Michael Moore was a recent guest on Larry King talking about the auto bailout. Moore's terrific documentary, "Roger & Me," targeted the auto companies in 1989 while they closed plants and laid off workers. Moore tells Larry King that in the movie when the GM representative said that 30,000 people could be laid off in Flint, he thought it was a joke. Years later, it came true. Moore says he's conflicted, as many of us are, about what to do. He doesn't have any confidence in the leaders of this industry.
Moore doesn't want to see the loss of more jobs in the US auto industry. He also doesn't trust the current management teams that got them into this mess. Hard to argue against either position.
I don't know if I can go so far as Moore to believe that the government could do a better job running these companies. However, it's clear that this manufacturing capacity could be a great asset if applied to an overhaul of the US transportation system.
I liked Michael Moore as the bumbling everyman in Roger & Me and I've liked his movies less and less as they've become strident setups. I was happy to see Moore in this interview get back to something like his old self. It's somehow personal again.
Since this interview, the CEOs of the Big Three had a humbling day on Capitol Hill, unable to defend their use of separate corporate jets to bring them to the hearing and more importantly, unable to articulate what they would do with the money they're asking for. They've supposedly gone back to Detroit to work on a proposal and muster the courage to go back to Washington in December.
By Mark Frauenfelder at 2:30 pm Friday, Nov 21
• Comments • Sharemight ought to get rid of daylight saving time - http://boingboing.net/2008/11/21/obama-might-get-rid.html" title="Email to a friend/colleague" target="_blank">
President-elect Obama wants to get rid of daylight saving time in the United States to conserve energy.
Turns out, according to two academics on the NYT Op-Ed page, there is little scientific proof that this reduces energy consumption. It also turns out that this practice could be wasteful, a bit annoying, and a lot of people, including Obama, want to get rid of it.
A study in Indiana, a state that recently started DST, showed an overall increase of 1 percent in residential electricity use with occasional increases of 2 to 4 percent in late spring and early fall. So much for conserving energy.
I hate DST. It throws me and my kids out of whack for a couple of days. I hope Obama gets rid of it. too.
UPDATE: Travis Cole says:
Your post is missleading since it suggests Obama want's to get rid of DST. I wish he would, but I can't find anyi reference to him saying that.
Unfortunately your source didn't read the original NY Times article very carefully, but they have now updated it to better reflect reality.
The Op-Ed only said Obama *should* axe DST since that fits his goal of saving energy.
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Aquarium Drunkard posted MP3s of the terrific recordings that two of my favorite songwriters, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, made together during three 1969 sessions. Several tracks were are even quadraphonic mixes. The Dylan/Cash Sessions (Thanks, Mark!)
LoHud.com has an article about the pleasure of keeping chickens in your back yard. I agree with the people interviewed in the piece -- I bought my chickens (above, click for big) for eggs and fertilizer, but it turns out their primary benefit is amusing me and my family. I love spending time with them.
Chicken owners liken it to having their very own widescreen TV in the backyard, with an always-looping Chicken Channel. Chickens are curious and very involved in their surroundings, following humans and dogs and cats around the yard and seeking attention, even a backrub.
Fiona Mitchell says the four hens she got in July for her Bedford Hills yard fit right in with her two dogs and two cats. "Everybody seems to find their own space," she says. "We're one big happy family now."
Demetra and Sal Restuccia couldn't be happier with the five Rhode Island Reds they got last year. "Oh, I love my chickens," Demetra says. "They have such personalities. They're funny - they talk all the time. They'll tell you everything that's been going on for the day. They're hysterical."
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Tomorrow is the Women In Games International's celebrity auction where you can big on such items as Shepard Fairey's Civilization Revolution posters signed by strategy game pioneer Sid Meier. Brandon has the details over at Boing Boing Offworld. "WIGI shows off celebrity auction wares"
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Guy Michael Davis made these turkey head salt and pepper shakers. The seasonings come out their nostrils. His former studiomate, Katie Parker, told me that "all (the molds for) his animals come from either 'freshly dead' specimens or from freeze-dried taxidermy." They're $65 dollars on Etsy. Turkey Salt and Pepper Shaker Set
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Australian artists/pranksters/makers The Glue Society create surreal installations and performance pieces in the great outdoors. For example, they've built a chair rainbow on the frozen tundra, transformed a beach into a sunning paradise for sex dolls, and transformed Google Earth imagery into biblical scenes. Hi-Fructose's site features a selection of The Glue Factory's work, including videos. "What's New With The Glue Society"
The CIA Inspector General John Helgerson just issued a damning report that says the CIA lied about and covered up its involvement in a drug interception program with the Peruvian Airport. In 2001 the Peruvian Air Force used information the CIA gave them to shoot down a small plane loaded with US missionaries, causing the death of Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter Charity.
