Vintage colour photographs of American cities. Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans. (h/t, Grow-a-brain.) // Radical cosmetics. Stem cells, skull lifts, harvested buttocks. // Micrograph beauty contest. Behold the nanotoilet. // 80 million tiny images. // A gallery of psychics. But you knew that already. // Virtual TR-909 drum machine. // Sandstorm, Khartoum. // Plantage. // The politics of Doctor Who. // 2007: a year of BBC impartiality. // Alan Johnson upsets Guardian readers. “The left takes its cue from what it is against rather than what it is for.” // Ophelia Benson on the difference between civility and respect. // Philip Carl Salzman on Muhammad’s tribalism. “Most accounts of Islamic history… glide over these conquests, as if they were friendly takeovers.” // Andrew Bostom on Steven Coughlin. // Jonathan Fine on terrorism and beliefs. “Downplaying religious inspiration for terrorism… is both inaccurate and dangerous.” // Deogolwulf on dreams of a world government. // On Hollywood bad guys. // Masked hoodie. Fight crime, scare the elderly. // A fan obsesses over the Spider-Man theme tune. Lousy cartoon, groovy music. (h/t, Coudal.) // Heroes action figures. Man bags, brains and a Japanese Elvis. // Still life foodscapes. (h/t, the EQ-aliser.) // The world of Spam. It’s a versatile product. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus.) // A small house made of meat. // Jackie Gleason meets LSD. // And, via The Thin Man, the agonies of youth. Lovely.

U.S. researchers said on Tuesday they have made the darkest material on Earth, a substance so black it absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light. Made from tiny tubes of carbon standing on end, this material is almost 30 times darker than a carbon substance used by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology as the current benchmark of blackness. And the material is close to the long-sought ideal black, which could absorb all colours of light and reflect none…

The substance has a total reflective index of 0.045 percent – which is more than three times darker than the nickel-phosphorous alloy that now holds the record as the world’s darkest material. Basic black paint, by comparison, has a reflective index of 5 percent to 10 percent. The researchers are seeking a world’s darkest material designation by Guinness World Records. But their work will likely yield more than just bragging rights. [Dr Pulickel] Ajayan said the material could be used in solar energy conversion. “You could think of a material that basically collects all the light that falls into it,” he said…

The researchers have tested the material on visible light only. Now they want to see how it fares against infrared and ultraviolet light, and other wavelengths such as radiation used in communications systems. “If you could make materials that would block these radiations, it could have serious applications for stealth and defence,” Ajayan said.

More. 

Further to this comment on the obligation to “mingle”, and via the Devil’s Kitchen, here’s Madsen Pirie on bright children as collective property. 

“It is wrong to allow bright children to go to special schools. This deprives the ordinary schools of their beneficial influence.”

If you regard children as the property of the state, existing to serve it, then it is explicable why the bright ones should be regarded as a scarce commodity, and rationed accordingly. The idea of allocating their “beneficial influence” equally through society follows from the same twisted logic. It is a pity that this is only applied to intelligence. Why should not the good-looking children be shared out equally, so their peer group has equal access to the pleasant sight of them? Perhaps the kind ones should be spread so that all may benefit equally from their sweet disposition?

The vicious notion is that children, whether bright or not, should be regarded as the instruments of the ends of others, instead of ends in themselves. Children do not exist to serve the purposes of the state; it is the other way round. The concern should be with what is of benefit to the individuals concerned, rather than with how they can be made to serve some ideological view of society. Behind the idea often lurks the doctrine of egalitarianism, and the feeling that children really ought not to be brighter than each other. With this comes the determination that nothing should be done to encourage it.

In this five-minute TED lecture, oceanographer David Gallo reveals shape-shifting cuttlefish, octopus camouflage and bioluminescent oddities. The flirting squid are particularly funny.

More. Related: Tentacle Pornfest.

The Free Information Society has an online archive of historical speeches and announcements stored as mp3 audio files. From understatement in space to Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart and Spiro Agnew’s “hippies” speech. 

Well worth a rummage.

Further to this, a few thoughts culled from yesterday’s comments. 

There’s a debate rumbling over at Harry’s Place, part of which revolves around Ezra Levant’s character and motive, as if they were the issue on which one’s view should hinge. But if Levant wished to be gratuitously offensive towards the deceased founder of a dismal superstition, why shouldn’t he? That wasn’t his intention, of course, as is clear from the original article (which was about press freedom, cowardice and intimidation) and subsequent statements; but the point remains that once state bureaucracy presumes to divine a person’s innermost motives in this way, the road to hell is being paved.

The state cannot be empowered, or trusted, to avenge hurt feelings – or injured pride, or vanity, or delusions of heresy. And it cannot extend preferential protection to those who may choose to be “offended” in order to gain political leverage or to censor ideas they happen not to like. Being “offended” has often been the claim of bad people hearing good ideas, and those who find their censorious umbrage rewarded will be inclined to seek it out more loudly than before.

Vitruvius has provided the following quote, by H. L. Mencken,

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Yet I’ve seen several commentators, chiefly on the left, indulging in self-satisfied ad hominem and hoping for whichever outcome will do most harm to Levant’s standing, as if the actual outcome and actual precedent were of no intrinsic importance. But those who hang their argument on whether or not they happen to like Levant, or on whatever they take his motives to be, are missing the fundamental point he’s raised, which exists whether or not he’s a scumbag or a saint. This isn’t about whether one feels Levant’s political views make him a bad person or a terrible dinner guest. This isn’t simply about personal animosity and the individuals in question. If Levant is subject to this bureaucratic harassment, then others may share his fate – people whose views and personality one may be less hostile towards. If I moved to Canada, I might conceivably find myself in a similar situation, given time. Would that be okay? Or would I warrant some exemption because I’m such a nice guy? 

