November 2001 Archives

Was it really something she said about Judge Sirica? Or was it just that Renata Adler managed to piss everyone at the Times and The New Yorker completely? Nothing like a Gotham cat fight that gets old Watergate types involved. Well, at least this is Adler's side of the story.
posted by MAYORBOB at 10:10 PM PST - 5 comments

Richmond, VA dropping the ball... Richmond, VA dropping the ball...Bball game b/w UVA & Mich. State cancelled last night due to slippery circumstances.
posted by Miyagi at 9:27 PM PST - 2 comments

At Yale, A Theft Of Historic Proportions "A college student is accused of abusing his position at Yale University's rare books library to steal more than $1.5 million in one-of-a-kind historic signatures and other items — then selling them on the Internet."
posted by dayvin at 8:32 PM PST - 8 comments

Copy-Protected CDs: The List! Buying CDs as gifts this holiday season? If the people on your gift-giving list have MP3 players or listen to their CDs on their computers, you'll want to have this list handy, as these CDs have intentional "copy-protection" defects that may render them unplayable on computers, certain car stereos, and some other high-end audio equipment.
posted by tpoh.org at 8:08 PM PST - 14 comments

Excite Internet service given go-ahead to unplug A federal judge ruled on Friday that bankrupt ExciteAtHome Corp. may unplug its high-speed Internet service, a move which threatens to strand some 4.1 million Internet customers around the country.
posted by stazen at 7:55 PM PST - 15 comments

Prostitution has also been hurt by the September 11th attacks. Does that mean we're supposed to go to prostitutes to help the economy?
posted by kingmissile at 5:20 PM PST - 15 comments

BREAKING NEWS: Police Make Arrest In Green River Murder Case The biggest unsolved serial killing spree in the NW now has a suspect in custody.
posted by crankydoodle at 4:46 PM PST - 14 comments

Want free admission to a baseball game? Get a tattoo. The Daytona Cubs, a minor league affiliate (high A-ball) of the Chicago Cubs, are running a promotion where "Any fan 18 or older who gets a Daytona Cubs tattoo from Willie's Tropical Tattoo in Ormond Beach, Fla., will receive a lifetime general admission ticket." "I'm not squeamish about where someone wants to put it," said Charlie Subock of Tropical Tattoo. "It might be disrespectful to get it on your butt. But if you didn't like the Cubs, that may be the place to put it."
posted by moz at 3:10 PM PST - 9 comments

At Northwestern University, psychologists are paying women to be aroused by porn. It's more fun than looking at ink blots. "Last spring, [the two scientists] were involved in a similar study that tested Chicago-area men for their reaction to straight and gay porn. The results were fairly definitive — straight men [were aroused by] watching a man and a woman have sex; gay men [were aroused by] watching two men have sex. Neither had much crossover. But when Chicago-area women [were exposed to] both stimuli...? 'It appears that women, regardless of sexual orientation, respond to everything.' This is science at its steamiest." (from Jim Romenesko's Obscure Store)
posted by verdezza at 2:20 PM PST - 22 comments

I can't get past 23 on this damn Flash game. All you have to do is click on a ball to keep it in the air, but it's tough.

(Old link, but I don't see it in the archives)
posted by jragon at 2:01 PM PST - 26 comments

I went out and bought this ...and now on Tuesday they're releasing this! Don't get me wrong, I'm just as excited as the next guy (like Harry Knowles, for example)...I just hate wasting my money.
posted by adrober at 1:57 PM PST - 12 comments

The Pre-Launch Site of WilliamShatner.com. Can't ... think.... Too ... many ... jokes....
posted by fraying at 1:47 PM PST - 24 comments

Where does your money go? Keep tabs on your tenners, in a community sort of way.
posted by stuporJIX at 1:45 PM PST - 5 comments

I realized all this when I worked in a bookstore for a year, but it still makes me sad. Who do you think is writing the classics of tomorrow today?
posted by hellinskira at 1:23 PM PST - 65 comments

If you're selling your multi-million dollar cable network be sure to heed Ted Turner: "My advice to younger people in the room is be real careful who you sell your company to." With regards to being fired by Gerald Levin: "Turner recalled that Levin said 'Ted, you’re my best friend. I said, ‘I’m your best friend? Jerry, I’ve never been in your home. If I’m your best friend, who’s your second best friend?’ "
posted by CosmicSlop at 11:40 AM PST - 9 comments

State sells birth data to Web site, raising ID theft fears. I'm glad I wasn't born in California.
posted by donkeyschlong at 11:23 AM PST - 6 comments

Name Distributions in the Social Security Area doesn't sound like hours of fun, but it's wasted a lot of my time today. After visiting a list of the top 100 names for births in 2001 you can check out similar lists going back to 1880.
posted by fnirt at 11:00 AM PST - 46 comments

Holiday season comes to all, including those without an Amazon wishlist. New York Cares has a Secret Santa program where volunteers pick up letter(s) from [a] child(ren) from homeless shelter(s) and buys them gifts requested in the letter(s). There is a similar program in Charlotte, N.C. The Chicago Bar Association co-ordinates one such program in Chicago with the USPS. Salvation Army runs the effort in Annapolis. While not quite giving toys, Canada Post organizes a letter from Santa program. I am sure there is something similar near where you live.

[As G-d/Allah would have it, this year both the eighth night of Chanukah and Eid-ul-Fitr, the feast celebrating the end of fasting during the month of Ramadan, will fall on December 16^th. An $18.00 gift can feed "a month's worth of nutritious lunches for an Ethiopian child in Israel." There are also other Israeli/Jewish charities. There are various Muslim charities and organizations that help the poor and war-torn Muslim women, children and orphans around the world.]
posted by tamim at 9:29 AM PST - 17 comments

This is a must read for anyone that is in a band or that has friends in a band.
A lot of people will already know about these practices, I'm posting this for those that don't.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 8:56 AM PST - 24 comments

What's inside? Surely this is a man thing. We get something with screws in it and have to take it to pieces. this man bought a gamecube. He says that it still works. There are a few pages of pictures here so be warned.. I thank you.
posted by Spoon at 8:30 AM PST - 13 comments

Univ. of Georgia applicants evaluated on the basis of academics only. Without regard to race, gender or country of origin. On the other hand, we have the UC system undertaking a more "comprehensive" system. Predicition: If this continues for 20 years, there will be a huge shift in the academic centers. The UC system will be regarded as a diploma mill, while schools like UGA, which implement tough, academic-based admission policies will be the leading schools of the country.
posted by prodigal at 8:23 AM PST - 31 comments

When in Vermont, don't photograph a nuclear plant. Or a bridge, road, telephone pole, or railroad. It could get you 10 years in the clapper.
posted by beagle at 8:05 AM PST - 20 comments

Is Paul "Freck" Morgan getting (cough-cough) cold feet? First this "August winner" of the coveted Dork of the Day award claimed he'd cut off his feet with a homemade guillotine during a live webcast on Halloween, then he rescheduled it for today (November 30th), now he's moved it back to January 5th of next year. (And I already took a day off of work and ordered the pizza. Damn!)
posted by RavinDave at 7:49 AM PST - 6 comments

The Vatican incensed at distribution of the morning after pill and sex manuals in Afghan refugee camps. "They will introduce young men and women to an individualistic and irresponsible use of sexual pleasure". In a refugee camp? Hello?
posted by magullo at 6:23 AM PST - 30 comments

Athena Parthenos, the cult statue made by Phidias, once in the Parthenon: here rendered by the Franch Beaux Arts architect Benoit Loviot. Slow but worth the wait, with more inside.
posted by y2karl at 5:56 AM PST - 12 comments

World Views. This Saturday at the New Museum is an opening reception for the artists who had studio space in the World Trade Center on September 11th. If you are in New York this weekend and are looking for something to do, your presence would be greatly appreciated.
posted by darkpony at 3:21 AM PST - 2 comments

The cheesiest element of the Christmas season has returned, and now AOL/Time Warner gets into the Ch-ch-ch-chia! act
posted by owillis at 12:32 AM PST - 18 comments

George Harrison is gone. It's not totally unforseen, but is still a little sad. Here comes the sun has always been one of my favorites. It has a gentle way of making me smile. That's a nice legacy to leave people .
posted by dness2 at 12:30 AM PST - 88 comments

IBM gets the bill for less-than-standard advertising methods supporting Linux. The city of San Francisco yesterday quashed some of the warm, fuzzy feelings associated with the Linux operating system when it reached a settlement with IBM that calls for the vendor to pay $120,000 to compensate the city for damages caused by a "guerrilla" marketing campaign centered on Linux.
posted by trioperative at 11:48 PM PST - 15 comments

Just when you thought things couldn't get any more unsettling, some of America's biggest radical racists glorify Al Qaeda's grit. "I wish our members had half as much testicular fortitude," says Billy Roper, a National Alliance official. White supremacists and Islamicists like Osama bin Laden just plain agree on a lot of things--in particular, that globalism and multiculturalism are the uber-enemies, and that separatism and cultural purity are the answer.
posted by semmi at 10:05 PM PST - 15 comments

Ashcroft's Visa Carrot Trick Ok, considering the PATRIOT Act -empowered changes in our government's pursuit of terrorists, and the DOJ's current "throw every non-American you can find behind bars indefinitely and secretly" anti-freedom spree -- then are there any non-U.S. citizens out there dumb [or desparate] enough to fall for John Ashcroft's visa-carrot-for-terror-info trick?
posted by blackholebrain at 9:36 PM PST - 21 comments

Will members of the religious right pass on smallpox vaccines in the event of an attack? Apparently many of the smallpox vaccines now in use come from work done in 1966 on aborted fetuses – which presents a small dilemma for some anti-abortion conservatives.

"I think this scenario puts pro-lifers in a tough spot, and I'm not sure we need to accept this as the only alternative," Earll said. "We need to call on the government to put more research effort into this before we invest our tax dollars into a vaccine that comes from a tainted source."

Of course these are the same people who oppose potentially life saving research on stem cells and cloning. Some think that eventually the religious right will have to make some hard choices about their stance on fetus research. As scientific research marches on, will potential medical pay offs out weigh moral opposition in the future?
posted by wfrgms at 8:27 PM PST - 14 comments

It's His Fan Club I Can't Stand. Mayor of Florida town issues official proclamation...um...banning Satan. "Be it known from this day forward that Satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of Inglis. Satan is hereby declared powerless, no longer ruling over, nor influencing, our citizens."
posted by tpoh.org at 7:50 PM PST - 56 comments

Finding What You Are Looking For in a Music/Video Store
Sing to us if you want, but know that this method has a less than 50% success rate. Typically, we stand there and go, "Uhh... I dunno." And from my past experience, the people that work in music stores do not generally enjoy the majority of mainstream crap music.
posted by riley370 at 6:57 PM PST - 74 comments

You too can piss off Jerry Falwell. It seems Bev of FunnyTheWorld had an idea: "...when Christmas comes around this year and all those [Salvation Army bell-ringing] Santas take to the streets, I will have a card ready to slip into the pot. The card will let them know that I really wanted to contribute money for them to help the needy at Christmas time, but because of their homophobic philosophy, I have taken the money I would have donated and have given it, instead, to a local AIDS organization." Well, Saundra of HeadSpace liked the idea too and shared it with gay-rights organizations. Now Jerry Falwell is pissed off.
posted by fleener at 6:49 PM PST - 28 comments

If you miss Weblogs.Com's capability to keep a list of your favourite weblogs, you might want to try Yaysoft Weblog Directory (YayDir). It allows you to create weblog reading and favourite lists and keep track of their updates. The directory is searchable, which makes setting up reading and favourite lists a breeze. It currently tracks only weblogs that ping Weblogs.Com but I read here that they're going to have their own crawler soon. Neato!
posted by Firda at 6:41 PM PST - 2 comments

Creem Magazine is back. After an 8-year hiatus, the classic rock rag that launched the career of editor/author/Springsteen-worshipper Dave Marsh, elevated Lester Bangs to rockcrit boddhisatva status, and introduced me to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges is online and ready to roll the presses once more. Will they give a much-needed kick in the ass to a moribund field of journalism, or are they a bunch of old hippies cynically cashing in on Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous vibe? Don't forget to dig the scanned covers. Boy Howdy!
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:38 PM PST - 10 comments

"It's not propaganda, it's the truth" Rumsfeld declared. OK, but leaflets with radio broadcasts, and Information Programs, is this the best we can do? How about some Daffy Goes to War, even some inspirational Soviet and Cuban communist posters, as we do battle on the psyops war front?
posted by Voyageman at 3:40 PM PST - 5 comments

Hackers: a report on the Internet's vulnerabilities Anyone see the original broadcast of this PBS "Front Line" special? Any good? It airs again Nov. 29, 2001.
posted by fleener at 1:58 PM PST - 11 comments

Ancient Werewolves - 'These composite beings ... are a common theme from the beginning of painting.' (link via Weblogging Considered Harmful)
posted by Irontom at 12:56 PM PST - 8 comments

Fighting Words on White Rap: but not what you'd expect, especially from the Village Voice:

Our children—are in crisis, trapped in the grip of a culture that glorifies drug use and debauchery, slovenly dress, and lack of respect for authority. A culture whose worship of antisocial behavior and debasement is rivaled only by its amoral concessions to the dictates of mammon.

This can largely be attributed to the unfortunate dominance of black popular culture, and—more specifically—hip-hop. In the past, mainstream culture refined raw black cultural materials, resulting in musical zeniths such as the recent neo-swing movement, which briefly presented a viable outlet for young dancers unwilling to subject themselves to the degrading influence of rap and rave music. This has got to be a put-on . . .
posted by ryanshepard at 12:32 PM PST - 87 comments

Anime from a religious perspective This could never get tiresome - Jack Chick and others may think they have cornered the market in (unintentionally) hilarious Christian interpretations of popular culture, but this excoriation of Anime by (I suspect) a Baptist and definitely a fundamentalist is wonderful reading, and provides some competition. Quite apart from the fire and brimstone article itself, the pictures are a good laugh too.
posted by tiny pea at 12:20 PM PST - 14 comments

Although there is no mention on Good Mornins America's website, according to this Wired.com article, Diane Sawyer announced that they would reveal Dean Kamen's intensely hyped invention on Monday, December 3rd. Perhaps it will actually deserve to have been listed as one of the best inventions of 2001 by Time Magazine.
posted by UrbanFigaro at 12:12 PM PST - 22 comments

For the last year or so, I've been messing around with a little app called Blender. Blender is a piece of 3d rendering and animation software that does quite a bit of what high priced renderers like 3D Studio Max and Ray Dream do [samples]. The difference is that Blender is free.[more...]
posted by eyeballkid at 11:57 AM PST - 15 comments

Did anyone actually make Turducken last week? I figure since you have to de-bone everything, if I start now I might be ready by Christmas. But will it be worth it?
posted by tsarfan at 11:55 AM PST - 21 comments

Excite turns out the lights. For the last four years Excite's portal page has been my daily stop for news, stocks, showtimes, weather, etc. But they've been turning off services for weeks, and now the whole portal seems to be dead. Are free news portals soon to be quaint memory? [more inside]
posted by y6y6y6 at 11:28 AM PST - 35 comments

Movie Studios Win DeCSS Case.
posted by solistrato at 11:18 AM PST - 7 comments

Tune In To The Fine Art Search Machine: Artcyclopedia continues to be too good to be true. It's updated regularly and all you have to do is follow your favourite artists around the many participating museums, going "Aaah..." at every click. My particular obsession is Milton Avery. I first saw a painting of his at the old Tate Museum in London, when I was about 12, and have been intrigued by him ever since. Is he an American Matisse or just a less obviously picture-postcardish Raoul Dufy? To cut to the chase: what painter keeps you unable to make your mind up about him or her?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:17 AM PST - 15 comments

Jerry Falwell being defended by ACLU.(via FARK) Now I've heard everything. Now, I like Falwell about as much as the rest of you, but he may have a case. To give the ACLU their due, they always stand by their principles regardless of whose rights are being violated and whose political sensibilitie it might offend. I hope however, this will keep ol' Jerry from villifying the group in his sermons from here on out.
posted by jonmc at 10:43 AM PST - 9 comments

Adios Ayer by Jose Padilla (Track 13 of Cafe Del Mar Vol. 6) is one of the most emotionally touching songs I've heard. What songs have touched you on a deeply emotional level?
posted by physics at 10:13 AM PST - 37 comments

Dave the Dwarf is an American. Although small in statue, he's taking on the entire state of Florida that denies him the right to do one thing: "[He] wants to wear a harness with handles so patrons at bars can pay to pick him up and toss him onto an air mattress or a padded area, his lawsuit said. The lawsuit, which does not seek damages, contends the ban is unconstitutional." Keep fighting the good fight, fellow patriot.
posted by mathowie at 9:49 AM PST - 22 comments

Osama Time's Person of the Year? He's on the short list, apparently. "It would hurt the reputation of Time magazine in the eyes of subscribers if they started making cowardly decisions. And I don't think that they will." Besides, it's not the first time they've made a choice that'd be unpopular with readers. (via medianews)
posted by ice_cream_motor at 9:47 AM PST - 34 comments

AirSnort. The dangerous app with the unlikely name allows users to snatch data being passed over wireless networks, eventually capturing passwords to the network.
posted by o2b at 9:27 AM PST - 7 comments

Moodstats the latest offering by the mighty K10K is finally available. The program is a shareware, a serial costs $15, but does it also cost K10K their anti-commercial attitude?
posted by riffola at 9:10 AM PST - 21 comments

The CEO of Canada's largest book retailer will be pulling Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf from store shelves and the Chapters/Indigo online store, saying "We consider it hate literature... With freedom of expression, the line is drawn on hate literature." Perhaps MeFites can help her out by compiling a list of other books to remove. Can we get rid of The Anarchist's Cookbook, The Protocols of Zion, and Turner Diaries?
posted by tranquileye at 8:44 AM PST - 30 comments

Angry Russian man slags off our great country.
Let's have him shot.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 8:41 AM PST - 15 comments

I've been accused in the past of only posting fun and games type links - so just to prove that i'm no fly-by-night-non-serious-funster here is a news link. It requires no flash plugins of any sort..... ladies and gentlemen i give you.... Fisherman playing game electrocuted. i thank you.
posted by Spoon at 8:23 AM PST - 8 comments

The Nickname Generator says my nickname should be "bitch." How about you?
posted by tatochip at 7:49 AM PST - 28 comments

Conspiracy buffs - don't miss this! The latest Make Them Accountable report pulls together over 250 links around the question "What did they know (about 9/11), and when did they know it?" An amazing compendium. I don't see how ALL THIS could be crackpot ravings.
posted by ferris at 7:10 AM PST - 20 comments

Deconstructing Deconstructionism: "It is based on the proposition that the apparently real world is in fact a vast social construct and that the way to knowledge lies in taking apart in one’s mind this thing society has built." (via Reductio ad Absurdum)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 6:22 AM PST - 46 comments

Congress is legislating free speech on the internet again. Passed shortly after the Communications Decency Act was thrown out by the Supreme Court, the Child Online Protection Act isn't as broad as the CDA but does it still go too far in an effort to protect children? Shouldn't parents be responsible for their own children?
posted by pooldemon at 6:21 AM PST - 5 comments

Walk for Capitalism is scheduled for this weekend (Sunday, December 2nd) in over 100 cities around the world. One of the few rallies actually for something, and certainly first global campaign for capitalism in history. Will you stand up for the principles set forth in their position statement?
posted by dagny at 5:05 AM PST - 34 comments

Mexican government going to take care of unfinished business. President Fox made this a major campaign promise and it looks like it's going to be one he's going to keep. Sounds like shades of Argentina and Chile. The only difference between Mexico and those places is that the head hombre in Mexico doesn't feel he owes the ones who were in power back when the murders took place anything. Interesting to see how this develops.
posted by MAYORBOB at 4:23 AM PST - 1 comments

RallyTrophy is a great slot-car game. Build your own track race the little car around the track. Amusing... classic toy... I want one for christmas :)
posted by dancu at 3:02 AM PST - 13 comments

Court of Appeals upholds ban against DeCSS. More significant than the banning of DVD cracking is the edict directed towards 2600, which has been forbidden to post any links related to DeCSS. My concern with this decision is whether the current decision may be interpreted in a broader context, preventing others from linking to sites that aren't as sexy as Mom and Apple Pie to the powers that be. Maybe I'm overreacting. But could we see bloggers forced to remove certain links and led to the Tombs if they refuse? Discuss.
posted by ed at 11:20 PM PST - 15 comments

We can all breathe a little easier now, but it comes at a hefty price - $428 million. That's a boatload of money for a security blanket we may not even need. It's times like this, though, that make me happy (not necessarily proud) to be an American. What do you think?
posted by catatonic at 10:58 PM PST - 11 comments

What goes up, must come down. After it's meteoric rise in the ratings, WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE's future is looking bleak. This comes after news that a British Millionaire contestant accused of cheating. <coff, coff!> Do you think maybe it was just all too crass in the post 9/11 world?
posted by crunchland at 10:36 PM PST - 10 comments

PrintCafe sues idiot. Literally. They are suing several individuals who posted anonymous comments on F---edCompany's message boards. So far, all they have are the aliases the comments were posted under, namely "Ex-DLJ", "sucky-me", and "idiot!". Apparently that's all they're going to get, since Pud says here, "FC servers contain no logs ". Also of note is item number 4 on this page of the letter Pud received.
posted by Potsy at 10:29 PM PST - 8 comments

There are some new cops out on the street. Yes. Its Eric Stoltz starring in "Jesus & Hutch". Just in time for Christmas. *Warning* This is a movie so if you are on a dialup like I am, sorry.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:45 PM PST - 8 comments

Culture clash. A pilot's investigation of the crash of EgyptAir 990, and the cultural reverberations of a seemingly straightforward airplane crash. Truth as political expediency.
posted by semmi at 9:33 PM PST - 3 comments

Conflict Resolution In The Middle East? Johann Galtung, professor of peace studies and conflict resolution at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, from a taped lecture re-broadcast recently on Democracy Now! In Exile. [RealAudio, courtesy of WFMU Archives]
posted by tpoh.org at 7:26 PM PST - 2 comments

In lieu of the Magic Lantern thread, Symantec will be ignoring the FBI trojan. [taken from ./]
posted by hobbes at 6:35 PM PST - 22 comments

According to this editorial, the Russians have outmaneuvered the US oil interests by encouraging the Northern Alliance to take Kabul. "The alliance is now Afghanistan's dominant force and, heedless of multi-party political talks in Germany going on this week, styles itself as the new "lawful" government, a claim fully backed by Moscow."
posted by electro at 6:22 PM PST - 14 comments

Richard & Judy's new show on Channel 4 has begun. Three episodes in and Judy still looks nervous and Richard's marbles have still escaped him. But they've also taken a turn in 'National Enquirer' territory, featuring an item about non-movement excersise programmes and a video about a man who could change shape. As 'Off The Telly' reports: "This pandered to Richard and Judy’s well-worn obsession with anything of a freakish nature. The footage showed an ordinary person - or “Spookman” as Richard instantly dubbed him - whose face ostensibly changed into others as you studied it. The studio crew were convinced, gasping on cue, and Richard was rapt: “Oh man, I could watch this all night”
posted by feelinglistless at 4:39 PM PST - 15 comments

Sports & Leisure Wash® Ever get that not-so-fresh feeling after a big game? Are you interested in "a thorough bath in just 10 minutes with NO shower or tub, NO water, NO soap, NO towels, and NO laundry"? Sorry ... I just can't see how you can possibly get a thorough bath without water ... ewww ...
posted by GatorDavid at 4:17 PM PST - 2 comments

The Martians are coming! ... and I feel fine!
posted by geronimo_rex at 3:52 PM PST - 7 comments

@Home pulling a Northpoint? Looks like excite@home might go dark on friday. I've gotten three emails from AT&T on this and this week looks like it might be it. I feet a great disturbance in the net, Like millions of voices cried out in terror, then were silenced."
posted by skallas at 3:16 PM PST - 39 comments

Looking for that perfect family getaway? Norway has a killer vacation package for the discriminating tourist that helps correct an "imbalance in the ecological system." Ice pick sold separately.
posted by gazingus at 2:47 PM PST - 13 comments

In praise of bad habits. Interesting lecture that postulates our bad habits make us human, and help fulfill an evolutionary need for risk. The lecturer also poses some interesting moral questions about the "health police": "Engaging in risk - smoking, drinking, creating the possibility of sexually transmitted diseases, eating fat, sugar, salt and avoiding too much exercise - is characteristic of a different strata of society - the poor and marginalised, the working classes, ethnic minorities and 'deviant' groups. When the proponents of healthism are urging changes in lifestyle in order to achieve, in their terms, 'well-being', they are advocating changes for others much more often than they are for themselves. In this sense they are essentially moralists seeking to stigmatise specific members of society."
posted by kittyloop at 2:38 PM PST - 15 comments

Just think, it's normally worth a red card. (from espn) MADRID -- Sevilla's Francisco Gallardo is totally surprised that the Spanish Football Federation has opened an investigation into his bizarre goal celebration during his team's 4-0 victory over Valladolid last weekend. Gallardo was caught on camera bending down and biting teammate Jose Antonio Reyes' genitals in celebration of the striker's goal early in the second half of the match. "I don't think what I did was very noteworthy," Gallardo was quoted as saying by Spanish media Wednesday. "I just felt a slight pinch. I didn't realize what had really happened until I saw the footage on television," Reyes was quoted as saying by the French Press Agency. "Gallardo hasn't heard the end of this. The worst thing now is the stick I'm getting from the other players," he added.
posted by crabwalk at 2:36 PM PST - 26 comments

The World Cup draw is Saturday, though I am a bit confused about the process. Why on earth is England ranked behind Germany?
posted by tranquileye at 1:40 PM PST - 19 comments

Looking the World in the Eye Huntington, a Harvard prof., lays out his vision for the future of the clash of civilizations in an article in The Atlantic Monthly. The main points are- • The fact that the world is modernizing does not mean that it is Westernizing. The impact of urbanization and mass communications, coupled with poverty and ethnic divisions, will not lead to peoples' everywhere thinking as we do. • Asia, despite its ups and downs, is expanding militarily and economically. Islam is exploding demographically. The West may be declining in relative influence. • Culture-consciousness is getting stronger, not weaker, and states or peoples may band together because of cul tural similarities rather than because of ideological ones, as in the past. • The Western belief that parliamentary democracy and free markets are suitable for everyone will bring the West into conflict with civilizations—notably, Islam and the Chinese— that think differently. • In a multi-polar world based loosely on civilizations rather than on ideologies, Americans must reaffirm their Western identity.
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 1:27 PM PST - 8 comments

The US Bobsled Team has a very good chance to win an Olympic medal in 2002 for the first time since 1956, thanks to a strong group of people, and a bobsled designed by an unlikely person: NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine. Yeehawwww!!! (quicktime)
posted by machaus at 1:16 PM PST - 10 comments

White House predicts budget deficits until 2005. Uh... cause of the war, not monster tax cuts to businesses and billionaires... yeah, that's the ticket!
posted by mattpusateri at 1:08 PM PST - 19 comments

Boy Left At Bus Stop In Snow, Cold "Nicholas Degnan was left standing in snowy and cold weather about a quarter-mile from his house... Nicholas said that his legs were sore after the long walk in deep snow." Hard news, bland food. I love my state.
posted by mecawilson at 12:13 PM PST - 39 comments

Design Not Found is 37signals' latest work. They highlight the very best and worst of online contingency design, the design of pages presented to users when things go wrong. It's looking like it could quickly become a killer resource for users to report examples and web application designers to learn from those.
posted by mathowie at 11:48 AM PST - 19 comments

Merry Christmas. Maybe these families were traumatized by Santa at some point.
posted by Modem Ovary at 11:25 AM PST - 31 comments

Dead Men Walking Thomas Lipscome urges us to think about 4th generation warfare, the nature of the battle, and the potential dangers well beyond the idea of nations such as Afghanistan and Iraq. From the article: "Terrorists become extraordinarily resourceful playing weak hands against the strong and rich. So do revolutionaries. And it is time to realize bin Laden is both" This article is short yet wide-ranging, neatly bringing together the Balkans, Clinton, the Media, and 4G warfare.
via follow me here
posted by cell divide at 10:49 AM PST - 3 comments

The most spectacular corporate imposion in decades. Without 9/11, the biggest news story in the past few weeks would have been the cataclysmic end of one of the 90's hottest companies, headed by one of the President's closest supporters, because of fraudulent accounting practices.
posted by Mid at 10:28 AM PST - 18 comments

Whoops, turns out it wasn't Bin Laden who planned 9/11 after all; it was KOLVENBACH, THE BLACK POPE!!! Dispensational Fifth Monarchy Seventh-Day Baptist-Calvinist White American Freeman anti-Jesuit conspiracies, anyone?
posted by brownpau at 9:18 AM PST - 24 comments

Bombing the Taleban prisoners
"There are hundreds of bodies in there - bodies and bits of bodies, all over the place."

