Snip from a post on Kevin Kelly's Technium blog:

A major theme of this present century will be the pursuit of our collective identity. We are on a search for who we are. What does it mean to be a human? Can there be more than one kind of human? In fact, what exactly is a human?

On average science unveils a new invention every day, and almost without fail these days, that daily invention disrupts the notion of ourselves. Every day we are getting news that challenges our identity. Stem cell therapy, genetic sequencing, artificial intelligence, operational robots, new animal clones, trans-species hybrids, brain implants, memory enhancing drugs, limb prosthetics, social networks -- each of these tools blurs the boundaries between us as individuals and among us as a species. Who are we and who do we want to be?

We get to play with answers to these questions online. In Second Life, or in chat rooms, we can chose who we want to be, our gender, our genetics, even our species. Technologies gives us the means to switch genders, inhabit new forms, modify our own bodies.

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From ASIFA:

We received a surprise in the mail today from Archive supporter James Tucker- a DVD of great fifties industrial films, including UPA's groundbreaking Man On The Land. This film includes animation by Pat Matthews, Grim Natwick and Art Babbitt, but animation isn't the primary attraction here. It's the drop dead brilliant layouts by Director Bill Hurtz, Associate Director Art Heinemann and background artists Bob Dranko, Boris Gorelick and Paul Julian (among others). Just about every setup in this film is strong enough to be an illustration in a book. Check out the depth and lighting in these backgrounds. They may be painted flat, but they sure aren't composed flat. If this sort of design sensibility was applied to a cartoon with vivid characters, humor and entertainment value, wouldn't it be incredible?

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There's an interesting documentary on ESPN tonight titled Black Magic, about the struggle for civil rights as experienced by basketball players and coaches at Historical Black Colleges and Universities. Directed by Dan Klores, the four-hour program airs in two parts, concluding tomorrow (Monday) evening. Wynton Marsalis and Samuel L. Jackson narrate. From a New York Times article about the program:

“Black Magic” opens with the details of a secret basketball game played in Durham, N. C., in a locked gym with no fans to witness it. On a Sunday morning in 1944 the innovative African-American coach John McLendon (at right in photo) led his fast-breaking team from the North Carolina College for Negroes in a home game against an intramural squad from Duke University’s medical school.

It was illegal. It was dangerous.

And the black team won 88-44. “They never saw anyone run up and down the court like we did,” a McLendon player says.

Link to ESPN "Black Magic" page, Link to NYT article

* Above left: phonecam snapshots of protests in Amdo, Tibet, over the weekend; at right, phonecam video of the same.

* According to Shanghaiist (and now, mainstream news outlets), YouTube was blocked in China over the weekend, likely because of content related to the flood of pro-Tibetan-sovereignty protests in Tibet and elsewhere:

International news channels such as CNN and BBC are also getting routinely blacked out. While we think this is a really poor way to deal with all the shit that's going on, we have been there many, many times, and survived. Time to turn on your VPN again, people! An

* John Kennedy at Global Voices confirms the YouTube block:

As Tibet transitioned into total lockdown and videos of the violent situation proliferated on YouTube, people began noticing Saturday afternoon in China that the video-sharing website could not be accessed. Tech blogger Rick Martin on the CNET Asia Little Red Blog has done some tests which confirm what many have assumed:

* Rebecca McKinnon at Global Voices has an excellent roundup of reactions in the Chinese blogosphere:

For those living in the West who didn't realize that there's little sympathy for Tibet independence among ethnic Chinese in the PRC, this blog post on Global Voices will be a shocker. John Kennedy has translated chatter from Chinese blogs and chatrooms that generally runs along the lines of: those ungrateful minorities, we give them modern conveniences and look how they thank us... where have we heard this before? Reuters has a roundup on the Washington Post that begins: "a look at Chinese blogs reveals a vitriolic outpouring of anger and nationalism directed against Tibetans and the West." (...)

"Davesgonechina" at the Tenement Palm blog has been translating the chatter coming from Chinese netizens on Fanfou and Jiwai - Chinese versions of Twitter. Click here, here, and here, specifically. Dave has done more than translate: he points out that this Tibet situation is a real challenge to all people who believe that the Internet can help foster free speech and bring about better global understanding.  Here is his challenge to all of us...

