Orwell on Politics and the English Language
Andrew Sullivan points me in the direction of “Politics and the English Language,” a classic essay by George Orwell. I’ve listed some gems.
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The iTunes Signature Maker creates a short audio fingerprint based on an analysis of your iTunes library. It crashed in Safari but works fine in Firefox. Here’s mine. (kottke’s on fire)
(0) #12/9/2005
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Bunny suicides. Very Mad -magazine-esque. (via kottke)
Update: Oops, it’s pirated from a book.
(0) #12/9/2005
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Stephen Gaghan, writer/director of Syriana , has his first blog post up (about corruption) at the Huffington Post. My initial thoughts on Syriana here.
(0) #12/8/2005
New Angle on Prisoners of the Census
A new angle on the Prisoners of the Census project I wrote about in October. Its main thesis:
Googling at the Border
Hoder, the famous Iranian blogger, was refused entry in the United States after border patrol Googled his blog onsite and learned he was living in New York City. Farsi is the 4th most popular language used on blogs, so the title I gave him is no joke. But I’m glad at least that border patrol is competent enough to use the web effectively.
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Andrew Sullivan on Bush’s “We do not torture” lie. There has never been better evidence that Bush is untruthful to the American public, and trust me, I’ve never been into the whole “Bush Lies” campaign.
(0) #12/7/2005
Mel Gibson: Governor?
With Governor Schwarzenegger losing populariy and the recent rejection of his initiatives, some disgruntled Republicans are trying to draft Mel Gibson to run for California governor. According to the website:
McCarran SchmcCarran
Today’s Review-Journal has an article on an FAA proposal to divert flights departing McCarran airport to fly over different parts of the city. The purpose of the plan is to increase the efficiency of departures out of the Las Vegas airport, which is the sixth-busiest passenger airport in the nation.
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An interesting interview with Barbara Ehrenreich, a cultural critic and essayist who focuses on the underdiscussed issue of class in America. I’ve never read any of her books, but Fear of Falling, Nickel and Dimed, and her latest, Bait and Switch all look fascinating.
(0) #12/7/2005
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Strange animated video that I can’t really explain, except to say that it has something to do with running and looks vaguely like a video game.
(0) #12/6/2005
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Photoshopped pictures of “unretouched” celebrities. The Johnny Depp one kind of looks normal. (via kottke)
(0) #12/6/2005
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Thumbnail images that look like porn, but aren’t. I wonder what role the graininess plays? (via kottke)
(0) #12/6/2005
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During the development of a seaborne windfarm off the southern coast of Massachusetts, scientists found what may be a 5,500-year-old sunken forest. The windfarm will be developing around it so that scientists can dive and dig for prehistoric artifacts.
(0) #12/6/2005
Dangerous Men
Slate has an interesting podcast about enjoying terrible movies, a favorite pastime of mine as a teenager. On the recent Los Angeles release of Dangerous Men: “…I truly think it is one of the greatest bad movies ever made. This thing has a chance to become like right up there with the great midnight movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space.” Wow, it looks as good/terrible as Dolemite.
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A likely new species of carnivore has been discovered on the island of Borneo that resembles a cross between a cat and fox. Maybe Napoleon Dynamite can now have a new favorite animal. (thx, ranger)
(0) #12/6/2005
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Wired magazine as a technology market barometer. As the number of pages increase and decrease, so does the Nasdaq. I do recall noticing the heft of the latest issue when I got it in the mail. (via waxy)
(18) #12/5/2005
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Andrew Sullivan on the evolving Catholic policy, especially with respect to new priests, from “homosexual behavior is a sin” to “homosexuality is a sin” under Pope Benedict XVI. This is a serious, pressworthy issue and, in my opinion, a sad turn for the Catholic church.
(0) #12/5/2005
