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December 2002 Archives
December 31
Evolution is a process that hasn't stopped just because humans now rule the planet. What will animals look like in 200,000 years? The Discovery Channel's
Animal Planet asks experts to predict the future of life on Earth.
posted by hipnerd at 2:52 PM PST - 38 comments
Tired of haikus? Then it might be time for
tanka.
Older than haikus, tanka is 31 syllables divided into lines of 5-7-5-7-7. There's been a
World Tanka Competition (mostly in Japanese, but the poems are translated into English) and a modern tanka poet,
Machi Tawara, has had her work turned into movies, television shows, and a musical revue. All that's needed now is to make it popular in the
English-speaking world...
posted by Katemonkey at 1:31 AM PST - 5 comments
December 30
Rumsfeld helped Saddam during war with Iran, while they had precise information about daily use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas, nerve gas, anthrax, and sarin. He met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and passed on the US willingness to help his regime and restore full diplomatic relations, in order to help Iraq win the war. [source: Guardian]
posted by hoder at 10:15 PM PST - 60 comments
Och, It's Wee Jonnie Updike. A verging-on-the-
Brigadoonish rewrite of Scottish national bard Robert Burns (you'll be singing his
"Auld Lang Syne" in about 24 hours), by the scrofulous old Joyce of the 'burbs himself. The original verse is "To a Mouse", rewritten after the news that geneticists find a lot in common between the DNA of mice and men.
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
Braw science says that at the leastie
We share full ninety-nine per cent
O' genes, where'er the odd ane went.
'At the
leastie'!? Jings, crivens, help ma boab, I think he's jeopardised his joab.
posted by theplayethic at 3:16 PM PST - 4 comments
The King As Art. Artist Naoki Mitsuse writes, "I remember reading an article in the morning paper about a local teenage girl who had thrown herself out of a balcony of a tall apartment building, leaving a note that said something like, 'now that Elvis is dead, I have nothing to live for and goodbye.' This had a profound impact on me and I realized then, that Elvis was a very powerful man." So the artist created
two series of Elvis paintings that are way better than any Elvis on black velvet you might find on eBay.
posted by VelvetHellvis at 2:49 PM PST - 10 comments
Poverty and the Welfare State: Dispelling the myths This working paper (PDF file) states that "debates on poverty and welfare in Britain are full of myths." Among them (culled from the exec summary, since I'm still reading the paper):
1. The belief that poverty is long term and is passed from generation to generation is not consistent with the evidence.
2. Poverty is not caused by people behaving differently (although people act differently after they become poor), or by people having too many children, or by racial differences.
3. Scare stories about spiraling costs and abuse are greatly exaggerated.
4. Welfare does not encourage dependency.
Just in case anybody's writing a major paper over the holidays or anything.
I found this via the fantastic
Canadian Social Research Links web site.
(And if this came up in a previous post, I apologize; I searched on just about every relevant term I could think of.)
posted by 314/ at 12:30 PM PST - 32 comments
Rubbish Portland's top brass said it was OK to swipe your garbage--so this weekly newspaper grabbed theirs. Informative and adventurous story results.
posted by sparky at 8:36 AM PST - 22 comments
Chickens are "natural born killers". This is the basic message of a
recent ad from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. This organization has filed
a lawsuit against Tyson Foods for making false health claims. I came across this organization and its campaign on
an entertaining C-Span program[Did anybody else watch this program?]. On the program, Neal Barnard, the leader of this organization, said that when you heat chicken(and other meats) certain carcinogenic amines are created. But, when you heat a veggie burger,
it just warms up. Therefore, he recommends a 100% vegetarian diet. It looks like the organization's next move is
a TV ad with this message. Your reactions?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 7:51 AM PST - 43 comments
December 29
Should military service become mandatory? New York's Democratic representative Charles Rangel thinks so. Would this help curb the enthusiasm our elected leaders have in using our armed forces? Obviously, the details need to be explained and hashed out... but does this effort have any substantial support?
posted by cinematique at 9:49 PM PST - 48 comments
The republic of Kalmykia is a unique place. A member of the Russian Federation, it was settled in 1608 by Mongols from what is now the Chinese province of Xinjiang. It is the only state in Europe where Buddhism is the dominant religion, and probably the only state in the world whose
president claims to have created an "extra-sensory field" around it. Kalmykia's spiritual leader,
Telo Rinpoche, is an American from Philadelphia who was appointed by the Dalai Lama. There has been a long history of migrations between Europe and Asia. In one really intriguing case,
3000-year-old mummies with reddish-blond hair, Caucasian features and wearing tartans similar in design to Celtic ones, were
discovered in the Takla Makan Desert in Xinjiang. If these ancient Caucasians were absorbed by the population of Xinjiang, then perhaps the Kalmyk migration might have unknowingly been a return to their ancestral lands.
