Posted 2 hours ago

Possibly the ugliest church ever built: the (former) Cathedral of Christ the King, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The building itself - vacated by the Episcopal Church in 2007 - is now used by an evangelical megachurch.

(via Bad Vestments: GIANT DEAD SPIDER)

Posted 3 hours ago

What the GOP and the Democrats /can/ agree on.

Posted 3 hours ago

Pictorial summary of the Hays Code. (NSFW, if you’re working at the Motion Picture Association of America in the 1930s.)

In 1934 the MPAA voluntarily passed the Motion Picture Production Code, more generally known as the Hays Code, largely to avoid governmental regulation. The code prohibited certain plotlines and imagery from films and in publicity materials produced by the MPAA. Among others, there was to be no cleavage, no lace underthings, no drugs or drinking, no corpses, and no one shown getting away with a crime.

A.L. Shafer, the head of photography at Columbia, took a photo that intentionally incorporated all of the 10 banned items into one image.

The photograph was clandestinely passed around among photographers and publicists in Hollywood as a method of symbolic protest to the Hays Code.

Posted 6 hours ago
newyorker:

Cartoon of the day. For more cartoons from this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/wNE5nX

Conversation Pits.

newyorker:

Cartoon of the day. For more cartoons from this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/wNE5nX

Conversation Pits.

(Source: newyorker.com)

Posted 16 hours ago

knepherbird:

James Joyce, Guitar Hero

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Axeman.

Posted 16 hours ago
thedailywhat:

What The Kids Are Eating of the Day: Ruled not good enough by America’s largest fast-food chains, the so-called “pink slime” — meat and meat by-products treated with ammonia — is still A-OK by U.S. Department of Agriculture standards.
In fact, the USDA will reportedly purchase over 7 million pounds of the gunk to turn into hamburgers and tacos for cafeterias feeding America’s schoolchildren.
McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell were all persuaded to stop using ammonia-treated meat after the practice of rinsing dog-grade meat with ammonia to wash away harmful bacteria was brought to the attention of consumers by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.
“We’re taking a product that would be sold in its cheaper form for dogs,” said Oliver on his TV show Food Revolution. “After this process, we can give it to humans.”
But a USDA spokesman said there were no plans to stop using pink slime as part of the national school lunch program.
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration as well as the Food Safety and Inspection Service considers ammonium hydroxide as ‘generally recognized as safe,’” said the spokesman, Aaron Lavallee. “FSIS reviewed the suitability of Beef Products Inc.’s use of ammonium hydroxide in order to assess its effectiveness in performing the intended technical purpose of use, at lowest level necessary, and to ensure that the product is not adulterated or misleading to consumers.”
However, since ammonia beef falls outside the jurisdiction of federal labeling requirements, parents have no way of knowing what exactly is being served to their kids.
[thedaily.]

Oh, GROSS. “Pink slime”: dogfood-grade meat treated with ammonia and fed to US schoolchildren by the million.
Update: some controversy about whether the photo is genuine. See this HuffPo piece for discussion of it - the second update concludes that the photo is at the very least consistent with what mechanically-recovered meat looks like. One point that HuffPo (and Snopes) do make, though, is that mechanically-recovered beef is prohibited.

thedailywhat:

What The Kids Are Eating of the Day: Ruled not good enough by America’s largest fast-food chains, the so-called “pink slime” — meat and meat by-products treated with ammonia — is still A-OK by U.S. Department of Agriculture standards.

In fact, the USDA will reportedly purchase over 7 million pounds of the gunk to turn into hamburgers and tacos for cafeterias feeding America’s schoolchildren.

McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell were all persuaded to stop using ammonia-treated meat after the practice of rinsing dog-grade meat with ammonia to wash away harmful bacteria was brought to the attention of consumers by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

“We’re taking a product that would be sold in its cheaper form for dogs,” said Oliver on his TV show Food Revolution. “After this process, we can give it to humans.”

But a USDA spokesman said there were no plans to stop using pink slime as part of the national school lunch program.

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration as well as the Food Safety and Inspection Service considers ammonium hydroxide as ‘generally recognized as safe,’” said the spokesman, Aaron Lavallee. “FSIS reviewed the suitability of Beef Products Inc.’s use of ammonium hydroxide in order to assess its effectiveness in performing the intended technical purpose of use, at lowest level necessary, and to ensure that the product is not adulterated or misleading to consumers.”

However, since ammonia beef falls outside the jurisdiction of federal labeling requirements, parents have no way of knowing what exactly is being served to their kids.

[thedaily.]

Oh, GROSS. “Pink slime”: dogfood-grade meat treated with ammonia and fed to US schoolchildren by the million.

Update: some controversy about whether the photo is genuine. See this HuffPo piece for discussion of it - the second update concludes that the photo is at the very least consistent with what mechanically-recovered meat looks like. One point that HuffPo (and Snopes) do make, though, is that mechanically-recovered beef is prohibited.

Posted 18 hours ago
The proletarianisation of the lower salaried bourgeoisie is matched at the opposite extreme by the irrationally high remuneration of top managers and bankers (irrational since, as investigations have demonstrated in the US, it tends to be inversely proportional to a company’s success). Rather than submit these trends to moralising criticism, we should read them as signs that the capitalist system is no longer capable of self-regulated stability – it threatens, in other words, to run out of control.
Slavish Žižek, The Revolt of the Salaried Bourgeoisie. Žižek’s discussion of the “surplus wage” by which the “new bourgeoisie” has appropriated surplus value - and whose threatened removal lies behind many of the strikes and protests of the past year - is particularly useful.
Posted 19 hours ago

Climate Scientists' editorial rebuttal published in the WSJ!

WSJ letter from 16 scientists was “the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology”.

jtotheizzoe:

climateadaptation:

A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal published an anti-climate change op-ed signed by 16 scientists. None of the authors are climate scientists, nor do peer review research in the field.

No matter, it got published anyway. And shortly after the piece was published, real climate scientists came out off the woodwork to condemn the WSJ and the so-called scientists that wrote it. Andrew Revkin of the NYTimes has been tracking the pushback, here.

I’m happy to say that the WSJ published a rebuttal from real climate scientists and researchers, and it is epic. A taste:

Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate

Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.

You published “No Need to Panic About Global Warming” (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.

Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter.

Via Revkin

Previously, for background.

Posted 20 hours ago

I’ve never really got into LaTeX (as it were), but if that is your thing then this document is probably pretty useful.

/via invaderxan:

Incredibly useful.

Posted 22 hours ago

Oh, this is very sad news. Soul Train’s Don Cornelius appears to have killed himself at the age of 75.

Via thedailywhat:

RIP: Don Cornelius, creator and host of the legendary musical variety show Soul Train, was found dead this morning of an apparent self-inflicted gun shot wound in his home in Sherman Oaks, California. He was 75.

Introducing many Americans to soul music through his hit TV show which premiered in 1971, Cornelius helped promote the careers of such musical icons as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Michael Jackson.

He is perhaps best remembered, even among non-viewers, for his signature catchphrase, with which he would end each show: “I’m Don Cornelius, and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace and soul!” 

[tmz.]