Designs

Mark Patterson is Chuck Schumer's general counsel; he used to be a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs, and he had 20 important clients, 19 of whom he has declined to name on his financial disclosure statements.

Schumer has foot-dragged and fumbled his way through two years during which he was supposed to be putting an end to the revolving door between lobbying and government oversight. Patterson's opacity doesn't bode well for the future of the fight to get money out of politics.

A coalition of 20 organizations recently wrote to Schumer demanding that he work to fill Democratic vacancies at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Merit Systems Protection Board. The letter faulted Schumer for allowing Trump’s judicial nominees to win confirmation by unanimous consent. Schumer could have used those vacancies as leverage to force votes on his party’s regulatory nominees, the progressives argued.

Goldman Lobbyist Turned Schumer General Counsel Is Hiding Most Former Clients’ Names [Andrew Perez/The Intercept]

Here's a larger version. And here is a literal explanation.

Apmeehan's chiptunes remix of Talking Heads's "This Must Be the Place" escaped from the continuum where there was an NES Stop Making Sense cartridge, and in that reality, I totally got the high score.

Talking Heads - This Must Be the Place (8-bit Nintendo Version) (via Wil Wheaton)

via http://www.featureshoot.com/2011/02/hengki-koentjoro-jakarta-indonesia/

"Sorry John, everybody 'need see Buckaroo.'"

Evidently, not everybody. Last night in conversation it came up that Rob has never seen The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. Oh, what he is missing!

Screenwriter Earl Mac Rauch pulls out all the stops, and gives us a scifi film so full of awesome one-liners and camp I never get tired of watching it. Peter Weller's title character, Buckaroo, isn't merely a legendary neurosurgeon, he's also the lead of a crime fighting rock and roll band, the Hong Kong Cavaliers. When Buckaroo and crew perfect his parent's lives work, a dimension-traveling rocket car, they inadvertently set off an interplanetary war.

Posed against John Lithgow's Dr. Emilio Lizardo/Lord John Whorfin (one of his finest performances ever) and an army of Red Lectroid, Team Banzai struggles with our own misguided U.S. government, and with Buckaroo's highly dramatized personal demons, while saving the world.

I hope Rob can get past Weller's role in RoboCop to watch this gem.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension

A large and lovely Pandora Sphinx Moth found in New Kent, VA ( USA )

(submitted by thestuntkid)

I for one, am tired of the ceaseless parade of breasticles on HBO. It's time for some dong. Who's with me?

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We've been waiting anxiously for Bret McKenzie (the tiny kitten-shirted costar of Flight of the Conchords) to get another music project. And now he has — and he says it's akin to the classic fantasy movie Labyrinth. EVERYBODY FREAK OUT.

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"Well, when I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!' I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.”

— Whoopi Goldberg

Starcher Trek puts the lunatic spies of ISIS in charge of the Enterprise, using footage from Star Trek: The Animated Series and audio from Archer to cast Sterling Archer as Captain Kirk, Lana as Uhura, and Ray as Sulu. It's a silly joke, but a good one.

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via http://www.frank-kunert.de/de/shop/

This Eterna trailer is basically the most spine-tingling moments from a few dozen recent action-adventure movies, distilled down to six minutes of action and wonder. Don't you wish you could watch the movie this is advertising?

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Congressional Republicans are fighting Obama's plan to put a base on the moon and use it to launch an asteroid-capture program which would give NASA some practice in deflecting future asteroid-strikes -- as well as setting the stage for more ambitious missions, such as one to Mars. This whole kerfuffle was predicted by the Onion, two years ago, in a story called "Republicans Vote To Repeal Obama-Backed Bill That Would Destroy Asteroid Headed For Earth."

The Onion, one of America's leading satirical news outlets, has predicted the future before. Al Qaeda squabbling with 9/11 truthers, for instance. Or the Onion's piece on George W. Bush ushering in an era of war and economic recession...published in January 2001.

The Onion Predicts Real Life: Republicans Block NASA's Asteroid Plan [Asawin Suebsaeng/Christian Science Monitor]

New Orleans, LA St Louis Cemetery #3 by army.arch on Flickr.

Randall Munroe has finally finished Time, his 3,000+ frame slow-motion animation that began life as wordless, enigmatic single-panel XKCD installment. Since then, the panel has been slowly, slowly updating itself, running out its course over several months. Geekwagon has collected the whole series in an easy-to-control window, and the story, taken as a whole, is a beautiful and odd existentialist parable touching on the discovery of geographic knowledge; cultural first contacts; environmental disaster, friendship and ingenuity. (Thanks, @dexitroboper!)