z_Ideas

Now that's the ticket!

BUSTED TEES

If you don't know who Stewart and Colbert are, you're not going to vote for them anyway. And they probably wouldn't want your vote, even if they were actually running for president/vice president of the United States of America.

But is this amuses you, and you wish it were real, and you want to know where you can get a shirt like this, then click here.

And now a word from Keith Richards' brain

Keith Richards' brain, in recovery following minor surgery after its "hostpod" fell out of a coconut tree, speaks out for the first time since the accident.

Surprisingly, the brain inside the head of the Rolling Stones' nigh invulnerable guitarist has found reason for optimism in its time of pain:

"To tell you the truth, this coconut-tree interlude hasn’t been all bad. For a start, being a brain, I don’t have any pain sensors, so the operation was a breeze. Poke away all you like, sawbones! It’s not as though I’m a spinal cord. And it has been an absolute delight to witness the surly reaction from those other organs who usually get all the Keith headlines (incidentally, that story about Keith having all his blood replaced in a Swiss clinic? Totally made up. Let’s just say that a certain circulatory system has a very imaginative and well-connected PR man. Hey, liver! You’ve been kind of quiet lately. Not saying hello to your old friend brain? Jealous of brain’s new high profile? Look at this Google search, mate: keith+richards+liver returns 169,000 matches. But keith+richards+brain returns more than 3 million! Brain wins!)"

A bunch of non-scents

The world of perfume is going mad. First Hasbro announces it is releasing a scent that smells like Play-Doh to celebrate the stuff's 50th anniversary.

And now comes news that the Stilton Cheese Makers Association (SCMA) in the U.K. is going to sell a perfume that smells like the famous cheese of the same name. Reports the BBC:

Nigel White, from the SCMA, said: "The perfume has a very earthy, musky, herby type of background which is very different to the very sweet perfumes you smell wafting down the street as someone walks past you."

We shudder to think who will next jump on this bandwagon. Preparation H? The Durian Fruit Growers' Association? Your suggestions are welcome.

Don't smoke -- snuff!

Smokers in London, England, faced with the prospect of a smoking ban in pubs next year but still wanting the kick that can only come from tobacco, are giving snuff a try, according to a London tobacconist quoted on the BBC website.

Sales at Wilsons & Co (Sharrow) Ltd have grown by 10% over the past two years, says Jeremy Archdale, one of descendents of the original family, who started the Sheffield-based company in 1737.

"It's amazing how many younger people are looking at snuff and it's happening in other countries. We had some visitors from Switzerland 10 days ago, who said the average age of snuff users there is 24," says Mr Archdale.

Snuff is finely ground dry tobacco that is snorted up the nostrils in small amounts and was at one time a popular habit among flouncing London dandies armed with handkerchiefs. It is still provided free to Members of the House of Commons in a tradition that goes back to the 18th century.

Snuff gives a stronger and quicker kick than cigarettes, says the BBC reporter who tried it.

Manager Paul Bielby says the Chinese used to take snuff from a small spoon, but I tap a little Red Bull - a strong menthol-scented snuff - on to the back of my hand.

As the soft brown powder hits the air, the scent of menthol rises strongly. I take a firm pinch as recommended and sniff hard. The scent rushes up my nose and the menthol immediately clears my head. I also get the nicotine rush that comes with smoking a cigarette although this feels a bit more intense, as if my senses seem sharpened.

You think Ben & Jerry's would have learned its lesson after the "Stasi Crunch" debacle in Germany

From Reuters:

Ice cream makers Ben & Jerry's have apologized for causing offence by calling a new flavor "Black & Tan" -- the nickname of a notoriously violent British militia that operated during Ireland's war of independence.

The ice cream, available only in the United States, is based on an ale and stout drink of the same name.

Actually, and in the ice-cream maker's defence, "Black and Tan" is different from "the Black and Tans."

