Come to think of it, this would explain the $700 BILLION bailout of the banking sector…

It’s that time of year once again. Posting Nina Paley’s excellent sticker (h/t to lulutsg!) sent me scurrying to the far corners of the web, and I found this little Christmas tidbit courtesy of the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities:

in 1659, a law was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony requiring a five-shilling fine from anyone caught “observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way.” Christmas Day was deemed by the Puritans to be a time of seasonal excess with no Biblical authority. The law was repealed in 1681 along with several other laws, under pressure from the government in London. It was not until 1856 that Christmas Day became a state holiday in Massachusetts. For two centuries preceding that date, the observance of Christmas — or lack thereof — represented a cultural tug of war between Puritan ideals and British tradition.

The law makes for strange bedfellows. In this case… I expect I’ll be waking up next to the younger Reverend Mather. And, perhaps, I’ll finally learn why they called him “Increase!”

No, that’s not a green grocer chanting… that’s friend of the blog MK, in an earlier incarnation as high school TV production teacher. This photo’s for him:

(For the record, that’s a billboard takeover in the UK by mob ster.)

Yeah, I saw it on The Daily What. Didn’t you?

“Expresso, Excetera!”

OK, so we all love The Onion‘s news coverage, right? But check out this screen shot of the bottom of an Onion page that I snapped today. The story with the photo is an Onion news story teaser; the story on the right is direct from CNN’s web site. WTF?!

While we’re on the subject of The Onion, did you see this article from June?

Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles

PALO ALTO, CA—A new report published this week by researchers at Stanford University suggests that Americans spend the vast majority of each day staring at, interacting with, and deriving satisfaction from glowing rectangles.

[…]

According to the report, staring blankly at luminescent rectangles is an increasingly central part of modern life. At work, special information rectangles help men and women silently complete any number of business-related tasks, while entertainment rectangles—larger and louder and often placed inside the home—allow Americans to enter a relaxing trance-like state after a long day of rectangle-gazing.

P.S. We’re doing it right now!

Burned into my brain forever:

Jamie Foxx… singing the theme song to The Brady Bunch. In a variety of soulful styles.

ROFLMAO!

Sometimes the Associated Press really, really confuses me:

BIG CREEK, Ky. — A part-time census worker found hanging in a rural Kentucky cemetery was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape, said an Ohio man who discovered the body two weeks ago. The word “fed” was written in felt-tip pen on 51-year-old Bill Sparkman’s chest, but authorities have released very few other details in the case, such as whether they think it was an accident, suicide or homicide.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally stripped someone naked, hogtied them, bound them with duct tape, written “fed” on their chest, and left them hanging in a tree! It’s so easy to do, those rolls of duct tape should come with warning labels!

Since 1993, The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension has been bringing you esoteric and visionary knowledge (and a lot of other crap, too). That tradition continues with their recent posting of a six-part interview with Peter Lamborn Wilson, better known in some circles as Hakim Bey.

Apparently, Lombard Street was turned into CandyLand for a day.