I hate the tv

Kurt Vonnegut announced during this presentation that it would be his last (paid) public appearance. Here’s a clipping of the transcript:

“Well,” says vonnegut, “I just want to say that George W. Bush is the syphilis president.”

The students seem to agree.

“The only difference between Bush and Hitler,” vonnegut adds, “is that Hitler was elected.”

“You all know, of course, that the election was stolen. Right here.”

Off to a flying start, vonnegut explains that this will be his “last speech for money.” He can’t remember the first one, but it was on a campus long, long ago, and this will be the end.

Still fiesty as an old man.

On YouTube I ran accross this cool little clip in which Franken retells some stories about Saddam that he was told by a guard at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.  Apparantly Saddam likes dogs and horses,  but says cats are for women.

Sweeet.

This device looks more and more appealing, but the price of $390 is a bit too high for me, I’m affraid. Maybe I’ll splurge and give it a shot.

Another interesting thing I found in the discussion of this tread is that Tapioca allegedly works with google talk’s VOIP in linux. I’ll give that a try when I get a chance.

Click for larger Versions:

Not necessarily work safe.  Mom,  please don’t click on this link that I randomly ran into this via Google Images searching for the Nokia 770. Awesome.

To read up on the history of goatse check it’s wikipedia article.

Over at Improv Everywhere they’ve got the details.  And pictures on Flickr.  Thanks pevo.

I want it!…

and it doubles as a couples robotic love seat:

Bidding starts at 100,000 USD.

As a goof I asked the seller how much shipping would be to Tehran, Iran. I hope they, and the HSA goons which are no doubt tapping this, have a sense of humor. Cheers guys!

Photographer Robert Knoth and reporter Antoinette de Jong have a very powerful set of photos with commentary called “Nuclear Nightmares: Twenty Years Since Chernobyl”.

A Snippet:

“The milk from the villages gets tested for radiation levels. If the radiation levels are too high the milk is mixed with uncontaminated milk until the radioactivity is below a set limit”

Found via boingboing.

I ran into this ass-kicking piece at Gin and Tacos immediate after the 2k4 travesty of an election. I felt that it was dead on in many respects, but I didn’t have this site working back then….So It gets posted now. Here’s a Snippet:

These votes come from the suburbs (tax cuts) and rural areas (abortion, gay marriage). Can you think of two places more insulated from the regressive economic and international policies of this administration? Look at the decision-making process of a suburban voter. The war? Who cares. Junior’s in an expensive private school, and that ACT tutor is gonna make sure he gets into a 4th-rate college with two directional adjectives in its name. The economy? Come on, daddy’s the person who does the outsourcing, not the one who gets outsourced. Terrorism? Those attacks happen in big cities. Cuts to government programs? Well that’s just more urban poor to shuttle into the army. Or prison. Need more of those.

Streaming media is dominated by a bunch of software companies whose products I don’t want on my computer. I’m a user of firefox, media player classic, ffdshow, media player connectivity, Real Alternative, and others. I do not use IE or Microsoft WMP because they sucks and probably report my viewing habits to homeland security.

For all those sites which don’t work, its nice to know that there is a way of downloading the media to play locally. You can also store copies of your favorites. Use lawfully, you crazy kids.