Paper elves

By Philippa Rice.

Army and Navy football uniforms by Nike

Base layers for the Navy and Army football uniforms by Nike.

Bane and Batman puppets

Puppets for a too short commercial for The Dark Knight Rises Blu-Ray

Art Department: Elizabeth Cummings, Corey Stram, Roni Levi
Puppets: Michelle Zamora
Puppet Team: Erin Pearce, Jonathan Williams, Matias Farias, Michelle Zamora, Deanna Rooney, Kate Ward

The periodic table of elements, according to relative abundance on Earth

Via these sites.

"Birthing Tourism"

"Birthing Tourism":

Dozens of people protested Saturday in Chino Hills against a neighborhood home that they claim has been illegally operating as a birthing center where pregnant Chinese women fly in to give birth so their babies will be American citizens.  . . .  Southern California has become a hub of so-called birthing tourism. It is not illegal for pregnant women to travel to the U.S. to give birth. Birthing centers advertise in wealthier Chinese cities, where some women can afford the thousands necessary to make the trip to America for a few months.

Snow Crash in the real world

From a lengthy article about David Green:

Green and his family own 100% of the company and he ranks No. 79 on our list of the 400 richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion.

He donates a substantial amount:

Green has since spent over $300 million donating about 50 properties. The word is out: Ministries approach him constantly with proposals for their new church or Christian community center–only one in ten is chosen. He won’t help them unless they pass a doctrinal vetting process, which includes questions about the Virgin Birth. 

He's active overseas:

Abroad, Green is putting Scripture into the hands of nonbelievers. “People ask, ‘How are you going to get a Bible to everyone in the world?’ We’re doing it,” Green says. Through foundations he supports, he has already distributed nearly 1.4 billion copies of Gospel literature in more than 100 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia. The OneHope Foundation targets children age 4 to 14 with Scripture tailored to them, while Every Home for Christ sends evangelists with Bible booklets door-to-door in some of the poorest countries on Earth. “It’s not like you give them that but don’t give them food; you do both,” Green stresses. But the priority is clear: “If I die without food or without eternal salvation, I want to die without food.”

And he collects:

Perhaps his most personal mission yet is just gearing up. Green is creating a permanent, public home for his collection of handwritten scrolls, rare books and ancient cuneiform tablets the family has amassed over the decades. At 44,000 artifacts, it appears to be the largest private collection of biblical antiquities in the world.

Link roundup

1.  "There Are Over 200 Bodies on Mount Everest, And They’re Used as Landmarks."

2. I wonder how many of my tax dollars were wasted on Cirque du Soleil in Los Angeles:

"Iris" opened in September 2011 at an estimated cost of nearly $100 million in production expenses and theater renovation. When the loan was approved by the council in 2009, the production was expected to run for 10 years. Instead, the show will close in January after just 16 months.

3. "Works by Damien Hirst lose 30 per cent of their value, while one third fail to sell at all."