International Pillow Fight DayALL AROUND THE WORLD!

Today, Saturday April 3rd 2010, there will be massive pillow fights in cities around the world! Use this site to locate the nearest one to you. If you would like to learn how to organize a pillow fight, read the howto guide. Check out the list of cities that participated in 2008 and 2009.

About The Urban Playground Movement
All over the world, groups like us organize free, fun, all ages, non-commercial public events. From a massive Mobile Clubbing event in a London train station to a giant pillow fight near the Eiffel Tower in Paris to a subway party beneath the streets of Toronto, it is clear that the urban playground is growing around the world, leaving more public and more social cities in its wake. This is the urban playground movement, a playful part of the larger public space movement.

One of our goals is to make these unique happenings in public space become a significant part of popular culture, partially replacing passive, non-social, branded consumption experiences like watching television, and consciously rejecting the blight on our cities caused by the endless creep of advertising into public space. The result, we hope, will be a global community of participants, not consumers, in a world where people are constantly organizing and attending these happenings in every major city in the world.

This project, Pillow Fight Day 2010, is a collaboration of many people who comprise a loose, decentralized network of urban playground event organizers all over the world.

Here's some YouTube video from years past in my neighborhood:

Sistine Chapel Virtual Tour

The Sistine Chapel in Vatican City is famous for its architecture and its decoration which has been frescoed throughout by the greatest Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Raphael, Bernini, and Sandro Botticelli.

Under the patronage of Pope Julius II, Michelangelo painted 12,000 square feet of the chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512. Today the ceiling, and especially The Last Judgement, are widely believed to be Michelangelo's crowning achievements in painting.

Take an incredible Virtual Tour of the Sistine Chapel.

This really is one of the best "virtual" looks at anything i've ever seen on line, be sure to make your browser as big as possible and zoom in pretty close too.

When I visited St. Peter's Basilica (pictured below) in Vatican City, in Rome, I have to admit it truly was one of the most astonishing things I had ever seen in my life, not to mention an incredible testament to the power of religion during this period of civilization that continues to baffle and blow my mind simultaneously every day.



Thanks, Presurfer

15 Things You Didn't Know About The Simpsons

Now the longest-running comedy in television history, The Simpsons immediately struck a chord with viewers across the country as it poked fun of itself and everything in its wake.

Meet the 15 facts you might not know about The Simpsons, the world's most successful TV show.

I'm kind of partial to the Lisa learning about Vegans episode, but have been a fan since the early years, and indeed of Groening since the early 80's when i used to read his pre-Simpsons strips in the LA Weekly.

from Odee.com

Kathleen Hanna: "THE RUNAWAYS MOVIE IS FUCKING AWESOME"

This movie reminded me of HBO’s Grey Gardens because it could’ve really sucked and it didn’t. It is actually fucking great. The best time I’ve had at the movies in forever and just in general satisfying with a capitol “S”. Kristen Stewart seriously deserves an academy award for her performance as Joan Jett. Not to brag, but I know Joan and was really worried she would be portrayed as a boring tomboy in the sick new tradition of “girls kick ass” flicks, but she wasn’t. Stewart portrayed her as a sexy, complicated punk who, quite simply was born to be onstage. Everyone at the after party was blown away by how well Stewart did. There is this certain hyper active kid meets cat that swallowed the canary face that Joan makes when she is really happy that Stewart nailed perfectly. If you haven’t seen this yet run don’t walk to your nearest movie theatre.

from Kathleen Hanna's personal blog

To Have and To Hold: A Film About Vinyl Records

I see some friends in this trailer, and just wrote the director on his vimeo page, this looks like a worthwhile project. Don't see a lot of those these days . . .

Coming soon?

Add this one to your list of must see vinyl inspired documentaries and movies. Director Jony Lyle gives a quick teaser of his upcoming film entitled To Have & To Hold, which Lyle describes as “a ‘musicmentory’ to celebrate the age of vinyl records.”

