November 27

Last week on Bill Moyers Journal LBJ tapes were presented detailing Lyndon Johnson's decision to escalate American involvement in Vietnam. Moyers connected these tapes with the current U.S. administration's quest for a solution in the Afghan War. [more inside]
posted by IvoShandor at 3:57 AM - 0 comments - Post a Comment

November 26

Dust Echoes is a series of twelve beautifully animated Aboriginal Australian dreamtime stories from Central Arnhem Land. The themes of these stories tell tales of love, loyalty, duty to country and aboriginal custom and law. Each story comes with descriptions on its history, what the story means and the text of the original story as told by local story tellers. Be sure to check out the downloads section for free desktop wallpapers and MP3 bonus tracks.
posted by Effigy2000 at 10:23 PM - 7 comments


Trials riding is a sport where someone takes a specialized motorcycle and make it do things that shouldn't be possible. [more inside]
posted by quin at 6:12 PM - 24 comments

Basic Sounds is a blog of art and technology blending. Lots of enhanced photos, art installations, modern sculpture, and A/V performance. Modern, abstract, hi-tech, and surreal. Lots of shiny pretty things to look at while you digest. Monthly archives go back to 2003. Nothing NSFW on the main link but I did come across a smattering of NSFW images in the archives.
posted by Babblesort at 4:50 PM - 5 comments

Australia's emissions trading scheme, the "Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme", is being debated in the Senate today. [more inside]
posted by wilful at 2:36 PM - 58 comments

Atrapa-sons, an amusing and educational television show from TV3 Catalonia in Spain, entertains you with musical numbers creatively composed using ordinary household objects, including rakes, potatoes, surgical gloves, forearm crutches, and brooms. Grab some pots and spoons and join in!
posted by jeanmari at 1:33 PM - 6 comments

American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert created some controversy at last Sunday's American Music Awards by simulating oral sex with one dancer and kissing another. Lambert's follow-up performance on ABC's Good Morning America was cancelled, but CBS welcomed him on The Early Show (where, refreshingly, he didn't apologize). CBS's treatment of his AMA performance, however, is creating some controversy of its own.
posted by brozek at 1:31 PM - 75 comments


NPR fact-check of environmental protest group Plane Stupid's latest commercial featuring polar bears falling from the sky. [Warning: graphic.] This is not the only commercial that has people upset. Enter PeTA's "Grace" which several NBC affiliates predictably refused to air during Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:59 AM - 73 comments

Things stuffed inside other things: You've heard of turducken, but what if that isn't enough for you? The largest stuffed dish in terms of sheer bulk may be this recipe for stuffed camel, a dish so decadently large that Snopes had to verify its existence. But if the stuffed camel isn't enough layers for you, the most nested dish of all time may be the Roti Sans Pareil ("Roast without Equal"), a 19th century French dish requiring 17 birds that are now mostly endangered. Thanks to Google Books, we can now peruse some 19th century recipes of the dish (1, 2, 3) or, if you prefer, you can read the original French.
posted by jonp72 at 9:48 AM - 22 comments

Happy Thanksgiving, MetaFilter! If you have friends from different parts of the U.S., you might have wondered why they consider certain dishes to be an essential part of a Thanksgiving feast, when you've never even thought of them as remotely Thanksgiving-related. Now you can see what dishes were popular searches on allrecipes.com in various states thanks to a series of infographics in the New York Times.
posted by grouse at 8:53 AM - 56 comments


Today is an important day in the history of Mininova. From now on, we are limiting Mininova.org to our Content Distribution service. In other words, kiss goodbye to the largest illegal content distribution site on the interwebs (until the next one, maybe).... [more inside]
posted by davehat at 8:20 AM - 81 comments

Transcending The same year Jackie Robinson started playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Wat Misaka became the first "person of color" to play in the NBA. Though he only played three games with the New York Knicks. [more inside]
posted by drezdn at 5:27 AM - 5 comments

Douglas Wolk's Ignite presentation of Kant's critique of aesthetic judgment. via Coilhouse
posted by cgc373 at 12:21 AM - 30 comments

Forty Thanksgivings ago Alcatraz Island was occupied by a number of Native American activists as a protest. The occupation lasted until June of 1971 The best place to learn about it is PBS's website for Alcatraz Is Not an Island, Jim Fortier's documentary about the Alcatraz Occupation. Besides an overview of the events it has video interviews with the people involved. [RealPlayer required] Here are photographs of the occupation, mostly from newspapers. For a flavor of how the local media covered the events, here's the San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive's Occupation of Alcatraz Collection which has over 40 contemporary newsreports [MPEG4]
posted by Kattullus at 12:14 AM - 8 comments

