Duke Ellington - Caravan

The Importance of Zinc Oxide

From Kentucky Fried Movie.

Sedated Kitty

A cat just back from the vet after being sedated for a procedure.

The 10 Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of All Time

And these are only the tip of the iceberg:

If you can’t sue the system, sue yourself. 1995, Robert Lee Brock sued himself for $5 million. He claimed that he had violated his own civil rights and religious beliefs by allowing himself to get drunk and commit crimes which landed him in the Indian Creek Correctional Center in Virginia, serving a 23 year sentence for grand larceny and breaking and entering. What could he possibly have to gain by suing himself? Since being in prison prevented him from having an income, he expected the state to pay. This case was thrown out.

MacGyver Theme Song Unplugged

Replica Time Bandits Map

I have always wanted a copy of the map from Time Bandits. I recently decided to create my own replica of this exquisite prop.

I have studied the film and every printed reference source I could find to create this replica and it is very accurate to the screen-used map. It has been drawn completely in Photoshop with the goal to create a replica that looks hand-drawn. The file is enormous containing 188 layers with a file size of 1.72 GB. This level of fine detail is replicated using the highest quality printer available.

(via SF Signal)

Single Guy Outsources to Find Dates

Not from The Onion:

He started with a job description for a personal assistant to manage his dating life. He posted it on Elance, a Web site that connects freelancers with jobs.

It was all about eyeballs hunting for Ms. More-or-Less Right. And fingers e-mailing sweet nothings. A numbers game, he figured.

"With online dating, every reasonably attractive, smart girl gets a million e-mails," he says. Terrible odds. "If male programmers were my ideal match, I'd be set."

Ferriss lined up a half dozen teams in India, the Philippines, Jamaica and the United States.

He gave the contractors his profile and an idea of what sort of woman he was interested in (early-to-mid 20s, college grad, slender or athletic, non-smoker, no kids).

He told the teams he was looking for quick "coffee dates" at joints along Lincoln Avenue. And he told them to handle all the pre-date correspondence (introduction, follow-up questions, requests for pictures).

He suggested the contractors say they were working on his behalf. And he urged them to be creative.

There were some problems.

An Indian team dropped out explaining they didn't really get the whole Western-style dating thing.

"In some culture groups in India," Ferriss says, "it's just not really done."

Two O'Clock Trailers - The Graduate

List of Fictional Democrats and Republicans

Wikipedia has a list of fictional Democrats and Republicans. (I had forgotten that Sideshow Bob ran as a Republican.)

How To Make a Mouse Mouse

From Instructables :

Hacked travel-size (hardware) mouse + taxidermied (wetware) mouse = Mouse Mouse! Fully functional, and furry!

What 1999 Will Be Like (A Film from 1967)

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)

Paris Hilton Autopsy

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.

Mike Gravel's Internet Boost

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:

Highway Engineer Pranks

I think I've been on a few of these. .
(via GeekPress)

True Mom Confessions

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)

Inside the Green Zone

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."

How Does an Expert View Heaven

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)

Airbus A380 evacuation - 873 people in 77 seconds!

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)

Christians Against Aliens

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)

Charlie Chaplin - Table Ballet

For $82 a Day, Booking a Cell in a 5-Star Jail

From the NY Times:

SANTA ANA, Calif., April 25 — Anyone convicted of a crime knows a debt to society often must be paid in jail. But a slice of Californians willing to supplement that debt with cash (no personal checks, please) are finding that the time can be almost bearable.

For offenders whose crimes are usually relatively minor (carjackers should not bother) and whose bank accounts remain lofty, a dozen or so city jails across the state offer pay-to-stay upgrades. Theirs are a clean, quiet, if not exactly recherché alternative to the standard county jails, where the walls are bars, the fellow inmates are hardened and privileges are few.

Many of the self-pay jails operate like secret velvet-roped nightclubs of the corrections world. You have to be in the know to even apply for entry, and even if the court approves your sentence there, jail administrators can operate like bouncers, rejecting anyone they wish.

Ever Have One of Those Fridays

Thank You Bedazzled

Thanks to Spike from Bedazzled for sending me an invitation to try blogads.

I'm off to Long Island for the weekend to attend a wedding so there won't be many updates until Sunday.

Two O'Clock Trailers - The Birds

Explosive found at Austin women's clinic

From the Houston Chronicle:

AUSTIN — A package left at a women's clinic that performs abortions contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death, investigators said today.

"It was in fact an explosive device," said David Carter, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department. "It was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death."

The package was found Wednesday in a parking lot outside the Austin Women's Health Center, south of downtown Austin.

Nearby Interstate 35 was briefly closed, and a nearby apartment complex was evacuated while a bomb squad detonated the device.

Friday Guest Cat Blogging

Thanks to Bill for sending in pictures of Loretta:

Here are a couple of pictures of Loretta. She just showed up one evening, and has taken over the place.

The Alcoholic Monkeys of St. Kitts

(via Majikthise)

Student Arrested for Writing Violent Essay

Outrageous but predictable:

Told to express emotion for a creative-writing class, high school senior Allen Lee penned an essay so disturbing to his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct, officials said Wednesday.

Lee, 18, a straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with the misdemeanor for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.

Neither police nor the school would release a copy of the essay written Monday. School officials declined to say whether Lee had any previous disciplinary problems, but said he was an excellent student. Authorities said Lee had never been in trouble with the police.

The charge against Lee comes as schools in the Chicago area and across the country wrestle with how to react in the wake of the massacre at Virginia Tech.

Signs spark biblical debate about homosexuality

From the IndyStar:

The billboard claims "Jesus affirmed a gay couple."