The crush of the Taleban prisoner revolt at the Qala-e-Jhangi fort has Amnesty International asking what happened there... I'd like to know, too. (More here and here and here.)
posted by blackholebrain at 8:55 AM PST - 69 comments

"The Web, left to its own devices, would be the exact opposite of that: It's like a giant city with no neighborhoods; it needs these kind of meta-filters, these second-level kind of things, whether it is Yahoo or Google or Slashdot, to rein in that chaos and turn it to something more organized." From the second page of an interview with the author of Emergence, Steven Johnson (also co-founder of Feed).
posted by adrianhon at 8:36 AM PST - 10 comments

I've been accused in the past of only posting serious news item type links - so just to prove that i'm no stick-in-the-mud here is a fun link. It requires shockwave plugins..... ladies and gentlemen i give you.... table tennis!! please enjoy this during work hours.
posted by Spoon at 7:44 AM PST - 31 comments

Routes of Least Surveillance
It's not the journey or the destination; it's the getting there unseen that counts. (if you hate Wired, don't click the link)
posted by Irontom at 7:31 AM PST - 24 comments

Beneath the Dome... and I mean London's Millennium Dome, still causing controversy nearly a year after it closed. Undercover reporters seem surprised to find there's nothing inside the big top since its contents were demolished. No problem to the Dome's detractors, though, or to the thousands of ravers heading for the Ministry of Sound New Year's Eve party at the Dome, complete with indoor and outdoor funfair! Any MeFiers going?
posted by skylar at 3:03 AM PST - 46 comments

The End of Gay Culture. In a nutshell, the author is saying that the next generation of homosexuals is discarding gay culture after being accepted into society for its financial clout. What do you think? Is this good, bad or way off base?
posted by Poagao at 1:06 AM PST - 24 comments

What's up with this Iraq stuff? No more formal way of putting it, sorry. Can anyone say what the hell is going on here, exactly, when bin Laden hasn't even be found and the Taliban is still putting up a fight? Is Bush, in saying Saddam will "find out" how the U.S. will respond to its refusal to allow inspections (again), just throwing a small bone to the hard right? Is the national press on too much of an adrenaline rush, or bored with Afganistan already? Or are the Dr. Strangelove wannabes talked about here really taking over?
posted by raysmj at 11:53 PM PST - 81 comments

Bin Laden Family Business Seeks to Improve Image Bin Laden Group, the business empire owned by relatives of the world's most wanted man, is seeking advice from British public relations firms on how to distance itself from the black sheep of the family. What advice would you give them?
posted by Rastafari at 11:50 PM PST - 19 comments

8 former FBI agents "have offered the first substantive critique of the Ashcroft program." A senior Justice Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that none of the changes ordered by Ashcroft would have enabled the FBI to interrupt the Sept. 11 attacks. After the rebuke mentioned previously here, perhaps the worm is turning?
posted by aflakete at 10:52 PM PST - 10 comments

"Movie Mask Player is software that gives you the choice to watch any movie at your comfort level. If you don't want to hear profanity, view graphic violence, or see nudity or sexual content in the movies you watch, then mask (remove) those scenes with Movie Mask. You are now in control over the movies you choose to watch." I can't wait to see what it does to the first 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan."
posted by KLAX at 7:00 PM PST - 33 comments

Judge tells Mickey D's to McForget about it. Chinese guy in England has audacity to name his restaurant McChina's Wok Out. Mickey D's says we own the rights to everything that begins with a Mc. Don't you just love a story where McDonalds is told to go Mcfuck themselves?
posted by MAYORBOB at 6:39 PM PST - 22 comments

.fr-08: .the .product (download) a 63.5 kb demo of what good data compression can do. [Requires Windows + DirectX 8, may not work with your graphics card.]
posted by riffola at 6:03 PM PST - 21 comments

coolest christmas songs i'm trying to put together a really great Christmas c.d. I have some Burl Ives, the Chipmonks, David Bowie with Bing Crosby. But I know I'm missing some great tunes. Do you know of anything cool?
posted by tsarfan at 3:53 PM PST - 123 comments

Antidote to Dot-Com Is Dot-Gone, and the Dream With It. The tourists' decampment for winter was quite a spectacle, but the locals dig in.
posted by mlinksva at 3:45 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Boustrophedon reader. Be the first in your IP block. Forget about text-reversing widgets.
You'll need to get your hands on a reversed font. I only know of one, Helvetica Flip. If anybody finds another, nicer one, please let me know. [Link via SweetCode]
posted by Su at 3:38 PM PST - 6 comments

Ouchyy... that's just asking for an accident! Is ice skating a safe sport? Who knew skating could be so dangerous?
posted by yevge at 2:51 PM PST - 17 comments

Montreal journalist taken hostage in Afghanistan - A day after the Taliban made threats about capturing foreign journalists, a Canadian freelancer (writing stories for The Montreal Mirror and The Straight Goods) has been taken hostage.
posted by sanitycheck at 2:43 PM PST - 5 comments

"I think it is going to bring a little piece of lower Manhattan . . . to marines who have never been here." A flag from Ground Zero is set to fly over the Marine bridgehead outside Kandahar, inscribed with the names of NYPD victims and those who died on the Cole, and messages from relatives and recovery workers. The symbolic value, of course, is massive, but the inscribed sentiment reflects something of the spectrum of American opinion: can "Be safe and do us proud" stand easily alongside "Unleash hell, boys"?
posted by holgate at 2:35 PM PST - 17 comments

Name that TV theme song! Found this little gem while I was googling for a theme song I needed for a school presentation. I'd imagine this would make for a pretty interesting drinking game.
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 2:20 PM PST - 6 comments

Cool high-school science experiment: Mapping The Homunculus. The 15 year old in me wonders why nipples and other naughty bits aren't mentioned, though. Bet they'd be really big!!!
posted by luser at 1:50 PM PST - 8 comments

Afterwards, it was still a city under siege, but I knew it would live. Music is life, after all ... what is life without music? Ed Vulliamy on the terrible siege of Leningrad and how Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony spurred the resistance to the Nazis.
posted by Grangousier at 1:18 PM PST - 2 comments

Watch all 6 New York Miracle Spots! I've been waiting for them to put these online for a long time. Which one's your favorite? (Mine's Woody Allen...how'd he learn to do that?!) Oh, and you need RealPlayer to view them.
posted by adrober at 12:43 PM PST - 13 comments

Come Mr. Taliban I've seen a few .swf based on this theme, but this one is fairly funny.
posted by mikojava at 12:23 PM PST - 9 comments

Take the 1980s Music Quiz (via Net Buzz). Guess the song and artist of each. Hint: No two songs are by the same artist, and all were produced between 1980-1989. 222 lines from 222 songs from 222 different artists. This is quality time-wasting.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 12:16 PM PST - 10 comments

Abortion Foe Admits to Sending Bogus Anthrax Letters. Dear Attorney General Ashcroft. Please detain this terrorist without legal representation, and then try and execute him immediately.
posted by crunchland at 12:02 PM PST - 15 comments

Native American hip-hop runs the gamut from the prolific pioneer and activist Litefoot to the thuggish Natay. Most of it's more about liberation than bling-bling, and although it doesn't get much mainstream media attention yet, there's lots of artist's sites and music online. Be sure to learn about the gangs and check out the gear, too.
posted by liam at 11:41 AM PST - 4 comments

A nice little cool-site compendium featured in this week's CA | Design Interact Insight series. It's described as an idea generator for new media designers, and it's got quite the collection... my favorite so far is German design firm Milla's site (Flash)
posted by silusGROK at 11:24 AM PST - 3 comments

Minneapolis declared a snow emergency this morning. That means parking will be banned on all parkways tomorrow. What's a parkway? The city has a simple answer.

So, the question is, how does your city torment you?
posted by mrbula at 9:39 AM PST - 62 comments

The United States - "Sexual Superpower" - according to a study done by condom maker SSL International, folks in the US are having more sex (an average of 124 times per year), with more partners (an average of 14.3 partners), and starting to have sex younger (average age of 16) than any country in the world.
posted by tpl1212 at 9:07 AM PST - 40 comments

"X-men: speed mutation" is a rich and fun analysis of issues of body, minority struggle, other-ness and the evolution of science fiction in the comic book and film idioms of the X-men. It may even argue that the X-men's overwhelming popularity is owed to something greater than stylized violence and skintight outfits: relevance as a cultural text.

"Immune systems are information systems. Biological space is pervaded and negotiated through exchanges of genetic data; biochemically, we are in a constant state of alienation from our "selves". ... The world of X-Men is inverted on its own processes and intertexts. Its gaze is focused on the technologies of the body and on the intersections between the body and the mind, the body and the self."
posted by scarabic at 8:55 AM PST - 1 comments

Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom Bush has said this in a recent speech. The Nightwatch Officer also says this to Zack in the Babylon 5 emp "Messages from Earth". Does B5 mirror our reality in a strange warped way? Can a shadow of President Clark be seen in President Bush? Is Ashcroft heading a real world Nightwatch? Where does the line blur between TV news and ISN?
posted by mfoight at 7:46 AM PST - 29 comments

Since the gift season is right around the corner, what are all the audiophiles looking for? Is it a minidisc? Or mp3? Or some kind of combination? Maybe something to integrate into your stereo system?

Which side of the tradeoff is worth it? Cheap capacity with real-time recording limitations or ease of use and multi-format support with high priced memory?
posted by rich at 7:14 AM PST - 37 comments

Mich. 'invites' men from Mideast to attacks probe questioning.
posted by tiaka at 7:07 AM PST - 6 comments

I know what I'm buying this year. Reverend Rose of the Grace Episcopal Church in Hartford, CT has released his annual Warped Toy List. "A variety of toy stores and discount chains are visited on a monthly basis by members of the Grace Church Warped Toy Committee, in order to track what sort of toys are being offered for children ... Only the very worst, most psychologically dangerous and most offensive toys are selected."
posted by MegoSteve at 6:36 AM PST - 37 comments

The most detailed account I've yet seen of the prison riot at Qali-i-Jhangi. Double-crossed by Mullah Faizal's skin-saving deal, the Taliban's foreign legion misread the good intentions of their captors, starting a riot in which mysterious CIA operatives Mike and Dave found themselves trapped. Massive airstrikes result in casualties on all sides, leaving small teams of special forces to mop up the remaining rioters. I'd be surprised if a book doesn't come out of this.
posted by dlewis at 4:22 AM PST - 3 comments

fantasy football - but with bands. Sign up and get a [virtual] massive 5 grand to buy shares in your favourite bands. Warning: The value of Steps can go up as well as down and your home may be at risk. user 80159!
posted by Spoon at 2:44 AM PST - 6 comments

Finally a reason to be proud you're a an atheist lefty. There perhaps, isn't a publication more vapid than Focus on the Family's hip christian, college age marketed offshoot "Boundless". In this treasure, the author trashes the intellectual individualism his conservative ideology doesn't afford him. Don't miss the wonderful blurb on the left sidebar which reads: ROTC recruiters never tire of citing the army's desperate need for the kinds of bright minds and "independent thinkers" needed in today's mobile, high-tech military; and yet many of the most promising candidates remain all but off limits to them. I'm glad I'm from another planet. Obviously.
posted by crasspastor at 10:35 PM PST - 79 comments

Little Marcy was one-half of a Christian ventriloquist's act, but I wouldn't be surprised if her creepy grin and high-pitched singing were responsible for frightening more kids into becoming atheists than converts.
posted by MrBaliHai at 8:25 PM PST - 8 comments

Giddyup Big Boy. Is this guy hot to trot or should he just be put out to pasture? Personally, I find HBO's Real Sex to be a real waste of time. That and the sight of this stud in his little leather gear is, well, it's just downright disturbing.
posted by MAYORBOB at 6:22 PM PST - 30 comments

"Do you want to know how to eliminate terrorism?" Hint: love is all you need.
posted by xowie at 4:18 PM PST - 20 comments

The day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year in America. False. This and many other popular xmas legends debunked at snopes (also notable: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer created by the Montgomery Ward store chain).
posted by mathowie at 4:16 PM PST - 11 comments

Snoop Dogg will save Cadillac Want proof: I don't care how much it costs, I don't know what it looks like, but I want one and I have begun saving up already for the Snoop Deville. Hopefully bulletproof windows and roach-clip are standard.
posted by tsarfan at 3:48 PM PST - 44 comments

Why Don't Prosecutors Want to Let Her Go? An interesting article from Texas Monthly about journalist Vanessa Leggett, currently clocking record-setting jail time for refusing to turn over names of her sources. The article speculates on the rationale for the prosecution's hard line. (via Romenesko)
posted by BT at 2:07 PM PST - 13 comments

Has anyone read "Swimming Across" by Andy Grove? It appears to be pretty far from the traditional "look-at-me, revel in my vision, I'm an uber-CEO," self-promotional book; he never even gets into his Intel career, apparently. Instead it's an account of Grove's childhood in Hitler and Stalin's Hungary and the story of how he came to America. The book has been getting great reviews, from people as diverse as Tom Brokaw, Elie Wiesel and Monica Seles. Still, the cynic in me says that no matter how dramatic the tale, when you're a Fotune 500 CEO, you always have other motives. Perhaps I'm just too cynical. So again, has anyone read it? What did you think?
posted by emptyage at 1:16 PM PST - 3 comments

Gay suicide rates exaggerated, study says. Cornell psychologist Ritch Savin-Williams says gay teens are only slightly more likely than straight teens to attempt suicide.
posted by adrober at 12:14 PM PST - 12 comments

The most eagerly awaited movie review of the year The ChildCare Action Project reviews Harry Potter.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 11:00 AM PST - 62 comments

"Hello, world!" in 114 programming languages. Whenever picking up a new language, it's customary to write a program that prints "Hello, world!" to see how one goes about writing anything in said language. Now you never need be curious about what language to write your custom-designed CMS in.
posted by moz at 10:48 AM PST - 19 comments

Narco corridos ("drug ballads") , the modern variant of the traditional Mexican corrido, are often likened to gangsta rap-- the songs tend to glorify drug traffickers, the most famous performers are mysteriously murdered, and Mexican radio stations have banned them entirely, hoping to curb drug-related violence. (And while I must sheepishly admit that I hadn't even heard of them until I heard this segment--an interview with Elijah Wald[RA link] on NPR last week, I'm now obsessed.)
posted by cowboy_sally at 10:24 AM PST - 9 comments

The Age: The perils and joys of fleadom
(where flea=independent businessperson).
"Sadly, Handy says, a world of fleas and small organisations has led to a more selfish society ... 'What we need particularly is somewhere for the unhappy fleas to belong to.'"
So, for all those people who will be unsuccessful in business, and join the have-nots instead of the haves... what could they possibly belong to that would make things allright?
posted by kv at 9:22 AM PST - 4 comments

Unknowingly sending all your personal finance information through the servers of a sleazy ad service: Priceless. Do you pay your AMEX bill online at americanexpress.com? If you do, you should know that you're being ported through the ad.doubleclick.net advertising service. Mouse over the links on the AMEX homepage and see. All your information travels through doubleclick's servers on its way to AMEX. Nice, huh?
posted by jpoulos at 8:49 AM PST - 13 comments

Did Google go too far when they added a new tool to their website, or are webmasters to blame for lax security?
posted by machaus at 7:51 AM PST - 21 comments

The Deconstruction of The World Trade Center An analysis of the Right versus the Left in ways that 911 and other events are interpreted and understood. Take your choice.
posted by Postroad at 7:36 AM PST - 14 comments

Recession? What recession? "An economic research group declared Monday that the United States has been in a recession since March of this year." It's official.
posted by shoepal at 7:08 AM PST - 7 comments

The next supposed Japanese video game craze is about spanking. The game is simple, you poke a fake derrier for points. Its stupid fun, yet everytime something odd becomes popular in Japan I have to hear two or three pundits explaining to me why its a social phenomenon and how clever the inscrutable designers are. I find it hard to believe that there isn't simply tasteless marketing, no-brainer toys, and bad ideas in Japan. It seems Wired, and others, can't get enough over-analysis.
posted by skallas at 6:37 AM PST - 18 comments

The National Weather Service's new wind-chill scale has ruffled some feathers. The new formula is slightly more complicated than the one we've been using since 1945. It's also different from the Real-Feel Temperature Index, the one proposed in 1999 by Accu-Weather, the World's Weather Authority[TM]. Accu-Weather is cranky: they say the new formula is confusing, that change is confusing, and that private businesses are better able to make these decisions.

Who takes it? Whose chill-factor formula reigns supreme?
posted by gleuschk at 6:25 AM PST - 30 comments

A classic economist would tell you MetaFilter ain’t worth the server it’s hosted on. He’d say it has negative worth, since maintenance probably costs more than the gains. In classic economic terms, then, MetaFilter is not worth having around and might as well be shut down. Readers might object to that — the benefits they recieve are both intangible (information) and immeasurable (community). “The information era, with its economy of multiplication, will have more experience with and give more attention to positive sum games — if you gain, I'll gain too through feedback loops.” Time to update the Dismal Science.
posted by raaka at 5:19 AM PST - 22 comments

BBC Panorama exposes far right group and hosts a detailed website, that gives chapter and verse. well, that the BNP are a bunch of nazi's is no real expose, but as someone who fought against these fools in the 70's and 80's, we need to remain vigilant
posted by quarsan at 4:40 AM PST - 4 comments

Naughty Children to Be Registered as Potential Criminals in the UK UK police are to set up a secret database of children as young as three who they fear might grow up to become criminals. What next, DNA testing on embryos to find out if they have a genetic leaning towards criminal behaviour? Link courtesy of Backwash.
posted by Jubey at 3:06 AM PST - 14 comments

R2-D2 Beneath the Dome is cute, funny, silly and the most despicable ploy to hype a movie ever in the history of cinema. Most importantly, it diminishes the stature of a great man, by failing to mention Kenny Baker's contribution to the successful phenomenon. It's like talking about Indiana Jones "behind the scenes" without mentioning Harrison Ford.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:10 AM PST - 20 comments

Surrounded on all sides by religious interolance, these two men prove that you can staunchly maintain your faith under an oppressive regime and still be an utter a-hole.
posted by Hildago at 9:40 PM PST - 11 comments

Just Wave The Flag, And Nobody Gets Hurt. On Friday, Oct. 26, two Secret Service agents, along with Durham police investigator Rex Godley, came to [A.J.] Brown's apartment. Special Agent Paul Lalley, who did most of the talking, spoke first. "Ma'am, we've gotten a report that you have anti-American material, or something like that, in your apartment," he said, according to Brown. Then the female agent asked if they could come inside. The "anti-American material"? A poster critical of George Bush.
posted by tpoh.org at 9:21 PM PST - 45 comments

U.S.' first Afghanistan conflict casualty may be C.I.A. operative "Mike" Time magazine's Alex Perry reported from the scene outside Mazar-i-Sharif that at least one American, whom he identified as "Mike'' and said belonged to U.S. special operations forces, was missing and presumed dead after prisoners began firing smuggled weapons. If the man was confirmed as a soldier, it would be the first known U.S. combat death in Afghanistan since Washington began attacking Taliban forces -– although it is suspected that "Mike" is a covert CIA operative.
posted by marc-hamilton at 8:43 PM PST - 4 comments

Hockey fights. Hockey fights. Hockey fights. Hockey fighters. Videos of hockey fights. Email list about hockey fights. Hockey Fights Cancer.
posted by Mo Nickels at 8:00 PM PST - 18 comments

Dot-Com Is Dot-Gone, and the Dream With It A New York Times article on the dot-com-crash. "Each day, the old idols seem to fade further into the dim past, barely recollected in a country where the languages of "revolution" and "warfare" are no longer just business metaphors. This is the next step after the bursting of the dot-com economic bubble — the bursting of the cultural bubble, the end of the nerd as a crossover hit, of the I.P.O. zillionaire as role model to college students." I agree that our country is in the beginning of a cultural revolution; starting with the dot-com crash last year and accelerating with 911. Am I alone or does anyone agree?
posted by Oxydude at 7:34 PM PST - 23 comments

Annoyance or Invasion? Sure, most of this information is available when you do a WHOIS search on someone, but does anyone else think that this site is putting a little bit too much information out in the open?
posted by almostcool at 7:33 PM PST - 20 comments

Channel 4 (in the UK)'s 100 Greatest Films of All Time. Star Wars at Number 1 - it's a great film, but is it really *that* great? This is not the only recent poll to place it there. (Sorry - the link's a little flaky at the moment - I'm sure they'll sort it out.)
posted by jonpollard at 5:36 PM PST - 38 comments

"Has time come for Old Rubber Lips to fade away?" While US's Jan Wenner personally gives Mick Jagger the Rolling Stone 5 star classic rating, the UK's Guardian/Observer slams him, finding "...the failure to sell Jagger to a contemporary pop audience is intriguing..." What is going on.
posted by Voyageman at 4:44 PM PST - 32 comments

P.J. O'Rourke's Finest Moment: National Lampoon.com has just re-released his classic 1979 article, "How to Drive Fast On Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink". This was long before he became the sedate, Republican C.E.O. of the Sofa he is today. Is it still funny today? Or only to us nostalgic boomers who remember the spirit of 79?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:54 PM PST - 9 comments

Rodney Dangerfield Suffers Heart Attack: As this article illustrates, the man is a national treasure - here's hoping he makes a swift recovery.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:28 PM PST - 10 comments

Human Embryo Cloned. Brave new world, or dawn of the master race? Again, law is way behind technology. Is the march unstoppable? Here's the "inside story". Scientific American also weighs in with a story written by the scientists.
posted by owillis at 1:52 PM PST - 22 comments

Rising Sea Level Forcing Evacuation of Tuvalu. "During the twentieth century, sea level rose by 20-30 centimeters (8-12 inches)." The 1,196 tiny islands of the Maldives are "barely 2 meters above sea level". "In 2000 the World Bank published a map showing that a 1-meter rise in sea level would inundate half of Bangladesh's riceland." Here are EPA and NASA sites on the sea level. (NASA? They may be promoting justification to colonize other planets ASAP!)
posted by mmarcos at 12:55 PM PST - 17 comments

