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November 16, 2007

Mp3s: LedZep '75; T-day at The Onion; Surfer explains universe; Neo Chinese hippie chick; Gitmo manual; Bush book

Weekend mp3s: Led Zeppelin, He Must Be Dazed And Confused [Empress Valley, 4CD set] Live at Earl's Court Arena, London, UK, May 24, 1975. One CD today, more Saturday and Sunday.

Listening now, sound quality is extremely good.

Satire: Thanksgiving Won't Be The Same This Year Without A House. The Onion.

Oceanic: Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything. Kudos to UK Telegraph science editor Roger Highfield, who almost makes the theory comprehensible.

Lisi's inspiration lies in the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics, called E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan.

E8 encapsulates the symmetries of a geometric object that is 57-dimensional and is itself is 248-dimensional. Lisi says "I think our universe is this beautiful shape."

Related: Wikipedia on E8.

Neo hippie chick: Chinese Super Girl: At Chinese Lives,

...For a long time, the musical circle are wondering what Chunchun has to win, after the finale, because she is not the best at singing of ten finalist, nor she can dance well. Only that her voice is not a girl’s , makes her that special. Her fans all scream or weep while listening to her songs at show, not even hearing what she sings. She also never wear a dress or skirt at show, and that is how she wears as usual.

She is maybe a tomboy, though her kissing-a-girl picture spreads on internet. Nevertheless, she is loved by millions girls of all ages, ranging from 7 to 67. Her win is the win of overturing a traditional Chinese norm on feminility, which is what present day Chinese youngsters want.

Chunchun, to some extent, is a symbol representing today’s youngsters , especially girls, who wants more freedom to follow their own plans rather than fulfilling parents’ or society’s expectations on them. They are a generation with their vision blurred, unwilling to take responsibilties as their parents do.

A commenter there writes, "Do not think that this girls popularity is an overturning traditional feminity, it is just a widening of what popular culture embraces."

No secrets: Sensitive Guantánamo Bay Manual Leaked Through Wiki Site.

Backstory: How Cheney took control of Bush's foreign policy, excerpted in Salon last week. "The new veep installed crony Don Rumsfeld as secretary of defense, and would've won Paul Wolfowitz the top post at CIA -- if not for Wolfowitz's zipper problem."

Editor's note: This is Part 3 of an excerpt from "The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future." Part 1 ran on Nov. 7; Part 2 ran on Nov. 8. For more information on the book, visit craigunger.com

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:16 AM | Permalink