Fearsome hamster fights off humans. // Cats, calm and oranges. (h/t, Simen) // Inquisitive crow. // Makerbot Thing-O-Matic kit. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus) // The world of Bang & Olufsen. (h/t, MeFi) // The history of the Batmobile. // Animatronic Hulk not entirely successful. // Do giraffes float? // The catapult fridge. // The Fairey Delta FD1 (1951) // The Enola Gay cockpit. (h/t, Kate) // Notable dog. // Living grass sculptures. // What the Guardian finds offensive. (h/t, TDK) // Why Star Trek:Insurrection is a terrible, terrible film. // Thunderstorms and antimatter. // Edison’s other inventions. // Don’t touch that dial. // Or the octopus chair.

This is an oil painting.

I wasn’t planning to comment on the shootings in Arizona, but the rush to exploit the tragedy for political gain shouldn’t pass unremarked. The first thing that caught my eye was this smug and nasty sermon from the Guardian’s Michael Tomasky, who tells us “rage is encoded in conservative DNA.”

Guns are simply too central to the mythology of the American right, as is the idea of liberty being wrested from tyrants only at gunpoint. For the American right to stop talking about armed insurrection would be like American liberals dropping the subjects of race and gender.

Mr Tomasky’s rather selective alarm has thankfully been noted by Natalie Solent and Tim Blair. 

Glenn Reynolds, a man whose “conservative rage” is difficult to detect, offered this:

To be clear, if you’re using this event to criticize the “rhetoric” of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you’re either: (a) asserting a connection between the “rhetoric” and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you’re not, in which case you’re just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible… Those who purport to care about the health of our political community demonstrate precious little actual concern for America’s political well-being when they seize on any pretext, however flimsy, to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.

At Harry’s Place, Gordon MacMillan is troubled by “violent metaphors,” albeit only those used by some Republicans:

If you do use such explicit language like “reload” and “bullseye,” and “cross hair” imagery then to many the message is clear. You’re gunning for people even if it is metaphorically.

Even more troubled – to the point of authoritarian incoherence – is Pennsylvania Democrat Robert Brady. Mr Brady hopes to outlaw the “use of language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress.” As an example of impermissible symbology, Brady pointed to a map used by Sarah Palin to indicate “targeted” congressional seats, saying: “You can’t put bull’s-eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official.” That the map in question does no such thing doesn’t appear to hinder Mr Brady. Apparently his perception is enough.

As Jeff Goldstein notes,

Neither Sarah Palin nor that Kos jaggoff targeted Congresswoman Giffords. What they targeted was her Congressional seat. Nobody literally put a bullseye or a target on her. And anyone pretending that they did – in order either to win political points or because they actually believe such nonsense – is either craven and opportunistic, or else too moronic to be taken seriously, save for the dangers they pose to our liberties by advocating for a legally-binding crackdown of fucking symbolism… One person’s dog barking is another person’s words from the Devil instructing them to kill. The answer to which is to get the person hearing voices some help, not to outlaw dogs.

Update, via the comments:

Augmented diving. // Emergency kit for boredom. // Where do I put the paper? // What you need to know about data transfer speeds. // Bespoke electronic instruments. // 3D book cover art. (h/t, Julia) // Transit. // Foldable knife. // The complete Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. // For seeing with. // The ghost cities of China. (h/t, dicentra) // From zero to 100. // Alcohol and mayonnaise, together at last. // A junk-touching diagram. // Pyjama jeans. (h/t, Simen) // “Everyone is equally intelligent.” // “The fantastic sensations, including fireworks and airplanes, were a lot of fun.” // How to make a micro-omelette inside an eggshell.

In which we revisit imaginary evils, ludicrous solutions and various lamentations from the pages of the Guardian.

In January, Kevin McKenna inadvertently revealed the loveliness behind his lofty socialist principles:

Ponder the big, generous heart behind those sentiments. It offends Mr McKenna that private education should be allowed to exist. By McKenna’s reckoning, parents who view the comprehensive system as inadequate – perhaps because of their own first-hand experiences – are by implication wicked. And so they should be stopped.

February brought us the deep, deep thinking of the New Economics Foundation and their blueprint for a socialist utopia:

The NEF are convinced that, once implemented, their recommendations would “heal the rifts in a divided Britain” and leave the population “satisfied.” That’s satisfied with less of course, and the authors make clear their disdain for the “dispensable accoutrements of middle-class life,” including “cars, holidays, electronic equipment and multiple items of clothing.”

February also brought us urban oil painting, delusional playwrights and communist art reviews.

In March, we got a taste of, if not for, the cosmetic surgery aesthetic. And an advocate of “direct action” got a taste of her own medicine and didn’t like it one bit.

April saw Jonathan Kay recounting his visit to a Thinking About Whiteness workshop, where he was told “racism is an outgrowth of capitalism” and that “to ignore race is to be more racist than to acknowledge race.”

Ah, very clever. Guilt in all directions. It almost sounds like a trap. And the way to get past small differences in physiology is to continually fixate on small differences in physiology.

And Eyjafjallajökull did some rumbling.

In May, Professor Sharra Vostral exposed the humble tampon as an “artefact of control.”

At this point, readers may also wonder how it can be that an estimated 98% of humanities scholarship goes uncited or unread.

And a mighty hail fell on Oklahoma City.

To you and yours, a very good one.

