I will fight anyone who tells me that Pluto is not a planet.

(original)

The 20 “castaways” in the 13th season of US reality show Survivor will be divided according to their ethnicity.

The contestants will be segregated into four “tribes” of blacks, whites, Asians and Latinos when the hit CBS programme returns on 14 September…

(And here we thought that stuffing the Big Brother house with the seriously mentally ill was the worst we’d see this year)

• blog.myspace.com/bradmeltzer
  Brad Melzer’s tour schedule
  (tags: comics people)

Via Alina Stefanescu: a PDF of a 37-page interview with Burrought by the Paris Review in 1965, here.

NASA announced Tuesday that its new crew exploration vehicle will be named Orion.

Orion is the vehicle NASA’s Constellation Program is developing to carry a new generation of explorers back to the moon and later to Mars. Orion will succeed the space shuttle as NASA’s primary vehicle for human space exploration.

Orion’s first flight with astronauts onboard is planned for no later than 2014 to the International Space Station. Its first flight to the moon is planned for no later than SOMETIME AFTER I’M FUCKING DEAD AND BURIED

Human embryonic stem cell lines have been generated without embryos being destroyed, according to researchers.

A US team created stem cell lines by removing single cells from embryos, a process that left them intact, they report in the journal Nature.

At present, growing this type of stem cell results in embryo destruction.

The researchers say their findings may remove some of the ethical barriers to this field and provide a way of bypassing current US legislation. In 1995, the US congress passed an amendment stating that the government would not fund research in which human embryos were destroyed.

And in 2001, President Bush declared federal funding would only be available for research using the 61 human embryonic stem cells lines already in existence, where a “life or death decision had already been made”. This meant that no new lines could be created, whether from existing embryos or cloned embryos.

US stem cell researchers said the funding limits had ensured the US lagged behind in this field of research, limiting new studies to private companies, while pro-lifers hailed the decision.

Scientists believe stem cells may one day help to combat a range of diseases, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, or to repair spinal cord injury…

“If you’re not buying this, you’re a Communist.”

– Ain’t It Cool News

“Make sure you catch me hearing my four octave voice range whenever you have the chance. After meeting with my voice teacher for practice, it turns out that I am the only guy in the whole world who can sing four octave voice range (bass, tenor, alto, and soprano) at the same time.”

Meredith Yayanos made me listen to this. And now I make you listen to it.

In this manner, I turn suicide into a group activity.

No-entry fields are beginning to piss me off.  If you own a plot on Second Life, you have the option of only allowing selected people to enter it.  Everyone else bounces off a no-entry field thrown up around your parcel’s borders.  If you have a little money, you can even buy a piece of code that forcibly ejects people who attempt to enter the parcel.

I sold some beachfront land because I couldn’t travel around it.  It was boxed in by no-entry fields.  I like flying around and looking at things.  Bouncing off invisible shit every ten seconds got old fast.

While waiting for a download to finish a few nights back, I took a vehicle up from Integral Castle to look at some of the high-altitude construction in the area.  Flew over one of those ejection fields, couldn’t get off the parcel (which was seven hundred meters below me) quickly enough, got ejected clean out of the vehicle and landed about 18 acres away.  The vehicle returned to my Lost And Found folder next time I logged in.  Pain in the arse.

Was there actually anyone in any of the no-entry areas?  Of course not.  Was anyone going to run around in their houses IMing the owner with “im in ur r00m im touching ur stuff”?  Of course not.  Is it people not wanting strangers to see that their house is equipped with apparatus for the robo-yiffing of giant rabbits?  Well, maybe.

But mostly it’s the worst side of property rights — not only can you not come near my house, but I’m also going to make it really fucking difficult for you to even move around it.  When people start doing this en masse, it makes a joke of the commons and the right to travel freely.  I may not have the inalienable right to come in and use your toilet, but if I don’t have the right to cross the fucking road or fly over your house while a few hundred meters in the air, you have some serious issues, and so does the system.

When the grid comes back up today, I will probably be found and and around Integral Castle, Rogla (174, 120, 124)/ http://slurl.com/secondlife/Rogla/174/120/124/ — trying to work out how to join land parcels together.  I still have the Apparat Programme playing in the castle, and have put a radio in the centre of the grounds outside.  There’s temporary seating on the first floor of the castle, as I work towards eventually doing scheduled appearances there.

China and Russia are planning a joint mission to Mars that will bring back samples to earth and land on one of the red planet’s tiny moons, state media quoted a Chinese scientist as saying Wednesday.

Russia will launch the spacecraft in 2009 and it will carry China-made survey equipment. The mission will collect samples on Mars and the planet’s nearest moon, according to Xinhua.

Sun Laiyan, of the China National Space Administration, said in June that China would focus on the moon and Mars in its deep space exploration program over the next five years.

In reference to the picture below, I just received the following email from Frankie Chan:

a friend of mine sent me your page because you’d posted my graffiti
on the front.

i’m a fan, so i’m totally flattered. i thought i’d write and let you
know what iheartcomix is.

first off, i’m a l.a. based event promoter and dj. i throw events
under the moniker ‘iheartcomix’ with the sole purpose of breaking
new music, products, art, films and ideas that we think are cool.

we do events nationwide and i’m a very busy traveling dj.

i also draw and religously read comics, hence, ‘iheartcomix’

i’m tryin to do my best to spread the word and hit a totally
different audience the comics world seems to have never to totally
grasp (although the stories would be totally appealing). we’re
slowly trying to incorporate comics more into our events, whether
it’s jim mahfood showing up and doing live art or giving away comics
in gift bags (which we’ve often done at our own expense) or release
parties for upcoming books which fit (which we want to do).

we’re hitting the streets and throwing the parties,
getting the word out. the phrase ‘iheartcomix’ rolls off the lips of
people at william morris and the firm as if it were second nature and
it makes me smile every time. the plan is a revolution.

http://www.myspace.com/frankichan

http://www.myspace.com/iheartcomix

http://www.myspace.com/iheartcomixrecords

(original)

New prints by comics creator Dan Goldman:

(original and notes)

Originally uploaded by tetheredtothesun.

Prints by Jim Stafford:

“Buena Vista” by Meg Hunt, print available for purchase at link.

(original)

Free shipping to the US and Canada on all DIESEL SWEETIES t-shirts this week.