Stuff you should know.

Letter from the mother of a gay man.

The movie Iron Man won’t be out til next May, but you can see the trailer now. And yes, you get to see Iron Man, although he is traveling pretty fast. (via Fuzzytopia)

Top 529 eternal questions in popular music.

25 Skills Every Man Should Know.

10 Google Video Documentaries You Have To Watch.

The 20 Most Bizarre Experiments of All Time.

The truth about recycling: Is it worth it?

What's the best way to praise a child? Be specific.

The 8 Most Common Sci-Fi Visions of the Future (And Why They'll Never Happen).

Forevertron: World’s Largest Scrap Metal Sculpture.

The New Zealand All Blacks rugby team popularized the ceremonial haka {wiki} dance worldwide, although they are far from the only sports team to use it. The blog Rugby World Cup 2007 has several videos explaining the meaning of the haka, plus the lyrics.

Study finds bras don’t support bouncing breasts.

A Four-Dimensional Tribute to the Late Madeleine L'Engle.

Freegans: Anti-Consumerists or Just Tightwads?

Beware the world’s worst credit card.

Why the first kiss means so much.

The Scariest Thing I Have Ever Seen.

1964 FSU Ad

This 1964 promotional film for Florida State University stars an aspiring young actor and student named Jim Morrison, before he and Ray Manzarek formed The Doors.

Platitudes vs. Life

"Children need both mothers and fathers, and marriage is society’s way of obtaining them." (Republican Party of Texas in their "Talking Points on marriage" brochure)









Check out this devastating photo gallery featuring quoted platitudes and pictures of the real world.

Shakin All Over

Political Stuff

Political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.

Reaction to the above article.

Map the Candidates uses Google Map technology to show you where the candidates are, and where they are spending their time campaigning. (via Neatorama)

There's something very wrong when the very youngest people with the brightest futures and happiest lives laid out in front of them pick up a gun and go fight a war that no one really understands, no one really wanted, and no one can really see a way out of that everyone can get behind, and come home to find out that the injuries and insults their bodies absorbed on our behalf are not only underappreciated, but UNappreciated by the blood-thirsty vultures who demanded this sacrifice from them in the first place.

More along the same lines: How to make cancer in veterans disappear.

Bush: Just so you know.

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction.

Why Bush's Mortgage Bailout Plan Is a Bad Idea.

What you say can come back to bite you a few years later.

Maxim’s favorite political sex scandals.

9/11, Six Years Later

How to Remember 9/11.

The 2,996 Project last year had bloggers writing memorials to one person each. You'll find a list of those posts here.

My memorial post last year was for Robert C. McLaughlin.

The perspective of a New Yorker: I Am Not Afraid.

Dark Roasted Blend has a post of images that date from before 9/11, but seem eerily prescient.

What progress has been made in rebuilding at Ground Zero?

Ursi’s Blog has lots of 9/11 memorial links today.

Metafilter has a ton of music video links for Patriot Day.

News coverage of the anniversary in New York City.

Fun Links

Batman by Dostoyevsky.

Homemade flamethrowers in action.

Paleo-Future has a series of French prints from 1910 depicting what life will be like in the year 2000.

You can teach a robot to swim, if its a robotic fish!

A really cute laughing baby.

7 Amazing Holes. No goatse or Ground Zero.

An old clip of the best-named racehorse in history.

The More You Know...

What you should know before you donate your hair to charity.

The banana-snapping world record. (via Gorilla Mask)

What “labour shortage” means is that employers can’t find workers with the right skills at a price they like. It’s a British story, but applicable to America. And helps explain why food is so cheap and you still can’t afford health insurance.

The folks at NPR wondered if $55 Bling H2O really tasted better than other bottled waters. They conducted a taste test featuring Bling H2O, normally-priced bottled water, and Manhattan tap water, and posted a video report. I don’t think the results will really surprise you. (via Metafilter)

A century of helicopters, in pictures.

The 50 Worst Cars of All Time.

Laud Humphreys and the Tearoom Sex Study.

The 100 Best TV Shows of all Time.

Daddy Scares Little Girl

I'm sick!

I feel worse than I've felt in a LONG time. Took FOUR naps today! And still managed to catch up on some work for Mental Floss, but that's about it. I should be back to normal by Monday (I hope). Meanwhile, go visit Miss Cellania for this week's best links. And a couple of jokes.