If Levant can’t publish those cartoons, or other things deemed heretical or “hateful” by Islamist ideologues, then freedom of conscience and freedom of expression are profoundly compromised. If Levant isn’t free to “insult” or “defame” Muhammad, or to disdain the religion he founded, then a precedent will have been set and all Canadians will have a new problem. And it’s unlikely that this problem will be confined to Canada. If Syed Soharwardy and the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada prevail, rational debate will most likely be inhibited when similar subjects arise, as they no doubt will. As Levant makes clear, “the process has become the punishment” and the potential risk of similar, costly, experiences will affect decisions as to what may or may not be published and what facts may or may not be stated. The threat of nuisance complaints, considerable expense and state interference will influence serious public debate in areas of religious sensitivity – or at least in areas of Islamic sensitivity, which, unfortunately, covers quite a lot.

For instance, one would have great difficulty explaining in detail and with rigour why it is one isn’t a Muslim, or why the Qur’an is not the “uncreated” word of some hypothetical deity, or why one finds Islam to be an absurd contrivance. That so many people calling themselves “progressive” should hesitate to extend this basic right to someone they happen not to like is, if not offensive, then hazardous, self-preoccupied and somewhat depressing. 

If you haven’t yet watched this stirring exchange between MoToons publisher Ezra Levant and Officer Shirlene McGovern of the Alberta Human Rights Commission, I urge you to do so now.

Here’s Levant’s opening statement. Note Officer McGovern’s expression throughout.

And on the subject of ‘permissible’ intentions, 

Officer McGovern said “you’re entitled to your opinions, that’s for sure.” Well, actually, I’m not, am I? That’s the reason I was sitting there. I don’t have the right to my opinions, unless she says I do.

A transcript of Levant’s opening statement can be read here. Here’s a brief extract:

For a government bureaucrat to call any publisher or anyone else to an interrogation to be quizzed about his political or religious expression is a violation of 800 years of common law, a Universal Declaration of Rights, a Bill of Rights and a Charter of Rights. This commission is applying Saudi values, not Canadian values. It is also deeply procedurally one-sided and unjust. The complainant – in this case, a radical Muslim imam, who was trained at an officially anti-Semitic university in Saudi Arabia, and who has called for sharia law to govern Canada – doesn’t have to pay a penny; Alberta taxpayers pay for the prosecution of the complaint against me. The victims of the complaints, like the Western Standard, have to pay for their own lawyers from their own pockets. Even if we win, we lose – the process has become the punishment.

The cartoons were published to illustrate this article (free registration required), which is also discussed here. Words of support can be sent via Mr Levant’s website, where more clips and commentary are available, including this on the causes of Islam’s image problem.

Update. 

Related. And. Also. Plus.

Please bankroll my insensitivity. 

The Huffington Post isn’t one of my regular haunts, but in light of the following perhaps it should be. Behold the bewildered psychodrama of Ms Erica Jong.

I am so tired of pink men bombing brown children and rationalising it as fighting terrorism… I am so tired of pink men spouting nonsense on TV. I am so tired of pink men arguing, blathering, bloviating, predicting the future – usually wrongly – and telling women to shut up. I am so sick of hearing that another pink man has dropped his children out a window, off a bridge or killed his pregnant wife or killed his unpregnant wife because he was infatuated with another pregnant woman. I am so sick of pink men making war and talking about peace… Don’t tell me about women who kill. I know there are some – but fewer. So let’s just remember our mothers – who bore us, protected us against our fathers and grandfathers and all the pink or brown men who wanted to rape us or kill us or starve us because we were girls.

This measured yet devastating critique is followed by,

I am not stupid.

And by,

I know all generalisations are false.

(Via Protein Wisdom.)

The photography of Corey Arnold. 

More. And. Also. Plus.

Original Star Wars trailer. (1977) “The story of a boy, a girl and a universe… A billion years in the making.” // Life-size beer brewing Bender. Bite his shiny metal ass. // Cannibalism in Texas. (h/t, Ace.) // Tintin redubbed. Caution: salty language. // A magnificently cheesy moment from Mike Hodges’ Flash Gordon. (1980) Sydow to the max. // The art of Syd Mead. // The race to the Moon, told graphically. // New solar cycle begins. “This upcoming cycle will be one of the most intense ever measured.” More. // Soyuz TMA-11, Kazakhstan. // Oliver Kamm on Oliver “laughing boy” James. // Deogolwulf on Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, mistress of rigour. // Andrew Bostom and Matthias Kuntzel on Islamic anti-Semitism. // John Rosenberg on Obama not being “ideologically black.” // Five dangerous things you should let your kids do. “They’re young. They heal fast.” // Tokyo’s traffic control centre. (h/t, Coudal.) // Inverkip power station. (h/t, 30gms.) // The science projects of Johnny Chung Lee. Low-budget EEG, the $14 Steadicam and new things to do with your Wii remote. (h/t, The EQ-aliser.) // 2008 Consumer Electronics Show. // Tetris, played well. (h/t, An Insomniac.) // Snow flakes. // Harlan Ellison: Dreams with Sharp Teeth. (h/t, Savage Popcorn.) // Punishments of 19th century China. // 79 versions of Popcorn. (h/t, Dan Collins.) // And, via The Thin Man, a tale of improper passion.