The Grand Panjandrum

The Feynman Lectures

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:06:00 +0000

The Feynman Lecture series are now online and thanks to Bill Gates they are free to be viewed by anyone. The seven hour long lectures are a treasure for anyone who loves science.

(via Kottke)

I Never Thougth I'd Live This Long

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:12:00 +0000

P071409PS-0556
Originally uploaded by The Official White House Photostream

Willie Mays was my favorite player when I was growing up as a kid. Candlestick Park was a magical place for a 10 year old boy who loved baseball. I got to shake his hand just prior to a game once, and it was all I could talk about for months.

I love this picture.

Darwin Award Nominee

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:02:00 +0000

Sigh:

Maria Barbu, 17, of Brasov, Romania, is said to have been plugging her laptop into wall current at the time, after "the battery died during a long session on social networking site Twitter as she took a soak."

Additional details are lacking, and are unlikely to be forthcoming anytime soon. And it's unclear whether the laptop slipped from her hands or if she was so wet that the water dripping off of her closed the circuit and caused the shock.

(h/t rhythm7a)

CNBC's Muppet

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:02:00 +0000

I didn't realize Beaker had an on-air job with CNBC. Nevertheless, watch Chris Hays, Washington Editor for the The Nation pwn CNBC lightweight Dennis Kneale.

Sunday Night Awesome

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 01:09:00 +0000

Love from two twelve on Vimeo.

They Call It Puppy Love

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:07:00 +0000

(via John Cole)

A story from the Wall Street Journal about service dogs for veterans suffering from PTSD.

Like any other golden retriever seeking a treat, Tuesday nudged his owner’s hand with his snout one recent morning and waited expectantly.
Luis Carlos Montalvan got up from a chair in his small Brooklyn apartment and walked to the kitchen. Tuesday followed close behind, eyes fixed on a white cabinet. The retriever sat alertly as Mr. Montalvan, an Iraq war veteran with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, reached for a vial of pills, lined a half-dozen on the table and took them one by one.

The dog had gotten what he wanted: When the last pill was swallowed, he got up and followed his master out of the kitchen, tail wagging.

Tuesday is a so-called psychiatric-service dog, a new generation of animals trained to help people whose suffering is not physical, but emotional. They are, effectively, Seeing Eye dogs for the mind.

Contrast the difference in the quality of the marvelous reporting thoughout most of the paper and right wing drivel spilling from the Op/Ed page and one wonders how this cognitive dissonance came to exist, or was it always so?

Palin Did It For The Money

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:38:00 +0000

Some Taibbi Gold

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:35:00 +0000

My Three Friends

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:04:00 +0000

Who are the three people I would most like to get drunk with? Well two of them are dead but they are on my list anyway. I put Hunter S. Thompson and Molly Ivins on the list because loved reading their well written, often hilarious, and always insightful work. I wished they were still here. But the third on my list is Matt Taibbi who you may know from his work for Rolling Stone. He has a great piece in the latest issue about Goldman Sachs and their role in the current financial market meltdown. He also put up this response to some of the critics of the piece. It is pure gold Taibbi.

Why didn’t we write about Morgan? Because we didn’t. Because it’s your turn, you assholes. Maybe later someone will tell the story of the other banks, but for now, while most ordinary people are only just learning about the workings of the financial innovation era that blew up in their faces last year, the top dog in that universe is going to be first in line to get the special treatment. That might be inconvenient for Goldman, but it doesn’t make the things I or anyone else say about them untrue.

This Day in Chrisitanism

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Last night I opposed yet another bill to erect another monument to slavery because it was used as a bargaining chip to allow for the actual depiction of 'In God We Trust' in the CVC. The Architect of the Capitol and liberal activists opposed every reference to America's Christian heritage, even to the extent of scrubbing 'In God We Trust' from the depiction of the actual Speaker's chair in the U.S. House of Representatives.--U.S. Representative Steven King (R-IA)

This is my favorite:

"The Earth has been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn’t been done away with. We need to get the uranium here in Arizona, so this state can get the money from it," - Arizona state Senator Sylvia Allen (R).

Both of these people are ELECTED officials. What is scarier--these two clowns, or the people who elected them?

Vegetable Bandits!

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:53:00 +0000

Woodchucks found our garden today! Well they didn't get much because we happened to notice them just they began feasting. We noticed the escape route so we can plug the hole in the fence.

History of the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:54:00 +0000

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

Mindless Drivel and Shiny Objects

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:10:00 +0000

Now that we are almost into hour 93 of the Palin I-quit-a-rod and Michael Jackson's impending public memeorial service almost upon us, who will mourn our dead in Afghanistan? Not the cable news evidently. Spewing mindless drivel and chasing shiny objects being the coin of the realm in the establishment media these days, is it any wonder traditional sources of news are in trouble? Sure the stories are covered but nothing gets wall-to-wall coverage like dead pop icons, politically dead dark horse candidates, and attractive missing white girls.

