moscow mueller

None of these Trump cocktails from McSweeney’s contributors Wendy Aarons and Mariana Olenko seem for anyone but your sturdiest of drinkers and may not be so effective for drowning one’s sorrows but the menu (both instalments) is certainly worth checking out. We especially liked The Harvey Wallbuilder: vodka, orange juice and Galliano l’Autentico, garnished with an IOU from Mexico—though now we’ve graduated to Impeachment & Cream.

danza de la lluvia

Apparently not contended with contributing to the respiratory distress of millions by manipulating its emissions data, one German automotive manufacturer operating in Cuautlancingo in the Mexican state of Puebla has decided to go full on evil mad scientist with a weather-control machine.
The plant (the largest outside of Germany) employed sonic cannons to disrupt the formation of hail, which threatens to ruin the shiny new paint jobs of cars made there. Local farmers complain of the practise saying it has exacerbated drought conditions and ruined their harvest. Developed over a century ago and mostly used to protect crops from hail damage, scientists are skeptical if the sonic cannons have any effect at all, intended or otherwise. For its part, the automobile manufacturer is reaching out to the community and pledges that the disruptors, which were apparently on stand-by at all times, will only be operated manually as weather forecasts indicate and the company will be hanging a protective netting over its lot as a long-term solution.

7x7

paying it forward: a comprehensive and inspiring look at the “I Promise” school of Lebron James

archival quality: an object lesson on the durability of microfilm, via Slashdot

mercator-projection: Google Maps shifts to depict the Earth as a globe, helping to ameliorate geographic perspectives (previously)

achoque: a convent near Lake Pátzcuaro is saving an endangered salamander from extinction—the nuns producing a cough syrup from its skin, via Kottke’s Quick Links

jingfen: a Finnish comic about social anxieties finds resonance with millions of Chinese people

lossless compression: organisms seem pretty indifferent to the effects of squeezing their whole genome into a single DNA molecule

the oxygen of amplification: exploring the conundrum of covering tabloid politics and some advice for journalists on how to not fall into the manipulative traps 

true colours

In order to bypass prevailing homophobic attitudes in Russia, bolstered by laws that make illegal to display the rainbow Pride flag among other symbols, six activists donned the jerseys of six different World Cup teams, we learn via Messy Nessy Chic, to subtly insert themselves as a human banner to promote equity and human rights while the matches were being hosted. Visit the links above to learn more.

crony capitalism

As the nihilism of the vapid economic policy and empty pandering of the Trump regime has teetered like a petulant toddler to alienate US allies and is eliciting belligerent responses in kind (the palaver that’s usually reserved—paternally or otherwise—for those suffering under a tyrant whose not to be understood as a metonym for the country or the people under his rule), it’s worth noting that while punishing tariffs are to be immediately imposed on Mexican, Canadian and EU steel and aluminium exports (in order to punish China for depressing steel prices, though the US imports little from them) there are significant concessions and accommodations being made for the world’s second biggest aluminium exporter, a company called Rusal under the control of a Russian oligarch for whom sanctions are pending.
Though unwilling to fully abdicate their duty, the Senate went against Trump’s wishes by imposing new sanctions on several influential business magnates and their enterprises in April 2018, the legislature betrayed a weakness by compromising and offering a transitional period of six months in order for the oligarch to divest himself of his stakes in the aluminium producer and reorganise his businesses, giving American clients more time to get in compliance with the terms of the embargo. Meanwhile, the Trump syndicate is still grifting at the expense of the tax-payers, refusing to recognise a conflict-of-interest for being willing to swap the Republic and world order for his personal gain and there’s been little room for mediation on matters that the US has rubbished unilaterally—like the Iran deal. This trade war will escalate into a full-fledged one if we are not careful and continue to allow both ends to play against the middle.

inland empire

We are finding the wealth of New World charts depicting what’s presently the State of California as an island and separated from the continent to be quite fascinating.
I wonder what other geographic misconceptions have been perpetrated and fossilised in the same fashion (see more examples here—having discussed this very subject before but having quite forgot—plus another island that existed only as a cartographical error)—the a-drift version of California (the name itself coming from a early fourteenth century romance about an earthly paradise) reappearing over the decades despite the fact that explorers had confirmed that the Baja peninsula was in fact firmly attached. See the whole curated selection of maps and learn more at the Public Domain Review at the link up top.

