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* Rami, 3/19/2004 04:41:32 PM

It's cheaper when kids sew

Newsday.com: Bush campaign gear made in Burma

The official merchandise Web site for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by Bush from the U.S. last year to punish its military dictatorship.

The merchandise sold on www.georgewbushstore.com includes a $49.95 fleece pullover, embroidered with the Bush-Cheney '04 logo and bearing a label stating it was made in Burma, now Myanmar.

* Ray, 3/19/2004 01:28:00 PM

$teel

One of the effects of China's steel consumption (combined with a weak dollar and a shortage of coke): 60% increase in the price of steel in this country.

"A USA Today article last month reported that the price of hot-rolled coil steel in the United States hit $482 a ton in February, up 66 percent from a low set last June. A Wall Street Journal article quoted Thomas Usher, chairman and chief executive officer of U.S. Steel, as saying if the economy stays strong and the kind of growth seen in the fourth quarter continues, prices could stay up for an extended period. Merrill Lynch analyst Daniel Roling was quoted as saying he expects hot-rolled prices to end the year at $385 a ton, up 30 percent over last year's average price of $295.

Buildings just got a whole lot more expensive.

* Ray, 3/18/2004 03:14:56 PM

local.google.com

Google Local Search (BETA): the power of Google applied to the Yellow Pages.

* Ray, 3/18/2004 02:49:49 PM

A fun invasion of privacy

Fundrace.org has two "crazy new features," City Maps and Neighbor Search. Peek at who's been giving what to whom.

* Ray, 3/18/2004 02:46:23 PM

"Crimes against nature"

Tenn. County Wants to Charge Homosexuals

The county that was the site of the Scopes 'Monkey Trial' over the teaching of evolution is asking lawmakers to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature. The Rhea County commissioners approved the request 8-0 Tuesday.

* Ray, 3/18/2004 02:39:43 PM

Well, he probably looks like a sissy

Bush on women's rights:

U.S. President George W. Bush has marked International Women's Week by paying tribute to women reformers -- but one of those he cited is really a man.

* Ray, 3/18/2004 02:36:10 PM

Timex 2154

Three small renderings and 500 words could land you $5000. Timex 2154 : The Future of Time | International Design Competition

To celebrate its 150th anniversary and demonstrate its ongoing commitment to design and innovation, Timex is inviting designers from around the world to explore and visualize personal and portable timekeeping 150 years from now - in the year 2154.

* Ray, 3/18/2004 09:35:57 AM

100 Funny Senators

Posing as a 10-year old boy, ZUG.com asked all the US Senators what their favorite jokes were.

The Senator Prank: Joke Letters Sent To The U.S. Government

There's a short list of the funniest jokes, and then there's America's Unfunniest Senators: Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Trent Lott and Arlen Spector. About Sen. Lott the guy writes, "I'm sure Senator Lott knows a few jokes, but not the kind we're after."

I like McCain's grumpy joke, which he thought was still ok to send to a 10-year-old.

* Ray, 3/17/2004 02:53:47 PM

"Take Action, Get Action!"

On politicalwire they run personal ads from Act For Love Personals in the margin. It's a dating site for people who center their lives around politics and activism. The slogan is "Take Action, Get Action!" Seems to cheapen the whole endeavor, but who am I to judge?

Over the past few days I've been noticing that they people in the pictures are remarkably good-looking. Almost too good looking, y'know? Like in a weird cult recruiting sorta way. It's strange. I was under the impression that activists were not hotties. Look (link may be broken):

* Ray, 3/17/2004 02:30:12 PM

Cosmic Rust?

Mazda has created a Transformers RX-8.

After the evil DECEPTICONS used COSMIC RUST to all but wipe out the AUTOBOTS who were protecting MOTHER EARTH, HUMANS decided to create their own TRANSFORMERS in a last ditch effort to save the planet. Car companies like MAZDA funded the project, implanting sparks from the damaged AUTOBOTS into new, man-made BINALTECH bodies. The fight continues.

Sweet ass animation.

* Ray, 3/17/2004 02:15:39 PM

Indexed Lies

Lookit: Iraq on the Record

The Iraq on the Record Report, prepared at the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, is a comprehensive examination of the statements made by the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq: President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

This database identifies 237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by these five officials in 125 public appearances in the time leading up to and after the commencement of hostilities in Iraq. The search options on the left can be used to find statements by any combination of speaker, subject, keyword, or date.

Don't play with it too long. You'll become sad or uncontrollably angry.

