firehose

In 2012, Google spent more money lobbying Washington directly than Exxon Mobil, a company with 10 times as much revenue. (Even after you add in the other ways Exxon Mobil dumps money into Washington, through individual contributions of its employees and its political action committee, Exxon’s total 2012 lobbying spend of $16.64 million is still below what Google spent on direct lobbying alone.)

Stephanie Tillman


Stephanie Tillman


Stephanie Tillman

Stephanie Tillman

Ah, a Netflix produced original content project that I can actually get interested in! (Sorry, Arrested Development, I’ve got nothing against the show but I’m also not in the fandom, so the Excite-O-Meter is not running high.) Andy and Lana Wachowski are teaming with J. Michael Straczynski to bring a ten-episode sci-fi series called Sense8 to Netflix in late 2014.

From the press release:

“We’re excited to work with Netflix and Georgeville Television on this project, and we’ve wanted to work with Joe Straczynski for years, chiefly due to the fact his name is harder to pronounce than ours, but also because we share a love of genre and all things nerdy,” said Andy and Lana Wachowski . “Several years ago, we had a late night conversation about the ways technology simultaneously unites and divides us, and out of that paradox ‘Sense8′ was born.”

While longrunning sci-fi series Babylon 5 is still probably Straczynski’s most well known work, he also provided the story from which Marvel’s Thor screenplay was created, as well as writing work for Marvel and DC comics on Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, and Superman. Some of his lesser known credits that I feel compelled to mention after scrolling to the bottom of the IMDB page include a Murder, She Wrote TV movie and several episodes of She-Ra.

The press release is tight on what Sense8 will actually be about (though I feel compelled to point out that the title could mean either eight senses or be a “pun” of sorts on the word sensate, which is a fancy adjective that means able to perceive or be perceived). The most we get is “a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted.” With folks like the Wachowskis and Straczynski in charge, however, we might have to wait all te way up to the series’ premier to get an idea of what it’s about!

(via Collider, top pic via Joblo.)

Original Source

Belize Alabama

City leaders in Oxford, Ala. have approved the destruction of a 1,500-year-old Native American ceremonial mound and are using the dirt as fill for a new Sam's Club, a retail warehouse store operated by Wal-Mart.{C}A University of Alabama archaeology report commissioned by the city found that the site was historically significant as the largest of several ancient stone and earthen mounds throughout the Choccolocco Valley. But Oxford Mayor Leon Smith -- whose campaign has financial connections to firms involved in the $2.6 million no-bid project -- insists the mound is not man-made and was used only to "send smoke signals."

"The City of Oxford and its archaeological advisers have completed a review and evaluation of a stone mound that was identified near Boiling Springs, Calhoun County, Alabama, and have concluded that the mound is the result of natural phenomena and does not meet the eligibility criteria for the Natural [sic] Register of Historic Places," according to a news release Smith issued last week.

In fact, the report does not conclude the mound is a result of "natural phenomena" but says very clearly it is of "cultural origin." And while the University's Office of Archaeological Research does not believe the site qualifies for the National Register of Historic Places, the Alabama Historical Commission disagrees, noting that the structure meets at least three criteria for inclusion: its "association with a broad pattern of history," architecture "embodying distinctive characteristics," and for the information it might yield to scholars.

The site is also significant to Native Americans. The Woodland and Mississippian cultures that inhabited the Southeast and Midwest before Europeans arrived constructed and used these mounds for various rituals, which may have included funerals. There are concerns that human remains may be present at the site, though none have been found yet.

United South and Eastern Tribes, a nonprofit coalition of 25 federally recognized tribes from Maine to Texas, passed a resolution in 2007 calling for the preservation of such structures, which it calls "prayer in stone." Native Americans have held protests against the mound's demolition, and last week someone altered a sign for the Leon Smith Parkway that runs past the development to read "Indian Mound Pkwy."

