firehose

The End of the Town Hall
What’s Left of Lehman Brothers
Pepperidge Farm’s Richest Cookies

Much bigger. The image site is fast becoming one of the internet’s biggest communities.

After years of advocating the party lifestyle via songs, motivational speeches, and sexy product endorsements, Andrew W.K. has finally landed a book deal. The singer will publish The Party Bible through Simon & Schuster sometime in the near future, and will be accompanied by an audio book to soundtrack workouts and long car rides. W.K. says the book is an ode to all his “party friends” and is the culmination of his “entire career as a professional partier.” A video celebrating the book’s existence is below, and is premiering exclusively on The A.V. Club.

Michael Szczerban, W.K.’s editor, says the book will be “an unforgettable voyage in search of truth, wisdom, and party bliss,” and that, “in it, every feeling will be permitted, every thought will become prophecy, and humanity’s surging life force will be harnessed and ridden into the abyss.” So, party on ...

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~Maurice Merleau-Ponty

The International Olympic Committee on Thursday declared Russia's "magnificent" Olympic venues in Sochi were ready for the 2014 Winter Games, adding that Russia's recent ban on homosexual "propaganda" did not violate the Olympic charter.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Florida appeals court is ordering a new trial for a woman sentenced to 20 years to prison after she fired a warning shot in a wall during a dispute with her ex-husband.

The 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that a judge did not properly instruct the jury handling the case of Marissa Alexander.

But the appeals court did also state that the judge was right to block Alexander from using the state's "Stand Your Ground" law as a way to defend her actions.

Alexander had never been arrested before she fired a bullet at a wall one day in 2010 to scare off her husband when she felt he was threatening her.

Isaiah Rumlin with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Jacksonville Branch reacted to the news stating, "That is excellent. I'm overjoyed. I think the court made the right decision. She was overcharged, It never should have gotten as far as it did."

Rumlin explained he was hardly able to talk upon hearing the news, adding, "This is good news. She's going to get a new trial. I think we did the right thing in what we did as it relates to the demonstrations and all the social media that got involved and the lawyer from New York who got involved.

Alexander's case in Jacksonville has drawn attention and criticism aimed at mandatory-minimum sentencing laws.

Associated Press

Original Source

The team at Bosse Tools has created The Ergonomic Shovel, a collection of back-saving shovels that feature a rotating middle handle. Bosse Tools founder Stephen Walden came up with the idea in 2011. Stephen is currently raising funds on Kickstarter to help with manufacturing costs.

Industrial, age-old design meets ergonomic innovation. Groundbreaking technology from Bosse Tools has redesigned the shovel.

These shovels improve posture to reduce back strain, they relieve wrist pain by taking the wrist out of a pronated position, and they minimize shoulder injury by making sure lifting tasks are two-handed and in front of the body, which evenly distributes the loads across the shoulders and chest. The center handle rotates, allowing you to customize your hand position for any job or task.

images and videos via Bosse Tools

via The Awesomer

Slow growth, high taxes and moribund industry. Bienvenue en France.

The French government unveiled its 2014 budget yesterday, inspiring groans across the country. French president François Hollande, who was voted into office in May 2012 by pledging to lighten up on austerity and impose heavier taxes on the rich, recently admitted that his government’s tax-hiking zeal may have gotten a little carried away. According to the latest budget, taxes will rise by €3 billion ($4.1 billion) next year—on top of €60 billion in hikes over the past three years—as part of a deficit-reduction package worth €18 billion in total.

Leaning more on spending cuts than tax hikes is a departure from previous budgets, but after recently promising a “tax pause”, Hollande’s latest hike, however small, is not going over well. Hollande’s approval rating, a paltry 23%, is only a whisker above the all-time low for any French president.

Many of the new budget measures (link in French) were already made public by officials in recent weeks, presumably to soften the blow when they appeared together in a single, depressing document. Admitting that France will miss its budget deficit target earlier this month, finance minister Pierre Moscovici pitched the shortfall as an opportunity to support growth instead of inflicting more austerity on the economy. He also admitted, bluntly, that the French are “fed up” with taxes. Still, the budget only modestly shrinks the size of the state relative to the economy, already one of the largest in Europe.

In the lead-up to the budget, Hollande also announced a new industrial plan (link in French), pledging around €4 billion in spending across 34 priority sectors, including vague if splashy areas like “Big Data” and somewhat obscure notions like “telecoms sovereignty.” Analysts are not impressed.

Hollande isn’t that popular with businesses, thanks to the impact that the country’s heavy tax burden has on labor costs. A third of France’s average hourly wage cost is comprised of taxes and other social contributions, the highest percentage in the EU. For their part, French officials have recently taken to blaming unfairly low wages in Germany as the real enemy of French competitiveness.

And with the upward revisions of deficit estimates came lower forecasts for GDP growth. France expects to eke out growth of only 0.1% this year and 0.9% in 2014. As a result, government debt will rise above 95% of GDP next year, which is higher than that of crisis-hit Spain. In the European league table, France’s unemployment rate, at 11%, puts it roughly in the middle of the resilient north and the struggling south.

The financial crisis did not hit France nearly as hard as some other European countries. As a result, it has been slow to reform its famously bureaucratic state or boost the efficiency of its businesses. As its neighbors recover, France risks losing ground. Its deeply unpopular president has signaled a change in approach in his government’s latest budget, but the resulting series of half-measures and mixed messages seems designed to please precisely no one. 

whitehouse:

Alanah Poullard—the five year old daughter of a wounded warrior—gets a written note from President Obama, excusing her from school for the day.