A vandal's own statement -- the words "Lie, lie, lie" spray-painted in red -- delivered an opposing view above them.

In some ways, the argument in giant letters above an Eastside street reflects society's ongoing argument over homosexuality -- on issues ranging from same-sex marriage to gay clergy.

The discussion just got more intense in Indianapolis where 22 billboards and 1,000 yard signs went up recently as part of a campaign based on the premise that the Bible approves of gays and lesbians.

The signs are part of a joint effort between Faith in America, a national gay advocacy group, and Jesus Metropolitan Community Church, an Indianapolis congregation rooted in the belief that homosexuality is acceptable to God.

Featuring portraits of Jesus and other biblical figures, the billboards and 1,000 yard signs in Indianapolis proclaim things like "Jesus said some are born gay" while citing Bible passages. Some billboards suggest that key Bible figures, such as David and Ruth, were involved in gay relationships.

And here's my favorite part of the story:

The Rev. Andy Hunt decried both the message of the billboard and the vandalism it provoked. "It ignites passions whenever someone brings a lie against the god you worship. But we can't go down to their level," said Hunt, pastor of Body of Christ Community Church on the Northside. "We have to be able to fight a lie with the truth."

He said he nearly drove into a power pole the first time he passed a yard sign with the message: "Jesus affirmed a gay couple." Then he cried.

(Thanks Marlea)

Anatoli Bugorski, The Man Who Survived a Beam from a Particle Accelerator

From Wikipedia:

As a researcher at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino, Bugorski used to work with the largest Soviet particle accelerator, the Synchrotron U-70.[2] On July 13, 1978, Bugorski was checking a malfunctioning piece of equipment when an accident occurred due to failed safety mechanisms. Bugorski was leaning over the piece of equipment when he stuck his head in the part through which the proton beam was running. Reportedly, he saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns", but did not feel any pain. The beam measured about 200,000 rads when it entered Bugorski's skull, and about 300,000 rads when it exited after colliding with the inside of his head.

The left half of Bugorski's face swelled up beyond recognition, and over the next several days started peeling off, showing the path that the proton beam (moving near the speed of light) had burned through parts of his face, his bone, and the brain tissue underneath. As it was believed that about 500 to 600 rads is enough to kill a person, Bugorski was taken to a clinic in Moscow where the doctors could observe his expected demise. However, Bugorski survived and even completed his Ph.D..[3] There was virtually no damage to his intellectual capacity, but the fatigue of mental work increased markedly.[2] Bugroski completely lost hearing in the left ear and only a constant, unpleasant internal noise remained. The left half of his face was frozen, due to the destruction of nerves, and does not age.[1] He is able to function perfectly well, save the fact that he has occasional petit mal seizures and very occasional grand mal seizures.

More pictures here (the article is in Russian)
(via Digg)

Freshly Killed but Still Squirming Octopus Tentacles for Dinner

(via Boing Boing)

Teller Talks About His Experiencing Zero G

Teller (from Penn & Teller) took a trip on the Zero Gravity flight which is now operating out of Las Vegas that offers a similar experience to NASA's Vomit Comet. That's if you can afford the $3,500 bucks for the flight. The Movable Buffet is covering Teller's report about the trip:

You hop on a bus and they take you out there and they have an aircraft that looks like the aircraft you could dream of. The plane is like a tubular gymnasium. It is padded all around. There are a couple of windows, but those are very small. There are airplane seats at one end. The entire time I was thinking this is such a wonderful good time, how did they ever get this by the FAA? Of course, they have been working on this for 10 years. But what they got from the FAA is a 100 mile long and ten mile wide corridor to run the plane. I am in awe of their ability to navigate government bureaucracy. But you still go through a TSA screening on your way on. It killed me to see TSA people wanding down heads of casinos and newspaper owners like somehow a terrorist could slip onto such a flight. This is really for people with the money and the enthusiasm, who want to float around like they dreamed of when they were kids.

When you take off they have given you instructions ahead of time. So, you know what is about to happen and that the plane is going to be moving in this parabolic pattern. When you are at the bottom the of the parabola you are going to be about 1 1/2 times your usual weight and when you are at the top you are going to be 1/6 gravity or completely weightless.

Related:
Zero G's homepage

Domino PCs

The best thing to come from the Dot Com crash... Domino PCs! 86 PCs lined up like dominos. Filmed on a saturday afternnon in Belmont, California, by an Irish bloke and a Spanish guy. The final attempt.... Everything goes well but the heavy machines near the end almost put a halt to the whole thing... thankfully there was enough weight behind the toppled machines to slowly topple the heavy ones!

Frustrating but Typical Customer Service Call

From The Consumerist:

Peter, who is the CEO of a company called Vocal Laboratories Inc. (they conducts call center customer service surveys for companies like Apple, Dell, and HP), felt compelled to add video commentary to a call to HP that was recently logged by one of their participants.



As Peter says, there's nothing really horrible about the call except that it's exactly like every customer service call you've ever had to make. It's oddly infuriating. Listen for yourself.

Make an Erupting Volcano Cake

This guy took the idea of a molten lava cake to the extreme:

For my son's 5th birthday, I decided to go a little nuts. 4 months and about $200.00 later I think I created something one of a kind. I wanted a volcano that would do several things...
smoke
erupt with lava
vibrate
and finally, make volcano noises.

And there's a video clip of it doing all of that.

(via Make:Blog)

The 6 Foot Long Worm Incident

My first 500 gal reef system was started in February of 2001 with about 800 pounds of Fiji live rock. All went along swimmingly for about two years. In early 2003, I began to notice the severe recession of soft corals like ricordea, xenia, and zoos. While this occasional recession was always present in the past, it was now getting to the point of being ridiculous. I suspected that something was feeding on these corals as they would be fine by day and gone by morning.