The film promises enough archive footage, records rooms, music collections, pressing plants, and rare vinyl to satisfy even the most die hard physical music addicts. In addition to its irresistible collectible eye candy, To Have & To Hold, which is scheduled for a 2010 release, features interviews with such notable vinyl aficionados as Questlove, Chuck D, Bobbito Garcia, DJ Amir, Bruce Lundvall, Christian Marclay, and Paul Mawhinney.

To Have & To Hold - Taster Tape from Jony Lyle on Vimeo.

Thanks DangerousMinds

Hummer Stagecoach - A Statement of Action

Cool statement...

Known as the CEO Stagecoach, the horse-drawn Hummer is the work of New York artist Jeremy Dean.

Jeremy Dean is an artist that set out on a unique mission: Take a massive HUMMER H2 and convert it into a horse-drawn carriage. The goal? To show just how screwed and unsustainable the auto-industry has become.

Dubbed the “Futurama”, Dean sees it as a symbol of where we’re headed unless things change drastically. From his site,

“As I see it, this is a time machine from the future, from a world destroyed through over consumption. This is my equivalent of GM’s Futurama and the logical conclusion of that thinking, the new “Brighter and better world of tomorrow. Come lets journey into the future… What will we see?” In this future world we will have learned little from the mistakes of the past, repeating the cycle of historical amnesia, human nature will once again be the strongest motivating factor.”

“In this apocalyptic world there will be a massive equality gap between the haves and the have-nots. A small few will possess all the wealth and will desire the best of the best. Energy will be scarce and expensive, but of little concern for the elite who travel in lavishly styled horse carts, a throwback to the Depression Chariot, and an earlier time in history; all of humanity is moving backwards.”

thanks to Presurfer and Ecorazzi.

These conservative MOTHER FUCKING ASSHOLES have gone too far for too long!

So just as many did after the Bush election debacle, I am calling for our national politicians to seriously consider a way to split this country in two. Red states take way more federal dollars than they give (speaking of Socialism- I WISH!), they won't last too long without us and even if they could or did, that's fine with me, I'm just sick of them dragging this country down as they do. Hating, and threatening, over and over again, with fear mongering that's sick and pathetic, not to mention incredibly greedy or just plain ignorant. LOSERS like Beck, Rush, Palin, Coulter, and the politicians not putting them in their place? You all should be at the least ashamed, because I know you know better, as fucked as you all are, you're just taking advantage of the ignorance that's out there, it's disgusting. This weeks death threats to people who support Health Care reform? Tea party ignoramouses calling supporters of this legislation "Nigger" and "Faggot", breaking windows of HEALTH CARE SUPPORTERS!?! Your time is over and has been for a long time. So now if you really want it your way, please go speak to your representatives in the government, speak to those people who follow you and let's get this ball moving, let's do it without violence and get it done. You want it, we want it, let's just get it done once and for all, all the liberals, intellectuals, democrats, greens, and progressives in one place and all the greedy bastards, bitches, and stupid motherfuckers that follow them in another. I'm ready, let's go! (apologies to my friends and the free thinkers in places like Austin, TX surrounded by the loons, i'm sorry, you'll probably have to move, but it will be worth it, we'll have single payer health care, financial regulation, jobs and all without polluting the environment, correct?)


ANYWAY- here's a bit of the cover story from the new issue of The Nation magazine:

by RICHARD KIM
Leftists like to say that another world is possible, but I was never quite sure of that until I started reading tea party websites. There, a government of leftists is not only possible, it's on the cusp of seizing permanent power, having broken American capitalism and replaced it with a socialist state. Down that rabbit hole, Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel are communists, and "The Left"--which encompasses everyone from the Democratic Leadership Council to Maoist sectarians--is a disciplined and near omnipotent army marching in lockstep to a decades-old master plan for domination called the "Cloward-Piven strategy" or, as of January 20, 2009, "Cloward-Piven government."