Military Justice is to Justice as Military Music is to Music. Alan Dershowitz in The Village Voice: "A long-term resident of the United States who President Bush believes may have aided a terrorist can now be tried in secret by a military commission and be sentenced to death on the basis of hearsay and rumor with no appeal to any civilian court, even the Supreme Court."
posted by adrober at 11:44 AM PST - 29 comments

MIT's Erotic Computation Group. "By developing advanced sexual appliances and techniques, we seek to broaden the range of human amative expression and heighten our potential for sexual gratification." Good to see that at least some people are doing research that will benefit all mankind.
posted by Eloquence at 11:42 AM PST - 22 comments

Boring Business Systems. Yes, it's a slow day.
posted by swift at 10:27 AM PST - 11 comments

The US’ World War II Monument is expected to open in 2004. The 7.4 acre monument has been roundly criticized as both “seriously flawed” and “off-key”. Apart from these critiques, I wonder if the US memoralizes too many wars and not enough peace.
posted by raaka at 4:16 AM PST - 26 comments

Life of some immigrants, after 9.11. As you might imagine, it just sucks. For more proof, just ask these Israeli Jews. Should immigrants just get used to it, or will things get back to normal, eventually?
posted by Rastafari at 12:43 AM PST - 13 comments

The Burka and the Bikini "Our war against the Taliban, a regime that does not allow a woman to go to school, walk alone on a city street, or show her face in public, highlights the need to more fully understand the ways in which our own cultural ''uncovering'' of the female body impacts the lives of girls and women everywhere. ... Whether it's the dark, sad eyes of a woman in purdah or the anxious darkly circled eyes of a girl with anorexia nervosa, the woman trapped inside needs to be liberated from cultural confines in whatever form they take. The burka and the bikini represent opposite ends of the political spectrum but each can exert a noose-like grip on the psyche and physical health of girls and women."
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:12 PM PST - 55 comments

Another terror plot foiled. And it's not what you think.
posted by donkeyschlong at 8:37 PM PST - 23 comments

Straight out of the Ebeneezer Scrooge Department comes this beauty of a tale. Well, you know, it's that time of year again. Anybody have a tale to match or top this one?
posted by MAYORBOB at 8:00 PM PST - 17 comments

In death, J.D. O'Neal leaves few with fond memories “Jerry Dow O’Neal II owned The Current News, a small gay magazine. [...] By last month, when J.D. O’Neal committed suicide to avoid prosecution and shame, hardly anyone in Kansas City considered him a good friend. The 37-year-old white-collar crook and gay-rights opportunist had created enemies throughout the community. [...] ‘It was important for [J.D.] to appear successful.’ [...] ‘I’ll believe he’s dead when I see the body’ ”
posted by joeclark at 6:18 PM PST - 3 comments

Hank Steuver from WaPo : When did this happen? Where are the kids who are supposed to be beating up the kids who like Harry Potter? Where is the bully who is going to tell them what kinda dorkface fairies they're being? Where are the kids who don't like to read? So, come on, bullies! Get with the program!
posted by swell at 3:33 PM PST - 34 comments

A brief look at the propaganda leaflets of recent wars, from the Psywar Society.
posted by alan at 2:40 PM PST - 4 comments

What has single points, 3 downs, 12 players, and a 110X65 yard field? Canadian Football! The 89th championship Grey Cup/la coupe Grey will be played tomorrow, Sunday November 25. The Calgary Stampeders kick off against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at Montreal's Olympic Stadium (6:00 p.m. EST, 3:00 p.m. PST). The Canadian Broadcasting Company will carry the game, as will America One and some Fox Sports Network cable channels in the United States.
posted by Carol Anne at 2:17 PM PST - 27 comments

WE ARE WATCHING YOU. "The FBI added that its research is 'always mindful of constitutional, privacy and commercial equities,' and that its use of new technology can be challenged in court and in Congress." No really, go ahead, try and stop us if you don't like it. That's your (snicker, snicker) right.
posted by rushmc at 9:17 AM PST - 12 comments

F*ck off you crazy old dyke In 1993 Camille Paglia and Julie Burchill had this fax exchange over a book review Burchill had done for the Spectator. This brings back all that 80s anti-PC, pro pop culture journalism I loved so much in my youth. Pity both Paglia and Burchill seem to have had their time and run out of ideas. Sorry this is so old, but I only learnt about it while reading Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
posted by Summer at 5:37 AM PST - 30 comments

"Euro Coins Could Cause Skin Disease" Obviously Lex Luthor is behind this and wants Europeans to throw away their change so he can gather it up and be rich, Rich, RICH! (maniacal laugh).
posted by Outlawyr at 3:23 AM PST - 9 comments

SpaceWeather.com is predicting another aurora showing this weekend due to the sun erupting a coronal mass ejection toward earth on Nov. 22nd. Although I live in the far west Chicago suburbs, others around my area saw the wild aurora showings on October 28th and November 6th. I missed them both because I didn't know about these events (which is why I now subscribe to the SpaceWeather.com mailing list). Had I known, maybe I could have seen this, or this, or maybe this, all from around the midwest! One thing's for sure, I'll be outside this weekend. The sky is very busy this fall!
posted by Sal Amander at 1:04 AM PST - 9 comments

EasyRGB.com, a site I've recently stumbled across (or forgotten who sent me there) includes a color harmonies calculator that I find very intriguing. While it doesn't always produce great results, I find the idea and the execution pretty well nigh excellent; I just wish I could figure out how it does its calculations. They also attempt to match RGB colors to real-world color systems and paint chips, so if you've just got to make your bedroom match your website you'll be relieved to know that Dutch Boy sells a "3-B-5 Hang Ten" that is devilishly close to #006699.
posted by jplummer at 11:44 PM PST - 8 comments

Here's a piece from NPR for all those people who, even during these crazy times, have a love of getting/receiving mail (need Real Player to hear)...
posted by Miyagi at 9:26 PM PST - 2 comments

The Virtual Autopsy is great fun for those of us who grew up watching too much Quincy. It's also a lot more interesting than playing Operation. Caution, graphic images of internal organs!
posted by MrBaliHai at 8:16 PM PST - 3 comments

"Modern Spiritualism", dark room seances, tin trumpets, and mediums While the Taliban are off hijacking Islam, John Edward and Crossing Over conduct the injustice at home, hijacking time-honored "Modern Spiritualism" so he and his clan can personally profit from his cruel form of emotional abduction. Thankfully, his attempt to deliver the 9-11 victims on national television was cancelled.
posted by Voyageman at 7:58 PM PST - 13 comments

The Taliban's war on art extended beyond merely blowing apart the two monumental Buddhist statues. Here's a nice little piece about a wrecking party at the Kabul Museum of Art lead by the Taliban Ministers of Information and Finance. Their acts of barbarism against women and people who failed to live up to their religious code was unspeakable, but IMHO this willful destruction of art is also worthy of condemnation. This is nothing less than the destruction of a people's culture.
posted by MAYORBOB at 7:58 PM PST - 17 comments

"Universities have a serious problem. The type of liberalism so heavily favored by the intellectual elite has crossed the line. Professors throughout the educational world are supporting murderers and terrorists; they are justifying despicable actions because of the political philosophies of the actors. Murder, slaughter, and terrorism are OK, they say, as long as they are directed at law-enforcement officials or civilian Westerners. It's fine as long as the murderer is anti-capitalist, anti-establishment or anti-conservative." -- Written by a UCLA student
posted by Steven Den Beste at 4:26 PM PST - 50 comments

With Amazon now selling magazines it became slightly easier to buy them. They also can be the gift that keeps on giving. What's everyone's favorite magazine(s), and why?
posted by geoff. at 3:44 PM PST - 70 comments

Mark and Michelle like to take trips, like this one by SUV across the entire width of Asia, from Vladivostok to istanbul, through Siberia, Mongolia, Tuva, Kazakhstan, western China, the Central Asian ex-Soviet republics, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. An immense site, with hundreds of photographs and lots of great stories. Travel narratives like this are a classic use for the web, and there must be lots of them out there. Any favorites?
posted by rodii at 3:33 PM PST - 9 comments

Mary Whitehouse dies. Whitehouse was a campaigner for what she considered taste and decency on TV. So that meant no swearing, no violence, absolutely no sex (no matter who was doing it) and certainly no fun. Her perfect schedule would have been church services, cookery programmes and happy news about animals. For some peculiar reason she targetted Doctor Who in particular during the 70s for being too scary for children which led to that show moving from a taste for horror to tasteless kitch. Oh and Channel Four for be about young people, for young people. As former C4 controller Michael Grade relates: "She really wanted television to be propaganda for a very moral view of the world, not the imperfect world we live in. She was really detached from the reality of the creative process."
posted by feelinglistless at 12:21 PM PST - 24 comments

Not everyone understands the excitement of plane-spotting. Certainly not the Greeks [WSJ subscription link] who have jailed a group of plane spotters as spies. Asperger's Syndrome maybe. But spies? Ask the Romanians and Poles?
posted by Geo at 11:02 AM PST - 9 comments

Chinese planning on going to the moon. I know some would like to see the US return the moon. Some think it was all staged in a big hoax, but could a joint US/Chinese mission be possible by say 2010? What companies in China are working to make this possible? Would having Russia next door make the program any better? Personally, I'm glad to see someone will be returning to the moon.
posted by brent at 11:00 AM PST - 24 comments

What's going on? "A senior Taliban official in Kunduz, whose identity was not revealed, told Northern Alliance officials here in a radio conversation that a Pakistani Air Force plane had landed in Kunduz Tuesday and ferried away several Pakistani and Arab fighters. The Taliban official said the plane was the third to land in the city in recent days." (NYT)
posted by semmi at 10:53 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Somalia's entire internet access and international phone service shut down by the United States.
posted by trioperative at 10:32 AM PST - 10 comments

'Tell Them Nothing Till It's Ovber and Then Tell Them Who Won' Governmental and military censorship of battle news. Is it necessary to winning?
posted by Postroad at 10:29 AM PST - 5 comments

Does an appearance in the 1997 Disney flop "Flubber" make a classic T-bird worth more? Or less?
posted by kcmoryan at 9:56 AM PST - 3 comments

kick back and relax... FLASH!! it's a flash sound site - this one is very nicely put together with some great samples, tidy graphics and a sprinkling of JAH SHAKA BOOOOOM.
posted by Spoon at 9:14 AM PST - 4 comments

Honk Kong's reclaimation efforts for Disney are killing its fishing industry. Is this the proper way to reclaim land? It looks like HK would happily trade away its dwindling fishing industry for a Disney business opportunity. I can't decide if this is economic progress or a very risky trade between a market that produces goods (fish) and one that produces a service (entertainment). I can't read this and not think of Paris' Eurodisney disaster. I wonder how the one in Tokyo is doing.
posted by skallas at 8:33 AM PST - 4 comments

More - movie short One of the most amusing Javascript special effects I've seen in a long time. J/k This short movie done in flash rockzor's.
posted by Niahmas at 7:51 AM PST - 15 comments

CellManners.com: "A site devoted to promoting civility between cell phone users and the people around them." Don't miss the Cell Slang. (Brought to my attention by NY Times article "Cell Yell: Why Do Phone Calls Turn Into Broadcasts?")
posted by Carol Anne at 6:06 AM PST - 20 comments

Apparently, the crash of Flight 587 was an accident. The official explanation claims that the American A300-600 encountered the wake turbulence of a JAL 747 which tore off its tailfin. Now, I am no fan of conspiracy theories, but the lack of historical problems gives food for thought (Tripod link via RobotWisdom). [more inside]
posted by costas at 4:52 AM PST - 35 comments

Al Jazeera english language summary. Since the original al Jazeera site is in arabic, this wbur website, gives a summary of the stories covered by the network in english. Of course, one can try to translate automatically (ajeeb, registration required), but the results are usually comical.
posted by talos at 3:58 AM PST - 2 comments

Buy Nothing Day 2001
"This November 23 is international Buy Nothing Day, an activist holiday at odds with the wartime equation of consumerism equals patriotism."

On the historically busiest shopping day of the year in America, here's a bit of individual protest one can engage in (or not) that has an even greater resonance this time around.
posted by mapalm at 10:18 PM PST - 69 comments

Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay® Cosmetics died today. It looks like they were anticipating it. Not only did she found what grew to be a huge company(in the male-dominated 60s), she inspired people to be successful. I was never a big fan of the pink Cadillacs, but reading some of this made me a fan.
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 8:24 PM PST - 11 comments

In the house of anthrax. "AMERICAN officials increasingly believe the anthrax attacks since September 11th were not carried out by people connected to al-Qaeda, but may have been the work of a lone American madman. To avert future attacks, though, perhaps they should look harder."
posted by Zool at 6:51 PM PST - 22 comments

Sikh Words Of Wisdom. If, from a Western perspective, there is one Cinderella among Eastern religions, one undiscovered gem waiting to be polished and admired by people outside the South Asian religious culture, it is the Sikh faith – in particular, the poetry of the Sikh Gurus. (From BBC.)
posted by tpoh.org at 2:08 PM PST - 6 comments

An email sent between two cities in China probably would travel through the United States -- putting its contents under American jurisdiction. The recently approved anti-terrorism law is a "massive expansion of U.S. sovereignty" that could be used to prosecute foreign hackers. And once that precedent is established, much of global Internet communications could come under American authority.
posted by tranquileye at 11:13 AM PST - 17 comments

Vote Wil Wheaton 'Entertainer of the Year' in Entertainment Weekly's poll. As one Farkster put it, "a vote for Wil Wheaton is a vote for messing with the normals." Won't Britney Spears be crushed? At the moment "Wil" is leading, but his evil twin "Will" is coming up fast.
posted by fleener at 11:09 AM PST - 64 comments

Money4Opinions claims to be a service that connects members to paid-for-taking surveys. It's costs $20 to become a member, and they advertise in all sorts of "tiny classified ads." David Gagne thought it smelled fishy, and found out it was a scam.
posted by mathowie at 10:56 AM PST - 9 comments

Nuntii Latini: Tired of the same old spin from the big news agencies? Try a "new old" spin from Finland's YLE: news updates in Latin.
posted by gimonca at 10:36 AM PST - 3 comments

Making noise on a budget. Helpful instructions on how to convert a old guitar into a hurdy-gurdy, make a 2-octave kalimba from lawn-rake tines, or build a 5-string fretless banjo in a weekend.
posted by transient at 9:29 AM PST - 5 comments

come by, come by, git round, phweeeep, easy boy, easy, come by.... Oh yes it's nice. it's a little flash game. It's virtual sheepherding. WARNING - FLASH USED HERE!!
posted by Spoon at 9:11 AM PST - 1 comments

Are you going to deep fry a turkey today? After searching google for deep fried pics to post on fark [filepile is down and andre got a game cube so I had to join fark], I discovered that accidents happen. Happy Thanksgiving and, hey, be careful out there.
posted by roboto at 6:26 AM PST - 14 comments

Did the government hinder the FBI to investigate against the Bin Laden family? Transcript from last night's BBC Newsnight: GREG PALAST: The CIA and Saudi Arabia, the Bushes and the Bin Ladens. Did their connections cause America to turn a blind eye to terrorism? UNNAMED MAN: There is a hidden agenda at the very highest levels of our government. JOE TRENTO, (AUTHOR, "SECRET HISTORY OF THE CIA"): The sad thing is that thousands of Americans had to die needlessly.
posted by alex63 at 5:00 AM PST - 13 comments

Secret Santa. Got your own Web site? Got an Amazon wishlist? If the answer to both of these is yes, and you like the idea of giving and receiving, you should definitely sign up.
posted by nico at 4:40 AM PST - 6 comments

Download a Dinosaur - just print it out and get yourself some glue and scissors (careful with the scissors) and you got your very own dinosaur. Hours of fun!
posted by semper at 4:30 AM PST - 3 comments

Interview with one of "the evil ones." A conservative group founded by first lady Lynne Cheney recently released a report (pdf) that accuses numerous college professors of being enemies of civilization, for not "transmit[ing] our history and heritage to the next generation." Curiously, the report originally looked like this (pdf), which quoted professors by name to create a modern-day blacklist, but was removed and reformated to the one currently on thier site. This interview sheds light on one professor's view of being in the report and on the current state of debate and dissent among academics. [via RRE]
posted by mathowie at 10:00 PM PST - 43 comments

Blockbuster now puts terrorism warning stickers on videos. Where's Cyndi Lauper when you need her? Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.
posted by swift at 5:49 PM PST - 20 comments

Pity the powdered doughnut. Always the last one left in the box and now tainted forever by terrorism. Shed a tear for its demise then cheer up by reading this slightly skewed history of the hole-y pastry. (via Scrubbles)
posted by MrBaliHai at 4:44 PM PST - 25 comments

New Gravity Map released. The Grace satellites have sent back the first monthly installment of five years' worth of gravity mapping data. [145K jpg] The upshot? Move to India - you'll weigh 1% less.
posted by gleuschk at 2:16 PM PST - 15 comments

Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, London Have always heard so much about this. Wild debates all Sunday long, no rest for the weary. Martin the Sex Speaker, Simon the Bulgarian and Barry the Marxist Mystic; who knows, do they have their own web sites ? Any other Speakers Corners one can go to, or is this purely a British phenomenon?
posted by Voyageman at 1:39 PM PST - 13 comments

house of saud close to collapse interesing piece form the uk guardian's investigative editor david leigh, it seems the saudi govern,ent's recent pr blitz has failed and is symptomatic of a deeper malaise
posted by quarsan at 1:05 PM PST - 9 comments

Unable to believe this story on the Drudge Report, I did some searching and discovered that Kopi Luwak is not only the rarest and most expensive coffee in the world, but also possesses the greatest potential for comical logos.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:58 PM PST - 25 comments

Another Kaycee Nicole? A celebrated teenage author and Aids sufferer may turn out to be a hoax, concocted by his "mother". (More inside).
posted by liam at 12:47 PM PST - 17 comments

Anorexia is a lifestyle choice? Some, apparently, have argued that it is, and they are putting their money where their mouthes are in the form of 1 million dollars (for lack of food, I suppose). "One of the leaders of the 'Annas' gives her name only as Sahara and describes herself a 22-year-old student from the prestigious Stanford University, near San Francisco ... A computer specialist, she runs a website that provides detailed advice for those who want to starve themselves — coupled with tips on fooling parents, friends and doctors." Some respond to the advocacy of anorexia, but gains and losses are both apparent in what looks to be a battle of attrition. The Starving Annas remind one of the equally controversial efforts by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance and similar movements in that both advocate widely-considered unhealthy lifestyle choices. (Sunday Times link courtesy of The Morning News.)
posted by moz at 9:20 AM PST - 83 comments

Ashcroft gets a double kick in the groin. It really heartens me to see this. I'm all for finding those responsible, but not at the cost of the Constitution and civil rights. How long before all of the state of Oregon is charged with terrorrism and brought before Bush's special tribunal?
posted by jammer at 9:13 AM PST - 30 comments

Time's 2001 inventions of the year awards. Why do all of these have that cheesy "Sharper Image" feel to them? Aren't there inventions out there slightly more important than a potato masher or a remote control smoke alarm? Naww, everything else would go over the heads of the readers. Keep that gravy comin' ma!
posted by skallas at 9:07 AM PST - 24 comments

Really, really nice... lots of lovely devices...
posted by Spoon at 9:05 AM PST - 6 comments

Triplehom.com! A mindbending little site [sight, cite] designed for [fore, four] the wordsmith/word-splitter in you.
posted by webchick at 8:23 AM PST - 3 comments

For all your middle east rumor mill needs Just another alternative media, highly speculative source for rumors... blah, blah, blah Quite a few of their "stories" have been confirmed as of late. Maybe it's worth another look for those of you who have never been.
posted by yangwar at 8:06 AM PST - 7 comments

One of the most amusing Javascript special effects I've seen in a long time; brought to you by Nestea Phillipines. What other Javascript tricks brought a smile to your face?
posted by SilentSalamander at 7:42 AM PST - 28 comments

Software projects are notorious for time and budget overruns (examples that come to mind include Mozilla and the Denver Airport baggage system). There are a large number of design methods, development processes, and programming methodologies that claim or hint at objective estimation of development schedules, project complexity, and programmer productivity. Unfortunately, they're all bunk.

"The creation of genuinely new software has far more in common with developing a new theory of physics than it does with producing cars or watches on an assembly line."

Programmers, try telling that one to your next customer.
posted by lagado at 6:19 AM PST - 21 comments

How to survive extreme natural events. International project promoting understanding disasters from the "roots" up, and preventing disasters from the "bottom up" as well as the "top down". Whatever you think of his politics, this project should be encouraged.
posted by asok at 6:06 AM PST - 5 comments

New Mozilla Browser, Will anybody have this new mozilla browser! A new version of the open source mozilla browser (what Netscape 6 is based upon) is out. Preliminary impressions: faster, less buggy and with cool new toys. This is getting better and better, maybe we will get some competiton after all.
posted by nedrichards at 4:36 AM PST - 26 comments

Today's high school seniors a bunch of scientific know nothings? According to the most recent national test results, it would appear so. Is this a case that the money is thrown in areas that will make the SATs look good? If that's the case, has that been money well spent? Is it really just a case of money? Whatever the answer, it sort of makes you fear for the future.
posted by MAYORBOB at 4:22 AM PST - 37 comments

Break the law just like the ruling party - get arrested. According to Singapore's Straits Times (article expires in seven days, I linked to the cache on Google), Robert Ho allegedly encouraged an 'attempt to incite violence or disobedience to the law'. The original posting that got him into trouble was encouraging civil disobedience, as if Singaporeans would dare do such a thing. (From Politech.)
posted by jetgrrl at 12:30 AM PST - 23 comments

Clinton speaks, pundits spin: The Washington Times and the spread of a media myth Yep, the loony right-wingers obsession with hating all things Clinton continues.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 9:40 PM PST - 20 comments

If you can smell your neighbor's cigarette smoke, it could cost them $750.
Man, talk about being conflicted.
posted by NortonDC at 8:47 PM PST - 228 comments

FBI software cracks encryption wall The FBI is developing software capable of inserting a computer virus onto a suspect’s machine and obtaining encryption keys...
posted by Brilliantcrank at 8:42 PM PST - 7 comments

Wait til he finds out she's really his sister.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:10 PM PST - 34 comments

"Playboy hacked. Change all your cards." From Fark.com
posted by Counselco at 4:57 PM PST - 10 comments

Heres one for the Opera (the browser not the singy thing) snobs out there.
posted by zeoslap at 3:41 PM PST - 11 comments

"Mohammed, do you ever get that 'not so fresh' feeling?" The Captions Blog takes press photos and adds humorous fictitious comments. One of my favorites is a photo of two military men wrestling. The caption reads, "Soldiers prepare for Operation Sweet Sweet Lovin'." Kudos to the highly amusing moderator and creator Jeff Druzba. He seems to have prevented this site from devolving into the baffling inside references and unfunny gross-out jokes that proliferate on other group "humor" blogs.
posted by maggeh at 3:16 PM PST - 11 comments

Psychedelic Republican trading cards! Get them while they are hot!
posted by Rastafari at 3:08 PM PST - 7 comments

Distributed computing projects are everywhere. Wired reports a new European project similair to a US initiative that is an explosive moment in the development of computing brainpower, equivalent to the point when mammals leapt ahead of the dinosaurs. What other cool distributed projects are there?
posted by stbalbach at 2:43 PM PST - 9 comments

Wacky headline courtesy of Salon. Looks as though their copyeditors were hurried off to Salon Premium, as this is a 'free' story.
posted by KLAX at 2:38 PM PST - 17 comments

Bloink! Leonids touchdown in northwest Indiana.
posted by sandor at 12:29 PM PST - 19 comments

As a part of the upcoming Microsoft Settlement: "Terms of the deal would require Microsoft to donate software, recycled laptops and desktop computers, and other services to students in grades K-12 who attend public schools where 70 percent or more pupils are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches."

