Muslims breeding to 'take over Africa' says top cleric

ONE OF THE most powerful figures in the Anglican Church believes that Africa is under attack from Islam and that Muslims are "mass-producing" children to take over communities on the continent.

By Ruth Gledhill
The Independent (Ireland)

just found an unopened bandage while cleaning. I wrote on it:

hello
the best is back

no idea what that's for.. what that's supposed to mean?

etc

70 Iranian University Professors Arrested After Meeting with Mousavi

http://www.drbronner.com/pdf/pressrealease_round_one_legal_victory_oca_drbronner.pdf

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8076407.stm

of course the gov't is not letting Tamils go back to their houses... they're too busy stealing them.

In a country with a pest population of possums, and no sense of tact or shame:

here's the full transcript of the Rob Blagojevic, Roland Burris phone tap. It's really good reading. I highly reccomend reading the whole thing.

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=7560013285057310025

Dear Web Designers

Dear Web designers,

Stop putting music on your sites.

Thank you.

The Tamil Tigers may me pretty tough characters, but that doesn't mean you should support the gov't:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8042170.stm

the latest fucking example

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0742039320090508

1 article, 3 cool things ;

i stumbled upon this today:
http://news.google.ca/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&btcid=6d4cb7196b16f4c3

I read it initially, only 'cause i was intrigued that there's a title, "Professor of Industrial Relations"

Then he had really interesting info i'd never heard before about the UAW now owning Chrysler.

And he's from Worcester!

central mass gotta stick together ; ) we got urban yuppies on one side and hippies on the other : )

(I feel the need to pepper my writing with winking faces so people know i'm kidding... )

Deck Chair Hero

Lately all we've heard about is swine flu and pirates.
So, what the fuck was a cruise ship doing here:



View Larger Map

Isn't that just asking for trouble?

any way, there is a mildly cool story to go with it, but frankly, i'm tired of news stories with the headline "...is hailed as a hero". I guess it would be editorialising for them to say, "he's a hero", but, in that case, why do we always get news reports about what people have said about events. Can't we just have the events on their own? Is it really that much different to report that someone said, "he's a hero", than to come out and say it yourself? Case in point, on Fox News, they're always putting the comments of the right wing fringe congresspeople out there as the mainstream response to something the government is doing. Like, "Some Call President's New Program Socialism". Then you read down the page and find out it was only Michelle Bachmann. That's an arbitrary one I made up, but they're always putting up headlines that follow this formula.

It's frustrating to read Google News and see articles from these guys get the same treatment as articles from Al Jazeera, The BBC, and The Boston Globe. But they do this too, well, the BBC and the Globe; I've never seen an article like this out of Al Jazeera.

How's about we go back to reporting events and not simply repeating the speeches and press releases of others on the topic of recent events?

Fourier Transforms in the News!

Back in October, a professor from Dalhousie was trying to figure out what chord is used for a previously elusive chord in "A Hard Day's Night" by the Beatles.

Eventually, he resorted to a Fourier transform ; )

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/beatles_unknown_hard_days_night_chord_mystery_solved_using_fourier_transform?

EPA House band

This was on Rachel Maddow last night

greatest thing ever.

Goal posts, peanalty for distruction

so, after finding that wonderfully named statute, i was nosing through them and i found this:

Chapter 266: Section 104A. Goal posts; penalty for destruction

Section 104A. Whoever wilfully and without right destroys, injures or removes a goal post on a football field shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty nor more than two hundred dollars.

a specific law. just for football goal posts. It only includes a fine while another statute covering the broader subject of property destruction includes jail time. I guess they don't want MIT and Harvard students going to jail for pranking one another...

Chapter 266: Section 106. Ice ponds; injury

Section 106. Whoever wilfully, intentionally and without right or license, cuts, injures, mars or otherwise damages or destroys ice upon waters from which ice is or may be taken as an article of merchandise, whereby the taking thereof is hindered or the value thereof diminished for that purpose, shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars.

and another

Chapter 266: Section 113. Timber, wood and shrubs; wilful cutting and destruction on land of another

Section 113. Whoever wilfully cuts down or destroys timber or wood standing or growing on the land of another, or carries away any kind of timber or wood cut down or lying on such land, or digs up or carries away stone, ore, gravel, clay, sand, turf or mould from such land, or roots, nuts, berries, grapes or fruit of any kind or any plant there being, or cuts down or carries away sedge, grass, hay or any kind of corn, standing, growing or being on such land, or cuts or takes therefrom any ferns, flowers or shrubs, or carries away from a wharf or landing place any goods in which he has no interest or property, without the license of the owner thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than six months or by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars; and if the offence is committed on Sunday, or in disguise, or secretly in the night time, the imprisonment shall not be for less than five days nor the fine less than five dollars.

pigeons!:

Chapter 266: Section 132. Pigeons; killing or frightening

Section 132. Whoever wilfully kills pigeons upon, or frightens them from, beds which have been made for the purpose of taking them in nets, by any method, within one hundred rods of the same, except on land lawfully occupied by himself, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than one month or by a fine of not more than twenty dollars, and shall also be liable for the actual damages to the owner or occupant of such beds.

possession of an infernal machine

possession of an infernal machine - best crime name ever

§ 102A. Possession of Infernal Machine; Notice of Seizure.