[First link via plep].posted by homunculus at 3:04 PM PST - 12 comments
White House halts asbestos alert WASHINGTON (AP) - A warning from the Environmental Protection Agency, informing millions of Americans their homes might contain asbestos-contaminated insulation, has not been issued because of White House intervention, a newspaper reports.
The EPA was expected to announce the warning in April, and declare a public health emergency concerning Zonolite insulation, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in its Sunday editions.
posted by Captain Ligntning at 12:19 PM PST - 25 comments
Cinergy Stadium Goes Down. The odds are that the Vet in Philadelphia is next. Watching these ball parks is destroyed is something else. Anyone witness it? Do you miss those places and what would you like to see fixed up? Is this the answer rather than Soldiers field or Lambeau fix it up? Some are worth keeping (Wrigley) but maybe Fenway and Yankee stadium need to go.
posted by brent at 10:00 AM PST - 21 comments
December 28
Betting on Mini-Cows "ROCKWELL, Iowa -- Dustin Pillard is betting his farm on compact cows...Pillard has 50 tiny cows on his northern Iowa farm" MEANWHILE..."In a May dispatch from Cuba, the Wall Street Journal reported that Fidel Castro proposed in 1987 to alleviate a chronic milk shortage by trying to get his scientists to clone the most productive cows, shrunk to the size of dogs so that each family could keep one inside it's apartment. The cows would feed on grass grown inside under fluorescent lights."
Now I'd like a mini-polar bear, please, and a mini-elephant, while you're at it...posted by troutfishing at 10:32 AM PST - 18 comments
Girl to sue over detention "The family, who want compensation, will argue that the detentions were unlawful because they took place in Freya's free time. " If you can't give kids detention, how else are they going to be punished for breaking school rules?
posted by feelinglistless at 3:57 AM PST - 88 comments
Pinpin Lelapin ...While surfing on a Singapore site called
FlashMove, I came across a zany Flash site: A wonder bit of inscrutable Japanese-inspired
French animation from
Studio Tanuki in the form of
Pinpin Lelapin, an adorable pink balloon bunny rabbit who farts on people. In addition to the giddy animation and stylised artwork on the site is the unique "Super Mario"-type run-and-jump navigation.
(Note: Mostly in French, with some Japanese and broken English. Contains Flash, music, farts, giant mecha battles and a Sailor Moon parody.)posted by Down10 at 2:41 AM PST - 8 comments
December 27
Private zoos in China. This is one of the saddest pieces I've ever read--all the stories are terrible but especially the one on the bears. I thought the article made a good point on the focus on human right violations in China with a lack of attention on the treatment of animals. There should be some kind of organization either from outside or internally that addresses this issue.
posted by zinegurl at 10:57 AM PST - 17 comments
The Fly Guy is a Flash toy/game/greeting card with lots to explore and a seemingly (but not actually) endless number of things to interact with. Nothing groundbreaking, just cute and amusing. Enjoy!
posted by jonson at 10:14 AM PST - 18 comments
FDA now officially useless? Well, it's looking that way.. They are now about to allow
unverified health claims on food labels. They say this is a good thing. I wonder... What function does the FDA have now if it's not to protect the consumer from wild and potentially false claims on their food products?
posted by eas98 at 7:11 AM PST - 13 comments
Are Corporations Legally Persons? Orthodoxy has it the Supreme Court decided in 1886, in a case called Santa Clara County v. the Southern Pacific Railroad, that corporations were indeed legal persons. I express that view myself, in a recent book. So do many others. So do many law schools. We are all wrong.
Mr. Hartmann undertook instead a conscientious search. He finally found the contemporary casebook, published in 1886, blew the dust away, and read Santa Clara County in the original, so to speak. Nowhere in the formal, written decision of the Court did he find corporate personhood mentioned. Not a word. The Supreme Court did NOT establish corporate personhood in Santa Clara County.
