It seems like one relatively easy-to-acquire statistic would either support or put-to-rest the ubiquitous "if-we-all-owned-guns-no-one-would-be-shot" theory. Does anyone here know the rate of homicide by firearms for gun owners vs. non-gun-owners?
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 6:22 AM on April 23, 2007

I'm surprised by how many of you are offended by the consumption of dead pets. Even here in America, we've got loads of examples of domesticated animals being slaughtered by their human caretakers for food. In many cases, those caretakers are attached to those animals. Try the first five minutes of this This American Life episode. As Ira Glass says, "In Kamiko's world, an animal's transition from 'buddy' to 'dinner' is a great deal less problematic than it is for us city folks.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 5:59 AM on April 5, 2007

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Susan Faludi's studies of modern American masculinity. Her exploration of the Citadel, especially, was fascinating. She was trying to figure out -- among other things -- where the deep hostility against allowing women to join the Citadel originated. When she investigated the Citadel, she found an environment in which intimacy between men flourished. Men were comfortable acting out a vast range of roles with each other, carving out a space for domestic (even... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 8:27 AM on March 18, 2007

I used to have to reboot my 486 DX-2 to free up enough RAM to play this. Soooooo worth it.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 10:04 PM on March 7, 2007

thehmsbeagle, it tears me up inside to hear what happened to you. It sickens me. Perhaps I can share a story that brings the perspective of the astoundingly insensitive among us into sharper focus.

A couple years ago, while I was a reporter for a newspaper in Central California, the front page of my newspaper one morning bore an above-the-fold headline screaming that a convicted sex offender had been discovered volunteering at a local elementary school. The article went... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 2:07 AM on February 11, 2007

Going to a fundamentalist Christian (predominantly Southern Baptist) school growing up, I was taught about Foxe's Book of Martyr's in middle school history classes. (So it's still around.) It was a wee bit uncomfortable for little Catholic me.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 6:03 AM on January 25, 2007

I got "Lick the milk," with a photo of a black guy and a white girl licking another white girl. That's my new favorite thing.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 4:55 PM on January 24, 2007

I wonder if the Django Book was the main inspiration for this. It features a very similar implementation of the same idea.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 6:19 PM on December 21, 2006

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posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 9:45 PM on November 9, 2006

I'm sorry, folks, I can't echo the party line here. I've always seen Natsios as a fundamentally decent guy who's gotten stepped on a lot by those in command. Let's bring at least a few facts back into the debate.

Natsios voted against the Big Dig twice as a state representative, didn't step up to lead the project until 2000 (long after Kerasiotes had done his damage), and oversaw it for less than a year. During the period he was running the Big Dig, he apparently wasn't... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 5:39 AM on September 20, 2006

I'm a fan.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 10:36 PM on August 18, 2006

Remember when this was called Dialpad? That was awesome.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 9:25 PM on August 6, 2006

Yay MeFi redesign thread! These are always fun. Collectively, we are perhaps the worst focus group ever.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 5:38 AM on April 3, 2006

Once again for those few stalwarts paying attention: the guy who redesigned the Onion's site (Khoi Vinh) was not responsible for this redesign. It was done by an out-of-house design firm, according to Vinh's blog.

And those of you with 800 x 600 displays, calm down. As with most news sites, you're still able to see all the news headlines without scrolling. If you want to see non-news promos and ads, click over to the right.

I don't know why I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 8:37 AM on April 3, 2006

Catholic here. This is an endlessly sad, stupid decision.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 7:14 PM on March 11, 2006

Are we talking about Indian food in Somerville now, because after living in Cambridge for 5 years, I finally discovered that the best Indian restaurant in all of Boston was India Palace in Union Square Somerville. If you haven't had the chicken tikka masala there yet, prepare to die.

<on topic> The Twin Cities is getting a Trader Joe's too, but here it's all love, no snark. I shall fix that.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 11:17 AM on March 8, 2006

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posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 8:49 PM on March 7, 2006

Buttfucked by Gayzilla cracked my shit up.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 6:12 PM on March 1, 2006

Thanks very much for the post. And yeah, I'll save my rant about the reflexive anti-Gladwell backlash (but he has the audacity to popularize otherwise-obscure academic theories! he's practically Satan!), and follow grahamwell and languagehat's example. Ignore the jerks.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 5:46 AM on February 24, 2006

While their claim to have invented the basis for Flash, Java, Ajax, etc., may be somewhat suspect, Balthaser definitely invented the Flash intro.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 11:43 AM on February 23, 2006

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posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 6:44 AM on January 31, 2006

My friends and I used to totally hack Monopoly -- rent-sharing agreements, time shares, predatory lending. It was awesome. Our games were filled with cutthroat politics, backroom scheming, the works. My friends now tend to frown on altering Monopoly rules. It's sad.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 4:09 PM on January 7, 2006

I love that our trademark MeFi snarkiness has been conmpletely vanquished by the cuteness.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 3:26 AM on December 15, 2005

This actually is a sweet commercial and I can't believe they did that on television.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 7:23 AM on December 13, 2005

My pleasure, soiled cowboy.

(That's not the first time this week I've said those words.)
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 7:49 AM on December 13, 2005

We can seriously bicker for-frickin'-ever about whether Wikipedia is a net positive or net negative for the world. I personally love it to death. It's one of my desert-island websites. I surf to it constantly to try to get a rough handle on references I don't recognize, things I'm curious about.