So, is this MS reaching out to help disadvantaged children and positively affect their future, or is this allowing MS to lure hundreds of thousands into being MS customers for life?
posted by mathowie at 11:52 AM PST - 40 comments

Our president, the animal lover... {From j-Ko}
posted by dincognito at 11:48 AM PST - 24 comments

Amazon screws up bag promotion. Amazon messes up a 'Buy this camera and get that bag free" promotion to be "Buy this bag and get that camera free." As a result you can get a $350 Minolta Maxxum SLR for $40. We'll see how long this lasts. I know that when the airlines made this mistake, they had to honor it.
posted by kfury at 11:47 AM PST - 146 comments

Spend Buy Nothing Day on the can.
posted by swift at 11:28 AM PST - 4 comments

In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie. This is the best and darkest site I've seen about The Lord Of the Rings. Check out the part about Dark Servants. (Especially the Barrow Downs) And the Map Room.
posted by aacheson at 11:09 AM PST - 6 comments

It's the Democracy, Stupid Quick hit from Middle East expert Thomas Friedman on why democracy matters in the Middle East, and by extension why democracy-building is one of the US's best weapons there. Starts out with a news quiz: "Name the second-largest Muslim community in the world. Iran? Wrong. Pakistan? Wrong. Saudi Arabia? Wrong." (NYT link)
posted by cell divide at 10:58 AM PST - 20 comments

The Works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft Unabridged texts of most of his short stories, poems, and essays, as well as biographies, photos, and even wallpaper. Cthulhu fhtagn, dude.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 10:22 AM PST - 15 comments

"We have always maintained that we have the right to decide the way in which we distribute our products to best serve our customers." (Especially at a 100% markup.) Levi Strauss celebrates an EU judgement on parallel imports that protects their ability to sell $40 jeans for £50 in the UK. In an era of online storefronts, transatlantic shopping trips, and continental car sales, can these new brand-based tariff barriers really hold up?
posted by holgate at 9:30 AM PST - 26 comments

Howard Zinn speaks at a high school. Parents get upset.
posted by Ty Webb at 9:18 AM PST - 42 comments

Safeweb has turned off their free privacy service. Company spokeswoman Sandra Song said "Consumer privacy is more of an idealistic vision..." Is anonymous use of the Internet dying?
posted by tranquileye at 8:45 AM PST - 11 comments

Christopher Lee, OBE. Much as I deprecate these meaningless baubles, he definitely deserves the recognition.
posted by Mocata at 8:30 AM PST - 5 comments

Microsoft to end support for Windows 95/98. Apparently buried in the news releases of Windows XP, Microsoft says it will no longer support some of the older OSs by June of next year, along with a number of other products. While this may sound like a good idea at first, could this be another thing that goes horribly wrong? (more inside...)
posted by PeteyStock at 8:28 AM PST - 30 comments

weekend drug use ok? Interesting article... I hesistate to sign my neam this time though - i wouldn't want to put anyones nose out of joint.
posted by Spoon at 8:25 AM PST - 14 comments

Raising Arizona Kids magazine. Apparently not affiliated with the Coen Brothers movie. Or irony.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:03 AM PST - 11 comments

Inside the Vatican Having heard, watched, and read so much about Islam in the past ten weeks, this may be a much welcomed digression.
posted by Voyageman at 7:16 AM PST - 5 comments

While the father of Visual Basic tells Microsoft to: "abandon the browser", a multitude of researchers are looking into next-generation interfaces (links via Joel on Software and Wired respectively). Is the software industry even close to moving on to a new paradigm?
posted by costas at 6:57 AM PST - 26 comments

There's a fungus among us - more than one, actually. And because fungi are ubiquitous, it's no surprise that they enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner as much as we do.
posted by iceberg273 at 6:30 AM PST - 9 comments

"Do you expect me to surrender?" No, Mr. Taliban, I expect you to DIE!" Allowing terrorists to surrender so they can live to kill another day? No, says Rumsfeld. Bravo. I'm sure the MeFi pacifist club will squeal, but you don't let murders go to have another crack at you.
posted by darren at 5:52 AM PST - 90 comments

Reasons for Liking Tolkein at the London Review of Books. "In his fiction, he created a machine for the evocation of scholarly frisson. The thrills are the thrills of knowledge hidden, knowledge uncovered, knowledge that slips away... what Freud called the 'the uncanny': 'the over-accentuation of psychical reality in comparison with material reality'. Isn't that what being a bookish adolescent is all about?"
posted by rory at 5:22 AM PST - 16 comments

Oh, the ~~irony~~ inevitability: "The United States is putting at risk a key United Nations conference on deadly biological weapons which gets under way in Geneva on Monday."
posted by donkeyschlong at 12:48 AM PST - 10 comments

For the gardener who has everything, a slug eating robot will seek and destroy those slimy gastropods destroying the garden. The only downside is having to admit the crappy beer you buy is for yourself and not for your slug traps!
posted by Dinzie at 10:53 PM PST - 9 comments

Make your own custom warning signs with a killer web app that produces surprisingly authentic and official looking signs in sharp, ready to print PDF. Fool your friends and neighbors by warning them of infectious waste. Fun for the whole family [via boingboing]
posted by mathowie at 9:34 PM PST - 18 comments

Journalists killed in Afghan ambush
posted by Oxydude at 7:20 PM PST - 13 comments

Larry Flynt Sues Defense Department Some headlines just look great in print... Well, Larry is suing for the right to send reporters to the front lines in Afghanistan. Yep.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 6:50 PM PST - 5 comments

The Tourist Guy found (for real this time). Two months and 10,000 remixes later, a Hungarian man has stepped forward and this photo leaves little doubt. Incidentally, it turns out the Brazilian guy was a fraud after all.
posted by waxpancake at 6:49 PM PST - 15 comments

Sculpture honors chicken who lived 18 months without a head. This sentence really touched me: "Olsen started putting feed and water directly into Mike's gullet with an eyedropper."
posted by adrober at 5:57 PM PST - 22 comments

Evangelist Franklin Graham, stands by his statements that Islam is "wicked, violent".

"It wasn't Methodists flying into those buildings, it wasn't Lutherans," Graham told NBC. "It was an attack on this country by people of the Islamic faith."

Is it strange that the son of the popular and eloquent Billy Graham hasn’t come under much fire for his anti-Islamic statements while the goofy duo of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are still being roasted for their own inflammatory 9.11 statements against liberals and gays?
posted by wfrgms at 4:33 PM PST - 47 comments

Colin Powell has a vision: "We have a vision of a region where Israelis and Arabs can live together in peace, security and dignity. We have a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders. We have a vision of a region where all people have jobs that let them put bread on their tables, provide a roof over their heads and offer a decent education to their children. We have a vision of a region where all people worship God in a spirit of tolerance and understanding. And we have a vision of a region where respect for the sanctity of the individual, the rule of law and the politics of participation grow stronger day by day."
posted by kliuless at 4:18 PM PST - 30 comments

Al Gore, corporate master of the universe? The near-president has taken a job as vice chairman of Metropolitan West Financial, a "diversified financial services firm" in L.A. If, around September 2000, you weren't sure if Gore was serious about his "I'm for the people, not for the powerful" schtick, now you know. No word on compensation, but CNN reports Gore "will focus on developing private equity strategies in the biotechnology and information technology fields." Uh, sure.
posted by crabwalk at 1:06 PM PST - 34 comments

Anorex: accuracy in advertising or a really bad choice of names? When i first saw this ad in Cosmo i hoped it was a joke. I realize that the only thing different about it than the other slim-your-body-increase-your-bust-size ads in there was the name. I had opened a Cosmo sort of trolling for just that type of thing...but i was still a bit shocked.
posted by th3ph17 at 1:03 PM PST - 20 comments

The Red Cross has a decade-long pattern of using local crises to raise funds, and then to spend those funds on other things. The donors had thought their money would go to help specific victims, and sometimes up to 80% would be diverted to other causes. I think this is wrong.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 11:32 AM PST - 39 comments

The Smashing Pumpkins' website is even more active than it ever was before the group disbanded. With a 6 part documentary, "Graceful Swans of Never", that was uploaded part by part every Monday over the past 6 weeks, and the upcoming animation project "Glass and the Machines of God", Billy Corgan is keeping interest alive postmortem.
posted by Satapher at 10:47 AM PST - 10 comments

Send an automatic email after you're dead. I'm composing mine right now.
posted by swift at 9:29 AM PST - 31 comments

The RFK Department Of Justice? That's what the news is. President Bush will name the Justice Department after Robert F. Kennedy citing his contributions to fighting organized crime and the logical links to today's war on terrorism. The book, Robert Kennedy: His Life, has great stories on how RFK took on the mafia. But don't you think Bush is pulling a fast one to get liberals to forget how much the current AG John Ashcroft is rolling back civil liberties?
posted by flip at 8:49 AM PST - 24 comments

CheckMate: The 5 Minute Semen Detection Test Kit Infidelity? Cheating Spouse? Find out what's really going on, the quick and easy way, with the CHECKMATE 5 Minute Infidelity Test Kit. CHECKMATE is the only product of it's kind that can actually monitor your spouse's sexual activity outside of the relationship! Oh, boy. Where to start, where to start....
posted by adampsyche at 8:20 AM PST - 22 comments

U.S. wants its MTV to get message out in Arab world. Is this a good way to "encourage dialogue" between U.S. and Middle East youths, as the article suggests, or just antoher example of American pop-cultural imperialism?
posted by gazingus at 8:15 AM PST - 26 comments

A story about Rasa Nasir Khan a seemingly regular guy whose only crime is an expired visa and ethnicity, and a passion for hunting. He is one of over a thousand people being held in connection with 9-11 even though his jailers acknowlege that he has no connection whatsoever with terrorism.
posted by Danf at 7:19 AM PST - 18 comments

Nokia 7650 - A cellphone, a digital camera, a photo album, a PDA with a color display and joystick -- all within 114 x 56 x 26 mm dimensions, shaped like this, looking like this. Must... put... on... Christmas... wishlist.
posted by frednorman at 6:33 AM PST - 26 comments

do u mail or Do you email? Hyphenless email drops the e as Josh Davis retreats to his virtual cave.
posted by rory at 5:20 AM PST - 31 comments

TECHTV lays off as many as half their staff last week... according to WIRED. The feeling is that having a TV channel about computers is "so 1999." (I wonder if the same is true about a magazine about technology?) I didn't even realize that Paul Allen owned the cable channel. I personally avoid the 9-hour daily TECHLive show, but I like Fresh Gear and Extended Play. What will become of the much beloved Leo LaPorte?
posted by crunchland at 4:58 AM PST - 20 comments

Bush decided only he should decide who should go before military trial for terrorism Why not>? He is our elected president and our leader, no?
posted by Postroad at 3:56 AM PST - 15 comments

Final Hitchhiker's Novel Found: A Salmon of a Doubt, the sixth novel in Douglas Adam's series, will be published next May upon Adam's death. But is this a serious effort from a man who was growing tired of the Hitchhiker's series towards the end of his life or an easy way to cash in on Adams's death, V.C. Andrews-style?
posted by ed at 12:55 AM PST - 19 comments

As Harry Potter tops all box office records, it seems that some parents don't want their kids to watch the film because some think it promotes witchcraft. Are separation of church and state arguments valid here, or are the parents a bunch of wet blankets?
posted by Rastafari at 11:38 PM PST - 120 comments

A story that seems to be good news no matter what side of the 'war' you're on. The dragnet around Bin Laden is reported to be closing quickly, and currently stands, says the Sunday Times, at about 30 squares mile. So, what happens next? (via Plastic.com)
posted by Hildago at 10:39 PM PST - 13 comments

Gimme That Old Time Religion. Lakeland, Fla. -- The Rev. Jerry Falwell says even Osama Bin Laden's soul could be saved if he converted to Christianity -- but he would still deserve to be killed.
posted by semmi at 7:44 PM PST - 15 comments

Beware the peace that kills A piece from the Guardian that does NOT have an anti-war sentiment.
posted by Oxydude at 7:11 PM PST - 10 comments

Think anybody can make electronic music? You're right. This snappy flash ap from Crash!Media makes Mobies out of the musically challenged. Today I learned that a pleasant, new agey sound scape can be turned to pure evil with just a little loud bass! [via Evhead]
posted by jennyb at 6:46 PM PST - 25 comments

Yatta! This started out as a skit on a Japanese comedy show and eventually grew into its own fig leafed music video. Does anyone know of any other musical gems like this? Warnings: 7.71 MB Windows Media file & scantily clad men
posted by Alison at 5:20 PM PST - 9 comments

Stop the War. 50-100,000 people marched on Trafalgar Square today to protest against the ongoing situation in Afghanistan.. (lil bit more inside...)
posted by Mossy at 3:18 PM PST - 57 comments

How to use Japanese style toilet.
First of all, you'd better know which is front. Don't lose your balance.
posted by lheiskell at 2:25 PM PST - 30 comments

Highly secret CIA capability in a war that has until now remained under wraps. Didnt we think the US Special Forces and the UK SAS were the first ground troops in Afghanistan? Wrong. "The CIA is mounting a hidden war in Afghanistan with secret paramilitary units on the ground......hardened veterans who have retired (!) from the U.S. military.... men who do not wear military uniforms...." Another good one from Bob Woodward. Wish he and Seymour Hersh would duke it out again for the honor of top investigative reporter, although, perhaps others out there are more deserving of the title.
posted by Voyageman at 11:41 AM PST - 6 comments

More Q & A on Terror and War
"A number of folks feel that current events -- particularly in the last few days -- have dramatically changed the logic and morality of what has been done in Afghanistan, calling into question much of the analysis and assessment that has been offered by critics of the war. Here are some of the questions we have been asked, and our brief replies."
posted by mapalm at 9:36 AM PST - 60 comments

Payout for TV trauma of Trade Centre relatives. "British families who watched their relatives die during live television coverage of the World Trade Centre atrocity are to be compensated for the trauma they suffered, The Telegraph has learned." We're all aware of Road Rage and Airport Anxiety; now there's a new diagnosis: Televised Trauma. Whatever happened to British stiff upper lips?
posted by Carol Anne at 8:33 AM PST - 26 comments

A developer is pushing new luxury rental apartments in this building in Lower Manhattan with ads on nytimes.com. Rentals are probably slow because the building is five blocks from a disaster zone. But let's all just pretend it's not. Potential renters, take note: "actual view south" may not be the actual view south.
posted by davidfg at 7:33 AM PST - 22 comments

How the biohazard symbol came to be (from NYTimes Magazine)...
posted by Miyagi at 6:56 AM PST - 12 comments

Now, I've never been a BIG fan of either Frank Sinatra or Robbie Williams. Sure, I've a lot of respect for the former, and the latter's a great singer and entertainer from the UK. But last nite, I was converted. Anyone see A Night With Robbie Williams on TV in the UK last night? (more inside)
posted by wibbler at 6:17 AM PST - 18 comments

Is your inability to become a new MeFi member too much to handle? Well, you can just follow this man's example, and buy your way in!
posted by christian at 3:45 AM PST - 40 comments

The Human Blockhead is dead. (NYTimes obit.) Melvin Burkhart, 94, was living in Gibsonton, Florida, a retirement town for sideshow attractions.
posted by pracowity at 2:12 AM PST - 2 comments

Blair's Road to Nemesis "There will come a day when the Government commits suicide" Columist of the year, Andrew Rawnsley's devastating critique of new labour is also supported by the BBC's Mark Mardell "Blair will get bored of just being the British PM soon". Ex-labour deputy leader Roy Hattersley says He must be stopped
posted by quarsan at 1:57 AM PST - 8 comments

Leonid Meteor Shower - Hot or Not? Was it a once-in-a-lifetime event, as was billed, or did you just find yourself standing out in the cold and looking straight up? I'm on my way outside right now to shiver & stare.
posted by kokogiak at 1:33 AM PST - 58 comments

How to lure US bombers and scrapped shells by using a light and a dog. Afghans in Kandahar are attracting bombs for their resale value. Go rogue economists go! Just don't ask about the dog.
posted by skallas at 10:12 PM PST - 7 comments

Tell me about this Chomsky character again. Operation Mindcrime: The Selling of Noam Chomsky.

As much play as Noam Chomsky's been getting around here, I happened upon this older now republished article over at disinfo. Love him or hate him. Agree or disagree. Chomsky makes an impact.
posted by crasspastor at 8:16 PM PST - 36 comments

If you like Pink Floyd youll like the tribute site Echos .. it has 25 full-length "best of" songs with artwork, lyrics, videos, message board and anthologys. Combined with a nifty interface. Any other good Pink Floyd sites?
posted by stbalbach at 6:06 PM PST - 17 comments

A common dollar for Canada and the U.S.? With the Euro unit of currency slowly coming into common use, it's only natural for other continents/countries to follow suit. How would this affect the national identity of Canada? Is this a sensible thing to do? What are the benefits and deficiencies of such a plan?
posted by ashbury at 4:26 PM PST - 39 comments

Teaching computers the stuff we all know. Open Mind Commonsense is a project by Push Singh. Like other competing projects, the goal is to compile a database of commonsense facts which will be used to improve relations between humans and machines. I just like to answer the questions.
posted by otherchaz at 3:47 PM PST - 9 comments

CNN going down the tubes A view from writer for San Fransisco Chronicle that appeared in Japanese paper. Other news channels strike me as "sexier," but CNN, still, for many, best bet on worldwide news coverage. Does sexy make more interesting presentation?
posted by Postroad at 3:38 PM PST - 19 comments

"Unholy War" from director Saira Shah of Beneath the Veil fame is appearing several times this weekend. I am very much looking forward to this as I found the first film insightful, thought-provoking and observant. It all leads me to wonder how does one help dimilitarize and rebuild a country where an entire generation knows nothing but war, insecurity and guile?
posted by dness2 at 3:14 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Who's Taking Over for Lingua Franca?
NYTimes reports on the latest Ivy hiring coup: Homi Bhabha at Harvard English Lit. Bhabha is the author of The Location of Culture (1994), a notable work postcolonial literary theory (which also won him the 2nd prize in the 1998 Bad Writing Contest). The sad thing is that whereas LF would've played it for laughs, NYT thinks this is a serious issue! Someone needs to take the science reporters out to the lecture hall. Did anyone ever expect "hybridity theory" to be tested against current events?
posted by rschram at 1:39 PM PST - 3 comments

Yemeni Proverbs for All Occasions : "He who has no job should search for a camel.", "A destroyer can defeat thousands of earthenware makers." and "My daughter, as long as you keep quiet, much money will paid for your marriage." Clever these Yemenese.
posted by feelinglistless at 12:49 PM PST - 5 comments

Dubya declares Thanksgiving Day a "National Day of Thanksgiving"
WTF??? Aren't there more important things going on? Like, isn't Thanksgiving Day already a "National Day of Thanksgiving"? Did Vlad bring over some Siberian sinsemilia this past week, and Dubya's just extra-loopy? Am I missing something here? Why not just declare September 11th a national holiday instead?
posted by blackholebrain at 11:46 AM PST - 31 comments

Looking to kill time? this site has plenty of weapons for it. see what it takes to make a paper-mache elvis. learn about matchstick kitties. find out how much shaving cream is in a single container. plus a little culture jamming. it's all right here. (plus the webmaster is a goofy looking bastard.)
posted by jcterminal at 10:31 AM PST - 15 comments

With the gamecube, xbox and ps2 all on the market (although ps2 has been around awhile), it seems to be gaming heaven. I've always been a nintendo man, what do you guys/gals think? Can you rate your top five consoles of all time (based purely on joy it brought to you)?
posted by dig_duggler at 7:22 AM PST - 53 comments

Some people are so lazy that they’ll hold up the busiest airport in the world for 3 hours, rather than be inconvenienced. Is this a sign of social breakdown, this inability to follow the rules of civilization, or am I just a curmudgeon? Or both?
posted by jpburns at 7:17 AM PST - 40 comments

I was looking for Judy Tenuta info on the 'Net... I'm a sick puppy. I make no excuses. However, this thread's not about Judy Tenuta, but the virus that can be downloaded if you go to www.judytenuta.com (which I don't recommend you do). ...it could happen! WTF!? [more]
posted by ZachsMind at 3:15 AM PST - 20 comments

Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, BBC, CNN, Times of London, Tom Ridge, the public - who is duping whom ? On November 15, the BBC and the Times of London report Bin Laden's nuclear secrets have been found. The next day CNN also reports nuclear weapons-related documents found in an al Qaeda safe house . Tom Ridge confirms the story. The same day, the Village Voice reports the hoax spotted by the Daily Rotten given their command of thermo nuclear science. God help us all.
posted by Voyageman at 12:32 AM PST - 13 comments

$100 million in fake software seized .The copies of Windows Millenium and Windows 2000 Professional were indistinguishable from the real thing except for their failure to crash every 15 minutes(I made that up).Ever burn a copy for friends? Is that wrong?
posted by Mack Twain at 12:01 AM PST - 31 comments

Just in time for the holidays, a good ol' fashioned rip-off of whatever's big. This year: Harry Potter.
posted by noisemartyr at 10:46 PM PST - 7 comments

The World Food Program announces that it has been able to ship in more food to Afghanistan than it needs: 52,000 metric tons this month. Distribution problems still remain (and are being solved), but it could be a whole lot worse, and it looks like there will be no mass starvation.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:22 PM PST - 43 comments

At the risk of reopening this recount thread - The Economist is running this rather sarcastic correction in their current edition, along with this strange little 'What if Gore Was President' article. Does this signal that the Age of Irony is not, in fact, dead - or did someone at The Economist just not get the memo?
posted by anastasiav at 4:52 PM PST - 10 comments

In U.S. Success, Anti-War Faction's Worst Fears Realized writes our own James Lileks. Noam Chomsky, our own little Quisling, popped up in India to denounce the United States and describe the attacks on Afghanistan as "a bigger terrorist act than what happened on Sept. 11." It takes tremendous energy to maintain these hideous delusions. Chomsky must be exhausted. He must also be surprised every time he lands back in America and is not arrested; the nation he describes would surely clap him in chains and leave him in a basement to devolve to rat food and bones.
posted by ericost at 3:59 PM PST - 43 comments

Trouble for Pakistan? It looks like the Pakistanis have really managed to piss of their Afghan neighbors with their imperialist ambitions. The foreigners who so eagerly rushed to help the Taliban are getting shot for their troubles, some have wised up and are refusing to surrender. Should we be trying to stop such behavior, or is this a case of If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen?
posted by jaek at 3:43 PM PST - 2 comments

Beware the white van: (scroll down a bit for the content that matters) I've never been scammed before, but these guys were brilliant. The details of my sad story are inside.
posted by aladfar at 3:18 PM PST - 49 comments

Justice Rejects Microsoft Penalty (yahoo news) The government considered but rejected penalties against Microsoft Corp. in its antitrust case that would have required the company to reveal the secret blueprints to its flagship Windows software and to distribute products from its fiercest rivals, court records show. The Justice Department also set up an e-mail address where consumers and companies may send their comments about the antitrust settlement. That address is: microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov Whether or not you're pro-Microsoft, anti-Microsoft, or on the fence... I encourage everyone to send their thoughts along.
posted by SilentSalamander at 3:02 PM PST - 9 comments

Bruce Lee to star in new movie 28 years after his death. The Hong King film legend will be recreated using computer technology, with the blessing of the Lee estate. ACIN has links to some of the early modelling the studio did last year.
posted by tranquileye at 1:39 PM PST - 20 comments

Cool. I found out from thewebtoday that Xerxes reputedly built a canal in Greece and now there may be some evidence of it (much more inside).
posted by Sean Meade at 1:18 PM PST - 5 comments

c2it to be free; PayPal raising fees. Will this spell the end of PayPal? Free c2it from Citibank can be used the same way the "old" PayPal could (for friends and roommates to settle up bills) as well cutting deeply into PayPal's core on-line auction settlement business (well over half its revenue), already under attack by eBay's Billpoint.
posted by MattD at 1:09 PM PST - 8 comments

22 y-o University of Miami Iranian medical technician fired for uttering: ''Some birthday gift from Osama bin Laden!'' after Nine Eleven. To my knowledge he wasn't insulting anyone but just expressing his State given right to be sarcastic. (Lol, I will mock the State every chance I happen upon.) [Encore via DR.]
posted by HoldenCaulfield at 12:55 PM PST - 22 comments

Philip Morris changing name to...Altria? According to this SF Chronicle story, Philip Morris is trying to distance itself from tobacco by changing its name to Altria Group. Rumor has it the name is short for "Alternate Reality," which is where PM executives think they're living. (link via NextDraft.)
posted by me3dia at 12:52 PM PST - 22 comments

urban coffee opportunities according to this map, there are 38 starbucks within my area code alone. and right down the block, there are 2 out of 4 storefronts, of which this map only notes one: meaning there are more coffee opportunities available. this is the full link, since i think the first one got cut off.

idea from adbusters, but i did the work myself!
posted by whoshotwho at 12:44 PM PST - 40 comments

Gaza Diary by Chris Hedges It's generally not the best idea to post links about the Palestine/Israel conflict, as each day's news can be debated ad infitum by various sides. However this Gaza Diary is a stunning personal look into the ravages of war and occupation. Written by the New York Times Mideast Bureau Chief, and published in Harper's in October, it's a meditative reflection on the ways the human spirit can be twisted by conflict, and how a reporter (even a seasoned one) responds to the demons of war. Well worth your time.
posted by cell divide at 12:38 PM PST - 6 comments

blair postpones freedom of information act until 2005, despite being a labour party pledge for 25 years...... after the undemocratic anti-terrorism legislation forced through parliament on monday, what hope for real civil liberties in the uk?
posted by quarsan at 11:40 AM PST - 5 comments

Barbie's Hot! Though they claim they have no interest in mass production, I can say right now that I'd buy this Barbie. Woo!
posted by dwivian at 9:23 AM PST - 24 comments

Hot damn! An Episode II trailer that actually gives us plot details! And the only sign of Jar Jar seems to be a shot of him falling from a building on Coruscant.
posted by silusGROK at 9:14 AM PST - 38 comments

Most lawmakers want bin Laden dead. Is that a good idea, or should he have a public trial if captured? Also, Pakistan dismisses the idea that bin Laden has crossed over and hiding there somewhere. Given the strong support he and the Taliban have in Pakistan, would they turn him over if he is there?
posted by Rastafari at 8:54 AM PST - 20 comments

(NYT) It is not just the poverty, the illiteracy and the absence of any commonly accepted social contract that define our sense of wretchedness; it is, rather, the increasing awareness among us that we have failed as a civil society by not confronting the historical, social and political demons within us. . .
posted by semmi at 8:49 AM PST - 8 comments

A keyboardless keyboard , a keyboard that constructs characters in any language, and a thing that does everything else. New gizmos on display at Comdex.
posted by liam at 8:45 AM PST - 14 comments

Subway Navigator lets you plan your route all over the world.
posted by mmm at 7:52 AM PST - 12 comments

