Mooning

These Flickr shots from India, China and Japan of the most recent lunar eclipse are awesome. I found them via the Freak-
anomics blog. This is where today's picture (s)comes from. I can't even begin to post all of my favorites. I love the steam-punk-ishness of the first shot and the fragile humanity of the second.

Shell has been accused by Amnesty International of horrible crimes in the Niger Delta. The report which has been put together is pretty damning. Please click.

Someone please remind me to get my hands on Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald". Apparently it's his fusing of HP Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes. This sounds like it could go horribly wrong, but it most likely it didn't. And I want to see it.

Speaking of Gaiman, a short while back he posted a link to Jamie Kennedy's hilarious bid to take the Newberry award from him.

".. And I, Jamie Kennedy am the Sarah Palin of fiction!"

The third video of three:

If you want to see Gaiman being wrestled to the ground, here is your chance.

I believe that there should be a ban on political ads. In this day and age of the internet the off-hand access to a candidate's information is easy to find, and the horrible excess of money that is wasted while running for office on every level of government is disgusting. Of course, I have no doubt that politicians will then attempt to rig the sites with the most hits for the apposing candidate, even if it is illegal. Can't the public win? In a way, though, website traffic is much more traceable and easier to investigate. If only society didn't insist on drowning us in nonsense information and untrustworthy leaders. You can't only blame the politicians, though. What if we all participated in the primaries and the big name candidates were not the only ones who received grassroots funding?

This makes me think about celebrity and de-humanization. The earliest humans always portray other tribes as evil or less than themselves in some way. Celts are Frost Giants, enemy tribes are motivated by jealous demons, and the other tribes are actually monkies that look like humans. Yet it is extremely rare to encounter a racist child. A judgmental child, though, is not hard to find. We all have "that uncle" or someone who's views are directly the opposite of ours, sometimes for all the reasons we dislike the opposing side, too. Yet would any of us wish them to die or call them the names we call our politicians?

All of these are just snippets of thoughts I'm having.

PS New Mario 2 speed run time: 20-21 minutes, got to the middle of 7-2(the last level)

I kind of like the wacky layout of this particular post.