Do Not Disturb Any Further

Animated fun with Tim Minchin's "Pope Song"

Again, thanks to GeekDiva Herself for pointing me to this. Tim Minchin gets right to the point in his "Pope Song". And now it's animated. I do so enjoy the coming-together of fine language, music, and visual arts.

 

Gorgeous clothes illustrated

While researching ancient Egyptian pharaoh stuff (really, when am I not doing this?), I came across a collection of illustrations from The History of Costume, which was printed from 1861 to 1880. The photorealistic and brilliant images give a great impression of various styles of clothing.

Here's a few samples:

Young Turks skewer TV, cultural, "news" silliness

My good friend Cheryl introduced me to the Young Turks, a group who offers entertaining commentary on all kinds of political, cultural, and media silliness. Check out the video of a man who is absolutely convinced he can levitate and the interviewer who keeps her cool admirably while he spontaneously demonstrates. Enjoy their take on Glenn Beck and his "profound" principles. Feel uncomfortable during a discussion about the sick humor and sad facts of a PSA depicting a Chris Brown/Rihanna tussle.

The Young Turks gang doesn't get an unqualified two thumbs up, however: I was disappointed by an uncritical interview about the Whole Foods boycott, in which the boycott's originator described his outrage about the Whole Foods CEO's position, seemingly without being aware that he let his outrage guide his actions so that all of the "research" he did supported his reaction further. He also didn't seem aware, or refused to admit, that he -- the freakin' boycott creator -- couldn't list exactly which sources he'd gotten his data from, but he remembered it was in this or that publication by this or that expert. Hardly a shining example of proper research and deductive reasoning. His own "proof" to justify his outrage was his outrage itself, and the Young Turks interviewer let this slide. Bad reporting all around. Whole Foods is a (legal, profitable) corporation that both fulfills its financial duties to its shareholders and mostly succeeds in fulfilling its perceived duty to provide politically correct products and services to a politically correct market. The boycott is being fueled by poorly established self-righteous indignation that damns the entire corporation in retaliation for the (legal, fiscally acceptable within his corporate framework) opinion of the CEO. An educational campaign would be just as effective to counter the CEO's position without seeming so foot-stampingly childish. A more rational approach would be doing actual research, refuting the CEO's comments, providing alternatives, and pointing out how unwise it is to offend the tender sensibilities of Whole Foods' primary customer base.

Talking Points Memo aptly describes another problem with this particular boycott:

But it's also rather horrifying to see Progressives try to destroy someone economically for expressing their opinion on a matter that he has no control over. Someone even compared it to Rosa Parks. But what can Mackey do? He's not on Obama's team. He's not a Republican politician or someone with big connections. Pretty much the most he can do is say, "I apologize for expressing my opinion, I won't do it again" and it affects the progress of health reform not one iota.

It's all just a waste of some good, strong liberal outrage that's going nowhere fast instead of trying for more effective communication and acceptable healthcare options. Hmmm... Just like all the rest of the healthcare debate, isn't it... Okay, enough of the Whole Foods tangent and serious politics stuff. Now, back to your regularly scheduled discussion of entertainment.

So The Young Turks aren't always consistent about the focus of their commentary, but they're damn sure entertaining.

Charming blog post about visiting the capitol

Check out this delightful, art-filled post describing the author's visit to Washington, D.C.

Then, for fun, go watch "I'm Just a Bill" from Schoolhouse Rock. Knowledge is power!

Small sanities: Seattle votes down plastic-bag tax

So some alarmist types are convinced that the Great Scourge of this decade just has to be grocery-store plastic bags. They're filling up our landfills! (Doesn't matter; we're not in any danger of running out of landfill room.) Contributing to litter everywhere! (Prove it.) Killing off marine fauna in devastating numbers! (Again, prove it.) Yep, that one kind of bag does all of those bad, bad things.