Bush signed an executive order on Nov. 1 limiting the public's access to past presidents' papers. Many of Ronald Reagan's documents were set to go public, but the release was delayed while the current White House reviewed the policy for nine months. Now, records don't go public until after 12 years, and once a request is made, the current president and the president in question have to approve access. The only place I saw this reported was in a NYT editorial. Is there something to hide? Is the timing of this order improper?
posted by panopticon at 7:37 AM PST - 30 comments

Earth from satellite. Something kind of neat for the astronomy geek is us all.
posted by goto11 at 7:15 AM PST - 12 comments

I've been burned with FPPosting before, but this story has made my Friday. Bring on the weekend!
posted by Frasermoo at 7:10 AM PST - 8 comments

From the first hijack to the WTC. The U.S. Department of State Historian gives brief description of significant terrorist incidents from 1961 through 2001. Bush vomiting on the Japanese not included, FYI.
posted by geronimo_rex at 6:47 AM PST - 11 comments

This is fascism.
posted by magullo at 6:36 AM PST - 86 comments

I am too Krusty the Clown Robert DeNiro!
posted by plinth at 4:00 AM PST - 40 comments

Please...Tell me you're joking....We all went to school with someone who had... shall we say... an odd name. But who in their right minds would call their child this. or this. or this ? any more? oh come on there must be.... Spoon
posted by Spoon at 2:01 AM PST - 74 comments

Audio from Flight 93 - Pennsylvania (Realvideo) Somehow ABCNews got ahold of this and made it an "exclusive" on Primetime Live. Certainly chilling, but also seemingly exploitative.
posted by owillis at 10:15 PM PST - 22 comments

Last of the dot-com playboys? Henry Blodget, who talked up the tech boom and failed to predict the bust, has taken up Merrill Lynch's general redundancy offer and walked away with a cool $2 million. (This after ML settled with a client who had his portfolio wiped out by following Blodget's recommendations.) Somehow, though, I suspect that many casualties of the shrinking Nasdaq who followed his recommendations might wish a different "lifestyle decision" for him... (NYT, blah etc blah)
posted by holgate at 8:12 PM PST - 7 comments

TiVo users really hate ads. I mean REALLY hate them, in any incarnation! What to do when their beloved PVR turns on them, for the sake of an advertising partnership? Why, consider a boycott of course! Thankfully, it looks like TiVo's doing the right thing.
posted by Fofer at 7:47 PM PST - 20 comments

Bill & Will & Grace? The Microsoft Xbox was featured visably (the console and its output a big plasma screen --complete with sickly green logo) and mentioned by name three times in tonight's episode. I was almost expecting Karen and Jack's son to settle their differences through head-to-head football action. And to think... the Xbox was just released today.... Coincidence?
posted by grabbingsand at 6:59 PM PST - 31 comments

Personal Edition - Linux for the whole family. I was wondering when someone will make a version of Linux directly marketed at the personal home user, and it looks like someone has.
posted by Zool at 6:11 PM PST - 31 comments

Thinking of shipping valuable stuff by UPS? Think different! Every time I forget exactly why I never, ever want to ship anything at all by UPS ground, a story like this one pops up that reminds me. The last time I had something sent to me using that "service" (and I use the term loosely) my Athlon desktop system showed up at my door with the case dented and the CPU & heatsink loose inside the case as the box was jolted so violently that it broke the notch (on the ZIF socket) which usually keeps the assembly in place. Use FedEx if it positively, absolutely has to be there in one piece, I guess.
posted by clevershark at 5:09 PM PST - 20 comments

Putin taking questions on from American call ins and emails on NPR. It's 5:05pm on the west coast and Putin is on his way from Ground Zero to the New York studios of NPR. Switch on your local NPR station; Putin is supposedly very good at answering candid questions. I can only imagine Bush entertaining call in questions in Russia (or the US for that matter). Comments after the interview?
posted by jonah at 5:08 PM PST - 6 comments

Puppetry of the penis: "The ancient art of genital origami". And some still say there's nothing under the sun, or the pants for that matter :) (warning: male back nudity)
posted by betobeto at 3:33 PM PST - 10 comments

Not your mom's refrigerator magnets.
posted by uftheory at 3:30 PM PST - 5 comments

Defend Your Freedom from dictatorship, porkbarrel opportunism, pseudo-stimulus. This site generates a personalized email to the Prez and your Senators. Maybe an empty gesture, but better than nothing...
posted by seitz at 3:13 PM PST - 4 comments

When academics rebel. A group of economists is attempting to redraw the landscape of academic research publication by injecting new electronic peer reviewed journals into the marketplace. Electronic publication of research certainly has its merits at times. Case in point: Because of the pressing medical importance of analyses of the recent anthrax cases, JAMA has published the results of two studies (one of patients who survived and one of those who did not) online in advance of the print publication in order to inform health care professionals as soon as possible. Do situations like this argue in favor of a change in the way that research is conducted and/or reported?
posted by iceberg273 at 2:19 PM PST - 14 comments

"What do you mean by the destruction of America?"
The plan is going ahead and, God willing, it is being implemented. But it is a huge task, which is beyond the will and comprehension of human beings. If God's help is with us, this will happen within a short period of time; keep in mind this prediction. Mullah Mohammed Omar, in an interview with the BBC. To me this is not a threat at all, but a prophecy. (Also interesting is the distinction between extremism and conservatism, getting rid of freeloaders.)
posted by rschram at 1:40 PM PST - 26 comments

Heather Havrilesky ("Polly Esther") has a web log. (But you have to look at the source to prove it.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 12:27 PM PST - 29 comments

McGovern was right, says right-winger Conservative columnist Cal Thomas, upon reading a new Michael Beschloss book about the LBJ tapes, says Nixon's 1972 opponent was right in opposing the war, as were Senate critics. Says, in a column printed on a Heritage Foundation site, that the book should serve as a warning to fellow conservatives who won't tolerate dissent or any differing viewpoints. Via kausfiles.
posted by raysmj at 12:22 PM PST - 8 comments

A War in the Planning for Four Years? An alternative (or addendum?) to the DSSi scenario, even worse. More Inside.
posted by ferris at 11:47 AM PST - 13 comments

India, Pakistan and the Bomb. Scientific American says "The Indian subcontinent is the most likely place in the world for a nuclear war." How soon?
posted by jfuller at 10:31 AM PST - 12 comments

The stuff from which Myth is made. A recent discovery of a meteor impact crater in the middle-east, dating around 2300BC, is shedding new light on the decline of many cultures and the rise of many legends.
posted by mkn at 10:20 AM PST - 19 comments

eBay scum take advantage of xbox launch. Check out this and this auction. Do these people have no ethics?
posted by milnak at 9:55 AM PST - 62 comments

pyRads "Web advertising that doesn't suck." Never say that Pyra isn't one to recognize a bandwagon.
posted by o2b at 9:34 AM PST - 8 comments

Guess what, the bombing worked like a charm. Chris Hitchens weighs in with "I told you so" in 1000 words or less. Now if only we had a Chomsky response.
posted by lizs at 9:33 AM PST - 103 comments

Microsoft gets Xbox tunes for a song. "We said, `Hey, we really want to promote these artists and promote who they are and what they stand for.'" All Your Bass Are Belong To M$ (for free). [nytimes]
posted by gazingus at 9:13 AM PST - 7 comments

Girl is slashed by 3/4 inch electric cord to death by father. Sad as it is there was a passage in the article that made me laugh: "Pfeiffer said Larry Slack, who weighs more than 350 pounds, had sneaked a 6-inch kitchen knife into the Calumet Area police station by hiding it in the folds of his skin. He stabbed himself in the chest and was transported to Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was treated for minor injuries before being returned to police custody." My sincere apologies for the big FPP. (Article via DR.)
posted by HoldenCaulfield at 9:06 AM PST - 76 comments

Were you ever a member of AVS, the Adult Verification System? If so, the Feds have you on a list of potential pedophiles. I remember AVS from the mid-1990s; they were one of the easiest ways to generate revenue from an adult Web site, using the same business model as AdultCheck does today. A very few of the hundreds of sites AVS "fronted" for contained child porn, and the owners of the service are now in federal prison as a result. Even though they knew differently, federal authorities claimed that they had "dismantled the largest-known commercial child pornography enterprise ever uncovered," and for the past two years have been sending offers of child porn to some of 30,000 people on the AVS membership list, the vast majority of which have no interest in child porn.
posted by tranquileye at 8:53 AM PST - 19 comments

Bush woos Putin at his Texas ranch - after apparently failing to come to a consensus about the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. Good for Bush for getting his diplomacy on, but -- I'm wondering how popular the proposed American missile-defense system is with members of the Metafilter community. If it means scrapping the ABM... is it worth it?
posted by SilentSalamander at 7:27 AM PST - 37 comments

Dark Address Space leaves some 100 million hosts completely unreachable from portions of the Internet.
posted by trioperative at 7:22 AM PST - 2 comments

"I’d keep guns off the streets if I could -- keep them off people, off cops, off everybody. They’re just built to kill people, and that’s no good. Sometimes I feel like turning people in -- like when there’s a shooting in front of my house. But something always stops me. I grew up in this place. I knew these people before they even started dealing with guns. Those are the people who watch my back when I need them. They’re like family -- I can’t turn them in." Jesus Gonzalez reports on the illegal handgun trade in Brooklyn, NY, as part of a Marketplace series on the underground economy.
posted by sudama at 6:56 AM PST - 6 comments

Franzen wins National Book Award. Another logo to go on the dust jacket next to the O. Pulitzer next?
posted by Bezuhin at 6:21 AM PST - 3 comments

Scalia's Constitution is dead. So, do rulings from the Warren Court deserve deference? Are colonial practices our standard for cruel and unusual punishment? Does the right to bear arms stop at muskets, or does it include nuclear arms?
posted by kcmoryan at 6:15 AM PST - 36 comments

The Taliban withdrawal is a strategic move, not a sign of retreat. By strategically handing over key Afghan cities to the Northern Alliance before melting into the mountainsides, the Taliban tossed political hand grenades at the United States. On the surface, it appears the Taliban were dealt a crushing defeat. Thousands of Taliban fighters switched sides or were captured during the Northern Alliance’s advance, and the remainder melted into the hills having put up almost no fight. However, the Taliban withdrawal was far from a rout. Rather, it reflects abandonment of a strategy that could have led to their destruction, in preparation for a more traditional and effective strategy for combat in Afghanistan — guerrilla warfare.
posted by Davezilla at 3:41 AM PST - 23 comments

booooooom I'll give them sonic bullets.....
posted by Spoon at 1:41 AM PST - 4 comments

"A Spear Avenue resident reported a male-type human in his backyard performing the specialty of the breed - stumbling around and cursing. The interloper without portfolio wandered off in a random direction." This quote and more can be found in the Arcata Eye police blotter. (From Cruel.com; also mentioned in a comment in an older thread.)
posted by moz at 8:40 PM PST - 19 comments

U.S Special Forces rescue 8 foreign aid workers accused of spreading Christianity... "Eight foreign aid workers detained by the Taliban on charges of spreading Christianity arrived in Islamabad on Thursday after their dramatic rescue from Afghanistan by U.S. special forces."
posted by terrapin at 8:32 PM PST - 10 comments

The Vertigo Tarot by Dave McKean, illustrator of among many other good things the Sandman comics, was reissued in August. The cards, loosely based on characters from DCs Vertigo comic inprint, are among the most uneasily beautiful interpretations I've ever seen. The original set was in a limited edition of 5000 copies and is changing hands for suitably outrageous sums on ebay. The new edition (slightly smaller cards) retails around the $30 mark.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:40 PM PST - 14 comments

Star Wars Rap Movie.
posted by swift at 5:07 PM PST - 29 comments

The Real Feel Good Story of the Day.
posted by nwduffer at 5:04 PM PST - 48 comments

Culture Jamming hits again. What are the effects of such campaigns, and is it just vandalism or a valid way to fight what some call the corporate enemy.
posted by plemeljr at 4:22 PM PST - 37 comments

SAS man exposed as fraud The BBC has discovered that Tom Carew, who writes articles from an SAS perspective for the papers and has just published a book about serving in Afghanistan, was never actually a member of the SAS at all. I just saw this interview on TV and laughed and laughed when he punched the camera. WARNING: Realplayer link
posted by Summer at 4:01 PM PST - 34 comments

BBC 2 are axing their current channel idents One of the pleasures of this UKtv channel is seeing how they'll be banging, crashing or stretching that little number two. Is this a revolutionary development or just another example of meddling from a channel which is having trouble finding an identity within the UK's multi-channel future?
posted by feelinglistless at 3:49 PM PST - 17 comments

MegaFauna is a new project from kokogiak (author of The MegaPenny Project, which answers the burning question "what would a trillion pennies look like?"), chronicling a parade of extinct weird animals, organized into groups such as "Interesting Names", "Woolly and Huge" and "Strange and/or Massive." [via MeFi-Projects]
posted by JParker at 3:48 PM PST - 12 comments

XP demonstrates "Intelligent design." You mean they didn't evolve it with genetic algorithms? Boy, I could swear the past versions were composed of randomly generated code fragments. (Do read the original article.)
posted by badstone at 3:11 PM PST - 7 comments

Wow, the Romans really found no problem with sex being shown out in the open. This is a picture found in an ancient Roman bath.
posted by yevge at 2:29 PM PST - 49 comments

The feel-good story of the day. Columbia, S.C. middle school children raise enough money (and then some) to buy New York City a fire truck to replace one lost at the WTC. What's more, it repays a favor from just after the Civil War. Also covered here (CNN) and here (S.C. paper, 'The State').
posted by msacheson at 1:34 PM PST - 6 comments

Switcheroo Zoo (Flash required) is a virtual zoo that allows you to combine parts of different animals to make your own funky creatures. Check out other people's creations at the Hall of Names.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:10 PM PST - 5 comments

Red Cross Targets All of Sept. 11 Fund to Victims That's $543 millions dollars. Interesting too, after the previous 'head' 'refused to comingle the Liberty Funds with the general fund' and resigned.
posted by thunder at 1:02 PM PST - 13 comments

Fake or Foto? Try to guess which are photographs, and which have been cleverly computer-generated. Sure it's a game, and it's interesting on that level, but I was wondering if anyone was seeing any patterns in the kind of objects they were able to recognize as one or the other. I know I did.
posted by Hildago at 12:37 PM PST - 33 comments

HP-Diddy! Forget the desktop - HP's coming after your boo-tay!
posted by geronimo_rex at 11:21 AM PST - 18 comments

"retail spending soars in october (nytimes)." huh? frankly, i've cut my spending by about 60%. is anyone really shopping more, or is this a spin job?
posted by patricking at 11:20 AM PST - 16 comments

Eat the Rich I just re-read this P.J. O'rourke book. I don't agree with all of P.J.'s conclusions, but I HIGHLY recommend you give this book a read if you find yourself thinking along "wealth is theft" lines.
posted by Leonard at 10:05 AM PST - 26 comments

"Hell, I still love you New York." (WMA or RA) I've been seeing the video for Ryan Adams' "New York, New York" late at night on VH1. At a time when television censors are editing out images of the World Trade Center and words like "hijack" out of old movies, it is a welcome surprise. The video, filmed on Sept. 7th, has a pre-attack NY skyline with the WTC prominently featured. It's the best tribute to NY I've seen in the last couple of months.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:01 AM PST - 20 comments

Wesley Crusher returns! Yes, Star Trek fans, Wesley Crusher will return for the (supposedly) last of the series, Star Trek X. Right on, we get to find out how much intergalactic tail Mr. C has been getting while swooping around the universe.
posted by Hildegarde at 9:52 AM PST - 36 comments

Trains and boats and planes. As the international environmental elite flies around the world attending conferences on global warming, earth-friendly toilets, whale saving, etc., these guys pause and figure out that jetting around kerosine-guzzling aircraft makes them part of the very problem they are trying to solve. So they travel to their next conference overland. Good start, fellows. Beyond warming up the air (actually a good thing, if you ask me), jets degrade the environment by needing to be served by city-sized airports, with all their attendent horrors, and by being damned noisy (I'll never forget the lovely silence that followed the air lockdown following 9-11). Besides walking to work, how else can conscientious eco-types put their money where their mouths are?
posted by Faze at 9:40 AM PST - 32 comments

587's the Number in NJ's Pick 3 Lottery Saw this in the Star Ledger, now linked...wierd...is anyone else on MeFi shamelessly superstitious? Do you have to spit on a broom if it brushes your foot? Throw salt if spilled? Confess!
posted by adampsyche at 9:04 AM PST - 28 comments

2001 National Book Award Finalists Awards tonight in New York mc's by Steve Martin. Will Franzen win despite the raging controversy? Pick the winners, anyone? Any good ones left out?
posted by Voyageman at 8:19 AM PST - 9 comments

Alan Greenspan -- Dance Band Musician When thinking of the best way to approach the new economy, we wait patiently for the magical words of Alan Greenspan. I don't think we expect to hear "and a one, and a two....."
posted by dwivian at 8:09 AM PST - 8 comments

Get em' all. Its funny, while the United States struggles to fight a "humane", or at least politically correct war abroad, here at home American citizens are not so lucky. And unfortunately it looks like the English are following our lead
posted by Grok09 at 7:45 AM PST - 23 comments

Google told me it was Monet's Birthday. Not only is it a pretty link-worthy event, but Google again created an artsy banner to go along with a holiday. Does anybody have a cache of their special occasion banners?
posted by taumeson at 7:42 AM PST - 7 comments

Taliban Withdrawal Was Strategy, Not Rout
posted by Oxydude at 7:35 AM PST - 30 comments

Weblog tools overview wanna do such a cool site like meFi? google knows the answer...
posted by heimkonsole at 6:31 AM PST - 6 comments

U2 sells out (again?). I just got this email, which calls for a boycott of Best Buy because of an exclusive distribution deal with U2. Apparently, their upcoming concert DVD will be available at Best Buy two weeks before we can buy it anywhere else. Personally, I hoping for another interview with the Edge in which he claims to know nothing about this. I've always been a fan, but it is difficult to decide if these guys are genuine humanitarians or corporate pawns. In this day in age, I'm sure you can be both and get away with it.
posted by jeffvc at 5:21 AM PST - 57 comments

Have aliens answered our message? In 1974, as part of the SETI project, an encoded message was sent from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. On the 20th August, near the Chilbolton radio telescope in Hampshire, England, an amazing crop circle was discovered that appeared to answer the message....
posted by salmacis at 2:33 AM PST - 25 comments

blair to declare state of emergency, suspend human rights there is some scary stuff included in these proposals. including internment without trial there are serious implications here, and i find it frightening.
posted by quarsan at 12:46 AM PST - 46 comments

Salvation Mountain is Leonard Knight's grand tribute to God. Whether or not one shares his beliefs, his accomplishment is admirable, and his artwork often breathtaking. The Mountain has become a popular stopover for fans of folk art. Godfrey Daniels spoke with Leonard a while ago about his life, his art, and his love for all of creation. What's your favorite labor of love?
posted by Optamystic at 12:14 AM PST - 7 comments

A bit late, but I found the first new episode of Absolutely Fabulous to be fairly lackluster. Seemed forced and disjointed. Should Jennifer Saunders have left well enough alone?
posted by juniper at 10:28 PM PST - 18 comments

Terror trials by military is president Bush's plan for speedy wartime tribunals. He enacted this without the need for congress' approval, and the sole purpose is to process terrorists faster and in a more secretive setting than a standard civil trial. Is this too much or does it sound fair, considering this is wartime?
posted by mathowie at 10:06 PM PST - 50 comments

Childish fun-poking sites seem to be springing up everywhere, nowadays. From the looks of this site, and this site, and many others, is the internet continuing to open up as just another medium for people to make fun of eachother, more and more, everyday?
posted by trioperative at 9:54 PM PST - 19 comments

Why'd they have to punish everyone else though?
posted by BentPenguin at 9:30 PM PST - 33 comments

The Women's American Football League recently debuted their new season and may be coming to your town soon. "One hundred percent of the women (playing in the league) have always wanted to play but never had the chance."
posted by mathowie at 9:03 PM PST - 26 comments

On Nov. 18, 2001, sky watchers somewhere will see a dazzling storm of Leonid meteors. And Leonid Observing Tips. It's the rainy season where I live so I'm pessimistic about my chances but maybe some of you have a shot at seeing them. Posted here as a PSA.
posted by y2karl at 7:24 PM PST - 7 comments

Necoro is a robotic cat that looks more like a cat than a robot. This site is only available in Japanese, but check out the photo and movie galleries. (I saw this thing mentioned in a Reuters article about the new "human-like" Honda robot).
posted by edlundart at 5:38 PM PST - 17 comments

Actor Ralph Meeker portrayed hardboiled private dick Mike Hammer in the Robert Aldrich film "Kiss Me Deadly", a celluloid masterpiece of brutal cold-war paranoia that introduced the filmgoing public to the concept of suitcase nukes back in 1955. For some reason, I find the thought of Conway Twitty films far more disturbing.
posted by MrBaliHai at 5:08 PM PST - 9 comments

Here's an interesting article about the economics of globalization.
posted by electro at 3:34 PM PST - 12 comments

Big Tobacco is buying exclusive rights to lung cancer drugs. I can't begin to count the ways that this is just wrong.
posted by skechada at 12:32 PM PST - 33 comments

Australia's Having Trouble Shirking Refugee Responsibility
In a sure sign of desparation, AU has approached TV (Tuvalu) about taking 1000 refugees in exchange for aid. They were rebuffed, for what should be obvious reasons. Its the same deal they've shopped around to PNG, FJ, and just about every Pacific island country since the refugees' boat caught fire near CX. PNG has already agreed to detain and process asylum requests on Manus. And the ultimate destination of the Tampa refugees was Nauru. Using Pacific island countries as chess pieces in the political calculations just isn't working -- I think it's highly revealing of AU attitudes toward the Pacific and asylum-seekers.
posted by rschram at 11:38 AM PST - 55 comments

Fuller Up is a "site about dead musicians...and how they got that way". I got to thinking about my favorite late artists, mostly classic rock, from the 60's, 70's & 80's, and which ones would IMO be making good music were they alive today. Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, SRV and Bob Marley top that list, while Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison probably died at the right time, when their stars were shining bright. By the way, if you want to know where the deceased RIP, try Find A Grave.
posted by msacheson at 11:14 AM PST - 36 comments

Ansel Adams at 100 -- If you liked my Coltrane link of a few weeks ago, and you are into visual stuff as well, this San Francisco Museum of Modern Art exhibit site is a real gem. I particularly like the "where to stand, what to keep" "essay" that you get when you click on the "Frozen Lake and Cliffs" image.
posted by fpatrick at 11:09 AM PST - 7 comments

Would you survive nuclear blast? With all the talk of Bin Laden's nuclear capabilities lately, you may be interested in this link again. Its been posted before, but not in this context I presume.... I wonder where the fallout would have the worst affect?
posted by Espoo2 at 10:57 AM PST - 26 comments

I didn't grow up thinking I talked funny... but thanks to the internet, I now know why I was turned down for all those newscaster jobs. Jano yinz talked funny too?
posted by m@ at 10:42 AM PST - 21 comments

While the cat's away the mice will play. When the cat is driven out by the Northern Alliance the mice will shave off their beards and watch TV.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 9:49 AM PST - 34 comments

MS : Linux is the threat. According to the Register, Linux has been upgraded from a threat to the threat.

