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I Don’t Know What It Is, But I Like It

Here’s a delightful little ditty set to a video collage of eye-candy.

Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Lost Little Robots Find Their Way Home

I’m hesitant to file this under “New Yorkers are nice!” as the dependents in question aren’t, well, people – but it’s still oddly heartwarming to see how ordinary New Yorkers went out of their way to direct a little robot to safety.

Here is the story of a few tiny robots and their adventures in the big city.

Obama Made of Obama

Pardon me for still riding the Obama-mania wave (which seems to still be going strong regardless of the downturn of virtually anything else government related) but this is amazing:

Time.com has compiled a collage of Flickr.com photos of Obama to re-create an Obama photo. So meta. So cool.

Oh yeah, and he’s their Person of the Year.
…like they had another choice.

From Boston.com: The Year in Photos

Boston.com runs a daily, inspiring feature called “The Big Picture,” which is just that — big pictures. They happen to be stunning photography of what’s going on around the world, from aimless polar bears to burning buildings in Islamabad.

They’ve compiled the best of these big pictures in their feature “The Year 2008 in Photographs.”
Check it out.

Total Girl Crush

On Ms. Daisy Lowe.

Seems she’s added yet another big name ad campaign to her roster. The girl (and i do mean girl, Lowe’s barely legal) can do no wrong.

But really, with parents like these, she’s had quite a leg up on the competition since, well, conception:

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*nevermind that she’s now credited with the “death of size zero” (improbable as that may sound), the girl is h.o.t.

100 Days of Fun With Your Presidents

from the geniuses at GOOD:

*click to enlarge

From WSJ: Promising News on the AIDS Front

Though there are still considerable scientific and financial hurdles, a German doctor has published findings that may provide a future avenue for an HIV/AIDS cure:

The breakthrough appears to be that Dr. Hütter, a soft-spoken hematologist who isn’t an AIDS specialist, deliberately replaced the patient’s bone marrow cells with those from a donor who has a naturally occurring genetic mutation that renders his cells immune to almost all strains of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The development suggests a potential new therapeutic avenue and comes as the search for a cure has adopted new urgency.
…
There is a potentially safer alternative: Re-engineering a patient’s own cells through gene therapy. Due to some disastrous failures, gene therapy now “has a bad name,” says Dr. Baltimore.
…
Gene therapy also faces daunting technical challenges. For example, the therapeutic genes are carried to cells by re-engineered viruses, and they must be made perfectly safe. Also, most gene therapy currently works by removing cells, genetically modifying them out of the body, then transfusing them back in — a complicated procedure that would prove too expensive for the developing world. Dr. Baltimore and others are working on therapeutic viruses they could inject into a patient as easily as a flu vaccine. But, he says, “we’re a long way from that.”

To read the full article, click here.

This Seems Important: Ethical Sushi

*but i don’t know much about it…

From Kitchn, an ocean-friendly way to pick and choose the most ethical sushi meal (i hadn’t realized this was another way i was destroying the earth, but alas):

You can still get an instant answer via text message by texting FISH and the species name to 30644. Cell phone and PDA users can visit www.fishphone.org to download a cell phone-friendly seafood guide. As of this writing, the fish to stay away from are Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Kuro Maguro/Hon Maguro), Farmed Salmon (Sake), farmed Salmon roe (Ikura), Shrimp, imported farmed and wild caught (Ebi), Japanese farmed Yellowtail (Hamachi), Red Snapper (Tai), and Freshwater Eel (Unagi). • Download a copy of the guide to Ocean Friendly Sushi here.

According to their website, the guide aims to help sushi eaters “select species from abundant, well-managed fisheries or try those species that are raised using sustainable aquaculture methods. “

Civil Rights History I Was Unaware of, and (Obviously) Obama

There is no other nation in the world where a 75% majority electorate has elected as their supreme leader a man who identifies as one of that nation’s historically oppressed minorities.” – Juan Williams [WSJ]

The Wall Street Journal has an Op-Ed by Juan Williams on some of the historical events that helped to put Obama in his seat in the Oval Office.

Though we’ve all heard time and again of the civil rights movement and its many courageous marches and protests, I was largely unaware of the part played by our own government to subtly, though surely, turn the racial tide.

According to the piece:

Bobby Kennedy proposed to his brother, President John F. Kennedy, that the civil-rights movement be redirected from violent confrontations with segregationists to voter-registration drives. The Kennedys feared sending voting-rights legislation to Congress, given opposition from Southern Democrats. But the Kennedys reasoned more blacks registered to vote would force Southern Democrats to change their segregationist attitudes. Kennedy got foundations to support a group called the Voter Education Project. That effort put money into civil-rights groups that worked on voter registration.

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It led to increased black political power, and to political appointees such as Solicitor General [and later Supreme Court Justice] Thurgood Marshall. The first black mayor of a major American city, Carl Stokes, was elected in Cleveland in 1967. The 1970s and ’80s saw black politics emerge as a stable base for the growth of a large black American middle class with higher levels of education and income. Later barrier breakers included chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Williams goes onto say how Obama’s election has not only testified to the ultimate efficacy of these actions, but has also turned the tables for the future of black politicians. Though he also acknowledges that there still remains a fundamental racial struggle — a shameful and complex reality which cannot be stripped clean by one man — Williams asserts:

The idea of black politics now tilts away from leadership based on voicing grievance, and identity politics based on victimization and anger. In its place is an era in which it is assumed that talented, tough people of any background will find a way to their rightful seat of power in mainstream political life.

The Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons and Rev. Jeremiah Wrights remain. But their influence and power fade to a form of nostalgia in a world of larger political agendas… The market has irrevocably shrunk for Sharpton-style tirades against “the man” and “the system.” The emphasis on racial threats and extortion-like demands — all aimed at maximizing white guilt as leverage for getting government and corporate money — has lost its moment.

Though Williams’ reflection is hopeful, it’s also firmly grounded in history and the grit of present-day reality, which lends his op-ed weight and reliability. [WSJ]