December 30

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to prorogue Parliament. AGAIN. [more inside]
posted by spoobnooble at 4:35 PM - 50 comments

A three judge panel of the 9th Circuit has ruled a police officer can be sued for damages for tasing a motorist. The court held use of tasers must be justified by a strong government interest that "compels" employing such force Practically speaking, police agencies will likely have to revise their policies to limit taser use to situations where a person poses an obvious danger. Field use of tasers currently varies across jurisdictions. The Police Executive Research Forum, however, has advocated for a similarly restrictive policy. [more inside]
posted by bearwife at 3:24 PM - 43 comments

Footnoted.org, a blog devoted to pointing out those buried atrocities in SEC filings, is having its annual worst footnote of the year contest. contenders include Chesapeake Energy disclosing it spent $12.1 million to purchase Aubrey McClendon's antique map collection, Martha Stewart's $3 million retention payment to remain at Martha Stewart Omnimedia and InfoGroup disclosing it really spent $852K on former CEO Gupta's yacht instead of zero. Polls close tomorrow.
posted by krautland at 1:00 PM - 21 comments

The 30 Freakiest Commercials and PSAs of 2009.
posted by Weebot at 12:45 PM - 43 comments

Dissertations on His Dudeness. (SLNYT) Descriptions of a new book of academic essays on The Big Lebowski such as: "“ ‘The Big Lebowski’ and Paul de Man: Historicizing Irony and Ironizing Historicism”
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:27 AM - 89 comments

Robespierre, a frequent contributor at Fodor's Travel Talk Forums online, suddenly stopped posting to the boards in July of last year. NPR's All Things Considered did an essay on why he stopped and the reactions of his fellow forum posters. [more inside]
posted by AwkwardPause at 9:07 AM - 26 comments

Man from the Margin: Cao Cao and the Three Kingdoms You'll perhaps have read or watched reports that archaeologists believe they have found the tomb of Cao Cao (曹操) (of course, not everyone agrees with the identification). Warrior, strategist, statesman and poet, Cao Cao lives on in the cultural memory of China, a by-word for cunning and of course a central character in the great historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms and hence also recent John Woo blockbuster Red Cliff. To understand the man in his historical context, there's little better in English than the 1990 George Ernest Morrison Lecture in Ethnology given by now-retired Professor Rafe de Crespigny, one of the foremost Western scholars of the Han Dynasty and Three Kingdoms periods of Chinese history. He makes several of his vastly erudite essays on Chinese history available at the ANU's website.
posted by Abiezer at 8:57 AM - 14 comments

"Once you start procrastinating pleasure, it can become a self-perpetuating process if you fixate on some imagined nirvana. The longer you wait to open that prize bottle of wine, the more special the occasion has to be." Something to keep in mind in this season when many are flush with gift certificates.
posted by tractorfeed at 8:35 AM - 65 comments

Rowland S. Howard was the guitarist for The Boys Next Door and the Birthday Party. He released his second solo cd, "Pop Crimes" in October this year, ten years after his debut solo effort. He died today.
posted by h00py at 3:54 AM - 45 comments

101 new uses for everyday things lists some interesting and sometimes innovative ways to use things you find around the home.
posted by Effigy2000 at 12:50 AM - 129 comments

November 13, 2001: Musical unknown Andrew W.K. (Previously 1, 2) releases his debut album "I Get Wet." It is a simple rock record of power chords and unabashed, un-ironic party music -- exemplified perfectly both by its first song, "It's Time To Party," or its lead single, "Party Hard" -- released during a month of American depression, paranoia, and insincerity that borders on nihilism. The album finds mainstream success, selling over 30K copies in its first three weeks, with songs from the record appearing in commercials, movies, and television shows, not to mention heavy rotation on MTV and awesome appearances on Conan and Saturday Night Live. [more inside]
posted by Damn That Television at 12:18 AM - 282 comments

December 29

Tuper Tario Tros
posted by tehloki at 11:45 PM - 24 comments

"This cockroach-like existence is cumulatively intolerable even though on any given night it is perfectly manageable." Tony Judt, in the advanced stages of ALS (aka motor neurone disease) begins a series of short pieces for the New York Review of Books with a reflection on how he spends his unmoving nights.
posted by holgate at 9:46 PM - 39 comments

Times Square > Art Square: "a very complex project with a simple goal: to turn all advertising on Times Square into art."
posted by divabat at 8:51 PM - 38 comments

The Mag+ Project A compelling digital magazine concept that resulted from a research collaboration between Swedish publisher Bonnier and London design firm BERG. Touchscreen specialists Kicker Studio in San Francisco are working to expand this into an interactive prototype over the next several months.
posted by Dragonness at 8:41 PM - 2 comments

