The Biggest, Most Dangerous Beef in Hip Hop
Posted on June 26th, 2009 at 11:43 am by Steve

It’s not East Coast / West Coast. It’s not Down South vs. Up Top. No. It’s Earth-walkers vs. Moon-walkers!

Can I just say: I fucking love Talib Kweli?

In case you don’t have time to watch it now, here’s a quick excerpt from the video:

Talib Kweli: “The song ‘Whitey on the Moon,’ Gil Scott Heron – what, you thought he was talkin’ about LBJ or Nixon? Naw, he was talking about Buzz Aldrin!”

[Clip from Gil Scott Heron: “I can’t pay no doctor bills / but whitey’s on the moon”]

Buzz Aldrin: “Gil and I are cool now. I explained to him that, we came in peace for all mankind, and… he backed off.”

Talib Kweli: “People think of hip hop, and they think of beefs: we had east coast / west coast beefs, down south / up top beefs… but, it doesn’t compare to the beef between Earth-walkers and Moon-walkers, which I think is a way more dangerous beef.”

Buzz Aldrin: “I don’t have any beef with the Earth-walkers.

Яolcats for Steve
Posted on June 22nd, 2009 at 5:06 pm by lulutsg

Has this been posted?

Яolcats

The infectious nature of Lolcats…

Traditional Marriage Explained
Posted on June 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am by Steve

Mrs. Betty Bowers – America’s Best Christian – explains traditional marriage:

Do NOT miss this!!!

I Can Haz Palindrome?
Posted on June 11th, 2009 at 9:05 pm by Steve

Don’t tell me you still aren’t reading The Daily What?!

(p.s. “tacocat”… think about it…)

Dear Leader’s Got a Twitter Feed
Posted on June 11th, 2009 at 8:16 pm by Steve

What a world, what a world! Dear Leader’s on Twitter!

My favorite linked story so far is titled “Leader’s Forced March Full of Patriotic Devotion,” and includes such inscrutable gems as this:

The visit to Rakwon was followed by the 800km-long journey of field guidance to the Kim Chaek Iron and Steel Complex, the Ranam Coal Mining Machine Complex and the Musan Ore Mining Complex on the east coast where he set a timetable for creation of innovations.

In those days he found himself on the way of field guidance without dropping in his home even a day.

His unprecedented forced march was followed by visits to Manpho, a border town in Jagang Province, the area at the foot of Mt. Paektu, Songrim, Tokchon, Jaeryong, Huichon, Anju, Kusong and other parts of the country.

He went on his march day and night by train and field jeep, covering high passes, steep mountain ridges and earth and icy roads.

His forced march full of patriotic devotion is bringing about signal successes and creation of new norms and new records in all sectors of the national economy in the DPRK.

Wow. Just… wow.

I Love Neil Patrick Harris!
Posted on June 11th, 2009 at 8:07 pm by Steve

I assume you’ve already seen and enjoyed him on Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog! Well, he TORE IT UP as the host of the Tony Awards (which I didn’t watch):

So awesome!

The British Isle Venn
Posted on June 9th, 2009 at 3:25 pm by necco

Since we’re posting Venn diagrams… this one came to mind. I’m aware that it may spark controversy, but how else can you represent it so clearly?

From the author: “The Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom are the only two sovereign states in this image. They are shown in red. Ireland and Great Britain are both islands and are shown in green. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are constituent countries of the United Kingdom and are shown in orange.”

Oh… and technically it’s really an Euler diagram because it shows relationships other than pure intersections.

Heh.
Posted on June 9th, 2009 at 11:39 am by Steve

From The Daily What, whose other recent features include the incomparable Wordnik!

An Excellent, Local, Gay Writer
Posted on June 9th, 2009 at 11:32 am by Steve

Mike Mennonno is, in my opinion, a terrific writer And he’s based in Boston. And he’s gay! And he gardens!!

I’m really enjoying his post about Gay Pride, but I’m even more enamored of this passage from his discussion of how strangers can interact:

As noxious as smoking was, people forget why they started: because when everyone was doing it, it was the perfect opening line. “Got a light?” was the all-purpose come-on. Everything about cigarettes was perfect for bridging that now unbridgeable gap between strangers — even the fact that they were addictive. It gave both parties an out. If she rebuffed you, usually with a “no, sorry, this is my last one,” you still had your pride. You could be all like: yeah,well, I’m only asking because I’m about to have a nick fit, not because I want to get in your pants, sugartits.

If she — or he — said yes, there was always time as she fished in her pocketbook, or he unrolled the sleeve of his tee, looking all rebelly without a cause, to show off your charm. The cigarette was an in, an opening. And despite the fact that it would eventually kill you, it was also supremely civilizing. Nothing has taken its place. Gum-chewing lacks sophistication, asking the time doesn’t invite intimacy, and you can’t just go up to someone you don’t know and start talking about the weather, even in New England, where it is a rich, voluble topic.

I used to think of cell phones as the new smoking, but only because they, too, pollute the environment. But cell phones are actually worse. They’ve allowed the virtual, in the guise of the private, to colonize and completely overrun the already decimated public sphere, the shared space of strangers that once held the promise of a strange intimacy, without which our common life withers. Smoking, as damaging as it was to health, at least had a social function among strangers to partly make up for it.

A worthy addition to your blog-world, I daresay!

My Palm Pre
Posted on June 8th, 2009 at 4:46 pm by necco

I upgraded my phone to the new Palm Pre this weekend. Being a Sprint customer and having a phone that was starting to seem antique made the choice pretty easy (I’ve had only two cell phones in the last seven years that I’ve been with Sprint). Honestly, I was done with T9 typing and no web browser. I actually waited in line for an hour to get one of the 50 phones delivered to Santa Monica, CA. This was a new social/cultural experience for me (waiting in line for the newest block of silicon and plastic) and I was able to handle the ordeal by telling myself it was an anthropological learning opportunity. Interestingly, the people in line seemed pretty normal and friendly. There were no strange Pre fanatics or obvious hard-core geeks. In fact, I don’t recall anyone even saying anything about the Pre, but it was obvious that people were excited about it.

My take on it? I think it’s fantastic. It’s intuitive, has all the touch screen capabilities introduced by the iPhone, comes with all the apps I will every actually use and it’s smooth and quick. It’s also a bit smaller (length x width) than the iPhone, which has always seemed a little unwieldy to me. One of features that really proves itself is the ability to have multiple applications running simultaneously (load a web page, a large file from an email, get a software upgrade or download an application all at the same time). The applications are sorted into visual “cards” that you can easily navigate by flicking your finger left or right. Close an application instantly with a flick of the finger.

The Pandora application works perfectly. Signing up my work email (Microsoft Office Outlook with Exchange from saveonit.com) literally took 10 seconds, required no email to our IT department and all of my calendar events automatically started appeared as notifications. The notification system is nice: it pops up a stack of transparent notices on the bottom of the screen. The MMS application makes it easy to navigate between conversations you’ve had or are having. And the camera takes crisp three megapixel shots with almost no noticeable delay between button press and when the phone is ready to take another picture.

So, if you’re like me and never really wanted an iPhone, but felt like you were missing out on some cool features then I would highly recommend the Pre to you. I’m loving it.

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