I staked out the tank one evening with a red lens flashlight in an attempt to catch the suspected villainous shrimp or crab. What I saw caused many sleepless nights. Through an opening in the live rock, I spied what looked like a worm with a diameter of about ¾”. This worm was passing through this live rock opening...and passing...and passing...and then passing some more...just how long was this thing? Suddenly, the worm stopped...and way over on the other side of the tank,

(via Reddit)

Two O'Clock Trailers - Young Frankenstein

India Court Orders the Arrest of Richard Gere

From Scotsman.com:

JAIPUR, India (Reuters) - An Indian court ordered the arrest of Hollywood star Richard Gere on Thursday for kissing Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS campaign event this month saying it was an obscene act committed in public.

Gere's repeated kisses on Shetty's cheeks at an event to promote AIDS awareness in New Delhi sparked protests in some parts of India, mostly by Hindu vigilante groups, who saw it as an outrage against her modesty and an affront to Indian culture.

The order by a court in the northern city of Jaipur came in response to a complaint by a local lawyer.

The judge watched a video recording of Gere kissing Shetty and found him guilty of violating Indian laws against public obscenity, the lawyer, Poonam Chand Bhandari, said.

The court also summoned Shilpa Shetty to appear on May 5, Bhandari said, adding that Gere was also ordered to be arrested.

Gere can be sent to jail for up to three months or fined or both for the crime if he is arrested. He is not in India now but can be held if he visits the country again.

Here's the video:

When a Poodle is a Lamb

Huh?

Thousands of people have been 'fleeced' into buying neatly coiffured lambs they thought were poodles.

Entire flocks of lambs were shipped over from the UK and Australia to Japan by an internet company and marketed as the latest 'must have' accessory.

But the scam was only spotted after a leading Japanese actress said her 'poodle' didn't bark and refused to eat dog food.

Maiko Kawakami, who starred in the Japanese thriller Violent Cop, showed photographs of her pet on a television talk show only to be told it wasn't a dog - but was in fact a lamb.

The discovery prompted hundreds of women to contact the police with similar problems and the authorities believe as many as 2,000 people have been conned.

(via Metafilter)

Update:
Sigh, Snopes has this as being false. Thanks Outeast.

The Chrono-Shredder

The Chrono_Shredder is a device that makes past time tangible. It is a hybrid between calendar, clock and waste producing automaton. It has no on/off-button, thus it is unstoppable, just like time. It features the 365 days of the year represented on a paper-roll. The paper-roll is led through a hacked paper-shredder, which is programmed to use exactly 24 hours to shred one "day".

(via Make:Blog)

Jack Chick Inspired Anti-Tiki Spoof

These are terrrific.

From HumuHumu:

I ran into Humu Kon Tiki reader Tongodeon this weekend at Forbidden Island’s anniversary party (WHICH WAS FABULOUS), and he was handing out these great little Jack Chick-style tracts, warning of the assault on Christian values by the scourge of Tiki. The booklet has a reprint date of 2002, but I don’t know when it was originally created; it says it’s published by Thaniel Dickson Ministries, Inc., but a Google on that name only matches to a site that keeps track of Jack Chick parodies.

Bunnies

I'm a bit busy today so here are some bunnies.

The Blame Game

In case you were wondering who's to blame for the Virginia Tech massacre, I've created a list this morning to keep track. Feel free to send in any that I've missed.

Update:
The list keeps on growing and has 45 46 47 49 51 55 56 57 58 different items at the moment. Thanks to everyone who is sending me more links to add to the list.

Update 2:
The list now stands at 60 and I'm going to stop keeping track. Not for lack of finding more blame but because I don't think it will ever end. Thanks to everyone who sent in links and everybody who commented and linked to the list.

Update 3:
People keep sending me more articles with different scapegoats so I might as well append them to the bottom of the list. The list now has 67 73 items pointing fingers in every direction.

It's the fault of violent video games.

It's the fault of movies.

It's that no other students were armed.

It's the cowardly students who didn't rush the shooter.

It's the first victim's fault. It's secularism's fault.

It's the Muslims' and/or foreigners' fault.

It's the Atheists' fault.

It's the fault of the colleges and how they coddle their students.

It's society's fault.

It's the Second Amendment's fault.

It's the bureaucracy's fault.

It's the fault of Roanoke Firearms, where he bought the gun.

It's the authorities' fault.

It's the Liberals' fault.

It's pedophilia, homosexual couplings and adulterous behavior's fault. (Not sure if he means all at the same time or separately.

It's capitalism's fault.

It's the fault of psychiatric drugs.

It's the Devil's fault.

It's South Korea's fault.

It's the hippies' fault. (Nobody's blaming the Yippies yet)

It's the media and culture's fault.

It's the murderer's fault.

It's the legal system's fault.

It's the fault of the Virginia Tech officials.

It's the fault of the Chinese.

It's the fault of this blogger who happens to be asian, likes guns and who recently broke up with his girlfriend.

It's Simon Cowell's fault.

It's Bill Gates' fault.

It's the fault of trauma induced mind control by a military industrial complex.

It's the killer's parents' and/or gun makers' fault.

It's the fault that colleges have co-ed dorms and/or students who major in English.

It's a lack of funding for mental health services' fault.

It's the GOP's fault.

It's the Democrats' fault.

It's NBC's fault.

It's Autism's fault.

It's al Jazeera or Palestinian TV's fault.

It's the fault of pro-choice doctors.

It's Collective Soul's fault.

It's the fault of professors who survived the Holocaust and are not armed to the teeth.

