Dangerous Minds pal Vinay Gupta just released a new video describing how to build and deploy Hexayurts—cheap, stable housing solutions for disaster or refugee situations—for Haiti. These cost less than $200 and can house a family of eight on a semi-permanant basis. This is a real, tangible solution for the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake—and Science for Humanity needs your help in collecting funding to test and deploy them.

The Hexayurt is a new kind of sheltering solution. To make the simplest hexayurt, make a wall by putting six sheets of plywood on their sides in a hexagon. Cut six more sheets in half diagonally, and screw them together into a shallow cone. Lift the roof on to the wall with a large group of people, then fasten it down with more screws. Seal and paint it for durability. Your basic hexayurt is complete. This shelter will last for years in most climates and costs less than $100. This basic design can be improved with proper windows, doors, room partitions, stove fittings and other architectural features. More durable materials could give it a very long life.

It may be ideal for a variety of disaster relief situations.

Watch the video below—and help test Hexayurts for Haiti here.

(Hexayurt Project)

 
Yeah, I know. Big news flash: George W. Bush is an asshole’s asshole. How on earth did this semi-functional man-child, oh nevermind….
thx Jeremy Goff !

 
Rumors have started that the U.S. version of the hit British sci-fi series, Torchwood, would “de-gay” pansexual hero, Captain Jack Harkness, for American viewers. Not if actor John Barrowman has anything to say about it.

”I hope wherever [the franchise] goes that the show stays the same,” says the openly gay Scottish thesp. “The last thing I would want would be for Jack to become this heterosexual, straight hero. He’s an omnisexual guy. He likes men, women, aliens, whatever. I think we should continue going down that route.”

Any effort to de-gay Capt. Jack would be followed by a “really big discussion,” Barrowman stresses, adding that it would ultimately be up to series creator Russell T. Davies and producing partner Julie Gardner to fight that battle.

Regarding the status of a U.S. version, Barrowman confesses that he has “no information” beyond what’s already been reported: That Fox has commissioned a script from Davies and that Barrowman would almost certainly slip back into his signature role. “Julie has said, as has Russell, that there will be no Torchwood without John Barrowman as Capt. Jack,” he says. “If I am asked to do Torchwood again, I will do it at the drop of a hat — whether it’s in America or back in Britain or if it’s for a film. I absolutely love Capt. Jack.”

Me, too! And I’m a happily married straight man. Viva Capt. Jack! Don’t change a thing!

Would U.S. Torchwood turn Capt. Jack straight? (Entertainment Weekly)

Rule #1: Do not wear your teabag hat out in the rain.
 
John Avlon, author of Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, writes of a scary new Harris poll that says volumes about the level of political literacy in this country. If this is to be believed, it’s appalling stuff.

From The Daily Beast:

67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was “not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president”
38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did”
Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama “may be the Antichrist.”

 
Vulva Original is the perfume that smells like a vagina (With a name like that, it had better). Is this a good idea? I can’t tell. In theory it could be a good idea, but is it really a good idea? Please weigh in on the comments if you have an opinion about this. Not an opinion of vaginas in general please, but of this particular product.

DALLAS - A new scent claims to accurately capture the “the vaginal scent of a beautiful woman.”

Vulva Original bills itself not as a perfume, but an erotic feminine scent designed to offer pleasure and arousal by smelling it.

It is not clear what compromises the concoction but it is advertised as being a “slightly yellow, desirable substance” that contains “more organic content.”

Users are urged to apply it to certain areas of the body via a roll-on applicator.

The product, apparently available only online via its official Web site, sells for about $33.

The site is peppered with provocative photos and opens with a video depicting a woman working out on a stationary exercise bike.

 
What Do Gay Men Think Of “Vulva,” The Ladyparts Perfume? (Jezebel)

I went and bought that “Vulva” perfume (Basenotes)

Thank you Paul Gallagher!

Gina Welch is the author of In the In the Land of Believers: An Outsider’s Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church. Raised a secular Jew by a single mother in Berkeley, Gina spent two years “undercover” in Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, VA trying to understand, for herself, Evangelical Christians. Her insights will surprise you.
 

(Via /x/)

Via Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, here’s a review of “YES NO” by Dadaist painter Francis Picabia:

Hanuman Books are sweet strawberries covered in the most delicious creamy chocolate in this feast of literature. I adore them. They are petite and firm, exotic and very, very sexy little items, guaranteed to add secret glamour and sophisticated depth to even the most shallow of pockets.

“YESNO”, by “dadaist” and painter Francis Picabia, is 47 discerning midget pages of evanescent aphorisms. Gems of cynicism, melancholy observation and caustic comment, worthy of any aspiring, or asp-like, queen’s tiara of wit. The brief messages, warnings and considerations are drawn from his journals and notebooks over the period 1939-1957.

“Beauty is relative to the amount of interest it arouses.” quoth she.

This is an anthology from the revered lineage that includes the dandyish sublimity of an Oscar Wild; the fastidious camp of a Quentin Crisp; or even the more obscure English Edwardians like James Bertram and F. Russell whose Victorian misogyny and skepticism were illustrated more exquisitely than the “corpse” itself by Austin Osman Spare in “The Starlit Mire”. Yes, aphorisms are a justly grand tradition of which one can only approve, given that one is a reasonable person.  And, in this age of advertising slogans and soundbites; bumper stickers, and designer corporate logos as street fashion, a reminder of the priceless art of word games. The contradiction, collision and collusion in fresh revelation that twisting and pummeling the material of words can supply, in order for us “to see what they really say” as Brion Gysin so prophetically indicated in his “cut-ups”.

(Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: YES NO)

Yes No (Hanuman Book No. 39)

(I Am a Beautiful Monster: Poetry, Prose, and Provocation)

Via Ectoplasmosis, behold this astounding glory: two belligerent 12-year-olds with more talent and charm than just about the entire music industry put together. This is like the anti-Final Placement, proving that age is no barrier to awesomeness.

(Ectomo: I’m Fat)