November 2005

November 30, 2005

links for 2005-12-01

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November 29, 2005

A Tiny Toothache

I just purchased the print above from Tiny Showcase (click to see the full image, which is just fantastic). Each Tuesday around 6:00 pm PST, I find myself refreshing their home page, awaiting the next Tiny print for sale. They're limited to a run of 50, and typically sell out fast - half an hour after purchasing my "Last Great Toothache," and they're already half-sold.

They sell their prints for $20 a piece, and $5 of that goes towards a charity of the artists' choosing. Good work, good causes, and a great site. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the five or six of these I've accumulated in the last half year or so - how to frame, where to put.

Posted by starlen at 06:24 PM | Comments (1)

links for 2005-11-30

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Comedians of Comedy

At this year's SXSW, I (along with my friends Ryan, Sam, and Sandy) caught an encore performance (as it were) of the Comedians of Comedy tour, with Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, Brian Posehn, and Maria Bamford. For the SXSW stop (they were there to screen the film), they had Eugene Mirman open the show and generally act as MC for the evening. It was by far some of the funniest hours of my life.

Just recently, the documentary of the tour itself was released through Netflix, and I've watched it a couple of times, and found myself making others watch moments of it repeatedly. It's nice to see such genuinely funny comedians get recognized for their own work (as opposed to their stints in sitcoms like Just Shoot Me and King of Queens, or films like Out Cold), and the documentary is an interesting (and hilarious!) look at what being a touring comedian for over 15 years is/can be like. Well worth the time.

There's apparently also a Comedy Central show of the same name, which I haven't caught yet, but will do my best to this week. And Eugene Mirman, meanwhile, keeps writing brilliant entries on his Village Voice blog. The most recent post, about TV news (and Nazis, and a gay Bill O'Reilly, and poodle-rock band Skid Row), is especially funny, and you should be sure to listen to his phone call to ABC News, made in an attempt to find out what about the winter could kill his dog.

(You can also see a picture of Ryan taken by Patton Oswalt on our plane trip to Austin here, if you scroll down the page to about the halfway point.)

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November 27, 2005

links for 2005-11-28

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November 26, 2005

links for 2005-11-27

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November 21, 2005

links for 2005-11-22

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November 20, 2005

links for 2005-11-21

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November 17, 2005

links for 2005-11-18

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November 15, 2005

This month, ten years ago

Ever look at a picture of yourself and just sort of not recognize that it's, you know, you? 'Cos that's how I'm feeling, seeing a picture of me from almost exactly ten years ago, that an old friend scanned and sent my way.

I still feel alright about the choice of tux, but I don't remember my hair being quite that long. Also, I don't remember feeling like me and Jeremy were a couple of eleven-year-olds playing dress-up, but it sure looks that way now.

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November 14, 2005

links for 2005-11-15

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November 13, 2005

links for 2005-11-14

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November 10, 2005

links for 2005-11-11

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Medved's Bizarro World

I was listening to Michael Medved this afternoon on the way home from work, and it was one of the more surreal right wing radio experiences I've had in a while.

It was Disagreement Day on Medved's show (or "D-Day" as they called it), and so he had on Sean Cahill of the Lesbian and Gay Political Alliance, and they were discussing gay marriage. Medved was arguing that gay marriage is not a rights issue, but an issue of public policy (and we can surmise, as long as that policy keeps gay marriage illegal, Medved's okay with it). One of his callers called with this particularly comic comment:

Okay, Sean, let's take this idea to its logical conclusion. . .
And then. . .after a moment's pause, the caller presents what is clearly the logical conclusion of legalizing gay marriage:

I'm gay. My dad's gay. We're in love and we're gonna get married.

So then Medved jumps in and says, "Now, that's just nuts -"

Oh, wait, that's not what he said. No, no, rather he continues on the "how is it a rights issue for homosexuals but not for incestuous relationships?" path of the argument, as though he's really nailed Cahill on this one. Er, okay.

And then, a few calls later, somebody calls in about this same issue (though Cahill is gone by this time). Here's my rough paraphrased transcript, with my thoughts in italics:

Michael, I wanted to call in and let you know that I usually agree with you but I disagree with you making the comparison between gay marriage and polygamous marriage.

A conservative homosexual - sigh. I don't understand (though I don't automatically assume that being homosexual and being conservative means being self-hating).

