Clipmarks | Odd Clips

Nine rejected video game concepts

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:23:00 GMT

clipped by: tommy2balmy

Clip Source: www.uphaa.com

9 Rejected Video Game Concepts

Tags: odd, humor, funny

Viewpoint: The impetuous John McCain

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:23:22 GMT

clipped by: lifecyce1898

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Senator John McCain's personal charms are in danger of turning into a liability as the former Navy fighter pilot looms large in the American sky.

In private the impetuous, nearly manic nature of the Republican running for president is exhilarating - in public it's beginning to look like volatility, a cause for alarm among friends and foes alike.

Unpredictable

Then, when McCain suspended his campaign during the financial crisis and headed for the halls of Congress, his move shocked observers on both sides of the party aisle.

He ran the risk of missing the first debate, an odd form of political suicide.

John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin was "spectacularly unpredictable"

'Brawling traditions'

By his own admission he was a hotheaded young man

But few know what McCain is going to do next on the national stage, which could make voters uneasy in these troubled times.

A minor variation on this theme is McCain's last-minute decision to stand up the popular late-night CBS talk show host

Tags: mccain

Death, similar and different

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:56:49 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: it is fascinating to see how death and identity are related. both in the personal experience and the cultural one. i wonder how it would change when and if immortality emerges?

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Deathways Open Doors To Unexpected Cultural Practices

Cremation, "air burial," grave cairns, funeral mounds, mummification, belief in life after death -- death practices sacred to one culture are often considered "odd" or even terrifying by another.

The Greeks, for example, were fascinated with the historian Herodotus' description of the ancient Issedonians chopping up their dead into a mixed grill and devouring them in a communal barbeque, something entirely contrary to the Greeks' treatment of their own dead.

For one thing," he says, "death was ubiquitous

Second, Christianity, Judaism and the many polytheistic religions

focused on explaining to believers the meaning of death and the afterlife

in the exploitive context of colonial encounters, understanding of deathways was put to manipulative ends by both sides

deathways marked cultural self-definition and the definition of 'other' in the New World

Tags: history, anthropology, religion

The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin XIV: What Trade Missions To Russia?

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 04:35:02 GMT

clipped by: Jorjor
clipper's remarks: She's not a barracuda; she's an eel.

Clip Source: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

By now, the pattern is familiar. Palin responds to a question she fears reveals something she wants to conceal and lies:

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We -- we do -- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where -- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is -- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there.

There is no evidence of her conducting any trade missions with Russia:

I spent some time on the Governor's Web site seeking more details about her trade negotiations with Russia. There's a press release about Gov. Palin's meeting with a trade mission from the Yukon, but nothing about Russia anywhere in the archives.

Tags: politics, election, palin

Economist on Africa and Hope

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:49:45 GMT

clipped by: ProfessorMike
clipper's remarks: The current financial crisis is a threat, but Africa's prospects don't look all that bleak

Clip Source: www.economist.com

UNTIL the past few weeks of global turmoil, Africa’s doughty band of boosters were feeling they at last had something to smile about. After four decades of political and economic stagnation that kept most of their 800m-odd people in poverty and gloom, the continent’s 48 sub-Saharan countries have been growing for the past five years at a perky overall rate of 5% or so. If they maintain this pace or even bump it up a bit, Africa still has a chance of taking off. Now, with commodity prices likely to fall, world markets sure to shrivel and Western aid set to plateau or even dip, Africa, though more isolated from the global economy than other parts of the world, is bound to suffer from its ill breeze. But maybe not as badly.

Tags: africa, financial crisis, global economy

Deathways Open Doors To Unexpected Cultural Practices

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 04:22:36 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.buffalo.edu

UB historian studies death in the New World

Cremation, "air burial," grave cairns, funeral mounds, mummification, belief in life after death -- death practices sacred to one culture are often considered "odd" or even terrifying by another.

In every social group throughout history, the disposal of the dead has special significance, and ways of death always fascinate those on the outside looking in,

"Beyond that," he says, "deathways illuminate religious meaning and the social life of cultures about which we may know little else."

"Much of my research looks at how deathways marked cultural self-definition and the definition of 'other' in the New World," he says.

In fact, Seeman says the examination of deathways is virtually unmatched for understanding cross-cultural encounters that took place centuries ago in the New World.

The book also takes a particular interest in how deathways document the cultural syncretism that, over time, reconciled a vast number of disparate or contradictory beliefs,

Tags: death, history, culture, social, belief

Viva McCain

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:56:50 GMT

clipped by: sillysam
clipper's remarks: Katie Couric asked each candidate recently what his favorite movie was. Obama gave an utterly conventional answer: "Oh, I think it would have to be The Godfather. One and two. Three not so much. Umm. So-so, but, but that--that saga--I love that movie."
Lawrence of Arabia. Great film. One of my favorites--and then Casablanca. Who doesn't like Casablanca?