What is this plot? According to David Horowitz, who apparently coined the expression, Cloward-Piven is "the strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis." Named after sociologists and antipoverty and voting rights activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, who first elucidated it in a May 2, 1966, article for The Nation called "The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty," the Cloward-Piven strategy, in Horowitz's words, "seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse." Like a fun-house-mirror version of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine theory, the Cloward-Piven strategy dictates that the left will exploit that crisis to push through unpopular, socialist policies in a totalitarian manner.

Since Obama's election and the financial crash of 2008, Horowitz's description has been taken up by a clutch of tea party propagandists--from TV and radio hosts Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin to WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah, National Review editor Stanley Kurtz and The Obama Nation author Jerome Corsi--to explain how both events could have happened, here, in the U-S-A. In their historical narrative, it was Cloward and Piven's article that gave ACORN the idea to start peddling subprime mortgages to poor minorities in the 1980s, knowingly laying the groundwork for a global economic meltdown nearly thirty years later. Beck calls Cloward and Piven the two people who are "fundamentally responsible for the unsustainability and possible collapse of our economic system." It was Cloward and Piven who had the diabolical idea of registering (illegal or nonexistent) poor and minority voters through Project Vote and the Motor Voter Act, thus guaranteeing Obama's "fraudulent" victory. And it is the Cloward-Piven strategy that guides the Obama administration's every move to this day, as it seeks to ram through healthcare reform, economic stimulus and financial regulation (all of which, in reality, have enjoyed majority support in many polls taken during the last two years).

This cover story continues at The Nation here.


Listen to some of the folks who left messages for Rep. Stupak after the health bill passed:

APPROXIMATELY 25% OF AMERICANS MUST BE COMPLETE IDIOTS IF NEW HARRIS POLL CAN BE BELIEVED

from Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds

Rule #1: Do not wear your teabag hat out in the rain.

John Avlon, author of Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, writes of a scary new Harris poll that says volumes about the level of political literacy in this country. If this is to be believed, it’s appalling stuff.

From The Daily Beast:

67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was “not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president”
38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did”
Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama “may be the Antichrist.”

John Stewart does Glenn Beck - Conservative Libertarian

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Conservative Libertarian
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

The T.A.M.I. show

from DangerousMinds

[Monday] marks the first time The T.A.M.I. Show has seen a proper release since it was in theaters over 40 years ago, although bootlegs have been easy to come by since the late 80s. James Brown’s inspired performance—perhaps the finest moment of his entire career—will knock your socks off.

Filmed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, October 29, 1964, the performers also included Chuck Berry, Gerry And The Pacemakers, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Lesley Gore, Jan & Dean, Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas, The Supremes, The Barbarians and The Rolling Stones. The DVD, put out by the mighty Shout Factory contains restored footage of the Beach Boys performance which was cut from the theatrical release.

And from Wikipedia

The T.A.M.I. Show is a 1964 concert film, released by American International Pictures. It includes performances by numerous popular rock and roll and R&B musicians from the United States and England. It was shot with TV cameras by director Steve Binder and his crew from The Steve Allen Show, and was the second of a small handful of productions to be recorded in Electronovision^[1] - one of the first high-definition video cameras that captured somewhere between 1000-1100 lines at 25fps. Then, via kinescope recording, it was converted to film with sufficient enhanced resolution to allow big-screen enlargement.

The concert was held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on October 28 and 29, 1964. Free tickets were distributed to local high school students. Jan and Dean emceed the event and performed its theme song, "Here They Come (From All Over the World)". Jack Nitzsche was the show's music director. The acronym "T.A.M.I." was used inconsistently in the show's publicity to mean both Teenage Awards Music International and Teen Age Music International. The best footage from each of the two concert dates was edited into the film, which was released on December 29, 1964.

The T.A.M.I. Show is particularly well known for James Brown's performance, which features his legendary dance moves and remarkable energy. In interviews, Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones has claimed that choosing to follow Brown & The Famous Flames was the biggest mistake of their careers,^[2] because no matter how well they performed, they could not top him. In a web-published interview,^[1] Binder takes credit for persuading the Stones to follow James Brown, and serve as the centerpiece for the grand finale where all the performers dance together onstage. In addition, throughout the film, were numerous go-go dancers in the background or beside the performers. Among them were a very young Toni Basil and Teri Garr. It also featured The Supremes performing three back-to-back #1 singles, signaling their reign as the most successful girl group of that era. Diana Ross would go on to work with the director Steve Binder on several of her television specials including her first solo television special and more importantly her iconic Central Park concert, Live from New York Worldwide: For One and for All.

