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KIDS DESIGN COMPUTERS

The children started making these laptops last year and dubbed themselves “the laptop club.” This was truly an innovation of kid culture without adult coaching. The children were in second and third grade last year, and are continuing to create and play with new designs this year. They are seven to nine years old.

LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU

“A good copy editor would have caught this in 10 seconds.”
—Mark Schneider, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics at the Department of Education, on the invalidation of US reading scores on an international exam

BUT SCARED YANKS ARE EASIER TO MANIPULATE

In the extremely unlikely event that the mullahs are foolish enough to launch their unreliable missiles on Tel Aviv and/or Jerusalem (most likely killing tens of thousands of Muslims and destroying several major Islamic holy sites in the process), Israel will annihilate Iran. With their submarines, the Israelis can do so even if their entire […]

O EMIGRANT

Rachid Taha, “Ya Rayah” (YouTube)

The original version by Dahmane El Harrachi
Rachid Taha website
Lyrics & translation
Running with the Rebels: Politics, Identity, and Sexual Narrative in the Algerian Rai (Nasser Al-Taee in Echo)
More Rachid Taha youtubery: Rock el Casbah

NEWS FROM GUNMA

“Police said the crossing the woman had been using had a gate and warning lights and bells, but these had not been activated because the tracks were being used by the wild animal and not a train.”

SESAME STREET DOES DAVID LYNCH

Sesame Street, “Monsterpiece Theatre: Twin Beaks” (YouTube, via ethan_t_hein)

YEP

Chicago area, to be precise. (North Side, to be more precise.)

What American accent do you have? (via Conrad)
In what region do “bag” and “vague” rhyme? I’d never come across that one before.

HEADLINE OF THE DAY

KC Man Accused Of Toad Licking

GROINBALL?

Kevin developed a roll of film that was in an old camera he’d purchased, and this was on it:

Here are three different shots: [found1] [found2] [found3]
Anyone know anything about this?

WHITEY

What Ohio State University celebrity’s death would inspire a Facebook page with more than 800 members? An albino squirrel named Whitey, who had become a campus legend.
“Whitey is the South Campus mascot,” said Tim Hoock, 19, a freshman business-administration major.
Hoock and two of his friends were excited to see a Cooper’s hawk in the middle […]