Doug's Weblog

Clueless Congressman Thinks Onion Article on ‘Abortionplex’ Was Real

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:21:20 -0500

Clueless Congressman Thinks Onion Article on ‘Abortionplex’ Was Real:

Click pic to embiggen

How bad has education gotten in this country that an electorate could produce (a Dr. yet!) and vote into office someone who hasn’t learned how to do even the most trivial of critical thinking?

Rep. John Fleming has deleted his Facebook post linking to an article in The Onion about a fictional Planned Parenthood “Abortionplex.”

In a Facebook status on Friday, the Louisiana Republican alerted his followers to The Onion’s May 18, 2011 article, “Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex” and wrote “More on Planned Parenthood, abortion by the wholesale.” Fleming’s spokesman Doug Sachtleben confirmed to POLITICO the post has since been removed from the congressman’s Facebook page and said the office had no further comment.
[…]
The fictional Abortionplex includes more than 2,000 rooms dedicated to the procedure, as well as “coffee shops, bars, dozens of restaurants and retail outlets, a three-story nightclub, and a 10-screen multiplex theater — features intended not only to help clients relax, but to foster a sense of community and make abortion more of a social event.”

The Onion’s editor, Joe Randazzo, said the publication is proud to count Fleming as a reader.

You might also enjoy some comments made by less gullible readers of the Onion article.

Some People (i.e. Leonard Cohen Fans) Still Buy CDs, Even Online

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:57:53 -0500

Some People (i.e. Leonard Cohen Fans) Still Buy CDs, Even Online:

As a tech writer, it is a good thing to remind myself that my habits are alien to most people in America. Not only do I pay for all my music, but I do it via the subscription service, Rdio, not Spotify or Pandora, or I get vinyl.

Meanwhile, out in America, there are people buying CDs. Even when these people go on to the Internet to buy music, they order the CDs and have them delivered. Billboard’s latest numbers provide a perfect snapshot of the wide gulf in music purchasing behavior between (presumably) young and old. Fans of Lana Del Rey, whose album debuted at #2, one notch above Leonard Cohen’s first studio album in eight years, bought downloadable music or a CD in a store. Cohen’s fans were spread across brick-and-mortar retailers, downloads, and Internet CD sales.

Thirty-five percent of Cohen’s new album’s sales came from physical albums sold via Internet retailers. To compare, only 1% of Del Rey’s first-week physical CD sales came from Internet sellers. On the other hand, 74% of Del Rey’s sales were downloads, while digital sales represented 30% for Cohen.

I can understand brick-and-mortar purchases; I love a good music store as much as the next nerd. I can understand buying music for download: it’s nearly instantaneous and usually a bit cheaper. But that last group, the big green slice of Leonard Cohen’s pie. I do not understand them at all. Perhaps they are audiophiles who value the tiny difference between CD-quality and near-CD quality. Or perhaps they have dial-up modems that make downloading music difficult.

Whoever they might be, their consumption preference reminds us to think about the technologies that people actually use, rather than the ones they might use at some point in the future.

Psycho Siri What happens when Apple iPhone 4S’s mobile assistant...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:57:01 -0500

Psycho Siri

What happens when Apple iPhone 4S’s mobile assistant Siri sprouts legs and holds a grudge? Take a look at the Youtube video being shared like crazy and scaring people into doing menial phone tasks for themselves.

“Psycho Siri” explores what could happen with the technology that speaks to you — and it’s going viral on YouTube.

Eighteen-year-old aspiring filmmaker Andrew McMurry and his brother, 21-year-old Nathan McMurry, starred in and produced the film in about a week. “Psycho Siri” starts off with Nathan finding an iPhone on the ground outside class without any apps or a SIM card, but with Siri fully loaded.

The four-minute clip has already garnered more than 346,700 views since its YouTube launch Feb. 3.

“I am overwhelmed by the amount of great responses the video has been getting,” Andrew told Mashable. “People seem to really like the whole ‘Siri turning into a psychotic murderer’ idea.”

Andrew says he wanted to incorporate Siri into a film because of the recent advancement of artificial intelligence and it’s something he thinks about often. Plus, the “monotone computer voice” creeps him out.

SEE ALSO: iPhone 4S: Siri Politely Answers 10 Absurd Questions

“My main intention wasn’t to make [people] question technology, but to simply entertain them,” he says.

This video reminds us of another creepy Siri video called “Siri: The Holiday Horror Video.” After watching this short film, how do you feel about Siri?

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Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:55:04 -0500

Study: Racism, Conservatism, Authoritarianism, Anti-Gay Beliefs Linked to Low IQ

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:05:33 -0500

Study: Racism, Conservatism, Authoritarianism, Anti-Gay Beliefs Linked to Low IQ:

Huh. Who could have guessed this? Other than intelligent people, of course.