The film was shown unedited and in its entirety on cable television in Canada in 1984 (20th anniversary of its release), on the First Choice Network. However, there has never been an authorized home video release of the film in any format until the authorized DVD release in March 2010, though bootlegs have abounded. (A DVD release of the complete film by First Look Studios was planned for 2007, but subsequently withdrawn.) Also, because of a rights dispute, the footage of The Beach Boys' performance was deleted from all prints made after the movie's brief initial theatrical run, and is therefore absent from most of the bootlegs. All of the four Beach Boys tunes eventually surfaced on DVD in Sights and Sounds of Summer, a special CD/DVD edition of Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys.

The Story of Bottled Water

From our great friends at Free Range Studios - creativity with a conscience: The Story of Stuff crusade continues, and this time Annie's taking on one of the dumbest products on the market: bottled water.

StoryofBottledWater.org

What's wrong with this seemingly healthy refreshment? You'll be shocked to find out that it's often less clean, less tasty, and way more polluting than the water from your tap. This is the story that water bottlers Coke, Pepsi, and Nestlé don't want you to hear -- but thanks to Annie, millions of you will. Be one of the first and help spread the word at StoryofBottledWater.org.

The Great Thing About the Health Care Law That Has Passed? It Will Save Republican Lives, Too (An Open Letter to Republicans from Michael Moore)‏

from MM on Monday, March 22nd, 2010

To My Fellow Citizens, the Republicans:

Thanks to last night's vote, that child of yours who has had asthma since birth will now be covered after suffering for her first nine years as an American child with a pre-existing condition.

Thanks to last night's vote, that 23-year-old of yours who will be hit one day by a drunk driver and spend six months recovering in the hospital will now not go bankrupt because you will be able to keep him on your insurance policy.

Thanks to last night's vote, after your cancer returns for the third time -- racking up another $200,000 in costs to keep you alive -- your insurance company will have to commit a criminal act if they even think of dropping you from their rolls.

Yes, my Republican friends, even though you have opposed this health care bill, we've made sure it is going to cover you, too, in your time of need. I know you're upset right now. I know you probably think that if you did get wiped out by an illness, or thrown out of your home because of a medical bankruptcy, that you would somehow pull yourself up by your bootstraps and survive. I know that's a comforting story to tell yourself, and if John Wayne were still alive I'm sure he could make that into a movie for you.

But the reality is that these health insurance companies have only one mission: To take as much money from you as they can -- and then work like demons to deny you whatever coverage and help they can should you get sick.

So, when you find yourself suddenly broadsided by a life-threatening illness someday, perhaps you'll thank those pinko-socialist, Canadian-loving Democrats and independents for what they did Sunday evening.

If it's any consolation, the thieves who run the health insurance companies will still get to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions for the next four years. They'll also get to cap an individual's annual health care reimbursements for the next four years. And if they break the pre-existing ban that was passed last night, they'll only be fined $100 a day! And, the best part? The law will require all citizens who aren't poor or old to write a check to a private insurance company. It's truly a banner day for these corporations.

So don't feel too bad. We're a long way from universal health care. Over 15 million Americans will still be uncovered -- and that means about 15,000 will still lose their lives each year because they won't be able to afford to see a doctor or get an operation. But another 30,000 will live. I hope that's ok with you.

If you don't mind, we're now going to get busy trying to improve upon this bill so that all Americans are covered and so the grubby health insurance companies will be put out of business -- because when it comes to helping the sick, no one should ever be allowed to ask the question, "How much money can we save by making this poor bastard suffer?"