* On Friday, protest in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, erupted into violence when police, army troops, and ethnic Tibetan demonstrators clashed. Some accounts place the death toll at 30, some at 100, some at 300. It's hard to separate rumor from truthful first-hand account, and hard to know exactly how many have been killed or injured, because communication in the region is so difficult. Foreign journalists are not allowed in, unaccompanied by official escorts. Internet and phone communications are routinely blocked by Chinese authorities when unrest occurs; some blogging tourists in Lhasa wanting to upload photos of what they witnessed have reported the presence of authorities inside 'net cafes. Pro-Tibetan-sovereignty sites like TCHRD, SFT, and Phayul are posting first-person accounts online. Some of those reports are difficult to independently confirm, given the circumstances. The website of the Central Tibetan Administration (part of the government in exile, led by the Dalai Lama, based in India) posts this update.

* The unrest spread this weekend to regions outside Lhasa: police and protesters also clashed in China's Sichuan and Qinghai provinces, and Gansu province, all of which have large ethnic Tibetan populations. On Saturday...

Demonstrations erupted for the second consecutive day in the city of Xiahe in Gansu Province, where an estimated 4,000 Tibetans gathered near the Labrang Monastery. Local monks had held a smaller protest on Friday, but the confrontation escalated Saturday afternoon, according to witnesses and Tibetans in India who spoke with protesters by telephone.

Residents in Xiahe, reached by telephone, heard loud noises similar to gunshots or explosions. A waitress described the scene as “chaos” and said many injured people had been sent to a local hospital.

* China's government has declared a "people's war" against the Tibetan independence movement, in "propaganda and security" measures, and has implemented what amounts to martial law in Lhasa.

"Fight a people's war to oppose separatism and protect stability ... expose and condemn the malicious actions of these forces and expose the hideous face of the Dalai clique to broad daylight," senior regional and security officials announced after a meeting, according to the official Tibet Daily on Sunday.

* China's governor in Tibet promises harsh consequences for protest participants who do not turn themselves in by Tuesday.

* Speaking to reporters today in Dharamsala, India, the home of the Tibetan Government in Exile, the Dalai Lama called for an international inquiry into the current human rights conditions in Tibet.

''Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place,'' said the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. He was referring to China's policy of encouraging the ethnic Han majority to migrate to Tibet, restrictions on Buddhist temples and re-education programs for monks.

* George Bush removed China from a human rights blacklist just three days before the bloodshed in Lhasa.

UPDATE: Boing Boing reader Adam writes,

I am visiting Beijing on business, and staying at a hotel that caters to Westerners. There have been reports that China was loosening controls on the media ahead of the Olympic games, in order to give visitors the impression that the media is unrestricted, but that is not the case in the last day.

While watching CNN in my hotel room, the station goes dark during the top-of-the-hour news flash on the riots, then returns when the synopsis of "what's to come" is given about other stories, and then goes dark again while the coverage switches to Lhasa.

Coverage returns with the anchor asking users to send in their first-hand reports to ireport.com, after all mention of the incident is over. Same results for BBC as well.

The China Daily newspaper I grabbed from the lounge has a small article on the bottom of the front page, titled "Dalai Lama behind sabotage", and states that his "clique" has "organized, premeditated, and masterminded" the beatings, looting, and arson, which "has aroused the indignation of, and is strongly condemned by, the people of all ethnic groups in Tibet."

* Reports estimate that 20,000 Chinese troops have now been deployed to Lhasa (thanks, Christal).

* UPDATE 2 (8pm PT Sunday March 16): BB reader Nick Dobson says,

Besides Youtube, it appears The Guardian and Boingboing have been added to the blocked list in China. ([I'm in] Suzhou, Jiangsu, China)

Forensic investigators traveled to one of the Manson Family hide-outs in Death Valley National Park to explore old rumors of other victims that may have been buried there in the late 1960s. According to the new research described in an Associated Press article, there "are two likely clandestine grave sites at Barker Ranch, and one additional site that merits further investigation." From the AP:

For years, rumors have swirled about other possible Manson family victims -- hitchhikers who visited them at the ranch and were not seen again, runaways who drifted into the camp then fell out of favor.

The same jailhouse confessions that helped investigators initially connect the band of misfits living in the Panamint Mountains to the gruesome killings that terrorized Los Angeles hinted at other deaths. Manson follower Susan Atkins boasted to her cell mate on November 1, 1969, that there were "three people out in the desert that they done in." Other stories surfaced. In the absence of bodies, they were forgotten...

(Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher Arpad) Vass said that, considering the quantity and the types of markers of human decomposition found, the cadaver dog's response, and the probing exercise, he found enough evidence to warrant further testing at a deeper level and a full scale excavation at Barker Ranch, according to the report he issued to law enforcement.

"I'd recommend a dig, excavate the sites," said (police detective Paul) Dostie, who reviewed the report.

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If you're in LA tomorrow (Monday March 17th), head on over to machine project at 8pm for "The Innermost Unifier: Today it’s the Corporate Anthem," a talk/audio performance by Johannes Grenzfurthner of Austrian art-prank-collective monochrom, who have become regular contributors to Boing Boing tv. Mark Allen from machine project explains:

When we last saw Johannes, he and his co-cospirators from Monochrom were boiling down sixty gallons of coca cola to make a brick of coke and burying people alive in our backyard. For this event, Johannes will give a theoretical and applied overview on the musical genre of the corporate anthem.

Link, and for those of you not in LA, expect bloggage!

This February, 1933 issue of Modern Mechanix introduced the miracle of the "bubble-bath," whose waterproof electric motor helped create an "effective reducing process." Link

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez, "Public.Resource.Org today released a metric boatload of early federal case law (1880-1923), known as the First Series of the Federal Reporter. The Second and Third series were released earlier this year, as well as the "Federal Cases" which are the precursor the Federal Reporter. We're about 89% of the way towards a complete release of the Courts of Appeals archive." Link to announcement, Link to archive (Thanks, Carl!)

See also:
1.8 million pages of US federal case law to go online for free
Opening up the American lawbooks

From the June, 1934 issue of Modern Mechanix, this squib on a new carny ride that had debuted in LA, that supplied "the thrills of looping."

A car resembling the cockpit of a plane is supported on a hollow steel tube which pivots on a large ball bearing mechanism at the top of its steel frame.

The device is powered by a small electric motor which swings the car back and forth, gradually increasing the arc until enough momentum is developed to carry it over the top.

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Finnish MP Tommy Tabermann has proposed a law granting all couples a seven-day "love vacation" to keep their relationships together. I remember meeting up with some Finnish friends at a party a couple years ago and hearing them lament the drop in Finnish population (5.1 million to less than 5 million, if memory serves) -- they explained that the last growth in Finnish population had come nine months after a wintertime TV strike.

According to Tabermann, the purpose of such vacations would be to prevent relations from disintegrating and the spouses from drifting apart.

During the seven days, couples could devote themselves to each other ”both at an erotic and emotional level” and ”find their way back to the path of love in order to find the wellspring of love again”.

Some MPs suspected that the proposal might discriminate against single persons, but others said that a love vacation would be the privilege of all, even the singles and the single parents.

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Two top TSA officials -- both decorated by the administration for excellence -- have been in alleged violation of the TSA's rules, operating a private security consultancy while drawing a government salary and holding top secret clearance. The TSA has stonewalled on the issue, refusing to issue a statement or talk to the press. One of the men, Michael Restovich, never showed up at a Congressional hearing into why he seemed to be encouraging TSA checkpoints to cheat on spot-tests of their efficacy at catching bombs -- instead, Restovich was hastily dispatched overseas to be the DHS attaché to the United Kingdom.

Pajamas Media has learned that Michael “Mike” Restovich and fellow TSA senior executive Morris “Mo” McGowan ran a private security consulting company while working as high-ranking officials with TSA. Their company, Group 2M Consulting, LLC, was filed with the office of the secretary of state of Texas on April 15, 2004, a copy of which can be downloaded here:

At the time, Mike Restovich was the federal security director of Dallas Love Field Airport. Morris “Mo” McGowan was the assistant federal security director.

Both men held then, and apparently continue to hold now, top secret security clearances with the U.S. government. Consulting in the private sector simultaneously is in direct conflict with federal policy and specifically prohibited by two statutes of Department of Homeland Security employment contracts, a copy of which was obtained by Pajamas Media (available here, with the relevant paragraphs highlighted in yellow)

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Here's part of the Ningyo-Do Bunko database of late 19th/early 20th century watercolour sketches of Japanese toy designs. There are more than 100 albums all told. Link (Thanks, Marilyn!)