new bob and david project

Maybe you have heard already but, Bob and David are now going to have a new show on HBO.


from bobanddavid.com

"I don't know, but I do know this; HBO has officially picked up the pilot Bob and I pitched them and wrote. We should be shooting in LA in the beginning of MAY. We'll keep you posted on exactly when and where (we'll have room for 150 audiencers). We are both very, very excited about it and feel it's really strong and important to the health of America. We know that America is hurting right now and old people like to say that "Laughter's the best medicine" So, keep hope old people, an injection of 10cc's of funny is about to be shot all up in your funny bones!
Just to get you started, here are two completely disparate lines from the show. They are taken out of context and have nothing to do with each other, but are nonetheless actual lines of dialogue. Enjoy!"

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On "60 Minutes" Supreme Court Justice Scalia says "Torture Is Not Punishment"

Here's a summary from Antiwar.com:

In an interview on last Sunday's 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl asked if the term “cruel and unusual punishment” applies to someone “being brutalized by a law enforcement person,” Scalia replied:

“To the contrary, has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don’t think so.”

The exchange continued:

“Well, I think if you are in custody, and you have a policeman who’s taken you into custody…,” Stahl says.

“And you say he’s punishing you?” Scalia asks.

“Sure,” Stahl replies.

“What’s he punishing you for? You punish somebody…,” Scalia says.

“Well because he assumes you, one, either committed a crime…or that you know something that he wants to know,” Stahl says.

“It’s the latter. And when he’s hurting you in order to get information from you…you don’t say he’s punishing you. What’s he punishing you for? He’s trying to extract…,” Scalia says.

“Because he thinks you are a terrorist and he’s going to beat the you-know-what out of you…,” Stahl replies.

“Anyway, that’s my view,” Scalia says. “And it happens to be correct.”

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obama vs. hillary

from a german parade, via Eyeteeth.

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necessary ambience

from the wonderfully-written blog, BLDGBLOG >>

Experimental musician Felix Hess insisted that there be no "extraneous sounds" in the concert hall. Hess's miniature sound performance required absolute silence, or else the machines would not function.
...
It's amazing to think, of course, that anything could pick up, and even respond to, sounds that subtle; but it's also quite incredible to imagine one's own acoustic awareness of architecture as a process of subtraction.

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Air Bear

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Academic Freedom Act in Florida House Debate

some of the most misinformed scientific debate i have seen. what a shameful step backward for florida's public education... what the fuck is happening to our country?

a quote from the video >>

"what this bill does is tells the teacher to go ahead, teach the theory of evolution and make sure that your students have a complete view of that theory, and they know that it is only a theory. it is not gospel law. there's no proof that any species has transitioned from one thing to another. no people have ever come from tadpoles that they have seen."

further, from NPR >>

Florida's House and Senate have passed bills that would allow — or require — teachers to present alternate theories of how life evolved. Proponents say the issue is academic freedom. But critics say the bills would introduce religion into public schools.

...

Florida's House passed the bill by a wide margin Monday. It requires teachers to provide students with "a thorough presentation and scientific critical analysis" of the theory of evolution.

What that analysis would be isn't clear. But proponents say it would have to be scientific, not religious.

Hays said the bill is needed to protect teachers who feel intimidated by school district policies that prevent them from teaching alternate views to the theory of evolution.

Opponents, mostly Democrats like Rep. Franklin Sands, said all the talk about academic freedom is a smokescreen.

"Let's be real clear on what it is that we're actually voting about," Sands said. "We're voting about the separation of church and state. We're voting about teaching religion in the schools. You can couch it any way you want. But that is exactly what we're talking about."

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jeremiah wright's national press club speech

i agree with much of what wright says, and he's well-informed on many of the issues he comments on. but, he seems to nest most of his "controversial" statements as being in line with the black church, writ large, thereby presenting the attacks he has faced as strictly anti-black church, which i don't think it was or is. he's received all the criticism that he has bc of the 9/11-related comments that he said, which is likely not happening in every black church. "this is not an attack on jeremiah wright... this is an attack on the black church." -- i don't agree with that statement.

however, one aspect of this issue, which probably does point to some underlying race issues, is that other people have, of course, had very much the same critical statements he has had, to a much more critical depth, in fact. noam chomsky, for example, went on an interview circuit in the days following 9/11, and said all that wright said, but a lot more, with much more criticism for the american gov't.

the speech starts to heat up about 15 minutes in >> "... whatsoever you sew, that you also shall reap... You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles."

at one point during the post-speech question session, wright is asked if he still thinks the US gov't created HIV/AIDS for a genocidal attack on the black community, and he basically says that he wouldn't put it past the american government. statements such as those are so painfully inaccurate.

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honey, make a foot pussy

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Who has what it takes?

YOU decide!

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crime and perception

from the NYTimes article about filmmaker, Errol Morris, Of Crime and Perception at Abu Ghraib

“I may focus your attention on a small and perhaps irrelevant detail, which I think is not so irrelevant,” he said. “But there’s always an imposition of point of view in anything. There’s this crazy thinking that style guarantees truth. You go out with a hand-held camera, use available light, and somehow the truth emerges.”

“The only thing I do that’s different from other people is I call attention to the fact that I have a point of view,” he continued. “I call attention to the fact that how we see, what we see, is constructed, and that looking at how it’s constructed is often a useful exercise.

“I think people want the appearance of truth,” he said. “They don’t necessarily want the truth.”

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Bitch, you're breakfast.

I think this band is from Holland.

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Go Fox yourself!

part two can be viewed here

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Martin Luther King's 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech, made exactly one year before he was killed

It's a speech I think often overshadowed by his "I have a dream" speech and his final "Mountaintop" speech, but it is nonetheless monumental. Click here to listen, courtesy of AmericanRhetoric.com.

King points out that militarism will continue to mar America in the future. His message is eerily familiar, similar to current criticism of the Iraq War. Also I think it's relevant to the last few posts here on TIA re optimism and patriotism.

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the optimists are right

from the new york times archives comes this wonderful article which describes why the most consistent aspects of humanity are as follows:

1. Humanity's condition will improve in just about every material way.
2. Humans will continue to sit around complaining about everything getting worse.

The Optimists Are Right
By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: September 29, 1996

The future used to be so much simpler. A century ago, prophets had no trouble knowing what life today would be like. The Popular Science Monthly already realized in 1895 that the 20th century would be the Trolley Age. In Looking Backward, the best seller that fomented a national political movement in the 1890s, Edward Bellamy foresaw that the Socialist government of the year 2000 would give each citizen an annual credit card -- and that the allotted sum would be so generous that the happy citizen wouldnt even want to spend it all. The house of 2000, according to H.G. Wells, would have self-cleaning windows, and the floor would be easy to sweep because the architect would have the sense and ability to round off the angle between wall and floor. Wells' most audacious prophecy was about prophecy itself -- what he called the discovery of the future. Soon, he announced in 1902, experts will make forecasts that will be just as certain, just as strictly science, and perhaps just as detailed as the picture that has been built up within the last 100 years to make the geological past. Today his smug confidence sounds preposterous, but in fact Wells was quite prescient. The future has been discovered. Most people still don't realize it, but we can scientifically predict what will happen in the next 100 years.

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bjork's 'wanderlust' video...

... is unbelievable. i can't embed it here, but a little hop to the nytimes music page will let you take it in. it was actually shot entirely in stereoscopic 3-d, so would be even more impressive with a 3-d projector and glasses.

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bathing with bierko, and john malkovich

malkovich! malkovich! malkovich!!

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