autographedcat

I just want to share this as far as wide as I can, because it says everything.

This, i believe…

The text, excerpted from Rober Ebert’s memoir reads, for the benefit of those who cannot see the image:

“Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

Mirrored from Home of the Autographed Cat.

If you think your co-workers are a handful, take a good look at the characters on your favorite shows. A recent study conducted by Global Compliance found that most people on TV are hardly politically correct, constantly violating ethics in the workplace.

The biggest offender? "30 Rock," which averages 11 violations per episode. On one show, Jack (Alec Baldwin) comments that a "chick lawyer" who handles sexual harassment presentations is "asking for it." According to Global Compliance, which is devoted to helping organizations achieve the highest degree of ethical behavior, Jack's remark violates Diversity, Equal Opportunity, and Respect in the Workplace.

What would you do if you got your kids' yearbook and all the eyes had been blacked out with magic marker?

Personally, I'd try to wake up. But at a school in England, the principal is very much awake and behind this whole thing. Apparently, she was so worried someone might cut out the kids' faces, paste them on child porn pictures and post them on the Internet -- yes, that's really her concern -- that she ordered the teachers to manually black out all the children' eyes.

Let's pause for a second to consider how lovely an illustration this is of what I call "Worst-First" thinking. That is, thinking up the worst, most perverse explanation for something first, instead of assuming a less dramatic, but far more likely, rationale.

You think it would be really fun to have sex with me. Because, I think you can tell from my posts, I’ll do anything. But maybe you can also tell from my posts that it’s a little bit weird. Because you know that I’ll say anything, too, but sometimes, I make you cringe.

I think I’m that way in bed, too.

This post is about work. And sex, which are two of the essential areas of life one needs to be able to function in before you can feel like a normal adult. And both sex and work are governed by a set of rules that many people are able to learn just by being in the world.

We are never going to run out.

This is the good news. Wait, check that: This is the astonishing, God-exploding, soul-altering, holier-than-wow news you must sip like a fine absinthe and jack straight into your bloodskin like a heroin bomb and then suck into your very anima like Lindsay Lohan on a coke bender.

It might sound obvious, the idea that wonders will never cease, that we will continue to be blown away by new discoveries for as long as we shall exist, that the world will keep astonishing us with stunning ideas, organisms, diseases and cures, synapses and connections, modes of being and ways of understanding for all eternity, despite our efforts to thwart it, deny it, reject it, or dumb ourselves down so much that we no longer have a goddamn clue what's going on.

But it's not obvious at all. We are, after all, nothing if not preternaturally jaded and wary. Many assume we're at a point in history when we've made most of the major breakthroughs and discoveries, have established all the laws of time and physics we are ever going to need. No more man on the moon, no more discovery of antibiotics, no more E=MC2, no more sorry-Pope-the-world-ain't-flat kind of epiphanies left.

The TSA isn't the most respected of governmental agencies right now, but at least it comes by the poor reputation honestly. The lack of standards, inconsistent application of searches and policies, and occasional rude agent all combine to make flying an unpleasant experience. It's often derided as "security theater," which describes the experience of Mythbuster Adam Savage before a recent flight.

Savage was put through the full-body scanner, and while he joked that it made his penis feel small, no one seemed to notice the items he was carrying on his person. The video tells the rest of the story.

Fresh out of Ivy League colleges, a pair of unemployed 2005 Corvallis High School graduates have created a rap parody song about National Public Radio. And in the time it takes to say “Talk of the Nation,” it’s gone viral on YouTube.

The four-and-a-half minute video parody, “Good Radiation,” is the work of Adam Cole and Jenna Sullivan. Since it was made public on YouTube on Monday, as of Wednesday it has drawn more than 28,000 views and comment from some of the best-known names in public radio.

Pretty good for two well-educated college graduates with biology degrees and stellar resumes who can’t find jobs. Both are currently living with their parents in Corvallis. Cole graduated with a master’s degree from Stanford University earlier this year. Sullivan earned an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 2009.
Both public radio fans, they wanted to do something creative. The whole project took about a week to produce, including the writing, recording and filming, which was completed at Cole’s parents house in Corvallis.

Physicists working with a Fermilab neutrino experiment may have found a new elementary particle whose behavior breaks the known laws of physics. If correct, their results poke holes in the accepted Standard Model of particles and forces, and raise some interesting questions for the Large Hadron Collider and Tevatron experiments. The new particle could even explain the existence of dark matter.

Working with Fermilab's MiniBooNE experiment — the first part of the larger planned Booster Neutrino Experiment — physicists found evidence for a fourth flavor of neutrino, according to a new paper published in Physical Review Letters. This means there could be another particle we didn’t know about, and that it behaves in a way physicists didn’t expect.

NASA, eat your heart out. Who needs a multi-billion-dollar spacecraft to study the Earth when you can use a paper plane?

Pictured here is the incredible British mission to send the plane 17 miles into the atmosphere to capture images of the curvature of the globe using a miniature camera.

The plane, which has a 3ft wing span and is made from paper straws covered in paper, was launched using nothing more powerful than a large helium balloon.

The craft soared to 90,000ft before the balloon exploded, freeing the plane to glide back down, taking photographs as it descended.

And the cost of Operation PARIS (Paper Aircraft Released Into Space)? A modest £8,000.

epi_lj

Dams are among the most daunting examples of mankind's engineering savvy, and they're also perhaps the most environmentally impactful, too -- but none of that could keep this brave herd of Ibex goats from scaling the sheer face of one such dam in Italy. While it may be a testament to the impressive climbing prowess of the goats, such displays also speak wonders about nature's ability to overcome some of the toughest obstacles we can throw at her.