Buffy: What is it with those guys? Willow: They're obnoxious. Professionally.

Over the course of the film Edward is in turns patronizing, condescending and just downright creepy. He spies on Bella, he stalks her (for “her own good”), he sneaks into her room to watch her sleep (without her consent) and even confesses to a deep, overpowering desire to kill her. We marveled at how the film attempted to present this behavior as sweet and deeply romantic – and how the larger pop culture discussion continued that framing for millions of young Twilight fans. At several points during the film Anita and I found ourselves asking each other: “What Would Buffy Do?”

What Would Buffy Do? Notes on Dusting Edward Cullen

"To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond." - Hypatia of Alexandria

Margaret Wertheim leads a project to re-create the creatures of the coral reefs using a crochet technique invented by a mathematician -- celebrating the amazements of the reef, and deep-diving into the hyperbolic geometry underlying coral creation.

humina humina humina

When Thomas Mann was a child his father contrived an experiment to teach him and his siblings a lesson about appetite. “Our father assured us,” Mann writes, “that once in our lives we could eat as many cream puffs … and cream rolls at the pastry shop as we wanted. He led us into a sweet smelling Paradise, and let the dream become reality - and we were amazed how quickly we reached the limit of our desire, which we believed to be infinite.” Here the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. We need only to experiment with our greed to discover that it is only in our fantasies that we are excessive; in reality our appetite is sensible; is, as we like to say, self-regulating - we know when we have had enough.

The Guardian | Insatiable Creatures

Kirk: "You're not going to Space Camp but at least you've got those remote control trucks and your confidence."

RR: What was it like running the temple?
JD: I was nervous and wanted to win. While waiting for that segment, we were given a simplistic map of the Temple to study so we would know the layout and what to do in each room. I made sure that both Dorothy and I knew exactly what to do in each room, remembering to keep an eye out for a Pendant of Life.

When I went through the Temple, I ran, jumped, dived, and scurried as fast as I could. Afterwards I was told that I ran it in record time and that I blew right by a Temple Guard.

I got held up in the room with that damn monkey statue. I was sure my time was going to expire before I figured that thing out. There are so many combinations and permutations of which way you can put those monkey blocks!

Interview with Joel Davis, Legends of the Hidden Temple contestant

brrrraaaaiiiinnnnsss

On December 2nd, 2009 we will begin slicing the brain of the amnesic patient H.M. into giant histological sections. The brain specimen is going to be frozen and sectioned whole during one continuous session that we expect will last approximately 30 hours.

Project HM | Blog | Live video

Wikipedia | HM (patient)

It's like two robots tried to film a porn, but were too drunk.

Sumotori Dreams: The best (or worst) game ever.

come on, kitty-kitty-kitty

If the goal is to earn a living, then, maybe it isn’t really true that 18-year-olds need to be imparted with a sense of panic about getting into college (though they certainly need to learn). Some people are hustled off to college, then to the cubicle, against their own inclinations and natural bents, when they would rather be learning to build things or fix things. One shop teacher suggested to me that “in schools, we create artificial learning environments for our children that they know to be contrived and undeserving of their full attention and engagement. Without the opportunity to learn through the hands, the world remains abstract and distant, and the passions for learning will not be engaged.”

A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic rather than to accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive. There is a pervasive anxiety among parents that there is only one track to success for their children. It runs through a series of gates controlled by prestigious institutions. Further, there is wide use of drugs to medicate boys, especially, against their natural tendency toward action, the better to “keep things on track.” I taught briefly in a public high school and would have loved to have set up a Ritalin fogger in my classroom. It is a rare person, male or female, who is naturally inclined to sit still for 17 years in school, and then indefinitely at work.

New York TImes | The Case for Working with Your Hands

The point of distinguishing constitutions from laws is to prevent short term fears from overriding hard-won rights.

"The proposal on banning minaret construction was championed by rightwing and ultra-conservative groups. The government and most political parties as well as churches and the business community came out strongly against it.

To be approved, it needed the backing of a majority of both voters and cantons.

The director of gfs.bern told Swiss French television that the issue by the end of the campaign was not minarets, but the position of Muslims in Switzerland." [...]

"The number of Muslim immigrants has increased to about 350,000 (up to 4.5 per cent of the Swiss population) since the 1990s. Most of them came from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey and are considered moderates.

There are an estimated 160 mosques and prayer rooms in Switzerland, mainly in disused factories and warehouses. Only four of them have a minaret, including the mosques in Geneva and Zurich."


It is worth stating that Switzerland has some very strict rules about architecture. For instance, no building may be so tall as to obscure a view of the Alps. But mostly, this vote seems to have passed based on a fear of Islamicisation in the country and a perception that Muslims do not attempt to integrate into society as much as they should.

