No harm, no foul, guy. Your teen years aren’t so great anyway. I’m sure three years at Rikers Island without ever been convicted or put on trial were up there with not getting a car for graduation.
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The ACLU is suing the CIA for reports on its torture program:
This isn’t the first time we’ve filed a FOIA suit in connection with the CIA’s torture program. In response to years of litigation by the ACLU, the government has released over 100,000 pages of documents concerning the abuse and torture of detainees by the CIA and Department of Defense. (These records are indexed and searchable through our Torture Database.) Though the government’s disclosures have shed critical light on the Bush administration’s official policies of abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody, much still remains secret about the extent of the CIA’s practices and the responsibility of senior officials in ordering them. Indeed, relatively few documents available in our Torture Database — only 106 of approximately 5,000 — were authored by the CIA. Ultimately, the release of the SSCI CIA report and the CIA’s response would further illuminate the program’s failings, the CIA’s internal view of its program, and the lies the CIA told to those charged with oversight of its activities.
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The story of Skyfall‘s abandoned island.
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Debo Mitford loved Elvis:
Debo advanced from easy listening fan to avid collector. Her collection contains many pieces of rare memorabilia (a plank of wood said to be from the fence at Graceland) to mass produced souvenirs (tattoo transfers and postcards). ‘One thing leads to another and it became a sort of joke…’ Debo said. She, too, could see the irony in owning such a vast collection containing street signs, car registration numbers, sketches, books, CD’s, slippers and a telephone which played Jailhouse Rock.‘People are surprised, but some people are easily surprised, aren’t they?’
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What does it mean to be a successful graduate of a Christian college?
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America’s first book is up for auction:
America’s history spans just a few centuries, but hundreds of hymnals. Colonists came seeking religious freedom, so the first book they printed was not a political tract or even a Bible, but a hymnal: a book to be used regularly in communal and even private worship. The intended use of the Bay Psalm Book tells us why it was America’s first book; it also tells us why one of the eleven remaining copies will be sold tomorrow at Sotheby’s.
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I would love Rob Delaney even if he didn’t occasionally use his power to direct people to our indie feminist wizard website, but I feel I should mention that for full disclosure:
Delaney also fights the good fight for women and other groups that regularly get shit on, but he manages to do so in a funny way, like here: “First a woman nominated to head Fed, then one gets Nobel Prize for Lit. What’s next, a woman grows a man in her body & trains it to breathe?” In fact, Delaney is so committed to decency that he puts aside humor entirely once in a while.
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
“Browder says he spent more than 400 days in solitary confinement, was deprived of meals, and was assaulted and beaten both by officers and fellow inmates. Browder attempted suicide at least six times.”
WHAT THE FUCK COUNTRY IS THIS ANYWAY
Seriously! SO INFURIATING AND UPSETTING! Happy fucking Thanksgiving!
ok ok ok… so I need some silliness to prepare for the holiday, and this is some lazy humor but for some reason it made me laugh pretty hard… http://tumblr.tastefullyoffensive.com/post/681025…
I remember flailing when I saw Hashima Island in Skyfall, because I am a total abandoned places nerd and I recognized it immediately. If you liked that, here are a couple of other links:
Kowloon Walled City (destroyed, not abandoned, but COMPLETELY CRAZY)
Derinkuyu Underground City
And the mother of all ghost cities, Pripyat
thank you thank you!!!! I love this stuff!!! more?
Here is another one on Hashima, and here’s the guy who did that one doing it more.
Unrelated, he also did a really cool piece on women pearl divers in Japan: http://gakuran.com/ama-the-pearl-diving-mermaids-… (NSFW: nudity)
io9 has great lists sometimes that are great starting points for learning about abandoned/forgotten/disappeared places.
Strange and Tragic Ghost Towns
Ruined cities
Actually, their entire Modern Ruins tag is amazing.
Another photographer of abandoned places.
Yet more.
As someone who may or may not have cried a little while reading this wikipedia page, I’m SO looking forward to falling into a blackhole of articles on abandoned places.
See my reply above then!
I know I have spent too much time looking at before/after furniture renos recently because when I scroll through the images of Pripyat all I see are possibilities.
Mallory, I found this and thought of you. I titled the bookmark “for mallory.”
that island is fascinating. Japanese Pruitt-Igoe! it would be a fascinating museum, and who knows? we’re getting a public housing museum in Chicago. I would absolutely visit.
also thanks for dropping into the collective unconscious, Nicole. not only is vocalo giving props to Skyfall for having a non-homophobic 007, I have been obsessed with this new installment since it showed up on Netflix last week.
Wait, tell me more about this public housing museum??
i thought it had fizzled, but no! there’s a row of remaining Addams homes on Taylor (I wondered why they were there for so long, especially with the new stupid barbecue place) and that’s going to be the site apparently.
publichousingmuseum.org!
