Interesting comments from Bill Kristol

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol says that Republicans in Congress should “take Obama’s offer” to raise taxes on the wealthy because the GOP shouldn’t “fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires.”..

“Four presidents in the last century have won 50 percent of the vote twice: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan, and Obama,” the conservative pundit explained. “It pains me to say that, to put him in with those other three, but it’s a fact.

He continued: “The leadership in the Republican Party and the leadership in the conservative movement has to pull back, let people float new ideas. Let’s have a serious debate. Don’t scream and yell when one person says, ‘You know what? It won’t kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires.’ It really won’t, I don’t think.”

“I really don’t understand why Republicans don’t take Obama’s offer to freeze taxes for everyone below $250,000 — make it $500,000, make it a million,” Kristol insisted.

“Really? The Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of them live in Hollywood?”

Text via The Raw Story.  Context: "William Kristol is an American neoconservative political analyst and commentator. He is the founder and editor of the political magazine The Weekly Standard and a regular commentator on the Fox News Channel. Kristol is associated with a number of prominent conservative think tanks. He was chairman of the New Citizenship Project from 1997 to 2005. In 1997, he co-founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) with Robert Kagan.

Sam Gordon plays football

But this "Sam" is a nine-year-old girl.

Nicknamed 'Sweet-Feet', the speedy nine-year-old Sam Gordon weighs just 28kg but has the pace to beat defensive players twice her size. Sam learned to play with her big brother and is now the standout player in her all-boys football league in Utah. Her record for 2012 stands at 35 touchdowns, 232 carries and 1,911 yards.

Via The Guardian.  (The video gives new meaning to the phrase "runs like a girl.")

Update:  Sam is now featured on a Wheaties box:

She’s been on ESPN’s “Sports Center,” “Monday Night Countdown” and ABC’s “Good Morning America.” But her best media appearance was on NFL’s “GameDay.” Instead of entertaining the curiosity of television hosts, she hung out with pro football players. Like a lot of athletes, she is much more relaxed in the company of her tribe.

More at a Salon column.

"Train drop"

YouTube link. 

"A brand new American Engineered EMD GT46C-ACe was dropped while being unloaded from the cargo-ship at dock..."

Puerto Ricans have voted on possible statehood

Puerto Ricans faced a fundamental question on Election Day: Should they change their ties with the United States?..

The two-part referendum first asked voters if they wanted to change Puerto Rico's 114-year relationship with the United States. A second question gave voters three alternatives if they wanted a change: become a U.S. state, gain independence, or have a "sovereign free association," a designation that would give more autonomy for the territory of 4 million people.

With 243 of 1,643 precincts reporting late Tuesday, 75,188 voters, or 53 percent, said they did not want to continue under the current political status. Forty-seven percent, or 67,304 voters, supported the status quo.

On the second question, 65 percent favored statehood, followed by 31 percent for sovereign free association and 4 percent for independence...

From Nevada Appeal, via Reddit.  Image of a possible 51-star flag via Neatorama.  A Washington Post article discusses the reasons why Puerto Rico might want to join the United States:

For one thing, becoming a state would allow them to benefit from an extra $20 billion a year in federal funds –  something Puerto Rico could use, given its 13 percent unemployment rate...

Outside observers also say that statehood would bolster both Puerto Rico and the United States. Puerto Rican residents currently don’t pay federal income taxes, and companies doing business there don’t pay corporate taxes — two loopholes that would be closed if the island were made the 51st state...

Opponents of statehood in Puerto Rico have argued that becoming part of the United States might compromise the island’s language and culture, especially if the federal government requires it to adopt English as its sole official language (right now, it’s both Spanish and English), as a condition of its accession...

Both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have said they would respect Puerto Ricans’ statehood decision, whatever it may be.

Addendum: For additional insight into the intricacies of the vote results, see Jeffrey Cobia's analysis at his My random thoughts blog.

Women, rape comments, and voting results

One of the most salient comments I've seen in the election aftermath reportedly comes from (of all people) Alec Baldwin:

""You know your party's in trouble when you read this: A: The rape guy lost. B: Which one?"

Top image discussed at The Dish; lower one found at imgur.

Education levels and presidential preferences

Based on data published by FoxBusiness.com, the following table was posted by Happy Place (via The Tribune of the People and Reddit).