She’s going to dine out on this one for WEEKS. “I have a note FROM THE PRESIDENT, you guys. This entitles me to do ANYTHING I WANT.” :)

Archery Hall and Boxing Club | FT Architects | Shigeo Ogawa

statues-and-monuments:

statues-and-monuments

Astronomical Clock 1540, Munster, Westfalen, Paulusdom 
Photographer: Groenling 

ABC News

31-Day Prison Sentence Ends for Montana Rapist ABC News A former Montana high school teacher due to be released Thursday after serving a 30-day prison sentence for raping a 14-year-old student is "still skating" justice six years after the assault, the victim's mother said. Stacey Rambold, 54, will leave the Montana ... and more »

Big Bang Pro Wrestling (SNK - Neo Geo Pocket Color - 2000)

notablegamebox:

The worldwide Darwinist conspiracy even reaches into our videogames.

Despite all the talk about the iPhone 5C being Apple’s great multi-hued hope, reports so far indicate that the marginally more expensive iPhone 5S is outselling it by a factor of four to one. British operators report a glut of the cheaper phones (while worrying about a shortage of the fancier ones), and numbers from China and Australia indicate that demand for the 5C in those countries is even lower than it is globally.

It is little wonder then that Chinese retailers have taken to knocking down the price on the cheaper model. Online resellers are now offering the phone at 3699 yuan ($604), a hefty mark down from the listed price of 4888 yuan, reports the Chinese business publication Caijing. (That is still more expensive than in the US, where the phone retails for $550 without a contract.) Apple reported on Monday that it had sold 9 million iPhone 5S and 5C models combined in the first three days of its release. Analysts have been skeptical, attributing a large portion of sales to stock sold to shops but not to consumers.

Still, Apple has much to look forward to. The company has yet to announce a widely-expected deal with China Mobile, the largest mobile operator in the world with some 740 million subscribers. First expected at the same time as the release of the new phones, an announcement of the tie-up will now probably be made when China Mobile formally rolls out a 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile network, a standard that allows data to be transferred at speeds an order of magnitude faster than 3G networks. The minister of industry and information technology, Miao Wei, confirmed yesterday that licenses for 4G will be issued before this year is up.

Once that happens, Apple will more than double its share of the Chinese smartphone market, according to market research firm IDC, more than making up for its losses this year.

2headedsnake:

Paul Fryer

Lucifer (Morning star), 2008

Anodized aluminum, silicon rubber cord,

wax work figure, feathers, concrete

hornyspice:

People who actually buy music form iTunes.

niknak79:

Found this amazing thing outside a chemistry class.

thedavesofourlives:

thesparkofourlives:

thedavesofourlives:

lostforasecond:

thedavesofourlives:

DONT EVER TRY TO ERASE WITH SMENCIL ERASERS WHAT THE FUCK

number 2 is wrong it should be 1/r

shit son you’re right

i guess you’re gonna have to erase that

FUCK

The much-touted monthly US jobs report—the September edition is due next Friday—gets all the attention, but weekly jobless claims are actually a better gauge of US economic growth, according to a recent Goldman Sachs analysis. So the just-released update, which shows that US jobless claims rose much less than expected, to just 305,000 last week, is very good news. (A previous sharp decline had been attributed to technical glitches in several states’ reporting of new claims for unemployment benefits. But today’s data were relatively unscathed.)

What’s important here is the context. The longer term trend confirms signs of an improving job market. The four-week moving average of weekly jobless claims is now at 308,000, its lowest level since 2007. “Readings around 300,000 represent a normalized level of layoffs consistent with healthy turnover in the labor market,” wrote Julia Coronado, an economist at BNP Paribas in New York.

tastefullyoffensive:

[@tbhjuststop]

DC Comics hasn’t had a particularly good run of things lately. To be frank, the publisher has done blown it a number of times over the past few years. But don’t worry, DC fans — I’m sure it’ll soon be Marvel’s turn, as the two rivals seem to trade off every five years or so. [...]

Photos of Trigger, Bunk Bar courtesy Avila/EPDX

After much initial fanfare and ultimately less than a year of serving up "Bunk-Mex" fare, NE's Trigger will close up shop later this week, with Tommy Habetz and crew planning to turn the Wonder Ballroom space into another iteration of its popular Bunk Bar. Portland Monthly brings first word of the switcheroo: Trigger will serve its last meal on September 29, and the space will transform into Bunk Bar NE, featuring "pinball machines, Blazer night TV screens, and a family-friendly vibe."

The menu will be classic Bunk, though a few holdouts from its Trigger days will remain, including Habetz's brisket-topped queso and the much-photographed Side Pipe (aka a mini bottle of Corona served upside-down in a frozen margarita). Since its debut in October 2012 (as a collaboration between Team Bunk, ChefStable, and Stumptown's Duane Sorenson), Trigger had earned mixed reviews. Earlier this year, it experimented with lunch service and different menu formats.

Per PoMo, Bunk Bar NE is slated to open in "early October."
· Trigger to Close; NE Bunk Bar Will Rise [Eat Beat]
· All Previous Trigger Coverage [Eater PDX]

A lot of apps are silently sucking all the juice from your fancy phone. It doesn't have to be that way.

Anthony Bourdain has traveled about 250 days a year for nearly the past decade which makes him, among other things, one of the world's foremost experts in surviving the constant indignities of travel.