Seahorses, I Love 'Em (& other Links of Interest)

[¡Papapishu!]

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I would really, really love to know what's going on here. (Probably NSFW.)

[Shm Jay]

Well, the title of the clip is "A flying prick at the Kasparov conference", Kasparov being Garry Kasparov, the chess champion who is trying to organize opposition to Putin/Medvedev. The lead comment is something like, "I am crying, simply, with hot{?} tears", i.e. tears of laughter. Some of the comments are to the effect that Kasparov should stick to playing chess and not meddle in politics, or if he wants to get involved in politics, he should go back to his real homeland, Azerbaijan. There is also a play on words involving some saying of Kasparov's: "Power showed its own face", turning it to "Power showed its own prick".

So I would guess it's a political dirty trick.

Mecislau will have to give you the full translation. I didn't listen to the video.

[Pekka]

Here's the flying dong on Metafilter. Some reading for you who can't wait for the translation.

http://www.metafilter.com/71788/Griefin ... First-Life

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And the Moscow Times says the flying dildo was the work of Young Russia activists. I'm glad to live in a country with mostly dull politics, but we do miss out on the fun stuff like this.

The Kama Sutra for computer techs.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Campaign: What Went Wrong? From the point of view of anonymous members of her staff.

Obey the Shih Tzu! Resistance is futile!

We now sell Milk Juice.

The World's Most Worthless Money. Note in particular the story behind Guinea's currency.

Portents of the China quake? Strange weather phenomena, a plague of fleeing toads, a disappearing pond in Enshi (top picture).

"A Genetic Gastric Bypass," the genome of the platypus.

[Wycoval]

Note in particular the story behind Guinea's currency.

I've never seen a 10,000 GF note before. When I was there in 1990 the largest note was 5,000 GF which would buy you a trip in a bush taxi from Gueckedou to Conakry - about 500 miles.

The exchange rate was about $1.00 / 1,000 GF.

[Nesescosac]

I have a Zimbabwe 5 cent coin - it must be worth nothing now.

Now the Guinean franc exchange rate is 4.5 thousand GNF for 1 USD. My 600 franc is not worth much anymore.

When did you go?

[Shm Jay]

What to name your baby, and what names have been popular over the past century.

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Tales of border brilliance from around the world. I'm particularly fond of the golf course that spans a national border.

Isn't it rather quaint that, until not that long ago, these traits were all widely believed to be "uniquely" human?

Bizarreness from Vancouver: right feet keep washing ashore, now four in all.

Italian Spider-man! A trailer and a webisode! I think this is a student film masquerading as weird Seventies kitsch, but whatever the case, it's awesome.

The "Damn right your dad drank it" ad campaign from Canadian Club is amusing, in a crass sort of way. (My dad was a teetotaller, but whatever.) More amusing, though, is the counter-campaign it's inspired online. The feminist blogosphere is forever being "outraged!" by this or that ad campaign with weary predictability, but this time the outrage has produced some truly brilliant parodies of the source material.

You can download a great PDF of an illustrated (in-progress) version of Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark here. Highly recommended.

[gsandi]

Tales of border brilliance from around the world. I'm particularly fond of the golf course that spans a national border.

Lots of border oddities around where I live, just a few hundred metres from the French-Swiss border. In fact, I know where the binational hotel is in St Cure - it's high up in the Jura mountains, and right on a picturesque Sunday drive.

Near us is a small area which is in France but used to be in Switzerland. The people living there pay Swiss taxes and have Swiss licence plates on their cars.

The reason is that when Geneva airport had to be expanded in the 1960s, there was no space left around it in Switzerland, so Switzerland and France came to a land-swap agreement - for every sq.m. gained by Switzerland in the airport area, 1 sq.m. was transferred to France elsewhere. But if people already lived in the transferred land, they were allowed to keep their Swiss resident privileges.

[Risla]

The twenty funniest newspaper headlines.

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The twenty funniest newspaper headlines.

I love "One-armed man applauds." Very Zen.

[Delthayre]

You're good man sometimes, Christopher Matthews.

For contrast: Bill Lol'Reilly.

[Shm Jay]

Something surprisingly of interest to both Io and Mecislau, but for completely different reasons.

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Some music and performance links:

Beautiful and haunting recitation of the Qur'an by a kid who looks to be about ten or eleven. (There's a passle of related videos featuring child religious/artistic prodigies that you shouldn't miss, like this, this, and this.)

Amusing little ditties like Tom Cruise Crazy, Anyone Else But You, MyHope, and my personal fave, Toxic, played on ukulele by the adorable SweetAfton23 on YouTube.

Stravinsky conducting.

[langover94]

Beautiful and haunting recitation of the Qur'an by a kid who looks to be about ten or eleven.

Absolutely wonderful. He has an awesome voice.

