enemyswim

The Yankees Payroll

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:34:22 -0600

The following is a screed about the Yankees payroll. If you are a Yankees fan uninterested in a screed about the payroll, don’t read it. You won’t enjoy it. Go out, buy a championship T-shirt, reminisce about this great team, enjoy the victory. I’m telling you: Don’t read it.

theduty: Dick Towel

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:15:47 -0600

theduty:

Dick Towel

Socialism in action

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:09:14 -0600

Socialism in action :

squashed:

azspot:

At Thursday’s tea party march protesting government-run health care, a participant suffered a heart attack about 20 minutes into the proceedings. As Dana Milbank reports, medical personnel from the Capitol physician’s office rushed over, attaching electrodes to the man’s chest and giving him oxygen and an IV.

The Capitol physician’s office, unlike the bills being considered in Congress, is actually socialized health care. Government employs the physicians, and taxpayers help pay their salaries. But despite the presence of so many committed free market activists who so deeply fear the consequences of government-provided health care, no one stopped the bureaucrats from treating the protester nor developed a market or volunteer-based solution.

It may have saved his life, but it cost him his soul.

merlin: How to play piano like Philip Glass I so love this...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:03:05 -0600

merlin:

How to play piano like Philip Glass

I so love this guy.

Carl Sagan’s last interview. Remember, Nov. 7th is Carl...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:19:57 -0600

Carl Sagan’s last interview.

Remember, Nov. 7th is Carl Sagan Day.

Billions and Billions.

Cat Boxing

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:35:08 -0600

Cat Boxing

chriswarren: Jon Stewart talks about the war going on in...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:01:55 -0600

chriswarren:

Jon Stewart talks about the war going on in American and Glenn Beck

Well done, Mr. Stewart et al.

midnight-radio: (via rowanboat)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:57:45 -0600

midnight-radio:

(via rowanboat)

Richard Phillips Feynman - The Last Journey Of A Genius

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:46:30 -0600

Richard Phillips Feynman - The Last Journey Of A Genius

Steak House or Gay Bar?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:50:38 -0600

Steak House or Gay Bar?:

livejamie:

I am terrible at this game, you probably will be too.

Click Pic for audio. Trailer Park Boys interview. In character,...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:40:00 -0600

Click Pic for audio.

Trailer Park Boys interview. In character, and hilarious as usual.

via Bad Astronomy: “M83 is about 15 million light years...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:35:36 -0600

via Bad Astronomy:

“M83 is about 15 million light years away, making it practically a next door neighbor for the Milky Way, as well as a tempting target for telescopes. Proximity = clarity in most cases, and with M83 we have a great view of its lovely spiral arms. This new image from Hubble’s WFC3 shows unprecedented detail, too. There are star clusters everywhere, factories cranking out baby stars by the millions. There are also something like 60 supernova remnants, the expanding gaseous debris from exploded stars, five times the number previously seen in this galaxy.”

thedailywhat: Chart of the Day: “Explicit Support for Same-Sex...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:08:41 -0600

thedailywhat:

Chart of the Day: “Explicit Support for Same-Sex Marriage by State and Age” (pdf) by Jeff Lax and Justin Phillips of the Department of Political Science at Columbia University. Created using data collected for a joint paper on gay rights.

Prof. Lax breaks it down:

Seven states cross the 50% mark overall as of our current estimates, but the generation gap is huge. If policy were set by state-by-state majorities of those 65 or older, none would allow same-sex marriage. If policy were set by those under 30, only 12 states would not allow-same-sex marriage.

[via.]

The Problem With Music

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:31:08 -0600

The Problem With Music:

givemesomethingtoread:

Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed. Nobody can see what’s printed on the contract. It’s too far away, and besides, the shit stench is making everybody’s eyes water. The lackey shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there’s only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says “Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim again, please. Backstroke”. And he does of course.

ORGANIC FOODS ARE EXPLODING IN POPULARITY. BUT FEARS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY—AND A WIDESPREAD MISTRUST OF SCIENCE—WON’T HELP EFFORTS TO CREATE A TRULY SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE.

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:52:40 -0600

ORGANIC FOODS ARE EXPLODING IN POPULARITY. BUT FEARS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY—AND A WIDESPREAD MISTRUST OF SCIENCE—WON’T HELP EFFORTS TO CREATE A TRULY SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE.:

When delegates from 192 nations arrive in Copenhagen in December for the UN COP15 summit, they will confront a 181-page draft negotiation text, 2,000 bracketed passages still in dispute, and just 11 days in which to come to some sort of consensus. To power them through these discussions, Denmark has promised a smorgasbord of ecologically minded fare: All water will be tap (not bottled), tea and coffee will be fair trade, and the food menu will be no less than 65 percent organic.

Though undoubtedly well-intentioned, this last provision is troubling, but not because anyone really cares about the provenance of Ban Ki-Moon’s turnip greens. Rather, it suggests a willful and dangerous ignorance about the tenuous state of global agriculture, and the prospects for feeding 9 billion people while also addressing biodiversity loss, water shortage, and, yes, climate change. Organic foods are enjoying skyrocketing popularity in the US and Europe, as are their ill-defined sidekicks, “natural,” “whole,” and “real” foods. Yet popular notions that these foods—and the agriculture that begets them—are at once better for people and for the planet turn out to be largely devoid of experimental support. Worse still, “organophilia” tends to go hand-in-hand with technophobic skepticism towards the very sorts of scientific approaches most likely to supercharge an ailing food system while leaving our planet intact.

No one can argue with the merits of paying more heed to where our suppers come from. At its best, the organic movement is about reacquainting ourselves with the origins of food—appreciating that chicken is an animal and not just a shrink-wrapped package in the refrigerator case. It’s also a reaction to an industry that has, under the banner of “food science,” swung in a silly direction: Note the rise of squeezable tubes of Go-Gurt; granola bars souped up with soy protein, omega-3’s, vitamin D, and zinc; and perhaps most oddly, Splenda’s new fiber-infused incarnation. At the prices these products command, it’s perhaps not surprising that companies would be so eager to concoct them.

But do we really need to get our roughage in our coffee or all four food groups plus a multivitamin in a snack ostensibly made of honey and oats? Michael Pollan’s response, elaborated in his 2008 book, In Defense of Food, is a resounding “no.” “Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” he offers instead—a simple mantra that simultaneously disqualifies products like Splenda with fiber and obviates the need for them in the first place.

Photo

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:49:44 -0600

I want at least one room in my future home to have a door rigged...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:47:38 -0600

I want at least one room in my future home to have a door rigged with one of these.

midnight-radio: marsiouxpial: Hagia Sophia / Aya Sofya (via...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:21:35 -0600

midnight-radio:

marsiouxpial:

Hagia Sophia / Aya Sofya (via ookami_dou)

Photograph made by Sebah & Joaillier ca. 1890, before the mosque became a museum in 1934.

Holy shit there’s two hot Leia’s....

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:19:00 -0600

Holy shit there’s two hot Leia’s. Sploded.

fuckyeahstarwars:

Carrie Fisher and her stunt double sun bathing on the set of Return of the Jedi.

thedailywhat: Lights Out: Douchebags are mad as hell, and...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:14:52 -0600

thedailywhat:

Lights Out: Douchebags are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore, bro.

[via.]