This pic makes me feel like we're in the future

Do Electric Sheep Dream of Androids?

Kumar goes to White Castle, White House

Kal Penn gets a job with the Obama administration and the world gets that much stranger.

Blockbusted?

Looks like a bank did something right:

Blockbuster may not be able to secure the financing necessary to continue operations, the company has revealed in a SEC filing. Years of playing catch-up with its more nimble competition may mean Blockbuster will soon join Circuit City and CompUSA in the great strip mall in the sky.

-Ars Technica

I'm thinking not a lot of mourners at that funeral.

Green Porno: House Flys Anin't Nothin' but Mammals

Isabella Rossellini hosts season two of Green Porno, a Sundance Channel program about the sex lives of spiders, bees, worms, snails, and others. Snail porn follows:


I should get cable. Via the April 6th New Yorker.

Social Networky Site Hosting API Docs

This is such a good idea. APIdock hosts, well, API documentation and allows members to improve the content. They also provide browser search plugins to quickly search their documentation libraries. So far they only host ruby docs (they seem like rails guys), but hopefully that will change.

Seattle is Lapped by Iowa on Gay Marriage Rights

Go Iowa. It's good to know we're standing strong with Utah and Alabama.

Iowa

Seattle

My Friend Curtis' Work

My friend Curtis has put some of his work up on youtube. Having talented friends is good.

Oops

Ruby Goodness for Mobile Dev

Looks promising.

CIA Tortures Wrong Guy (Again), Bush Lies about it (Again)

Abu Zubaida, poster boy for "harsh interrogation techniques," who the US has graciously accommodated at Club Guantanamo for the better part of a decade, who, in Bush's words, was "a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden," and who the varsity torture squad at the CIA may well have driven insane, turns out to be a low-level know-nothing. And the feds knew it all along.

From the Washington Post:

When CIA officials subjected their first high-value captive, Abu Zubaida, to waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods, they were convinced that they had in their custody an al-Qaeda leader who knew details of operations yet to be unleashed, and they were facing increasing pressure from the White House to get those secrets out of him.

The methods succeeded in breaking him, and the stories he told of al-Qaeda terrorism plots sent CIA officers around the globe chasing leads.

In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated, while most of the useful information from Abu Zubaida -- chiefly names of al-Qaeda members and associates -- was obtained before waterboarding was introduced, they said.

Moreover, within weeks of his capture, U.S. officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President George W. Bush had publicly described him as "al-Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed.

The current administration is reportedly considering setting him free, in Saudi Arabia.

Executive Privilege

Artist loves Washington.

Somnambulist

Big Fat Pixel Goodness

Just discovered Pixen, an image editor geared toward pixel artists. Anti-aliasing is for momma's boys.

Cool Flash Game

Long time no blog. Here's a very strange, well-done flash game.

Star Wars According to Someone who has Never seen it

Via metafilter.

Joe the Plumber Opposes War Coverage, Covers War

Why do people still aim cameras at him? Via wonkette.

Joe the Plumber Reports on Gaza Conflict (Really!)

Samuel Wurzelbacher,i.e. Joe the [sorta] Plumber (JT[S]P), has gone to Gaza to report on Israel's war with the occupied territory. He is filing stories for the prestigious Pajamas Media news organization. (Other stories on the site explore whether nazi-uniform-wearing Prince Harry is a bigot and the how the mainstream media is frightened by JT[s]P's trip to Israel.)

The reportage is top notch. He opens our eye's to the plight of civilians under fire:

"The people of Sderot can't do normal things, day to day, like get soap in their eyes in the shower, for fear a rocket might come in. I'm sure they're taking quick showers. I know I would."

And his personal insight into how Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and his Kadima party compatriots may be viewing the conflict:

"When someone hits me, I'm going to unload on the boy. And if the rest of the world doesn't understand that, then I'm sorry."

The hegemony of the New Media has begun.

Zeldaphonic

via boing boing.

Alleged Skanky Model Allegedly Defamed by Blogger

A google blogger blogger is on the receiving end of aging model Liskula Cohen's legal team, or will be, assuming the lawyers can cajole the google into giving up his/her identity. Liskula, who's 24 carrot smile can be seen below, seems not to be a fan of Skanks in NYC , a blog that apparently explores the facets and modalities of her (still unproven) skankyness. Via el reg.

FTC Investigating DRM at UW

I couldn't figure out an acronym for investigating. Story here.