...I usually have the TV going for noise and visual stimulation.

Today is a marathon of "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List"

The current episode has her hanging out with Steve "the woz" Wozniak.

So what does she do when she gets to spend time with a billionaire?
She takes him to a Bear convention.

The reactions of the convention members is priceless, as the ultimate Sugar Daddy Bear walks through the crowd. He seemed oblivious to the pools of drool that were collecting in his path.

http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/344957797/217

• Who is this guy and why is he so whiny? He was "frightened and intimidated" by the "angry left blog Daily Kos"? What a wuss.
</p>
• Wondering what the Sarah Palin scandal is all about? Here's a good roundup of the affair that has knocked a Republican governor once sporting an over-90 percent approval rating back to earth..
• Comments are scary. Yup, that means you.

  To add, these stories always start with sensational ledes about "death threats", as though it's those crazy liberals or whatnot that engage in that kind of idiotic behavior. Here's an email I got a couple of days ago:

  killaliberal@yahoo.com to markos
  show details Jul 22 (2 days ago)

  addresses are being compiled of all kos personnel...once this has been done they will be targeted for execution... death to all KOS.

  Is that a "death threat" or just a George Bush-loving fringe wanker trying to be tough hacking away at his cheetos-stained keyboard? Having grown up in El Salvador and seen what real political violence looks like, this is all pretty lame. In El Salvador, dissenters were actually assassinated. It wasn't all idle threats. And so far, this country hasn't descended into that dark abyss.

• The number of registered Democrats in the 29 party registration states has grown by 700,000. The number of registered Republicans has dropped by 1 million. That's a 1.7 million net gain in our direction.
• Colbert dedicated most of his show to rapper Nas and the Color of Change petition on Fox's racism.
• Yeah. Old people tend to be stubborn too.
• Obama's small donors outraise McCain.
• I had to look at this for a great deal of time to figure out that it wasn't parody.
• Larry Sabato and a couple of co-authors, over at his place, say there is no toss-up.

  While no election outcome is guaranteed and McCain's prospects could improve over the next three and a half months, virtually all of the evidence that we have reviewed--historical patterns, structural features of this election cycle, and national and state polls conducted over the last several months--point to a comfortable Obama/Democratic party victory in November. Trumpeting this race as a toss-up, almost certain to produce another nail-biter finish, distorts the evidence and does a disservice to readers and viewers who rely upon such punditry. Again, maybe conditions will change in McCain's favor, and if they do, they should also be accurately described by the media. But current data do not justify calling this election a toss-up [...]

  Barack Obama is not a national hero like Dwight Eisenhower, and George Bush is no Harry Truman. But if history is any guide, and absent a dramatic change in election fundamentals or an utter collapse of the Obama candidacy, John McCain is likely to suffer the same fate as Adlai Stevenson.

• As Ford posts yet another crazy-ass quarterly loss ($8.7 billion), it makes one wonder how much better the US auto industry (and its unions) would be doing if they had let the government raise CAFE standards, huh? The government could've bailed them out of this mess.

  And it makes one wonder how much better that industry would be doing if they hadn't so viciously opposed Bill and Hillary Clinton's 1993 health care initiative. In 2004, GM spent over $5 billion in health care costs -- a number that is likely significantly larger today. That's billions that would be off its balance sheet had they not opposed universal healthcare.

  Lots of industries may shoot themselves in the foot, but none more so than the auto industry. It truly deserves the comeuppance it is getting (and it has gotten a healthy assist from its unions). The people who don't deserve it -- of course -- are its workers, who are getting screwed.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/07/4inch_flybot_streams_live.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

The Delft University of Technology has shrunk their robotic ornithopter design down to a very impressive 10cm - that's almost 1/3 the size of their previous design.

Specs for the Delfly Micro -

Size: 10 cm, from wingtip to wingtip
Weight: 3.07 gram;
Battery: 1 gram
Camera and transmitter: 0.4 gram;
Engine: 0.45 gram;
Receiver: 0.2 gram;
Actuators: 0.5 gram;
Rest: about 0.52 grams.
Battery: 30 mah lithium polymer, for three minutes fight.
Flap frequency wings: 30 Hz
Materials: Mylar foil (wings), carbon and balsawood.
Range: 50m

Hit the site for more media + info - Delfly Micro

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Robotics | Digg this!

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/07/furoshiki_howto.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

Here's an Instructable and video on Furoshiki, the Japanese art of cloth-folding to make various bags, carry-alls, and sacks.

