The Gävle goat and other things

In the news

• Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo is sentenced to 11 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power."
• The Gävle goat (pictured), a 13-metre (43 ft) high yule goat in Gävle, Sweden, is burnt down in the 24th such arson attack since 1966.
• The Supreme Court of Pakistan orders the government to recognize hijras, intersex and transgender individuals, as a distinct gender.
• Luis Francisco Cuéllar, governor of Caquetá Department in Colombia, is found dead after being kidnapped at gunpoint.
• Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri, one of the leaders of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and a senior dissident, dies at the age of 87.

-from Wikipedia.

James Hunt retrospective part 1 of 3

and part 2 and part 3. What, no part 3? Sorry, I can't seem to find it.

Well, here's this interview with Hunt from back in the day(from 1973, while still a comparative f1 neophyte. He won the World Championship in '76, and retired in '79.)

from Hulu- a "Bewitched" episode

"There's Gold in Them Thar Pills" with Terry Thomas Bernard Fox* and Dick York.


*whom I often inexplicably mistake for Terry-Thomas.

Short Night

Watch CBS News Videos Online

and,from th' Onion:"Four Or Five Guys Pretty Much Carry Whole Renaissance"

"...Our research indicates that da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and Galileo basically hoisted the entire intellectual transformation of mankind onto their shoulders while everyone else just sat around being superstitious nimrods," said Sue Viero of the Correr Museum of Art in Venice, Italy. "Here's da Vinci busting his ass to paint such masterpieces as The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, while some loser like Albrecht Dürer is doing these dinky little woodcuts that are basically worthless."

Friday, 18 December 2009:Taxi to the dark side

2007 Documentary by Alex Gibney. Please disregard the introductory remarks by the uploader, as they are very definitely not part of the program..

the story of a crime (1962)

The original title is История одного преступления. Apparently "Story of a crime" is considered a somewhat important short animated film, if it having its own Wikipedia article demonstrates that this is so, although I guess that's an arguable proposition.

It was the first animated short made by one Fyodor Khitruk(1917-), at the age of 45. I gather he worked as an assistant for other animation directors beforehand. (Apparently he's still around, having published a book on animation in 2008.) This is part 1, above. Part 2 is directly below.

John Perkins re Obama

John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, discusses his disappointment in Obama. But I don't get how he (apparently) really believed that Obama was ever a liberal, as he suggests here.

The full-length conversation is here. Maybe it's a little more promising than this snippet.

CNN re Sumatra's disappearing forests

"Rainforests turned into smoldering ruins
By Arwa Damon, CNN
December 6, 2009 7:51 p.m. EST"

the url to this story is here.

Are you a Gossip?

Today's featured article

George H. D. Gossip (1841–1907) was a minor American-English chess master and writer. He competed against most of the world's leading players in chess tournaments between 1870 and 1895, but with only modest success. The writer G. H. Diggle calls him "the King of Wooden Spoonists" because he usually finished last in strong tournaments. Gossip was also a noted writer. His 1874 treatise The Chess-Player's Manual—A Complete Guide to Chess was harshly received by the critics, largely because he had included a number of informal skittles games that he had (atypically) won against stronger players. He developed a lifelong enmity toward chess critics, attacking them ferociously in his books. However, his 1879 book Theory of the Chess Openings was well received, becoming one of the standard opening works of the time. He made his living primarily as a journalist, author, and translator, writing for publications in England, France, Australia, and the U.S. At various times he lived in each of those countries, Germany, and Canada. In 1898 and 1899, two publishers issued his only non-chess book, The Jew of Chamant. Published under the pseudonym "Ivan Trepoff", it was virulently anti-Semitic. Chess writers have often mocked Gossip's play. However, a modern assessment system, Chessmetrics, concludes that at his peak he was close to grandmaster strength. (more...)

from today's Wikipedia front page.

W v. Mister Hope

From "55Ella2007k"


This is a very simple argument, which doesn't make it the least bit wrong.

Ingibjörg Egilsdóttir

Who is Ingibjörg Egilsdóttir? You may well ask. She's Miss Iceland for 2009. How do you pronounce her name? I don't know. In the unlikely event I ever meet her, it'll give me an excuse to ask her that. I wonder if her last name means "Eagle's daughter." I guess I could ask her that too.

Anyway, she's darn pretty, and posting her pic is also an excuse to use fun diacritical marks that don't generally appear in English. I hope you like her photo, and you appreciate my extraordinary restraint in avoiding seemingly obligatory jokes about snuggling for warmth cause she's from Iceland, etc.

'the guilty men'

"The Guilty Men"

Garry A. Meyer | MySpace Video