Pardon me while I go to the bookstore. This looks to be a book well worth reading. Imagine the US government controlled by the best interests of real people instead of corporations.
posted by nofundy at 6:44 AM PST - 25 comments
Is the Washington Times perpetuating a fraud? the Palestine Media Watch is reporting on a rumour that has been floating around for a while, that the Washington Times' "Sayed Anwar" is actually Paul Martin, a correspondent out of their London office. Now while this Times doesn't boast the circulation of the NYTimes or even the LA Times, it still lands on the doorstep of the President of the US every day. How's this for journalistic integrity?
posted by djspicerack at 6:39 AM PST - 15 comments
DC Suburbs slowly getting denser I've been a participant for the past 5 years in what is easily the 2nd-3rd most insane housing market in the US: Washington DC. Apartment occupancy is 99% in the desirable areas, and "affordable starter homes" (in finger quotes) are priced at $250-$350k. People with good jobs can barely afford this. So what happens to folks who are just getting their feet on the ground in the country? More the merrier. How do you strike a balance between providing affordable housing that is accessible to living-wage jobs without running out the existing neighbors?
posted by cpfeifer at 5:40 AM PST - 50 comments
December 26
metropolis, on
kcrw (previously mentioned
here) is a radio show i've been listening to since 1996.
it's on most weeknights from 7:00 to 10:00 for those lucky enough to be within broadcast range, for the rest of us it can be found at
here starting 7:30 pm (realplayer, mp3 or windows media).
if you like electronic music (i hate the limitations of that label) check it out. jason bentley mixes records and hosts the show (among
other things) and does an excellent job of combining new music, out-of-the-way stuff and interviews .
it's not hyperbole to say that this show changed my life by introducing me to the music of
ltj bukem (warning: flash, frames, bad design, all manner of horrors)
posted by dolface at 8:14 PM PST - 10 comments
15 months after
the first waves, Blogging seems to prove so popular among young Iranian boys and girls that now the number of Persian (or Farsi) weblogs has jumped to more than 9,000. Almost half of them are using
Blogger.com's free service and other half are using a similar but more Persian-friendly online application, created by Iranian programmers, called
Persianblog.com. Tomorrow, they are gathering in a big conference hall in Tehran to meet other colleagues and bloggers and to share what they've experienced during their lovely days of a rare thing in Iranian history: absolute freedom of expression
posted by hoder at 7:05 PM PST - 12 comments
UN finds no banned weapons - that's a relief. Now the only "weapons of mass destruction" in the current debacle are owned by the US i.e. 27 stealth bombers, capable of completely destroying much of the world in just a few seconds.
posted by scotty at 5:53 PM PST - 47 comments
Du-blog-ious Achievement Awards Marc Weisblott cannot even keep from slagging
himself: “Maintained a personal blog without permalinks, archives, or even dates on the posts, thus preventing the sort of critical scrutiny he performs on others. Barely earned more money at age thirty-one than he did at twenty-one. And – oh, yes – enough of a coward to not be able to compile a Worst Blogs of 2002 list without attaching himself to the end of the list. Or is that just unadulterated self-loathing?”
posted by joeclark at 5:40 PM PST - 8 comments
December 25
Kenya switches off Internet access Don't let Rumsfeld know about this. Might give him some ideas. If there is a lesson in this it is that putting all your eggs in one basket (GE, Home Depot , energy and phone companies etc) is at best a questionable practise if a government can get a grip on the basket's handle. No fear that it will happen in America? Then notice how the threat of not handing out federal monies gets compliance with what the government wants,ie, education, etc.
posted by Postroad at 6:54 AM PST - 9 comments
Happy Xmas (War is over) This year marks the 30th Anniversary of the UK release of John and Yoko's perennial Christmas classic.
A very Merry Xmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
War is over, if you want it
War is over now.
Happy Xmas
posted by thedailygrowl at 2:57 AM PST - 1 comments
I See the Promised Land "Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord"---MLKing Jr.
posted by JohnR at 2:17 AM PST - 4 comments
December 24
"There Is Only One Sale" is the traditional January sales slogan of
Harrods' department store in London, where the elbow-fest begins next
Monday. With disappointing
Christmas retail sales being reported more or less
everywhere, it looks like the U.S. National Retail Federation's statement "What's going to be crucial now is the week after Christmas" is not the usual BS. Sales in Europe are still
month-long extravaganzas where unique bargains can be had. In the U.S. they seem to be more frequent, shorter and somewhat diluted. Assuming you're normal (a stingy, somewhat gullible and opportunistic shopper like the rest of us), what are your post-holiday shopping objectives? Which department stores will you be hitting? Or is it all just a big con?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:07 PM PST - 10 comments
Steal cars and kill prostitutes for points The fourth instalment of the popular Grand Theft Auto video game has become the fastest selling title of all time in the UK. In its first five days on the U.S. market, GTA:VC sold 1.4 million copies of Grand Theft Auto. Entertainment Weekly rated it No. 1 on its 10-best-game list for 2002.
