les lalannes at paul kasmin

paul kasmin has been found of the lalanne(s) for quite some time, he even published a book of pictures he took when visiting their studios. these days he’s presenting a show which looks like a sort of retrospective since there is works from the 60’s as well as more recent ones. witty and beautiful as always by pp.

CATEGORIES: art

julian assange pissed off: rotten swedish meatballs for sale

“what does the u.s. have to do with a swedish extradition process?” assange asked. “why is it that me, a non-profit free speech activist, is subject to a $360,000 bail? why is it that i am kept under electronic house arrest when i have not even been charged in any country, when i have never been a fugitive?” well the answer mr. assange, is that you revealed the truth.  and not “all” of the truth is generally required.

if you don’t know much about this start reading yourself, but here’s a TV guide version of this tragedy. wikileaks founder julian assange finally lost his uk supreme court fight against extradition to sweden to face accusations of sex offenses (apparently having consensual sex in sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment for a minimum of two years for rape). some of the claims were filed by anna ardin, an accuser with alleged CIA ties. ardin had worked with “las damas de blanco” a feminist anti-castro group in cuba backed by the CIA. apparently ardin had slept with assange on more than one occassion and after the last one had thrown a party in assange’s honour at her flat after the alleged ‘crime’ and tweeted to her followers that she is with, “the world’s coolest smartest people.” somehow, she turned on him afterwards. ardin also happens to be the author of a 7-step guide on legal revenge of cheating boyfriends. the plot thickens. whatever it was, the CIA or the jealousy we could actually understand both. what we can’t understand is sweden? the assange case was originally thrown out of the court by one judge for lack of evidence, months later another “lay judge” (lay judges are appointed in sweden because of their political affiliations to adjudicate in criminal proceedings and have no formal legal training), this lay judge suddenly reopened the case and issued a warrant for assange (all of this as clinton and the rest of world powers were condemning wikileaks). now what has resulted in england is also expected, but of all places sweden? we saw the nords as the pillars of true democracy without the for-sale sign. it appears sweden is no longer any different than the rest. they best take good care of him, we will need people like that. by jm (george orwell’s niece)

CATEGORIES: read

end of the world is quite homo-centric: how about the end of our galaxy as we know it

our galaxy, the milky way, and andromeda (a small fuzzy object that was first seen by ancient astronomers more than one thousand years ago) have been on a collision course since their birth. it has long been known that the two galaxies have been heading in the general direction of each other, but not until weeks ago did we know that they are converging at something like 250,000 mph. the new hubble telescope data provides detail of when and how a union is likely to unfold.

viewed from earth, the night sky should look fairly spectacular when they collide. that is assuming, of course, that a human species is still around billions of years into the future to look upwards at the fireworks. nasa however has speculated based on the hubble data-feed that jesus will most probably resurface prior to such collision to insure prime seats for the believers.

the two galaxies are being pulled together by their mutual gravity and the scientists expect them to begin to merge in about four billion years’ time (so don’t go selling your shit yet). our sun’s position will be disturbed, but the star and its planets are in little danger of being destroyed, just shuffled around. this will surely effect the real estate market in new york.

dr. van der marel (no data is provided on him but lets trust him since hes a dr.) told reporters “due to the natural evolution of the sun, it will get slightly hotter over time and a few billion years from now it will have got sufficiently hot to make life on earth as we know it impossible… but since we are talking billions of years into the future, i personally do not think that means our civilization will not be there. for example, if we find a smart way to use solar energy and turn it into air conditioning, we may still be able to live on this planet.” now that’s a start! by dd

CATEGORIES: clips, earth related