Christopher Chung

One potential outfit for Christine's new baby, coming soon.... - Christopher Chung from email

Gosh, fairweather fans? Very cultish. "Went to the book signing in Noblesville, IN. Waited three hours in the cold to get a wristband to reserve my spot at the book signing tonight. We were told she would sign book for the first 1000 people. Not so. The event ended promptly at 9:00pm, though there were still at least 150 people left. Wasted my day, wasted money on a babysitter, and wasted my money on this book." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

And THIS is why Caribou Barbie has a limited shelf life. Wait did she mention it wasn't her fault? LMFAO Palienated.... - WarLord

"The Chicago News Cooperative, a non-profit news organization created in 2009, is providing local coverage of Chicago and the surrounding area to The New York Times. CNC's editor is James O'Shea, who was managing editor of the Chicago Tribune and editor of the Los Angeles Times. The cooperative's lead initial funder is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and launched in partnership with Window to the World Communication, the parent of WTTW 11, the Chicago public television station. Under its agreement with The Times, CNC has pledged that its newsroom will be strictly independent, non-partisan and apolitical." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Republican economist Bartlett: "The human capacity for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me, so it shouldn't surprise me that so many Republicans seem to genuinely believe that they are the party of fiscal responsibility. Perhaps at one time they were, but those days are long gone. This fact became blindingly obvious to me six years ago this month when a Republican president and a Republican Congress enacted the Medicare drug benefit, which former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has called "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s."" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Exactly: "I don't mean to suggest that Democrats are any better when it comes to the deficit, although they have a better case for saying so based on the contrasting fiscal records of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The national debt belongs to both parties. But at least the Democrats don't go on Fox News day after day proclaiming how fiscally conservative they are, and organize tea... more... - mikepk

This NASA researcher appears to be saying that the water discovered on the moon /is/ plentiful and could hugely impact out ability to establish a base there. I had heard opinions downplaying this discovery. "We can finally begin to think seriously about establishing such a self-sufficient home on the Moon because last week, NASA announced that it had discovered large quantities of water there." - Christopher Chung from email

I mistakenly assumed the article covered the material in Kerr's piece this week on the mission results: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi... which reports big numbers. I remain unconvinced that human space exploration is in anyone's interest other than the aerospace industry and the congress critters who benefit from such jobs. Robots are so much more efficient and expendable, and, gosh darn it, people like 'em. - Andy Ackerman

"Critics storm that health care reform is “a cruel hoax and a delusion.” Ads in 100 newspapers thunder that reform would mean “the beginning of socialized medicine.” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page predicts that the legislation will lead to “deteriorating service.” Business groups warn that Washington bureaucrats will invade “the privacy of the examination room,” that we are on the road to rationed care and that patients will lose the “freedom to choose their own doctor.” " - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"All dire — but also wrong. Those forecasts date not from this year, but from the battle over Medicare in the early 1960s. I pulled them from newspaper archives and other accounts." - Christopher Chung

The real shame of American media (and historical memory) is how often the same fearmongering lies work, over and over, even after being disproved. Liars seem to suffer no loss of credibility; instead they get more columns in national papers or appearances on news networks. - Andrew C

Jeanne-Claude, 74, worked with her husband, Christo, on dozens of environmental arts projects, including “The Gates” in Central Park in 2005. - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

http://www.nytimes.com/2009... - Christopher Chung

sad. I wanted to see "The Gates" so bad when I still lived in chicago. - Jeannie Choi

Typical overwriting by Verlyn Klinkenborg... But still fun: "And whoever all these cyclists are, as individuals, their individuality is burnished by the bikes they ride and by the way they ride them. It’s as though the bikes are only partly transportation, as though they were really machines for differentiation." - Christopher Chung from email

"Researchers at Princeton University recently made a remarkable discovery about the brains of rats that exercise. Some of their neurons respond differently to stress than the neurons of slothful rats. Scientists have known for some time that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells (neurons) but not how, precisely, these neurons might be functionally different from other brain cells. ... The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Ah yes. This was brilliant, and pitch-perfect. "Telling jokes about 9/11, at least directly afterward, was a little different in New York, because it was still so traumatic and uncertain and dangerous, with the feeling of everybody kind of dancing around the subject matter. But you could also feel this emotion underneath, and people thinking: Good Lord, please, somebody, somewhere, do it." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Oh, editors. What are you thinking? - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

This is what the story is about: "A ferocious feline turned her owners into a pair of scaredy cats in their Midtown apartment yesterday, holding them hostage at claw-point until the cops came to their rescue." - Christopher Chung

[ • > •] - Christopher Chung from email

Amazing! "There is water on the Moon, scientists stated unequivocally on Friday, and considerable amounts of it. “Indeed yes, we found water,” Anthony Colaprete, the principal investigator for NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, said in a news conference." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

It's a result of the moon-bombing NASA carried out last month: "The satellite, known as Lcross (pronounced L-cross), slammed into a crater near the Moon’s south pole a month ago. The impact carved out a hole 60- to 100-feet wide and kicked up at least 24 gallons of water." - Christopher Chung

Perhaps as a NASA employee who doesn't study the moon, I'm overly cynical, but I don't really see what the big deal is. Ten years ago, water on the moon was news. Now it's down to the details of how much there is. 26 gallons in a 20-m wide crater works out to about 50 ppm water if my math is correct, which is not much water at all. From what I can tell, the water concentration of desert... more... - Andy Ackerman

snicker! alt text: "It may be a fundamentally empty experience, but holy crap the Droid's 265 ppi screen is amazing." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"It would seem then that the fixed-gear bicycle has officially attained parity with the electric guitar. Like guitars, fixed-gears are now just something people buy so they can waggle them around in front of girls. Also like guitars, most people who own fixed-gears have no idea how to actually use them. And perhaps most tellingly, whether it's a guitar or a bicycle, the average onlooker is completely unconcerned with the actual quality of the object; instead, all they see is the shape and the color(whey)." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

