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Kick ass track from a great Canadian outfit. Check out more on You Say Party! We Say Die!



It’s made by hand, it’s about the works of Michelangelo, it weighs 62 pounds and it costs north of $100,000. “Michelanglo: La Dotta Mano”, is out now.



For the first time since the Irish Potato Famine, there are prohibitions against begging in Ireland.



Wired has a greatly informative piece on the litigious and protective nature of Toho Co. Ltd., the rightsholder to Godzilla, and quick they are to protect their piece of IP.


Hurling hundreds of lawsuits and takedown notices like so many fireballs, Godzilla’s owner — Toho Co. Ltd — has roasted Hollywood studios, automakers, toy manufacturers, rock bands, book publishers, national food chains, record labels, bloggers, wineries and just about anybody seen as capitalizing on the monster’s unique features, name or theme music. When it comes to policing trademarks and enforcing copyrights in the United States, intellectual property attorneys say Tokyo-based Toho is easily a match for Walt Disney, Fox and Lucasfilm in terms of courthouse zeal.

“I think they have got litigation in their reptilian DNA,” says Jonathan Handel, a Hollywood IP lawyer. “They’re afraid that their intellectual property rights will suffer the same fate that Tokyo has in many Godzilla movies.”



The 2008 season has been a very bad one for the Detroit Lions. The question is just how bad will it get. This analysis from the Detroit Free Press posits that the team could go the full season without winning a game. No team has gone a full season without winning since the NFL switched to 16 games over 30 years ago.



GM has ended its marketing sponsorship deal with Tiger Woods a year early. Ah, spending cuts.



I stumbled upon this not so clever marketing campaign for the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Earlier today, I saw a full page colour add in the business section of a newspaper pitching what looked like a funky design for a coffee machine. At the bottom of the page was the url pomegranatephone.com.

Having a few extra minutes, I visited the site to see what the connection between a mobile phone, the pomegranate and coffee. What I saw was a site for a device that purports to market a new mobile phone/swiss army tool. It makes coffee (hence my initial thinking the newspaper add was for a coffee machine), it has built in harmonica and electric shaver and other tools (see very cheesy and not funny videos on the site). It’s only when you click on the ‘Release Date’ that this site’s true intentions are revealed.



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As shocking as this seems, Joe the Plumber has landed himself a book deal. The magnum opus is titled Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream, and will focus on his take on American values.



Two journalists at the Newark Star-Ledger are now working in the mail room. Find out how that happened.



I hope that this puts a smile on your day.

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This article from Reason posits that eating local may sometimes produce more carbon emissions that shipping food from other countries. Here is an excerpt as some food for thought:

Local food production does not always produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the 2005 DEFRA study found that British tomato growers emit 2.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of tomatoes grown compared to 0.6 tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of Spanish tomatoes. The difference is British tomatoes are produced in heated greenhouses. Another study found that cold storage of British apples produced more carbon dioxide than shipping New Zealand apples by sea to London. In addition, U.K. dairy farmers use twice as much energy to produce a metric ton of milk solids than do New Zealand farmers. Other researchers have determined that Kenyan cut rose growers emit 6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per 12,000 roses compared to the 35 tons of carbon dioxide emitted by their Dutch competitors. Kenyan roses grow in sunny fields whereas Dutch roses grow in heated greenhouses.

via Arts & Letters Daily



We7 is the latest ad support music streaming and “buy this song now” site. The usual features of playlists, charts and big name songs in its catalogue are all present. What makes this site/service interesting for me is that Peter Gabriel - Mr. Solsbury Hill himself, is one of those behind the site.

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Meh, a very lovely dichotomous word that is full of expression, while at the same time being apathetic, has made it into Collins English Dictionary.



If the equity and commodities markets are not doing much for your portfolio these days, perhaps designer kicks just might be a worthwhile investment.

“I’ve made a lot of money on shoes,” Bennett says. Today, there are about 120 pairs in his collection. He had more, but he sold them on the Internet. Bennett is reluctant to reveal what his most valuable sneakers are worth, but he gives an example of a pair of sneakers that substantially increased in value overnight.

The Air Jordan XXIII came out in January, 2008. Five

hundred and twenty-nine pairs (the number is based on multiplying 23 by 23) were released in North America. There was even more hype than usual when these Jordans (named for basketball player Michael Jordan) came out. “Michael Jordan played college basketball at the University of North Carolina,” Bennett explains. “He was No. 23, and these shoes are white and baby blue - UNC’s colours.”

In Canada, the shoes sold for about $350. “Within 24 hours, they doubled in value,” Bennett says. “Within a week, they tripled.”



Neil Young, yes the singer/songwriter, through the Huffington Post, has offered his wisdom on how Detroit can be saved one car company at a time.



From the Associated Press:

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting “Assassinate Obama.” Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

Read more here.

On a side note, the U.S. presidential election wrapped on the night of November 4th, but it took until November 16, for the major news outlets to report on the rise of hate crimes in the U.S.



A true sign of these tricky economic times, Bloomberg reports on the collapse of the white truffle market.



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Glass artist Dale Chihuly provides personal insights into his work.



Chow has put together this handy backgrounder on the various types of cheeses that are out there.



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