The correlation is made using percentage of a state's population over age 25 with a college degree.  Other parameters of educational achievement might show different results.

Charles Darwin got 4,000 write-in votes

As reported by The Augusta [Ga.] Chronicle:

Charles Darwin, the 19th century naturalist who laid the foundations for evolutionary theory, received more than 4,000 write-in votes in Athens-Clarke County in balloting for the 10th Congressional District seat retained Tuesday by five-year incumbent Republican Paul Broun.

A campaign asking voters to write in Darwin’s name in the 10th District, which includes half of Athens-Clarke County and takes in a swath of eastern Georgia, began after Broun, speaking at a sportsmen’s banquet at a Hartwell church, called evolution and other areas of science “lies straight from the pit of hell.”

Yet another "zoombie" movie

YouTube link. 

This is the official trailer for World War Z, based on the book of the same name.  I suppose one reason zombie movies have become so extremely popular because they are the only "ethnic" group that it's now politically acceptable to slaughter and maim.

While writing this up, I learned that "zoombie" is the colloquial term used to refer to movie zombies who can run/climb/jump at superhuman speed (unlike the shambling gait of the traditional undead).

The "Whirlpool Galaxy"

This beautifully composed image of the Whirlpool Galaxy combines fine detail in the spiral arms with the faint tails of light that show its small companion galaxy being gradually torn apart by the gravity of its giant neighbour.

This image was the overall winner in the Royal Observatory's contest for best astronomy photos of the year.  Another dozen photos are posted at Wired Science.

Image credit: Martin Pugh, winner for Deep Space and overall winner

The U.S. Congress is now a little more diverse

Tuesday's elections brought two historic firsts for religion in American politics: A Buddhist senator and a Hindu representative -- both from Hawaii -- will join Congress.

Democrat Mazie Hirono beat former Gov. Linda Lingle (R), making Hirono the first Buddhist in the Senate. In Hawaii's 2nd Congressional District, Democrat Tulsi Gabbard defeated Republican opponent Kawika Crowley, making Gabbard the first Hindu in Congress...

Hirono, who was born in Japan, practices the Jodo Shinshu tradition of Buddhism... She is also the first Asian-American woman senator and the first senator born in Japan...

Gabbard, 31, was born in American Samoa, and raised by a Catholic father and a Hindu mother. Unlike most Hindus, Gabbard is not of Indian heritage. Her father is Samoan and her mother is a convert to Hinduism...

Hirono and Gabbard will join an increasingly diverse Congress. The first Muslim to join the House or Senate, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), was first elected in 2006 and reelected for a fourth term on Tuesday. In 2008, Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) was the second Muslim elected to Congress. In 2008, Rep. Hark Johnson (D-Ga.), another Buddhist, also joined Congress, making history with him and Hirono the first Buddhists to be elected to Congress.

More than a century prior, smaller religious groups also made headway into congressional seats for the first time. Lewis Charles Levin of the American Party was the first Jew elected to Congress in 1845, and represented Pennsylvania in the House. The first Mormon was John Milton Bernhisel, who joined Congress in 1851 to represent Utah. The only Sikh congressman, California Democrat Dalip Singh Saund, was elected for three terms beginning in 1957.

A winged penis

A penis carved from animal bone, with two wings on it, is described as "a common motif in Roman times."  Further details at the Science column at NBC News, via The Oddment Emporium and Ego is a Rat on the Sinking Ship of Being.

Photo credit: F Minter/Suffolk County Council.

This post is for people who read novels

The Guardian has an eleven-question quiz asking you to identify classic American novels from their first lines:

1. “Boys are playing basketball around a telephone pole with a backboard bolted to it. Legs, shouts. The scrape and snap of Keds on loose alley pebbles seems to catapult their voices high into the moist March air, blue above the wires.”

2. “The Swede. During the war years, when I was still a grade school boy, this was a magical name in our Newark neighborhood, even to adults just a generation removed from the city's old Prince Street ghetto and not yet so flawlessly Americanized as to be bowled over by the prowess of a high school athlete.” 

3. “To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.”

4. “Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in a single file. Although I am fifteen feet ahead of him, anyone watching us from the cotton-house can see Jewel's frayed and broken straw hat a full head above my own.”

5. “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children.”