But unlike most video games, where the player represents a hero struggling against evil, Grand Theft Auto invites players to pose as a vicious criminal named Tommy Vercetti. Tommy earns money for his crimes, which include running over pedestrians, hiring and then murdering prostitutes, and killing other gangsters with guns, Uzis, swords and Molotov cocktails.
Unsurprisingly, the game has its critics and protestors. Real life crimes have been linked to it.
Well, MeFiers, is a society ever justified in banning something like this video game?posted by orange swan at 6:36 PM PST - 39 comments
Merry Christmas from Scandinavian Airlines! Scandinavian Airlines has offered a special online-only deal for each day of December. You go to the site and open the day's date (like an Advent calendar) and a new European city is offered--you can then fly to that city roundtrip from the US for about $250 US. The catch? You have 24 hours to book, you must travel between January and mid-March, and you must depart from Seattle, Newark, DC or Chicago. It's a neat deal, but today's the last day, and so as a great holiday surprise they've opened up all the past cities. Pick any of the previously offered destinations, get thee to one of the four departure cities, and enjoy a great airfare deal! London, Paris, Madrid, Oslo, Stockholm, Milan and other cities are offered. (Not a plug--I don't work for or have any connection to SAS.)
posted by GaelFC at 4:14 PM PST - 19 comments
The world's most wanted man has embarked on his annual breaking-and-entering spree! Stop him before he reaches your house, using the power of NORAD. Track him as he wends his way around the world...(see! Missile-defense technology IS good for something!)
posted by amberglow at 11:31 AM PST - 14 comments
King William's College Christmas Quiz - Pupils at King William's college on the Isle of Man have suffered its annual general knowledge quiz since 1905. Until 1999, it was compulsory and the average score was two (out of 180). Nowadays the questions, set by an unidentified islander, are posted to parents with the end-of-term report. See how you fare. Answers will be posted in the new year. (
last year,
last years answers).
posted by BigCalm at 9:03 AM PST - 38 comments
Crackpots and the Nature of Truth If you're a busy guy like me, you take on faith a lot what is promoted as scientific truth. But there's usually a "crackpot" minority who may find a few data points which don't fit the orthodox scientific theory and claim them as evidence of a conspiracy or mass delusion. On very rare occasions (and this is probably NOT one of them), they may even turn out to be right. For this reason, the unaligned unscientific masses find it easy to side with the crackpots.
Those within the orthodoxy often take the position that confronting the minority in a fair and open debate would unduly dignify the minority's position. Unfortunately, the orthodoxy at the same time often loudly denounces the minority's position as "unscientific," but doesn't go much beyond that. To be sure, the minority's position often is truly "unscientific" because, for instance, it's unfalsifiable. The orthodoxy seems to be missing golden PR opportunities in articles like this. If the orthodoxy is truly concerned about winning converts away from the crackpots, shouldn't they AT LEAST take advantage of these opportunities to say a few words about what science is and is not, to inject some of the basic concepts of science (hypothesis, experimentation, theory construction, falsifiability, etc.) into the popular memesphere?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:03 AM PST - 28 comments
Joe Strummer Dies at 50. Not exactly what I was hoping to get for Christmas... I have a feeling that my wife is going to be quite sick of Sandinista! and London Calling after today...
posted by badzen at 8:49 AM PST - 17 comments
December 23
Tis the season to give pardons, fa la la la la la la President Bush decided to give out some pardons for the Christmas season. Pardons for crimes like stealing copper wire, altering an odometer, selling moonshine and not reporting for military induction in the 50s. These are small crimes, most occuring around 30 years ago (on average) with punishment of probation.