Couric: I asked for one.

Obama: I'm a movie guy. I can rattle off a bunch of movies. But that Casablanca, you know.

That's Obama. He's glib, conventional, won't make a real choice, shows nothing about himself, and says nothing offputting and says nothing impressive.

Clip Source: www.weeklystandard.com

Neither of the two men who have been nominated by their parties for president is perfect for this challenging moment. But one is far less imperfect than the other.

One is an orthodox and timid liberal, personally ambitious but intellectually conventional. For all his talk of hope and change, when has Barack Obama ever shown a willingness to break with liberal orthodoxy or Democratic dogma? What bold decision has he taken, what unpopular idea has he embraced? The odd truth about Obama is that, for all his unsavory radical associations--and they are unsavory and a legitimate issue in the campaign--he's not radical enough for the times and challenges we face.

The other candidate, John McCain,

His general views are centrist, but he's willing to be bold when necessary. He won't be passive as president, and he'll think anew and act anew as he adjusts to the challenges we face, in the spirit of doing what's necessary to preserve and strengthen the underlying principles of American life.

The Saddest Sad Songs Of All Time!

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:13:49 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: I picked a few of my favourites. See the list and lyrics at the site. I couldn't get through life without music as a backdrop. Where would we be without it? If you need a rest from politics, just copy/paste a title and go youtubing. Even sad songs can make you happy.

I heard this song when I was a little girl and my Dad told me it was about a dog (that probably drowned) and I bawled my eyes out! I still do!

Anyway, remember. Jumping off cliffs not allowed! .

Clip Song (Not sad, even!)

Clip Source: www.popculturemadness.com

The Saddest Sad Songs Of All Time!

The odd thing about sad songs is that they can be happy songs as well. That song that meant everything good with the old girlfriend can make you cry with the opening notes today.

Sometimes that sad song can indicate an upcoming hope, or desire to to climb out of that sad situation. I've always believed that without the sad stuff, we'd never appreciate the good stuff.

Everything ever created by man has been made so by some driven need he didn't have.
Or, to impress a girl.

Sad songs are the stuff that fuel our dreams to become reality.

Alone Again, Naturally - Gilbert O Sullivan

Clip Source: www.popculturemadness.com

What a sad song. Although we don't recommend it, it is the perfect song to listen to before jumping off a cliff or waiting for the train to reach the end of the track that you're sitting on.

Clip Source: www.popculturemadness.com

Send In the Clowns - Judy Collins

I'm Not In Love - 10cc

Two Beds and a Coffee Machine - Savage Garden

You'll Think Of Me - Keith Urban

This Used to be my Playground - Madonna

Gravity Defying Homes

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:40:31 GMT

clipped by: vandamonium
clipper's remarks: I don't understand how a few of them stay up...

Clip Source: www.oddee.com

10 Homes that Defy Gravity

Wozoco Apartments (Amsterdam-Osdorp, Netherlands)

Floating Castle (Ukraine)

Habitat 67 (Montreal, Canada)

Free Spirit Spheres (British Columbia, Canada)

Cube House (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

Gangster's House (Archangelsk, Russia)

Mushroom House (Cincinnati, Ohio)

Upside-Down House (Syzmbark, Poland)

Pod House (New Rochelle, New York)

Heliotrope Rotating House (Freiburg, Germany)

Tags: homes, gravity, defy, defying, strange, weird, odd, unusual

Sometimes it really is a small world

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 08:15:57 GMT

clipped by: tommy2balmy
clipper's remarks: It had to happen sometime.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Online sweethearts 'lived on same street'

A British couple who met on a dating website turned out to be neighbours who had lived only a few houses apart for 17 years, a local news report said.

Teacher Julie McIlroy began emailing electrician Allan Donnelly after seeing his picture on a dating website, an increasingly common way of meeting people with the rapid rise of broadband internet access.

It was only after several weeks of online contact that the 46-year-old phoned him - and realised they lived seven houses apart on the same street in the Welsh capital Cardiff.

"While we were chatting I said I'd just been to the shop. He said that was the shop he always went to," she told the South Wales Echo.

"When he told me he lived in (the same street), I thought it was a wind-up.

"I was stunned... He asked me over for a cup of tea, and that was that," she said, while Mr Donnelly, 53, added: "We've got the perfect compatibility. I'm a very lucky man."

The couple are now planning to marry.

