Shiny New Whatever

tylercoates: whiteleatherpalace: brilliant ALL. THE. TIME.

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:50:16 -0600

tylercoates:

whiteleatherpalace:

brilliant

ALL. THE. TIME.

via cache.gawker.com

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:37:08 -0600

via cache.gawker.com

barthel: tristn: Sesame Street Disco LPs This album was...

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:29:23 -0600

barthel:

tristn:

Sesame Street Disco LPs

This album was weirdly influential for me.

Honestly, I always liked Sesame Disco! better.

Study Suggests U.S. Could Use Fewer, Not More Science Students

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:06:25 -0500

Study Suggests U.S. Could Use Fewer, Not More Science Students: Ugh, talk about something I did NOT need to read today.

azspot:

Over 600,000 science and engineering degrees are granted annually from American universities.(1)

The US produces only 120,000 science and engineering jobs per year (much less lately; the number may now be negative).(2)

That leaves 480,000 graduates per year without jobs in their chosen careers. Add to this over 250,000 H-1B, L-1, and trade visas each year. Half a million Americans are losing their jobs to cheap foreign technical workers every year. Another half million Americans waste their S&E degrees on non-S&E jobs.

this is heartwarming

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:32:22 -0500

abbyjean:

The estate of the late, great Bea Arthur — aka Maude, aka Dorothy Petrillo Sbornak — has donated $300,000 to the Ali Forney Center. The nation’s largest organization dedicated to homeless GLBT youth, the center announced at Arthur’s memorial service last month that they planned to purchase a building to house 12 youths and name it her honor.

The Ali Forney Center offers emergency shelter and transitional housing in numerous residential sites in New York City, and operates drop-in centers offering food, clothing, medical and mental health treatment, HIV testing, treatment and prevention services, and vocational and educational assistance — providing services to over 1,000 young people each year. (shakes)

Oh, Femputer. The world is less awesome for the loss of you.

"He didn’t close Guantanamo Bay, and not only didn’t reject the idea of pre-emptive detention but..."

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:49:07 -0500

“He didn’t close Guantanamo Bay, and not only didn’t reject the idea of pre-emptive detention but added spice to his own new version of pre-crime prosecution, “prolonged detention.” He promised health care reform and campaigned on a public option, and we all know how that is going to turn out. But most importantly, he came into office amidst sweeping crises in the financial sector and did not do what needed to be done, and what had been done the last time the U.S. was sent careening into a depression because of Wall Street: he failed to push for tough financial reforms. Barack Obama needed to be the FDR figure who remade the American capital markets and made them fair again, and he barely laid a finger on the whole scene. Instead, he put the people who created the problem in charge of fixing the mess, and ended up bailing them out instead of the rest of the country, at huge current and (presumably) future cost.The total bill for the Bush-Obama bailout is certainly above ten trillion at this point — Inspector General Neil Barofsky thinks it might hit nearly $24 trillion ultimately — and this went through without much fanfare. Meanwhile, the congress is stuck in the mud, panicked at the thought of paying three or four trillion over a decade or so for a health care program.”

- Matt Taibbi (via recro) (via azspot)

The Please Stop Making Will Schuester Rap in Glee Petition

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:20:40 -0500

The Please Stop Making Will Schuester Rap in Glee Petition:

Dear Ryan Murphy,

Please stop forcing Glee Club director Mr. Will Schuester, played by Broadway actor Matthew Morrison, into performing highly embarrassing rap and/or R&B numbers on national television.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

"Well, I think it was [a signal]. I think God was preparing me for the fact that about 15 years ago,..."

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:16:42 -0500

“Well, I think it was [a signal]. I think God was preparing me for the fact that about 15 years ago, he made me unable to digest dairy of any kind.”

- John Cleese on his original family name (Cheese), his childhood best friend (Barney Butter) and his hometown (10 miles from Cheddar).

Blogging About TV When You Don't Have One - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:44:51 -0500

Blogging About TV When You Don't Have One - Ta-Nehisi Coates:

TNC apparently has the same trouble I do in explaining that just because you don’t have cable doesn’t mean you don’t watch television shows.

"Anonymity is usually granted when the source has something of value to say. I could be wrong, but I..."

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:43:39 -0500

“Anonymity is usually granted when the source has something of value to say. I could be wrong, but I don’t think “take off your pajamas and get dressed” really qualifies. It just feels like gossip, or reporters giving cover to some White House “advisor” so that he can tell “Ya mamma” jokes.”

- About That Pajamas Quote - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Dog has Kittens for Lunch

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:46:43 -0500

Dog has Kittens for Lunch

"I was ready to jump off the balcony of my office,” (Randy) Phillips says. “We went and met with..."

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:06:57 -0500

““I was ready to jump off the balcony of my office,” (Randy) Phillips says. “We went and met with Michael, and Kenny (Ortega) said, ‘Michael, you’ve got to stop. We’ve got an incredible show; we don’t need any more vignettes.’ Michael said, ‘But Kenny, God channels this through me at night. I can’t sleep because I’m so supercharged.’ Kenny said, ‘But Michael, we have to finish. Can’t God take a vacation?’ Without missing a beat, Michael said, ‘You don’t understand — if I’m not there to receive these ideas, God might give them to Prince.’””