6x6

el diablo: a ghoulish gallery of the comic and pulp art of Mexican publications of the 50s and 60s

和菓子: Edo period illustrations of Japanese confections called wagashi

in memoriam: ten stunning structures designed by recently departed architect Will Alsop

red carpet: Star Wars actress dazzles with a Vivienne Westwood original that celebrates increasing diversity in science fiction

landlines: an assortment of vintage telephones from Western Electric, via Weird Universe

from bauhaus to our house: celebrating the wide-ranging contributions and influence of author and journalist Tom Wolfe

because i was not a trade-unionist

Contemptibly, the American people seem to have grown tolerant, inured to the reprehensible language that the dangerous and doltish Trump broadcasts and that his complicit and cowardly regime of apologists defend and excuses.
The latest hateful rant was a pointed attack on the defenders of “sanctuary cities,” municipal jurisdictions that limit cooperation with the national immigration authorities to enforce racist policies so that people residing there in contravention of the law (or perceived to be) are less fearful of deportation and are more civically engaged, characterising the programme as “crime infested” and a “breeding concept.” Modern day presidential. Aspirational allusions that take the tack towards fascism are of course alarmist and for good reason—the word have the terrifying echo of justifying marginalisation and murder by stripping others of their humanity.

mcmlxviii

On the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, The Atlantic’s senior editor Alan Taylor regales his readers with the gift of retrospective covering the events and attitudes of the year of his birth.
If anything, a survey of 1968 lends perspective and insight on the times that we’re living through presently with violent protests erupting in France, Germany, Czecho- slovakia, Mexico and the United States, the Vietnam war, the absence of civil rights and social justice, disruptive technologies, assassinations and the Moon landing—all told in powerful images, in chronological order.

6x6

la collina dei conigli: rescued veteran laboratory rats experience the outdoors for the first time

synchronicity: Krista and Tatiana Hogan are twins joined at the head and share a unique brain configuration that allows each to experience the other’s perceptions and possibly thoughts
animoji sounds: a Finnish comedian and voice-actor named Rudi Rok gives the animated menagerie their roar

pylos combat agate: a tiny decorative seal from a Mycenaean tomb is changing conceptions about ancient artistic skills

se possible: Card Against Humanity has purchased land abutting the US-Mexico border and hired a law firm specialising in eminent do
main to make building that wall as difficult as possible

sonata primeval: the sound poetry of avant-garde exile Kurt Schwitters that Brian Eno sampled from for his 1977 album Before and After Science

name and shame

In this dystopic reality-show reality that we’re living in, Dear Leader has named four finalists in his competition to safeguard America’s southern frontier which will construct a test-length of barrier outside of San Diego for trials that will evaluate how effective the respective firms’ designs are in combating scaling and tunnelling underneath—which walls seem quite vulnerable to.
The House of Congress, despite Dear Leader’s assurances that Mexico would pay for the wall, pledged about a tenth of the estimated cost of the massive project but the Senate has yet to make the same concession—to which Dear Leader has threatened to shut down the government should his project not receive funding. While the legislature is generally not cowed into submission by Dear Leader’s rather empty threats (he vowed to take away Senators’ health care if they didn’t strike down Obama-Care but has yet to make good on that promise), I except that funding for his precious wall to be conflated with much needed relief for rebuilding places in Texas and Louisiana devastated by a hurricane and subsequent flooding—a despicable thing to bundle to the nihilistic priorities of pandering up with America’s heritage of immigration and openness. Though finalists, the construction firms only represent the best in one class—namely, concrete deterrence—given that the Customs and Border Protection agency will be making nominations for another category within the week—non-concrete deterrence, which includes entrants for hammocks, gravestones and a utopic terra nullius.

eclipse de sol

The ever interesting Kottke shares the discovery of a striking postage stamp commemorating the 1970 solar eclipse that covered much of North and Central America—and was the first broadcast in living colour—designed by the graphic artist Lance Wyman, whose iconic reputation was established two years prior with his logographs for the Mexico City Olympic Games and the symbols for that capital’s (plus Washington, DC’s) metro systems.

i am the world’s greatest person that does not want to let people in the country

In a desperate plea for help, some brave soul at the White House leaked the full transcripts of Dear Leader’s conversations with the president of Mexico and the Australian prime minister, demonstrating that in private, one-on-one situations he’s still every bit as sub-literate, narcissistic and nasty as he is in public—for those holds-out that hoped he might have cultivated two personæ like his presidential opponent prescribed since he seems to be guilty of all the accusations that he hurled at Clinton. The transcripts are indeed humiliating and undermine America’s position when it comes to future negotiations on anything, but it is necessary to expose this regime for the vacuous and nihilistic sham it is. Imagine that these conversations occurred just after his inauguration (epochs ago in Trumpian time)—I wonder how much more unhinged he’s become since then.

