching tiara,
and debuts in the trendy Williamsburg, Brooklyn neighborhood where
prom-goers frequently dine, courtesy of Capla Kesting Fine Art.

From NeoMeme:

If you haven’t heard of long shot Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel, you will soon. Immediately following his participation in the first Democratic debate, Gravel’s popularity shot up tremendously, thanks in large part to exposure online. If debate performance can be measured by the number of supporters won over post-debate, then Mike Gravel won the debate hands down. As I write this, the number one story on reddit is “Meet the Next President of the United States of America”, which links to a video compilation of Gravel’s best(and most provocative) statements in the debate. The same story is #1 on Digg, climbing to the top in record time. You only need to look as far as the thousands of votes Gravel received on reddit and Digg to see that he is popular, at least online.

The interesting thing is that Mike Gravel was dismissed by the mainstream media as a nobody with no support, and denied participation in the next debate. Ironically, it is this very rejection by the mainstream media as not popular enough/too controversial/too outspoken that has made Gravel so popular online.

Here are some of the clips from the debate:

I think I’ve been on a few of these. .

(via GeekPress)

A Post Secret type site for moms.

I’m really hoping that life will be a lot less boring once my baby learns to walk and talk so we can actually do something all day.

My MIL is fat and lazy and I really wish she would stop bringing my kids junk food. I don’t want them to look like her. Really it’s not that hard, stop eating cake and get off you lazy fat ass! (It’s not like you have anything else to do)!

This is one of those mornings when I like the dog better than my toddler…

(via Found on the Web)

From Time.com:

Saturday night in Baghdad, and Heidi, the barmaid at the Baghdad Country Club, is worried about the beer. On a busy night, she might serve 800 cold ones to the diplomats, security guards and construction workers who frequent the Country Club, a white cinder-block house with blue trim on a residential street in the Green Zone. The BCC, as it’s known, gets its alcohol from suppliers outside the walls, but insurgents are targeting the crossings on either side of the Tigris River. On this Saturday, a truck bomb on a bridge has locked up traffic on the west bank of the Tigris, delaying the delivery of the night’s beer supply. Heidi, a recent college graduate from Florida, wonders whether the war will eventually collapse on the Green Zone, the way it did on the U.S. embassy in Saigon. But she doesn’t let that occupy her for long. Looking down at the empty glass in her hand, she smiles and says, “Let’s do a shot.”

For those viewing the war in Iraq from afar, reports from inside the Green Zone can make this ravaged city look almost serene. Protected on two sides by the wide, caramel-colored waters of the Tigris and surrounded by high cement walls, the 4-sq.-mi. Green Zone (officially called the International Zone) sits in the middle of Baghdad and is home to thousands of people, including many members of the Iraqi government. Since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the Green Zone has been the seat of U.S. power in Iraq, first in the form of the ill-fated Coalition Provisional Authority and now the 1,500-person U.S. embassy, the biggest in the world. To most visiting American dignitaries, the placid, palm-lined streets of the Green Zone are the only glimpse of Iraq they see; to Iraqis, it might as well be another continent. “Living here is like living in Europe,” says Haider Hassan, a store clerk at the $280-a-night al-Rasheed Hotel inside the Green Zone. “You miss nothing, starting with electricity, power, water and security. Outside the gates is hell.”

Here’s a YouTube clip (embedding disabled) from a short film by preacher Estus Pirkle called The Believer’s Heaven. In this clip, Pirkle gives details about what heaven will be like with heavenly dramatizations complete with a godlike echo-drenched voiceover.

(Thanks Grant)

Hamburg, Germany, 26. March 2006. With only 8 of the 16 exits opened, the task for this evacuation certification was to evacuate 853 passengers and 20 crew in 90 seconds. This all happened in darkness, the footage is from infrared cameras.

(via Monkeyfilter)

Whethere they’re the illegal kinds:

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan’s minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants “hate American people” and “are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won’t do.”

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to “destroy Christian America” and replace it with “a godless new world order — and that is not extremism, that is fact,” Larsen said. […]

Or the interstellar kind:

1). Aliens teach that they are our creators. Aliens profess that they are gods and they are our creators. They teach that man is also an evolving god and that mankind can become their own god. New Age writer Brad Steiger speaks about the relationship between UFO’s and religion: “

(via Clusterflock for both)