more things change, the more they remain the same...

Lincoln's idiot bodyguard got drunk in the same bar as John Wilkes Booth the night of the assassination

By Cory Doctorow at 8:55 am Monday, Apr 23 • 36 Comments • Share

Marilyn sez, "With all this brouhaha about Secret Service agents misbehaving in Cartagena, I remembered this story in Smithsonian magazine two years ago about the unreliable presidential bodyguard who was supposed to be protecting Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theater the night he got shot. The story is by Paul Martin (my former boss), who is researching unknown people who've changed the course of U.S. history. His first volume, on forgotten heroes, is just out, and he's working on the forgotten villains, which will no doubt include this one.

I have a chronic need for this (get it? chronic?)

The Orange County Register is reporting that medical marijuana can now be legally dispensed through a fully automated vending machine called the Autospense. The promotional video shows how easily this dispensary machine works with a medical marijuana card, a thumbprint scan and payment. AutoSpense’s founder, Joe DeRobbio of Dispense Labs, is quoted as saying “What goes in, what comes out, it’s documented and there’s no way to subvert that.” The Dispensary Store in Santa Ana, California is the first place to host one of these machines

spooky

good journey brother.....

no pickle?

Tokyo reporter orders 2.7kg bacon Whopper with 1050 slices of bacon

By Cory Doctorow at 6:00 am Friday, Apr 20 • 81 Comments • Share

When the Tokyo Burger King stores announced a "15 strips of bacon on your burger for ¥100 (~$1.25)" promotion, Mr Sato, a reporter for Rocket News 24 ordered 105 slices of bacon on his burger. Apparently, Mr Sato ate the "grotesque agglomeration of ketchup-soaked meat about 3 times the size of the regular whopper" and then rushed home to recuperat

dig crumb.....

Paul Gravett interviews R. Crumb

By Mark Frauenfelder at 10:48 pm Wednesday, Apr 18 • 4 Comments • Share

Amy Crehore says: "There's a great new interview with R. Crumb by Paul Gravett. Crumb with be the focus of an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, France opening April 13, 2012."
You have been living in France since 1993. Do you feel remote from America and US pop culture, which were such an important part of your infuences, your creative mulch? Is that a problem?

I don’t feel remote from it, because in the modern world you can get anything, any movie, any book, music, any comic, you can read English language newspapers and magazines. The only thing I am remote from is the day-to-day life of the United States and when I lived in America, a lot of my work is a reaction to day-to-day life there. So that’s not there anymore and I don’t know what effect that has. When I got back there - I go back once or twice a year - after I’m there for a couple of weeks, the old contempt and disgust with America comes back over me again, probably even stronger than when I lived there. I can have contempt and disgust in France too! But in America, it’s so strong, it’s sick or something!

What do you dislike about France?

It’s a general disgust with humanity. I’m in Paris right now and we just came back from going on the Metro and you look at humanity and it’s just appalling, appalling out there! (Laughter) I’m no better, I don’t think I’m superior or anything. If I look in the mirror, I have the same reaction.

At least the French respect artists and creators a bit better?

No, the French have such a bullshit attitude about art. The bullshit is so thick here, it’s ridiculous. The French government supports art, there are a lot of art subventions, I don’t know why, they give a lot of money. Lots of people get on this bandwagon and make such terrible, terrible art, all over France.

What do you think of comics-inspired French fine artists like Herve Di Rosa?

Yeah, kinda interesting. And the other guy, Robert Combas. But there’s not enough nutrients in it for me. Guys like that are jockeying for position in the art world. Outsider artists, who aren’t looking for a place in galleries, to me are much more authentic and genuine, crazy people, working in isolation, that to me is much more interesting. In the world of comics where I come from, ninety-nine per cent of it is uninteresting to me, it’s vacuous and slick

fun but useless...

miss ya hitch...somethin fierce

hmmmmmm...

It is comforting to know that everyone at Fox news is a F**kin idiot..

Roger Ailes: Soledad O'Brien Was 'Named After A Prison'

Roger Ailes made a jaw-dropping comment about CNN's Soledad O'Brien during a college lecture on Thursday night.

