The quality of mercy is not punk’d

  1. Wow, these people slowed light down to 245 meters per second. (PhysOrg)
  2. Lithium batteries that last 12 years may be pricy, but when the device is inside your skull who wants to keep popping it open? (PhysOrg)
  3. A French schizophrenic carved sad, fearful rants into his floor. The 24×9 foot oak object is now being exhibited at the National Library (sample here and wider view here), and some people are pretty upset about it. For aficionados of French schizophrenia the entire text is here.
  4. The Slacktivist wishes us a good St. Francis of Assissi Feast Day.
  5. Various maniacs have attempted to create a vocabular for describing interpersonal relationships.
  6. And to top it all off, have some extremely unfortunate books and records (Flickr photoset).

Why I do not live in the country

torgo_x calls my attention to THE DEVIL’S OWN TELEVISION NETWORK, which has such programs as:

Jasper the Mule (“The best thing I can do for mules and donkeys is to introduce them to children in a positive way.”)

Classic Tractor Fever (“When the tractor owner pointed out the unique charac- teristics of the engine, the red eye of the camera focused on the engine. If the tractor featured steel lugs rather than rubber tires, the video focused on the lugs. And so on.”)

And of course Polka America with Jimmy Sturr:

buildings are very very tall and not at all offensive

Carbonated what? Peripherally linked from boingboing.

Also from boingboing, they totally lost their shit about a doom asteroid coming to hit us, and then had to correct themselves after people pointed out that they had old bad information that could have been corrected with Google and Wikipedia. I know they’re not a newspaper, but at that level of popularity they should at least check their stories against the the toolbar options that came with the browser.

Meanwhile, O.J. Simpson appeared at NecroComicCon and signed autographs, making a punchline unnecessary. A long jail sentence would still be good, though.

I hope you’re all celebrating Pandemic Flu Awareness Week! Come with me on a magical journey through the scary-ass statistics from the history of influenza. Check out especially the life expectancy graph with the big ol’ notch in it around 1918.

Two very different stories of religion and politics

First, an Episcopal school in Texas does something surprising. The novel “Brokeback Mountain”, best described as a gay-themed Western novel, was on the high school senior optional reading list and had been for years. A trustee and major donor objected to its presence, and a furore ensued. The school not only declined to remove the book, but returned a $3 million donation from the objector on grounds that they cannot accept any conditional gift. Considering how far schools will bend over for that kind of cash even without the current climate of intolerance, this shows extraordinary courage on the part of their board. The punch line is that the book won’t be taught next year anyway because the teacher who had it on her reading list doesn’t teach anything that’s been adapted for a movie, and it’s being released as a big Hollywood picture.

Second, four Christian anti-war activists carried out a peaceful and minimally disruptive demonstration at a military recruiting office. The government threw the book at them, charging them with criminal mischief, and when that failed trying them again for conspiracy in a federal court. Apparently reading a statement, spilling a ceremonial quantity of blood, and then praying is a very serious crime in this country if you don’t do it at an abortion clinic. Found via this rancorous and poorly written but informative blog post from one of those folks who likes to yell about politics a lot.