Tags: odd

Best Of Craigslist

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:09:13 GMT

clipped by: sahara

Clip Source: blog.craigslist.org

Couch for Sale

Hmmm, wonder if there are any claw marks on this one?

Clip Source: blog.craigslist.org

Dirt Cheap

Please don’t waste dirt’s time by emailing dirt and asking for more money.

DIRT isn’t here to subsidize your craigslist lifestyle.

Dirt just wants to be gone.

Clip Source: blog.craigslist.org

All Aboard the CATBUS

Purrrrfect for Burning Man!

Clip Source: blog.craigslist.org

Spring is here!

And this craigslist user is generously offering free poison oak starts:

Clip Source: blog.craigslist.org

Irregular Cat Hats

Snowman (R.I.P.) had some styling lids, irregular or not.

Clip Source: blog.craigslist.org

Space Ship for Sale

Clip Source: www.craigslist.org

Space Ship for Sale $3500.00 or best offer

This space ship is in excellent condition! Only 300 million Intergalactic miles, 4 passenger, no meteor dents, possibly needs reactor seals and recharged flux capacitor, 1 owner. Still have the original owners manual.

Clip Source: www.craigslist.org

**ASS KICKING MACHINE*

Clip Source: www.craigslist.org

Unicycle Lawnmower

Comes with your choice of 12/40 oz beer holder that doubles as an ash tray.

Tags: odd

New "currency" big in US prisons

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:12:27 GMT

clipped by: tommy2balmy
clipper's remarks: Mackerel is hot in prisons in the U.S., but not so much anywhere else, says Mark Muntz, president of Global Source, which imports fillets of the oily, dark-fleshed fish from Asian canneries. Mr. Muntz says he's tried marketing mackerel to discount retailers. "We've even tried 99-cent stores," he says. "It never has done very well at all, regardless of the retailer, but it's very popular in the prisons."
Mr. Muntz says he sold more than $1 million of mackerel for federal prison commissaries last year. It accounted for about half his commissary sales, he says, outstripping the canned tuna, crab, chicken and oysters he offers.

Unlike those more expensive delicacies, former prisoners say, the mack is a good stand-in for the greenback because each can (or pouch) costs about $1 and few -- other than weight-lifters craving protein -- want to eat it.

So inmates stash macks in lockers provided by the prison and use them to buy goods, including illicit ones such as stolen food and home-br

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

When Larry Levine helped prepare divorce papers for a client a few years ago, he got paid in mackerel. Once the case ended, he says, "I had a stack of macks."

Mr. Levine and his client were prisoners in California's Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex. Like other federal inmates around the country, they found a can of mackerel -- the "mack" in prison lingo -- was the standard currency.

"It's the coin of the realm," says Mark Bailey, who paid Mr. Levine in fish. Mr. Bailey was serving a two-year tax-fraud sentence in connection with a chain of strip clubs he owned. Mr. Levine was serving a nine-year term for drug dealing. Mr. Levine says he used his macks to get his beard trimmed, his clothes pressed and his shoes shined by other prisoners. "A haircut is two macks,"

There's been a mackerel economy in federal prisons since about 2004

That's when federal prisons prohibited smoking and, by default, the cigarette pack, which was the earlier gold standard.

Tags: mackerel, fish, mack, prison currency, odd

Oct 14 , 2008 - Blossom Goodchild, Project Blue Beam at Ron Paul's site

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 06:55:02 GMT

clipped by: firstteam
clipper's remarks: Read also the Project Blue books site and then follow through to Blossom Goodchild's material so you won't miss anything should you see something in the sky you can't explain. I hazzard to advice that after reading the 2 articles in detail you still have to make up your own mind - it is not so straight forward. That is the least you can do for now.

Clip Source: ronpaul.myfeedportal.com

October 14, 2008 - hype or hypertension?

Look, I am trying to stay level minded and consider myself to be as such, even with financial ruin around us. With this in mind, follow me here. There is a certain channeling medium, Blossom Goodchild, whom is predicting (from contact with this supposed alien race) massive UFO sightings and contact with this alien nation on October 14, 2008. See story here.

There seems to be much hype about this around the internets (just kidding, I know, "Internet"!) and although many sound-minds pass this off as odd-ball stuff, some will think of an even more far reacing possibility, Project Blue Beam. (This person may be perfectly normal, just being used in a certain way or heck who knows what. Is that possible you think?) OK, now, staying with me, for this goes far, I know, let's look at what has happened in history on the 14th of October in years passed, at least based on our 'modern' Gregorian calendar**:

Tags: 14oct2008, project blue beam, ron paul

John McCain's Terrorist Ties

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:16:06 GMT

clipped by: zizzy
clipper's remarks:

Liddy also said he should have recommended shots to the groin instead of the head. If that wasn't enough to inflame any nut cases, he mentioned labeling targets "Bill" and "Hillary" when he practiced shooting.