The Fox News chief was speaking to journalism students at the University of North Carolina. In the question-and-answer segment of the talk, he referred to O'Brien as "that girl that's named after a prison."

Ailes was referring to the Soledad Correctional Facility in Monterey County, California. He made the comment while speaking about the latest developments at the network for a lecture at the university's journalism school.
CNN responded to the remark on Friday. An insider told The Huffington Post, "Roger is wrong. Soledad is named after the Virgin Mary, 'Maria de la Soledad.' It's a name her parents gave her in part because they met at Daily Mass."

On Thursday, Ailes also responded to Newt Gingrich's recent criticism of Fox News. The GOP candidate accused the network of favoring Romney, and said that CNN was "less biased." Ailes said that Gingrich was "trying to get a job at CNN because he knows he isn't going to get to come back to Fox News."

He condemned the Fox News mole, the former employee who was fired after writing anonymous posts about the network. “The mole shows a culture that believes in theft, a lack of loyalty, turning on his colleagues, lying to management, and there are some real, ethical, serious questions about it,” Ailes said.

He defended Fox News against criticism that the network's coverage is biased, as well. "What you're really telling me is that there's a little cable channel over here that's driving you nuts because it won't line up with your worldview," Ailes said. "If there's an alternative point of view, don’t wet your pants.”

Peanut Butter & Jelly

hmmmmmmm..

The Worst Building in the History of Mankind

It's the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea, where the world's 22nd largest skyscraper has been vacant for two decades and is likely to stay that way ... forever.

By Eva Hagberg

Cavit Erginsoy

A picture doesn't lie -- the one-hundred-and-five-story Ryugyong Hotel is hideous, dominating the Pyongyang skyline like some twisted North Korean version of Cinderella's castle. Not that you would be able to tell from the official government photos of the North Korean capital -- the hotel is such an eyesore, the Communist regime routinely covers it up, airbrushing it to make it look like it's open -- or Photoshopping or cropping it out of pictures completely.
Even by Communist standards, the 3,000-room hotel is hideously ugly, a series of three gray 328-foot long concrete wings shaped into a steep pyramid. With 75 degree sides that rise to an apex of 1,083 feet, the Hotel of Doom (also known as the Phantom Hotel and the Phantom Pyramid) isn't the just the worst designed building in the world -- it's the worst-built building, too. In 1987, Baikdoosan Architects and Engineers put its first shovel into the ground and more than twenty years later, after North Korea poured more than two percent of its gross domestic product to building this monster, the hotel remains unoccupied, unopened, and unfinished.

A bootleg video of the tower from YouTube. How the brazen videographer escaped without being arrested remains a mystery.
Construction on the Hotel of Doom stopped in 1992 (rumors maintain that North Korea ran out of money, or that the building was engineered improperly and can never be occupied) and has never started back up, which shouldn't come as a shock. After all, who the hell travels to beautiful downtown Pyongyang? It would make sense if the hotel were in South Korea, where Americans are allowed to travel and where projects like the Busan Lotte Tower and the Lotte Super Tower now rise thousands of feet above the formerly modest skyline.
With Pyongyang's official population said to range between 2.5 million and 3.8 million (official numbers are not made available by the North Korean government), the Ryugyong Hotel -- the 22nd largest skyscraper in the world -- is a failure on an enormous scale. To put it in context, imagine if the John Hancock Center (1,127 feet tall) in Chicago (population 2.9 million) was not only completely vacant, but unfinished with zero hope of ever being completed

 

god bless america...

Burger King Bacon Sundae Pops Up In Test Run At Nashville Location

Posted: 04/10/2012 10:33 am Updated: 04/10/2012 12:06 pm

 

Burger King made waves last week when it revealed a big slate of new menu items, which some said brought the chain's menu a lot closer to rival McDonald's. But now it looks like that was just the beginning of the changes afoot at the number three burger chain. A tipster wrote into GrubGrade to say that one Burger King in Nashville, Tenn., recently unveiled a whole host of menu items that have never before been spotted at the chain -- including a new bacon sundae.

That's right: ice cream topped with bacon, the ultimate in low-brow culinary indulgence, is coming to Burger King. Or at least it's coming to one Burger King.