Apple IIc

I had one of these in the mid-80s, but it was a hand-me-down, so I didn’t pay for it. It was a fun toy til I discovered Macintosh. (via Consumerist)

Friday Fun

Internet People.

You might think that having a robot solve your Rubik’s Cube takes the fun out of the toy. But robots are cool, and Straydog Scraps has eight different puzzle-solving robots, with videos.

My Hoover sounds like Chewbacca!

Ball of Being, a pleasant abstract animation. (via Grow-A-Brain)

I am an IDIOT--But thank you for your concern.

Eight videos of Luciano Pavarotti singing with pop stars.

Look at me! I’m so pretty, you can’t even see me! Can you spot the big bug in this photograph? It’s an African Flower Mantid.

Attorney Mark Goodall creates science fiction sculptures from antique and art deco appliances and toys. (via Everlasting Blort)

A vast collection of unusual musical instruments.

Jackie Chan’s ten worst movie injuries caught on film.

Dogs just wanna have fun.

How to keep an idiot busy.

Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam

Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam is a documentary scheduled for release in 2008. It was directed by Tammy Nguyen Lee, founder of Against the Grain Productions.

"Operation Babylift" was a $2 million dollar US initiative that airlifted over 2,000 Vietnamese orphans out of a war-torn country to protect them from the impending threat of the Communist Regime. Coined by some as "one of the most humanitarian efforts in history," it was also plagued by lawsuits and political turmoil. Even with the best intentions, these adoptees grew up facing a unique set of challenges in America, including prejudice overshadowed by a controversial war and cultural identity crisis. Now, over thirty years later, this documentary takes a candid look at a significant yet untold event as seen through the eyes of the volunteers, parents, and organizations directly involved, as well as uncovers the "lost" stories of the the adoptees and who they have become as adults. This documentary is not just a a historical piece, but gives a contemporary voice and perspective on international adoption today through the eyes of the adoptees themselves.

Read more at the film website. (Thanks, Kris!)

Interesting

The Secret of Star Wars Fandom.

Drive your car to death, save $31,000.

What really goes on at a telemarketing center.

Is it a good thing to have a urinal in your house? I personally think a bidet would be better.

People can be really good at heart.

Voyager I was launched 30 years ago, and is still sending signals back from 9.5 billion miles away! They don’t make things like that anymore.

Sitcom Aliens.

Radical Honesty: Good idea, or just plain stupid?

Politics as Usual

Read more on Fred Thompson at Simply Left Behind.

The Fed may bail out the banks and mortgage companies, but they are not going to help the working class schmoe who still may lose his house.

Another horror story about our airport security measures and how we treat visitors from other nations.

Why liberals are obsessed with Larry Craig.

What would happen if we got rid of all the illegal immigrants?

A progressive group of U.S. nuns has called on Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. (via Crooks and Liars)

My Own Bob Dylan Video!

My own Bob Dylan video!

You can make your own, too.

(via the Generator Blog)

Morph Thing

Morph Thing is an application that lets you combine two faces! Combine two celebrities, or register and upload your own faces to morph. I tried it -go here to see the results.

Around the Blogosphere

Congratulations to Wellington Grey on his recent wedding!

YesButNoButYes has a new server, or platform, or something and you can now comment again, after a couple months of very dry posting.

Raggedy is back on the computer, but dealing with the aftermath of a tornado that hit her town August 26th. You can see a lot of pictures of the damage at her site.

Good news from Astryngia finally: her tumor is shrinking!

Se7en finally moved into a home of his own, two years after Katrina, but had a worse-than-usual runaround from the utility companies.

LBB went fishing, and caught a big one.

What will they think of next?

You can't stop progress! Oh yes, here's a song for Larry Craig.

Fun and Funnies

I think you need to go see this ad for Cadbury chocolate. I’m not telling you anything else about it, except that it make me smile. (via Metafilter)

Partial Face Transplants. Some very good Photoshop users made portraits by using the left side of one person’s face, and the right side of another. Cover half the face with your hand to recognize who it is. (via Dump Trumpet)

I honestly thought this Star Wars/Simpsons mashup was from the TV show, but it was done by animator Rich Cando. (via YesButNoButYes)

Show them to me. (NSFW)

Gravity, explained in a retro animation. (via Everlasting Blort)

Crosswalk Prank. (via Cynical-C)

I’ll bet he can do it better than he can say it. (via Boing Boing)

The evil eye of the Vampire Squid.

Durian is a hypnotically beautiful animation. Take five minutes and chill out to this. (via Miltant Platytpus)