Now, I am completely in agreement with the vote in Texas outlawing gay marriage.

Oops . . . I guess he is self-hating.

Then he drops it:

I think that homosexuality is bad for this country, and I think that it should be outlawed. But polygamous marriage is healthy for society and completely natural and I believe it should be sanctioned by our government.

He goes on to say he has three wives (one for twenty years, one twelve, one three) and five houses, and that he provides a house for each one. He's also got nine kids and has adopted an autistic child. Polygamy is good because then the women don't have to settle for a lesser man just because all the good men are taken, and this would force the other guys to get their acts together (not once, it should be noted, does he mention anything about wives having multiple husbands). One might ask how he can espouse family values while admittedly spending 2/3s of his time away from each of his given families (he said he divides the time equally), but, whatever.

Anyhow, Medved more or less disagrees with him, but then offers his explanation for why he makes the comparison. To paraphrase, he says that he disagrees with both gay marriage and polygamy, and that's why he compares them. Because, as is typical in right-wing-radio-thinking, there's no room for degrees or subtlety, or even differentiation - just either/or, good/bad, right/wrong. Here are two things; both are wrong, and so it's obviously perfectly okay to compare them as equals.

On a final note: Can somebody please tell Pat Robertson to stop speaking on God's behalf?

Posted by starlen at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2005

links for 2005-11-10

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November 07, 2005

links for 2005-11-08

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Rasputin and family.

I bought this at a thrift store recently. Does anyone know if the appearance of their eyes is the result of some early photographic process? I can't imagine they all really looked like scary Rasputin-eyed zombies in real life. (Click on the image for the full picture, including a much larger version, in flickr.)

Posted by starlen at 02:03 PM | Comments (2)

Listen and Do: Complete

don't run over the squirrell!

I finished scanning the Listen and Do children's activity book, and now the whole thing is available at a fairly high resolution on Flickr.

This last round of scans has a number of highlights, including the man of India whose God cannot help him, an illustration of how to pimp your kids to collect money for Jesus, and the comforting knowledge that in heaven, all the flowers will be pretty all the time.

Since it's an activity book, there are a few pages that require materials from another book or source. The most *ahem* interesting of these is the Africa: Old houses/New houses diagram. It asks questions such as "How do the people eat before they know Jesus (and how do they eat afterwards?),' and "What kind of clothes do the people have before they know Jesus? What kind of clothes do the people have after they know Jesus?"

We'll never know the answer, as the page requires cutting and pasting from the missing activity book. As it stands, the page is just blank shapes and text intimating that we presumedly would be seeing different scenes of heathen tribes made more whole/civilized through the love of Christ.

Enjoy the rest!

Posted by starlen at 09:53 AM | Comments (0)

star: cop dad or coach dad?

ryan took this photo of me and asks : star: cop dad or coach dad?


Posted by starlen at 01:24 AM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2005

links for 2005-11-07

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November 05, 2005

links for 2005-11-06

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I poems (another music listening update)

It occurred to me that these alphabetical-listening song-lists are an awful lot like David Bunn's library card poems. To catch you up to speed if you're not familiar with Bunn's work, after the Los Angeles Library System did away with their paper card catalog system, David retrieved all the cards, and now makes fantastic displays of the serendipitous poetry that comes out of the sequential book titles on the cards (some of his work, appropriately enough, is hanging in the downtown Los Angeles Public Library).

So, here's my attempt at the same, using every song that begins with I (as in the pronoun, not just the letter) or a contraction of I. I didn't leave any songs out, nor did I reorder them. I think it's kind of interesting, seeing what comes out of it (feel free to change the channel now):

