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from
mefi
The Mohair Council of America
wins the prize for our country's most unique lobbying group. (I mean, really - it's mohair!) The MCA exists largely to protect the
mohair subsidies, which are leftover from a time when the military used the material for uniforms. The subsidies were phased out in the mid 90s, but the MCA lobbied hard enough to bring them back in 1999. It just goes to show that with a well-placed lobbying arm, even the most useless, obscure interest group can get a piece of the government pie.
(Runner up:
The Flexible Packaging Association)
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 5:31 PM on January 6, 2003
(6 comments)
And this just in, from Germany ...
This story is all the rage over there. It's a little too sick to describe, so I'll let you do the reading. What I find odd is that this article (from the English version of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) says he might have been "inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer," and the article in the NYTimes quotes a German saying he would expect this sort of thing in America, but not in his own country.
So I ask you: When did America become the home of ritualistic cannibals?
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 9:43 AM on December 18, 2002
(33 comments)
Enter ... the Rawhide Kid!
Marvel is about to unveil the first openly gay gunslinger. Name's the Rawhide Kid. Its creators say it will likely be campy. With a name like that, how could it be anything but?
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 3:23 PM on December 9, 2002
(22 comments)
Salon Opens up Premium ...
sort of. Salon will now let you read premium content in exchange for viewing an ad. Is this a signal that paid content isn't working for them, a groundbreaking way to bring in ad revenue (as they claim), both, or neither?
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 7:55 AM on November 20, 2002
(35 comments)
And the Winner Is ...
Tomorrow the Nobel Foundation will announce its 2002 award for literature. Anyone have a particular author they'd like to see get the gold?
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 1:09 PM on October 9, 2002
(91 comments)
Bob Greene Quits after Affair with Teen Revealed
No big deal in the broad scheme of things, perhaps, but for those who know of/have read Greene, this story is an extra-large helping of irony - basically, one of the high priests of wholesome, 50s-era Americana taken down by a sex scandal. On the other hand, it's not clear that he did anything legally wrong; nevertheless, the paper gave him the quick boot. We expect high ethical standards in politicians' personal lives, but is it fair to expect the same thing of journalists?
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 9:17 PM on September 15, 2002
(29 comments)
U.S. Stops Iraq-Al Qaeda Talk
From the Washington Post. Beyond the superficial significance of administration back-tracking, in regards to intelligence there seems to be two key aspects to this story: 1) The article talks about how the CIA was unable to "validate two prominent allegations made by high-ranking administration officials," implying that Bush/Cheney/etc. have been making baseless assumptions about Iraq in their pro-war arguments, and 2) it brings into question whether we know anything at all about Iraq, anyway. What if the same can be said of Hussein's nuclear plans?
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 7:09 AM on September 10, 2002
(27 comments)
Kill Willy?
The headline of this CNN story is a bit of hyperbole, since it's just one guy advocating euthenasia. But it's depressing enough that Keiko, the orca from the "Free Willy" films who was later released into the wild, has recently appeared on the Norwegian coast, apparently looking for human contact after getting dissed by his killer-whale brethren. God ...
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 10:30 AM on September 3, 2002
(13 comments)
Administration Says It Can Attack Iraq without Congressional Approval
Not a new story, per se, but this Post article lays out pretty well the arguments behind the administration's case, one being simply Bush's role as commander-in-chief. It's strange how closely this issue reflects earlier attempts by the administration to avoid Congressional and/or public scrutiny (Cheney's Enron meetings, for example). Why this aversion, and why fight so hard? And I have a sneaking fear that Bush will seek Congressional approval only after invading, and he will bully votes by claiming that reps have a patriotic duty to support a president in a time of war.
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 7:16 AM on August 26, 2002
(65 comments)
"Substantial Doubt" over Salon's Survival (NYT Reg. Req'd)
And this from its auditors. Hey, these days, if even your auditors can't cover over your poor financial situation, you know you're screwed. Seriously, though, this and a number of other articles point to the end of the Web's erstwhile leading "independent" publication, still ticking but on the decline for the past year. It should be gone by summer's end, they say. Via
The Morning News.
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 9:38 AM on June 28, 2002
(14 comments)
Envy of the Literary World, or another Trust-Fund Novelist?
Following up on the discussion of J.T. LeRoy a few weeks ago, here's a story from the Observer about Nick McDonell, who's 18, just out of high school and about to publish a major novel (you may have read about him in the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section). The catch is, his dad edits SI, his publisher is his godfather, and Hunter S. Thompson, who plugs the book, is a family friend. The book's not out yet, so the quality question is moot at this point. But still ... what gives with all this ridiculously young writers these days?
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 10:36 AM on June 19, 2002
(50 comments)
Starbuckling
A writer from the NY Post calls Starbucks HQ and says a reader told them that the company's "collapse into cool" ad campaign was too close a reference to Sept. 11 (the campaign posters featured a dragonfly; perhaps the reader misconstrued it as an airplane). As a result, Starbucks pulls the ad, and just to cover its ass said it "had intended no link between the image of the beverages and the terror attacks." Is the company just making a cautious PR move, or is this going too far?
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 12:26 PM on June 17, 2002
(27 comments)
Something about Shooting Stanley Fish in a Barrel
Once, when asked by a student how he can get away with his famously unsourced assertions and oddly malicious personal attacks, Stanley Fish replied, "Because I'm Stanley Fish, and you're not." Which he defends by claiming that his actions derive from his theoretical work, mostly on the subjective nature of authority (albeit in a literary sense, but then who's to argue).
So it's a little odd that in this article he attacks journalists - whom, other than a few anonymous beat reporters and David Brooks (who is a columnist and commentator, but hardly an objectivity-seeking reporter), he groups as "they" - for being less than fair to academics. Don't get too riled up, though; this is likely just Fish's latest attempt to bait a controversy and stick his name at the top.
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 7:36 AM on May 29, 2002
(7 comments)
Introducing ... Ratbot!
Leave it to the good folks at SUNY to come up with a remote-controlled rat. Best of all: "If the rat correctly followed the cue and turned left, its reward-centre was stimulated, filling the rat with a feeling of well-being."
posted to MetaFilter by risenc
at 2:16 PM on May 1, 2002
(8 comments)
