Korean superstar E-PAK-SA regales you with a medley of Village People songs and other hits to soothe the soul. (Thank you, EncyclopediaDramatica.)

And for the triple threat, I leave you with this rather… unorthodox music video in high Girl Group style. It just doesn’t get better than this.

(Via LSDEX)

 
Via Adam Gorightly

 
Foucault’s Pendulum—the original one used by French scientist Leon Foucault to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth—has been damaged beyond repair in an accident at the Musee des Arts et Metiers in Paris.

Foucault’s theory behind the instrument was to set a large, carefully calibrated pendulum swinging back and forth. If the earth was stationary, the pendulum would swing forever. Because the earth spins, the pendulum’s plane of rotation changed. In 24 hours, the rotation of the pendulum would change 180 degrees. When then pendulum’s wire cable snapped and the brass sphere hit the ground, it was dented in three places and will not be able to be fixed.

From the Times Higher Education:

In 1851, Foucault used the pendulum to perform a sensational demonstration in the Paris Pantheon, proving to Napoleon III and the Parisian elite that the Earth revolved around its axis. Such was its success that the experiment was replicated throughout Europe.

Thierry Lalande, the museum’s ancient scientific instruments curator, said that the pendulum’s brass bob had been badly damaged in three places and could not be restored.

“It’s not a loss, because the pendulum is still there, but it’s a failure because we were unable to protect it,” he said. The circumstances surrounding the accident have raised eyebrows in France.

The museum regularly hosts cocktail parties in the chapel that houses the pendulum, and Mr Lalande admitted that several alarming incidents had occurred over the past year. In May 2009, for example, a partygoer grabbed the 28kg instrument and swung it into a security barrier.

Amir D. Aczel, research Fellow in the history of science at Boston University, described the news of the accident as “saddening”.

“It is certainly one of the most important historical instruments of all time. It’s a bit like hearing that one of the statues at the Vatican has been broken,” he said.

Foucault’s experiment involved releasing a pendulum and watching the Earth rotate under its oscillation frame. Dr Aczel said that it brought “closure for Galileo” and led the Church to accept the rotation of the Earth.

 
Foucault’s pendulum is sent crashing to Earth (Times Higher Education)

 
Questions: will they still be adequate in the making of projectiles?  And will using them allow you to be oh, maybe, please, just a little bit raptured?  From the New York Daily News:

Call it pint-sized protection for preteens.  A Switzerland-based company is manufacturing extra-small condoms for the 12- to 14-year-old set.  Dubbed the Hotshot, the prophylactic was developed in response to a study that indicated young teens were regularly engaging in unprotected sex.

“The result that shocked us concerned young boys who display apparently risky behaviour,” said Nancy Bodmer, who oversaw the research for the study at the Center for Development and Personality Psychology at Basel University in Switzerland.  “They have more of a tendency not to protect themselves,” she said, adding that because of their young age, they also do not know much about sexuality.  “They do not understand the consequences of what they are doing,” Bodmer said. “The results of this study suggest that early prevention makes sense.”

Several organizations, including family planning groups, campaigned for the production of the small condoms.  The Hotshot measures 1.7 inches in diameter (as opposed to 2 inches found with regular ones), and 7.4 inches in length.  According to the company, Lamprecht AG, it is only available in Switzerland.

(via Sociological Images)

 
“I want to agitate people, wake them up,” says Chauncey Killens.  Well, Chauncey, mission accomplished!  Killens was spotted in Shreveport, Louisiana, brandishing a sign that read, “ADULT w/ Child Sex Is Okay.”  Shreveport passerby were seriously unamused.

Said one woman who confronted Killens, “The first thing I’m thinking is I want to come over here and slap the shit out of the man.”  Well, as these things often go, the truth about Killens is slightly more complicated:

He says he opposes adults having sex with children, just like he opposes gay marriage—the real reason he’s here.  “Once you allow same sex marriage, it’s only inevitable that the other groups are also going to fight for their rights,” said Killens.  He sees gay marriage as a slippery slope, and at the bottom of the hill would be laws passed in favor of groups like NAMBLA- the North American Man Boy Love Association.  “You’re going to have to allow polygamy, incest, bestiality pedophiles,” said Killens.

“I’m just trying to figure out what this is about,” said another bystander.  Some might call him brave, others might call him stupid, when asked where he thinks he rates, Killens replied, “[I’m] probably a combination of both.”

Some footage of the Proposition 8-boosting Killens in action (he’s swapped his sign for a megaphone) follows below:

 
Man Holds Sign That Reads, ‘Sex with kids okay’

 
The mid to late 70s were an odd time for music: On one hand you had all of these amazing performers from the 60s who were now… past their prime and on the other hand you had all sorts of great new and unheard sounds emanating from punk quarters. Bob Dylan’s Slow Train Coming album falls into the first category. It must’ve come out when I was 13 years old and it was simply confusing for me at that age. I bought it (via Columbia Record House!) and when it arrived I slapped it on the turntable and… it totally sucked. Where was the awesome Bob Dylan of Like a Rolling Stone and the other great songs if his they played on the radio? This was… shite.

Over 30 years later, Slow Train Coming still sucks, in my adult opinion—despite the Jerry Wexler production and the Muscle Shoals participation, it sounds like it was recorded with bored, day-jobbing session musicians and the songs are not memorable—but there is a perfectly wonderful—and seldom seen—animated video for the song Gotta Serve Somebody, that remains, for your viewing pleasure.
 

(above image: Van Nuys Police Station 1951 via Valley Relics)
 
As our fair city continues to scramble to find more jobs and programs to cut due to massive budget shortfalls it strikes me as more than a little counter-productive to shutter hundreds of thriving, law-abiding small businesses. It’s amazing to me that in 2010 there are those who still fear the demon weed as if it’s anything more than a simple plant capable of providing relief to the ill and inspiration and tranquility to the healthy. People are dumb.
 

Los Angeles has lost over 150,000 jobs in the past year, is on the brink of bankruptcy, and experienced an unexpected 16 percent decline in sales tax revenue last year. And it’s located in a state with its own dire fiscal situation that is also facing unexpected gaps in tax revenue. Yet this week the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office made a move that’s certain to make things worse for its citizens: forcing over 400 functioning businesses to close shop, under threat of jail time.

Don’t worry, though. It’s no big deal. Those businesses are only selling medicine.

Medical marijuana, that is. As detailed in my May Reason magazine cover story, Los Angeles struggled for years with regulating medical marijuana storefronts—which thrived in L.A. as in no other city. In January the city finally came down with an ordinance imposing a variety of new restrictions, including how the businesses handled cash, provided security and lighting, and paid their employees, as well as insisting that the shops were not technically allowed to make a profit.

But the ordinance’s most important effect will be to reduce the 500-plus functioning storefronts serving the city’s medical marijuana community to a mere 70 (with some possible grandfathering that might bring the eventual total higher).

 
Reason.com: Los Angeles Destroys Functioning Businesses in a Recession
 
thx Giga Granada Hills !

Newly discovered photo of Allen Ginsberg (sans beard), Cherry Valley NY, 1980. By Cliff Fyman.

(via Steve Silberman)

 
Accidental Penis blog: “Because penis is not always intentional.”

Via Alice Lowe’s Twitter feed.