This brings up a question, thinking about the controversy over pardons by past Presidents and all that. "How should a President use his pardon power?"
posted by RobbieFal at 9:38 PM PST - 10 comments
2002: The Year in Pictures - as collected by
Reuters,
UPI,
Yahoo [Flash],
MSNBC [Flash],
CBS,
Newsweek,
Time Asia,
BET [Flash],
BBC UK,
BBC World,
Guardian UK,
Corbis News,
Corbis Features,
Corbis Entertainment, and
Corbis sports. You didn't have anything else to do today, now did you?
posted by kokogiak at 12:48 PM PST - 7 comments
The Cult of the Gym Anorexia and obesity have both been beaten to a bloody pulp...but how about "bigorexia", or "muscle dysmorphia."? It has many of the same characteristics as anorexia, such as never being satisfied with the way one looks no matter how big and muscular they get, and it shares with obesity the same propensity for discovering a "quick-fix" mentality. This author likens the cult of the gym to the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment through the church of one's choice.
posted by vito90 at 12:35 PM PST - 14 comments
Artist For Freedom! I'd never heard of
Arthur Szyk before I came across him while doing random Google searches today. I really like his artwork! We had a post awhile back with poster art addressing the "current situation. I wonder what Mr. Szyk would've made of the
times we live in?posted by black8 at 11:34 AM PST - 6 comments
Apparently "Total Information Awareness"
doesn't extend to the TIA project's own website.
posted by artifex at 10:38 AM PST - 13 comments
"e-filing" your land transactions - could it streamline a process that is quite cumbersome? 11 of the 21 counties in New Jersey are working to convert their current paper-based system of filings to an electronic format. Some say it would lower mortgage costs and time constraints because of the movement of paper. Some say it's a disaster waiting to happen. I think it would be an excellent move and would give NJ some first mover status (I think?) to be proud of.
posted by djspicerack at 10:10 AM PST - 5 comments
Will 2003 Be The Year Of Real Espresso In America? With the wealth of
good machines, fresh
coffee beans and online
knowledge now
available, not to mention tempting offers like
Illy's subscription (though the pods turn out expensive in the end, it allows absolute beginners to make acceptable espresso) it's surprising Starbucks-style coffee (big, milky, watery and sweet) hasn't yet been dethroned by the pleasure of straight espresso (tiny, thick, creamy and intense), preferably
restretto. I should add that, despite many efforts over the years, I've never had a decent cup of espresso in America. In fact, outside Southern Europe. What gives?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:34 AM PST - 61 comments
Buy a Flight Manual, Get a Grand Jury Subpoena? A guy qualified to fly and instruct on the Boeing 737 buys a CD on Ebay that contains the ground course for the same plane. Then the FBI gets involved, and, courtesy of section 501 (d) of the "USA Patriot Act", he can no longer even discuss the issue. [more inside]
posted by Irontom at 7:59 AM PST - 24 comments
"Hang in there, help is on the way." The director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., recently asked the Defense Department to lower the 2004 pay raise from its expected 3.7 percent to 2 percent. Daniels also wants future raises tied to inflation, rather than basing boosts on what civilians doing comparable jobs in the private sector might make.
Many of our military families already qualify for welfare and food stamps. Pay raises are out of the question when there's NMD and tax cuts to the wealthy needing funding.
posted by nofundy at 7:51 AM PST - 7 comments
Washington salutes its new Blog Overlords When Trent Lott finally fell from (g)race last friday, the ensuing
MeFi thread discussed how Lott's statements were at first a sleeper in the mainstream media but that the blogosphere forced the story onto the front pages. However, this theory was met with
some scepticism
However, the theory of blog ascendancy has legs. In fact, the story is
all over the place this morning.
With this level of discussion, right or wrong, Blogs just arguably went mainstream. (It might also be the end of our golden era of blogging.)
There are greater and lesser blogs. Its hard to tell which blog deserves the credit for toppling Lott. How will they determine the alpha blog? The winner could be the next "Drudge".
posted by BentPenguin at 7:45 AM PST - 43 comments
Miniature Earth ... Sure, you may have already seen something like this before... but as we're about to turn the calendar over for another year, it's as good a time as any to thoughtfully reconsider the world we live in. Miniature Earth is a flash presentation that compresses the world's population down to a community of 100 people, and gives statistical proportions.
