today's press gaggle, courtesy Talking Points Memo:

"QUESTION: ... In every speech he gives, President Bush invokes the atrocities of 9/11 and he talks about how that event has impressed on him a determination to always honor the victims of those atrocities in his daily conduct of his office. And I wonder if you could explain with some serious Texan straight talk here, Scott, how it is honoring the victims of 9/11 to restrict the questioning of the President on this subject to one hour?
McCLELLAN: I hope you'll talk about the unprecedented cooperation that we're providing to the commission when you report this, James. Because if you look back at what we've done, it is unprecedented. We have provided more than 2 million pages of documents. We provided more than 60 compact discs of radar, flight and other information; more than 800 audio cassette tapes of interviews and other materials; more than 100 briefings, including at the head-of-agency level; more than 560 interviews. So this administration is cooperating closely and in an unprecedented way with the 9/11 Commission, because their work is very important.
QUESTION: That would have been a very pertinent answer had I asked you about the administration. "

Datamath Calculator Museum:

"Texas Instruments invented around 1977 a novel approach to reproduce human speech with tuned voices stored in ROM's (Read Only Memory). The speech synthesis circuit duplicated the human vocal tract on a single piece of silicon and with the Speak & Spell in 1978 a new talking learning aid for children was introduced. Based on this technology a huge variety of speaking toys and educational games followed. The famous Speak & Spell toy and releated products attracted soon the artists of circuit-bending, a technique to modify electronic soundmaking toys and use them as an experimental musical instruments. "

Telltale Weekly:

"New audiobook provider Telltale Weekly launches with DRM-free audiobooks for under a dollar."

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan:

"Q One more on the threat the President sees from gay marriage. What is, in the President's view, a greater threat to this enduring institution of marriage, a same-sex couple establishing a stable marriage, or the staggering divorce rate, the out-of-wedlock birth level and travesties like Britney Spear's marital fiasco? (Laughter.) What --
MR. McCLELLAN: There are so many different things in there, but --
Q And then what is he going to do -- which is the greater threat?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think -- look back to the President's State of the Union address, and he talked about the importance of values that we hold so dearly in this country. And he talked about the importance of changing our culture, and ushering in a responsibility era. He's long held those views.
Q So he would like to see a lower divorce rate, lower out-of-wedlock births, and Britney Spears behave herself? (Laughter.)
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, actually, I think if you look at some of the steps that we've taken in the welfare reform reauthorization, we have proposals in there to help strengthen marriage and help individuals. "

52 weeks:

"From out of the Penna. Dutch country comes Alice the Queen of the Funnel cakes, singing some of her songs that she wrote while making her famous funnel cakes at fairs, carnivals, festivals and shopping centers etc. "

keetja allard

Really cool photography and audio site. Fashion models play ping pong. White Stripes "mug." Courtesy Coincidences.

Frida Kahlo: Self Portrait with Monkey Coloring Page - EnchantedLearning.com

Cash family blocks haemorrhoid ad:

"The family of late singer Johnny Cash has blocked an attempt by advertisers to use his hit song Ring of Fire to promote haemorrhoid-relief products. "

Inconspicuous Consumption

F.Y.I.: Tiniest Show on Earth:

"Last year, I saw ads for a traveling flea circus in Times Square. Is it still there? Didn't there used to be an old one? And how do you train a flea, anyway?"

Actions of Joyce estate highlight problems with copyright law:

"According to an article in the Irish Times (registration required) the Joyce estate has informed the Irish government that it intends to sue for copyright infringement if there are any public readings of Joyce's works during the festival commemorating the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday this June."

plinth on velvet

"Eight legged piglet

"Fresh to the market direct from a farm in Warwickshire where the granddaughter remembers its birth on the farm in 1917, it lived only for a short time, and here grandfather taking it upon its death directly to the taxidermist."

Jon Haddock

art.

JOKE WIDENS GAP:

"'For the last couple of years I have casually glanced over the mediocre humor of the Nancy comic strip in your Green Sheet. The idiotic things that Nancy and Sluggo said were so trivial that there was no reason to protest until the March 1 episode.
'That was one in which Nancy builds a moronic conglomerate of wood and nails and proclaims. 'It's my own invention,' But then adds, 'but I suppose the Russian will say they invented it first.' "

Out of the Blue, a Lightning Bolt to the Heart

the hazards of being flip:

"Bangungot, though known by different names, is widespread throughout Southeast Asia. In Thailand it is called lai-tai and is estimated to kill one of every 2,500 young men annually in some areas. 'Widow ghosts' take men away in the dead of night, according to local legends, and the men have been known to disguise themselves as women at bedtime to protect themselves."

Weekly book reviews and literary analysis from the Times Literary Supplement

the odds on hamlet:

"Frank Kermode: Looking for problems to talk about in a lecture, I lit upon the duel at the end of Hamlet. Relaying Claudius's challenge to Hamlet, Osric tells him that the King has "laid on twelve for nine" (in terms of "hits") in favour of Laertes. But nobody (including Arden editor Harold Jenkins, in an extremely long note) seems to have figured out the odds. You, Tony, may be able to do so, after all those sweaty nights playing poker in Las Vegas. Quite a problem, I warn you. But you will handle it. "

Calpundit: ARF!:

"ARF!....No, this is not the sound that Barney makes when the White House staff is late with dinner. Rather, it's the beginning of yet another intriguing mystery regarding George Bush's service in the Air National Guard. Read on for more."

Verbal Kung-Fu Generator

Yours Not So Truly, J. Goodspam:

"Mr. Xylophonist wrote trying to sell some pamphlet about maximizing profits on eBay. Or maybe that was what Beiderbecke P. Sawhorse was pitching. It was definitely not the one from Marylou Bowling; she wrote to tell about 'Government Free Cash Grant Programs.' Then again, that might have been from Elfrieda Billman. As for Usefully T. Medicaids and Boggs Darrin, they both wrote about cheap drug sales, no prescription needed. (Of course.)"

also: a random name generator

Mamie Van Doren's Vietnam Diary :

"It is already dark as I put on my makeup in a makeshift dressing room. These Spartan quarters have been set up for me by a senior sergeant and a couple of grunts at this remote fire base. It is really a small trailer that feels like a sauna. It is humid and hot as only Vietnam's Mecong Delta can be, even though the sun has gone down an hour ago. As fast as I put on the makeup, it runs off my face in little brown rivulets of sweat."

Le site officiel de Jacques Tati, Les films de mon oncle, Tativille, Monsieur Hulot, Tatischeff.

Of hedgehogs and
show chickens.
From Conscientious.

starn studio

A Well-Imagined Star:

"Pulling the records out of the sleeves, he was surprised to find that they were made not of vinyl but of cardboard. Each had been cut in the shape of a record, with grooves and a hand-lettered label painted on. Nearly all the albums were credited to an unknown black musician named Mingering Mike, and dated from 1968 to 1976. "