I dare you to try to find accurate, current statistics on all of the talking points on this issue. I'm not gonna do all of your research for you, but here's a start:

The plastics-industry-sponsored http://www.thetruthaboutplasticbags.com/facts.html site has more verifiable facts than the oh-so-neutral http://www.reusablebags.com site. The latter, for example, says "Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food." This statement is not just misleading, it's wrong (it's plastic debris, not bags) and was corrected three freakin' years ago. Not to mention that the explicit use of "sea turtle" handily brings to mind those cute, weepy-eyed, endangered critters that elicit lots of sympathy, so you won't notice the absurdly broad "marine animal", which includes brine shrimp and slugs and freakin' plankton, whose deaths-by-plastic aren't so, well, boring. Oh, and let's not forget that there's probably only a small percentage of animals big enough to think of bags as food, but any animal of any size could be taken in by debris. It's mighty convenient phrasing to focus the discussion on turtles and bags, instead of amorphous and less glamourous animals and debris.

The proposed solution to the Great Plastic Bag Threat is a $.20 fee on plastic bags. With a shitload of exceptions and rules.

I'll agree that plastics degrade disappointingly slowly. But so does everything else we throw away. I'll agree that marine animals are occasionlly being choked by plastics. But they're being choked by all kinds of plastics, including fishing gear and the now-infamous 6-pack rings, not just plastic bags. I will NOT agree that grocery-store plastic bags are the new DDT, nor that landfills are overflowing due to massive piles of unused bags, nor that a tax should be created because it's politically appealing regardless of a lack of evidence.

The proposed fee would allegedly "encourage" people to bring their own bags when shopping. Never mind the fact that paper bags wouldn't be subject to the fee. You know, because paper bags are made from renewable resources and have no negative effect on the environment... Never mind the fact that many types of bags and all non-bag plastics (e.g., the aforementioned fishing gear) would be exempt from the fee. Never mind the additional paperwork for retailers, or the poor schlubs who work the checkout counter and will get yelled at for enforcing the fee.

The most obvious point I can make about this staggering waste of time and money is that grocery-store plastic bags are already recyclable. Every Safeway, QFC, Whole Foods, and Albertson's everywhere provides a free recycling container in-store. But you don't even have to waste gas to drive to the store: 

The bags can be recycled with other allowed plastics in the regular recycling.

Read that part again. Then think about whether there's a single other thing in the world that you have to pay a fee for even if you're going to recycle it. (No, a bottle deposit is not the same thing.)

There are so many flaws with the original proposal, and the alleged "arguments" in favor of it, that I just can't list them all.

I am relieved that, for whatever reasons, Seattle voters soundly voted down this particular idiocy on yesterday's ballot.

Knowing how to hold a grudge: 47 ronin

These guys really could hold a grudge. I admire that.

Fascinating century-old photos from Japan

Okinawa Soba has a large collection of old photos from Japan up on Flickr. Many of them provide extensive background info, offering a look into the culture of the times.

You may not want to start with the intriguing Prostitutes in Old Japan. The background info is not for the faint of heart. My rage is ignited. (Disclaimer: My rage is easily ignited, regardless of the history or cultural background of anything.)

Examining some costs of anti-terror "safety"

From Daily Kos, via Bruce Schneier:

The Staggering Cost of Playing it "Safe"

(Capitalization is sic.)

Quote:

Since that day in 2001, every passenger entering a commercial airliner has been required to remove their shoes for inspection and X-ray. A precaution that is... massively, even breathtakingly idiotic.

"Once Were Warriors" and Maori background

So I was channel surfing and I came across "Once Were Warriors", a film about a family descended from Maori warriors who live in poverty in modern-day New Zealand and whose father is a violent drunk. I've seen it before, and I knew it would be despressing, but I got caught up in it again and watched it to the end. Yep, still depressing.

Researching Maori stuff later, I learned that New Zealand and other rugby teams perform traditional hakas before their rugby games.

See some at YouTube.

PS -- If you go to IMDB to check out the movie credits, look at the careers of Cliff Curtis, Temuera Morrison, and George Hanare. If you can bear sitting through Deep Rising, you can see Cliff Curtis with lovely Maori-style face tattoos.

Religious affiliations of influential historical people

Painfully small number of women included, but interesting nonetheless. And Jesus is not listed as #1--read the info at the bottom for some info about why.

More debate about lies & fraud in 2004 election

Much badness was done, says Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Oh, please, RFK Jr, get yer facts straight, says Farhad Manjoo at Slate

Read 'em both and make up your own mind. I made up my mind that I'm confused.

Andean pyramid was farm clock

More sweet news that long-ago humans were just as smart as we modern apes.