Please, my Republican friends, if you can, take a quiet moment away from your AM radio and cable news network this morning and be happy for your country. We're doing better. And we're doing it for you, too.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. I'll have more to say on this tonight [Monday], live on CNN, at 9pm ET. I'll be talking with Larry King about the health care bill and where we go from here, considering we still don't have universal health care.

P.P.S. In case you missed these photos in [Sunday's] NY Times Sunday Magazine... That's the results of seven years of madness. The Iraq War began its 8th year this weekend. How can we remove more of those responsible for this tragedy in November?

TEN Immediate Benefits of Health Care Reform

via Crooks And Liars

Here are ten benefits which come online within six months of the President’s signature on the health care bill:

1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
4. Free preventative care for all
5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.
10. AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can’t lose your insurance because you get sick.

Thanks DangerousMinds

Certainly not all that i want to see, but at least a start. I'll be posting an open letter from Michael Moore (one of the most important voices for Single Payer Health Care in America) , with his thoughts for his Republican friends tomorrow.

Bamboo "Flow Lights" are Powered by the Wind!

from inhabitat.com

How do you create effective lighting when there’s no way to get to the grid? Leave it to a couple of ingenious designers to come up with a beautiful and self-sufficient bamboo lighting system! Designed by Ingendesign, the ‘Flow’ light is powered by constant prevailing coastal winds and is built to be almost completely biodegradable.

Expansive, dazzling and bustling during the day, the Colombian seaside quickly becomes a desolate and dangerous destination at night. The inability to channel electricity to the shore has created serious problems keeping beaches well-lit and safe past sun down.

Ingendesign’s ‘Flow’ light offers a self-sustaining public lighting solution that is based on the principle of vertical wind power plants. Taking the shape of a spiral, not only does the form make for a compelling aesthetic, but it is able to capture wind from any direction. Each of the blades’ tips have been incised angularly in order to project light downwards to passerbys and so that the motion can be seen at a distance. With light sources positioned at the ends of each of the wind blades, depending on the force of the wind, the play of light is abundant, ranging from continuous lighting to more deliberate waving movements.


In a simple construction made from bamboo and recyclable electronic components – LEDs, wires and dynamo – the lamp is relieved from any major eco-impact. Bamboo itself is one of the most ample and cheapest materials found in Colombia, and by using this as the base material, the lamps are almost completely biodegradable (sans the electronics) and can be locally sourced, making for easy manufacturability by the native population.

This spring, Ingendesign will start building 1:1 prototypes to be placed along Lake Balaton in Hungary, where wind-conditions are comparable to those along Colombian shores. If the tests are deemed successful, the team plans to install the lamps next summer.

Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader: A Discussion on Healthcare, Politics and Reform

from DemocracyNow

Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio announced on Wednesday he would switch his vote on the Democrat-led healthcare reform bill and support the legislation even though it does not create a public option. Kucinich’s decision came two days after he spoke with President Obama aboard Air Force One on their way to a rally in his district. In a Democracy Now! exclusive, we spend the hour with Kucinich and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader for an in-depth discussion on healthcare, the Obama administration, the Iraq war and more.

Trailer for Parallel Lines: five short films that use the same dialogue

This concept looks pretty great.

Parallel Lines is a project by from Ridley Scott Associates that will be released April 8. It's a neat premise!

Five directors were each challenged to create short films in different genres using the same dialogue. The five 5 beautifully diverse films are by Greg Fay, Jake Scott, Johnny Hardstaff, Carl Erik Rinsch and animators Hi-Sim and their genres range from drama, animation, action, to sci-fi and thriller.

thanks, BoingBoing

Vile Incident at Tea Party Protest in Ohio

from Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds

[[Video removed, deemed unnecessary, writing much more important]]

If there was an American Idol for total assholism, the guy in this clip—you won’t wonder who I’m talking about, either—would be the unanimous winner. By national acclaim. A round of applause for the biggest fuckwit in America, please!

