The H.P. Lovecraft Archive

"If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings... It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence..."

(via Plep)  

a monkey that knows kung-fu (mpg)

thanks metafilter

Charles Pierce

"Here's what I'd like to see. The entire Democratic caucus of the House of Representatives simply refuses to go to work as long a Tom DeLay is Majority Leader. Deny a quorum. Get your best parliamentarian and tie the place in knots. Sell the hell out of the fact that the House Republicans just used the rules of the institution as a getaway car. Go to Texas and pose with Ronnie Earle. But, under no circumstance, do anything of substance until the Tiny Little Hammer is deposed. And, above all, do not listen to Bill Clinton who, I swear to God, still believes there are reasonable men among the Republicans."

Carpeted

a new e-book by Corina Copp 

10 year old Julia Mayhew's Eagle's Wing has a GEORGE W. BUSH acrostic--

Ghastly
Empty head
Obtuse and offensive
Rude rogue
Grotesque
Eliminate him!

Weapons of mass destruction not found!

Belligerant
Unjust war
Shudder to think about him!
Harmful to the entire world!

Burning Man's Piano Mover

"'And there is no one who can find me and there is no one who knows where I am,' he recalls. 'And there are 88 pianos dropped off in the desert and...a bunch of hippies who will beat them with sticks. I didn't think about my mom or my grandmother, just these 88 pianos." 

Horn Subwoofer Made in Bricks

(via Bifurcated Rivets) 

Plum Pudding

"Stone carefully one pound of the best raisins, wash and pick one pound of currants, chop very small one pound of fresh beef suet, blanch and chop small or pound two ounces of sweet almonds and one ounce of bitter ones; mix the whole well together, with one pound of sifted flour, and the same weight of crumb of bread soaked in milk, then squeezed dry and stirred with a spoon until reduced to a mash, before it is mixed with the flour. Cut in small pieces two ounces each of preserved citron, orange, and lemon-peel, and add a quarter of an ounce of mixed spice; quarter of a pound of moist sugar should be put into a basin, with eight eggs, and well beaten together with a three-pronged fork; stir this with the pudding, and make it of a proper consistence with milk. Remember that it must not be made too thin, or the fruit will sink to the bottom, but be made to the consistence of good thick batter. Two wineglassfuls of brandy should be poured over the fruit and spice, mixed together in a basin, and allowed to stand three or four hours before the pudding is made, stirring them occasionally. It must be tied in a cloth, and will take five hours of constant boiling. When done, turn it out on a dish, sift loaf-sugar over the top, and serve it with wine-sauce in a boat, and some poured round the pudding. The pudding will be of considerable size, but half the quantity of materials, used in the same proportion, will be equally good." 

Lard crisis: mince pies threatened as supplies dwindle

"There are fears of panic buying in the run-up to Christmas when it is traditionally an ingredient in mince pies and Christmas puddings." 

Bush's Guernica

"You don't liberate a country by sealing off cities and shooting at everything in sight. You don't liberate a country by killing a 100,000 citizens -- and climbing -- including men, women, children, the elderly and whole families at a time. You don't liberate a nation by looting it. You don't reduce the number of people battling you by killing more of the population as a whole, unless you plan on killing the entire country. (The question of what they are resisting is another one the media conveniently ignores. Let's try this on for size: many of them are resisting an occupying army.) " 

Niall Ferguson from September

"The lesson of British history is that a second Bush term could be more damaging to the Republicans and more beneficial to the Democrats than a Bush defeat. If he secures re-election, President Bush can be relied upon to press on with a foreign policy based on pre-emptive military force, to ignore the impending fiscal crisis (on the Cheney principle that 'deficits don't matter') and to pursue socially conservative objectives like the constitutional ban on gay marriage. Anyone who thinks this combination will serve to maintain Republican unity is dreaming; it will do the opposite. Meanwhile, the Dems will have another four years to figure out what the Labour Party finally figured out: It's the candidate, stupid. And when the 2008 Republican candidate goes head-to-head with the American Tony Blair, he will get wiped out."

We Won, You Just Don't Know It Yet

"If the Iraq adventure fails, or drags on interminably, he, and not Kerry, will suffer the ugly political fallout. And that is likely to come sooner rather than later. The Democrats will be around in 2008 to pick up the pieces. "

CNN.com - Beavers weave stolen cash into dam

" A bag of bills stolen from a casino was snapped up by beavers who wove thousands of dollars in soggy currency into the sticks and brush of their dam on a creek in eastern Louisiana." 

Welcome to Canada!

"Don't point out, either, Canada's complicity in America's global reach. To harp on the fact that Canada depends on America to buy more of its exports than anyone else, or that America's massive military has, in unseemly ways, enforced global economic arrangements that benefit Canada is to really cast a pall over a salmon barbecue party."