It's Markos from the Daily Kos' fault.

It's the bullies' fault.

It's the Nanjing Anti-African riots' fault and/or the fault of those in interracial relationships.

It's the fault of our culture’s all-consuming desire for celebrity.

It's fault of the Europeanization or nannyization of American behavior.

It's Charlton Heston's fault.

It's the fault of immigration and/or asians.

It's evil's fault.

It's W's fault.

It's the fault of vaccines.

It's the fault that schools teach that the theory of evolution is fact.

It's the fault of the CIA for training the killer as a mind-controlled assassin.

It's the fault of stage weapons used in school plays.

It's the fault of the classes where Cho was taught to hate.

It's the school's architecture's fault.

It's the fault of those who voted for Ralph Nader.

It's the fault of Bill Clinton, internet pornography, free speech, condoms, abortions, and lack of prayer and bibles in schools.

It's that Cho didn't hook up enough.

It's the fault of the Jews.

It's the ACLU's fault.

It's the fault of media glorification.

It's the fault of Americans.

It's the fault of America's youth mentality.

It's the fault of big business.

It's the fault of college admissions.

It's the fault of his roomates for being too politically correct.

It's the fault of the psychiatrist who let Cho get away.

It's the fault of progressive education.

It's the fault of white women.

It's the ideology of diversity's fault.

It's Cho's High School's fault.

It's Dateline's fault.

Chuck Norris Blames Secularism for VA Tech Massacre

Not surprising. This is the same guy who can't figure out that the Chuck Norris facts meme is actually making fun of him.

Though one can point to Cho's own psychotic behavior and our graphic slasher media as potential contributors to his deplorable murder spree, we must also hesitate to consider how we as a society are possibly contributing to the growth of these academic killing fields. I believe those who wield the baton of the secular progressive agenda bear significant responsibility for the escalation of school shootings. Even conservatives who refuse to speak when evil flourishes must acknowledge some culpability.

We teach our children they are nothing more than glorified apes, yet we don't expect them to act like monkeys. We place our value in things, yet expect our children to value people. We disrespect one another, but expect our children to respect others. We terminate children in the womb, but are surprised when children outside the womb terminate other children. We push God to the side, but expect our children to be godly. We've abandoned moral absolutes, yet expect our children to obey the universal commandment, ''Thou shalt not murder.''

Though I respect the Buddhist, Muslim and Jew who shared at the VTU convocation, our country needs to return and call out to the God of our founders, Jesus Christ.

Baby Panda's First Step

(via PoeTV)

Borders, Walls, and Fences

A fascinating read that focuses on the Baghdad wall being erected and also talks about other walls being put up as "security measures" around the world.

So, you’ve no doubt heard by now about the controversial plan American military strategists hatched to build a massive concrete wall around the neighborhood of Adhamiyah in Baghdad. This, the Americans said, was part of a larger effort to secure the area and prevent terrorist movements within the neighborhood. It was of course billed as a protective measure for the Sunnis, even referring to it as a “center piece” for a larger objective of turning different neighborhoods through out Baghdad into “gated communities” that would by some stroke of miracle stem the uncontrollable sectarian violence.

Only thing is: neither the local Sunnis or Shiites are down with it. Even less surprising, the American government didn’t really consult with anyone prior, not even the Iraqi PM who announced his own total disapproval of the wall and ordered its construction to be halted. Did the American government really think that anyone in the Arab community would embrace the idea of extending a wall through out their ancient city – I mean, given the tantamount associations most Arabs have with the Israeli wall that has literally carved the Palestinian people out of Jerusalem and into peri-urban prison-like reservations?

Needless to say, Jerusalem and Baghdad are looking more and more similar despite these massive 12 foot high concrete walls segregating the different religious sects. So far, 3,000 separate slabs of concrete blast wall have been placed around the Sunni city since the plan was put into action 2 months ago, each weighing roughly 14,000 pounds. “These barriers included both Jersey barriers — short concrete dividers commonly seen on roadways in the United States — and larger 20-foot blast walls that commonly surround bases and living areas.”

Limbo

I was a bit busy this weekend when the Vatican announced they were doing away with limbo so let's take a looksie at what that actually means:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In its recent document on unbaptized children, the Vatican's International Theological Commission demonstrated how church teaching can be responsive to changes in theological thought, Christian beliefs and the "signs of the times."

The document, published April 20, critiqued the traditional understanding of limbo, arguing instead that there was good reason to hope unbaptized babies who die go to heaven.

Some people saw that as a reversal of a centuries-old Catholic principle. But rather than announcing a radical break with the past, the commission said it was assessing an issue in theological evolution.

It's interesting the way they phrased it. They hope that unbaptized babies will go to heaven? That mean's there's a chance that they could end up burning in eternity.

I've always considered the idea of baptizing babies to be one of the more idiotic religious rituals. The idea that a baby would be punished for eternity because it died before a priest could douse it's head with water to purify them from some sin committed by somebody else thousands of years ago is so idiotic that somebody from child welfare should assume custody from the parents before the priest is done asking the godparents if they reject satan. I have nothing against somebody who chooses to be baptized as an adult. It's certainly not for me but at least they are making a decision. Babies don't get a choice so it's just a forced catholic recruitment process. In the past Catholics have even used baptism as a reason to kidnap non-christian children who were secretly baptized by non-relatives. The case of Edgardo Mortara is a famous instance where this has happened:

On the evening of 23 June 1858, in the northern Italian city of Bologna, police of the Papal States, of which Bologna was then part, arrived at the home of a Jewish couple, Salomone ("Momolo") and Marianna Padovani Mortara, to seize one of their eight children, six-year-old Edgardo, and transport him to Rome to be raised by the Catholic Church.

