joshedwards.com

If any of you visited the site on Wednesday, saw the redirection to the SOPA Strike website and were confused or worried, I apologize.

It was a late-night, last-minute decision to join in on “Black Wednesday” so I didn’t have time to warn you.

For more information about the protest visit SOPA Strike or your local library …

Just because I like a good protest, this site’s going dark as part of SOPA Strike.

So when it hits midnight you’re going to see some serious shit.

I thought this was a fascinating take on the Burj being in the new Mission: Impossible movie: “The Burj Khalifa two years later: With help from Hollywood, the world’s tallest building asserts its status as a global icon, but real estate and urban planning problems remain“.

Looks like I spoke too soon! Apparently the U.S. Mint is not going to make any more of the Presidential $1 Coins for circulation, check out this article from three weeks ago: “Treasury to stop producing unneeded dollar coins“.

The Administration will still be required, by law, to continue to produce a relatively small number of the coins to be sold to collectors, at no cost to taxpayers. Instead of producing 70-80 million coins per President, the United States Mint will now only produce as many as collectors want.

The program was only 20 Presidents deep when it was canceled, but there is still a 1.4 billion coin backlog hanging out in Federal Reserve Bank vaults.

The real losers are the fans of Chester A. Arthur; his coin is coming out February 16, 2012, but only to collectors.

I used to follow coins and collecting more. With so many changes recently in pennies, nickles and quarters my numismatic interest has severely waned.

First we had the 50 State Quarters program.

Then District of Columbia and United States Territories Quarters. The Westward Journey nickel series, the Lincoln bicentennial cent, the Union shield cent and the terribly unpopular Presidential $1 Coin Program (who can wait until 2014 for the Warren G. Harding coin?!?)

Thus I was surprised to read about a new Maine special quarter coming out this year. Apparently the “America the Beautiful Quarters Program” started in April of 2010?

Oops.

Check out the article in the Bangor Daily News, “Bass Harbor lighthouse, Acadia to appear on new quarter“.

It’s a pretty cool coin, actually:

At some point I’d like to sit down and put together a “Year in Review” for 2011 – it’d be a doozie.

Until then here are some fun facts about Maine from the Bangor Daily News:

The Institute for Economics & Peace ranked the Pine Tree State the most peaceful state in the country in its first U.S. Peace Index. Factored into that: The number of homicides, jailed inmates and police officers.

Related to that ranking: Maine recorded the lowest rate of violent crimes in the U.S. in 2007, according to the U.S. Census. The figure: 118 incidents per 100,000 people. South Carolina, on the opposite end of the spectrum, counted 788.

Read the rest at, “The ways Maine is No.1“.

You might have heard how the other week the Florida Family Association protested Lowe’s advertising on TLC’s “All-American Muslim” show until they canceled their ads. Protests on the order of Tahrir Square erupted on the internets.

Now it turns out this hate religious group is only one dude.

Wow.

Check out the New York Times article: “Waging a One-Man War on American Muslims“.

We talking about this almost two years ago (see SarcMark).

Check out this article from the Washington Post: “Should sarcasm have its own font style?”

I may be guilty of using the faux-html code, like: < sarcasm > great idea .

Lowe’s has sunk below Walmart in corporate crassness: “All-American Muslim Meets an Un-American Advertising Pullout“.

Lowe’s pulled its ads following a protest campaign from the Florida Family Association, which objects to the show, in essence, because it portrays Muslims too positively. That is, it argues the show is “propaganda” because it portrays peaceful, ordinary Muslims without mentioning horrible things that other Muslims have done. Right: because a decade of news reports, eight seasons of 24 and constant political grandstanding have done a bang-up job of utterly ignoring Islamic extremists.

Bonus points for mentioning the PPH.

Love the Poniewozik …

The last few years it’s been harder and harder to get slide film developed. As you all may remember, the last lab in the world to process Kodachrome stopped a year ago this month.

I only shot a few rolls of Kodachrome in my life, I mostly shoot E-6, which folks do still develop.

Except Clark Color Labs.

Sometime in the last six months my old standby has stopped processing E-6 slides, so when I sent them a roll last week they returned it. Frustrating.

I’m beginning to feel like a dinosaur …

Oh my: “Religious imagery jeopardizes Hacker’s Hill funding“.

This is a weird, weird idea: “Goodbye, Sidewalks: London Planners Break Down Boundaries Between Cars and Pedestrians“.

Exhibition Road in London—a half-mile strip in the city’s cultural heart that draws 11 million visitors each year to its numerous museums and cultural institutions—will reopen next month without clear lane markers or curbs. As The Guardian describes it, the new design “is about suggestion rather than certainty.” Similar projects on other streets in London have decreased accidents involving pedestrians, showing that both walkers and drivers tend to pay better attention when they realize that they can’t rely on barriers to guide them.

Huh.

In the last month we’ve wondered quite a bit about Sadie’s handedness, as Liz and I are both lefties.

Here’s an interesting Wall Street Journal article today that’s scary: “The Health Risks of Being Left-Handed“.

Six decades ago today was the attack on Pearl Harbor Naval Base, which led President Franklin Roosevelt on December 8 to give a speech to a joint session of Congress declaring it “a date which will live in infamy”.

Interestingly, that’s not how he put it in the first draft (from the National Archives):

Fascinating.

Wow, so apparently this one illustrator – James Niehues – does like, every ski resort map painting ever.

Wow.

Maine and all of the northeast make out well when it comes to doctors. Check out this Washington Post article: “Where are the doctors?”

Apparently by 2020, the US will be 90,000 doctors short … But not the northeast, including our fair state:

Compare that to Maine, a state without a medical school that somehow manages to have one of the highest levels of physicians.

Don’t believe them? Check out the map:

Sadie, as seen through the LEGO Photo iPhone app:

On November 27, 1963 Lyndon Johnson addressed a Joint Session of Congress and the American public only a few days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

It’s a pretty amazing speech, that starts as good as any I know:

All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today.

LBJ goes on to set up his vision of his presidency, deftly using JFK’s memory to lay out his own goals.

Check out the full text.

Just read a fascinating article in the new Foreign Affairs: “The Broken Contract: Inequality and American Decline“.