I
I'd really love to see you tonight
I'll be in the air
I'll be you
I'll believe in anything
I'll come running
I'll do a little bit more
I'll fly away
I'll tell him tonight
I'm a ghost
I'm a man
I'm a Mormon
I'm an actor
I'm cool (interlude)
I'm free now
I'm getting cold
I'm going on for Jesus
I'm going to Spain
I'm her slave
I'm in a bad way
I'm in hell
I'm in love with no one
I'm lying
I'm never bored
I'm not asking for a tennis bracelet
I'm not going anywhere
I'm not in love
I'm not the one
I'm old fashioned
I'm on standby
I'm on your side
I'm part of everything again
I'm rejoicing in the lord
I'm set free
I'm so green
I'm so lonesome I could cry
I'm sorry you're having trouble...goodbye.
I'm still in love
I'm the bomb
I'm to blame
I'm with the pilots
I'm your villain
I'm yours, you're mine
I've been everywhere
I've been lost
I've been loving you too long
I've been riding with the ghost
I've got it all (most)
I've got my own problems to fix
I've got the ice in me
I've got you under my skin
I've seen it all
I've seen the land beyond
I ain't no joke
I am a cracked machine
I am not lonely with cricket
I am only me
I am the lamb
I am the sticks
I am your king
I believe in you
I blew away
I came as a rat
I can't believe
I can't believe it's true
I can't forget
I can't win
I can not have seen the light
I could see the dude
I could stay here forever
I could still (be an actor)
I dig you
I don't believe in the sun
I don't want to get over you
I don't want to record anymore
I drink the wine
I drive a lot
I feel the rain fall
I felt you
i finally found a jungle I like!
I found a way out
I found that essence rare
I get lonesome
I get the message
I go humble
I got a live one
I got the
I guess you're right
I have Jesus in my heart today
I heard you looking
I hold you
I invented the night
I keep coming back
I keep coming back
I know I can handle it
I know that loving
I know what I knew,
I know you got soul
I know your little secret
I lied
I like lo-fi recordings
I love the wb
I love you more
I love you more
I made the change
I missed the point
I must learn to live alone
I must prepare (tablecloth tint)
I need feel
I need love
I never came
I never picked cotton
I only said
I pray
I pray (interlude)
I ran (so far away)
I saw drones
I say that I will go
I see a darkness
I see you again
I set my face to the hillside
I should have been watching you
I sleep forever
I spy
I still miss someone
I summon you
I think I need a new heart
I thought about you
I turn my camera on
I want to know what love is
I want her she wants me
I was a landscape in your dream
I was a sunny rainphase
I was never young
I was the fool beside you for too long
I was your man
I will follow you into the dark
I will obey the lord
I wish
I wish I was the moon
I wonder
I would hurt a fly

Previously: Don't.

Posted by starlen at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)

November 04, 2005

links for 2005-11-05

Posted by starlen at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)

You say potato, I say get the hell away from me.

There's a new trailer for King Kong up. I'm conflicted - it looks much more promising than the previous trailer, so I think I want to see it.

But then, there's this:

Unless my eyes deceive me, that thing disengaging itself from Adrien Brody's face is a GIANT POTATO BUG.

Good God, that's terrifying. I need more information on the quantity of giant potato bug content in this film. If there's more than this, I'll be suffering nightmares for months. As it is, I could barely find the will to go on living after my first encounter with a live one as a child, found while digging through the dirt in our backyard, where it attached itself to my finger. Had I hesitated a moment more, I'm sure it would have pulled the bones right out of my hand with its vicious pincers.

If you need more info on why you should fear the potato bug, I direct you to the handy resource that is potatobugs.com.

Posted by starlen at 12:01 AM | Comments (2)

November 03, 2005

links for 2005-11-04

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Stealthy with the Stealth Tax

I'm worried about the Alternative Minimum Tax. I've been worried about it for a little while now, due largely in part to David Cay Johnston's excellent book, "Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else." The Alternative Minimum Tax (or the Stealth Tax, as Johnston is fond of calling it) is a tax that kicks in at a certain income level, that strips taxpayers of certain deductions to make sure that some taxes are paid. As smartmoney describes it, "the best way to understand the AMT is to view it as a separate tax system. It has its own set of rates and its own rules for deductions, which usually are less generous than the regular rules. Because of these confusing rules, the only ways you can tell if you owe the tax are by filling out the forms (essentially doing your taxes a second time) or by being audited by the Internal Revenue Service."

I've been worried that my parents might be hit with it, or - gulp! - possibly even me.

It looks like that might not be an issue any more. This CNN Money article explains that killing the Alternative Minimum Tax is at the top of the list for Bush's tax reform panel.

And this is a very, very bad thing.