Given Liddy's record, it's hard to see why McCain would touch him with a 10-foot pole. On the contrary, he should be returning his donations and shunning his show. Yet the senator shows no qualms about associating with Liddy -- or celebrating his service to their common cause.

How does McCain explain his howling hypocrisy on the subject? He doesn't. I made repeated inquiries to his campaign aides, which they refused to acknowledge, much less answer. On this topic, the pilot of the Straight Talk Express would rather stay parked in the garage.

That's an odd policy for someone who is so forthright about his rival's responsibility. McCain thinks Obama should apologize for associating with a criminal extremist. To which Obama might reply: After you.

Clip Source: www.chicagotribune.com

Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain sounded like one

he gushed.

your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."

Which principles would those be?

The ones that told Liddy it was fine to break into the office of the Democratic National Committee to plant bugs and photograph documents

The ones that made him propose to kidnap anti-war activists so they couldn't disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention

The ones that inspired him to plan the murder (never carried out) of an unfriendly newspaper columnist

Liddy was in the thick of the biggest political scandal in American history -- and one of the greatest threats to the rule of law. He has said he has no regrets about what he did

All this may sound like ancient history. But it's from the same era as the bombings Ayers helped carry out as a member of the Weather Underground. And Liddy's penchant for extreme solutions has not abated

Clip Source: www.raisingkaine.com

[Video]

New Brit TV show debuts-Torture as entertainment

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 09:26:14 GMT

clipped by: tommy2balmy
clipper's remarks: The show's presenter, the explorer Benedict Allen, admitted that he himself had been concerned about some participants' state of mind at times.

"We knew we couldn't afford to kill anyone but yes, there were times when I was seriously worried. It got pretty hairy. Two hours into filming on the first day, one of the contestants collapsed on the floor and suffered convulsions. We were stuck in the depths of the jungle in Guyana and we had to get him out. It didn't start well."

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

A reality television show that features contestants being forced to submit to the illegal torture technique of waterboarding is "unacceptable" and could breach watchdog standards, lobbyists have warned.

Unbreakable involves eight volunteers being subjected to extreme challenges under the motto Pain is Glory, Pain is Pride, Pain is Great to Watch.

The contestants, which include a female bouncer, a musician and a personal trainer, are buried alive, trapped in a tent full of CS gas and forced to wade through piranha-infested waters.

They are also tied down on a board to have water poured over their faces in a technique to simulate drowning that is used by the CIA but banned under international laws.

One man was so traumatised by his experience that he collapsed and suffered convulsions after just one day into filming, while another ran away into the African bush and had to be found with tracker dogs.

Tags: odd, torture, torture as entertainment, unbreakable

Clipmarks | Odd Clips

Nine rejected video game concepts

9 Rejected Video Game Concepts

Viewpoint: The impetuous John McCain

Death, similar and different

Deathways Open Doors To Unexpected Cultural Practices

The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin XIV: What Trade Missions To Russia?

Economist on Africa and Hope

Deathways Open Doors To Unexpected Cultural Practices

UB historian studies death in the New World

Viva McCain

The Saddest Sad Songs Of All Time!

Gravity Defying Homes

10 Homes that Defy Gravity

Wozoco Apartments (Amsterdam-Osdorp, Netherlands)

Floating Castle (Ukraine)

Habitat 67 (Montreal, Canada)

Free Spirit Spheres (British Columbia, Canada)

Cube House (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

Gangster's House (Archangelsk, Russia)

Mushroom House (Cincinnati, Ohio)

Upside-Down House (Syzmbark, Poland)

Pod House (New Rochelle, New York)

Heliotrope Rotating House (Freiburg, Germany)

Sometimes it really is a small world

Online sweethearts 'lived on same street'

Best Of Craigslist

Couch for Sale

Dirt Cheap

All Aboard the CATBUS

Spring is here!

Irregular Cat Hats

Space Ship for Sale

Space Ship for Sale $3500.00 or best offer

********ASS KICKING MACHINE*******

Unicycle Lawnmower

New "currency" big in US prisons

Oct 14 , 2008 - Blossom Goodchild, Project Blue Beam at Ron Paul's site

October 14, 2008 - hype or hypertension?

John McCain's Terrorist Ties

New Brit TV show debuts-Torture as entertainment

A reality television show that features contestants being forced to submit to the illegal torture technique of waterboarding is "unacceptable" and could breach watchdog standards, lobbyists have warned.

**ASS KICKING MACHINE*