The police had orders from the authorities in Rome, authorised by Pope Pius IX. Church officials had been told that a Catholic servant girl of the Mortaras, Anna Morisi, had baptized Edgardo while he was ill because she feared that he would otherwise die and go to Hell. Under the law of the Papal States, Edgardo's baptism, even if illegal, was valid, and made him a Christian.

Laura Bush: 'Nobody Suffers More than the President'

It's difficult sending other parents' children off to die. Somebody should give him a purple heart for his mental anguish.

(Thanks Eel Feather)

Two O'Clock Trailers - Night of the Living Dead

Mike Daisey Raptures the Evangelicals

At least he makes about 90 of them disappear from his audience. Although not before one follower of Christ pours water all over his notes.

Last night's performance of INVINCIBLE SUMMER was disrupted when eighty seven members of a Christian group walked out of the show en masse, and chose to physically attack my work by pouring water on and destroying the original of the show outline.

I'm still dealing with all the ramifications, but here's what it felt like from my end: I am performing the show to a packed house, when suddenly the lights start coming up in the house as a flood of people start walking down the aisles--they looked like a flock of birds who'd been startled, the way they all moved so quickly, and at the same moment...it was shocking, to see them surging down the aisles. The show halted as they fled, and at this moment a member of their group strode up to the table, stood looking down on me and poured water all over the outline, drenching everything in a kind of anti-baptism.

Playbill.com also has a rundown on what happened:

It was during a portion of the show in which he was speaking about Paris Hilton that the audience walk-out occurred. Daisey said that based on comments group members made to the front-of-house staff, it was the profanity used in his monologue that caused the uprising. "A number of them," Daisey said, "expressed that they were disgusted by 'this filth.' . . . I'm very good at sensing houses — it's my job. The audience was unified and warm up to that moment. My suspicion is because they were there together as a group, they were compelled to leave as a group. When a group is together, it doesn't take that many people to make [everyone] act unreasonably." Daisey does say that a few members of the group apologized for their behavior as they were leaving the theatre.

Update:

Mike Daisey tracks down and talks to the man who poured water onto his work:

His name is David. At the beginning of the conversation there was a lot of silence--long, long silences that neither of us were willing to puncture. First I made him understand what he had done--that these were the only set of notes for the show, how I work with them, what he had cost me in terms of my physical work and in terms of what it had been like that next night to go out in front of them. I needed him to understand what he had taken from me.

He quietly said that he had heard me, and that he understood.

I gradually opened him up by listening, and responding, the one-on-one version of what I do with an audience. We talked about many things, for almost an hour, and step by step, his story emerged.

He has three kids--one is 21, and two are 17--and he's terrified of the world. Terrified by violence, and sex, and he sees it all linked together--a horrifying world filled with darkness, pornography and filth that threatens his children, has threatened them all his life. They're older now, but he says he still sees things the same way--and that the only way to protect his children and himself is to lock it all out of his life.

He also said he's had anger-control issues for years, and sometimes acts of rage come over him--he explodes, and then has to apologize, and doesn't know why it happens. He tries to lock it down, but it happens, and he's ashamed of it. I told him that regardless of where we both stand, I felt very strongly that the repression of walling off everything in the world and viewing it all as filth is connecting with these outbursts, and that it isn't going to work--until you deal with the root causes, and deal with the world, his anger and rage would keep using him.

And he forgives him:

And then I forgive him. He is very quiet--he is obviously shocked. And I tell him, "I want you to remember that a liberal atheist has forgiven you today. I don't want you to ever forget that, as long as you live, do not forget what happened here. I don't have God behind me, but I speak for myself, and I forgive you for myself, and for you. Never forget this."

Shakespeare Apocrypha

From Wikipedia:

In his own lifetime, Shakespeare saw only about half of his plays enter print. Some individual plays were published in quarto, a small, cheap format. In 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, his fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell put together a collection of his complete plays. Heminges and Condell were in a position to compile Shakespeare's complete plays, because they, like Shakespeare, worked for the King's Men, the London theatre company that produced all of Shakespeare's plays (in Elizabethan England, plays belonged to the company that performed them, not the dramatist who had written them).

It ought to be simple, therefore, to say what Shakespeare wrote, and what he did not: the plays that were included in the First Folio must be by Shakespeare, and those that were excluded must be by someone else. After all, Heminges and Condell were in a better position to know what Shakespeare wrote than subsequent scholars or secondhand sources.

However, there are a number of complications that have created the concept of the Shakespeare Apocrypha. The Apocrypha can be categorized under the following headings.

Related:
The Shakespeare Apocrypha.
(via del.icio.us/ashthomas)

The 1976 Chowchilla Schoolbus Kidnapping

From the Crime Library comes the case of the Chowchilla Kidnapping where 26 students and their bus driver were kidnapped and buried alive in a moving van.

Ed Ray had stopped the school bus to see if the apparently broken-down white van needed help, and although it was a typically sultry Central California afternoon in the small town of Chowchilla, the peculiar man at the bus door was not an optical illusion caused by heat.

Two things about the stranger caught Ed's attention: the guns he was holding and the nylon stocking stretched over his head.

Being solely responsible for the 26 children still on board, Ed opened the door, hoping to avoid the use of the firearms on either himself or one of his charges.

The strange man quickly mounted the steps inside the bus and ordered Ed to get up and move to the back of the bus. The children, ranging in age from 5 to 14, had various reactions to the appearance of the newcomer. Some thought it was a prank and giggled, while others became frightened immediately. Before they could react, and before Ed had moved down the aisle and reached the back seat, two more masked men appeared from around the back of the "stalled" van and jumped into the bus.

