The Digest. 01.04.08.

Why nature is better than art: Good Ester, the one-eyed wonder dog. Photo by C-Monster.

• Can you tell a computer programmer from a serial killer? Take this handy test and find out. For the record: I know my serial killers; I scored a 9/10. (Thanks, Vidalia, for the link.)
• So busted: Richard West, the director of the Smithsonian’s American Indian Museum, spent $48,500 of museum funds to commission a portrait of himself. And this isn’t the first time his spending has come into question: there was the issue of his busy travel schedule, which included trips to attend the Sundance film festival—at $440 a night—partially funded by you, the taxpayer.
• Meals I Wouldn’t Want to Eat: Hospital-themed restaurant in Singapore is a tribute Damien Hirst.
• Bloomberg previews the big London museum shows of 2008.
• When Presidential Elections Imitate Bad Horror Movies: Totally freaky political photo of the day.
• In related news: Obama and Huckabee take Iowa.
• First there was the Splasher. Now there’s the Decapitator.
• And speaking of heads, the Maori want theirs back.
• Here’s a piece of home design I can get into: The Beer Can Table.
• The Latest in Insufferable Graff Merch: The graffiti lamp. (Comes with a tag by Days, from NYC, who no doubt is getting bubkes from this crap.)
• Real Graff: MTA in the L.A. River.
• The NYC Subway Graffiti Patrol: Making America safe for bare walls. (Via Ekosystem.)
• The Art Industrial Average: Auction House Edition.
• When art imitates music videos.
• The Continuing Blandification of NYC: Making way for crap-ass condo towers by wrecking lots of turn-of-the-20^th century buildings.
• In Related News: Urban planning in Philly sucks ass. And not in a good way. (Via Arts Journal.)
• More holes than a hunk of Swiss cheese: the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification is pretty damn bogus, reports Slate.
• Nature Break: Photos of the Glandet Star Nebula (IC1396).
• In Long Beach, Ca.: Damion Silver at DDR Projects.
• In NYC: Jenny Holzer, Bruce Nauman, Louise Bourgeois and others in The Sum of Its Parts at Cheim & Read.
• In Oldenburg, Germany: Ecological Strategies in Today’s Art at the Edith Russ Site for Media Art.
• Your moment of computer screen weirdness. (Via Ekosystem.)