“I have been obsessed with this new installment since it showed up on Netflix last week.”
I so wanted to like it! But it just asked for too much suspension of disbelief for me 🙁
tell more! I’m sort of doubting my in-loveness, but it could be because I’m a latecomer to the Bond franchise (aside from like watching Goldeneye to give context to my N64 days) and also Quantum was so meh.
I <3 Daniel Craig and I liked Casino Royale a lot. Quantum of Solace literally put me to sleep – I dropped off about an hour into it and have never been motivated enough to watch the end. But Skyfall . . . (spoilers!)
I’m willing to believe some crazy things – like, an Asian dude using gene therapy or something to transform himself into an Aryan dude (Die Another Day), Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist (The World is Not Enough), a villain sneaking up on someone and getting close enough to grab her in a blimp (A View to a Kill), and James Bond surviving a fall from a bridge over a gorge (Skyfall). But Skyfall’s plot was like an Austin Powers parody! In order for the Javier Bardem (who I also <3)’s plan to humiliate and kill M to succeed, so many things had to happen perfectly, and at such precise times! It would take forever to describe everything that is ridiculous about that movie, luckily this website has already done it (I found it after watching the movie over the weekend, when I googled, “Does Skyfall make any sense?”): http://movieplotholes.com/skyfall.html
Am going to read this while preparing for black Wednesday festivities (read: drink beer at my house). I very much appreciate this.
Also let’s suspend our disbelief that 007 wasn’t having crazy fun sexy times with Eve and Q because either pairing causes me to fan myself AND they would be the best polyfam i’ve ever, ever seen.
I lost about 2 hours to that site when I discovered it, lots of fun!
Also, it hadn’t occurred to me, but you’re right — 007 + Moneypenny + young Q would be incredible!
I’d been expecting Skyfall to be Xtreme Serious Business, as it was the first of the Daniel Craig bond films I’d seen, and all I’d heard was that they were Gritty and Real.
So…yeah. I was confused. And feeling very sorry for the bond girl, whose name I forget, but who got a really shitty deal.
ROB DELANEY IS SO GREAT! He shall be spared in the coming revolution.
Rob Delaney reads the Toast?? If he wrote an article here I would just dissolve forever.
He IS so great. I just read his book, and it’s very sweet and sad and interesting and funny, and he’s so open about his depression and substance abuse issues in a particular way that really suggests that he’d like to help people. Also, again, very funny.
Yes yes yes yes YES. He is filthy and funny and sweet, and I listen to his comedy when I am feeling awful because he always makes me laugh. Please go buy all of his products, or at least get the “Live at the Bowery Ballroom” set and/or his new book because they are both worth every single goddamned cent and I want him to tell jokes to the world forever.
You guys, it’s true that a semi-ironic appreciation for Elvis memorabilia can escalate rapidly. I’m down to just the one good velvet painting right now, but for a few years there it was verging on overwhelming. People really like to give other people Elvis junk. And there is a hell of a lot of Elvis junk in the world.
Don’t blame me! I voted for
(oh wait, there really isn’t a “no torture candidate,” is there?)
I hear Kodos really cares about human rights.
“People are surprised, but some people are easily surprised, aren’t they?”
I LOVE YOU, ALL MITFORDS
I’m finally reading Hons and Daughters and it’s so great.
Really, even the fascist-y ones?
Question: since today is pretty much Friday, will there be an open thread? Cause I could really use one. Hardly anyone else is in the office today and I’m using that as an excuse to find new webcomics.
Tomorrow we just have Dad Magazine (!!!!) and a Thanksgiving Open Thread, but for today, feel free to jabber on here. All threads are open threads, if you\’re committed to them.
Update: I have loaded an open thread for holiday-related complaints for 3pm EST. Use it merrily. You can be positive and thankful tomorrow.
Thank you for understanding my need to get my bitching and moaning out of my system before tomorrow. You’re the best!
A Toast holiday complaints thread is exactly what I need right now. You, Nicole, are a pal. I am going to curl up with multiple blankies and my copy of Persuasion until then because basically I just do whatever this website puts in my head.
Fallout fans! Do we think the Survivor2299 website is for real?
I’m leaning yes, just because I want it to be so, so bad. A Boston-based Fallout IV? Hell yes!
Yea
or
Nay?
(Sorry for linking to two hives of villainy, there.)
He is filthy and funny and sweet, and I listen to his comedy when I am feeling awful because he always makes me laugh. Please go buy all of his products, or at least get the “Live at the Bowery Ballroom” set and/or his new book because they are both worth every single goddamned cent and I want him to tell jokes to the world forever.