[Raphael]

(Warning: Dumb and offensive right-wing site ahead) THE MUSLIMS ARE DESTROYING OUR ICE CREAM TRUCKS!!!!! Sure, there's no sign that they're behind it or in any way connected to it, but IT JUST HAS TO BE THEM!!! It just HAS TO BE!!!!! If there's no evidence for it and it isn't reported, IT'S CUZ THE LIBRUL MEDIA COVERED IT UP!!!!

[Nesescosac]

(Warning: Dumb and offensive right-wing site ahead) THE MUSLIMS ARE DESTROYING OUR ICE CREAM TRUCKS!!!!! Sure, there's no sign that they're behind it or in any way connected to it, but IT JUST HAS TO BE THEM!!! It just HAS TO BE!!!!! If there's no evidence for it and it isn't reported, IT'S CUZ THE LIBRUL MEDIA COVERED IT UP!!!!

It made me laugh. I needed that.

[langover94]

(Warning: Dumb and offensive right-wing site ahead) THE MUSLIMS ARE DESTROYING OUR ICE CREAM TRUCKS!!!!! Sure, there's no sign that they're behind it or in any way connected to it, but IT JUST HAS TO BE THEM!!! It just HAS TO BE!!!!! If there's no evidence for it and it isn't reported, IT'S CUZ THE LIBRUL MEDIA COVERED IT UP!!!!

This lady's an oxygen waster. Because of course the Musilims did it!

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The International Privacy Rankings of 2007, surveying surveillance societies among the world's most powerful countries.

The story of the not-so-lost Amazonian tribe whose pictures riveted the world for a few minutes a couple of weeks ago. It was, apparently, a publicity stunt meant to call attention to cultures threatened by logging. A pretty good one, too.

I'm sure this must have been a Ripley's Believe It Or Not spot at some point: the story of the 256-year-old man.

Vintage African hairstyles.

Andrew Bush's Vector portraits, some fascinating shots of people in motion.

[Ketumak]

The Amazon lost tribe story certainly caught the media's attention over here. We're now having a fairly quiet time for news this week, but this one caught my eye:

Spanish Parliament approves human rights for apes.

Another eye-catching headline with a real story behind it. If it's just the right to life and freedom that sounds good to me.

There may be other good news on the environment front, too, as it appears the oceans can act as a sink, destroying greenhouse gases. (There's one or two riders to this though, as the scientists point out.

[pharazon]

The Amazon lost tribe story certainly caught the media's attention over here. We're now having a fairly quiet time for news this week, but this one caught my eye:

Spanish Parliament approves human rights for apes.

Another eye-catching headline with a real story behind it. If it's just the right to life and freedom that sounds good to me.

Using apes in circuses, television commercials or filming will also be banned

Not appearing in commercials is a "human right"?

[brandrinn]

The Amazon lost tribe story certainly caught the media's attention over here. We're now having a fairly quiet time for news this week, but this one caught my eye:

Spanish Parliament approves human rights for apes.

Another eye-catching headline with a real story behind it. If it's just the right to life and freedom that sounds good to me.

Using apes in circuses, television commercials or filming will also be banned

Not appearing in commercials is a "human right"?

The question of humanity, obviously, is a huge issue in philosophy. Most people spend a great deal of time talking about whether humanity is inherent or based on rationality, and if the latter, whether the rationality must be manifested or merely potential (e.g. in children).

I think the most sensible thing would be to classify apes as "non rational persons," like children, coma patients, or the mentally disabled. They would need guardians, and could be coerced to do things without input (parents often force their children to appear in commercials too), but they would have the same basic rights as non-rational humans, i.e. the right to not be killed, to not be physically or mentally traumatized, etc. I'm not sure if the Spanish law approaches the problem from this angle, though.

[Shm Jay]

It may not be a human right, but it is now officially a simian right. (Or pongid right.)

[Tarasoriku]

The question of humanity, obviously, is a huge issue in philosophy. Most people spend a great deal of time talking about whether humanity is inherent or based on rationality, and if the latter, whether the rationality must be manifested or merely potential (e.g. in children).

Personally, I'm of the opinion if it isn't capable of language, you can eat it. I haven't decided whether to make a distinction between combinatorial/non-combinatorial. But I don't see why the latter should have the same rights as the former.

If apes acquire any 'right', all syntaxless creatures should, too (that still have lexical comprehension, limited as it is). That should encompass some non-ape primates, as well as most species of parrot. There are probably others that are untestable (whales, dolphins).

OTOH, what's the point? It's already prohibited to hunt any of these animals - the law can't have been put in place for the 'commercial' bit alone, so I assume it was all just making a statement.

Logically, for a species to have rights shouldn't it have to be capable of defending those rights? (Obviously barring immaturity or a deformity).