confederados

During the US Civil War (1861-1865), the Confederate States of America ran a side campaign to realise colonial expansion into Central and South America. Southern imperialists called filibusters or freebooters raised militias in order to destabalise the Mexican government and foment revolt so piecemeal the country might be more easily taken.
When Emperor Napoleon III seized Mexico in 1863, the Confederacy seemed to have the perfect pretence for liberating the country, which would be indebted to those who freed them from the yoke of the French. Prosecuting the war with the Union took up all their resources, however. After the Confederacy was defeated, some Southerners realised their imperial ambitions after a fashion when having lost significant portions of their land-holdings they fled as refugees across the border and established settlements in many Latin American countries and in Brazil—where enslavement was still legal at the time before being outlawed in 1888, that still bear the name Americana and New Texas (parts of São Paulo, by leave of Emperor Dom Pedro II), New Virginia (located between Mexico City and Veracruz and tolerated by Emperor Maximillian II until he was executed by revolutionaries in 1867) and several outposts in British Honduras (modern-day Belize) that retain to varying degrees their exported heritage.

6x6

phantom pavilions: more wire frame architecture from Edoardo Tresoldi

aragog: for the bold, a paralysing cocktail that includes tarantula venom, via Nag on the Lake

anchors away: dispatching with human crews will make shipping on the high seas safer, cleaner and cheaper—and be disruptive for sailors’ careers, via Super Punch

pardon and prophecy: as you can imagine, she is an expert on politics and predicts that whenever you decide to run for office you will be a winner

steering committee: a decency council to be assembled that will advise the Duma and help guide its decision-making

star wars, nothing but star wars: one cinema’s celebratory lead up to the fortieth anniversary of the franchise

chocolate cake

In a last minute mad dash to at least keep the lights on for a few more days, the US legislature passed what’s known as Continuing Resolution, a stop gap, kicking the can appropriations measure that keeps the American federal government funded for another week.  A few days from now, we’ll be witnessing the same histrionics, except afforded more time for debate that probably translates to neither side finding a point of compromise—and, ironically, the US government will close up shop for Cinco de Mayo over among other items, a border wall. Remember the Alamo—that was some beautiful chocolate cake.  Regardless of the outcome, we are only speaking of funding the government through the end of the fiscal year, 30 September, and after that the stakes get much higher.

sınırı

Whilst arguably an improvement to the mine-field that formerly separated Turkey from Syria (an arrangement drawn up by our old ombudsmen friends Sykes and Picot from the vanquished Ottoman Empire), the world seemed to take far less exception with the wall now half completed that effectively cordons off the war-torn region than with Dear Leader’s imaginary one. Once the nine hundred kilometre long border is secure, the wall will be the world’s second longest structure, second only to the Great Wall of China. The circumstances are very different on each frontier but it’s strange how both dictators couch the threats from the barbarians at the gate with the same language and from the characterisations, one would think neighbours could be easily transposed.

el muro fronterizo

Just as bidding closes NPR presents a gallery of some of the design proposals for Dear Leader’s great wall submitted by construction companies eager to build the barrier that will divide the US from México for the Customs and Border Protection agency. Plans range from soul-crushing to absolutely utopian lampoon.

a modest proposal

The administration of Dear Leader, as Boing Boing informs, is apparently willing to separate children from their parents if apprehended trying to enter the US illegally as another arrow in his quiver to deter immigration.
According to leaked proceedings taken under advisement, children would be warehoused—either with relatives already residing in the country or with foster parents or failing that—as Dickensian street urchins, whilst their parents are locked up in detention centres, private prisons either contesting the grounds that they will be deported or await an asylum hearing. This could potentially mean separation from mothers and fathers for months or more likely years held in suspense. Child welfare services believe such trauma would have debilitating life-long effects, especially for very young children, even if those families willing to take in migrant children are the best parents in the world. Even the staunchest opponents to a liberal immigration policy must surely concede that conditions must be unimaginably wretched for families to risk everything to get into Dear Leader’s America and fifty thousand mothers and children have tried from election day up through the inauguration.

abiogenesis

Enough to make even the hardiest water bear (tardigrade) blanch, spelunkers studying extremophile biotopes have extracted microbes from crystals buried deep in an abandoned zinc mine in Chihuahua that researchers believe to be between ten-thousand and fifty-thousand years old.
Discoveries such as these really push the limits of our conventional definitions of how and indeed where life manifests itself. Such rugged determination speaks to the theory of panspermia, the idea that life could be propagated through the Cosmos on the backs of comets, meteors or even on the breaking crest of a radio-wave but also is a stark warning for us as explorers to be vigilant about stowaways and unintended contamination.