Last summer, my friend/insurance liability Justin nearly got into a physical fight with a Palestinian man in downtown Calgary over his wearing of a Keffiyeh-like scarf. The Keffiyeh-like scarf has become an ubiquitous accoutrement on and off the scenester dance floors. It is now an impulse item at the check-out tills in self-conscious anti-culture retailers [...]
You Are At The Archives for May, 2008
Is Rachel Ray a Terrorist? [Indie Rock Scarf Scandal] 05.31.08
Unquestionable security schemes make us less secure 05.29.08
Here’s a Guardian article from Cory Doctorow I missed a few months back on “security” superstition and actual security. It’s bang-on and captures how disconnected authorities have become with our safety.
The superstitions that grip airport checkpoints and banks are themselves a threat to security, because the security that does not admit of examination and [...]
Is Barack Obama Muslim? 05.29.08
Is Barack Obama Muslim? In summary.
(via The Velvet Howler, via Yglesias)
“Planning is for communists” — AB Tories hire PR expert with $35k tab 05.29.08
Our dear, dear friends at Sourcewatch report:
The Alberta government has hired crisis management guru Peter Sandman to help it defuse concerns over the environmental impact of the oilsands mining industry. In April, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach sought to defend the discovery of 500 dead ducks found in a tailings pond. At a cost of C$35,000, [...]
Enter the Octagon! ($3 hi balls until the first stabbing!) 05.17.08
Here in Calgary Broken City’s Celebrity Hot Tub and the HiFi Club have localized the global trend of paparazzi-style party pictures.
HoboGestapo, nightlife photographer in Sydney, captured pics of a stabbing outside of a club on film.
HipsterRunoff, who pointed me to the pics, asks:
I don’t think many people have a problem with party pix [...]
Stop! (motion) Genius! 05.16.08
I assure you, this will be the most incredibly impressive thing you see today.
BLU produced a stop-motion animation creature that criss-crosses Buenos Aires and Baden and, now, the deepest, darkest crevasses of my black and white nightmare lands.
The care and thought that went into this is difficult to comprehend; watching the intricate animation [...]
Harper government under investigation over Kyoto 05.07.08
An investigation will be held into suspicions that the Harper government illegally registered greenhouses gas emissions with the enforcement branch of the UN Kyoto Protocol.
This revelation means that Canada might be barred from the right to trade carbon dioxide in a global market. Greece was suspended for similar reasons last month, the first such state [...]
Worldview from the cloud? 05.06.08
Very neat conversation happening over at reddit. I couldn’t agree more that there is an increasing information gap (not necessarily a “knowledge” gap, of course) emerging between the connected and the not. I’m sure several readers will immediately relate to the sentiment of the graphic.
smackywentz commented:
We were at a restaurant last night, and by ‘we’ [...]
CEOs for Cities report: “Driven to the brink” 05.06.08
A striking graph from the CEOs for Cities report, “Driven to the brink” on gasoline prices and land use planning. (press release and full document).
(via Steve Davis at Smart Growth around America).
Recent Kunstler on Suburan Demise and Decentralized Rise 05.05.08
Jim Kunstler in Business Week:
The suburbs were largely products of industrialism. We had a huge supply of oil and cheap undeveloped land, and we decided to become a happy, motoring utopia. It had many practical benefits. The trouble is after a while it became a cartoon of country living …
Cheap oil is what made suburbia [...]
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