Georgia School Enters 20th Century

Too bad the rest of us are living in the 21st century but this is a start.

Big Difference in Chinese vs English Math Tests

From BBC News:

Maths enthusiasts are being challenged to answer a sample question from Chinese university entrance tests.

The tests are set for prospective science undergraduates.

The UK's Royal Society of Chemistry is offering a £500 prize to one lucky but bright person who answers the question below correctly.

It has also published a test used in a "well known and respected" English university - the society is not naming it - to assess the strength of incoming science undergraduates' maths skills.

A glance at the two questions reveals how much more advanced is the maths teaching in China, where children learn the subject up to the age of 18, the society says.

Science undergraduates in England are likely not to have studied maths beyond GCSE level at the age of 16, it says.

(via Reddit)

Down Syndrome Rapper

Abortion

Much too often, pro-lifers like to cast people who are pro-choice as heartless murderers who use abortion as a prophylactic while ignoring that sometimes an abortion can save the life of the mother. This blogger's poignant account of an abortive measure taken when his wife's life was at risk due to her pregnancy is really the best example of why we should all be pro-choice.

Finally, the ER OB comes in and starts talking to us about the possibility of losing the baby some more. Fortunately, we have already discussed this and thought about it, having already thought we lost the baby two or three times over the past few weeks. Still, it isn't pleasant to think about it.

Nothing is stopping the bleeding. There seems to be nothing they can do. They talk about trying some drugs, but then they decide things are going too fast to give time to let them work. So that leaves only surgery as a possibility. Surgery means hosing her out. It means killing the baby. So obviously, we look into other options. Only now, my wife is so out of it, from blood loss, from the painkillers, that the doctor said she is no longer able to legally consent. Now I'm handed a clipboard. On it is consent to basically give my wife an abortion and kill our future child. And it is all on me, my decision, mine alone. Something I never thought I'd ever face, ever have to deal with. Made worse by being a decision of either kill the baby or potentially watch both my wife and the baby die.

(via Pharyngula)

Car Forum Readers Help Cops Nab Hit and Run Perp

Amazing thread on a car forum. A person posts about a friend who was involved in a hit and run accident and another member of the forum had happened to have taken pictures of the event. From The Calgary Herald:

A quick-thinking motorist with a digital camera snapped several pictures of a hit-and-run collision, helping police nab a suspect after the driver fled the scene.

Saturday's crash didn't cause any injuries, but the photos created a flurry of activity when they appeared on local Internet forums Sunday.

"That's the bigger story -- it's spiralled out of control," said Dave Watling, who took the shots.

Beyond.ca, a forum for car enthusiasts where Watling first posted the photos, received about 100,000 hits Monday, forcing the website to add another server to deal with all the curious Internet users, according to the amateur photographer.

The incident occurred at the intersection of Bonaventure Drive and Southland Drive S.E.

Watling was travelling northbound on Bonaventure and had just stopped for a red light in the right-hand lane when he saw a silver Acura come flying by him on his left and smash into the back of a stopped Mercedes.

The force of the collision pushed the Mercedes into a minivan and a taxi in front of it.

The Acura's driver began to back up his car, and that's when Watling asked his wife, Heather, to pass him his new Canon camera.

And here's the link to the thread in the forum.

Too bad they took down most of the photos.

List of company name etymologies

From Wikipedia:

3Com — Network technology producer; the three coms are computer, communication, and compatibility.

A&W Root Beer — named after founders Roy Allen and Frank Wright

Coca-Cola — derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' to make the name look better.

Pepsi — named from the digestive enzyme pepsin.

Tired Kitten

(via PoeTV)

Israel's 'modesty buses' draw fire

From BBC News:

The other day I was waiting for a bus in downtown Jerusalem. I was in the bustling orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Sharim and the bus stop was extremely crowded.

When the Number 40 bus arrived, the most curious thing happened. Husbands left heavily pregnant wives or spouses struggling with prams and pushchairs to fend for themselves as they and all other male passengers got on at the front of the bus.

Women moved towards the rear door to get on at the back.

When on the bus, I tried to buck the system, moving my way towards the driver but was pushed back towards the other women.

These are what orthodox Jews call "modesty buses".

The separation system operates on 30 public bus routes across Israel.

(via Reddit)

Two O'Clock Trailers - Poltergeist

Duck vs. Dog (set to Yakety Sax)

(via Brohan's)

Roger Ebert on His Illness and Why He Won't Avoid the Paparazzi

From The Chicago Sun Times:

I have received a lot of advice that I should not attend the festival. I’m told that paparazzi will take unflattering pictures, people will be unkind, etc.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. As a journalist I can take it as well as dish it out.

So let’s talk turkey. What will I look like? To paraphrase a line from “Raging Bull,” I ain’t a pretty boy no more. (Not that I ever was. The original appeal of “Siskel & Ebert” was that we didn’t look like we belonged on TV.)

What happened was, cancer of the salivary gland spread to my right lower jaw. A segment of the mandible was removed. Two operations to replace the missing segment were unsuccessful, both leading to unanticipated bleeding...

...I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers. So what?

I have been very sick, am getting better and this is how it looks. I still have my brain and my typing fingers.

Although months in bed after the bleeding episodes caused a lack of strength and coordination, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago restored my ability to walk on my own, climb stairs, etc.

I no longer use a walker much and the wheelchair is more for occasional speed and comfort than need. Just today we went for a long stroll in Lincoln Park.

We spend too much time hiding illness. There is an assumption that I must always look the same. I hope to look better than I look now. But I’m not going to miss my festival.