I'm waiting for Ballmer to call Linux the Evil Empire.
posted by jragon at 8:37 AM PST - 35 comments

Reparations. ZIMBABWE announced new measures yesterday [10/12/01] to enable the Government to nationalise up to 90 per cent of all white-owned land at the stroke of a pen — a move expected to wipe out next year’s crops almost totally.
posted by jfuller at 8:13 AM PST - 16 comments

"I became known as the first "cybersex fiend" Finally cleared and released Oliver Jovanovic in his own words in the NY Post: "...Thankfully Steve Dunleavy, a reporter for the New York Post, saw straight away that the whole prosecution was completely rotten. And he wrote that again and again until he finally had my named cleared...I believe in the police, I believe in the government and believe in the United States of America. But I need District Attorney Robert Morganthau or Fairstein, the outrageous self-promoter, to please explain how I did 20 months in prison, cost my family more than half a million dollars in legal fees, and got stabbed in the neck by some wacko while I was eating corn flakes. " Honest journalism by Mr Dunleavy and the NY Post in the noble pursuit of justice, or sly schemers boosting circulation as the tech bubble burst ?
posted by Voyageman at 8:00 AM PST - 13 comments

The world of annoying advertising mascots took a hit yesterday with the death of Carrie Donovan, the goggle-eyed fashion doyenne who appeared in 42 Old Navy commercials. I'll remember the performance fleece jingle on my deathbed. Were those ads the worst commercials ever?
posted by rcade at 6:14 AM PST - 62 comments

iTunes installer débâcle Backups are insufficiently sexy: “This time Apple deserves the lion’s share of the blame for creating an operating system that can’t be backed up and restored reliably many months after the initial release. For this reason alone, Mac OS X cannot be considered acceptable for serious use in many situations”
posted by joeclark at 5:42 AM PST - 10 comments

Opera 6.0 for Windows Beta 1 released
posted by gleemax at 2:48 AM PST - 33 comments

Is There Anything Cooler Than Clint Eastwood on Heidegger and Wittgenstein? Bruce Jay Friedman, hilariously, thinks not. Revered in Jamaica and Southern Europe as the coolest man still alive, why is the ex-mayor of Carmel, jazz buff and Oscar-winning actor still regarded in his own country as just another talentless old geezer whose time has long since passed?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:45 AM PST - 27 comments

Have you ever been injured? Did it hurt? Ever had a head injury?
posted by swift at 12:08 AM PST - 13 comments

Fall on Me? Just Fall Everywhere. "At one stage it was alleged that he managed to cover himself and the cabin services manager with a tub of yoghurt. " Gotta love those crazy midlife crisis/aging rockstar hijinks!
posted by nobody_knose at 11:05 PM PST - 17 comments

Evan Mather's animated Quicktime video for Aimee Mann's "Red Vines." I love the song, not sure about this video... Can anyone figure out what's going on? (I mean I get that Aimee owns a gas station, but what's with the sperm...and the baby...and...well...just watch it...)
posted by adrober at 10:37 PM PST - 12 comments

Woman Pregnant Twice. An Italian woman is due to give birth in a hospital in Rome this week to a baby girl - before returning three months later to have triplets. If both deliveries are successful, it is thought that this will be the first such case in history.
posted by tpoh.org at 7:32 PM PST - 17 comments

Northern Alliance Fighters Enter Kabul. It's almost over.
posted by tamim at 7:13 PM PST - 75 comments

Fillerbunny is another creation of Jhonen Vasquez, the twisted author and artist responsible for Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Invader Zim, and others. As his name suggests, Fillerbunny was originally used as a single-page-filler, but he also appears in 16-page minicomics.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:07 PM PST - 14 comments

Does the Dallas Cowboy's owner suffer from delusions of adequacy? When Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys fired Jimmy Johnson he sold his soul to prove that he's in charge. Now his ego has made America's Team an NFL laughingstock.
posted by marc-hamilton at 3:29 PM PST - 23 comments

[pseudo-]Random content generators - very interesting stuff. I'd love to see human beings act on this content as a sort of selector of aesthetics a la Richard Dawkins. Be sure to check out the randomly generated comics.
posted by SilentSalamander at 1:45 PM PST - 13 comments

Work out? Why bother? Study shows that imaginary exercise builds muscles. Now if only imaginary friends worked the same way.
posted by o2b at 12:49 PM PST - 22 comments

Microsoft tells you why Oracle system wont work. Kind of like Burger King telling Colonel Sanders why the whopper works, but honey barbeque wings don't.
posted by Grok09 at 12:34 PM PST - 11 comments

Scientology Fan Fiction! Curious about the mystery behind the one, true "religion?" SomethingAwful.com shares their knowledge of scientology through a great fictional piece, complete with illustrations.
posted by valerie at 12:28 PM PST - 4 comments

Escapism, Star Wars style - The new Star Wars Ep II trailer, "Mystery" is out there - not the 'breathing' teaser, but a longer one. It's supposed to be unlocked by EP I DVD owners only, but of course there are mirrors. Post others inside if you find them. Star Wars haters can just move along, there's plenty other news today.
posted by kokogiak at 12:03 PM PST - 37 comments

Gives a whole new meaning to Jesus Joggers, doesn't it? I want to say this is a parody, and yet I cannot.
posted by solistrato at 11:51 AM PST - 22 comments

I'm no Anton Corbijn, but from time to time I snap a damn fine photo. And now you're telling me I can get paid for them? Bitchin.
posted by athensltd at 11:47 AM PST - 6 comments

You will not escape "Car Talk," "Prairie Home Companion" or "Whad'ya Know" How the hardcore number-crunching audience analysis of commercial radio is applied to public radio. It's "frowny faces" for poor-performing classical music shows, I'm afraid. Is there any local radio programming you love that wouldn't survive this kind of scrutiny? (NYT registration required.)
posted by CosmicSlop at 10:45 AM PST - 30 comments

Independents Day's first event is taking place now, with a new essay on the future of the independent web being posted every six hours. I especially liked Halcyon's predictions, including: "Jacob Nielson is discovered to have heavy.com as his homepage. At a press conference, he admits he finds his own webpage 'unappealing'."
posted by fraying at 10:26 AM PST - 52 comments

Jonah Goldberg on why the British are like dogs, and the French like cats.
posted by Ty Webb at 10:23 AM PST - 22 comments

Bullies Reunited: From the nostalgia trip that brought you Classmates.com and FriendsReunited... "A site for those of us who spent our schooldays tormenting, ridiculing and psychologically disturbing other children."
posted by skylar at 10:02 AM PST - 6 comments

She's 17? That'll Be One Cow Please, Your Majesty The king of Swaziland imposed a ban on having sex with any female under the age of 18, in hopes of curbing the nation's growing rate of HIV infections. But he just married a 17 year old girl. (His 9th wife.) His penalty? One cow, as per the rules of the sex ban. The cow was roasted and eaten by a group of 300 young women who marched to the palace to protest the marriage. My question is - how does a cow make up for possibly infecting a young woman with HIV? (I'm not suggesting that the king is infected, but if he were, what good would the cow do?)
posted by Dreama at 8:58 AM PST - 24 comments

Another plane crash? I just heard that a 767 crashed over Queens in good weather? Anyone see anything on this? It is 9:36AM EST
posted by Davezilla at 6:37 AM PST - 195 comments

Al Jazeera set to launch English language service Is that some late November 5th fireworks I can hear? No, the sound of Bush and Blair exploding with indignation.
posted by Summer at 6:02 AM PST - 14 comments

Harvard students “essentially a lazy bunch,” and not “that smart.” Whatever. At least they have the best friggin footbal team.
posted by Voyageman at 5:37 AM PST - 41 comments

Its us And don't we sound nice!
posted by kramer_101 at 4:49 AM PST - 37 comments

Why yes, I could use a distraction. Simple, yet oddly effective. Distraction.com is a distraction and nothing more.
posted by plinth at 4:39 AM PST - 6 comments

Some twins share thoughts, dreams, clothes, but these two have shared sooo much more. Quite possibly the most bizarre thing I have seen in a while.
posted by dancu at 12:57 AM PST - 17 comments

Photos from Afgahnistan (mostly quite old tho) This site has a fairly large amount of pictures of sites in the cities in Afgahnistan. I remember reading something about the 'Friday Mosque' in Herat and trying to find a picture of it - well turns out it's here. Unfortunately, it's on GeoCities, so it runs of of bandwidth from time to time. But if you can see it it's quite interesting.
posted by QrysDonnell at 11:26 PM PST - 3 comments

Speaking of Veterans Day, here in Chicago we have the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum. Art by Vets about the War. Most pieces are on-line with a short essay. The Above and Beyond memorial is impressive to say the least.
posted by skallas at 10:14 PM PST - 2 comments

The X-Files have returned. Comments? Suggestions? Mulder? Xena?
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 7:36 PM PST - 23 comments

President Gore? The recount results are in. Will this only serve to undermine Bush's authority in a time of crisis? Should the media have sat on this until the current situation becomes more stable?
posted by Bezuhin at 6:48 PM PST - 62 comments

Unbridled cynicism. I'm surprised this hasn't been posted here yet, this is the funniest thing I've seen since the Get Your War On comics. [via cruel.com]
posted by rorycberger at 6:46 PM PST - 6 comments

Spillway "is a non-linear loopbox of digital samples and serendipitous scraps which may be entered and mixed from multiple points"
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:03 PM PST - 2 comments

Laws of Form In 1969, George Spencer-Brown published a mathematical book called Laws of Form, which has inspired explorations in philosophy, cybernetics, art, spirituality, and computation. The work is powerful and has established a passionate following as well as harsh critics. This web site explores these people, their ideas and history, and provides references for further exploration. I read this then, didn't understand much of the math due to my innumeracy, but was struck by a passage in passing... I especially am curious to see what the numerate in MetaFilter have to say.
posted by y2karl at 1:50 PM PST - 18 comments

New Discovery in Northern China challenges theory on origin of man. Human activities started in Asia some 2 million years ago long before Out of Africa.
posted by stbalbach at 10:45 AM PST - 11 comments

The remake of Oceans Eleven, starring a myriad of $10 to $20 million per pic actors (including two Oscar winners) and helmed by Oscar winning director, was made for just $80 million. If the chemistry in this LA Times Calendar article is any indication, they seem to have a good handle on the Rat Pack spirit, or maybe it's just the vodka and cranberries.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:42 AM PST - 16 comments

Roger Ebert on Steve Martin. "He published a novel last year that was touching and true, and he is an expert on modern art, and he is capable of hosting the Academy Awards and starring in a David Mamet movie and writing for the New Yorker and, no doubt, brooding a lot."
posted by adrober at 9:37 AM PST - 24 comments

Who needs money, chocolate or cocaine when you've got women?
posted by yevge at 7:35 AM PST - 33 comments

My Crush on Musharraf
posted by delmoi at 7:26 AM PST - 15 comments

Strip tease for the trees. Now this is environmentalism that every red-blooded American male can get behind. What next, "Chippendales Say Earth First!"
posted by MAYORBOB at 7:11 AM PST - 13 comments

As a youngen, I was very much enamored with Ken Kesey's questioning soul and his flare for the wild. His novels provided much comfort as I tried to navigate my way through those conforming years we all know as high school. May he RIP.
posted by Ms Snit at 5:48 AM PST - 7 comments

Bing, Bangs, Liz, Hugh...and Baby Too Hollywood playboy Steve Bing doesn't want Liz Hurley's baby. Neither does Hugh Grant, although he'll be there for her. Divine Brown and Cannibal Sheila are nowhere to be seen. Confused? You will be, when you read this Sunday's episode of Soap. William Cash, an old friend of the mother-to-be, ungallantly spills the beans on an unholy transatlantic row.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:44 AM PST - 28 comments

In Flanders Fields - by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

MetaFilter readers wherever you are, please take a moment of silence to honour those who gave their lives so that we could live ours.
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 12:51 AM PST - 75 comments

The Craziest VW I've ever seen Volkswagen's new W12 Coupe.. Woah...
posted by Dav0xor at 11:43 PM PST - 22 comments

Did many of the "great masters" of Western art, well, cheat? Not exactly, says David Hockney, but they were close. In his new book, entitled Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, Hockney fleshes out a theory that he's been toying with for years: that artists from Raphael to Caravaggio used devices similar to a camera obscura (specifically, a camera lucida), to "assist" them in making near photograph-quality reproductions of their subjects. The theory (and the resulting debate) is fascinating: if these artists did, in fact, benefit from "technical assistance," how should this affect our view of them, and of art history in general?
posted by arco at 10:41 PM PST - 16 comments

Desperate, clueless people scrambling to keep us safe? Or cynical manipulation of public fear and superstition, keeping the pea hopping from shell to shell while the real machinations go on behind the scenes? Either way, the government seems to be doing their part to see that we don't forget that we're supposed to be terrorized.
posted by rushmc at 10:34 PM PST - 16 comments

Bin Laden: Yes, I did it "In a previously undisclosed video which has been circulating for 14 days among his supporters, he confesses that "history should be a witness that we are terrorists. Yes, we kill their innocents". In the footage, shot in the Afghan mountains at the end of October, a smiling bin Laden goes on to say that the World Trade Centre's twin towers were a "legitimate target" and the pilots who hijacked the planes were "blessed by Allah". The killing of at least 4,537 people was justified, he claims, because they were "not civilians" but were working for the American system." (via lgf)

Evidence enough? Will this cause any in opposition to reconsider? (it's even from a British newspaper...)
posted by owillis at 7:35 PM PST - 47 comments

Frank's Vinyl Museum is an invaluable resource for those of use who think that there's a thin line between trash and treasure. It's also a great place to indulge your taste in guilty musical pleasures without having to actually buy any of these crappy records at your local thrift store.
posted by MrBaliHai at 5:19 PM PST - 9 comments

Nude court appearance draws arrest, contempt citation, and mental health exam. Is justice blind?
posted by Mack Twain at 4:47 PM PST - 12 comments

Typographic56 has some interesting type experimentation geared towards the screen. Warrning: browser hijacking, though relatively well-done. More stuff at NoFont, and Bembo's Zoo. Know of any other places people are playing like this?
posted by Su at 3:25 PM PST - 12 comments

While shutting down a money-wiring service in Seattle, U.S. Customs officials also took the time to destroy the entire inventory -- $300,000 worth -- of the Somali grocery store attached to it. That'll show 'em!
posted by argybarg at 11:22 AM PST - 26 comments

While trying to write some silly poetry, I found this good resource for finding all things "rhymes". Glad I found a counterpart to my French Dictionnaire de Rimes.
I love words sites.
posted by XiBe at 8:55 AM PST - 7 comments

Chelsea Clinton speaks out against anti-Americanism, while her father engages in it.
posted by mw at 8:40 AM PST - 83 comments

What bin Laden and Bush Don't Talk About: The Politics of Oil , an article on alternet.org. The title is better than the article, but it's food for thought anyway.
posted by geir at 8:37 AM PST - 6 comments

"Tita Andronica?" Food for thought. Never anger a Sheila with cutlery.
posted by RavinDave at 7:16 AM PST - 14 comments

Full text of White Paper on Tibet's March Toward Modernization (Part 2) (Part 3) I don't agree with Tibet being administered as an Autonomous Region, but doesn't this amount to displacing Native Americans and putting them on reservations as part of the US' westward expansion? [press release]
posted by kliuless at 7:11 AM PST - 3 comments

How attached are you to your alma mater? I heard about this on Bill Geist's "It's Just a Game" this morning and said to myself, "talk about being a longterm fan." The owner of the company says he's considering getting the licensing from professional sports teams. After all, once you're a Cub fan, you're a Cub fan forever.
posted by MAYORBOB at 5:59 AM PST - 17 comments

Photographers: Consider do-it-yourself lens repair - but remember those safety glasses.
posted by normy at 4:21 AM PST - 9 comments

Paper says bin Laden claims he has nuclear weapons. Pakistan's respected Dawn newspaper said on Saturday bin Laden, in an interview inside Afghanistan, said he had nuclear and chemical weapons and might use them to respond to U.S. attacks. Maybe he read DSSi's strategic scenario analysis.
posted by tranquileye at 7:55 PM PST - 37 comments

From 1780 BCE to 2001 AD. Almost four thousand years of sociology, humanity, and depravity. You've come a long way, baby but just how far have we come? Are we going in the right direction? Can a person be inherently good or evil, or is it that one's actions, thoughts and words can be defined as good or evil, and Mankind is intrinsically definied as neither? What is your definition of evil? What is your depravity scale? Would you want to help define evil for the next four thousand years? Will it make a better world?
posted by ZachsMind at 6:08 PM PST - 13 comments

Nicote-free cigarette from genetically modified tobacco Apparently a company has developed it and they're running taste-tests too, in stores soon. Looks fine for wannabe smoke quitters. You found another way to get rid of cigs ?
posted by elpapacito at 5:48 PM PST - 41 comments

Plop. Scott Adams has a new comic. His words: "...it 's an engineered comic strip devoid of any artistic integrity whatsoever." It's a Dilvert spinoff set in Elbonia that he started over the summer. Now he's shelving it due to the resemblance between Elbonians and a certain nation we're at war with right now.
posted by badstone at 5:07 PM PST - 18 comments

Vanity license plates are like warez d00d speak for your car.
posted by nathan_teske at 4:50 PM PST - 10 comments

Michael Jackson is mentally ill.
Not that anyone needed further evidence of that fact but this article made me laugh. (I'm crying on the inside...)
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 4:32 PM PST - 24 comments

Finally, good news in the war in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance has captured the city of Mazar-e sharif. "Afghan rebel commanders proclaimed tonight they have captured the provincial capital of Mazar-e Sharif and have routed its Taliban defenders."

Northern Alliance forces entered the city quickly after winning a fierce battle at a bakery(!?) between the two airports that had served as an alliance base until the Taliban took the city three years ago.
posted by rabbit at 3:37 PM PST - 36 comments

Son of NY WTC survivor turns traitor His mom escape WTC disaster. He goes to Pakistan to become Taliban fighter. Says he is a Muslim and not an American, though he has American passport.
posted by Postroad at 3:31 PM PST - 25 comments

Lee Atwater - The Movie Yep, coming to your town will be a film based on the career and life of Lee Atwater, former Republican national chairman and (insert description here). Jay Mohr is set to star as Atwalter, no word on who will be playing Willie Horton.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 3:01 PM PST - 2 comments

PIRELLI Calendar 2002: Beyond Nudity They blew it, flushed 30 years of tradition down the drain, destroyed a 20th century's socio-cultural phenomenon. Slow and erratic loading, but see all the Pirelli Calendars from 1964 to 2001. Is "...total nudity no longer fashionable..." or is this the real reason : "Bush niece is Pirelli Cover Girl." ?
posted by Voyageman at 2:53 PM PST - 14 comments

The Black Day, indeed. Some amazing pictures in a classy site about Sept. 11. I read in the SF Chronicle (but can't find a link) that he set this up and sent it to a couple of friends, and now it's getting thousands of hits a day.
posted by aacheson at 2:16 PM PST - 14 comments

24th century* apartment. Only $4 million.
*Actual 24th century-ness of the apartment will not be known until we actually reach the 24th century.
posted by andrewraff at 2:03 PM PST - 17 comments

In a web full of lame Flash cartoons, Miss Muffy and the Muff Mob stands out. It had us in complete hysterics when we first saw it on an MTV animated special months ago. It's a rude, hip-hop Strawberry Shortcake-ish series, with music by Pharcyde and great characters. Watch all 5 episodes if you can, or at least the 2 music videos in the sidebar.
posted by fotzepolitic at 1:26 PM PST - 2 comments

Iconocast -- a fairly well known (I think) Internet marketing newsletter -- has redesigned its site. Founder Michael Tchong thinks the new, Flash-based design's "fun interactivity" will one day become "the hallmark of all online media." A dangerous claim to make, especially now.... (Google cache of the old design is here.)
posted by mattpfeff at 1:02 PM PST - 12 comments

The World According to Student Bloopers is an extremely hilarious 'essay' which was created by Richard Lederer, who compiled embarassingly silly quotes from students' essays. This was brought to my attention by my Modern-Western History teacher, and I believe everyone should read this. While humorous, it is also indescribably frightening that there are people out there who actually wrote this stuff.
posted by Dark Messiah at 12:54 PM PST - 22 comments

Author Ken Kesey in critical condition in Eugene. . .He's been sort of a local celeb around here. Cuckoo's Nest is still one of the major works of the 20th Century even though he never wrote anything approaching it. I hope that he survives to write more and is seen again cruising in his Caddy convertible.
posted by Danf at 12:38 PM PST - 22 comments

U.S. Will Monitor Calls to Lawyers According to this article in today's Washington Post, the United States' Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided to "listen in" on telephone conversations between lawyers and their clients in federal custody—including people who have been detained but not charged with any crime "whenever that is deemed necessary to prevent violence or terrorism." Sounds to me like an infringement of the right to counsel and attorney-client privilege. In a related article, the DOJ has also decided to stop releasing a count of the thousands of people it is detaining—without charging them with a crime—just as civil libertarians and the media are starting to question the secret and possibly unconstitutional detentions.
posted by terrapin at 12:30 PM PST - 10 comments

PAX AMERICANA IN THE ARAB WORLD A calm voiced and knowledgable description with excellent links by Fouad Ajami, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
posted by semmi at 11:48 AM PST - 3 comments

Maybe evolution never happened. And maybe industry doesn't cause pollution and population growth is no problem. At least that's what they're teaching kids in Alabama and Texas (and maybe your state as well).
posted by conquistador at 11:43 AM PST - 108 comments

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if all across the US Americans had a patriotic Christmas Tree?" No, actually it wouldn't, but don't tell these folks and others who are selling patriotic Christmas ornaments.
posted by Outlawyr at 11:42 AM PST - 13 comments

Law enforcement was actively pursuing a theory that Mohamed Atta, pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center, was a homosexual.
<?php insert($tongue, $cheek); ?> wherever you have jets impacting skyscrapers, a homosexual is sure to be nearby.
posted by quonsar at 11:22 AM PST - 37 comments

Build your own satellite Three years ago, when midshipmen and members of the aeronautics department approached the school about building a satellite, officials balked at the half-million-dollar price tag. The group returned with a plan to build one for less than $50,000. After a month in orbit, a satellite built by Naval Academy midshipmen with off-the-shelf parts from Radio Shack is exceeding all expectations, sending and receiving messages from ham radio users around the world. Amazing!
posted by suprfli at 10:27 AM PST - 6 comments

Howard Zinn - "A Just Cause, Not a Just War"
"The moral equation in Afghanistan is clear. Civilian casualties are certain. The outcome is uncertain. No one knows what this bombing will accomplish - whether it will lead to the capture of Osama Bin Laden (perhaps), or the end of the Taliban (possibly), or a democratic Afghanistan (very unlikely), or an end to terrorism (almost certainly not)."

A well-reasoned, dispassionate argument against the war, from the man who brought us "A People's History of the United States."
posted by mapalm at 10:09 AM PST - 68 comments

Too little, too late? Commercial Alert's campaign to remove advertising from public schools, including "a $5,000 prize to the school that makes the best and most creative effort to remove advertising and commercialism from school premises." After unsuccessful campaigns against Channel One and junk food, the battle seems unwinnable.
(AdSlam link via Mothering.com, a great parenting resource)
posted by whatnot at 9:27 AM PST - 27 comments

The Tick finally airs! I watched the premiere episode of Fox's live-action version of The Tick last night. This morning at breakfast I found myself saying to the coffee maker, "Java devil, you are now my bitch!" What was your reaction?
posted by MrBaliHai at 8:37 AM PST - 54 comments

An Archaeological Find For Our Times? Indian archaeologists have uncovered two ancient statutes, believed to be representative of Ashoka, an emperor who, after a brutal climb to the throne, switched over to Buddhism and attempted to create a just society.
posted by ed at 7:54 AM PST - 6 comments

Buy your own election! Complete with hanging chad!
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:17 AM PST - 4 comments

Bardolotry or Cheat Sheet? I just clicked through from a TextAd to this "premier Shakespeare destination." I love finding reference sources available on the web, but this site strongly advertises its cheat-o-riffic functionality (more inside).
posted by BT at 6:32 AM PST - 21 comments

Visual Truth or Random Image? We always thought we knew the man behind MetaFilter. But go to Google's Image Search and type: founder of metafilter. Well . . . now you really know.
posted by jacknose at 6:23 AM PST - 49 comments

Poetry - Tree Poetry, Funny Tree Poetry. I want to hug some trees.
posted by semper at 5:32 AM PST - 7 comments

Flight 93 crash CONSPIRACY - paranoia or bravery. Is the truth out there or just a load of wackos.I remember initial reports of F16 and then there was nothing more said. Link care of Seethru
posted by kramer_101 at 4:51 AM PST - 30 comments

"Gutless" Hollywood stars - too scared to fly Concorde. Send ME a ticket. I'll go...
posted by scotty at 4:13 AM PST - 15 comments

To concentrate chemicals in solution, just add water: 'a chance discovery so unexpected it defies belief and threatens to reignite debate about whether there is a scientific basis for thinking homeopathic medicines really work.'
posted by rory at 2:19 AM PST - 18 comments

Should KaZaA users beware? Has anyone else using KaZaA media desktop been invaded with viruses? Students at the high school where I work have downloaded KaZaA on every PC that they could, and I've been going around deleting it as fast as I could, because of the pr0n files they were downloading along with the mp3's. Now we've come under siege by viruses, mostly nimda and loveletter, and they all came attached to files downloaded via KaZaA. It has made for a frantic couple of weeks at work, I can tell you. It seems that not only other parasite spyware programs, but also viruses are piggybacking on the service.
posted by Lynsey at 10:46 PM PST - 14 comments

Terrorism…American Style. Once some of us Americans thought such barbaric acts of human sacrifice were the perfect place to take the kids, wear our Sunday best. For all the talk of a ‘color blind’ society by anti-affirmative action proponents and all the whines those who decry the tyranny of political correctness, there remains this fact: a lot of us not so long ago practiced political terrorism on our fellow citizens. I don’t think the moral high ground we claim is that moral or that high and nor do I think we have repaid the debts we owe to our fellow citizens. These pictures alone are an argument for reparations to my mind--and something we must never forget are part of our history. Which is why my skin crawls when I see epithets like ‘towelheads’ or ‘ragheads’ bandied about these threads…
posted by y2karl at 9:28 PM PST - 70 comments

"Each vagina is different, each is like a snowflake, unique in its own way." More about explicit "edu-tainer" and "sexpert" Maria Falzone's "Sex Rules!" performance at Dartmouth College. Includes excerpts from performances there and elsewhere (including the above) and the College's official reponse.

Only touched upon in the article is the huge response to the event from Dartmouth's alumni, including a heated discussion at a College-sponsored alumni event yesterday in LA.