SwissInfo | Minaret ban approved, projections show

Yo, stop it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com

We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility

Mister Rogers defending public television before the U.S. Senate.




Fox & Friends: "Now all these kids are growing up realizing, Mr Rogers lied to me! I'm not special!"
"These kids feel entitled just for being them...why doesn't he say, there's a lot of room for improvement?"

"What you call the external world is as much you as your own body." – Alan Watts

"How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths."
–Carl Sagan

space, space, space is the place

Below its icy crust, Europa is believed to host a global ocean up to a hundred miles (160 kilometers) deep, with no land to speak of at the surface.

The extraterrestrial ocean is currently being fed more than a hundred times more oxygen than previous models had suggested, according to provocative new research.

That amount of oxygen would be enough to support more than just microscopic life-forms, and at least three million tons of fishlike creatures could theoretically live and breathe on Europa, according to Greenberg.

“There’s nothing saying there is life there now,” said Greenberg, who presented his work last month at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences. “But we do know there are the physical conditions to support it,” he added.

Phenomenica | Ocean on Jupiter's moon Europa...

that that good

The greatest oil ad of all time, from 1962.

Updates on UC Regents protests today and tomorrow

The protests at the Regents' meeting have escalated to skirmishes between students and police. At least 14 arrests have already been made inside the meeting, before noon. Students keep disrupting the meeting, and the police have just announced that the entire gallery (public seating) is an "unlawful assembly." Students have been fighting with police outside, with unconfirmed rumors that students are throwing rocks at police; police have tased one student and clubbed several more. One student broke their leg, though it is not yet known how. Police helicopters are overhead, police have donned riot gear, and have threatened to use tear gas on campus. Lynn Tierney, spokesperson for UCOP, has denied that any students were tased, although this has been confirmed by legal observers. About 500 protesters outside, talk of encircling the building if students aren't allowed into Covel Commons. Police have drawn pellet guns on students and ordered them to disperse. 15-20 students remained and have possibly been arrested. Students are being forced away from Covel by police, where the meeting is taking place.

Yudof had the audacity to post on twitter: "Protesters' problems not with me or Regents, but with Sacramento and even voters."

The Afrikan Student Union at UCLA reported that at least 3 members were tased by police.

Updates at UC Regent Live
Updates at Student Activism
UC Regents Protest Schedule
LA Times | Eight arrested at UC Regents meeting at UCLA
Photos and more LIVE updates at The Daily Bruin

tonight

giddy up

If you're reading this, you're still alive.

One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah Ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him, "Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it." "If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Benaiah, "I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?" "It has magic powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy." Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility. Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?" asked Benaiah. He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile. That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity. "Well, my friend," said Solomon, "have you found what I sent you after?" All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled. To everyone's surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, "Here it is, your majesty!" As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words "Gam zeh ya'avor" -- "This too shall pass." At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom and fabulous wealth and tremendous power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust.

Wikipedia | This too shall pass

happy belated veteran's day

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan

Remember the Y2K scare? It came and went without much of a whimper because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation. Impressive movie special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know. It will, however, be another winter solstice.

Much like Y2K, 2012 has been analyzed and the science of the end of the Earth thoroughly studied. Contrary to some of the common beliefs out there, the science behind the end of the world quickly unravels when pinned down to the 2012 timeline. Below, NASA Scientists answer several questions that we're frequently asked regarding 2012.

NASA FAQs | 2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?

they're like ninjas

cause a cat's the only cat who knows where it's at

This image, above, is from 1941, and shows - according to the original caption - “the proper way to safely pick up an excited cat in the event of first aid being required due to an air raid.”

Entropic Memes | Catblogging, 1940s style

"Everyone who wants to do good to the human race always ends in universal bullying." - Aldous Huxley

The faces of the Yes on 1 campaigners in Maine as they hear the election results:

Reddit.com | Comment: "When prop 8 passed in California, there was a shot of the reaction from the campaign headquarters. I'll never forget this. At the center of the image was a guy in a suit throwing both hands up, mouth agape in pure jubilation of victory. It was as if he's just won the Lotto. I just couldn't understand how someone could be so thrilled about having gotten so little. What did he get? Nothing. How did his life change? Will he not have to get up for work in the morning? Are his bills any cheaper? Has a loved one who was sick been cured? Does he get more money, video games, blowjobs, or whatever he likes to do in his spare time? He gets nothing. It was all because it felt so good to hurt someone."

"A day without laughter is a day wasted." - Charlie Chaplin

· In 1998, Fred Phelps posted the Onion article '98 Homosexual-Recruitment Drive Nearing Goal on his "God Hates Fags" website as "proof" that gay people were indeed actively trying to "recruit" others.

· An article on Harry Potter inciting kids to practice witchcraft was believed by many to be real and was forwarded by many concerned Christians.[24] Columnist Ellen Makkai and others who believe the Harry Potter books "recruit" children to Satanism have also been taken in by the article, using quotes from it as "evidence" for their claims.