See, currently, the AMT affects households that bring in $75,000 or more and have certain large deductions - that is, middle class families, especially those with "several children, interest deductions from second mortgages, capital gains, high state and local taxes, and incentive stock options." SmartMoney points out that "(w)hile only 19,000 people owed the AMT in 1970, over 3 million are paying it now, according to the IRS."

So what happened? I'll quote now from a 2004 interview with David Cay Johnston, who elaborates why the AMT was started, and how it's changed:

In 1969, it was revealed by the Johnson administration, three days before it ended, that 155 Americans who made the equivalent of a million dollars a year or more in today's dollars paid no income taxes. Remember, the U.S. government taxes you on your worldwide income to Americans. So nowhere in the world did the 155 people pay taxes. Congress got more letters about that that year than they did about the Vietnam War. It really struck home with people. So Congress passed a law that was designed to make sure that if you made the equivalent of a million dollars or more, you have to pay some taxes, because most people that make that pay a lot of tax.

Well, over the years, the laws morphed and were changed by Congress. And it largely ceased to be a tax on people who make more than a million dollars a year. But under the Bush tax cut, it will become a huge government moneymaker from the middle class and the upper middle class. Since 1986, under this law, if you take a lot of deductions, you lose your exemption for yourself and your spouse, and your children. You cannot deduct your state income taxes. You cannot deduct your property taxes on your home. If you or your spouse or one of your children is sick, and you're trying to keep them alive -- let's say they have cancer, and you're spending 10 percent of your income or more on your medical bills -- our government will tax you for trying to keep your loved one alive. You can even lose the standard deduction -- the most passive thing you can do as a taxpayer. You don't itemize; you just take the standard deduction. If you're a married couple with three children who made $75,000 last year, you lost part of your standard deduction to the alternative minimum tax or stealth tax.

The other part of this, again according to SmartMoney, is inflation - "while the 'regular' tax brackets, exemptions and standard deductions are adjusted annually for inflation, the AMT brackets and exemptions are not, so many people whose income has grown with the economy enter the dreaded AMT zone each year."

A few months ago, some politicians began carping about the alternative minimum tax, and how it's going to affect middle class families, and how "relief" is needed immediately. It looked like they were really going to move to prevent the AMT from hitting middle class families, which was a surprising and encouraging bit of news, and a change from the scenario that Johnston pointed out in 2004:

Now under the Bush tax cut, by the standards of President Bush, there is a one-half trillion dollar increase in alternative minimum taxes. And that money is explicitly being used to finance the reduction in taxes for people at the very top who make millions of dollars.

If the AMT were being shifted to place the burden back where it belongs - adjusting it for inflation, or resetting it to a meaningful threshold that returns it to its original intentions - then we might be seeing useful reform. Instead, the AMT has been degraded to a middle class family problem, so now the carping politicians and tax board can appear to be heroes by eliminating the AMT. Of course, in the process, they're effectively rolling back one of the few (if slightly ineffectual) defenses against tax evasion through creative accounting. And the AMT is completely taken off the table at a time when the current administration seeks further tax cuts at the top.

And this is where things get problematic. The mandate of Bush's reform panel is to be revenue-neutral - that is, any cuts they make have to be matched by increases elsewhere. The estimated cost of repealing the AMT is $1.3 trillion over the next decade. And I think we can be pretty sure that that revenue is not going to be made up by reinstating some of the taxes cut from the top.

I'd be surprised if this tax burden isn't reshifted to fall right back on the shoulders of the middle and lower classes.

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November 02, 2005

links for 2005-11-03

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light reading


light reading
Originally uploaded by Sixfoot6.

Wow. This forbes cover looks like a joke. The subheading reads: They Destroy Brands and Wreck Lives - Is There Any Way to Fight Back?

"People - they don't buy your products. Is there a way to steal their money and break their kneecaps?"


Posted by starlen at 04:18 PM | Comments (1)

November 01, 2005

links for 2005-11-02

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When Jesus Did Not Come.

There's another 20 or so pages up - you can see the whole set here.

This particular batch has a lot of activities, including a color-by-numbers for an image I can't discern, and a number of history lessons about key Seventh Day Adventist figures.

I should have the last twenty pages up near the end of the week - this is where most of the good stuff is. Trips to India! Trips to Africa! Magical kids running from a rainbow with magical animal friends! Truly, a treat.

Also, see previous entries here, here, and here.


Posted by starlen at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)


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