(via Reddit)

Did Atari Bury Millions of "ET" Cartridges in a NM Landfill?

True says Snopes.

David Halberstam RIP

A figure from an earlier (and apparently dead) time - when journalists spoke truth to power. From Wikipedia:

In the mid 1960s, Halberstam covered the Vietnam War for The New York Times. While there, he gathered material for his book The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era. In 1963, he received a George Polk Award for his reporting at the New York Times. At the age of 30, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the war. He is interviewed in the 1968 documentary film on the Vietnam War entitled In the Year of the Pig. Halberstam put an enormous effort into his book about Kennedy's foreign policy decisions about the Vietnam War, The Best and the Brightest. Synthesizing material from dozens of books and many dozens of interviews, Halberstam focused on the odd paradox that those who crafted the U.S. war effort in Vietnam were some of the most intelligent, well-connected and self-confident men in America—"the best and the brightest"—and yet those same men were unable to imagine and promote any but a bloody and disastrous course in the Vietnam War. Thousands of readers began The Best and the Brightest feeling that the U.S. must pursue the war in Vietnam until "victory" was achieved, but became convinced by Halberstam's book that the U.S. could not win and therefore should withdraw from Vietnam.

Glenn Greenwald has so many rememberences of Mr. Halberstam.

Celebrity Mugshots

From Worth1000:

It happens to the best of them. James Brown, Michael Jackson, Nick Nolte, Pee Wee Herman...one little slip up, and WHAMMO! it's "Book 'em, Dano". Your task now is to create a mugshot for a celebrity, as in our themepost.

The rules of the game are thus...Take any celebrity and put them in a mugshot.

(via J-Walk)

How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran

From Wired:

He was stuck. For about a week, no one in Washington or Ottawa could invent a reason for anyone to be in Tehran. Then Mendez hit upon an unusual but strangely credible plan: He'd become Kevin Costa Harkins, an Irish film producer leading his preproduction crew through Iran to do some location scouting for a big-budget Hollywood epic. Mendez had contacts in Hollywood from past collaborations. (After all, they were in the same business of creating false realities.) And it wouldn't be surprising, Mendez thought, that a handful of eccentrics from Tinseltown might be oblivious to the political situation in revolutionary Iran. The Iranian government, incredibly, was trying to encourage international business in the country. They needed the hard currency, and a film production could mean millions of US dollars.

Mendez gave his superiors an operations plan, with an analysis of the target, mission, and logistics. The task was so difficult that his bosses had signaled that they'd be reluctant to sign off on anything but an airtight exfiltration mission. But this proposal was detailed enough to be approved by them and the White House. Plausibility, as they say in the espionage business, was good.

(via GeekPress)

Link Wray - Rumble

From Wikipedia:

For the TV show, they also backed many performers, from Fats Domino to Ricky Nelson. At a live gig in Fredericksburg, VA, attempting to work up a backing for The Diamonds' "The Stroll", they came up with the stately, powerful 12-bar blues instrumental "Rumble", which they originally called "Oddball". The song was an instant hit with the live audience, which demanded four repeats that night. Eventually the song came to the attention of record producer Archie Bleyer of Cadence Records, who hated it, particularly after Wray poked holes in his amplifier's speakers to make the recording sound more like the live version (see "Rocket 88" for Ike Turner's similar story). However, Bleyer's step-daughter loved it and it was released despite his protest. She was the one who suggested renaming the song "Rumble", because it reminded her of West Side Story. Rumble is slang for a "gang fight".

Two More From The Ventures

Hawaii 5-0


Surf Rider (I can't hear this song without thinking about the end of Pulp Fiction)

Walk Don't Run

Which Cirque du Soleil Show Should You See in Vegas

From the Moveable Buffet:

More often than I am asked what show to see in Vegas, I am asked what Cirque show to see. People who want to see Phantom or Penn & Teller don't need me to tell them. Those shows are known quantities. People just need to read the show names from time-to-time in Vegas to be reminded they are here. Same with Celine and Elton. But while Cirque has gone to great lengths to market all of their shows as different, the truth remains Cirque has certain qualities that assert themselves in all of their productions. Surrealism, acrobats, and an unmistakable overall sensibility. People ask, if they can only see one Cirque show which one should it be? So, here are my choices and reasons for which Cirque show to see.

Ham Operators Save Apollo Dish

From AviationWeek.com:

A chance reading of a "for sale" advertisement in a weekly newspaper has launched a group of 30 space history buffs on a mission to save the 30-meter Jamesburg AT&T/Comsat satellite dish about an hour from Monterey, Calif. Built in 1968

The dish was built in 1968 to support the Apollo 11 moon landing a year later. Besides its commercial duties, it also played a role in capturing and distributing images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, says Pat Barthelow, an avionics technician from Sacramento who first noticed the ad in the Carmel (Calif.) Pine Cone and quickly put out the word.

More on the dish here.

(via Make:Blog)

Apache

Two O'Clock Trailers - The Call of Cthulu

Russian Rail Missile System photos

From Moments of Life in JPG Format:

Battle railway missile system looks like an ordinary set of coaches. Three of this wagons are eight wheelsets. It is manned by missiles.

(via Digg)

15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will

From the AVClub.

8. "Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her."

Vonnegut's excellent-but-underrated Slapstick (he himself graded it a "D") was inspired by his sister Alice, who died of cancer just days after her husband was killed in an accident. Vonnegut's assessment of Alice's character—both in this introduction and in her fictional stand-in, Eliza Mellon Swain—is glowing and remarkable, and in this quote from the book's introduction, he manages to swipe at a favorite enemy (organized religion) and quietly, humbly embrace someone he clearly still missed a lot.

