dynamic elf

Best autotune dance remix of an impetuous political skate punk all week.

From lyonesse: A Christian went to Pride to apologize and wrote about it.


Quoted directly from Allison Bechdel's blog:

This is a photo of Stormé DeLarverie from JEB’s 1987 book of photographs, “Making A way: Lesbians Out Front.” It was taken in 1986 when she was the bouncer at the Cubby Hole. She used to perform as a male impersonator with a troupe of drag queens in the old days. Michelle Parkerson made a documentary about her.

Yesterday the New York Times ran this really great piece about Stormé, “A Stonewall Veteran, 89, Misses the Parade.” She has dementia and is in a nursing home.

I asked for happy things, and got (among other great links!) these two completely awesome bears:

Wojtek, the alcoholic Nazi-fighting bear (NOTE: Actual historical figure).

Kung-fu bear, a bear in a Japanese zoo who can spin staff. Really!

This led me to wonder about other awesome bears in the world, so I googled "awesome bears" (hi piratedan) and learned about mister Awesome Bears who is himself pretty awesome, though perhaps less badass than the bears listed above. However! Awesome Bears the artist reminded me of how much I completely loved the movie "Exit Through The Gift Shop", a sort of documentary thing about street art over the past ten+ years, and how much I wanted to tell you all to watch it because it's the best movie I've seen in months and months. And then this guy reminded me! Thank you, Awesome Bears.

Therefore, I declare it AWESOME BEAR DAY (AND ALSO STREET ART).

spike recently sent me a link to F_ck Sh_t Stack (N at all SFW), which reminded me of how much I love Reggie Watts. I've been checking him out all over Vimeo tonight, and it's a weird silly mixture of things. Still smitten.

dilletante sent me this today, and I can't resist passing it on:



Click through to see the one about citrus fruit and inflatable sex dolls.

Hello Kitty-themed maternity hospital.

All Philadelphia libraries, and all of their services, to close on Oct. 2.

I find it kind of hilarious that CNN is interested in collaborative online art.

Seattle and MIT are teaming up to track actual people's actual trash.

Chinese experts grow live mice from skin cells.

HONG KONG, July 24 (Reuters) - Chinese researchers have managed to create powerful stem cells from mouse skin and used these to generate fertile live mouse pups.

They used induced pluripotent skin cells, or iPS cells -- cells that have been reprogrammed to look and act like embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, taken from days-old embryos, have the power to morph into any cell type and, in mice, can be implanted into a mother's womb to create living mouse pups.

Not only did they make live mice from mouse skin, they then went on to breed these mice for a couple of generations. Holy cow. Also:

Blue food dye minimizes spinal cord injuries in rats.

...ATP, a vital energy source that keeps the body's cells alive, quickly pours into the area surrounding a spinal cord injury after it occurs. Unfortunately, the release of ATP at hundreds of times the normal level kills off healthy, uninjured motor neurone cells by flooding them with a deluge of molecular signals, making the initial injury worse.

The researchers went on to inject rats with damaged spinal cords with oxidized ATP, a compound known to block ATP's effects. The animals were able to recover much of their lost limb function, to the point of being able to walk again.

However, oxidized ATP carries a risk of dangerous side effects. It also had to be injected directly into the site of a wound to achieve results - not a practical option for treating spinal injury patients.

The beauty of BBG - the chemical equivalent of blue food dye No1 - is that it could potentially be given as a standard injection, away from the wound itself. In tests on rats, an injection of BBG produced very similar effects to those achieved by oxidized ATP. There was just one curious side effect - the animals temporarily developed a blue tinge to their skin.

Witness this adorable science shit in action (pic lifted from National Geographic):

From dreda, a Bobby McFerrin performance "that includes both parts of the Gounod Ave Maria, relying on his audience to know more than is usually asked of them". Oh my. I love him, and this gave me shivers.

From ukelele, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is possibly the best title ever.

From regyt, "disturbingly erotic" toothpaste-on-toothbrush action.

minerva42 pointed me at this. It's worth watching, for lots of reasons, not least of which is that he leads by talking about energy policy, further cementing my belief that he actually GETS IT. Also of note, as many people have pointed out: there is tons of content now on whitehouse.gov, like the weekly address page, or the list of executive orders and presidential memoranda. Fun. Serious, serious fun.

You must watch the ads for POWERTHIRST and POWERTHIRST 2. My neck and face hurt from giggling.