6. “He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.”

7. “On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.”

8. “He speaks in your voice, American, and there's a shine in his eye that's halfway hopeful. It's a school day, sure, but he's nowhere near the classroom.”

9. “On Memorial Day in 1867 Daniel Lewin thumbed his way from New York to Worcester, Mass., in just under five hours. With him was his young wife, Phyllis, and their eight-month-old son, Paul, whom Daniel carried in a sling chair strapped to his shoulders like a pack.”

10. “A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before but there is nothing to compare it to now.”

11. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'” 

Fortunately the quiz is multiple choice, but I still missed four (three from novels I've not read).   Take the quiz here, and if you enjoy that sort of thing, try these old posts:

Opening lines from science fiction books.

Opening lines from famous movies.

This is a kalimba

YouTube link.

Thumb pianos traditionally consist of a wooden board to which metal tines of varying lengths are affixed... The longest tines are typically in the center, with shorter (and thus higher-pitched) tines arranged alternately in ascending order towards both sides of the instrument. The thumb piano is most commonly held in both hands, with both thumbs being used to pluck tines either simultaneously or in turn.

Modern variations of the instrument may have more than the traditional array of 15 tines, with as many as four fully chromatic octaves, making the playing of more complex music possible. The thumb pianos are made of different woods, either with only a sound board or often with a resonant chamber. Those with hollow resonating chambers for increased volume, often have two holes on the back that can be used to create a vibrato as the fingers cover and open these holes...

The kalimba appears to have been invented twice in Africa: a wood or bamboo-tined instrument appeared on the west coast of Africa about 3000 years ago, and a metal-tined lamellophones appeared in the Zambezi River valley around 1,300 years ago...

The thumb piano was typically played while walking by traveling griots who keep the history of the tribe or village, and to entertain people...

Much more at the Wikipedia entry.  Seems like the ideal instrument for a generation that texts while walking.

Freedom. Liberty. Equality. Justice. (Forever?)

Law (or convention?) in the United States mandates that when images of postage stamps are printed, a line is drawn through the denomination (I believe it's also required that the images be produced at a size larger or smaller than the actual stamp).  These alterations were originally created to prevent people from cutting out stamp images and using them for postage.  They would seem to be hopelessly outdated now that stamps are phosphor coated, and the modifications to the images are virtually useless in the face of modern image-editing software.  Still, it continues to be done, as in this image from the Virtual Stamp Club. 

For this new (September) issue of the "Four Flags" stamps, the result is a bit bizarre.  "Forever stamps" are a form on non-denominated postage first introduced in 2006.

These stamps are always sold at the current first-class postage rate. They are always valid for the full first-class postage regardless of any rate increases since the stamps' purchase (unused "forever" stamps purchased in April 2007 therefore are valid for the full 45 cent first-class postage rate, despite having been purchased for 41 cents).

In the image of these stamps (though not on the stamps themselves), the obliteration of the "denomination" becomes an obliteration of the word "forever" which in juxtaposition with the words "freedom, liberty, equality, justice" delivers a rather odd (if unintentional) message on this election day.

David Gilmour's "Sound on Sound" technique

YouTube link.

Those interested in how Gilmour uses the foot pedals to modulate the sound might want to explore his webstie at Gilmourish, especially the article entitled Classic tone: Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

The Sound on Sound effect was something David introduced on the 2001/02 acoustic shows. He wanted to be able to play Shine On without using keyboards and developed this technique of sustaining a chord with delay and playing on top of it.

- A (very basic) graphic view of how the Sound on Sound effect works.

The Sound on Sound effect, isn’t an effect in form of a pedal but rather the effect achieved when splitting the signal in two with a long delay assigned to one channel. David strums a chord and makes a volume swell with the volume pedal assigned for the Sound on Sound channel. The signal travels to the Sound on Sound unit (basically a A/B router unit made by Pete Cornish) and into the Roland digital delay, which is set to 1500ms lasting about 20 seconds. The signal then travels into a Hiwatt and WEM cabinet used only for this effect. Gilmour lowers the volume pedal and plays a solo fed through the “normal” signal path, while the Sound on Sound pad is sustained by the long delay. The pattern is repeated for each chord. 

Much more very technical detail at the link.  For the more conventional studio version of the song, see the video at this old post.