Whoever, other than a police or other law enforcement officer acting in the discharge of his official duties, has in his possession or under his control an infernal machine or a similar instrument, contrivance or device shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than ten years or in jail for not more than two and one half years, or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment, and the said machine, instrument, contrivance or device shall be forfeited to the commonwealth. The term "infernal machine", as used in this section, shall include any device for endangering life or doing unusual damage to property, or both, by fire or, explosion, whether or not contrived to ignite or explode automatically and whether or not disguised so as to appear harmless. Notice of the seizure of any such machine, instrument, contrivance or device shall be sent forthwith to the commissioner of public safety and the article seized shall be subject to his order. - M.G.L. c. 266 §102A (2005)

The Real Boston Tea Party was Against the Wal-Mart of the 1770s

Green Lady

An exam proctor addressed me as "Mrs. Green Lady" yesterday.

You will all now be required to recognise me this way. Start practising ; )

On Navier-Stokes and Phillips

When you start getting into heated arguments with your text book, it's time to go to sleep. That said, Mr. Frank M. White should probly not write any more texts. he wrote an inaccessable book in a conversational style, so the natural inclination when, say, the index entry for lift points to a page where he says, "We will talk about lift in a bit, but it's vaguely related to x", is to curse him and his publisher.

In other news:
Yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy

Death to Smoochy

"When we were kids and my brothers and I played cowboys and Indians, I was always the Chinese rail road worker"

Death to Smoochy

G20

so, first we hear a man died at the G20 protests in London. Then we hear he was just a man walking home, and he died for unrelated reasons.

Now this comes out.

The authoritarianism of the police in the UK and US has gotten out of hand, well, I guess maybe it always was.

Mr. Berlusconi, you never dissapoint

During a visit to one tent village where thousands who had lost their houses were staying, Berlusconi told German television "they should see it like a weekend of camping."

But, really and truly, this is the sort of thing that you elect somebody like him for. You know he's not going to be the best for the job, he's there for flamboyance points.

"The politics of it are I'm not going to put discrimination in the Iowa Constitution," said Iowa Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs. "That's a horrible idea. The people who are pushing the amendment are saying equal protection under the law -- except. I think that's unacceptable."

If they don't do anything about it now, it will never happen, it will be here to stay. That's what we saw in Mass. in the first vote for a constitutional ban by the legislature (there have to be many yes votes in consecutive years) it passed, but the next year, when the sky hadn't fallen, it failed. No one cared any more except the fanatics.

yes Vermont! keeping it in the New England family! First for Gay marriage: Massachusetts. First to do it through law instead of courts: VERMONT!!!

Really and truly, this should have happened in Vermont a long time ago. It is the hippy state, and it's been lagging on this issue. Three cheers!

I found the perfect fakespanish=realspanish phrase:

And the rest = Y el resto

I just found this amusing. It reminds me in a vague way of some of the tensions here.

Ok, just this last one, i swear

beautiful comics - xkcd

Donald Knulth

Turn Signals
- I so totally do this! well, i'm always watching turn signals to see if they're in sync, I never get out to talk about it...

Nihilism

Movie Seating
- anyone who's ever been to a movie with me and put up with my shit, knows that I am incredibly anal about sitting in the centre of the row.

I just found this web comic and it speaks to my heart.

Automatic Doors
- seriously, I do this.

Not Really Into Pokemon

YouTube
-amen

Hallucinations


I should stop now before I've posted every comic there

Seafood Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

equal parts mayonnaise and horseradish (try not to include too much of the liquid from the horseradish)
powdered chipotle and cumin to taste
salt and sugar to taste (just a pinch for a single serving

Extreme Sheep Herding

I know this has already made the rounds, been on Olbermann, etc. But I'd never seen the whole thing, and maybe you haven't either:

Spectroscopy Joke

Dr. Maddow on 1950s Cocktails

and a quote from my mum on the subject:

That's interesting. I visited the Media Lab at MIT a couple of times... and this is a very typical project for them. A lot of their stuff is cool, but the sold their souls to the devil a long time ago. A lot of their projects will sell to companies like Gillette for marketing purposes before they go anywhere else. Case in point: RFID tagging of goods in the supermarket so that they can check exactly what their customers do with it.

