Masters of the Iron Crotch! The hardest men in kung fu. Could this be the art practiced by the legendary Iron Balls McGinty? SFW, really. [from plastic via our own homunculus]

Bush primate references "misguided and demeaning." "... Such comparisons overemphasize physical similarities between Bush and chimpanzees while downplaying important differences in genetics, behavior, and natural habitat." more inside

Chambers' Book of Days (1864) is a partial (24 December through 12 July, at present) OCR of a nineteenth-century Almanack or Daily Reader. I also offer an 1879 edition (scanned, not searchable). more inside

50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers Fifty brief studies in snark from the New York Press. more inside

The AirScooter — personal watercraft of the sky? more inside

Sexual Autonomy and the Mentally Retarded. Eugene Volokh tropes on recent judicial opinion on this Solomonic issue. more inside

The Gladiatorial Games in surviving descriptions; in lurid Fifties pulp prose; as reenacted today.

Comparative imagery of the Ryongchon wreckage. Satellite images, pre- and post-blast, of Ryongchon DPRK. You can also compare close-up images of the train yard blast site and a nearby school. [via Fark, out of character]

Curious George: character reference letters in sentencing. This morning I find myself writing a character reference letter to a U. S. Dictrict Court chief judge, in the hope of tempering the sentencing of a friend of mine. more inside

PROVEN IN GULF COMBAT! LIVES DEPEND ON IT! Put a catalytic converter in your culottes with the Flatulence Deodorizer™.

Terrafly. "Fly" over the continental USA via scrolling animated aerial photographs. more inside

Pope Gregory is responsible for war, pollution, and global anomie. Only with a new calendar and a global day out of time can we activate the planetary light body and regenerate the biosphere. What, not convinced yet?

All about Balls. He's got big balls, she's got big balls, but we've got the biggest balls of them all. An obsession with spheroids.

Angel Mommies. The pain and grief of miscarriage, displayed in pastel tones. Very similar to Angel Babies Forever Loved in many ways.

Manhattan Monkey Man. "A wanna-be Dr. Dolittle was busted yesterday [9 Mar] for turning his tiny Manhattan apartment into an urban Animal House." Will elderly New York socialites abandon their Pekingese dogs for monkeys and Bengal-Siberian tigers? [via monkeywire. more monkey photos available in the gallery.]

You don't have Mojo Nixon to kick around any more. After twenty years of seeing Elvis everywhere, gonzobilly rocker Mojo Nixon retires. more inside

Quiznos transformed a piece of outsider art into a nationwide ad campaign. The Spongmonkeys hit the big time, in a much-discussed series of spots for a chain of sandwich shops. Apparently the little guys are not to everybody's taste. more inside

137Mb for only one monkey joke Nine-minute short film, or very expensive audition piece? Download KING KONG: DON'T MESS WITH THE MONKEY and decide. (Skip the first six minutes to cut to the chase, so to speak.)

If he cheats on his new bride, he's a dead man. No, wait.... Interesting philosophical (what is a man? what is marriage?) and legal (what is the interest of the state in sanctioning this union?) ramifications. Clearly the U. S. needs a Constitutional amendment to defend traditional marriage against this new French threat. [via Volokh]

Monkey mind Thoughts pull attention here and there and may seem to take us out of meditation altogether; they become obsessive. Feeding the monkeys is buying into the show of proliferating thought, reifying it, being led off by it. [...] How does reflective awareness of thought and ideas differ from tossing bananas to the monkeys? If you don't meditate, feel free to substitute in its stead any activity that demands focus.