A full circle somehow.

I need to stop this and get some work done, but I love indulging my other brain parts for a change.

Republicans, religion, and the triumph of unreason. (Doesn’t that just say it all? From the [UK] Independent)

As a result, 18,000 US citizens die every year needlessly, because they can’t access the care they require. That’s equivalent to six 9/11s, every year, year on year. Yet the Republicans have accused the Democrats who are trying to stop all this death by extending healthcare of being “killers” – and they have successfully managed to put them on the defensive.

These increasingly frenzied claims have become so detached from reality that they often seem like black comedy. The right-wing magazine US Investors’ Daily claimed that if Stephen Hawking had been British, he would have been allowed to die at birth by its “socialist” healthcare system. Hawking responded with a polite cough that he is British, and “I wouldn’t be here without the NHS”.

Not anxious to start taking any statins anytime soon.

Mark this site: PolitiFact has a great Truth-O-Meter for catching out political lies.

15 cool and crazy ways to tie your shoelaces (spotted via the inimitable Liam)

CSM: The “war on drugs” needs a timeout. (The failure drones on.)

Here’s a great review of Food Inc …

Food Inc. makes two points very well that are worth repeating and then I’ll shut up. One: wherever and whenever, try to know or find out the source of your food. And two: every time you buy food, it’s a vote for more of that food; if it’s excellent, you’re asking for more; if it’s shitty food, you’re asking for more.

I can’t embed, but please take 2 minutes to watch the YouTube movie trailer.

And in another allied arena, here’s UC Irvine developing a treatment for tinnitus (from which I suffer chronically). I don’t look for aid in the near future, but I’m glad work’s being done.

LetterCult has some very creative hand (and digital) lettering.

SmashingApps collected some fantastic stop-action shorts. I love this stuff. Want to find time and focus to do some time.

And NYTimes Nicholas Kristof describes how (40 years on) the “War on Drugs” is a failure.

PS: I need to curl up sometime and read this extensive NYTimes article on data centers and the cloud and I’ll bet there’s a creepy ending.

You see, our water is controlled by Suez (who’s one of the villains of the piece mentioned above), but I can only assume that since we’re not a village in third world country we won’t be treated to their same special level of service.

So while we in Boise revisit the Tragedy of the Commons in other resource realms, it won’t be with water resources, since we don’t control that. (Oh wise city fathers who hold to the tenet — as do so many of my fellow citizens today — that corporations and private enterprise can do no wrong and should be given full rein.) So comforted am I: We are in that pool whose water is owned by those who’ve bought it up worldwide, recognizing it as a commodity more precious even than petroleum, since one can live without one but not the other. (I was so amused, watching Flow, by a company man who — in his Marie Antoinette manner — advised that the poor just needed to prioritize and economize so that they could pay for the water they previously had access to in common. Profligate poor.)

First was a list of 10 disposable things you never have to buy again. To wit: bottled water {duh}, diapers, air filters, paper towels, wrapping paper, individually wrapped foods (ie: per-portion foods), take-out and lunch food, feminine products, furniture, takeout chopsticks {huh. hadn’t thought about that. will do}

The next was China’s top 10 music singles from 2008. I get a kick out of this stuff. I especially liked the “screw the corporate life, it’s messing with your mind, get back to the family and basics” riff from Jay Chou (”The Rice Aroma”) and I thought for a moment I recognized Zhang Liangying “Painted Heart” as it’s was from the movie “Painted Skin” but I’d confused that with the quite different movie, The Pillow Book (Peter Greenaway).

30 unforgettable opening movie title sequences (videos)
A reference to Fairytale Of New York in Andy Ihnatko’s blog. That’s a fave song. Especially poignant as Kirsty died a few years later (while Shane is still trooping along; go figure)
A site about the art of foley. Y’know, making noise in movies.
Bartleby.com looks to be a huge reference for book lovers, readers. I can actually search for a section of text in a lot of classic books.
A video bicycle tutorial site. Bike repair. Cool.
Learn a lot of obscure stuff about your birthday. What happened on date, various esoteric bits of info.
The ever popular BMI site has a BMR calculator (basal metabolic rate).
Four links about braceros.
The bubble calendar. You love to pop them. Do it every day.
Louis Wain was an 19C. artist who drew/painted cats. He developed schizophrenia and his art changed. (video)
If you want to buy your cat entertaining DVDs, here’s the place.
Change.org – ideas for change in America
If you always forget what Chinese New Year it’s going to be, check here.
One of the best cartoons I’ve seen in a while on my profession. (How to kill a web designer in 6 steps)
This post on shower power was tweeted and I replied that I’d long (2004, 2006) had an idea for a whiteboard in the shower. Someone already patented it.
The scientific angle on exercise and health. Note to self: remember this.
A lot of cool hemp products. Hemp is a terrifically sturdy fabric/thread and it’s ignorance and bias that keeps American farmers from a useful crop.
Why Google is the best way to download MP3s. (video)
Self-chosen top “most Canadian” songs.
Because I can’t put this on my business site: 20 signs you don’t want that web design project (real examples) from Zeldman
A recent sideways turn in an iChat brought me a-cappella.com and the Kings Singers with lots of madrigals I used to sing.
WSJ (!) editorial by Ethan A Nadelmann: Let’s end drug prohibition. Too commonsensical for the ideologues.
A fantastic compendium of millions of historic photos from 1860s forward through the decades, from Life magazine, hosted by Google
A list of unusual words beginning with B. I’d been looking for a good alliterative mate.
A most unusual artist, Ashleigh Talbot: Madame Talbot’s Gothic Lowbrow
Movie-O examines the historic truth of “based upon” movies
Mukhtar Mai is a brave and admirable Pakistani woman. Read this to get some perspective. I wish I had the dough to send her school tons of my books.
Don’t look now. Non responsive tuberculosis could be sitting nearby.
A few very interesting thoughts on what’s “fair”.(context: the bailouts) Note to Detroit: You’re history.
Paul Krugman’s depression economics – how it works (Salon)
Because I always want to know where to find that photo of soldiers returning from World War I to Prohibition, bearing the sign “We want beer”
Retro-food.com could be the source of a lot of great recipes
The Right to Quiet Society.
The way to save (native) squirrels in England may be to consume the invaders.

The way to mulitply numbers in your head. Pretty cool. (video)
Spirals. More spirals. If it’s spiral and it’s not here, it’s not really spiral. Gallery of photos.
Learn Lord of the Rings elven languages.
An interesting idea that didn’t work out. Sort of a lottery. The Eleven Dollar House.
Change is come today. The country’s new robots.txt file
Steampunk Workshop. I just find this stuff fascinating.
Love it. Hate it. Pick it apart. Feel renewed by it. Barack Obama’s inauguration speech.
WSJ on Walmart and the shopping death. I have my opinion.
The Beguiling is Canada’s finest purveyor of comics, graphic novels, etc.
What do women want (sexually). It’s not simple.

(*They’re actually in alpha order by web page title, but that’s pretty meaningless in this context.)

But then there was a song. The song from the Slab City performance by Tracy and Alex. I’d not heard that in so long. It haunted me (as I guess it has others). Google filled in the gaps: a beautiful John Prine song from around 1971, Angel From Montgomery. Here’s a recent (2004) performance — complete with mandolin intro (d’y’ hear that, Niall?). Ah.

For the record, it’s the version on John Denver’s Farewell Andromeda that I first knew. True, ’tis not so pure as the Prine version, but what was it that drew me to it all those years ago. The longing, is it.