Are racists dumb? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent than liberals? A provocative new study from Brock University in Ontario suggests the answer to both questions may be a qualified yes. The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.
[…]
“Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies.”

But Nosek said less intelligent types might be attracted to liberal “simplifying ideologies” as well as conservative ones.

For some reason, I think there may be a few who disagree with the findings.

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Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:19:03 -0500

Want to Take a Dream Vacation?

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:02:38 -0500

Want to Take a Dream Vacation?

Culture Desk: The Master from Flint Hill: Earl Scruggs : The New Yorker

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:59:34 -0500

Culture Desk: The Master from Flint Hill: Earl Scruggs : The New Yorker:

Posted by Steve Martin

Some nights he had the stars of North Carolina shooting from his fingertips. Before him, no one had ever played the banjo like he did. After him, everyone played the banjo like he did, or at least tried. In 1945, when he first stood on the stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and played banjo the way no one had ever heard before, the audience responded with shouts, whoops, and ovations. He performed tunes he wrote as well as songs they knew, with clarity and speed like no one could imagine, except him. When the singer came to the end of a phrase, he filled the theatre with sparkling runs of notes that became a signature for all bluegrass music since. He wore a suit and Stetson hat, and when he played he smiled at the audience like what he was doing was effortless. There aren’t many earthquakes in Tennessee, but that night there was.

As boys in the little community of Flint Hill, near Shelby, North Carolina, Earl and his brother Horace would take their banjo and guitar and start playing on the porch, then split up and meet behind the house. Their goal was to still be on the beat when they rejoined at the back. Momentously, when he was ten years old, after a fight with his brother, he was playing his banjo to calm his mind. He was practicing the standard “Reuben” when found he could incorporate his third finger into the picking of his right hand, instead of the his usual two, in an unbroken, rolling, staccato. He ran back to his brother, shouting, “I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” He was on the way to creating an entirely new way of playing the banjo: Scruggs Style.

He was only twenty-one when he was in on the founding of bluegrass music, adding the Scruggs’ banjo sound to Bill Monroe’s great blend of guitar, bass, fiddle, mandolin, and Monroe’s iconic high, lonesome voice, singing, “It’s mighty dark for me to travel.” He had already been playing Scruggs style for eleven years. On the Grand Ole Opry’s Ryman Auditorium stage, the banjo had been played well, but mostly in the old style, and mostly by comedians, prompting Uncle Dave Macon, a beloved regular, to say about Earl from the wings, “That boy can play the banjo, but he ain’t one damned bit funny.”

It was at the Ryman, in 1946, that he met his future wife, Louise. They made eye contact while he was performing as she sat in the third row, stage left. Ten years later, when it became obvious that Earl was not only famous but verging on a legend, Louise, exhibiting country firmness and gumption, became his gate-keeper, defending the soft-spoken Earl from celebrity abuse, ill-advised contracts, and too many free dates or dubious honors. But Earl always obliged the youngsters and amateurs (including this writer, whom Earl showed how to play “Sally Goodin’,” his way, when I was twenty-two).

Sometime after Monroe denied him songwriting credit on “Bluegrass Breakdown,” Scruggs left Monroe, changed the F chord in “Bluegrass Breakdown” to E minor, and wrote “Foggy Mountain Breakdown. ” It became, arguably, the most famous banjo instrumental, a song that speeds along at a clip of eleven notes per second. It is known by most people as the theme from the movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” and also supplied Earl with an income for life.

The banjo lends itself to showing off: it’s often played fast and thrillingly, fingers flying up and down the neck, the right hand connecting to the left with seemingly impossible accuracy. But Earl always remembered his mother’s advice when he was a boy: “Play something that has a tune to it.” His first and last priority was to make music, which keeps his sound melodic and accessible. Yet, even professional players today say, “How did he do that?” It is not easy to make the melody note land in the right place when rolling three fingers over five strings, but Earl could syncopate, “bend” a string—which caused one note to move unbroken into another—and he could audibly retune the banjo in the middle of a song, leading to the invention of a mechanical device called “Scruggs’ pegs.” Earl knew when and how to surprise the heck out of the listener.

After he left Monroe, in 1948, Scruggs teamed up with Lester Flatt, who had also left Monroe, and Earl maintained his position, unassailed, as the greatest and most influential banjo player who ever lived. They toured the rough backroads of the bluegrass circuit, where jarring potholes knocked their instruments haywire, and they tuned each night to Flatt’s G string on his guitar—which, over the months, crept up in pitch. By the end of the tour, they were often a half-step too high, which they soon learned suited Flatt’s baritone voice.

