Norway’s Serena-Maneesh is, in my semi-questionable opinion, one of the only neo-shoegaze/ noisepop/ whatever outfits worth listening to. They make wonderfully multi-layered records and are a force to be reckoned with live. Today their new LP No 2: Abyss in B Minor
Fucking great video for “Feel It” by Brian Jonestown Massacre by Jon Audarson. I just watched this about five times in a row.
via Crooks And Liars
Here are ten benefits which come online within six months of the President’s signature on the health care bill:
1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
4. Free preventative care for all
5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.
10. AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can’t lose your insurance because you get sick.
Proud to be an American today! This is a wonderful thing for the people of this country. What a great day to be alive.
The Republican Party has been routed for a generation—or forever—and they know it. Now onwards to financial reform!
I’m a sucker for books and TV shows the purport to explain how humankind, dogs and cats came to live so closely together. The idea that Tara and I share our bed with a tiny little wolf who loves the crap out of us—and we love him back equally—never ceases to amaze me. Where does this cross-species love come from? That’s what I really want to know.
In any case, taking a page from geneticists, researchers now believe that it was in the Middle East, and not Asia where dogs were first domesticated. From the New York Times:
A Middle Eastern origin for the dog also fits in better with the archaeological evidence, and has enabled geneticists to reconstruct the entire history of the dog, from the first association between wolves and hunter gatherers some 20,000 years ago to the creation by Victorian dog fanciers of many of today’s breeds.
A research team led by Bridgett M. vonHoldt and Robert K. Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles, has analyzed a large collection of wolf and dog genomes from around the world. Scanning for similar runs of DNA, the researchers found that the Middle East was where wolf and dog genomes were most similar, although there was another area of overlap between East Asian wolves and dogs. Wolves were probably first domesticated in the Middle East, but after dogs had spread to East Asia there was a crossbreeding that injected more wolf genes into the dog genome, the researchers conclude in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.
The archaeological evidence supports this idea, since some of the earliest dog remains have been found in the Middle East, dating from 12,000 years ago. The only earlier doglike remains occur in Belgium, at a site 31,000 years old, and in western Russia from 15,000 years ago.
Humans lived as roaming hunters and gatherers for most of their existence. Dr. Wayne believes that wolves began following hunter-gatherer bands to feed on the wounded prey, carcasses or other refuse. At some stage a group of wolves, who happened to be smaller and less threatening than most, developed a dependency on human groups, and may in return have provided a warning system.
New Finding Puts Origins of Dogs in Middle East (New York Times)
This lawsuit from the heirs of the great comic artist Jack Kirby has been a looong time coming. The legal ramifications of this case are immense, considering the billion dollar value of these corporate trademarks. Comic artists often signed away rights to their creations during the “Golden Age” of the industry, putting their signatures on contracts measurably worse than the ones signed by blues musicians.
From the New York Times:
When the Walt Disney Company agreed in August to pay $4 billion to acquire Marvel Entertainment, the comic book publisher and movie studio, it snared a company with a library that includes some of the world’s best-known superheroes, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four.
The heirs of Jack Kirby, the legendary artist who co-created numerous Marvel mainstays, were also intrigued by the deal. Mr. Kirby’s children had long harbored resentments about Marvel, believing they had been denied a share of the lush profits rolling out of the company’s superheroes franchises.
They spent years preparing for a lawsuit by enlisting a Los Angeles copyright lawyer, Marc Toberoff, to represent them. When the Marvel deal was struck, Mr. Toberoff — who helped win a court ruling last year returning a share of Superman profits to heirs of one of that character’s creators — sprang into action.
Pow! Wham! Another high-profile copyright fight broke out in Hollywood, and this one could be the broadest the industry has yet seen.
A Supersized Custody Battle Over Marvel Superheroes (New York Times)
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Alex Kovas: Freaky Manimal Model
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Forget about Twilight or that lame True Blood series, this is how vampire should be done! The insanely brilliant opening moments—featuring Bauhaus performing Bela Lugosi’s Dead—from Tony Scott’s 1983 film, The Hunger
This is one of the great opening scenes of any movie ever made if you ask me. I actually saw this in a theater all by myself—or so I thought—and the effect was electrifying. I was 17 at the time and I’d just gotten massively baked in the parking lot. I walked in, sat down to THIS and just when things calmed down a bit onscreen, I was scared witless by an extremely elderly woman, who had been sleeping two rows in front of me, suddenly darting up and staring straight at me and wagging her finger in my face!
Not only can he kill you with a magazine, he can do it while sitting in a folding chair.
DO NOT SIT IN THE CHAIR WHEN HE INVITES YOU TO! I repeat, DO NOT SIT IN THE CHAIR WHEN HE INVITES YOU TO!
(via Unique Daily )
It seems like there’s a new documentary on Punk Rock all the time and they all tread fairly predictable paths. Still, this episode of the great BBC series Seven Ages of Rock, titled Blank Generation is one of the better ones I’ve seen. In six parts on YouTube.
