Chromatic Harmony

There are some people out there who will find this endlessly fascinating, even when not under the influence of mind-altering substances. I am one of those people.

Via Crooked Timber.

Checklist

This is a product designed with people like me in mind.

Lady was a Tramp Toad-Sucker

And this was the other story on All Things Considered yesterday that really got my attention.

Again, via BoingBoing.

Hospitals and Other Institutions Dumping Patients on LA's Skid Row

I heard a report about this on All Things Considered yesterday, and I could not believe what I was hearing.

Read, and be horrified. Here are a few of the horrifying details, but do click through and read the whole thing.

Police have long suspected that several institutions, including law enforcement agencies from outside the city, were using the downtown neighborhood as a dumping ground for homeless people. This is the first criminal probe by the LAPD into the practice.

In one case, a man dropped off at Skid Row was in fact not homeless, said Smith, the LAPD captain. A police officer took him home and the man's family was "outraged," he said.

"Not only did they not know that he was discharged, but the fact that he had been brought to Skid Row instead of being brought home was what further outraged that family," Smith said at a news conference Tuesday. [emphasis mine]

Six-word SF stories.

This Wired article, (via BoingBoing) features short stories by dozens of well-known science-fiction and fantasy authors. Very short stories. Six words long, to be precise. Here are a few of my favorites:

Vacuum collision. Orbits diverge. Farewell, love.
- David Brin

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
- Joss Whedon

With bloody hands, I say good-bye.
- Frank Miller

It cost too much, staying human.
- Bruce Sterling

It’s behind you! Hurry before it
- Rockne S. O’Bannon

The Axis in WWII: haiku! Gesundheit.
- Howard Waldrop

God to Earth: “Cry more, noobs!”
- Marc Laidlaw

We would not dare claim to be writers of the same calibre as those above, but this challenge is too enticing to pass up. Here, therefore, are our humble offerings:

Identity diverged into multiple snarky fragments.
- My Alter Ego

Giant mutant cockroaches liveblogged the apocalypse.
- Giant Mutant Cockroach

Why not give it a try yourself?

Way Cool

Photos of a Space Shuttle launch as seen from the International Space Station!!!


Via MetaFilter.

Update: The consensus among the MetaFilter commenters is that the photos are not from the ISS. But they are nevertheless way cool.

Beyond Awesome

Via BoingBoing, a website featuring scans of the cover pages of 1520 issues of Italian pulp SF magazine Urania. The oldest ones, dating from the early 1950s, are my favorites. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Your choice of car indicates that you are compensating for something.


Schrodinger's Cat is back . . . and he's really pissed!


Really, really pissed!


WTF?


I have seen the future . . . and it is teh hott!!

Pick your favorite and insert here.

For some inexplicable reason, my favorite is this one:

I haven't posted in awhile. I was planning on working more on my chibi characters.

But I admit, this one is hard to beat.

Pimp My Roach

The ultimate fashion statement! A real, live giant Madagascar hissing cockroach! A roach you can wear! But this is not just any roach! No, when you step out, this roach brings the bling! Order yours today!

Via MetaFilter. (Click through for more weirdness.)

A lame joke, in poor taste.

Former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) recently got the boot because of his fondness for "naughty" emails and instant messages.

What are his two favorite keys on the computer keyboard?

Why?

A study published in the British medical journal The Lancet estimates that 655,000 Iraqis have been killed as a result of the U.S. invasion of and subsequent occupation of Iraq.

And those deaths have not made me, nor anyone else in the U.S., nor anyone anywhere in the world, any safer than they were before the invasion. On the contrary, we are all now less safe.

And all those deaths have been in vain.

Things that go "boom" in the night.

We woke up today to a world in which North Korea has demonstrated unambiguously* that it possesses nuclear weapons.

So how did we get here?

If there is any doubt in your mind, read what Josh Micah Marshal has to say on the matter.

* Update: Maybe it's not so unambiguous after all. Most bizarre.

Olbermann Redux

There is one word in Dan Froomkin's take on Keith Olbermann's "special comments" that sticks in my craw. Can you guess what it is?

If you can't figure it out, there's a hint in the comments.

Good luck, indeed. We'll need it.

Why aren't there any Democratic politicians* with even half the eloquence of Keith Olbermann?

Watch Keith take President Bush to task in his latest commentary. Part 1. Part 2. Transcript here.

Via LeisureGuy, whose blog consistently delivers the trifecta of no-nonsense politics, cat pictures, and shaving lore.

* with the possible exception of Barack Obama and the obvious exception of William J. Clinton, ret.

I said "Terraplane," not "Terror Plane."

Given that Robert Johnson is on the no-fly list, and there's no way he's getting off it, his decision to "catch a Greyhound bus and ride" seems very pragmatic.

Now available without a prescription.

When the time comes to do a rigorous scientifc study of this new cure for hiccups, what will they use as a placebo?

And that's not a euphemism.

"The nearly four-acre basin was constructed about two years ago and 'took some of the load off of the pipe downstream'. . . "

Via Grow-a-Brain.