Another Waste of Time

Brilliant. dodgethewater: tothebarricades: Jeff Bridges,...

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:10:15 -0700

Brilliant.

tothebarricades:

Jeff Bridges, everybody.

Even I am mildly uncomfortable with this picture.

Me Crush Middle-Class Tax Hike

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:53:32 -0700

I worked for ten years in political communications, and this satirical op-ed in The Onion by “Senator Gronk” parodies what I did every day absolutely perfectly: ”Raaaah! Gronk hate H.R. 3712, the Income And Property Tax Reassessment Act! Senator Gronk crush middle-class tax hike!”

Comparing airline routes to internet traffic: Comparing maps of...

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 02:22:25 -0700

Comparing airline routes to internet traffic:

Comparing maps of communication past and present reveals parallel patterns. The upper image shows the movement of passengers on airplanes across the United States; the lower one, the flow of bits across the Internet. “It is the largest thing we have ever built,” says Whitesides, “and we have assembled it from transistors—the smallest things we know how to make. It is a chrysalis we are forming around the planet…a table where we sit to gossip, a suq where we buy and sell; a shadowy corner for planning mischief; a library holding the entire world’s information; a friend, a game, a matchmaker, a psychiatrist, an erotic dream, a babysitter, a teacher, a spy….The best and worst and most ordinary of us reflected—and perhaps distorted—in a silvery fog of bits.”

Photo

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:59:31 -0700

Sunglasses over sunglasses. Brilliant. Gotta love CSI Miami.

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 10:11:35 -0700

Sunglasses over sunglasses. Brilliant. Gotta love CSI Miami.

My mom ROCKS.

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:34:00 -0700

My mom ROCKS.

British Courts: Faith is Faith

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:22:01 -0700

British courts have just equated deeply held beliefs about the environment to deeply held religious beliefs. Is this progress towards enlarging region’s role in the public sphere? From The Economist:

“A BELIEF in man-made climate change and the alleged resulting moral imperatives is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations.” Those were the words of an English High Court judge, Mr Justice Burton, on November 3rd as he ruled that green beliefs deserve the same protection in the workplace as religious convictions.
…
At an earlier hearing on October 7th, Mr Justice Burton had asserted that “if a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based on science as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify it from protection”. He provided a five-pronged test to shore up the ruling: the belief must be genuinely held; it must be held for a long period of time; it must relate to something of grave importance to humanity; it must reach a certain level of cogency and seriousness; and it must not trample on existing ideas of human rights. By way of example, he said belief in the supremacy of the Jedi knights of “Star Wars” fame would be excluded, but he conceded that allegiance to the doctrines of Marxism or communism might not.

What’s with the British hatin’ on the Jedi?

"The poor tell us who we are. The prophets tell us who we can be. So we hide the poor and kill the..."

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:21:13 -0700

“The poor tell us who we are. The prophets tell us who we can be. So we hide the poor and kill the prophets.”

- Philip Berrigan (via Sojourners)

This really, really bothers me. From The Economist: A quarter...

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:21:34 -0600

This really, really bothers me. From The Economist:

A quarter of America’s total income is earned by the top 1%

AMERICA is the wealthiest country in the world and its rich keep earning more. In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, the top 1% increased their share of the country’s income to 23.5%, according to analysis of tax returns by a pair of economists, Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. The concentration of income earned by this top percentile now stands at its highest since 1928 [right before the great depression -JKB]. Two-thirds of the country’s total gains in the five years to 2007 accrued to the top 1%, whereas the bottom 90th percentile saw only 12% of the extra income.

C’est tres bien! Oui oui! Sometimes, it’s just...

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:03:05 -0600

C’est tres bien! Oui oui! Sometimes, it’s just better when it’s French.

(via @loic)

Standing in line to see Kennedy

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:56:11 -0600

Standing in line to see Kennedy

willzone: Big Lebowski Last Supper clicky to biggy Since my...

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:54:13 -0600

willzone:

Big Lebowski Last Supper

clicky to biggy

Since my name is Jeff Bridges and I start divinity school tomorrow, this was a required reblog.

"I find it a perpetual struggle – to collect more minutes in a day that matter. More minutes I would..."

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:38:00 -0600

“I find it a perpetual struggle – to collect more minutes in a day that matter. More minutes I would be proud of or better for instead of those that evaporate in the pursuit of easy comfort… I don’t think it’s about avoiding pleasure or what makes us happy – it’s about not wasting all of our energy on what offers vapid gratification instead of the overwhelming joy and fortification that comes through purpose, effort and depth.”

- sunnynsassy commenting on on a quote by Henry Miller.

Amen, sister. Preach on.

Great little five minute blurb on how to work a crowd. (via...

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:04:05 -0600

Great little five minute blurb on how to work a crowd.

(via Lifehacker)

T.R. Reid in the Washington Post: 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:44:49 -0600

T.R. Reid in the Washington Post: 5 Myths About Health Care Around the World:

1. It’s all socialized medicine out there.

In some ways, health care is less “socialized” overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life.

2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.

Studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations — Germany, Britain, Austria — outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries.

3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.

U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing.

4. Cost controls stifle innovation

Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs. Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98.

5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

Foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people’s medical bills, not to make a profit. The United States is the only developed country that lets insurance companies profit from basic health coverage.

"Thus, the best strategy, from the perspective of maximising shareholder value, is probably for..."

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:25:51 -0600

“Thus, the best strategy, from the perspective of maximising shareholder value, is probably for customers to know as little as possible about the personal opinions of a company’s boss.”

- The Economist on Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s [asinine] oped in the WSJ.

Vacations.com waxes nostalgic about the glory days of flight...

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:32:45 -0600

Vacations.com waxes nostalgic about the glory days of flight with a 50 picture retrospective:

When the stewardesses resembled beauty pageant contestants, when pilots seemed likes heroes, and when flying still seemed to be an adventure - to remind us, of just how things once were.

These days I get excited when they still give out actual peanuts. Think any airlines will dust off those retro uniforms, a la the NFL/MLB?

(via BootsnAll)

Some great advice on “Personal branding, integrity and...

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:06:29 -0600

Some great advice on “Personal branding, integrity and blogging” from Modite. In short, avoid posting anything that doesn’t reflect your values or that you wouldn’t feel comfortable standing by if it somehow went public.

I’m off to edit my tumblr now…

"For the church to lack love is for the church to lack everything. No heresy could conceivably be..."

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:04:54 -0600

“For the church to lack love is for the church to lack everything. No heresy could conceivably be worse! Until the culture at large instinctively identifies us as loving, humble servants, and until the tax collectors and prostitutes of our day are beating down our doors to hang out with us as they did with Jesus, we have every reason to accept our culture’s judgment of us as correct. We are indeed more pharisaic than we are Christlike.”

- Greg Boyd (via azspot:sunnynsassy)

"If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can..."

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:03:15 -0600

“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.”

- C.S. Lewis (via psychotherapy:blahyadablah:sunnynsassy)