The long zigzag march through the clubs and radio stations of America counted, though, and Monroe was annoyed as Flatt and Scruggs became as famous as he was. In 1962, they headlined the Newport Folk Festival, sold out Carnegie Hall, and, one year later, Earl’s banjo helped send “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” to No. 1 on the country charts. Then the Bob Dylan revolution and Beatles revolution hit almost simultaneously. At one point, a producer convinced the band to incorporate this new music into Flatt and Scruggs, persuading Flatt to sing, unbecomingly, “Everybody must get stoned.” Earl split with Lester Flatt in 1969 for a hundred reasons, but one among them was he had never approved of Flatt’s onstage joke in reference to a raucous member of the band: “He’s got a mouth on him like Martin Luther King.”

In the late nineteen-sixties, Earl continued to be introduced to new sounds through his musical sons Randy and Gary, and also by drop-ins to his Nashville house: Bob Dylan, the Byrds, and others who wanted to pick with the famous Earl Scruggs. Ravi Shankar came by with his sitar, and, after their unlikely jam session, they satisfied Ravi’s mystical craving for Kentucky Fried Chicken by sharing a bucket. Eventually, Earl grew his hair a bit long, joined Randy and Gary to create the Earl Scruggs Revue, and added drums to the band—a bluegrass no-no. A few years later, he released a solo album featuring songs by Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles. When he showed up at a Washington, D.C., anti-Vietnam War protest, the country-music world from which he sprang wondered if he had blown a gasket.

A grand part of American music owes a debt to Earl Scruggs. Few players have changed the way we hear an instrument the way Earl has, putting him in a category with Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Chet Atkins, and Jimi Hendrix. His reach extends not only throughout America, but to other countries, including Japan, where bluegrass bands, strangely, abound, as well as Australia, Russia, the U.K., Italy, Germany, and the Czech Republic, which boasts not only bands but banjo makers. Most, if not all, of the banjo players play Scruggs style.

Earl is now eighty-eight, and it’s been seventy-eight years since he first shouted, “I’ve got it!” and reinvigorated the banjo. Picking with Earl at his home in Nashville is a holy anointment, and playing Earl’s banjo, the one he recorded “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” on in 1949, well, that’s like holding the Grail. Sometimes on these special evenings, everyone will sit around playing their instruments, and the tunes will glide easily from one to another, like it has on the porches and living rooms of America for hundreds of years. But then Earl will settle in, playing backup or taking the lead, and you hear the sound, the one you heard when you first fell in love with the banjo, and you can’t help but have a slight intake of breath. Unmistakable. That’s Earl Scruggs. The five-string banjo could not have had a better genius.

The author wishes to thank Gary Scruggs, Pete Wernick, and Tony Trischka for confirming facts and contributing memories to this article

Bill Maher - Irritable Bowl Syndrome

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:18:45 -0500

Bill Maher - Irritable Bowl Syndrome

Jimmy Fallon Invents “Te-Bowie”

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:59:15 -0500

Jimmy Fallon Invents “Te-Bowie”

Grooveshark's New HTML5 Mobile Webapp Streams Music to Your Smartphone for Free

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:43:48 -0500

Grooveshark's New HTML5 Mobile Webapp Streams Music to Your Smartphone for Free:

Grooveshark now offers a mobile webapp that plays music without the help of Flash, works on just about any smartphone, and doesn’t require a Grooveshark Premium account to use.

Grooveshark, one of our favorite music streaming services, has long offered apps for Andorid, jailbroken iPhones (after being pulled from the App Store), and other devices, but they require a premium account to use. If you aren’t jailbroken and just want to listen to a couple songs, their new HTML5-powered webapp will work wonders. It’s in beta right now, and still pretty feature-bare, so don’t expect to be able to log in and listen to your playlists. You can, however, search for artists, listen to streaming radio stations, or see what’s popular, which is great for those quick one-off listens if you don’t have a particular song on your iPod. And, like other HTML5-powered webapps, it can keep playing music even if you close Safari. To check it out, just head tohtml5.grooveshark.com on your phone.

Activist Post: Setting the Record Straight: Did Monsanto Really Buy Blackwater (Xe)?

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:27:03 -0500

Activist Post: Setting the Record Straight: Did Monsanto Really Buy Blackwater (Xe)?: Source

Anthony Gucciardi
Activist Post

There has been a great deal of publicity over the potential purchase of Blackwater (now known as Academi, and Xe before that) by mega corporation Monsanto.

While the two seem to be a great match, as they both fail to consider the morality and consequence of their actions, it seems that Monsanto is only involved with Blackwater in infiltrating activist groups who are opposed to the biotech giant — an operation quite sinister enough.

The truth of the matter is that Academi (Blackwater) was purchased by private investors, and the heavily sourcedarticle written by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation actually says nothing about Monsanto buying Blackwater.

What the articles does say, however, is that Monsanto and Blackwater are indeed working together to target anti-Monsanto activists and organizations.

Known as far back as 2010, Blackwater’s client list included Monsanto, Chevron, Walt Disney and many more.