* Ray, 3/17/2004 01:16:51 PM

Origama Sutra

Once again, Fleshbot delivers: Origami Underground.

* Ray, 3/17/2004 01:00:58 PM

Literalism

Bridging the Rift, aka The Library of Life between Israel and Jordan.

Perhaps the most potent symbol of the site is the 'central spine' that bisects it on what was the actual border between Israel and Jordan before both countries donated the land to create a neutral zone for the research center. All the research buildings will touch on the spine, and 'everyone who walks along it will literally be bridging the rift,' said Abadan.
...
His team and the BTR project's developers envision Ph.D. students from Israel, Jordan and other Middle East countries working side by side with Cornell and Stanford scientists on the most ambitious data-organizing project in the world -- to assemble information on all living systems, starting with those in the Dead Sea region 43 miles north of the facility. Because of the centrality of its mission, the Library of Life will be located in the exact center of the circle, said Abadan. The spiraling tower, which will house the library, will be made up of two encircling arcs that repeat the circular theme of unity and cooperation. Clad with brilliant metal, the tower will shine across the desert.

Hard to say anything negative about such a nice idea, but it just struck me how corny some of the form-making seems.

* Ray, 3/17/2004 10:52:37 AM

It's in the water

Nice, solid, simple timber houses from Skye and Glasgow: Dualchas Building Design. With vistas like that, who needs anything fancy?

(The site has more than just six projects; find the "Next>" link at the bottom.)

* Ray, 3/17/2004 10:44:29 AM

fan those flames

Always innovative in testing the boudaries of legality and ethics, those crafty Israelis have started planting handguns in people's luggage without their consent. As if the world didn't have ENOUGH conspiracy theories involving Mossad, El Al et al. On behalf of Jews everywhere: sweet, guys, thanks.

* joshua, 3/16/2004 09:12:17 PM

Panda Porn

Following initial reports that American-born panda, Hua Mei, would have her pick of four suitors at the Wolong Panda Reserve in China, it seems that panda-ologists want to make sure Hua Mei knows how to mate: Hua Mei is now watching sex education tapes - PANDA sex education tapes.

Check it here.

* Rami, 3/16/2004 06:22:31 PM

Djinn-mills

This one's for Uzma. Something to think about before we go making our wind-millions.

Building more wind farms in Britain could lead to an increase in reports of ghosts

There is considerable evidence that noises which are too low to hear through the ears can cause symptoms attributed to hauntings, such as palpitations and the rattling of windows and doors.
...
Vic Tandy, a Coventry University researcher who solved a "haunting" by tracking down a faulty ventilation fan which was causing temperature drops, said: "I have wondered if more wind farms might mean more ghosts. It is a difficult area to research. If you ask about ghosts, you tend to pre-empt a response."

* Ray, 3/16/2004 01:46:48 PM

Heaven help Mr. Soto

Slashdot links to this story about Orlando Soto, a man who actually loves receiving, reading and responding to spam.

Mr. Soto routinely comes home to some 150 e-mail pitches, and he loves getting them all. The 45-year-old grandfather opens most of them. He answers spam questionnaires. And he buys stuff pitched in spam e-mail -- again and again. 'Everyday people call it spam,' says Mr. Soto, who prefers calling it 'unsolicited' e-mail. 'But I'm open to everything.'

If everyone hated spam, it would disappear. But like the traditional direct-mail marketers and telemarketers who came before them, spammers survive public outrage, filters, lawsuits and regulations because innumerable times a day, somebody, somewhere responds with money.

Poor Orlando. You just know he's going to get ripped a new one or one thousand by Slashdotters everywhere. On the comment board they're all asking for his email address. It's just a matter of time.

* Ray, 3/16/2004 01:27:29 PM

Well, just don't put your ass on the keyboard

Toilet seats are cleaner than keyboards.
[longer BBC story]

* Ray, 3/16/2004 09:38:22 AM

Mod (2)

I agree wholeheartedly with that last one. Those look like Albert Frey designed a bunch of Louisiana fishing shanties.

Do these nincompoops actually belive that modular dwellings should look like rooms lopped off a Case Study house? If you only had one room to live in, would your sole possesion be an Eames chair? The photos on that site look like Tyler Brule's idea of a trailer park...

To see this sort of thing done right (and done before it was just a chic nostalgic gesture), you have to go back to Archigram. These guys understood that single-room pods were actually located somewhere on the spectrum between building and wetsuit.

Archigram's vision of the future was a big, groovy party. Much like Burning Man, but without the parafin, body odor, primitivism, and shitty music.