Earlier this week Carla and I went to the wonderful Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles to see photographer Annie Leibovitz read from her new book, At Work.
The purpose of this book, she said, was to let young photographers find out about photography, and to explain the stories behind the many amazing photographs she's taken in her 40+ year career as a photographer for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.
I wasn't expecting to be interested in the text of the book (and it is mostly text, not photos) but I found it to be immensely readable. At Work is not only a gossip lover's delight (she tells fun stories about all the famous people she'd photographed, like Hunter S. Thompson, The Rolling Stones, Queen Elizabeth, and Al Sharpton), its also an inspiration for anyone who does creative work and wants to continuously challenge themselves to become better at their craft.
Excerpt
I bought my first real camera in Japan, a Minolta SR-T 101. The first thing I did with it was take it on a climb up Mt. Fuji.
Climbing Mt. Fuji is something every Japanese does at some point, but it’s harder than you might think. I was young, and I started up the mountain fast. I didn’t know about pacing. My brother Phil was even younger – he was thirteen – and he ran ahead of me. Phil disappeared. The camera felt like it weighed a ton. It was awkward. It got heavier the higher we went. After a while I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it, but just then a group of elderly Japanese women in dark robes came marching along in single file. They were chanting in an encouraging way and I fell in behind them. We passed Phil at the seventh way station. He was lying flat on his back.
When you climb Mt. Fuji you stay overnight at the eighth way station and get up in the morning so that you can reach the top at sunrise. It’s a glorious moment. Spiritually significant. When I got to the top I realized that the only film I had was the roll in the camera. I hadn’t thought much about the film situation. I photographed the sunrise with the two or three frames I had left.
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Researchers are using Guitar Hero to help train amputees who will use electrical signals from their residual muscles to control next generation bionic arms. From IEEE Spectrum:
In mid-October, Johns Hopkins University researchers Robert Armiger and Jacob Vogelstein traveled to RP 2009 partner Duke University, in Durham, N.C., to test the system on its target demographic, in this case Iraq veteran Jon Kuniholm. Kuniholm’s right hand was lost to shrapnel three years ago. About to finish his Ph.D. at Duke’s Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems, Kuniholm has been a volunteer for the DARPA program for the past two years and is the outspoken founder of the Open Prosthetics Project, an open-source Web site, independent of DARPA, that aims to make prosthetic-arm technology as open source and collaborative as Linux and Firefox.
With electrodes attached to his residual arm, Kuniholm was able to operate the frets using signals from the muscles there. “It’s fun,” says Kuniholm, who achieved the highest score reported by the experimental subjects: 70 percent. Kuniholm says that while Air Guitar Hero is the only game so far that requires individual finger movement to train an amputee to deal with those muscles again, the real success is in striving for a realistic goal. “You’re doing something simple,” he says. “It’s not rocket science. But you have to do it fast and you have to time it right.”
Last night, there was a report of a meteor streaking across the Alberta sky and crashing somewhere in Western Canada in the early evening. Sadly I did not see it but some local TV coverage can be found on YouTube.
There's a Canadian scientific website for reporting meteor sightings and impacts but it's mum on last night's event.
BoingBoing readers may help me identify what made the trails in the photo below, taken from Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park. I took the photo from the road when I noticed what looked liked ski trails. Except I don't believe they are ski trails; they were in a remote area where it would not be safe to ski.
The above picture is a blow-up from this photo, which might provide more context. I should also add that I'm not a skier nor a snowboarder.
Maybe she's right, and she is blessed by God. Because this video is a magical miracle of LOL. Truth Squad here -- I despise her, and pray she never holds office in Washington, but I recognize my inferiority, too. I could never dream up anything this surreal and perfect. Pardon me while I heat up the tofurkey, basted with my very own tears. (Thanks, Tara McGinley)
"The biggest fuck-up with killing people, if nobody, if nobody got told then nobody would've slipped information," he added.