According to documents obtained by Scahill, it was also revealed that Monsanto was willing to pay upwards of $500,000 in order for Blackwater to join anti-Monsanto activist groups and infiltrate the ranks. Furthermore, a number of Internet-based tactics could be utilized as incognito PR for Monsanto, who undoubtedly knew opposition would mount against their GMO crops as more individuals became aware of the dangers.

Amazingly, the document stated that Monsanto was ‘concerned about animal rights activists’ and that they discussed how Blackwater could ‘have our person(s) actually join [activist] group(s) legally.’

Of course this occurred back in 2008, and Monsanto admitted in e-mails that the relationship lasted until around 2010 — near the time the information came to light. Raw Story reports:

In an… e-mail to The Nation, Wilson confirmed he met Black in Zurich and that Monsanto hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and worked with the company until early 2010.

Even though Monsanto may not have purchased Blackwater, their relationship with them remains quite clear. Both organizations are noted for their crimes against humanity, and they really do have a twisted synergy of sorts, so it is quite easy to see how the topic became viral.

While they may not be owned by the same individuals, one thing is clear: the relationship between these two companies is enough cause for alarm.

reddit going dark for a day to protest SOPA online censorship bill

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:26:04 -0500

reddit going dark for a day to protest SOPA online censorship bill:

Rep. Lamar Smith: Not popular with SOPA opponents

On January 18, the online community at reddit will go dark for 12 hours in opposition of the Stop Online Piracy Act now being considered in the House and its companion PROTECT IP Act in the Senate. Both bills would give copyright holders tremendous power to have websites blocked, to get their advertising cut off, and to shut down their credit card or PayPal payments.

reddit’s community has been organizing all manner of objections to the two bills, including a targeted (and successful) boycott of GoDaddy, which supported the legislation. This time, site admins decided to get involved in order to get the word out to all of reddit’s users.

“Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action,” they announced yesterday.

“We’re not taking this action lightly. We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t believe this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to reddit and the Internet as we know it.”

Community members have been using /r/sopa to organize, posting custom signs, various pieces of Internet anti-SOPA artwork (see the top of this post for an example targeting top SOPA backer Rep. Lamar Smith), and suggestions for making their collective voice even louder. One idea: try to convince Google to join the blackout.

Illustration by ChadRocco

Handmade TARDIS purse

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:24:25 -0500

Handmade TARDIS purse :

Etsy seller LIMOchi makes these killer “poly leather” TARDIS purses to order for all your time-travelling bits and bobs. The seller claims that they are, indeed, bigger on the inside than they are on the outside.

( Not an official Doctor Who product , made by fan, to fan )… Measures: 28 x 16 x16 cm In blue poly leather and rigid cardboard. Also some details can be custom made. Sent in a beautiful box DW themed.

Angry Birds Christmas Light Game

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:43:17 -0500

Angry Birds Christmas Light Game

A tribute to Bill Hicks: Keith wishes the ‘eternal’ comedian a...

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:49:23 -0500

A tribute to Bill Hicks: Keith wishes the ‘eternal’ comedian a happy 50th birthday

Ryan Adams Fined $30 for Hypersensitivity

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:43:19 -0500

Ryan Adams Fined $30 for Hypersensitivity:

He fined himself actually:

Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams, former leader of the band Whiskeytown, reacted with stream of expletives and ordered the house lights turned on, the Tennessean newspaper reported.

The alternative country musician found the fan who made the joke request, paid him $30 cash as a refund for the show, ordered him to leave and said he wouldn’t play another note until that happened.

Ryman general manager Pam Matthews stopped the fan on his way out, “apologized profusely” and allowed him back into the concert.

The fan kept Adams’s $30.

After the show Matthews held Adams’s arms behind his back while the fan kicked him in the nads.

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:15:08 -0500

In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011 Vanity Fair

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 06:44:31 -0500

In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011 Vanity Fair:

BY GASPER TRINGALE.

Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.

“Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centered and even solipsistic,” Hitchens wrote nearly a year ago in Vanity Fair, but his own final labors were anything but: in the last 12 months, he produced for this magazine a piece on U.S.-Pakistani relations in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, a portrait of Joan Didion, an essay on the Private Eyeretrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a prediction about the future of democracy in Egypt, a meditation on the legacy of progressivism in Wisconsin, and a series of frank, graceful, and exquisitely written essays in which he chronicled the physical and spiritual effects of his disease. At the end, Hitchens was more engaged, relentless, hilarious, observant, and intelligent than just about everyone else—just as he had been for the last four decades.

“My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends,” he wrote in the June 2011 issue. He died in their presence, too, at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. May his 62 years of living, well, so livingly console the many of us who will miss him dearly.

Each star marks a US millitary base, but just so we’re all...

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:25:06 -0500

Each star marks a US millitary base, but just so we’re all clear: Iran is threatening us