November 25

"Meanwhile, down in Vaginaland, Mr Condom's beginning to feel a bit iffy. He's overheating. For some reason, the shagging seems to be twice as fast this evening, and he grimaces as he gets flung willy-nilly in and out of the pink tunnel. He starts getting friction burns, hanging onto Bobby's stiff penis for dear life, headbutting Georgie's cervix at 180 beats per minute. 'Help me!' he yells in the darkness, feeling himself melting."
This year's worst sex. [NSFW or post-turkey family reading] [more inside]
posted by iamkimiam at 11:40 PM - 43 comments

Black Friday is almost upon us and in less then a month it'll be Christmastime, and you're still wondering if you'll get your jetpack, hoverboard, or time machine? Well you're in luck, because you can get started with a new old DeLorean! It's the return of the DeLorean The DeLorean DMC-12 was the creation of John DeLorean:
John DeLorean never cared to fit the mold of a typical Detroit auto executive. He was a young, free-spirited maverick that revolutionized the auto industry as the major force behind America’s first muscle car– the Pontiac GTO.... As the young DeLorean’s star rose, he supposedly walked away from his $650,000 salary at GM and decided to go it on his own.

Although nowadays his car may be considered a modern marvel unfortunately his motor company was a huge failure. Delorean died in March of 2005 (prev) but not before he started plans for a new car. Also, you may need to ask some questions and keep up on all the news after you buy your 24k Gold DeLorean. [more inside]
posted by P.o.B. at 10:21 PM - 32 comments


Feast
Images of food—and the preparation of food—invariably have that effect on people. They unite viewers who might otherwise have nothing in common; they plug directly into the primal craving for transitory pleasure, the desire not just to admire and then consume inventively prepared food, but also to serve (and be served by) people who love us.
posted by device55 at 6:44 PM - 3 comments

A software engineer blogs about the inept and insecure way in which a bank asks customers to file a claim when they're the victim of fraudulent transactions. Dozens of customers chime in with similar experiences, over the course of months. The bank in question contributes nothing to the conversation, and the system remains both insecure and broken today [that last link is probably blocked by your browser or operating system, but don't worry - the form on the page doesn't work anyway].
posted by subpixel at 6:33 PM - 28 comments



Centralia Pennsylvania : Since 1962 Centralia has stood on top of a coal mine fire, the origin of which was likely a trash fire started by firemen in an effort to clean up the local landfill. In 1962 over 1000 people lived there, in 2007 there where nine. Most residents accepted Pennsylvania's buyout and relocation offer initiated in 1985 and funded to the tune of $42 million dollars by the US Congress. Houses where bulldozed and today fields, cemeteries and new growth forrest are primarily what is left, a temporary bypass to Route 61 was made permanent when giant mounds of dirt where used to block either end from entering or leaving Centralia. It is estimated that these fires will burn for over 250 more years, although some speculate that it may spread and burn a lot longer eventually encompassing several more towns (such as Byrnesville, Pennsylvania already a casualty). Globally there are thousands of underground coal fires, some man made, some (Burning Mountain in Australia going for 5500 years) natural.
posted by edgeways at 2:52 PM - 27 comments

The Decline: The Geography of a Recession Flash animated map showing county unemployment rates from Jan 2007 until Sept 2009
posted by hippybear at 2:07 PM - 48 comments

California City is the 3rd largest city in California (geographically), home to California's largest open-pit boron mine, a privately-run Federal Prison, and only 8,835 residents. Originally planned as a "large master-planned leisure community" of up to 1 million people, such growth never materialized, and the remains of the undeveloped streets and cul-de-sacs presage images of the current housing crisis, and are a modern, uniquely American version of the Nazca Lines.
posted by joshwa at 1:44 PM - 46 comments

The Company of Myself is a poignant, puzzle-solving Flash platform-type game featuring some gameplay mechanics reminiscent of Braid. Each level furthers the game's tale of loneliness and alone-ness. [via JiG]
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 1:41 PM - 20 comments

Populist
Etymology: Latin populus the people
Date: 1892
1 : a member of a political party claiming to represent the common people; especially often capitalized : a member of a United States political party formed in 1891 primarily to represent agrarian interests and to advocate the free coinage of silver and government control of monopolies
2 : a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtues of the common people (Previously on Metafilter) [more inside]
posted by lysdexic at 1:36 PM - 27 comments