I was reading this story of a Calgary murder trial in Toronto's Globe and Mail and I was surprised by the above quote. I'm not used to seeing "fuck-up" in a newspaper but then again I'm reading mostly American newspapers. Not only would the obscenity cause problems for American editors, but the grammar would give them another reason to reject the quote. It's a choice between decency and realism, and I liked the Globe and Mail's choice, which gives me greater insight into how this awful man thinks and acts.
I can't resist summarizing the crime story, which is tragic, but it sets up another astonishing quote from this 25-year-old murderer. He and his then 12-year-old girlfriend killed her family because they didn't want him seeing her. These cold-blooded killers fled but were caught, presumably because they told friends how to find them. On the way to a psychiatric evaluation, the man gave details of the murders, bragging to a fellow traveller who was an undercover cop. He was already thinking about what life would be like with his girlfriend after prison.
He ruminated about their plans once they get out to have a "gothic wedding," move to Germany, buy a castle and raise a couple of kids. He talked almost proudly about the notoriety the murders had given them. "Me and my old lady have become legends," he said.
Perhaps you were "busy" doing "productive things" like "earning a living" this week, and missed your dose of Boing Boing tv? I'll re-embed the episodes below.
SPECIAL THANKS to our sponsor Toshiba for making this week's programming possible. Go have a look at laptopexperts.net, where Toshiba and various assembled experts will answer all your questions on gaming, hardware, buying, troubleshooting, the inner life of laptops, and why unicorns make us happy.
AutoblogGreen is covering some of the more eco-minded products automakers (the ones still standing?) are unveiling this week at the LA Auto Show. Above, the Dodge EV. "You can find all our stories on the show here," says editor Sebastian. " Lots of cool stuff being announced. We're also on Twitter."
Howard Zinn's remarkable book, A People's History of the United States tells the underside of American history, the stories of everyday people who were on the losing side of America's prosperity and expansion, from the indigenous people and slaves to the conquered people, conscriptees and refugees. People who demanded, but did not receive, justice.
A companion to this book is this CD, "Readings from Voices of a People's History of the United States" -- a collection of famous speeches from people who held America to the standard it set, and found it wanting. These are inspiring and infuriating, and are expertly read by a cast of talented voice-actors including Danny Glover ("The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro -- Frederick Douglass"); Paul Robeson, Jr. ("Ballad of Roosevelt -- Langston Hughes"); Wallace Shawn ("Why We Fight -- Vito Russo"); Marisa Tomei ("It's Time the Antiwar Choir Started Singing -- Cindy Sheehan"); John Sayles ("Comments on the Moro Massacre -- Mark Twain") and many others.
These are the words of people who refused to accept injustice as inevitable, who demanded better. Someone once said, "All countries fail to live up to their ideals; the ideals that America fails to live up to are nobler than most." I agree with that sentiment. The liberty and justice guaranteed by America's foundational documents are a high standard to meet, and if the country is to live up to it, it must be held to account by those who suffer as a result of its failures.
Etsy seller Yokoo not only makes some pretty rad gigantic chunky knitwear, but she also gives good funny in her little "featured seller" interview:
Please describe your creative process how, when, materials, etc.
Well, Im not going to lie to you. A healthy dose of plagiarism never hurt anybody. When that falls flat, I find that taking my consciousness off of the process altogether really allows the problem to figure itself out.
Opening refrigerator doors does wonders for the dormant mind. I would bet that there must be a sort of creative composite in coolant. I find that staring blankly into the back of the refrigerator wall usually releases a couple of pinned ideas to rub softly on the forefront of my head.
(JIVAS, by Jim Woodring, $1,200.00, 13" x 9.5"; watercolor and gouache on Fabriano Artistico paper; 2008.)
The CIA Inspector General John Helgerson just issued a damning report that says the CIA lied about and covered up its involvement in a drug interception program with the Peruvian Airport. In 2001 the Peruvian Air Force used information the CIA gave them to shoot down a small plane loaded with US missionaries, causing the death of Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter Charity.
Howard Zinn's remarkable book, 