Somewhat surreal. // Doomed sci-fi pilots. (h/t, MeFi) // Let’s play dress-up. // Tron meets Playboy, if you like that kind of thing. // Prosthetic tentacle. // The tailoring of Bond. // How to wrap a cat. // Dancing with cats. // Deluxe cigar cutter. // A Christmas tale. (h/t, TDK) // An illustrated face. // Waffle irons of note. // Inside the Kowloon Walled City, 1989. // Crystalline architecture. // The Antikythera Mechanism, remade with Lego. (h/t, James Buster) // Truck bling, Gundam-style. // Taxi fares from around the world. // Images of cells. // The sounds of making shoes. // Voyager, 33 years on. “We come in peace. And are inedible.”

Adam Harper is “currently doing a PhD in Musicology at Oxford. He writes for Wire magazine and blogs at Rouge’s Foam.” He also finds time to write for the Guardian: 

Aware that reality itself is the territory on which they’re fighting the government, many student protesters have been challenging the government-sponsored realism they now find so dubious with playful surrealism.

Ah, “government-sponsored realism.” Not economic reality, as discussed here, which might lead those protesting to a larger, more troublesome understanding of the world. It’s just a cruel and dubious fabrication to be swapped for something more flattering and congenial. Students Make Protest an Art Form, reads the headline. And how could mere reality withstand the fearsome repertoire of the contemporary artist?

Few things summed up this battle for reality better than the statue stood in the main quadrangle of University College London, greeting visitors to the student occupation there. Placed in front of banners reading “Art Against Cuts” was a post-cubist humanoid figure assembled from found objects and painted silver.

By Muhammad’s beard. Empires will topple.

In front of it was a sign announcing that “THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING.”

I trust readers are all stocked up on canned goods and ammunition.

Upon entering the occupied Jeremy Bentham Room, one noticed strange details among the hundreds of posters covering the walls: references to Harry Potter characters (“Albus Dumbledore Was a GREAT MAN”), a neo-classical statue made to carry a mock-up Pokéball (which, as anyone born between 1985 and 1995 knows, is where Pokémon are kept when not in battle), puns so terrible and esoteric they become hilarious (“They say cut back, we say Feuerbach,” in homage to the 19th-century philosopher) and complete non sequiturs (“HUMBUGS ARE ZEBRA EGGS”).

It’s dangerous, dizzying stuff. Now hand me your wallet. You’ll soon be feeling an urge to bankroll more of this.

Someone else spent several hours in the Parliament Square kettle dressed as a bright pink Star Wars stormtrooper, the Bansky-esque gesture beautifully counteracting the lines of armour-clad riot police.

See? You’re warming to their demands already.

Sound-systems enabled spontaneous raves amid the cops and burning benches, with crowds bobbing in time to the wacky syncopated beats and pitch-shifted vocals of Major Lazer’s Pon De Floor.

Oh no, they’re fighting back with abstract disco.

Such displays could easily be dismissed as infantile and hedonistic, but they play an important role in outwardly showing confidence and boosting internal morale. In some cases they also serve a practical purpose.

I know, you can’t wait.

A Van Der Decken’s Sifaka, a lemur, photographed by Stephen Alvarez in the limestone forests of Madagascar.

Well, that was interesting.

One enormous placard read, “We are not your slaves!” An odd sentiment, really, from people so engorged with entitlement they assume an almost aristocratic right to other people’s labour and other people’s earnings. A more honest placard might have read, “You will pay for things I want or I’ll smash up your stuff.” But that would sound like extortion more than slavery.

And Tim steers us to The Englishman, who offers a handy summary of the higher education funding debate: 

The Question, Punk, Is Do You Think Your Course Is Worth £9000?
? 
If you answer no then there isn’t a problem. Do something else.
If you answer yes there isn’t one either. Grow up, invest in your future.

Update, via the comments:

It’s strange how the protestors are somehow missing the larger issue. The higher education bubble appears unsustainable. This has quite a lot of bearing on assumptions of inter-generational subsidy. For instance, the average lifetime financial return on an arts degree is estimated at around £30,000. Set against the cost of courses, accommodation and lost earnings during the period of study, the net result is most likely a reduction in lifetime earnings. In short, there’s no longer a return for the taxpayer and little economic incentive for inter-generational subsidy.

Students first aimed their indignation at Conservative Party offices, to loud and destructive effect. A predictable gesture, certainly, but one that misses a much more pertinent target. The current bubble was inflated largely under New Labour and largely by people sympathetic to the left, with widespread grade inflation, an implausible doubling of first class degrees, insubstantial or disreputable courses, including football studies and pole dancing research, and an arbitrary target of 50% of young people in higher education, supposedly in the name of fairness. Taken together, these factors have had a huge impact on whether higher education is economically sustainable in its current form. The bizarre belief in “degrees for (almost) everyone” comes at a high and unprecedented price. Loans and higher fees follow from that egalitarian conceit. Subsidies and maintenance grants for 2% or 5% is one thing; for 20% or 50% it’s something else entirely.

Some view “free” higher education as an entitlement warranting violence. But who’s going to pay for this “free” service when its value is increasingly called into question, not least by employers, many of whom point to dramatically lowered standards and ill-prepared graduates? One complaint we hear is that many students will be left with large debt (or theoretical debt) and limited prospects of a suitable job. But if so, doesn’t that call into question the value of what’s being demanded? In the UK there are currently around 20,000 students of fine art, 10,000 philosophy students and 27,000 enthusiasts of media studies. But is there a corresponding economic need? If the investment of time, effort and (other people’s) money doesn’t pay off with a lucrative and fascinating career in the private sector, and a return via taxation, then how is the process justified in its present form?

You’d think of spot of protest would be aimed at the egalitarians who devalued the investment and made it all but unworkable.