Kinetic Sculpture

Check this shit out:





Wood that Works Archive







http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDnrFgd7yfo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVS9J4qxnmY&feature=related

My hero

I put bird seed out my window for, well, not the birds. Here in Kingston Ontario, there is an army of well fed, fat, black, grey, and red squirrels. Most people here hate them, call them vermin, and want to get rid of them. My view is: I hate cities. I hate that we knock down wilderness and pave it and then get angry when one, ONE, species of animals survives and adapts to our new, sanitised, version of their world. Just because the knocking down didn't happen in your time, doesn't mean it's ok. So, really for my own pleasure, I feed these squirrels. I have become the Crazy Squirrel Lady of Aberdeen Street. Cameron sent me this:

Squirrel Girl

also, from Cameron, see this:
Animal Farm rankles the West Bank

Audio about Animal Farm

Classical Facebook

Yet again, Taibbi proves why he is King

The Big Takeover - a full rundown of the credit crisis, its causes, and the actions that followed

and a response to a NYTimes op-ed by a now former AIG employee complaining that we're all making him feel bad.

Saw this quote on a sign today

“Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.” Doug Larson


Amen

If Gloria Allred thinks you're a self serving media whore, you've really got a problem.


I first became an Allred fan when she represented Scott Peterson's girlfriend Amber Frey in that whole fiasco. She wears the most insane outfits, never the same one twice.

Evo Morales

Muezza the Muse

Hell for cat abusers? I'm there.

The Prophet forbade payment for cat.

Geographic Tongue

Yep, it's real, and it's actually called "geographic tongue"...

wow

holy crap, she's gay, you do know this?

Marc Black sings his 'Love Song for Rachel Maddow'

Rachel Maddow Song

how is this legal?

http://www.aolcdn.com/tmz_documents/0320_mia_birth_cert_wm.swf

I am a single mother with a 9-year-old boy. To stay warm at night my son and I would pull off all the pillows from the couch and pile them on the kitchen floor. I'd hang a blanket from the kitchen doorway and we'd sleep right there on the floor. By February we ran out of wood and I burned my mother's dining room furniture. I have no oil for hot water. We boil our water on the stove and pour it in the tub. I'd like to order one of your flags and hang it upside down at the capital building... we are certainly a country in distress.

— Letter from a single mother in a Vermont city, to Senator Bernie Sanders

from

Shaded Electoral Maps

So, after the 2000 election, a lot of people felt robbed, or divided or somesuch. To make themselves feel better, they made lots of different electoral maps by county and population and electoral vote count. Everyone felt so good this time round after the election that no one bothered.

I miss them.

So here's my first effort. Maps shaded from blue to red by how much they voted for McCain or Obama. I took the base map from Wikipedia and the full blue and red from the NY Times. Percentages in both are taken from just Obama and McCain's votes, ie: no third party or write in votes counted for the purposes of this map. The first one is done by increments of 5 percent on an interval from 90% to Obama to 90% to McCain. The second map is done on an interval of 60 to 60 with divs at ten, two, five, and seven.




The first one was mostly purple and didn't make it very far into the red zone, so I ended up making these two. The first covers all the range of democratic territories (DC went 93% for Obama) and the second one only covers the range covered by republican territories (Wyoming went 67% to McCain)

Mulled Wine

I've been experimenting with mulled wine recipes and here's the current result:

1 750 mL bottle of red wine (something with body like a cab sav or a burgundy. something drinkable but not really expensive; you're going to cover up all those subtle notes with spices)

6 cinnamon sticks, broken up
12 whole cloves, crushed
12 whole allspice, crushed
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar

Mix the wine and spices in a pot and heat very slowly for 15-25 minutes. Do not let it boil, or the alcohol will boil off. The best way to heat the wine is to put it in the clean pot of an autodrip coffee maker and heat it on the hot plate. This hot plate is made to keep coffee hot without boiling it and it will do the same for your wine. Once this is done, add the sugar a little at a time, tasting. Depending on the wine you use, you will need more or less. Next strain and serve it hot in mugs. It's even better after sitting overnight with the spices.


I compiled these instructions from these two recipes:

BellaOnline - Mulled Wine Recipe

http://www.janespice.com/recipes/mulled-wine

Thanks to Jim Fortune of Bella Online for the tip about the coffee maker.

For more on mulled wine, check out this page with historical recipes:

WineIntro Mulled Wine, Eggnog, Glogg Recipes

work in progress

right now I'm getting way too involved in the physical look of the blog. I'm working on new wallpaper and such. i hate using a default template from google.

hopefully it will come out well

Marionette Video

This is my friend Cameron's second wire marionette ever. check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEMc023vIHU

Statement of Purpose

I'm gonna use this space to post things I find that I like in the hopes that even if it doesn't help anyone else, it will help me when I want to remember something I liked in the past