* joshua, 3/16/2004 04:50:53 AM

Mod

Modular Dwellings, mentioned on archinect. DIY shack-modules featured in ReadyMade. It's a SF thing. It's also a shoddy attempt at building. Barely weatherproof, uninsulated and, from what I see, rickety. Well, what can you expect from someone who goes to Burning Man?

heh.

* Ray, 3/15/2004 05:24:58 PM

Find Small Men

Here's a strange game. Turn up the volume...

All you have to do is find the VERY small men hidden around the room. Use the + and - buttons to zoom in, the mousebutton to drag the room around and if you see a small man, click on him. Find enough and you'll progress to the next level.

* Ray, 3/15/2004 05:20:40 PM

Lord of the Rings Sings

LOTR TO BE MUSICAL

Fresh from its runaway success at the Oscars, fantasy epic Lord of the Rings is set to hit the stage as a lavish musical, reports say.

Producers are planning to turn the book series into the most expensive musical ever seen in London, according to the Sunday Telegraph.
...
'I believe that we will be able to make a version of The Lord of the Rings that will be a brilliant piece,' he told the newspaper.
The show, to open next year, would last a mammoth three and a half hours, Wallace said.

Staggering.

* Ray, 3/15/2004 02:49:42 PM

Stuttering Donald

Political Wire quotes Rumsfeld on Face the Nation:

'Mm-hmm. It--my view of--of the situation was that he--he had--we--we believe, the best intelligence that we had and other countries had and that--that we believed and we still do not know--we will know.'

The transcript actually records every stutter and sound, I guess because he's so nonlinear you can't hope to pin down what he means. It's quite a "read."

* Ray, 3/15/2004 02:42:29 PM

Party Poopers

The Bush-Cheney campaign has turned off their poster-generator due to mass abuse. (Right on.)
Wired News has the sore losers:

DeFeo said he was not aware that any slogans were being misrouted, but said that the more obscene slogans were indicative of a certain tone in the discourse of some Bush-Cheney opponents.

'Their action says a lot about people who are 100 percent committed to using profane and vulgar language in place of substantive dialog on the important issues facing America today,' he said.

Cox scoffed. 'No one's going to have a substantive dialog of any kind on a poster,' she said. Besides, she argued, many of the humorous slogans were more thoughtful than anything the tool was designed to create.
She cited her own slogan, which she admitted was one of her favorites: 'But not if you're gay!'

* Ray, 3/15/2004 02:34:55 PM

711

For the first time in eight years, the Spanish Socialist Party defeated the ruling Popular Party in general elections. The Socialist Party has vowed to remove all Spanish troops from Iraq in the absence of a UN mandate. All of a sudden, it seems possible that Al Qaeda might have helped to effect regime change in Spain. Incidentally, the name "Gibraltar" comes from the name "Jabal Tarik" or "Mount of Tarik," which the Berber Tarik named eponymously after conquering much of southern Spain in 711.

* joshua, 3/14/2004 08:31:01 PM

scraps

The International Herald Tribune published an article this morning, exposing the incredible amounts of American scrap metal that are being used as cheap raw material for the urbanization of China. IHT hasn't posted the article on their site yet (they're a bit slow with putting up electronic content), but keep a look out for it in the next 24 hours. Here's the opener:

China last year became the first country ever to import more than $1 billion of American scrap, according to the newspaper American Metal Market. It would not be an exaggeration to say that China's transformation into an industrial powerhouse is being fueled by America's waste, and that of other countries as well. Much of the material being used to build China's skyscrapers, factories and telecommunications systems--along with many of the products it exports--is derived from scrap, which is usually cheaper than new metal made from ore.

I find it fairly exciting to think that the Chinese are buying American waste metal, cheaply converting it into consumer goods and selling it back to the Americans at a premium. This would be a really good historical joke--firstly, because it's an inversion of the way that colonial economics used to work (raw materials taken from the colonies, processed in the metropole and sold back to the colonies); secondly, because unlike the rest of the world, Americans have a cultural aversion to re-use. Disposability is First World, reuse is Third. Heh heh. Good work.

* joshua, 3/14/2004 08:18:49 PM

Transparency

New material: light-transmitting concrete. Fiber-optics embedded in concrete so that it transmits shadow and color through the concrete, over any distance. If I understand it right, that means you can bend the fibers any which way and still transmit the light. Like a light chimney or something. Nifty.

* Ray, 3/14/2004 11:30:46 AM

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