Second Round of Election in Lithuania Held Today

Lithuanians vote against backdrop of global crisis

Gotta love the accompanying photo.

Frightening YouTube Video

The Sidewalk to Nowhere

That scared me. Very much. Must ... divert ... thoughts.

Devo--'Whip It'

Ah.

Devo--'Girl You Want'

Yes. Everything back to normal. And a final video.

John Cleese on Sarah Palin: "Monty Python Could Have Written This."

Election Update

A couple of articles about the Lithuanian election held yesterday:

Lithuania's centre-right set for election win

Conservatives ahead in Lithuania election

Political scientists in Lithuania seem to think that a center-left coalition is more likely than a center-right coalition:

Political Scientists: Center-left Coalition One of the Most Realistic

Lithuanians Voting Today

Another article I found about the election today.

Lithuania: Populists poised for a strong showing

Lithuanians to Vote This Sunday

Lithuania to vote amid economic fears, Russia worry

A Reuters article about the upcoming election in Lithuania.

For Lovers of the English Language

The Speech Accent Archive

The speech accent archive uniformly presents a large set of speech samples from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English read the same paragraph and are carefully transcribed. The archive is used by people who wish to compare and analyze the accents of different English speakers.

It's possible to search according to various criteria or browse according to language/speaker and region. A native phonetic inventory provides charts of the sounds found in many languages. Interesting!

Thanks for the link, Jeff.

For Lovers of World Music

A few days ago I was looking for some information about The Gambia (a possible destination next summer) and ran across two really interesting sites. If you love music, in particular African music or world music, you'll have a lot of fun visiting these two websites.

http://www.the-real-africa.com/
There it's possible to find African music videos by artist and by country. Here are a few that I enjoyed:
http://www.sirelazik.net/video/malouma01.html
http://www.musicvideos.the-real-africa.com/senegal/youssou_n_dour_birima_clip.html
http://www.musicvideos.the-real-africa.com/mali/tinariwen_chet_boghassa.html
http://www.musicvideos.the-real-africa.com/mali/toumani_diabate_the_mande_variations.html
http://www.musicvideos.the-real-africa.com/mali/ali_farka_toure_savane_2.html

The other website is Benn loxo du taccu. As it says on the front page: 'That's Wolof for "one hand can't clap" and this is Matt Yanchyshyn's world music for the masses.' Very simply, it's a journal of this guy's travels and the music he encounters along the way. It's interesting and the music is really unbelievable. There are dozens of great tunes there that you can download. So, what are you waiting for? I won't keep you any longer...

So It Seems We Were Wrong...

I think it must have been the spring of 1985, when I was a 1st-year university student, that a couple of friends and I figured out the shape of the universe while we were sitting in a bare spot in the middle of a field on a farm in south-central Kansas in the middle of the night. According to our theory, the universe was a parabola (or was it hyperbola?)--23+ years have passed, so I think I can be excused for having an imperfect memory of the theory (and event). Of course, the creative fuel we were using at the time may also be to blame.

You may be able to imagine my shock and disappointment when just a few days ago I received this message:
"I guess we were wrong."
and this link:
New findings reveal that the shape of the Universe is a dodecahedron based on Phi
from one of my fellow scientists/philosophers/(stoners).

One of my friends committed the theory to paper. I wonder if it still exists... Of course, such a thing would have served as incriminating evidence if one's mother would have happened to run across it (which actually happened).