Paper, Plastic, or Furoshiki?

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Toolbox | Digg this!

http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/07/maverick_moment_of_the_day_9

John McCain on Obama's Berlin speech:

"I would rather speak at a rally or a political gathering any place outside of the country after I am president of the United States," McCain told O'Donnell. "But that's a judgment that Sen. Obama and the American people will make."

Interesting. Except that McCain has already made well-publicized visits to Canada, Mexico, and Colombia during this campaign.

http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/07/today_in_lunacy

FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist. And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades.

Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.'

...Dr Mitchell, along with with Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard, holds the record for the longest ever moon walk, at nine hours and 17 minutes following their 1971 mission.

The illness that has taken the astronaut? It must be a serious case of moonsickness.

http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/07/youve_got_a_reputation_in_avoiding_inter

Time Magazine is collecting reader questions for Haruki Murakami. I suspect that maybe the question I used for the title of this post might be why he has "a reputation in avoiding interviews."

If you ever had a question for Murakami, now's your chance. It's not as if the competition is that tough:

Posted by Frederick Do in Riverside, CA:

I have never read any of your books but if you could only choose one for me to read, which one would it be?

Posted by tien bischoff in arizona:

ur gay right

Posted by Frederic Turner in Cambridge:

Why are your novels so awful?

Posted by gracie rosen in Brooklyn, NY:

Nothing was sure when I was 27 or 28…. but what about when I’m 29?

The publicity-shy Murakami is doing this as a promotion for his new memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. It's kind of a how-to-write book, but mostly it's a history of his relationship to running. I didn't like it, but a friend of mine who has become a compulsive runner thought it was pretty interesting.

There are feral cats who are cared for by my mother's neighbor. Occasionally they hunt for their own food. One of this year's kittens, a beautiful grey tabby, was honing his skills by playing with a mouse he caught. He wasn't trying to eat it, not yet anyway, but had scared it half to death. Howard told me what was going on as I came out of Mom's house. I went over to the kitten, about 6 months old I'd say and talked to it soothingly. It didn't run but walked away from the mouse that was sitting on the ground. I went over to the mouse and gingerly picked it up. It was scared but had no visible injuries though it may be injured internally, since I know that's most common with cat attacks. It squeaked once or twice and then settled into my hands, looking around but acting calm. I showed it to Howie before I walked it into my mother's yard and deposited him gently into the heavy cover of some hosta leaves. I hope he makes it.

Howie joked that I had upset nature's balance. Maybe. But I'm not worried the kitten will starve since he has a steady food source. I think I did a good thing. It felt right. I know 9/10 of why the mouse was so calm was because it was frightened half to death by the cat. I'd like to believe that the remaining 1/10 of a reason was that it sensed I was an animal person that meant it no harm.

When things like this happen be it saving an animal or witnessing a small part of nature, like a snake in my compost pile or a praying mantis in my yard, I feel so in tune with the universe. It makes me feel very peaceful.

Current Mood: peaceful

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ICanHasCheezburger/~3/kZZC8Wo8LxM/

http://icanhascheezburger.com/?p=77299

WASHINGTON — The head of the Environmental Protection Agency told the Bush administration in December that high levels of man-made heat-trapping gases are causing global warming and endanger the American people, Sen. Barbara Boxer said Wednesday after she reviewed the EPA finding, which has not been made public.

The document is important because the Supreme Court ruled last year that if the EPA administrator finds greenhouse gases endanger the public, then the government must regulate them — a move the administration opposes.

This is the document that the EPA administrator sent to the Whitehouse in e-mail and the president then refused to read the e-mail.

I found this on: http://gizmodo.com/5025366/nintendo-e3-liveblog


Apparently it's a picture of a Nintendo executive showing how truly interactive their wii product can be...

(I remember someone asking this question a long time ago, but I couldn't find it when I searched, so here goes...)

I'm leaving on a two-week trip on Tuesday, which (unfortunately) is also the day I take out my current NuvaRing. I'll need to put the new Ring in on the following Tuesday. Until then, I need to be able to store it in a cool place, preferably in the fridge. I will most likely have a mini-fridge in my hotel room, but I'm going to be in transit for about nineteen hours (long plane flights and a layover in between).

Is there a good way to make sure my Ring stays cool? If I put it in a toiletry case with an ice pack, would that be too cold? Or will the airport and plane probably be cool enough that it won't really have any effect?

Thanks!