On my lunch break, I walked within a couple feet of her. She was leading a "protest" of Bill O'Reilly at the News Corp. building. They were protesting his refusal to legitimize the birthers. - Christopher Chung

The rinky-dink protest seemed to consist of only 10 people carrying posterboard signs scrawled with magic marker, and Orly. When I walked by they were leaving the corner and the NYPD was putting away the police barricades. That's a good sign. - Christopher Chung

This tickled my funny bone. - ProsePetals (aka Denise)

"Using the "Brushes" app on the iPhone, artist Jorge Colombo has created covers for New Yorker magazine, such as the one seen here." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Everyone saw this, right? "The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Toward the end of the story, also noted that similar "technology" has been used for probable-cause searches in the US. Shocked, I tells ya, I'm shocked. - Andy Ackerman

"We happened upon this photo in the LIFE magazine archives. The caption reads: "Construction in NYC: land being cleared for 20 story building in East 60s — still occupied brownstone is soon to go." It was still occupied! The photo was taken in 1959... any guesses as to what block it was on?" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Crazy. looks fake. - Christopher Chung

A chart showing support for gay marriage in the U.S., based on age range. This is vivid. - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

CRAZY - Jeannie Choi

Interesting array of opinions on the shooting at Fort Hood. OK - Hasan may have been motivated by his Islamic faith. So what? - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

The Standard Hotel, in the Meatpacking District, is offering customized fixies to its guests for rent or purchase. I mean, seriously. - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

I'd never heard of this before. America! F--- yeah! - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Nutters. "Violence struck on a southbound D train Monday morning after two women got into an argument over one's refusal to cover her mouth while coughing. It ended with her spitting on the other, a punch, and the second woman dragging the first to the floor of the car by her hair. Here's the play-by-play account, as witnessed firsthand by The Business Insider's Lawrence Delevingne: "No one got the conductor -- it just seemed like a shouting match -- but as the train pulled into 42nd Street, the coughing woman spit on the other, provoking what sounded like a punch from the reaction of the crowd (we didn't directly see it). Then the cougher attempted to exit the train as the doors were open, but the second woman grabbed her by the back of the hair, violently yanking her down to the floor."" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Now that I think about it, most of the fights/arguments I've seen/heard of on the subway are between women. sup with that? - Christopher Chung

"Heat blazed down from the sky and radiated up from the sidewalk, but Natividad Zirate, hard at work truing a bicycle wheel beneath an oversized umbrella more appropriate to a hot dog cart, seemed not to notice. Business had been good, he said, since he returned from California and started repairing bikes on the northeast corner of Second Avenue and Houston Street in June. From a small black suitcase stuffed with tools and blackened with chain grease, his sidewalk mechanic shop had expanded — tires, wheels and bikes leaned against a fence or were locked to a nearby signpost, his tools now found a new home in a brushed metal delivery cart with rubber wheels.... “People didn’t trust me in Venice Beach,” said Mr. Zirate, 63, his hands caked black with grease, his glasses miraculously unsmudged. “But it’s different here. There’s not the same stigma of being homeless.”" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"Mariano Rivera, who got the final five outs, holding the trophy as the Yankees celebrated their first title in nine years." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

Boohoo. Nine years without a title. Poor guys. - Christopher Chung

A good sum-up of the Agassi drama, plus as quick a fair accounting of his life and career as you can get. "Agassi calls his father "violent by nature," and recalls being in the car when his father pointed a handgun at another driver. _ He writes about making money by hustling people on tennis courts and remembers when, at 9 years old, he beat former NFL great Jim Brown in a match to win a $500 bet for his father. _ He poignantly recalls a telephone conversation with his father after winning Grand Slam title No. 1 at Wimbledon in 1992. Dad's initial reaction? "You had no business losing that fourth set," Agassi writes." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

"Walking up the West Drive in Central Park on Tuesday morning with tea in her hands and a scarf around her neck, Evelyn Stevens stopped to chat with two women, former teammates, as they rested on a bench after their workout. “We obviously had the best kits,” Ms. Stevens, 26, said of the women’s black-and-white racing uniforms. It was only last summer that three had raced together, but in that year, Ms. Stevens has gone from a novice rider to one of the nation’s best female racers. “It’s hard to understand,” said one of the women, Kimille Taylor, who has been racing in New York for more than six years. “It’s not easy to win bike races.”" - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

She is truly naturally gifted. In men's racing, that wouldn't matter, because she'd be competing with 20 other genetic freaks like herself. But women's racing has such a shallow bench that Jeanie Longo in her 50s still regularly places on the podium, so natural talent there goes a long way. Of course, a lot of that shallow bench is also explained by the much lower compensation women receive in sports. - Piaw Na

"The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Times' cycling blog, Spokes, reports today that the paper's coverage of bike-related issues has remained strangely consistent over the past century. In the Gray Lady's 1890s "Gossip of the Cyclers" column — which was apparently the StreetsBlog.org of the McKinnley administration — the paper covered strikingly contemporary bike issues including reckless cyclists, brake-less bikes, and even concerns about bicycle access to the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, the Times has covered each of these issues within the past few months. Though the Times no longer refers to bicycles as "the wheel" or fast cyclists as "scorchers," it's remarkable that more than 100 years later, both the paper — and the city — are still arguing the same topics." - Christopher Chung from Bookmarklet

This just shows how little progress the USA has made compared to Europe. - Piaw Na