The new delight may have been inspired by bacon-ice cream combos at smaller fast food chains Denny's and Jack in the Box. The latter, a bacon milkshake, inspired a national fervor despite the fact that it contained no real bacon and the widely-held opinion that it tasted awful. So if the bacon sundae is actually good -- and it doesn't look bad, in pictures on Instagram and Twitter -- it could be a huge hit.

The other items being tested at the Nashville location include sweet potato french fries and pulled pork sandwiches. We wish we could say that we've never had a meal involving pulled pork, sweet potato fries and sugary bacon. But that would be a lie

wonderful...

Elderly, unresponsive man in a nursing home is transformed by music

In this outtake from Alive Inside, we meet an elderly man who's been in a nursing home for 10 years, and who is disengaged, listless and unresponsive to his environment. Then he is exposed to music from his earlier life, and is instantly transformed, engaging with the people around him. Oliver Sacks provides commentary in the clip, which is inspirational and amazing at the same time.

The Lovecraft Anthology. Vol. 1: A Graphic Collection of H.P. Lovecraft's Short Stories

The Lovecraft Anthology. Vol. 1: A Graphic Collection of H.P. Lovecraft's Short Stories

By Mark Frauenfelder at 4:42 pm Thursday, Apr 12 • 23Comments • Share

 

I have not read many of H.P. Lovecraft's stories. This comic anthology of his work looks like a fun way to get acquainted with the Great Old Ones.

A graphic anthology of tales from the renowned master of the eerie. Featuring collaborations between established writers and artists as well as debut contributors, The Lovecraft Anthology Vol.1 showcases Lovecraft's talent for the macabre. From the insidious mutations of 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth' to the mind-bending threat of 'The Call of Cthulhu', this collection explores themes of insanity, inherited guilt and arcane ritual to startling effect. Charting the squirming mysteries of the unknown, Lovecraft's short stories are brought to vivid and malevolent life.

Lurch does The Lurch, 1965!

 

david pescovitz

Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.

Ted Cassidy and friends do The Lurch on the TV variety show Shivaree, October 30, 1965

need it......

Choc Creator, The Chocolate 3D Printer is Now Available to Purchase

 

star war travel posters

Controversy Over Who Needs A Paler Va-Jay (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

The Huffington Post  |  By Jessica Misener Posted: 04/12/2012 12:27 pm Updated: 04/12/2012 12:45 pm

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 Video, Fair And Lovely, Skin Lightening, Fair And Lovely Ad, Skin Lightening Cream, Photo Galleries, Vagina Bleaching, Vagina Bleaching Ad, Style News

Do your ladyparts need some sprucing up? Like, color-wise?

Wait, what? We're soooo confused. But a new ad for an Indian skin lightening product called Clean and Dry Intimate Wash, spotted by Jezebel seems to answer that question with a big fat "DUH."

In the commercial, a couple lounges in their house, the man idly reading a newspaper while the woman pouts to herself because, clearly, he's ignoring her due to her dark-colored privates. Luckily, she gets ahold of Clean and Dry, which makes her vulva a few shades lighter, and her husband is happy-go-lucky again. Whew! Divorce averted.

Skin lightening creams have a long and controversial history in India and Asia, including a spree of ads for the products that feature darker-skinned women who seem devastated over the fact that they're not Caucasian. A popular Bollywood actress shucked lightening cream for the Body Shop in ads that made her skin look multiple shades paler than it does in real life. Vaseline even launched a line of whitening creams -- and a phone app that lets you digitally lighten your skin -- in India. And women in Jamaica are making potentially dangerous bleaching creams with homemade ingredients.

Of course, some people think lightening creams shouldn't be a sociologically-charged issue, arguing that women who seek pale skin aren't any different than Caucasian women who want to be tan. (Or this article, which strangely argues that fair features are... easier to see?)

But regardless, when the ideal of light skin gets intimate, a beauty issue that's already controversial gets sexualized, and you end up with commercials like the one above that not-so-subtly blames your relationship problems on your skin t

nice...

Igloo made of stacked books

"Home," an installation at NYC's MagnanMetz Gallery by Colombian artist Miler Lagos is a stable igloo made of carefully stacked books.