- From the Entertainment Weekly cover story about the documentary about Michael Jackson’s preparation for his come-back shows immediately before his death in July. I think this quote says a lot about the man as an artist. I do find myself wondering — if this is true, how many of Prince’s great moments were intended by God for Michael Jackson? (via perpetua)

These are the albums that are being made into stamps in the UK. ...

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:55:00 -0500

These are the albums that are being made into stamps in the UK. We will set aside Coldplay for the moment (although, to be fair, that’s totally their best album and I like a lot of songs on it despite myself) and just say that on the list of reasons why living in the UK would be cool, postal stamps with Screamadelica on them might place number two. Behind, you know, health care. via Idolator

PREPPY IN PINK - Daisy von Furth Is the Girl Behind X-Girl - Vice Magazine

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:34:21 -0500

PREPPY IN PINK - Daisy von Furth Is the Girl Behind X-Girl - Vice Magazine:

Tonight is the “Things From the ’90s I Miss” night on my Tumblr, I guess. The fact that this whole issue of Vice is written as if it were 1994 has only increased the retroness of my evening. Point: I miss tiny tiny t-shirts and vintage bellbottom cords. I also miss being 14 so I could get away with wearing tiny tiny t-shirts and bellbottom cords. Instead, I’m almost 30 and I wear bootcut jeans from the Gap and nursing tanks. The end.

"Courtney Love has taken leave from the microblogging service Twitter, without so much as a parting..."

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:18:32 -0500

“Courtney Love has taken leave from the microblogging service Twitter, without so much as a parting “don’t forget to keep up with your FICO score” to her 45,000-plus followers. Does this mean she’s actually going to drop her mobile device and focus on her long-in-the-making album Nobody’s Daughter? Or is she abandoning the 140-character format to become a Suze Orman for the generation that grew up on The Spin Alternative Record Guide?”

- I looooooved the Spin Alternative Record Guide. The Pitchfork 500 WISHES it was the Spin Alternative Record Guide.

I miss when Spin didn’t suck. via Idolator

"I lost my mind when I found out Kaepa, those weird cheerleader shoes with the plastic triangles all..."

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:54:39 -0500

“I lost my mind when I found out Kaepa, those weird cheerleader shoes with the plastic triangles all over the upper, still exist)”

- They DO? Oh man. How about BUF-PUFs? Do they still make BUF-PUFs? I miss early ’90s teen magazine ads. Excuse me, I’m off to rifle through my old Sassys. via the Awl.

"I have no idea why DJs thought “I Wanna Sex You Up” was appropriate school dance music,..."

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:52:07 -0500

“I have no idea why DJs thought “I Wanna Sex You Up” was appropriate school dance music, but they always played it. I have always, always hated this song. This is the song that would come on the radio while you were in the car with your parents on the way to McDonald’s or something and it would make you want to crawl in a hole and die of embarrassment.”

- YES. See also: “I Touch Myself” — I’m pretty sure I wasn’t completely clear on what that song was about, but I knew I didn’t want to listen to it with my dad when I was in sixth grade. An Ode To Fairly Inappropriate School Dance Anthems

"Epitaph One,” the mind-blowing 13th episode of Dollhouse’s first season…didn’t air on FOX, but..."

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:26:23 -0500

““Epitaph One,” the mind-blowing 13th episode of Dollhouse’s first season…didn’t air on FOX, but was included in the DVD. (FOX cannily shuffled the episode off onto the DVD, shrewdly surmising that the show’s passionate fans would be enticed to snap up the set.)”

- …and yet not-quite-so-shrewdly overlooking that the show’s passionate fans probably also know how Bittorrent works. Dollhouse: “Epitaph One” | TV | The A.V. Club

"Kristol’s personal political history is famous, and probably over-exaggerated, but goes something..."

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:21:01 -0500

“Kristol’s personal political history is famous, and probably over-exaggerated, but goes something likes this: when he was an undergraduate at the “radical” City College of New York, from which he graduated in 1940, his small group of Trotskyite (or at least anti-Stalinist) leftists held ferocious debates from Alcove 1 of the college’s lunch room with the pro-Stalinist leftists in Alcove 2, about politics. Then Kristol decided that the left was insane, and communism could only manifest itself in evil dictators who needed to be overthrown as usurpers of liberty. This was neoconservatism, or something. Kristol would later sell his cadre out to the religious right, which was growing to dominate the Republican party. And at some point, he spawned, which was of course his greatest offense.”

- Continuing with my theme of being totally behind in posting shit because I never get to use the computer, here is a month old obituary that made me sad because I realize I could have summed up my entire M.A. thesis in pretty much these four sentences. Especially that last one. I should go back and rename my thesis “Neoconservatism, Democratization, and Human Rights: How Irving Kristol’s Sperm Destroyed Civilization (and the New York Times Op-Ed Page)” — that’s got a nice ring to it. via Wonkette

Brainstorming some childproofing issues...

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:12:48 -0500

Brainstorming some childproofing issues...