More video dating awkwardness courtesy of the Found Footage Festival. What do you do when you finally meet the goddess? Seduce her with hypnosis, of course. Previously...
posted by hermitosis at 1:23 PM - 22 comments

Cloe. I am begging you honey. None of that Jello crap. No one eats it and the garbage stinks for a week after I throw it out. Margaret and Helen (mostly Helen) have a blog, thanks to Helen's grandson, and have a lot to say to America, about remembering an America where black men didn't grow up to be president, abortion, and the sorry state of the American media, among other topics.
posted by emjaybee at 10:56 AM - 137 comments

Many is a collective project exhibiting fine photography found by fine photographers.
posted by chunking express at 10:27 AM - 7 comments

Arms Control Wonk - a collaborative blog detailing the ins and outs of strategic weapons programs around the world. [more inside]
posted by Burhanistan at 8:33 AM - 11 comments

Phil Agre, online pioneer that ran the Red Rock Eater News service (predating most blogs) has been missing for about a year. Former colleagues believe it could be a mental breakdown or a walkabout and they've begun a controlled search using social networks with a goal of simply finding out if he's ok.
posted by mathowie at 8:10 AM - 24 comments

Mike Krahulik (Gabe) and Jerry Holkins (Tycho) of Penny Arcade now have their own reality TV show. The first episode of PATV explores the unlikely rise of their video game media empire and covers the recent Penny Arcade Expo and the birth of Jerry's daughter. [more inside]
posted by Vectorcon Systems at 6:41 AM - 41 comments


Fotomat 's tiny drive-up huts with the yellow roof were an icon of the 1970s suburban experience, with 4000 of them throughout the U.S. You drove up, gave your film to the girl inside, and got prints a couple of days later. But stores began closing en masse in the 1980s with the boom of in-store "prints in an hour". Most Fotomats have been torn down or are crumbling away (cool slideshow), a few being used for coffee or cigarettes. Former alumni are out there and share some memories stories on Facebook. Fotomat unbelievably is around and has a website but this September they threw in the towel on their Snapfish-like business model.
posted by crapmatic at 12:53 AM - 35 comments

November 24

Wikileaks to release over half a million pager intercepts from 9/11. "Messages in the archive range from Pentagon and New York Police Department exchanges, to computers reporting faults to their operators as the World Trade Center collapsed." They're going to start posting them at 3am this morning.
posted by empath at 10:36 PM - 184 comments

Thanksgiving. you know what that means. But this year, Arlo's got some competition from The Band. Scorsese's film 'The Last Waltz' chronicled their final show at the Winterland (1976-11-25). We've discussed the movie, and the album before, but that wasn't the half of it! The whole show was more than 4 hours, and thanks once again to wonderful guys at Wolfgang's Vault we can now listen to the whole damn show!
posted by mikelieman at 8:36 PM - 27 comments

Amanda Marcotte on why atheism needs feminism. [more inside]
posted by Mngo at 5:20 PM - 150 comments

Although it's commonplace nowadays to assume that J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was the primary source of inspiration for Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax when they created the world's first tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, a careful examination of the game suggests otherwise... James Maliszewski on The Books That Founded D&D. Some disagreement.
posted by Artw at 4:13 PM - 88 comments



"This week we will be confronting a fact that, by definition, haunts the average online dater: no matter how much time you spend polishing your profile, honing your IM banter, and perfecting your message introductions, it’s your picture that matters most." (Previously 1 2 3)
posted by gman at 2:24 PM - 122 comments

La Gioconda, Tristan und Isolde, The Pearl Fishers, Il Trovatore, and Rigoletto — enacted with 16-inch rod puppets. [more inside]
posted by Iridic at 2:04 PM - 5 comments

Whether or not you agree with the platform and views of Mr. George Hutchins, candidate for the 4th Congressional District of North Carolina, you must bask in the glory of the most awesome candidate website ever created.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 1:36 PM - 207 comments


Cancer survivor, teacher, single father, and part-time U.S. Census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead September 12, hanging from a tree with the word "FED" written on his chest. It was actually a suicide. (Previously)
posted by Slap Factory at 12:27 PM - 123 comments


It may be the worst police sketch ever: "The head is shaped like a rugby ball, the lips slide to one side, the nose is phallic, the ears are missing and the hair is having a very bad day." But it led to two arrests, and one television station, in order to protect the identities of the arrested, seemed to think it was a good idea to superimpose the illustration on top of the faces of the suspects.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:37 AM - 45 comments

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