The original article and MeFi thread.
posted by gdog at 7:19 PM PST - 19 comments

You are the performer! "More art than regular housework. More housework than regular art."
posted by Catch at 6:02 PM PST - 7 comments

Looking for a little ass?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:17 PM PST - 13 comments

The Reality of Islamic Protests An excellent article in Al-Ahram describing the anti war protests in Pakistan. It goes into the different groups who are organizing them, what hidden agendas they may have (some actually profit from the Afghani drug trade), and points out that for the most part, while not supportive of the war, most Pakastani's are not speaking out against it.
posted by billman at 3:56 PM PST - 22 comments

Musical extravaganza falls on deaf ears Has the China Daily finally produced it's most politically incorrect headline?
posted by feelinglistless at 2:42 PM PST - 4 comments

Rob Rosenberger, editor of Vmyths.com, writes that three uniformed federal police visited him in the middle of the night and asked that he not to publish an upcoming column that would embarrass anti-virus vendor for "national security reasons." From late-October, but intriguing.
posted by tranquileye at 2:00 PM PST - 10 comments

Dancetrippin.tv - Episode #16 -Berlin Love Parade Dumping Broadband Part II - Are we getting any closer to enjoying oursleves watching the PC ? The big guys keep trying: Lycos TV; Yahoo's Broadcast and (now) Launch; Real One Player; Quicktime TV; MSN Media Explorer. The little guys keep hoping : flyonthewall.tv ; itv.com; liketelevision.com. But can we ever be truly satisfied? Any other good ones out there?
posted by Voyageman at 1:46 PM PST - 5 comments

Father Mychal Judge was the chaplain of NYFD, killed on 9/11. Read a little about him. (via andrewsullivan)
posted by marknau at 12:59 PM PST - 24 comments

Sometimes, people do too many drugs at once. That's the only explaination I can find for this. Apologies for linking to stile.
posted by bryanzera at 12:51 PM PST - 25 comments

Joybubbles , aka Joe Engressia, is quite possibly the man who arguably first discovered blueboxing, the art of stuffing a 2600 Hz tone into a phone in order to make a free phone call, by blowing a Cap'n Crunch whistle.

I recently (re)discovered all this information after having a conversation about a guy in the phonebook who was listed as Joybubbles. I first heard about Joybubbles a number of years ago when I was involved in a local Ham Radio club, and we had to change the roster because the guy changed his name. He even answers his phone "Joybubbles". Thank you Google!
posted by manero at 12:17 PM PST - 13 comments

Assisted Suicide law in Oregon stuck down by feds. Voters have approved assisted suicide twice. But apparently John Ashcroft knows better than we do. . .
posted by Danf at 11:48 AM PST - 17 comments

"The sky won't fall, it will probably just trickle down." On whom? (Guess who.) Out here in Washington State voters just approved another in a series of initiatives that, collectively, choke off the state government's primary funding sources. What else are the results of the initiative process around the country? And are The People responsible enough to be trusted with it?
posted by argybarg at 10:39 AM PST - 30 comments

Fuel cell–generated electricity goes online on Long Island Clean air, anyone?
posted by gazingus at 10:26 AM PST - 23 comments

Dymaxion Map , Dymaxion House, Dymaxion Car. Buckminster Fuller pretty much did it all. My favorite has to be the car which could turn 360 degrees in the same spot and looked like the old streamlined trailers.
posted by destro at 9:20 AM PST - 8 comments

As usual, when it's the U.S. turn, they play by different rules How come Russian and Scandinavian hackers can be charged under U.S. law for activities done in their home countries, yet when an American company gets a very reasonable request (IP tracking that it is done for web banners anyway) from a judge overseas, the U.S. grabs the free speech / local law argument.
posted by magullo at 9:10 AM PST - 23 comments

60 school kids from the 70s singing Bowie's Space Oddity. An incredible recording. A 60 student chorus of western Canadian rural school children belting out, among other things, Good Vibrations, Desperado, and, the cream of the crop, I think, Klaatu's Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft. mp3 samples on the page. It is amazing. Read David Bowie's quip. (And the quip from the American Orff-Schulwerk Association is classic.)
posted by mmarcos at 9:01 AM PST - 48 comments

Music lessons can improve spatial reasoning in kids. Did you take music lessons as a child? Did you stick with it? Why/why not? Any regrets? Anyone take up an instrument as an adult? How much does my sister weigh?
posted by luser at 8:28 AM PST - 38 comments

That is McGross Man eats 18,000 Big Macs.
posted by aj100 at 8:03 AM PST - 22 comments

Al-Queda's Endgame? This report from Decision Support Systems, inc. supports the "Al-Qaida has successfully laid a trap for the United States" model. More inside. (found at Linkwatcher)
posted by ferris at 7:55 AM PST - 40 comments

Politically Incorrect to be no more?! I think this is the best talk show on TV. Politics aside, Maher never panders to his celebrity guests---image, on this show, is just that. I really hope someone else picks it up...
posted by adrober at 7:28 AM PST - 51 comments

Big Al Wants His If Bloomberg's win validated the Dems need to kowtow to Sharpton, what do y'all think will be the impact if they let crazy Uncle Al out of the attic? Is this just a NY thing or does it have national implications for the way the party deals with minority leaders?
posted by nobody_knose at 6:18 AM PST - 27 comments

You Won The Election -- Now What? It's clear that the daunting tasks facing this week's newly elected officials is little different than the fiction portrayed in the 1972 film, The Candidate. Robert Redford starred as an idealist running for U.S. Senate. He never worried much about his campaign promises, because he never thought he would actually win. So when he did, the candidate turned to his manager and asked the question the campaign left him completely unprepared to answer: "What do we do now?" Like Redford's character, the winners of Tuesday's election must now put their campaign promises into action. Was former House Speaker Tip O’Neill right when he said: It’s easier to run for office than to run the office?
posted by flip at 6:00 AM PST - 4 comments

It was now or not for 200 years, and it was starting to look like it wouldn't be for another 200 years with the initial exploration funding cutbacks by Bush & Co. But reason has prevailed in the house and senate, and a Pluto mission is back in the plan. I never did find out why Bush opposed this mission. Maybe he thought that $30 million was too extravagent for a trip to Disneyland.
posted by holycola at 5:48 AM PST - 18 comments

Netscape 4.79 coming soon. Why do they insist on keeping that build alive? Netscape 6.x is finally at a point when it's almost as good as IE 6.0/IE 5 Mac, if not better, so another 4.x release is just very odd. [Netscape 4.79 FTP folder]
posted by riffola at 4:14 AM PST - 49 comments

Incredible Java Banner Remember that cool "Mind The Banner" Project? Exonemo, Japan, present their stuff. To me the concept for a new view on banners. Arty and strange, but worth to see. Move the Popups around!
posted by heimkonsole at 2:07 AM PST - 4 comments

like trying to eradicate cancer cells with a blow-torch ...and other choice insights into the "war on terrorism" by military historian Sir Michael Howard. While this is already a week old, and has been mentioned on MeFi (albeit without link) , I don't think that many people have read the full speech yet. And I think as many people as possible ought to.
posted by snarfois at 1:32 AM PST - 18 comments

Conspiracy theorists on your mark: William Cooper has been shot dead!
posted by kittyloop at 11:21 PM PST - 17 comments

UN warning over plundered Earth EARTH is being plundered at an unprecedented and unsustainable rate which needs to be curbed quickly to avoid disaster, the United Nations says.

Will the conflicts of the 21st century be based around the control of water, the needs of food production and economic inequality? Maybe it's time to consider these issues. We can't totally blame the poor and weak for their own circumstances.

posted by skinsuit at 11:16 PM PST - 14 comments

An article by Oliver North discusses how the celebration of the Marine Corps' founding in Philadelphia and the president's U.N. discourse on the same day are perversely related in an interesting twist of irony.

One of the battles that will be recalled during the Corps' birthday celebrations on Nov. 10 is the 1804-1805 campaign by Marine Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon against the Barbary pirates. They were terrorists, and they were Muslims. The naval and land campaign continued through Ramadan, and the pirates were hunted down and hung. Thomas Jefferson ignored the critics and whiners of the day until success was achieved. And nobody accused the United States of pursuing a "war against Islam." But O'Bannon reportedly underlined in the Bible he carried with him the consoling words of John's Gospel (15:18), "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you."
posted by rabbit at 10:47 PM PST - 12 comments

American Crusade 2001 Trading Cards Now it's easy to keep track of Good and Evil.
posted by dack at 10:40 PM PST - 9 comments

This article proves what I've always suspected: no matter how strange a fetish may be, some idiot is going to take it to its logical and extreme conclusion.
posted by tiny pea at 8:30 PM PST - 11 comments

NASA considering privatizing shuttle. I'm prepared to sit in a Taco Bell shuttle once a trip into orbit becomes affordable. Extra sour cream please.
posted by skallas at 7:00 PM PST - 3 comments

Odd Todd Lost my job and this guy is now describing my daily life.
posted by archeopterix at 5:00 PM PST - 18 comments

White House summons biz chieftains The industry's top leaders, including Viacom Inc. chairman Sumner Redstone and News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, will assemble in Beverly Hills Sunday morning with Karl Rove, the president's senior adviser, to hammer out a specific agenda for the entertainment industry to aid the fight on terrorism. They say it's not about propaganda, it's to identify strategies and agree on practical ideas, which may involve films as well as TV messages. Huh? That sounds like propaganda to me.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 4:35 PM PST - 15 comments

What really happened in the week before the attacks in reguards to a Pakistani Inteligence visit with CIA officials.
posted by bas67 at 3:56 PM PST - 29 comments

OS Google searches are pretty helpful when you're looking for Mac or Linux-specific info, and they each come with their own Google logo.
posted by jragon at 3:53 PM PST - 10 comments

Victoria's Secret is going prime-time. On Nov. 15, Victoria's Secret will be putting on a fashion show on ABC smack dab in the middle of prime time. According to the Wall Street Journal, "in a move that further blurs the line searating entertainment and advertising, the program's high-profile models also will make guest appearances on at least two of the network's shows during the week of the broadcast" -- "Spin City" will go backstage, and the models will play "Who Wants to be a Millionaire."
posted by me3dia at 3:40 PM PST - 9 comments

Welcome to Teddy. Images, words, and comics about a relationship gone wrong, right, wrong, wrong, and wrong from Ethan Persoff; incredible stuff. Some language may not be suitable for work viewing, unless no one can see your monitor. (Thanks to Velvet Cerebellum.)
posted by moz at 1:33 PM PST - 18 comments

Support the children of Holy Cross School, Belfast Do the right thing.
posted by Paul Dunne at 12:44 PM PST - 43 comments

Small town bomb scares. Before: "Look, some poor guy left his briefcase here... guess I'll open it up and see who's it is." After: "Look, a bomb!"
posted by Hugh2d2 at 11:43 AM PST - 6 comments

Sharon wants 1 million new Jews for Israel. This strange headline begs the question: Will they come shrink-wrapped? But seriously...
posted by Ty Webb at 11:38 AM PST - 31 comments

HP's proposed buyout of Compaq has run into some unexpected resistance -- from a couple of guys named Hewlett and Packard.
posted by jjg at 11:25 AM PST - 17 comments

Want to Link to Auto-Zone? Well make sure you read, fill out, and sign this form, then fax it back to Auto-Zone's legal team. A search on Google reveals that many companies have "Linking Agreements." Mostly large companies looking to protect themselves, presumably in part from being linked from 'the wrong sites'... is this a right that a website owner has, or should have?
posted by cell divide at 10:33 AM PST - 39 comments

Curmudgeon revels in the dot-com carnage.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 9:57 AM PST - 47 comments

Watch Marketing In Action Read this wire article about the "new" flat-iron steak and you can almost hear the gears spinning in the heads of Beef Council marketing flacks as they imagine how to take a junk cut of meat and turn it into the "latest taste sensation". Does the world really need another kind of steak? (link to news article via FARK.....don't hate me)
posted by briank at 9:47 AM PST - 23 comments

Bishop of Oxford lifts gypsy curse on football ground. Reported in today's tabloids, my local football club, Oxford United, has called in the Bishop of Oxford to exorcise a gypsy curse on their new ground. However, as is usual, the truth is rather more mundane. Unfortunately it appears that the team's losing sequence to the start of the season is more likely down to the team being useless. Has your favourite sports team ever resorted to such desperate measures?
posted by salmacis at 8:44 AM PST - 7 comments

Ecstasy approved by the FDA Well not exactly but I thought it would grab people's attention a lot better than the original title of the article. My only question is: Does seeing my fat, hairy, aunt naked qualify me as suffering from post-traumatic shock syndrome?
posted by Grok09 at 8:27 AM PST - 42 comments

Dump broadband? *gasp* Well, according to this ZDNet article, it's a movement. With price hikes and a souring economy, some people can't justify the cost. Could you let it go?
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 8:05 AM PST - 50 comments

Private Eye - Britain's funniest magazine, is 40 years old. The Royal Family wishes them well
posted by scotty at 5:26 AM PST - 14 comments

The BBC completely re-designs and re-tags it's site (in the same basic colour block style everyone is using, including me). Good, Bad, Ugly?
posted by MintSauce at 4:29 AM PST - 40 comments

How to buy military weapons banned for civilians, with the help of the police - In a small Missouri town, a 72-year old man and 3 buddies bought weapons and accessories banned for private ownership claiming they were part of a "volunteer deputy" SWAT team. The police chief at the time agreed, although only one of them was a police deputy doing 4 hours a week of police work. The new police chief, a person with real experience in SWAT teams, freaked out when he heard of the agreement, which lets the "fantasy" deputies keep the weapons locked in the trunk of their cars. City officials aren't happy either, perhaps be because they were not informed at the time of the deal ("we wanted to keep it low key, you don't want the bad guys to know our tactics"). Many neighbors of the single-stop-light-type of town praise the good intentions of the men, but members of professional SWAT deny in several ways their ability to deal with any high-intensity situation. A very entertaining read picked up at obscurestore.com
posted by magullo at 2:20 AM PST - 8 comments

Bloomberg Beats Green While I'm not a big fan, I think Mike was definitely the better choice here. It's always nice to see a super-slimy career politician like Green get sent to the showers. Just hope he keeps up Rudy's good work and doesn't follow the new bad example.
posted by nobody_knose at 10:48 PM PST - 39 comments

This is either a hack or the people running M.I.T.'s web site have a nice sense of humor. I suspect it's the latter.
posted by rdr at 8:19 PM PST - 18 comments

Now that you've spanked your monkey sore, try tracing the bunny.
posted by Su at 7:58 PM PST - 20 comments

Ok...now that '24' has aired... What do people think. Nice images, good story-line and good actors. The idea isn't new, but reminds me of a Nancy Drew episode.
***PLEASE NO SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!*** Not everyone has seen it yet.
posted by plemeljr at 7:04 PM PST - 36 comments

Baseball Owners Vote to Cut Two Teams Has the popularity of baseball peaked or will MLB just move these two to better markets?
posted by Oxydude at 6:50 PM PST - 37 comments

San Francisco is spending about $22,000 every hour on homeless people. "Leave politics out of it. Leave all the issues of needy folks out of it. We're talking about hygiene here," he said. "It's where people walk and take their kids. It's dirty and nasty and not healthy."

"New York City, credited with cleaning its streets of the chronically homeless, offers shelter to every person needing it - 27,000 a night. San Francisco instead focuses on long-term housing solutions featuring full services for those lucky enough to get in." (via obscurestore)
posted by owillis at 5:31 PM PST - 39 comments

So you can sell M-16 parts on EBay but you cant sell glass "water pipes," or kittens? that second amendment is mighty strong.
posted by tsarfan at 4:33 PM PST - 20 comments

Stretching a Jewish Vigil for the Sept. 11 Dead. The usual Jewish tradition of sitting shmira, keeping the dead company for the twenty-four hours before burial, has been going on outside the New York City Medical Examiner's Office since Sept. 11. Every soul has been given companionship and prayer. For me, this is a reminder not to forget the souls of the living as we get on with our daily lives.
posted by sierray at 3:32 PM PST - 7 comments

Get your Enduring Freedom Trading cards! Topps releases a new series "documenting America's greatest challenge". But don't worry, they didn't include any "disturbing images from national newscasts". Will Wizards of the Coast be next?
posted by kaefer at 2:54 PM PST - 32 comments

Is John Ashcroft paying back the Christian right? Or is he simply enforcing existing laws? But then what about pursuing Eric Rudolph?
posted by Rastafari at 2:23 PM PST - 26 comments

MathWorld is back online. And what a nightmare the experience has been. (And still is? New entries now require filling out this permissions form.)
posted by mmarcos at 2:05 PM PST - 10 comments

Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) We know about the US "elite" special ops - Delta Forces, Navy Seals, CDC (I would argue) - but had you heard of NEST, located inside a small, unobtrusive box under "Dept of Energy, Emergency Response" in the New York Times Office of Homeland Security Org Chart (reg required), "....The primary task of NEST is constantly to be on the lookout for potential nuclear or radiological weapons that might be smuggled onto the U.S. ....After the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, NEST was put on a state of high alert and operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the nation's capital and New York City monitoring for nuclear-related weapons... includes extensive use of deployed sensors and specially equipped vehicles patrolling the streets of both cities..." I can't decide if I feel safer or more paranoid thinking the windowless minivan parked for the last hour outside my window is sniffing for a nuke.
posted by Voyageman at 1:03 PM PST - 12 comments

Are you a blogaholic? Auiz that rates you as some who blogs and is perhaps addicted. Take the quiz and get your score. Is it bad to be a blogaholic or merely a habit, like doing hard drugs?
posted by Postroad at 1:03 PM PST - 14 comments

Cornel West cuts rap album He's the king of black studies. There is none better. Sucka MCs can call him . . . professor! Sorry. The phenomena of rock stars trying their hand at acting, and vice versa, has never been pleasant. Now, celebrity academicians want- or at least this one from Harvard wants - to diversify? Isn't this talked about in the Book of Revelation somewhere?
posted by raysmj at 12:23 PM PST - 14 comments

The 'Spy Cat' Splat? If the CIA is in fact taking over America, maybe we should keep them away from the pet stores. (Bizarre details from a book called The Wizards of Langley.)
posted by lelilo at 10:40 AM PST - 7 comments

All this interest in Zork has reminded me of the old days of lo-fi games like Moria. And don't forget the other text adventure games like The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The Adventure Game, always a favorite mainly because I read the book. Any others out there worthy of note?
posted by destro at 10:09 AM PST - 28 comments

What happened at Lingua Franca? The monthly had top-notch writing and reporting on the academic life as well as National Magazine Awards, but it shut down in October. It was originally thought to be another September 11 casualty (circulation hovered around 15,000, despite the magazine's heavy buzz). Now, it looks like a $16.5 million lawsuit filed against Academic Partners acquisition Arts and Letters Daily might have hastened the magazine's demise. The charge? Breach of verbal contract -- after the papers selling ALD were signed, promises of payment to the previously working for free executive editor went out the window. What responsibilities come with turning a communal labor of love into a business enterprise? How do you introduce the element of professionalism into something that was once done for fun?
posted by maura at 10:06 AM PST - 10 comments

The iTunes article reminds me of an important lesson in computer work: always mount a scratch monkey.
posted by plinth at 9:23 AM PST - 4 comments

Create-a-Fart. "Congratulations, you have created A Long, Swampy Wet Fart that was Barely Noticable. You can email your fart to a friend, or make a new fart. " Doesn't get any better than this.
posted by swift at 9:16 AM PST - 37 comments

Undoing Babel's Curse? A project of the Long Now Foundation, the Rosetta Project aims to create an audio and textual archive of over 1,000 of the world's languages. The work of some of its volunteer contributers to preserve their native languages comes across as an utter labour of love. Is it useful, though? And what does the future hold for our language and linguistic culture in an increasingly-connected world?
posted by holgate at 8:38 AM PST - 14 comments

Which America Will We Be Now? You can help us decide: Vote in your local elections today.
posted by skyboy at 8:11 AM PST - 21 comments

How do you spell vindictive?
posted by chrisgregory at 4:32 AM PST - 23 comments

Java is alive and kicking, and this guy knows what to do with it. Check out his sexy alife experiments (art? science?) and this goofy game. (Warning: his stuff crashed my browser a couple of times, but was worth it. Most applets are available for download.)
posted by grumblebee at 8:52 PM PST - 14 comments

Mythkus. And poetry. Interesting in that... scary... way.
posted by e^2 at 6:48 PM PST - 3 comments

iTunes 2 was released recently. Some poor OS X users lost all their data after installing this seemingly innocuous software. (about a third of the way down)
Is being on the bleeding edge worth it? What responsibility does a software manufacturer have to prevent from damaging your data? Any other horror stories from installing just released software? Not bashing Apple, as I'm using a Mac myself.
posted by the biscuit man at 6:33 PM PST - 25 comments

Got dreams? Obviously, some other people do, as evidenced by Dream Catcher. Set up as a weblog that allows anyone to post via a "guest blogger" account, Dream Catcher is set up for the discussion of dreams and dream-related links. While it's just starting out, I think Sean Mattison may've hit on an idea that could be a valuable, useful, therapeutic, and even entertaining resource on the world wide web. Visit Dream Catcher at: http://www.seanmattison.com/dreamcatcher/.
posted by philulrich at 5:46 PM PST - 7 comments

When Headlines Go Bad, The Afghan War Version. Like, are they talking aikido or judo or what?
posted by solistrato at 4:41 PM PST - 33 comments

Short Clips of Historical Nuclear Weapons Test Films from the DOE OpenNet Database.
posted by kliuless at 4:31 PM PST - 14 comments

Bona fide druggies in the NBA repeatedly gets caught not only breaking league rules, but the law. And like Lamar Odom, not much happens to these young men except they lose tens of thousands of dollars in fines. My question: why have a drug policy in the NBA if you're not going to do much to punish them - especially the super talented, good-looking, nice ones like Odom?
posted by tsarfan at 4:24 PM PST - 10 comments

Dear This American Life People: c/o WBEZ Chicago... "Could you please give me the name of that song you played under that story from a few weeks ago? The one where Ira interviewed that.. uhm, guy? With the thing? It went kinda ..la-la-la-LA! Dah-da-dum.. Something like that?"
posted by ZachsMind at 3:01 PM PST - 21 comments

Wow, I can't believe they let people as fat as that one go to the Emmy's. It's just sick. [No need to accuse me of being insensitive]
posted by yevge at 2:51 PM PST - 55 comments

Erudite op-ed piece on current events by Mark Morford of SF Gate. Pro-America does not mean pro-war. Or pro-Bush. Or anti-Afghanistan. Or pro-little-flags-on-SUV-antennas. [via BR]
posted by skallas at 2:16 PM PST - 37 comments

Suckers wanted. Or, as my friend put it, Company that thinks it's still 1995 ISO engineer who also thinks it's still 1995.... (I mean, can they be serious?)
posted by mattpfeff at 2:10 PM PST - 22 comments

Hawk hiccup? How wide is wider in a `wider war'?
With the world dazed and everything in flux, seize the moment. I'd make a deal with Ankara right now to move across Turkey's border and annex the northern third of Iraq.
Safire has been Monday-morning quarterbacking in his column since September 11. (He suggested the FBI wasn't doing enough to "deprogram" material witnesses with "conservative Muslim clerics".) He's made no bones about his desire to squash all terrorists, coalition be damned. He's sided with "wider war" wing of the administration, but this is by far the zaniest scheme--projected onto his ex-boss in a convo from hell. I know there are a lot of people--intelligent people--reading MeFi that support the war. Mostly our discussions have run pro/anti. The flower-children (anachronistic anarchists?) like me should sit out this one. Do any of you imperialists pig-dogs support this?
posted by rschram at 1:33 PM PST - 28 comments

Mother sues over gay son's suicide. This is a really awful story - teen boy commits suicide after police harass him and threaten to "out" him to his family. I so hope the mother wins this lawsuit.
posted by dnash at 1:22 PM PST - 44 comments

Mayo test detects anthrax in minutes The Mayo Clinic says it has developed a DNA test that can identify anthrax in "less than an hour instead of days." The test was developed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials announced at a press conference today.
Isn't it great what people can accomplish together when they're motivated by humane concerns?
posted by 4midori at 12:16 PM PST - 9 comments

This information is somewhat discomforting. I always imagined that there would be instances of people bringing something that could be considered on an airplane but I did not think that there would be this many.
posted by Stretch at 11:49 AM PST - 8 comments

Remember, remember the 5th of November
Gunpowder treason and plot.
We see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
(where was the best fireworks display you've ever been to? have you ever burnt something important? and was Guy Falkes framed?)
posted by feelinglistless at 11:42 AM PST - 20 comments

Man charged with flag burning. Now, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that The Supremes said such a law was unconstitutional right here. Why even charge him with it? To make an "example"?
posted by owillis at 11:35 AM PST - 13 comments

Political Wire aggregates the latest news coverage on tomorrow's elections and highlights Tuesday's weather in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City. All of the forecasts say it's going to be a wonderful day -- sunny and mostly sunny -- as voters go to the polls. But here's the real question: Does this favor Democrats or Republicans?
posted by flip at 11:05 AM PST - 12 comments

Monsters Doomed To Rot In a Hellish ‘Dungeon' I was wondering where they would end up. Imagine expecting virgins and bliss dying a martyr for Allah, but ending up forgotten for the rest of your life in Florence, Colorado's very own Supermax in 7 by 12 foot cells, with 387 other inmates like Luis Felipe, leader of New York's Latin Kings street gang. Why does this give me such a curiously strong sense of satisfaction. And apparently it only costs the taxpaying public $ 100 per day per prisoner. What a bargain. How about abolishing the death penalty for all Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.
posted by Voyageman at 10:56 AM PST - 63 comments

Senator, I'd suck a dog's nose dry before I'd lend you a chicklet. Comic commentary on Lousiana politics. And you thought your own local government was bad... Suspect Device
posted by nickonomicon at 9:22 AM PST - 4 comments

Seeing as Camp David has now taken on new importance for President Bush [NYTimes link], now might be a fun time to take a tour (sort-of) of the highly secretive compound. Or perhaps you would like a more detailed history of the Presidential retreat, or even some personal stories as told by people "in the know." (Though for the life of me I can't find more info on the person who developed these sites.)
posted by arco at 9:06 AM PST - 5 comments

