A great trailer for the documentary/mockumentary Radiant City, a very interesting look at living in the hell of suburban sprawl. I’m very glad I was able to escape.
A brilliant spot from Shell, for their V Power fuels – featuring a very nice rolling bit of Ferrari’s F1 history. Be sure to turn up the sound. Shell apparently spent $3.9 million producing the advert, and had to completely shut down a few sections of several very large cities to film the spot.
Two years late and $1.57 billion later, the new Wembley is open. How cool it would be though, to be there for the very possible Chelsea vs. Manchester United FA Cup final match on May 19th, along with 89,999 other fans? I heard an advert for British Airways the other day on XRT – they’re having a fare sale…
A wonderful piece in Vanity Fair by a Brit in Manhattan, about Brits in Manhattan. It could also make a bit of sense in places like Chicago, S.F., or L.A. as well. Via Andrew Sullivan.
A friend of a friend sent this to the Seattle times recently concerning W and his rather obvious attempt to start the stroll down the path to obstruct a bit of justice, concerning the investigations of the rather politically motivated and unprecedented late term resignations (firings, but don’t you love how the administration puts it?) of US attorneys recently, and I thought it was interesting -
**When I saw George W. Bush on television justifying his refusal to allow his
aides to testify in public under oath in the U.S. attorney scandal, I was
struck by a sense of deja vu.
“We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition,” Bush said in
defense of his laughably dishonest proposal to limit congressional
questioning of his aides to secret, off-the-record chats.
I was a teenager during Richard Nixon’s fall from grace, and one of my
clearest memories of Watergate is of Nixon refusing to provide anything more
than “edited summaries” of the tape recordings that ultimately proved him
guilty of obstruction of justice. At one point, when he referred to
congressional demands for the tapes themselves as a “fishing expedition,” an
editorial cartoonist drew a fish bearing a haughty expression on its
Nixonian face, fins crossed over its chest.
The caption read: “I will not be party to a fishing expedition!”
I see that Bush’s new lawyer is none other than Fred Fielding, who got his
start as Nixon’s deputy White House counsel during the Watergate scandal.
Once Bush’s aides testify under oath as we know they eventually will, I’d
like to know who wrote the statement that Bush delivered on Tuesday. Fred,
was that you? I’m afraid your Freudian slip was showing.**
-Charles W. Pluckhahn
A brilliant expose on poverty in Kenya by the UK comic Ricky Gervais, with appearances by people like Stephen Merchant, Bob Geldoff and the Naked Chef. And check out who shows up at the end. It’s funny as all hell.
They better bolt these down securely.
The logical evolution of our national wheel fetish. And he’s from Florida.
Imagine this vehicle in any sort of evasive maneuver. Even at 10 mph, it would likely roll. I say it’s a rather intelligent use of $30k. $30,500 including the car. He could have at least used a Cadillac.
Imagine this scenario – you’re sitting around on a nice sunny day thinking of ways to spend $30k. You look online for a nice ‘03 BMW M3, or perhaps a late model Porsche Boxter S. Or a brand new MINI Cooper S, laden with almost every optional extra. Or perhaps after some rather overtly cerebral deliberation and soul searching, you come to the distinct realization that you’re really not much of an enthusiast and endavor to spend $20k on a new Accord, which would get you safely and reliably from A to B for perhaps 10 years or so – and pocket or invest the remaining $10k.
Then you reach the conclusion that all of these prior musings are completely without merit and you arrive at the most logical choice, which is to spend the $30k making your ‘85 caprice completely and utterly un-driveable.
Not by plugging it in, but by peeing on it. Some ingenious guys in the far east have created a battery that delivers 1.5 volts of juice for a duration of 90 minutes, from a single drop of urine.
A pretty cool way to harness energy that would quite literally be pissed away. Other bodily fluids supposedly work too.