Links

Things I run across that I find to be interesting, but might not have the time or inclination to craft a fuller post around it. Generally, short little “go here, look at this, isn’t it neat?” posts.

Viagra gum?

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Here’s a bizarre little story that one of my co-workers just told me about: Wrigley patents anti-impotence gum:

Wm. Wrigley Jr., maker of Juicy Fruit, Big Red and Doublemint gums, is expanding its definition of “doubling your pleasure.” The Chicago gum company has been granted a U.S. government patent to develop a gum that contains a dose of the generic chemical in Viagra.

\Won’t this gum be hard to chew once your tongue swells up and stiffens inside your mouth? I’d guess it’ll sell quite well at lesbian bars, though….\</obligatory stupid jokes>

(via Tim)

Update: Comments have been closed for this entry, as I got tired of deleting constant spam comment links. This post is not an open invitation for Viagra or Phenteremine spam. Go the fuck away.

The greatest American is…

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In preparation for a show airing next week entitled ‘What the World Thinks of America,’ the BBC took nominations for the ten greatest Americans of all time. Nominations have closed, and now it’s time to vote!

So, out of a completely open playing field, what ten people were nominated as the ten greatest Americans ever?

Bill Clinton, Bob Dylan, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Homer Simpson, Mr. T, and George Washington.

Homer Simpson? Mr. T?

And, while this is kind of amusing, it’s also kind of disturbing — the current standings, after 28,548 votes:

  • Bill Clinton (3.53%)
  • Franklin D Roosevelt (3.78%)
  • Benjamin Franklin (4.07%)
  • George Washington (4.62%)
  • Bob Dylan (5.12%)
  • Thomas Jefferson (5.72%)
  • Mr. T (8.17%)
  • Martin Luther King Jr. (9.08%)
  • Abraham Lincoln (9.60%)
  • Homer Simpson (46.33%)

For the record, I voted for Martin Luther King, Jr.

(via Prairie)

Update: The website for the show (linked above) looks very interesting too. It includes a short 10-question quiz about America — that I got a whopping 60% on. Ouch. Maybe I need to watch the show, too…

Don't talk and drive

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Update: This was originally a post ranting about people driving and talking on cell phones at the same time.

Unfortunately, I seem to be running into a problem where, due to a bug either in Safari, in MovableType, or the combination of the two, sometimes when editing a comment (for instance, deleting a duplicate), the text of the comment gets put in the body field of the post being edited. If you don’t see this before saving the post, the post is wiped out, and replaced with the text of the comment.

Grr.

Ah, well. Guess I just need to pay more attention next time. I just wish I knew who to send the bug report to…

26 Things

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This could be fun: 26 Things, another project from the organizers of the Mayday Project.

on tuesday july 1st 2003, 26 things to hunt for will be posted on this website and you are free to complete the project on or before thursday july 31st 2003. come back friday august 1st to submit your 26 things website.

(via D)

More on Salam Pax

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Slate’s Peter Maass offers some more details on Iraqi blogger Salam Pax, after realizing that he knew Salam personally:

Baghdad was hectic when two blogging friends e-mailed me to suggest that I track down “Salam Pax.” I had no idea who or what they were talking about. I could have handed over the job of sorting out this Salam Pax thing to my interpreter — he was a clever and funny Iraqi who never failed to provide what I needed, whether it was interviews or pizza — but I let it pass. I thought I had better things to do.

The day after I returned to New York, reunited with my cable modem, I checked out a friend’s blog that linked to an Austrian interview with Salam Pax. I clicked to it. Salam Pax mentioned an NGO he had worked for, CIVIC, and this caught my attention. I knew the woman who was in charge of CIVIC; she stayed at my Baghdad hotel, the Hamra. Salam Pax mentioned that he had done some work for foreign journalists. We traveled in the same circles, apparently. He also mentioned that he had studied in Vienna. This really caught my attention, because I knew an Iraqi who had worked for CIVIC, hung out with foreign journalists, and studied in Vienna. I clicked over to his blog.

His latest post mentioned an afternoon he spent at the Hamra Hotel pool, reading a borrowed copy of The New Yorker. I laughed out loud. He then mentioned an escapade in which he helped deliver 24 pizzas to American soldiers. I howled. Salam Pax, the most famous and most mysterious blogger in the world, was my interpreter. The New Yorker he had been reading — mine. Poolside at the Hamra — with me. The 24 pizzas — we had taken them to a unit of 82nd Airborne soldiers I was writing about.

Such an amazingly small world at times, isn’t it?

Salam Pax found

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The UK paper The Guardian has found Salam Pax, of the Where is Raed? weblog — and while they’re still keeping his identity secret, he will be writing for the Guardian starting next week.

No one in Baghdad knew who he was or the risks he was taking. Apart from a select group of trusted friends, they still don’t. The telephones and the internet haven’t worked here since the collapse of the regime, so the Iraqis never had a chance to read the diaries of the Baghdad Blogger. Outside the country, many didn’t even believe that the man who wrote only under the sobriquet Salam Pax truly existed. It was the great irony of the war. While the world’s leading newspapers and television networks poured millions of pounds into their coverage of the war in Iraq, it was the internet musings of a witty young Iraqi living in a two-storey house in a Baghdad suburb that scooped them all to deliver the most compelling description of life during the war.

(via MeFi)