A local resident named Johnny Rollins told the Anniston Star how his Native American grandmother taught him that when she died he could "go to that mountain" to talk to her:

"It seems like it's taking part of you away," he said of the demolition. "I always felt I had ties to that there."

Since the media began reporting on the site's demolition, city officials have revised their story and are now claiming that dirt from the mound is not being used as fill, despite earlier statements to the contrary. But eyewitnesses say they have seen workers hauling dirt from the mound to the Sam's Club development.

"I mean really, I went there, saw the giant trucks deliver the earth straight from the mound to the construction site, and I still can't believe what they are doing," writes the seventh-generation Alabamian behind the blog Deep Fried Kudzu. She shared the photo above showing roads for construction vehicles now cut to the top of the mound and has other photos and her story of visiting the site at the website.

'More prettier' than an Indian mound

Deepening the development's controversy is how the contracting has been handled. The force behind the project is Oxford's Commercial Development Authority, a public board that uses taxpayer money to lure businesses to the area. The CDA owns the land where the mound is located.

Alabama law exempts CDAs from bid requirements, which means contracts can go to whomever the board chooses. A recent Anniston Star investigative series about the CDA  revealed among other things that the group has awarded nearly $9 million in contracts since 1994 but has taken bids for none of them.

The newspaper also detailed the financial ties between the CDA, firms it does business with, and Mayor Smith's political campaign.

For example, the $2.6 million contract for preparing the Sam's Club site went to Oxford-based Taylor Corp., with the money for that coming in part from the sale of city property to Georgia-based developers Abernathy and Timberlake. Taylor Corp. owner Tommy Taylor, who has received thousands of dollars in city contracts for non-CDA work, donated $1,000 to Smith in 2004 and $1,000 in 2008, while Abernathy and Timberlake donated $1,000 to Smith's re-election campaign in 2004, the paper reports.

The Anniston Star also found that the CDA paid engineering firm Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood of Montgomery, Ala. $45,000 in engineering contracts for the Sam's Club project, with part of that money paying for the archaeological study. The firm contributed $500 to Smith in 2004.

An Alabama Ethics Commission official said the relationships could violate state law "depending on facts," but the mayor said he's done nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, the controversy over the damaged mound's fate rages on. After getting an earful from alarmed preservationists, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) forwarded their concerns to the state Historical Commission -- but said his office has no intention of getting involved. According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, Tommy Taylor contributed $1,000 to Riley's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, while Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood contributed $1,500.

For now, it appears Oxford officials are pressing ahead with the project. As Mayor Smith said in its defense, "What it's going to be is more prettier than it is today."

Original Source

Dating Tip #212: Don’t tell them your real name for fifty years.

Credit to: Anonymous 

Doctor Who?

Rows of Symmetrical Trees by Oliver Delgado via MMM

Follow Oliver on tumblr

Ga. flesh-eating bacteria victim gets bionic hands:

The hands, which Copeland controls with her muscles, cost about $100,000 each. They also can be controlled through an iPhone/iPod app, he said.

Copeland is receiving the hands for free because she will become a spokeswoman for Touch Bionics, the company told NBC’s Today show.

“Punxsutawney Phil’ly Cheeseteak”

Sandwich Monsters is a project by New York-based art director Kaisa Haupt of delicious photos of creatures, animals and well-known pop culture characters built out of sandwiches. You can view more on Tumblr and Instagram.

“Lox-ness Monster”

“Captain Hamerica” (Marvel Comics)

“Bread Stark” (Game of Thrones)

“Fryclops”

“Unidenti-fried Flying Obj-egg”

“Salami’ese Twins”

“Purrr-ito”

“Glazed and Confused”

images via Sandwich Monsters

via Walyou, Neatorama

A career in the National Football League creates echoes good and bad. Some reverberate in medical records, others in luxuries from rich contracts. But the most vivid ones for many former players come when they get out of bed each day and put their feet on the floor. If the NFL confers wealth, it exacts a heavy price: lifelong hurt.

rachel shared this story from Boing Boing.