· On June 7, 2002, Reuters reported that the Beijing Evening News republished, in the international news page of its June 3 edition, translated portions of "Congress Threatens To Leave D.C. Unless New Capitol Is Built". The story discusses the U.S. Congress's threats to leave Washington for Memphis, Tennessee; Charlotte, North Carolina; or even Toronto, Canada unless Washington, D.C. built them a new Capitol building with a retractable dome. The article is a parody of U.S. sports franchises' threats to leave their home city unless new stadiums are built for them. The Evening News is Beijing's most popular newspaper, claiming a circulation of 1 million.[20] Evening News initially stood by the story, demanding proof of its falsehood. It later retracted the article, responding that "some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them with the aim of making money."

Wikipedia | The Onion taken seriously

Was it alive and swimming, or had it died long ago, or was it dying now, right this second?

A blue whale, the world's largest mammal, was found washed ashore near Fort Bragg this week. The whale, a female, was spotted near Fort Bragg in Mendocino County on Monday night a few "hours after an ocean survey vessel reported hitting a whale a few miles away," reports AP.

The 70-foot whale was found dead. She had large gashes on her body, some of them measuring 8 feet long.

This makes the second dead blue whale discovered along the California Coast in two weeks. NOAA wildlife biologist Joe Cordaro goes on to tell AP that while it's rare for blue whales to wash ashore, last week another blue whale turned up in Monterey County. That whale also died as a result of being hit by a large ship.

Associated Press via SFist

heaven is a place where nothing ever happens

To whom it may concern:

This is to certify, That I have found the Key To all Existance. And all I ask of any one Is for them to read What I am about to say. Because it is not my purpose to tell What you already know. And consequently the proof Shall follow and establish My work to make it law.

For the key to all existance Is the key to the Law By which all things Come into existance and therefore my word Is the key to that law to be verified by proof Listen therefore to what I say As follows:

The Moon Is practically all Water frozen or Ice It was formed By water evaporating From the earth Which arose and gathered Between the Earth and Sun It is hollow Like a pumpkin The inside is composed of that part of the air known as Nitrogen And very very cold Consequently its water is frozen.

If the crust of the moon Was removed, it would be a Sun bright enough To destroy the earth. There is no life upon the moon, but Without the moon There would be no life upon the earth.

Letters to Mount Wilson Observatory | Letter from Edward

I became a feminist as an alternative to becoming a masochist.

We believe the major causes of global environmental degradation are:

· Economic systems that exploit and misuse nature and people in the drive for short-term and short-sighted gains and profits.

· The rapid urbanization and poverty resulting from migration from rural areas and from inadequate planning and resource allocation in towns and cities.

· The displacement of small farmers and indigenous peoples by agribusiness, timber, mining, and energy corporations, often with encouragement and assistance from international financial institutions, and with the complicity of national governments.

· The disproportionate consumption patterns of the affluent the world over. Currently, the industrialized nations, with 22% of the world's population, consume 70% of the world's resources. Within the United States, deepening economic inequalities mean that the poor are consuming less, and the rich more.

· Technologies designed to exploit but not to restore natural resources.

· War making and arms production which divest resources from human needs, poison the natural environment and perpetuate the militarization of culture, encouraging violence against women.

Demographic variables can have an impact on the environment, but reducing population growth will not solve the above problems. In many countries, population growth rates have declined yet environmental conditions continue to deteriorate.

Moreover, blaming global environmental degradation on population growth helps to lay the groundwork for the re-emergence and intensification of top-down, demographically driven population policies and programs which are deeply disrespectful of women, particularly women of color and their children.

Women, Population & the Environment | Call For A New Approach

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krinshnamurti

Most of what we feed to chickens, pigs, and other farmed animals—most of it is burned off, simply keeping the animals alive until they're slaughtered.

It's bizarre, really: You take a crop like soybeans, oats, corn, or wheat, which are all high in protein, fiber, and complex carbohydrates but devoid of cholesterol and artery-clogging saturated fat. You feed them to an animal and create a product with no fiber or complex carbohydrates at all but with lots of cholesterol and saturated fat. It makes about as much sense as taking pure water, running it through a sewer system, and then drinking it.

Vegetarianism in a Nutshell: Environment

always remember

Legend tripping, also known as "ostension," is a name recently bestowed by folklorists and anthropologists on an adolescent practice (containing elements of a rite of passage) in which a usually furtive nocturnal pilgrimage is made to a site which is alleged to have been the scene of some tragic, horrific, and possibly supernatural event or haunting. The practice has been documented most thoroughly to date in the United States, though there can be little doubt that it occurs in many other countries and cultures.

Wikipedia | Legend Tripping

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." - Eleanor Roosevelt

who are we in the way we can see ourselves