On the Set: Miniature recreations of famous television studio sets such as Cheers, Seinfeld and The Price is Right built by Charles Brogdon. Each complete with its own lighting rig and indexed by studio.
posted by Thin Lizzy at 8:11 PM - 11 comments

Anyone who was moved by Zelda Rubinstein's performance as the eccentric medium in "Poltergeist" will be dismayed to hear that she is seriously ailing. What you may not be aware of is her role, first in Los Angeles (way back in 1984), and later internationally, in gay rights and AIDS education advocacy. [more inside]
posted by Morrigan at 7:36 PM - 12 comments

JSblog: on varied topics inspired by working in a secondhand bookshop.
posted by brundlefly at 6:42 PM - 9 comments

Disintegration - Memories of making the album...
posted by Artw at 6:37 PM - 22 comments

Nevertheless, a debate about gumbo's precise origins has raged for decades, framed by Louisiana's legacy of colonialism and complicated by the vast range of gumbo-preparation techniques practiced by the different peoples who make up the region's complex ethnic fabric.
posted by veedubya at 5:46 PM - 35 comments

The California and Steller sea lions hauled out at Pier 39's K dock in San Francisco have become a famous tourist attraction. The colony has occupied the spot since 1990, seemingly abandoning their traditional grounds at Seal Rocks. A fall survey counted record numbers of over 1,500 sea lions at the Pier, but they abandoned the area in droves after Thanksgiving. "We have no idea where they moved on to or why” an expert from the Marine Mammal Center said, although the Center does not believe that the sea lions have left for good. [more inside]
posted by gemmy at 5:30 PM - 31 comments

Questions for John Yoo. Q. Do you regret writing the so-called torture memos, which claimed that President Bush was legally entitled to ignore laws prohibiting torture? A. No, I had to write them. It was my job. As a lawyer, I had a client. The client needed a legal question answered. NY Times, via Andrew Sullivan [more inside]
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:07 PM - 46 comments

The first Blue Moon on New Year's Eve in twenty years. New Year's Eve marks a blue moon, that is, a full moon that occurs more than once in a calendar month. But wait, there's more! [more inside]
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 4:57 PM - 21 comments

J'aime le GIF, le site qui aime bien les GIF. [NSFW]
posted by swift at 4:44 PM - 53 comments

The Genesis 2.0 Project The L.H.C. is not merely the world’s largest particle accelerator but the largest machine ever built. At the center of just one of the four main experimental stations installed around its circumference, and not even the biggest of the four, is a magnet that generates a magnetic field 100,000 times as strong as Earth’s. And because the super-conducting, super-colliding guts of the collider must be cooled by 120 tons of liquid helium, inside the machine it’s one degree colder than outer space, thus making the L.H.C. the coldest place in the universe.
posted by srboisvert at 3:28 PM - 50 comments

Tom's Glossary of Book Publishing Terms
posted by Prospero at 2:37 PM - 11 comments

Tippi Hedren in make-up test stills for The Birds,*
posted by xod at 2:16 PM - 36 comments

Allen Ginsberg Vinyl Figure designed by artist Archer Prewitt for Presspop. [more inside]
posted by Olive Oil at 12:24 PM - 21 comments

So you want to build your own Eiffel Tower. Then you'll need 7,300 tons of iron, 2.5 million rivets, and some blueprints. (You may also need a copyright lawyer.)
posted by Joe Beese at 11:43 AM - 10 comments

How to Destroy the Book. "The anti-copyright activists have no respect for our copyright and our books. They say that when you buy an ebook or an audiobook that’s delivered digitally, you are demoted from an owner to a licensor." (Previously).
posted by Lobster Garden at 11:25 AM - 195 comments

The Interfaith Youth Core was started in 1998 by a group led by Rhodes Scholar Eboo Patel. Propelled by his experience growing up as a Muslim in the United States, and encouraged by the Dalai Lama, Patel seeded an organization dedicated promoting global pluralism. His story is detailed in his acclaimed autobiography, Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. He keeps a blog at the Washington Post, and is a fellow at the Ashoka Foundation.
posted by Roach at 10:07 AM - 4 comments

Though she didn't enjoy the same level of fame and fortune as her younger brother Cab, singer and bandleader (said to be the first African-American woman to lead an all-male orchestra) Blanche Calloway is a musician worth remembering and checking out if you're a fan of 1920s/30s jazz stylings. It's Right Here For You, It Looks Like Susie, I Gotta Swing, Last Dollar and I Got What It Takes.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:53 AM - 26 comments

