joshedwards.com

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“.

Oh UAE, you never cease to amaze me: “Car with a coat of coins to be dedicated to UAE“.

I meant to post this yesterday, but I forgot. Here’s the newest New Yorker cover:

Happy Thanksgiving.

Also, along the lines with my not liking the Astros moving to the American League in 2013, I really, really don’t like the new Miami Marlins name and logo:

The Washington Post had a good article yesterday about the nation’s debt and the “supercommittee” tasked on fixing it: “Debt panel’s failure puts Bush tax cuts in spotlight“.

The key quote that sums up politics right now:

The deadlock on the committee offers the latest reminder that the country’s political class seems unable to address fundamental national problems unless faced with an immediate crisis. In this case, the Bush tax cuts – and, with them, the fate of the nation’s precarious finances – will in all likelihood be punted beyond next November’s election.

The person (or party) that recognizes this and campaigns on it will have a good shot of winning next year …

Yesterday on the Apple site they added a minute-and-a-half featurette on shooting scenes from the upcoming Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Check out the featurette.

Currently Major League Baseball has 8 teams of 30 reach the playoffs. New one-game wild card playoffs discussed today for the 2013 season would push that to 10 teams.

At first I thought 30 percent of teams reaching the post season was too high a ratio. Then I read this tonight:

In the NFL, 12 of 32 teams make the playoffs. In the NBA and NHL, 16 of 30 teams advance.

Huh.