(via Reddit)

Performing the Play by the VA Tech Shooter

A performance of the play written by the Virginia Tech Shooter, Cho Seung Hui

(Thanks Gaby)

Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit

Some background on "Strange Fruit":

"Strange Fruit" began as a poem about the lynching of a black man written by a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx Abel Meeropol, who used the pen name Lewis Allan (the names of his two children, who died in infancy). Meeropol and his wife were also the adoptive parents of the children of the executed spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in the 1950s. "Strange Fruit" was written as a poem expressing his horror at the lynchings,and was first published in 1937 in The New York Teacher, a union magazine. Though Meeropol/Allan often asked others (notably Earl Robinson) to set his poems to music he set Strange Fruit to music himself and the song gained a certain success as a protest song in and around New York. Before Holiday was introduced to the song, it had been performed by Meeropol, by his wife, and by a black vocalist called Laura Duncan, who performed it at Madison Square Garden.

Meeropol said later that he had been inspired by seeing Lawrence Beitler's photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. "Strange Fruit" was eventually heard by Barney Josefson the founder of Cafe Society, New York's first integrated nightclub, who introduced it to Billie Holiday. Holiday performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939, a move that by her own admission left her fearful of retaliation. Holiday later said that the imagery in "Strange Fruit" reminded her of her father's death, and that this played a role in her persistence to perform it. The song became a regular part of Holiday's live performances.

Whiskey Bottle PC Mod

I already had a powerful computer setup so I wanted something more quiet, small and low power consumptioning to function as a basic home server. I love to tinker with hardware etc. so I wanted to make something quite unique for a case. I have seen many nice and creative cases before but none of them were made out of a bottle. In November I bought an industrial 3.5" SBC board (with Socket370). For the project I selected a 1.5 litre Ballantine's bottle for case. That was the proper size and shape for the task at hand.

Donut Machine

I love how it flings the donuts when they're done cooking.

(via PoeTV)

Two O'Clock Trailers - Raiders of the Lost Ark

Friday Guest Cat Blogging

Tim writes:

Chris,
This is Harley, my beast. By the look in the eyes of her and Cyni-kitty, I'm thinking that there's something up.....and we should be very, very afraid.

Friday Guest Cat Blogging

Thanks to Carolyn who sent in pictures of her two cats and writes:

Hi Chris,

Just wanted to send you some pictures of the infamous Chi-chi and Woody in hopes of being considered for some cat blogging. (He got that name from a broken tail that now sticks straight up). They are two very entertaining house cats. Chi-chi is overly loving and affectionate (and loves to play with my moccasin - flipping it up in the air and pouncing on it), while Wood is extremely paranoid and slightly obese. (He will swat and hiss at strangers) but we still love him to death.

The Bath School Disaster

From Wikipedia:

The Bath School disaster is the name given to three bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, USA, on May 18, 1927, which killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in second to sixth grades attending the Bath Consolidated School. Their deaths constitute the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history. The perpetrator was school board member Andrew Kehoe, who was upset by a property tax that had been levied to fund the construction of the school building. He blamed the additional tax for financial hardships which led to foreclosure proceedings against his farm. These events apparently provoked Kehoe to plan his attack.

(Thanks to Girard31 from the comments for this)

Related:
The Bath School Disaster page.

MyDeathSpace.com Has Links to the MySpace Accounts of the VA Tech Victims

MyDeathSpace.com links to people from MySpace who have passed away. They have a special page up for the victims of the Virginia Tech Shootings. This is by far the most heartbreaking link I think I've ever seen. It's one thing to read an obituary but going through the blogs of the dead and comments left by friends paints a personal picture of each victim that we never usually get to see.

Washington Post's Narrative of the Virginia Tech Shootings

Horrifying.

In Jamie Bishop's German class, they could hear the popping sounds. What was that? Some kind of joke? Construction noises? More pops. Someone suggested that Bishop should place something in front of the classroom door, just in case. The words were no sooner uttered than the door opened and a shooter stepped in. He was holding guns in both hands. Bishop was hit first, a bullet slicing into the side of his head. All the students saw it, an unbelievable horror. The gunman had a serious but calm look on his face. Almost no expression. He stood in the front and kept firing, barely moving. People scrambled out of the line of fire. Trey Perkins knocked over a couple of desks and tried to take cover. No way I can survive this, he thought. His mind raced to his mother and what she would go through when she heard he was dead. Shouts, cries, sobs, more shots, maybe 30 in all. Someone threw up. There was blood everywhere. It took about a minute and a half, and then the gunman left the room.

Harry Whittier Frees

The photographer whose specialty was anthropomorphism.

In the preface to Animal Land on the Air, Harry Whittier Frees describes working with his subjects. "Rabbits are the easiest to photograph in costume, but incapable ot taking many "human" parts. Puppies are tractable when rightly understood, but the kitten is the most versatile animal actor, and possesses the greatest variety of appeal. The pig is the most difficult to deal with, but effective on occasion. The best period of young animal models is a short one, being when they are from six to ten weeks of age. An interesting fact is that a kitten's attention is best held through the sense of sight, while that of a puppy is most influenced by sound, and equally readily distracted by it. The native reasoning powers of young animals are, moreover, quite as pronounced as those of the human species, and relatively far surer."

The March 1, 1937, edition of Life magazine reatured an article on Mr. Frees titled, "Speaking of Pictures...These are Harry Frees's Lifework". The article explains that Frees's career as a photographer of dressed animals began at a birthday party in 1906, when a paper party hat was passed around the dinner table and landed on the pet cat's head. Harry took a picture and a career was begun! He took others and sold them to a postcard printer, who clamored for more.

(via Metafilter)