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You'll have seen the pictures of a giant rubber duck floating down the world's iconic waterways, from the Thames to Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong -- it's Florentijn Hofman's brainchild. What you may not have seen is what the duck looks like after it's been deflated, and that's even better -- a kind of puddle of duck, which has a Beatrix Potter-y ring to it until you see it and then it has nothing at all about it that suggests Ms Potter's works.

florentijn hofman's giant rubber duck: the aftermath (via Making Light)

	rachel shared this story from Boing Boing:
	JJBFR

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The letter reads:

Dear Myles -

I am sorry it took me so very long to respond to your letter. I really like your idea. If we had guns that shot chocolate, not only would our country be safer, it would be happier. People love chocolate.

You are a good boy,

Joe Biden

7-year-old boy gets handwritten letter from Biden

Metro-North Train Collision in Connecticut - NYTimes.com:

Two Metro-North Railroad trains collided after a “major derailment” near Fairfield, Conn., on Friday evening, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said, adding that “there are preliminary reports of injuries.”

At about 6:10 p.m., an eastbound train from New Haven to Manhattan derailed just east of the rail station in Fairfield, the authority said, then struck a westbound train on an adjacent track. Some cars from that train also derailed.

The authority said that emergency workers were arriving at the scene and that service between Stamford and New Haven had been suspended.

An anonymous reader writes "Tom's Hardware reports on the Connectify Switchboard software that "divides the user's traffic between Wi-Fi, 3G/4G and Ethernet-based connections on a packet-by-packet basis. Even a single stream — such as a Netflix movie — can be split between two or three Internet connections for a higher resolution and faster buffering." As part of its Kickstarter campaign, Connectify is geolocating their backers to optimize deployment of their servers. This is a clever way for supporters to influence the project beyond pledge levels and stretch goals, and it's actually kind of fun to watch."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DirecTV interested in buying video website Hulu: source:

The largest U.S. satellite video provider, DirecTV, is one of the companies considering a bid for online video website Hulu, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The person acknowledged that other parties were involved, adding that DirecTV was “one of many” suitors. Media reports have previously identified Time Warner Cable Inc as another company weighing a potential stake in the company.

ABC News

Ousted IRS chief defends against partisan charges Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON — The ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for the agency's "foolish mistakes" in singling out conservative groups for intrusive and time-consuming scrutiny, but said that the effort was not driven by partisan motives. Roskam takes 'target' practice on departing IRS chiefChicago Sun-Times House panel launches inquiries into IRS targeting of conservative groupsWashington Post Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller testifies Friday before the House Ways and ...San Jose Mercury News NBCNews.com -Wall Street Journal -CPA Practice Advisor all 442 news articles »

photo by Elvert Xavier Barnes

“Callinectes Douglassi” is a giant stained glass sculpture of a Chesapeake blue crab at Baltimore Washington International Airport. The 10-foot-wide, 500 pound crab was created back in 1984 by artist Jackie Leatherbury Douglass in collaboration with her husband, John Douglass. For more on the sculpture, see this article by The Baltimore Sun and this photo gallery by Elvert Xavier Barnes.

photo by Scotto Bear

photo by Michael Spry

photo by Elvert Xavier Barnes

via The Baltimore Sun, Twisted Sifter

dorkly:

The Sims Career Ladder

New submitter Anand Radhakrishnan writes "The release candidate for the much-anticipated Linux Mint 15 'Olivia' is available for user testing. Its many new features include Cinnamon Control center, an improved login manager with HTML 5 support, a driver manager, and a lot of under-the-hood improvements. 'A new tool called MintSources, aka "Software Sources," was developed from scratch with derivative distributions in mind (primarily Linux Mint, but also LMDE, Netrunner and Snow Linux). It replaces software-properties-gtk and is perfectly adapted to managing software sources in Linux Mint. From the main screen you can easily enable or disable optional components and gain access to backports, unstable packages and source code.' This release with Cinnamon looks really tempting."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.