Rick Perry is bored being governor of Texas and is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Lately, the Governor has spent lots of time praying for rain, so he waited until he could rain on Michele Bachmann’s parade before entering the race. Rep. Bachmann’s landslide win in the Iowa Straw Poll (152 more votes than Ron Paul!) was forgotten in the media rush to photograph Mr. Perry, who has much better hair.
Rep. Michele “Crazy Eyes” Bachmann (R, MN-6) has resoundingly won the Iowa Straw Poll by an overwhelming 152 votes. The Ames Straw Poll is an exercise in pure American democracy: Republican candidates pay to rent space to harangue Republican activists, pay $30 for each voter’s ticket, and pay to bus supporters to the voting place in Ames, where they may actually vote for someone else. Everyone eats fried stuff on sticks.
The personal computer turns 30. IBM’s PC was introduced in August 1981.
Fidel Castro turns 85 today. There was a big party in Havana but el comandante wasn’t there.
It’s 50 years since the birth of the Berlin Wall (Antifaschistischer Schutzwall or “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart”) and most of it missed the party, too.
The sound! The fury! The Silly Bandz®! It’s the 4rd Annual Girls Rock! DC Camper Showcase this Saturday morning at the world-famous 9:30 Club. Doors open at 10:30 AM.
Each summer, Girls Rock! DC volunteers teach girls (ages 8-18) Rock and Hip-Hop music skills in an intensive week-long summer camp. At Saturday’s concert, girl bands and DJs will perform their original tunes for the cheering crowd. Much better than watching those same old Saturday morning cartoons.
More about the national Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls Alliance here — they put the “amp” in “camp.”
Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is back on Twitter, condemning the Chinese government’s detention of bloggers and artists who had previously protested his own 2-month prison detention. It is believed that this violates a gag order that was a condition of Ai’s release.
Twitter is blocked in China but the censorship can be circumvented through use of VPNs and other tactics. Ai speaks English but his primary audience is domestic so he’s tweeting in Chinese. His messages are being translated into English here and on a Tumblr.
Ai Weiwei has also joined Google+ and given an interview to the Communist Party’s official English-language tabloid Global Times.
The United Kingdom is sparing no expense in preparing for next summer’s Olympic Games. The host city of London is testing new demonstration sports – rioting, arson, and looting – and enthusiasm for these Xtreme sports is sweeping the country.
The World Wide Web is 20 years old this week. That’s two millennia in computer years.
On August 6, 1991 Sir Tim Berners-Lee unleashed the first public World Wide Web server. It was a NeXT cube on his desk at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. He had actually designed the Web in 1989 but published the first website two years later.
CERN went on to produce the Large Hadron Collider . The Web produces LOL Cats.
Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-aP7
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
The former mayor of Columbus, New Mexico has pleaded guilty to smuggling 200 guns across the U.S. border into Mexico to buyers in the La Línea drug cartel. At least 12 of the weapons were used in murders. The 11 people charged with gun trafficking also include the Columbus police chief and a town trustee. The weapons, purchased from Arizona and New Mexico gun shops by “straw buyers,” were smuggled into Mexico using unmarked Columbus police vehicles.
The entire Columbus police force has been fired. Unfortunately, the firearms have been too, and people died.
Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-aOy
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
The White House Soup of the Day for August 8, 2011 via MSNBC and FishbowlDC:
Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-aON
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine
There’s nothing like Swedish home cooking (husmanskost). Kroppkakor (potato dumplings). Blåbärssoppa (blueberry soup). Kärnenergi (nuclear energy).
Richard Handl of Ängelholm in Skåne (home of the UFO Memorial) is 31 and unemployed, so he used his involuntary free time to exercise his joy of cooking. He tried to cook up a nuclear reactor in his kitchen. Not finding Americium, Radium and Beryllium in his local supermarket, Mr. Handl bought them on eBay. Simmering these ingredients in a 96% reduction of sulphuric acid was not entirely successful, and resulted in a stove-top explosion.
