I was attempting to complete my taxes today, and I was cruising through IRS Publication 17, to see if my state income tax refund will be considered taxable income, when I happened across this:

So, make sure all of your crack slangin’ buddies fill in their income on line 21 of their 1040′s this year.  Wouldn’t want them to get audited…

This is what happens when you let smart people on television:

So there’s plenty of commentary flying around about why not a single Republican in the House of Representatives decided to vote for the Obama stimulus package.

Me? I’m with publius:

That’s essentially what the House Republicans did today when they voted unanimously against the stimulus – they went all in before the flop.  And now they too are completely at the mercy of the flop — and fate — with a less than stellar hand.

Frankly, I don’t think it was a completely irrational move considering the circumstances.  The House Republicans’ long-term prospects ain’t good – they’re locked into a declining, southern-centric demographic base getting smaller by the year.  Plus, it’s not like voting for the stimulus will reverse these trends.  If it works, Obama will probably get credit regardless of what the GOP does.  Accordingly, the GOP decided to do something more drastic, and then hope for the best by hoping for the worst.

And it might work.  The flop might save them.  Maybe the economy will get even worse in 2 or 4 years.  If so, the Republicans can stand up and say, “if only we had cut more taxes, if only we hadn’t wasted all this money…”  And who knows?  If the economy continues to tank, that might get some traction.

But make no mistake – it’s an extremely risky strategy.  The GOP locked themselves into a game of Russian roullette today.  If the economy gets better, or if the GOP somehow manages to block it in the Senate, then the Republicans’ unanimous opposition could send the party into the wilderness for a long time to come.  Republicans, remember, picked the wrong horse in the New Deal debate, and ultimately lost control of Congress (with periodic and fleeting exceptions) for about 60 years.

A purely political move, from a purely political party, lacking any real ideas or substance.  What a great match.

And another thing, to borrow another gambling metaphor, this is also like the guy in craps who bets the “Don’t Pass” line.  Nobody likes that guy.

Hey guys, I know you probably don’t care at all…. but, I just broke the 400,000,000 mark in Geo Wars Evolved 2. My new top score is 409,475,575. Honestly, my heart hasn’t stopped pounding yet… the adrenaline is still pumping through my veins.

Beat that Choof! That is, if you can even break 200 mil !!!! HAHAHAHA

Wow I am such a nerd.

After a favorable response to my last set of Nigerian scam-guy e-mails, I decided to keep the ball rolling. What follows exceeded my wildest expectations, almost to the point where I’m not totally convinced this isn’t someone I know pulling a prank on me. At any rate, read on…

Also, if anyone’s interested in buying a laptop, please contact me.

(more…)

For all the Radiolab fans out there, it appears they are trying their hand at visuals as well as their beautifully mixed audio experience.

Not bad at all.

Interesting idea for a stop motion animation.

Try and find the deer running out into the middle of the road. Continue moving forward to find out what happens next!

Update: Looks like it’s experiencing a large amount of traffic (the page, not the deer). Google has taken it down, hopefully only temporarily.

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Have a look at this year’s Oscar nominess for Animated Short Film: Lavatory – Lovestory, Presto, and Oktapodi all available on youtube, plus trailers for the other two – This Way Up and La Maison en Petits Cubes

[via Motionographer]

For those of you that maybe haven’t seen it, this is one of my favorite animations. Those that have, you could probably use another watch. John Lennon was such a badass! His words are quite beautiful. The visuals are so great too; I’m impressed every time I watch it.

Peace.

Until a few minutes ago, I never knew that sending a regular old URL to a youtube video in gmail chat would produce anything other than a clickable (is that a word?) link. It shows you a preview in the window and when clicked, actually plays the video right above your chat node.

Well played Google, well played.

For all you science buffs out there, check out how this guy uses fire to create a music visualizer. I thought it was really cool how you could see the sine waves when he output the specific frequencies.

kudos to phil for this one!