Handknits for Young Moderns, courtesy of Houseplant Picture Studio.

The Innanets today were going apeshit over a picture of George Bush “stamping on a symbol of Freedom forever.” In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the photo in all its creepy glory:

“Don’t Tread On Me”

Before you jump to any conclusions, be aware that the “carpet” (it sure looks like a doormat to me) is the proud property of Ladder Company 10 in downtown Manhattan, who lost six of their brave men on 9/11. But I still wish I knew whose idea it was to have the President stand on it.

I remember about three years ago, I accompanied my then-boyfriend to suburban Maryland for a family party. His grandmother was turning 80, and the family had rented the VFW hall there. When I walked in to take off my coat, the first thing I saw was a huge fake Christmas tree, proudly decorated with photos of the Twin Towers. Burning. We are not talking just one or two images here, but a whole theme of death and destruction, with the largest photo reserved for the special spot on top where an angel commonly sits. But what really got me was that almost no one else seemed to find this morbid or tacky.

Check out this very rare video clip of the VU performing on The Lawrence Welk Show.

A fascinating site created by German students that investigates what people perceive as “beauty,” by using morphing software (remember that?) to create “averaged” faces out of a number of individuals. (For instance, neither of the two guys above actually exist; they’re simple composites of different faces.)  Their findings? High cheekbones, narrow jaws and chins, and (surprisingly enough) “thick, narrow” eyebrows are seen by most people as “sexy.”

Mariko Takahashi // Ex-Fat Girl

Conservative talk-radio host Sean Hannity wants to get you laid.

I always feel like a dork reposting links from BoingBoing, because it’s one of the most heavily trafficked blogs on the web. But, this is so funny I can’t resist: it’s a London Tube Map modified to show what the Underground might look like if London’s transit board decides to “sell” sponsorship of stations. I know that New York is considering such a thing, and I seem to remember Citizens Bank putting their logo on State Street station in Boston. Some of my favorites here are “Channel 4ingdon,” “Old Spice Street,” and of course, “iPoddington.” Link

Woman #2: That’s her! That’s her! That’s the New Yorker who cursed at me and threatened me!

I lived briefly in Greenpoint, but I never appreciated it like these people do.

Hey, Google. Isn’t it about time to take that silly little word BETA out of your Gmail logo? Don’t your users– and, I’m just guessing here– number in the tens of millions, and aren’t you only like the richest and fastest-growing corporation on the planet, and don’t you have Bill Gates lying awake every night in a cold sweat? So, time to stand behind the quality of your product. My grampa uses Gmail. It’s gone past the “testing” phase, seriously.

And you, Yahoo!. So, you bought this funny little photo sharing site from some guys in Vancouver. And sure, there were some small bugs. And they warned people of this by pointing out that the site was still in BETA. But, most of your users now are actually paying a small hunk of change to use this service, and you, while no Google, are certainly pretty freakin’ far from a small handful of hackers in a rented office somewhere in Vancouver. So, get with the program already and stop charging people money for something that you proudly claim is only half-baked.

Friendster, I had words for you, but now I see that you’ve actually graduated from BETA status into full-fledged, grown up, mature website product. And for that, I congratulate you.

And audible.com, I’m sorry, but you can’t just go back into BETA after eight years on the web. It just doesn’t work that way.  That’s like me saying I’m 26.

And to Fotolog, Vimeo, Last.fm, and all the other genuinely small, indie, ingenious, punk-rock sites on the web: thank you for not throwing some silly word around like it’s the new Internet AIDS ribbon.

Anyone spot any other egregious misuses of the word BETA?