linkdump

premature electacation

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 22:45:00 GMT

Technorati watchlist for www.vervroegdeverkiezingennu.nl

Torture pictures still withheld

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 00:04:00 GMT

Senior Pentagon officials have opposed the release of photographs and videotapes of the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, arguing that they would incite public opinion in the Muslim world and put the lives of American soldiers and officials at risk.

NYT: Officials See Risk in the Release of Images of Iraq Prisoner Abuse. Registration required, Bugmenot is your friend.

Well-known songs performed by dictionaries

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 02:45:00 GMT

dic·tio·nar·a·o·ke.org: This site features parodies of popular songs using karaoke-style backing music with vocals provided by audio pronunciation samples from online dictionaries. All of these songs are available for download in MP3 format on their main index page.
Pronunciation:'dik-sh&-"ner-A-O-ke dOt-Org

Sample:

Friday Cat?

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Sat, 07 May 2005 01:35:00 GMT

Oh well, it's Saturday allready, but anyways, here's Otje floating on sweet dreams. If you think the picture has a funny look about it, then you're right, it's because I brought out the Gimp.

In other news, here's a bloke with a keen insight in what goes on in Kitty's furry little head. A quote on hampering:

6) When human is working at computer, jump up on desk, walk across keyboard, bat at mouse pointer on screen and then lay in human's lap across arms, hampering typing in progress.

Via Mijnkopthee.

Interweb

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Mon, 02 May 2005 00:07:00 GMT

Progress: Since its inception almost 30 years ago, the internet has been transformed from a primitive device for sharing thoughts and ideas, into a massive network where people pay to connect and read advertisements they don't want, while calling each other "asshats".

Link found on Fark.

Radio Byrne

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 20:36:00 GMT

Click for ideosyncratic goodness. I'm now listening to: Merceditas - Lacho - Cancionas Cubanas de Cuna.

In other news: David Byrne, of Talking Heads fame, has a "just don't call this a blog" journal on his site and a nice piece about the cultural isolation the USA is entering, because foreign artistst are denied visas.

The tightening of the borders in recent years, while it may be understandable regarding genuinely suspicious individuals, is in fact applied with almost no rhyme or reason — although in fact it may only appear to be without reason. A friend told me over a lunch meeting that a chunk of Pina Bausch’s troupe of dancers, based in Wuppertal, Germany, were denied entry, which effectively scuttled the performances that were booked months ahead of time. A tango group in Buenos Aires told me a week or two ago that they have toured Europe 3 times recently but have been consistently denied U.S. visas, so at this point the U.S. doesn't even figure into their performance plans.

Later on he doubts if this isolation is involuntary.

It amounts to a kind of cultural censorship. Call me paranoid, but given all the manipulative tricks the Republicans have gotten up to recently, I am prepared to believe that this has less to do with Homeland security and more to do with keeping the American public ignorant and free of foreign influence and inspiration. An ill-informed, isolated, ignorant populace is a populace easily manipulated. Fed a diet of reality shows coupled with faith-based reasoning (an oxymoron if ever there was one) and you have a perfect recipe for a country in which the government that can do more or less whatever it wants. Democracy becomes a farce without access to information. And culture — music, theater, dance, etc. — is information for the heart.

Via boingboing

Powered by Bigotry

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 12:40:00 GMT

Angry M$ employee: Microsoft needs to feel the pain of a bad decision here.

The Stranger: Pressured by Evangelical Minister, Microsoft Withdraws Support for Civil Rights Bill.

Another nice graphic here.

Unmitigated Audacity

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:50:00 GMT

Built by the freedom-loving guys of the Alaskan Alpine Club, this ice tower stands 150 feet tall on the outskirts of Fairbanks. Just stick an array of nozzles to the end of a hose, put it up a pole and start spraying, the Alaskan winter does the rest. Sounds easy, but a lot of engineering and ice-climbing was involved.

Via retecool

Computational linguist: 'My wife is weeping with delight over my hardness and enlargement'.

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 16:19:00 GMT

Don't ask me how I got there, but this morning I ended up staring at Tokyo Damage Report, a page about interesting (meaning, fucked up) things that one can do in Tokyo. punk, visual, cosplay, s/m, gothic, street trends, capsule hotels, bizarre magazines, random subcultures, and bad Engrish. . . . .also it is about tokyo's urban legends: square watermelons, Sanrio condoms, politically incorrect vending machines, etc. . ..

And it does what it says on the tin. From scans of a book on Adult English via this SM rave (some pics NSFW) to an interview with a French computational linguist currently working in Tokyo, it's all strange Japanese pop-culture goodness.

In IE I got that pesky panel inviting me to download 2.5 Mb of Japanese characters, and ignoring it resulted in blank pages. Here's an image from the Engrish pr0n book.

Avery for Pope

The Balko formerly known as Gort — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 23:18:00 GMT

Vote Avery Ant for Pope: Because J2P2 can’t live forever. Or can he?

Via Bloggerheads.