Fly away home

A wealthy California woman is building a home out of scrap 747 jumbo jet parts, the BBC reports.

Francie Rehwald wanted her house to look "feminine", have curves and be eco-friendly. Her architect's answer was: "Let's use a 747!"

The wing of the Boeing jet will be used for the roof, its nose as a meditation temple while its trademark "bulge" will serve as a loft.

The plane's parts were obtained from an aeroplane scrap yard in California. They cost around $100,000 (£56,000) to purchase, while the construction of the project, which is expected to start in June, is thought likely to cost several million dollars by the time it is completed.

There has been one unexpected demand on the homebuilders: Civil aviation authorities says any parts visible from the air have to be marked to show they are not part of a crashed plane.

A coral reef in wool

THE INSTITUTE FOR FIGURING

The L.A.-based Institute for Figuring has launched a project to create a crocheted coral reef. The web-based organization calls the project "a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world."

Plus it will keep you warm on cold days.

Crime pays -- poorly

Most criminals live a life of poverty, and not because they were poor to begin with. It's just that crime doesn't pay that well. [Sunday Star]

"We have this idea that these guys that work outside system, maybe they've got it right, maybe these people are having a better life than the guy doing 9 to 5 — but most criminals live in poverty," says Cecil Greek, a professor of criminology at Florida State University.

And the reason it doesn't pay well? It's the damn red tape.

Dennis Chevalier, a "forensic investigative psychological criminologist" based in Fort Worth, Tex., says that while there is lots of cash circulating among the criminal element, much of it gets hung up in a kind of underworld bureaucracy. "People aren't getting rich because there are too many people involved," says Chevalier. "There are payments to keep people quiet, there are cops to pay, security guards to pay, you have to pay the people who arranged the selling of the merchandise... There's not a whole lot of people getting rich."

A bad mix: Students, cellphones and angry teachers

Students in the U.K. are apparently deliberately provoking teachers into temper tantrums and then recording them on camera-phone videos and sharing them with their friends. It has become so serious, according to this story in the Times of London, that "it is to be raised in a motion at this week’s annual conference of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers in Gateshead."

“There has been an upsurge in the covert filming of teachers,” said Andy Brown, the teacher who has tabled the motion calling for the union to study ways of preventing it.

[via therawfeed.com]

Torture's logic

In an essay from a new book excerpted in Britain's Prospect magazine and reprinted in the Sunday Star's Ideas section yesterday, Michael Ignatieff comes to this conclusion about torture:

We cannot torture, in other words, because of who we are. This is the best I can do, but those of us who believe this had better admit that many of our fellow citizens are bound to disagree. It is in the nature of democracy itself that fellow citizens will define their identity in ways that privilege security over liberty and thus reluctantly endorse torture in their name.

If we are against torture, we are committed to arguing with our fellow citizens, not treating those who defend torture as moral monsters. Those of us who oppose torture should also be honest enough to admit that we may have to pay a price for our own convictions. Ex ante, of course, I cannot tell how high this price might be. Ex post — following another terrorist attack that might have been prevented through the exercise of coercive interrogation — the price of my scruple might simply seem too high. This is a risk I am prepared to take, but frankly, a majority of fellow citizens is unlikely to concur.

Ignatieff, now running for the leadership of Canada's federal Liberal Party, is saying that no rational person can endorse torture, because once you allow it on even the smallest scale, countries will use it on the much larger scale of, say, Abu Ghraib. That said, he thinks there is a cost that goes with this moral stance, i.e. terrorist killing more innocent people because the Jack Bauers of the world aren't allowed to cut off suspects' fingers one by one to get them to cough up WHERE THE BOMB IS.

As pointed out in a piece that ran with the Ignatieff article, the repatriated Canadian philosopher does not openly acknowledge the shitstorm he caused in the human rights community when he endorsed mild forms of coercion in his book Lesser Evils -- even though his new argument has clearly been influenced by the criticisms lobbed his way last year.

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