December 28

Russia wants to lead the way in leech farming. Notorious for all kinds of medicinal uses (previously), they're also becoming popular in cosmetics. [more inside]
posted by ninazer0 at 8:37 PM - 42 comments

This last Christmas Day Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23 year old son of a prominent Nigerian banker attempted to bring down a trans-Atlantic Northwest Airlines flight with an explosive mixture containing PETN, a popular addition to amateur explosives. Then this Sunday a young Nigerian gentleman in intestinal distress caused caused the crew of his flight to alert authorities who detained and quickly released him.
posted by Blasdelb at 6:29 PM - 286 comments

One way to look at the decade from 2000-2009 is as the digital decade. In this decade the world has gone from having about 300 million to 1.6 billion users . The number of mobile phone subscriptions has gone from about 750 million to 4.5 billion. The decade even started out being called the digital decade by none other than Bill Gates. [more inside]
posted by sien at 5:30 PM - 45 comments

Vimeo's 25 favorite videos of 2009
posted by netbros at 4:06 PM - 18 comments

Karsten Nohl and a team of fellow researchers has cracked the 64-bit encryption used in 80% of the world's GSM phones. Nohl had previously cracked the encryption in the MIFARE smartcard system, demonstrating that the encryption on that device can be cracked in approximately no time whatsoever. These, of course, aren't the first gaping holes in cellphone security to come to light; indeed, lack of security seems to be part of the design spec. Perhaps all new cellphones should be just be distributed with a deck of cards.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:14 PM - 50 comments

Saving Mexico "To weaken the cartels, some argue the U.S. should legalize marijuana, let cocaine pass through the Caribbean and take the profit motive out of the drug trade."
posted by kliuless at 1:12 PM - 106 comments

What would happen if aid organizations and other philanthropists embraced the dark arts of marketing spin and psychological persuasion used on Madison Avenue? We'd save millions more lives.
posted by lunit at 12:46 PM - 50 comments

From a simple insight, it has grown to some 4,000 pages. ... Whatever it is (he grudgingly calls it a novel, for legal reasons), [Larry Kramer] believes it to be an entirely true work. Certainly it’s epic. From primordial Florida swamps to the homophilic colony at Jamestown to Lincoln’s male love and the “holocaust” of AIDS, he reframes the country as a gay creation, culminating with the advent of modern antiviral drugs: “the single greatest achievement that gay people have accomplished in history.” (previously)
posted by Joe Beese at 11:17 AM - 124 comments

The Annotated Weekender. Fun, whimsical doodles all over The Guardian's weekend magazine by Joe List, an illustrator/cartoonist from the uk, who also does Freak Leap and I Dream of a World Without You.
posted by OrangeSoda at 10:10 AM - 3 comments

THE MONSTER MUMMIES OF OLD JAPAN!
posted by The Whelk at 9:07 AM - 22 comments

Good morning. It's Monday. I know that it sucks to have to come back to work after a holiday weekend. So I am going to share with you this alternative version of Passion Pit's "Sleepyhead" mixed with archival footage of old-timey American dancing. I hope this brightens your day a little bit.
posted by jason's_planet at 8:11 AM - 33 comments

Battlestar Rhapsody (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:27 AM - 70 comments

Noted anti-apartheid activist and poet Dennis Brutus has died. [more inside]
posted by Burhanistan at 7:12 AM - 11 comments

The New York Times examines several reports of sexual harassments and assaults on women in the US Military. In the article's comments, current and former troops chime in to suggest that this is an inevitable result of including women in combat zones. [more inside]
posted by oinopaponton at 6:35 AM - 138 comments

The Daily Show's Decade in Review. [Single-link Comedy Central video presentation.]
posted by milquetoast at 3:29 AM - 37 comments

December 27

The complete archive of International Times, which launched a revolution in underground publishing in the UK and paved the way for Oz (of the School Kids special fame) (previously) and a whole string of british underground zines, a heritage that Alan Moores new zine Dodgem Logic very much calls upon.
posted by Artw at 8:09 PM - 8 comments

A digital clock made of wood and operated by 70 workers for one continuous 24-hour period. "Even though the workers are trying hard to construct every single minute, they are constantly on the verge of failing."
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 8:08 PM - 35 comments

Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans premieres Thursday, January 29 on PBS. Faubourg Tremé is considered the oldest black neighborhood in America, the origin of the southern civil rights movement and the birthplace of jazz. Trailer for Faubourg Tremé
posted by nola at 6:59 PM - 14 comments

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