Stream of Conciousness Animation

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:39:00 +0000

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Relax and Breathe Deeply

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:29:00 +0000

Music Is Math from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.

Quote of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:00:00 +0000

To work, to parent, to housekeep, to be the ones who schedule “date night,” only to be reprimanded in the home by male kitchen bitches, and then, in the bedroom, to be ignored—it’s a bum deal. --Sandra Tsing Loh

Crayon Physics

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:41:00 +0000

Crayon Physics - Gravity and Ponyo from Jimmy Gunawan on Vimeo.

Video Reprise

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:22:00 +0000

This is a video I made a few years ago. It was a fun little project and my first attempt at stop motion. I have to get back to making home video production, it really is a lot of fun.

Splish Splash from cinderellaferret on Vimeo.

The Public Option

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:26:00 +0000

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) tells constituent "go work for the federal government" for affordable insurance!

The Declaration

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:31:00 +0000

THE

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

In Congress, July 4, 1776.

THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connexions and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.

JOHN HANCOCK.

New Hampshire.—Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton.

Massachusetts Bay.—Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry.

Rhode Island, &c.—Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery.

Connecticut.—Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott.

New York.—William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris.

New Jersey.—Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark.

Pennsylvania.—Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross.

Delaware.—Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean.

Maryland.—Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

Virginia.—George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jun., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.

North Carolina.—William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.

South Carolina.—Edward Rutledge, Thomas Hayward, Jun., Thomas Lynch, Jun., Arthur Middleton.

Georgia.—Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton.

Birthday Wishes

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:29:00 +0000

Happy birthday to Julie and Erica.

Happy birthday Malia Obama.

Well Now Its Time To Say Goodbye To Sara And All Her Kin

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:06:00 +0000

TPM’s David Kurtz:

Shorter Palin: Real Winners Quit

Governor Palin is too thin-skinned for national politics. She’s from a state with a population of approximately 690,000, and a majority of them are Republicans. She was always given the benefit of the doubt in that friendly territory. The national spotlight is not for the faint of heart which Palin quickly found out during the Presidential campaign. She just wasn't prepared for the onslaught from the media once the shock of her nomination wore off. It also became apparent early on she wasn't a policy wonk (and I'm being charitable) nor had she ever shown any intellectual curiosity about policy in anything more than a superficial way. With McCain's erratic behavior--the infamous "campaign suspension" and pacing around the stage during the second debate being the most memorable--and Palin's inability to get beyond simplistic talkingpoints exposing her lack of preparation for the White House, the McCain/Palin fortunes were thus consigned to the dustbin of history.

Now that she’s signed a book deal with a $2 million advance, and rumored to be worth close to $11 million, I suspect that the Wasilla Hillbillies will be yukking it up down by the Cement Pond this Independence Day.

I Can Haz Freedoms?

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:07:00 +0000

Barron YoungSmith:

By all accounts Mitt Romney's 2012 bid for the presidency is moving full speed ahead. Last month, he gave a major address in which he laid out his view of international politics--and boy was it convoluted. Channeling the business jargon common at places like Bain Capital, the management consulting firm he founded, Romney tried to break down world politics as if he were giving a PowerPoint strategy presentation to a corporate board.

Which gives everyone great comfort, knowing how well the last CEO-in-Chief worked out for the country. YoungSmith asked a consultant friend to put together a PowerPoint presentation slide so we might get a graphical representation of Romney's worldview and this is what was provided.

Media Whores, UPDATE: It's Been Cancelled

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:05:00 +0000

I have called Villagers access whores for a long time, we just couldn't put a price on it. Well, thanks to Mike Allen at the Politico we now know the answer to that nagging detail. If you think about it, by DC standards the prices range anywhere from streetwalker to high class out calls. Of course the twist is that they now want to monetize the access they have with government officials!

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

I would also be interested in just who those government officials (elected or not) the WaPo believes would participate in these salons. We could then put the question to them directly. Contact your Senators and Reps to find out if they would participate in this sort of activity.

Has anyone ever heard of anything similar to this previously? Are we being naive in assuming that this has never been done before, but packaged just a little differently to hide what is really going on?

(h/t Balloon Juice)

UPDATE: And just like that it appears to have been cancelled according to Matt Yglesias.

UPDATEBased on an internal email I've been shown, it looks like the Post has responded swiftly to the furor over this by canceling the event. And rightly so.

Stand By Me: Solidarity With The Iranian People

noreply@blogger.com (The Grand Panjandrum) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:07:00 +0000