Hell, Chris Matthews even got Republican Mike Spence to admit this guy/these people is/are “despicable.” This is pretty much as low as it goes. Watch as this idiot literally starts throwing dollar bills at a man with Parkinson’s disease who is pro-health care reform. This turned my stomach in a way that not one lousy clip of the wingnuts and morons at the McCain/Palin rallies in 2008 could. This man (and the rest of these low IQ tea partying meanies) is a vile piece of shit. You have to wonder what went through his tiny mind (pride?) when he saw himself on television last night.

If that man can somehow be identified—anyone in Columbus, Ohio recognize him?—he should be fucked with mercilessly (identity theft would be a nice start). If there is a God, he’s not on this man’s side. Karma’s a bitch, shithead. I can’t wait until it comes back to bite your dumb ass…

But there is actually some good that comes out of incident like this, something that is so repulsive and mean and just… dumb: Eventually the public looks at creeps like him, especially younger people, and it turns them right off to anything the Republican Patry have to say to them. Forever. GOPers, tea partying ignoramuses, your days are numbered. You are the past, not the future, of America. The demographic tide will bury you and there is nothing you can do about it. Nothing at all. Good riddance. Fuck off. America doesn’t need you.

Who Will Survive the Great Texas Textbook Rewrite?

from VF.com
Henry Rollins Straight Talk Espresso

From a letter to Thomas Jefferson written by John Adams, January 23, 1825:

Books that cannot bear examination certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws…. The substance and essence of Christianity as I understand it is eternal and unchangeable and will bear examination forever but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination and they ought to be separated.

Perhaps the powers that be in Texas consider Thomas Jefferson an extraneous ingredient and will seek to extract our third president and other major figures in American history from their school’s textbooks. It seems that there will be a bit of revision in Texas, and I fear it will be big—as things often are in the Lone Star State.

What will be the fate of Charles Darwin and Martin Luther King after the great cleansing, I wonder? I fear for the New Deal reforms and any other bits of history that may somehow be seen as inconvenient truths to the architects of the Great Texan Rewrite. I cringe when I think that the Civil Rights movement may magically vanish from the state’s history or be seen as an uppity peasant uprising. What will become of the Emancipation Proclamation? The outcome of the Civil War?

I understand a desire for nostalgia. I still listen to records I bought as a teenager. But a return to the dim-bulb cruelty and religious fascism of the past is a little too far in the way-back machine for me. What do you bring back next, the Bubonic Plague? The Texas Witch Trials!

Poorly educated people are not an asset unless you desire citizens who cannot think critically. Now why would any state want that? If I wanted my state to secede, I would need the voters to see that it is in their best interest to detach from a nation full of infidels and unpatriotic enemies. If it were me, I would start in the schools and the books that students read.

A man born in the great state of Connecticut once said, “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.” I am sure he will get quite the sheen in the new history books of Texas.

Noam Chomsky Shares his thoughtson the meaning of Love

from Big Think via Dangerous Minds

Big Think is a website devoted to giving some big brains a platform to spout off on topics meaningful to them, and hopefully to other citizens of this planet we call Earth. With a cadre of boldface names like Ricky Gervais, Robert Wright, Stephen Fry and Ray Kurzweil, Big Think aims to put its readers in touch with… well, big thinkers on topics like sustainability, religion, alternate energy sources, artificial intelligence, history, justice, cultural identity, politics and much more. It is what tends to be called a “heady brew”!

Perusing the site this morning, I watched this sincere short video with M.I.T. professor Noam Chomsky—probably America’s single most important intellectual—discussing the concept of what love is. He admits at the outset that he really doesn’t know, but he takes a good stab at it anyway. Big Think does a great job at fulfilling its mission statement with articles and videos quite akin to TED conference speeches. If you like TED talks (and who doesn’t?) then Big Think is probably a site you’ll want to bookmark, pronto.

I just uploaded a bunch of photos for people to use, NOT companies or theives.

I've opened a flickr account and have posted a bunch of photos free to use on any web pages or websites that don't sell anything, a link to my books page www.burningflags.com/books/ would be nice in return. Thanks and enjoy!