A map of the states shows where each party, Democratic and Republican, is strong or weak. There's updated political news along with other features that help you evaluate what's coming up in the 2010 senatorial election. It's non-partisan, which says a lot right there! I hope you find it scratches your political itch and is another resource in the search for truth in American politics. Go to Vote From Abroad to view.
There have been many controversial books in American history, and Brave New World is among the most controversial. From Dir Journal Info Blog archives....
"Published in 1932, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is his most popular novel; although, it may not have been his most important.
It was frequently challenged with several banning attempts, and is still considered controversial. The reader is swept into Huxley’s vision of a future based on science and technology.
The novel depicts drugs, sexuality and suicide, and reveals Huxley’s disdain for the culture of the United States.
An attempt to get the book banned was made by a group of parents as they felt it centered on negativity. (more…)"
For more bizarre, Interesting and Unusual, Discoveries, Photos, Cover Ups go to Dir Journal Info Blog.
image via Dir Journal Info Blog
Here it is Friday and you're wondering if you can get through the day.
You think, "I've heard it all," as you wait for the weekend. Then you find out about a community of loons who are ready for an invasion from Zombies 365 days a year!
The members have a finely detailed plan on what to do when Zombies finally make their move and try to rule the earth.
Say what? This can't be on up-and-up. No one believes in Zombies right?
I quote:
"The Zombie Preparedness Initiative is a knowledge base provided by a community of citizens concerned about the impending zombie invasion and the imminent disaster that is sure to follow.
We are not claiming to be experts on anything, we are merely doing what we can to gather knowledge and share the acquired information with the public. By doing this, we hope to help people prepare for the very real threat that we shall face when zombies show up and governments have not taken the time to prepare.
We are working to do what we can to help people find others in their area that are interested in fighting against the zombies so that when the time comes there can be safe locations all around the world. We have recently moved to a new content management system, so if there are any problems with anything, please report it to the site administrator." Check out the whole site here.
Image via durtbagz.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/dawn-zom...
Clear domes (left) to subterranean concrete living spaces (right) offer a new lifestyle.
For an idea of the future direction of architecture look down at your feet. One day you may unsuspectingly be walking on top of housing, offices and even cities.
by Simon Jones for Future Facing web site
Country living offers the ideals of a relaxed, gentler way of life that many of us have bought into. Yet our desire to be cocooned by nature has involved bulldozing it into oblivion. So how can we regain a more harmonious relationship between the often opposing sides of large-scale development and rural ecology? By developing a green utopia - underground.
The Taisei Company's ambitious plan for subterranean living imaginatively titled Alice City from Alice in Wonderland offers a utopia that is almost as fantastical as the book. Read the rest of the story here.
images via future facing
This cartoon by Dr. Seuss in 1942, echoed what most Americans of the day thought about banning booze. It was an unpopular law. Dr Suess's political cartoons are all nicely displayed at this Catalog of Political Cartoons You may be in for a surprise at just how political Dr. Seuss was. His children books are still read in schools across the country, but most people aren't aware of his other body of works in war and domestic issues. Enjoy!
Image via http://orpeus.ucsd.edu
By Martin
It's close to becoming a truism now that every unusual event is immediately greeted with a chorus of conspiracy theories, and Swine Flu is no exception. If you want to see some extremely impressive analysis of the situation, then you should head on over to the guys at Effect Measure, who are putting the mainstream media to shame. But the people I'm about to present to you have a rather different take.
As an example of just how different this take is, the title of the piece I'm about to quote is "It is Time to Shoot Back."
Read the rest of the story here.
From Mother Jones this morning...
The more we learn about the current swine flu outbreak, the more it all begins to sound like what happened in 2005, when the world faced a possible pandemic of avian flu. But with the exception of stocking up on Tamiflu, most governments seem to have taken little meaningful action in response to the bird flu scare, and learned few lessons.
Read the rest of the story here.
Also from from Mother Jones (April 2009)...
By James Ridgeway |
As the world gears up once again for a flu pandemic that may or may not arrive (it actually seems possible this time), we might want to remember some of the lessons of the last flu scare. One of these is that there are winners as well as losers in every high-profile outbreak of infectious disease. First and foremost among them, of course, is Big Pharma, which can always be counted on to have its hand out wherever human misery presents an opportunity to rake in some cash.
Read the rest of the story here.
Pig image via stockphoto.com
As always, there will be an all-day celebration on the University of Texas campus in Austin. But this year Boise is where the new action is. Check out http://www.boisenopantsday.com for more information about what they have planned for the big day!
Conventional wisdom has it that No Pants Day (which takes place this Friday, May 2) had its beginnings in Austin in the mid-1980s and is little more than a good-natured lark free of any political or social intent – just a bunch of breezy young adults with nothing better to do than wander the streets in their underwear, scaring children and dogs. But the truth is actually much more sinister. New research has revealed that Trouser-Free Day was actually started in Hollywood in 1928 by a secret cabal of gin-soaked movie producers, writers, and actors interested as much in flaunting societal convention and toppling democracy as they were in making movies, a group that included such closet anarchists and degenerates as Norma Shearer, Conrad Veldt, Samuel Goldwyn, Adolph Zukor, Lillian Gish, Will Rogers, the entire cast of King Vidor's The Big Parade, and Wallace Beery (who, honoring the wishes of the other members of the group, kept his pants on).
The Pirate Bay defendants wanted to know why they were being prosecuted while Google was not, even though Google also indexes .torrent files. A new site called "Pirate Google" tries to make the same point; we speak with the site's anonymous creator.
By Nate Anderson April 29, 2009
The Pirate Bay trial saw the defendants trot out "the Google defense" on multiple occasions: Google indexes .torrent files, so what's wrong with our doing it? That point didn't sway the judge, who saw a world of difference between what the two sites did, but it did resonate with at least one Internet coder, who last week rolled out The Pirate Google.
Read the rest of the story here.
I talked about this story back in March 2009 in:
Avast Mate! There's pirates on the high seas, the web, and Wall Street.The last decade has been a turning point in American society where traditional norms and truth have fallen alongside the wayside and chaos ...