How, exactly, did this happen? I'll tell you how. I happened to be at O' Hare yesterday, and the security drones there were about as dumb as a bag of wet mice (more in comments).
posted by vraxoin at 9:01 AM PST - 46 comments

Let the disappointment begin! Lucasfilm posted the teaser trailer to the highly anticipated Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones today.
posted by MegoSteve at 8:43 AM PST - 56 comments

The Meaning of Life and, of course, The Meaning of Life, Part II.
posted by swift at 8:16 AM PST - 9 comments

Restless Leg Syndrome has happened to me while watching tv, and it happens to a lot of people. Has it happened to you? It's a real affliction! Granted, it's more severe for the people who are seeking out help, but this definately fell into my "there's a support group for everything" file.
posted by fnirt at 7:33 AM PST - 19 comments

Blogdexter searches the Blogdex for the URL you feed it and gives you the results. At the Blogdex page. Isn't that what that "url search" link--at the Blogdex--page is for?
posted by Su at 6:50 AM PST - 12 comments

Abortion Foes begin using new tactics. Non-violent, yet still aimed to cause fear one way or another...
posted by da5id at 6:13 AM PST - 38 comments

Spank The Monkey! [via DiK]
posted by riffola at 6:11 AM PST - 25 comments

John Ashcroft, I'm Only Dancing --- What goes on behind closed doors in the Oval Office, late at night? The Taliban may be holding out, but they have yet to experience the cringe-inducing trauma of the President's disco dancing. They should fear for their lives. (Number one in e-mail in France, Italy and Portugal, right now. Oh, the excitement!) N.B. A "no comments" link in the old stylee, for entertainment purposes only. Be sure to click on all the left-hand side options, specially No.2. Flash or something probably required; no idea actually. ;-)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:48 AM PST - 5 comments

Design for a Web Filtering Service. Phil Agre, an associate professor of information studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, is the editor of the rather popular mailing list called The Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). In his latest email to the group, Phil picks up the issue of community web filtering and announces that he started a yahoo! group on the topic. The prime goal of the group will be the design of software to power what he calls a webfilter, "a cross between a discussion list, a weblog, and a bookmark file".
posted by HeikoH at 12:31 AM PST - 5 comments

What happened when the Special Forces landed in Afghanistan?
Are we getting enough intellegince before we plan a attack in Afghanistan ?
posted by adnanbwp at 11:02 PM PST - 20 comments

This is for cool cats and their people. I'd never heard of catnip bubbles till I went to kittysit for 2 cats, one of whom is blind, this weekend. The blind cat chased these bubbles and I don't know how. Did he hear them popping or maybe smell them? They smelled like regular soap bubbles to me. It was uncanny but cool. The seeing cat ignored them.
posted by Lynsey at 10:10 PM PST - 13 comments

Am I a Terrorist or a Member of Al-Qaeda or a Taliban Fighter or Not? If you became a Dack fan through his writings about the web like 'Flash is Evil' and 'The Web Economy Bullshit Generator' then maybe you will appreciate his take on the Current Situation^TM.
Warning: This link may contain graphic images of humans hurt by the US bombings in Afghanistan.
posted by jasonshellen at 9:52 PM PST - 34 comments

Diamondbacks win! Diamondbacks win! More importantly, the Yankees lose! Yankees lose! There's something supremely fitting that to win, the Diamondbacks had to come from behind against Mariano Rivera in the bottom of the 9th in Game 7... this is one of the greatest, most intense World Series I've ever seen!
posted by hincandenza at 8:27 PM PST - 49 comments

An interesting story piecing together the tactics of the 9/11 hijackers.
posted by electro at 5:37 PM PST - 4 comments

A great resource is threatened. The Internet FAQ Archives has lost its funding. Although the site is operated by volunteer labor, the bandwidth expenses are high. Can Kent make-up the difference with Paypal donations? Will a new sugardaddy be found? Will TextAds start appearing on the homepage?
posted by chipr at 3:37 PM PST - 7 comments

Dave's Quick Search Deskbar: A cool little utility to make searches on the Windows desktop easy and (POW!) fast!
posted by jakd at 2:19 PM PST - 19 comments

Drastic changes due for America after terror attacks We are to become a garrison state, for better or worse, with the CIA more intimately involved with internal (domestic) doings and the FBI taking on new duties.
posted by Postroad at 1:39 PM PST - 20 comments

Charlie Daniels's racist 9.11-related song banned Country Music Television refused to allow ever-increasingly reactionary redneck musician Charlie Daniels to sing a new song, "It's a Flag, Not a Rag," at Nashville benefit for victims of the Sept. 11 terror. The conclusion to the title line is, " . . . and we don't wear it on our heads." Daniels, however, says the effect has been to increase sales at his web site. Can he be officially lumped in with Klansmen and skinheads now, and only invited to severely marginal, sub-Jerry Springer talk shows? Please?
posted by raysmj at 12:03 PM PST - 58 comments

David Greg Harth is not afraid. As part of his ongoing art project in which this New York artist stamps US currency with phrases, he's releasing 'I am not afraid' and 'I am not terrorized'. He needs help circulating the bills.
posted by prolific at 11:41 AM PST - 23 comments

From the Sunday NY Times comes an article detailing an unprecedented roundup of Arabic people living in the US, some as naturalized citizens, but most under varying types of visas, (oftentimes lapsed). And release bonds are but non existent The gov's strategy seems to be to try to cast a wide net and scoop up as many "likelies" to put a wrench in "The Base's" homeland terror machine. Calling it "widescale racial profiling" like the well documented Japanese internments of WW2, defense lawyers and civil libertarians are getting constitutionally antsy about the roundup, which they say accellerated noticably after the 9/22 warnings of imminent attack. Is their alarm well founded or reflexive and hollow?
posted by BentPenguin at 11:16 AM PST - 24 comments

Voters in Five U.S. Cities to Decide Gay Rights Issues Tuesday: Out of the closet and onto the ballot! Traverse City, Kalamazoo, and Huntington Woods in Michigan, Miami Beach, Houston, and a lawsuit in Maryland.
posted by Carol Anne at 7:03 AM PST - 23 comments

The Chairman Smiles ......Mao......Fidel.....Stalin .....Che........Nostalgia for the evil ones of our past. I wonder how many of us would trade today's War on Terrorism for the Cold War.
posted by Voyageman at 6:16 AM PST - 91 comments

How lyrics work, offered up by one of my favorite singers and songwriters. No, you won't learn who she was really singing about in "You're So Vain" but it's still a fascinating read about a topic she knows a thing or two about.
posted by MAYORBOB at 5:53 AM PST - 7 comments

Microsoft admits major flaw in Passport system.
posted by o2b at 7:59 PM PST - 14 comments

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes! No, not the children's book, but the punk novelty band, featuring talent from various punk bands, including the bassist from NOFX. They do covers of decidedly non-punk songs, such as Barry Manilow's "I Write the Songs," the themes from "Phantom of the Opera" and "Rocky Horror Picture Show," and Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl".
Their record label offers four free mp3s including "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and "Wild World."
posted by CrunchyFrog at 7:16 PM PST - 20 comments

Need a job? Read the source code.
posted by dchase at 5:04 PM PST - 21 comments

Anyone starting to play NokiaGame? It incorporates all forms of communication (web, cellphone, tv and radio) to guide you thru an interactive adventure game in loads of countries, and has loads and loads of players... anyone had good/bad experiences? I played last year - got shamelessly addicted...
posted by wibbler at 3:43 PM PST - 2 comments

Green Party coordinator can't fly? According to this Counterpunch report, Nancy Oden, who is on the Green Party USA Coordinating Committee (which is to say the equivalent of these folks), a former gubernatorial candidate was detained at the Bangor ME airport Thursday evening and prevented from boarding a plane to Chicago for a Friday evening panel on pesticides as weapons (see anti-pesticide & genmod page); and was told the "airport was closed to her" until further notice. Oden claims this is because of the Green Party's opposition to the war; I couldn't find a different source for this that might indicate anything different. Wouldn't someone who opposes aerial spraying be on the right side of recent rhetoric? Has someone lost their mind? Did Oden get to Chicago?
posted by dhartung at 3:31 PM PST - 34 comments

So, what does "High Alert" mean, anyway..?
And yeah I know it's her. Work with me here... [MORE]
posted by ZachsMind at 2:21 PM PST - 20 comments

In 1948 Caryl Chessman was awarded two death sentences on two counts of attempted rape. He was probably innocent, yet he was executed in 1960 for more or less "being a smartass." In the years between his sentencing and death, he wrote three memoirs and a novel, which sold well. After the first memoir the prison forbade him to write about anything other than the legalities of his case, so he developed an elaborate code to get his work out to his lawyer. His spirit never broke, as strange as it was. This is his story.
posted by kittyloop at 1:32 PM PST - 13 comments

Arrest in Trenton NJ. Looks like the Feds may be onto something in the anthrax investigation. Makes you wonder why this rapidly slipped to the back pages on Yahoo, though...
posted by shagoth at 12:59 PM PST - 7 comments

SHARK ATTACKS LINKED TO BIN LADEN NETWORK From the Brains Trust...first I've heard of this story, plus Minnesota Moms wage anthrax counter-terrorism...thru Linklust
posted by Mack Twain at 11:31 AM PST - 4 comments

Google Cache of http://www.taleban.com While poking around with google I came across this. Funny how the wording looks like the anthrax letters?!
posted by Niahmas at 10:24 AM PST - 5 comments

qed is a new play about the nobel-winning physicist richard feynman. the idea is intriguing, and if anyone should get the one-man-show treatment it's feynman. but does the idea of alan alda playing feynman seem slightly off somehow?
posted by pxe2000 at 10:07 AM PST - 14 comments

Are you looking for a new religion? Why not try Church of Reality? The Church of Reality is an alternative religion that is based on the dedication to seeing reality the way it really is. Our motto is, "If it's real, we believe in it."
posted by Rastafari at 8:03 AM PST - 33 comments

This weekend in Millsboro, Delaware is the 16th annual Punkin Chunkin World Championships, in which pumpkins are propelled distances approaching a mile from old-style catapults and huge air cannons. Anyone else going?
posted by donkeymon at 6:09 AM PST - 6 comments

A picture of weblogs is what they call it. I was looking thru my site's referral reports and found that it was indexing me. Pretty cool idea to draw the incoming and outgoing links from every site... you should see MeFi's node on it - it's huge.
posted by arnab at 4:27 AM PST - 5 comments

Nostalgic for old video games? Try the java arcade machine emulator. Play classic games such as Tempest, Ms. Pacman, and Arkanoid, arcade perfect and available on the internet via the magic of java.
posted by phatboy at 7:59 PM PST - 8 comments

Is Microsoft finally doing things right? According to this usability study putting Win98 and XP side by side, the answer seems to be affirmative - on favour of XP. Won't make me trade my Mac for a Wintel machine though.
posted by betobeto at 7:37 PM PST - 31 comments

Bush to call for viable Palestinian state How much can be imposed? there remain key issues that are not in the "plan," such as Jerusalem, Right of Return, and geographical boundaries. But perhaps this may be a start. America needs some change in this chaos if we are to get and/or retain Arab support for Afghanistan.
posted by Postroad at 7:36 PM PST - 19 comments

They're auctioning off my childhood. But I can always pick up the original Enterprise for only US$15,000. Starting bid, of course. Maybe I'd rather have Shatner's Kirk tunic -- a steal at only US$6,000.
posted by honkzilla at 4:59 PM PST - 10 comments

They Rule .....I am always amazed by the VISUAL POWER of the web. Some of my favorites:...... Business Network Maps....... Hyper History....... Navihedra .......Paleomap Project .......History Wired ....... Cyberspace Atlases.....Any other good ones out there?
posted by Voyageman at 4:44 PM PST - 6 comments

Fact or Fiction? You decide. But before you discount it as ranting conspiracy theory, read it all and really think about it. Then consider the new executive order issued today by the White House.
posted by bas67 at 3:35 PM PST - 49 comments

Judge May Reject Olson Guilty Plea "A day after Sara Jane Olson pleaded guilty to attempted bombing charges and then denied her guilt outside the courtroom, a Los Angeles judge announced he will hold a hearing next week to decide whether to toss out the plea." Even if she's actually innocent, I can't help but think the former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive should've kept her mouth shut until after the sentencing at least. The LA Times isn't very sympathetic, either.
posted by phartizan at 3:33 PM PST - 6 comments

'WHOEVER I LENT MY NORD MODULAR TO /MSG ME ASAP' is an extremely funny fake chat log between the bright stars of the IDM/techno music world. If you're familiar with the music of Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Plaid, and the like, and if you've ever used IRC, then you'll probably get a kick out of this.
posted by 40 Watt at 2:09 PM PST - 28 comments

Salman Rushdie weighs in. (NYT) An Iraqi writer quotes an earlier Iraqi satirist: "The disease that is in us, is from us." A British Muslim writes, "Islam has become its own enemy." A Lebanese friend, returning from Beirut, tells me that in the aftermath of the attacks on Sept. 11, public criticism of Islamism has become much more outspoken. Many commentators have spoken of the need for a Reformation in the Muslim world.
posted by semmi at 1:57 PM PST - 20 comments

This is not what the travel agent told me Kabul looked like! Report in London times of British Muslim who went over to join the Taliban war effort and found out they were nothing but "lunatics and liars." Question: Should he be allowed back into Britain and if so, should he be tried for treason?
posted by prodigal at 11:35 AM PST - 31 comments

Five Salem Witches Exonerated - 300 Years Later I would say something like "It's about damned time" -- but like the various Christian denominations apologizing for the Trail of Tears and participation in the slave trade, perhaps it is simply too late. There is no risk in making this gesture at this time. And what is the message here? That these women simply were not guilty of the charges levelled, or that it was wrong to persecute on such a basis in any case?
posted by grabbingsand at 11:19 AM PST - 20 comments

Got Water? Fresh water is a necessity for human survival, but many areas of the world are starting to feel the crunch. One solution to this problem that has been applied in a few areas is collecting fresh water from fog (here's how!). This technology has been a boon to places like Chungungo, Chile. Now a small beetle from the Namib Desert may hold the key to making fog collection even more successful. Water attracting and repelling bumps and valleys on the beetle's wings collect and transport water from fog. Currently, QinetiQ is developing synthetic materials with these same properties, which may make the similar technique of dew collection even more feasible.
posted by iceberg273 at 10:59 AM PST - 15 comments

The latest data on European PDA sales is available and it's a big surprise. In reverse order. 3rd place - Microsoft, 2nd Place - Palm, 1st place Symbian. Symbian? [more inside]
posted by nedrichards at 10:47 AM PST - 21 comments

Microsoft signs consent decree with the US government to settle antitrust case. Settlement is fair, reasonable and good for consumers; It is time now to focus on challenges ahead for the industry and Economy, says Gates.
posted by riffola at 10:01 AM PST - 23 comments

Sony gets on the DMCA train. Earth to Sony: creating an SDK or an API would be cheaper than lawyers, and not look as horribly militant.
posted by machaus at 8:43 AM PST - 5 comments

It's Friday and I hate my job! Man, my job sucks! If it weren't for movie's like office space I don't know what I would do. Can anyone suggest another good "anti-work" movie such as Office Space?
posted by aj100 at 8:40 AM PST - 60 comments

Shrek is released on DVD... I've got mine, and it is great! In all seriousness, I think this film is one of the finest artistic achievements of *all time* (and damn funny), and furthermore I predict that animation (particularly computer animation) will be the preeminent artistic form in the next 10 years. So, that's my opinion clarified. What do you guys think? Away you go, esteemed fellow MeFi people!
posted by rikabel at 8:37 AM PST - 37 comments

His Buckley-ness talks about porn. WFB lecturing people on porn seems a lot like a monkey teaching table manners to a bear. Still, Americans love their porn. The only thing they like better is religion. And Doritos. Mmm. Doritos.
posted by mrmanley at 8:02 AM PST - 10 comments

Hackers win round one! Feel free to post DeCSS to this thread; it is no longer illegal.
What, if anything, does this mean to the movie industry?
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 7:46 AM PST - 15 comments

"apparently the first time that non-US organisations have been targeted. " in pakistan. no one infected but traces found.
posted by m2bcubed at 7:36 AM PST - 17 comments

Very childish. [Warning: sound file. Some may find offensive.]
posted by Mocata at 7:15 AM PST - 27 comments

Bush Makes a Pitch for Teaching Patriotism At a Washington, DC area high school—whose mascot is the Patriot—President Bush spoke on the supposed importance of patriotism.

"The Bush administration has backed a series of initiatives aimed at boosting children's patriotism and enlisting the young in the effort to counter anti-American propaganda abroad."

Is this how the Hitler Youth started?
posted by terrapin at 7:15 AM PST - 44 comments

Unemployment Rate Jumps! The unemployment rate had its largest jump in 21 years as fallout from the WTC continues to sweep through the economy. Service, Hotel, Travel and Retail jobs most affected by layoffs.
posted by Lanternjmk at 6:58 AM PST - 21 comments

Two nights in a row! Whether you love them or you hate them (which I do, GO METS) you had to be blinking your eyes in disbelief after the ninth inning last night. Can the Yankees actually make the claim that they are Gods team? Have any others that could compete for that title?
posted by Grok09 at 6:20 AM PST - 44 comments

Jennifer Lopez makes uncharitable demands and The Smoking Gun has all the evidence. Basically - she was supposed to be filming a brief part of a video for the Marvin Gaye song "What's Goin On" - which is being released as a charity single. But Lopez demanded (amongst other things) a 45 foot trailer, CD player, TV/VCR complete with a white room with white flowers, tables, curtains, curtains, candles and couches, a vast amount of fruit and desserts, over 40 CDs (specified individually) and flowers. She was on set for 90 minutes and didn't go near any of it! Charity begins at home...
posted by barbelith at 5:46 AM PST - 35 comments

Bug Dicks.
posted by brownpau at 3:22 AM PST - 11 comments

Time to get creative about dealing with popunders?
We all know about those crazy popunder ads which are more ubiquitous than ever- but Bill Rini of rini.org has some interesting thoughts on what we might do about them. I like this kind of brainstorming about a phenomenon that remains annoying as hell.
posted by artlung at 11:09 PM PST - 22 comments

From the ABC Nightly News an interesting story about changes in buying habits over the past almost two months.
posted by bjgeiger at 5:55 PM PST - 19 comments

Feminism's Children A reaction to Naomi Wolfe's new book.....so is this really how feminists look at motherhood??
posted by bunnyfire at 4:02 PM PST - 25 comments

Nothing says style like a Neiman Marcus Raccoon hat.
Yours for only $395. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie eat your heart out.
Part of the new "Prairie Chic" line. Oh Pulease.
posted by lheiskell at 4:02 PM PST - 14 comments

California Governor Announced that there is a credible threat against the bridges of the state of California. Including the Golden Gate Bridge. The attacks are likely to take place between the second and ninth of November, during rush hour.
posted by yevge at 3:03 PM PST - 57 comments

AnExquisiteCorpse.net is a surrealist "game of folded paper that consists in having a sentence or a drawing composed by several persons, each ignorant of the preceding collaboration." Original participants included Miró and Man Ray, among others. (some additional history)

In this modern version, the participants create their sections of the "corpse" based on a 15-pixel strip of the previous section, with some pretty interesting results.
posted by me3dia at 3:02 PM PST - 12 comments

cat fighting sex kittens no pussies Erotic women's fights are booming in Japan, with all the trimmings: schoolgirl outfits, firecrackers set off in bodily orifices, and bitter rivalries between leagues. Is this progress? (via Mouth Organ)
posted by pudders at 2:43 PM PST - 19 comments

Mystery of Plastic Tube Debris is Solved, But Wait ... There's Also Translucent Beads!
Marine debris experts were stumped as to the origin of bluish-gray plastic tubes ranging between 5-10 inches and of uneven width that kept washing up on shores. The website Beachcomber's Alert was no help at all. After the Honolulu Advertiser reported on the phenomenon, the pipes washed up on this Japanese website (English), along with a few other mystery objects. The leads came flooding in; mystery solved!
posted by rschram at 2:15 PM PST - 9 comments

Here's a short but sweet Paul Krugman critique of the House stimulus bill.
posted by electro at 1:14 PM PST - 57 comments

Canadian lumber industry lashes out at new U.S. tariff The Canadian lumber industry expressed its frustration and disapproval Wednesday at a U.S. announcement to impose an extra anti-dumping duty of 12.57 per cent on Canadian softwood lumber exports. Once again "free-trade" screws Canadians
posted by scotty at 1:11 PM PST - 9 comments

Bassic has just finished a new track and I was also pretty impressed with the two quicktime videos on the site, which I hadn't seen before. Know of any other decent/successful artists who promote themselves online, rather than through the recording industry?
posted by walrus at 1:05 PM PST - 14 comments

"Saint's Lives" are some of the most important primary sources from the late ancient, Byzantine, and medieval periods. The Internet Medieval Sourcebook links to hundreds of these texts, translated for your benefit, as well as thousands of other documents. Celebrate All Saint's Day by reading about your favorite saint in a text written while your saint was still alive.
posted by ewagoner at 12:54 PM PST - 12 comments

Judge rules against anti-war student So is this censorship of an unpopular position, or covered by the "fire in a theater" argument? Creating an "anarchy club" seems a little odd.
posted by owillis at 12:41 PM PST - 46 comments

Microsoft, DOJ settlement close... but the deal apparently would not place significant limitations on functions that Microsoft could "bundle" into its Windows operating program. The judge is said to be concerned about the "national psyche," but will slapping Bill on the wrists really help things?
posted by tranquileye at 11:43 AM PST - 6 comments

Is Blood Thicker Than Water? It seems to be for President Bush. He's refused to campaign for Republican governor candidates in Virginia and New Jersey facing the voters next week, even though they are both behind in the polls and could use the help. But the Washington Post says Bush is likely to do a fundraiser for brother Jeb who is not up for re-election until 2002. Bush cancelled another fundraiser just last week. (Via Political Wire.)
posted by flip at 10:43 AM PST - 3 comments

Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan... Mark Twain? I thought nothing else could increase my admiration of Twain but it turns out he sang and played guitar to newspapermen, miners, women (hmm), tourists... No recordings are known to exist. He's my all-time favorite wise guy and rebel!
posted by mmarcos at 10:38 AM PST - 1 comments

Bible stories, anyone? On this, el dio de los muertos, perhaps we should take time out from our mundane existence to explore the spirit world. Thus this handy link to Bible stories, brilliantly illustrated with...Legos! (from bifucated rivets)
posted by Lynsey at 10:26 AM PST - 13 comments

"It feels like a warm, wet vagina." A mandatory "sex orientation" for students at Dartmouth College. The administration claims it was educational. Students who attended aren't so sure. Is this sort of thing common elsewhere?
posted by gdog at 10:06 AM PST - 105 comments

MAME - I'm Gonna Live Forever (Flash link) I found this on the author's Tehkan World Cup site. It's an amusing trip down the MAMEory lane of classic arcade games. How many can you name?
posted by SiW at 10:03 AM PST - 8 comments

Love the Iron Chef? Be the Iron Chef! Some fan has reverse engineered selected Iron Chef recipes and put them on a site. As a frequently terrified fan of the show, I find them fascinating. Veal Stew Cheese Sauce, anyone? No?
posted by Skot at 9:37 AM PST - 7 comments

Are war reporters manufacturing a picture of a failing war effort? Slate's William Saletan makes some interesting points. Reporters get frustrated simply reporting the same stuff each day -- they want news. With the current rarity of dramatic events in Afghanistan, Saletan suggests, media outlets are growing impatient, and letting their "professional biases" distort the picture they present. (Shucks. If only Bin Laden had tried to escape in a white Ford Bronco....)
posted by mattpfeff at 8:22 AM PST - 27 comments

America's Terrorist Training Camp George Monbiot asks, in the Guardian, "what's the difference between Al Qaeda and Fort Benning?" Well, is there a difference? Away you go, kids...
posted by rikabel at 5:59 AM PST - 95 comments

Everything starts with an E - it sure does, and apart from nearly suffering from some sort of visually induced fit, i enjoyed this.
posted by semper at 5:17 AM PST - 25 comments

Long May You Live, Yeah - But How Long Exactly Will It Be? Today is Dia De Los Muertos and it's high time you found out just how long you'll remain amongst Los Vivos. So go ahead and try North Western Mutual's Longevity Game. And here's an appropriately macabre twist to add to your findings: If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, God forbid, what would you choose as your last meal ?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:05 AM PST - 42 comments

Josh Kirby has Died Perhaps best known for his artwork on Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, Josh was a well known science fiction and fantasy cover artist. He was 72.
posted by chrimble at 2:18 AM PST - 11 comments

Leonardo's Bridge became a reality, with the construction of the 100 meter bridge spanning the E-18 in the township of Ås, east of Oslo. The design of the bridge makes modern bridges seem old in comparison. It seems that many of DaVinci's 500 year old ideas are coming to fruition.
posted by dancu at 1:13 AM PST - 10 comments

Tiny Sepuku: Relationship advice column meets "Hello Kitty". It's funny cuz it's true!!! Tiny Sepuku is Ken Cursoe's brilliant, sometimes bitter, and always bitingly funny advice column/ comic strip. I became a loyal reader when it was syndicated by the Seattle Weekly a few months ago, but it seems that Ken has been churning out these nuggets of wry insight, which so perfectly capture the almost comical absurdity of dating in these modern times, since waaay back in '97. He now has a website where you can indulge yourself in all that archived "Sepuku" goodness...
posted by hincandenza at 12:49 AM PST - 8 comments