Walmart's Asshole

I guess the marketing geniuses over in Bentonville, Ark., home of the world's most hated retailer, Walmart, don't read much Vonnegut. Right now, up in heaven, Kurt Vonnegut is laughing his ass off. Or maybe it's his asshole.

Seems Walmart needs a new look, so after having ruined the smiley face for us, they've decided to screw up the good ol' asterisk. What they didn't know was KV was years ahead of them and had abused the asterisk so well I still giggle a bit everytime I see one.

Here's a quote from KV's Breakfast of Champions followed by the appropriate illustration:

I am programmed at 50 to perform childishly--to insult 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' to scrawl pictures of a Nazi flag and an asshole and a lot of other things with a felt-tipped pen. To give an idea of the maturity of my illustrations for this book, here is my picture of an asshole:

Oops! Sorry, that's not Kurt's asshole, that's Walmart's asshole, er, new corporate logo. And, I hope they spent a fortune on it! This is the asshole Kurt drew:

Notice the resemblance? I sure did. Kurt, even up in heaven you're still making me laugh, and you've taken the edge off my Walmart hate. I still won't shop there, though.

You have to admire this kind of crazy

Barry Bonds

Age of Wonders -- Robotic chairs

This is too cool!

Dumb Design

Porn commentary

I've heard a lot of people have their say about pornography. Here's Penn Jillette of the magic due Penn and Teller giving probably the best explanation I've ever heard of why so many "normal" people do porn.

Meet a Black Guy

I see a lot of fear these days in the United States. It seems to be on the decline as it slowly sinks into the heads of the citizens that we don't have much of anything to be afraid of, despite what our president might tell us.

Fear, it seems to me, comes from ignorance, and while familiarity might breed contempt, and I'm not sure about that, it also breeds comfort. Hence I think this guy has a great idea and a wonderful sense of humor.

Jeff Oliver, a 21-year-old black man living in Oregon, set up a booth at the local farmers market called "Meet a Black Guy" in order to relieve some of that existential terror of dark skin some lighter-hued individuals indulge in.

The guy looks like a natural born prankster, and his approach to race relations is a stroke of genius.

Do we want a C-in-C who can't use a computer?

I don't know who Steve is...

But I know most of the famous people who're punching him.

Dancing Hitler

Don't ask. It's for a Photoshop contest.

Barack is the Real Deal

How can you tell? Check this AP article out:

WASHINGTON - Acting swiftly as his party's presumed presidential nominee, Barack Obama is keeping Howard Dean at the helm of the Democratic National Committee, while bringing in one of his top strategists to oversee the party's operations.

The campaign also announced that the DNC will no longer accept donations from lobbyists and political action committees, to comply with Obama's campaign policy. Party officials say they expect the DNC's staff to quickly expand to run an aggressive general election campaign.

The DNC will no longer accept donations from lobbyists and PACs. Pure awesomeness. How are they going to raise the money to run the campaign? We the voters are going to chip in and pay for it, $5, $10, $20 at a time.

Here the entire article. As the article states, Obama's campaign is not entirely lobbyist influence free, but this is a huge step in the right direction.

Funniest description of John McCain so far

Inspired by this image, a comic hero known only as Attaturk described the Republican nominee as "the cottage cheese in a lime Jell-O salad." How apt.

You Are Here

NASA has released a new map of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, and it turns out it only has two spiral arms instead of four, which is what we used to think the galaxy looked like. Old maps had Sol, our sun, in the Orion Spiral Arm, but now the sun is seated in the Orion Spur of the Perseus Spiral Arm, not that it makes much difference on planning your route to the grocery store, but it's always a good idea to know where you stand.