But whether you're me or you're Daniel Brandt, the point is, this Pandora's box has been opened. I'd mark Wikipedia's chances of survival as being a good... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 2:08 PM on December 11, 2005

Er, Wikipedia now requires registration to submit new articles. (View the discussion.) But you can still edit existing entries to your hear's content, dear Anonymous.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 3:41 PM on December 5, 2005

A few years ago, a documentary entitled Raw Deal: A Question of Consent was released. It concerned the events of one night in February, 1999, when a stripper named Lisa Gier-King was hired to perform at a frathouse party at the University of Florida. The next morning, King ran to a neighboring fraternity, saying she had been raped. When the police came to investigate, they found there was a video record of the prior night's proceedings. Upon watching the video, the police arrested King for... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 11:36 AM on December 4, 2005

obligatory
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 2:19 PM on December 1, 2005

If you like this (or even if you don't), you might enjoy the rest of the Washington Post mashups being collected over at Post Remix. For example, why not try a dynamically-generated news quiz?
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 7:20 AM on November 23, 2005

I much enjoyed hearing this on the radio this morning, despite my not being an atheist. I didn't think he was rubbing salt at all. I think he admirably articulated the feeling of being shut down by someone because their beliefs apparently trump yours.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 9:22 AM on November 21, 2005

Chief among my favorite atheistic statements of belief, by the way, is Julia Sweeney's story for the "Godless America" episode of This American Life.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 9:27 AM on November 21, 2005

A history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies Posted on Saturday, January 3, 2004. All text is verbatim from senior Bush Administration officials and advisers. In places, tenses have been changed for clarity. Originally from Harper's Magazine, September, 2003. By Sam Smith.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 6:20 PM on November 7, 2005

One day, when I'm describing to a younger generation this phase in the cycle of hatred and fear that plagues our species forever, Matthew Limon's story will be a vivid example. For the moment, it's rather grounding to take a step back from our Web 2.0 and our video iPods to realize that in America in 2005 our fellow citizens are fighting to keep a man in prison because he's gay. And that our government is forcing that man to go to a place where he will be denounced and reviled.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 5:01 PM on November 4, 2005

[ mark as best answer ]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 11:08 AM on October 24, 2005

The central character is hardly someone to be identified with. He's a criminal, a mentally challenged, three-time sex offender. Who exactly is going to want this guy representing their team, NAMBLA? -- scheptech

"The central character," Matthew Limon, had recently turned 18 at the time of his conviction. He had been attending a boarding school for the developmentally disabled, where he began a consensual sexual relationship with a younger... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 2:52 PM on October 22, 2005

Geez, who made this tripe? Lamefilter.

Languagehat, you're the first person I've heard comment about that midcentury bit, although it gets me every time I hear this thing. Chalk it up to bad editing. When we converted this from a fugly-ass Final Cut Pro movie into Flash, we shortened the intro (not enough, apparently! :), which initially stretched the timeline back into the '60s. I think we talked about ARPANET, but I'm not sure.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 8:19 AM on October 21, 2005

I love how we all used this program years ago. I, too, was in that club. Many wonderful hours spent tweaking fake landscapes. That was the life. Really nice to see it's still around.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 4:24 AM on September 11, 2005

The best account yet of the disaster comes from the AP, but I couldn't find a link that was not likely to rot (maybe that Guardian link will stay). Most of the dead were women and children, the AP says. They were marching to commemorate the 9th-century Muslim saint Imam Mousa al-Kadhim. Here is the Al-Jazeera report.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 7:50 AM on August 31, 2005

This guy hails from a "small liberal-arts college in the Midwest." Sounds plenty obscure. I'm just glad I don't have to take this guy's classes. Sheez.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 10:44 AM on July 9, 2005

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posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 2:22 AM on July 2, 2005

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posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 3:01 AM on June 5, 2005

Can we have this now pees?
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 2:56 PM on May 9, 2005

It's being bankrolled by Philip Anschutz, the Christian billionaire. I'm afraid that if The Lion, The Witch, & the Wardrobe is a giant hit (which I'm certain it will be), and the rest of the 7-part series is just as lucrative, that by the time we get to, say, A Horse and His Boy, it will be a giant Christian vs. Muslim Narnian vs. Calormene hatefest.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 11:18 AM on May 8, 2005

I completely agree, koeselitz. I admire the theological sophistication Lewis did have, even as sections of A Horse and His Boy ring very racist in their occasional conflation of "swarthy" with "evil." I'll never forget being a little child, growing up in a Christian school, and finding out that the little Calormene boy got to go to heaven, too, even though he served Tash, because he was doing good. Which meant all my Muslim and Jewish and atheist friends... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 11:49 AM on May 8, 2005

melissa may for pope
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 5:58 PM on April 5, 2005

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posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 12:08 PM on April 2, 2005

Wow. This was the most pointless discussion ever. I can't believe I'm commenting in it.

For the record, I hate the "MSM."

For the record, I work for the "MSM."

This thread was a sobering and disheartening reminder that as pigheaded and shortsighted newspaper editors can be -- fearing so much for their stupid agate type they can't recognize the tremendous possibilities pointed to by things like citizen... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 7:47 PM on March 30, 2005

I really can't believe y'all have got me defending newspapers.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 7:49 PM on March 30, 2005

Sad. I love Matt Taibbi. And yet, the offending article sucks. But his rebuttal is, indeed, quality.
posted to MetaFilter by grrarrgh00 at 2:23 PM on March 16, 2005