Work with passion; Love without needing to be loved; appreciate what you have; and do your best to make a better world. posted by crunchland at 12:04 AM PST - 22 comments
December 22
And so it begins: while I've already seen half a dozen "best ___ of 2002" lists, the year end list I look forward to,
Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums list is out for 2002. It's just the right mix between "so mainstream there are no surprises" and "so indie even your second cousin's girlfriend's brother in that band hasn't heard of them" though perhaps they're leaning towards the latter this year, seeing how I've only heard about a quarter of all the albums listed.
posted by mathowie at 5:30 PM PST - 55 comments
Twas the night before Xmas and all through the net,
The geeks would be googling the ascii character set;
Metafilter refreshed on their PCs with care,
In the hopes that their FPP soon would be there;
Then up in the blue there arose such a clatter,
Mathowie sprang up to see what's the matter;
When, what to my wondering eyes there should be,
The canonical list of "Twas" parodies.posted by Wet Spot at 2:06 PM PST - 11 comments
Tonight,
the BBC took the controversial decision to screen a documentary which investigated the plausability of the life of
The Virgin Mary as it appears in The Bible. As someone who's spiritual without commiting to any one religion, it was a fascinating look at a people and a time. But I can understand why
Christians would be
offended, especially since the programme suggested that Mary (or Miriam) wasn't a virgin at all, that she was a 'mother bringing up a wayward son under difficult circumstances'. Was this the kind of programme which should be shown at Christmas time?
posted by feelinglistless at 1:19 PM PST - 26 comments
Crisis. The homelessness charity Crisis is looking for a few volunteers for work in London over the Christmas/New Year period. There is a list of current vacancies
here. This seems to be quite a good thing to do if you are free over the holiday period, and I wonder if any MeFi'ers have considered getting involved in something like this?
posted by plep at 10:55 AM PST - 7 comments
We will take care of it for you The rich, or at least one rich guy in this article, donate money to their preferred political party out of deference to what's best for their employees. Is your boss looking out for your best interests?
posted by chris0495 at 7:12 AM PST - 2 comments
The life-expectancy of Industrial Civilization is horridly short according to Richard C. Duncan and his Olduvai theory. Like all of these weird theories it can be found on the outer fringes of the Internet. Duncan's theory kind of tracks the Hubbert Curve model of petroleum depletion that has been posted before on this site. As Isaac Asimov has stated "Indeed, the ability to control energy, whether it be making wood fires or building power plants, is a prerequisite for civilization." Only time will tell if Duncan was on to something we should have paid attention to.
posted by thedailygrowl at 2:13 AM PST - 20 comments
December 21
Can I Have A Glass For This? Yes, you can.
Riedel make the
best glasses in the world (well, with
a little competition...), painstakingly suiting each drink to the best shape and size of container, for the benefit of nose, mouth, eyes and hold. A very recent addition, not yet found on their official list, is the
bourbon glass, made with expert advise from Fred Noe, of the legendary Noe family, overlords of Jim Beam. Form means content indeed! More's the pity that the great majority of drinks are served in inappropriate glasses and therefore never fully enjoyed.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:16 PM PST - 62 comments
US wrecks cheap drugs deal Many of us have sorely miss VP Dick Cheney. Here is what he has been up to of late. Gosh, we will sure try to help the sick and the dying. Just not for the forseeable future. See Dick act. See Dick block help. See Dick help lobbies.
posted by Postroad at 9:24 AM PST - 105 comments
The BBC television show
The Sky At Night, which opened in April 1957, is one of the longest-running in the world. Its longevity is undoubtedly due to host and national treasure Sir Patrick Moore. Amongst his other contributions to mankind, the uniquely-voiced bemonacled one
plays the xylophone [Flash], is an endless source of inspiration for
comedians [MP3], and was, of course, the condescending yet benevolent
GamesMaster. But in this festive season, can he explain the
Star of Bethlehem [Real]?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:18 AM PST - 14 comments
December 20
Live Phish (for flame's sake, this is not a post about the band itself) is a new service created by Phish through which people can download SHN or MP3's of their upcoming new years eve shows and burn them themselves, for a fee of course. The recordings are due to be available two days after the shows are over. It will be interesting to see if the service is successful and profitable. Assuming it is, will there be an effect on the music industry and the RIAA? Might they realize they can make money on music downloaded on the internet? Only time will tell.
posted by kurtosis at 8:19 PM PST - 15 comments
Further Gov't WOD policy contradiction... Turns out the weel-publicised friendly fire incident in Afghanistan last year may now be attributed to the pilot and bobardier being strung out on speed? Why?
Because in the Air Force, crank is standard issue and refusal to partake can even render a pilot not fit for duty.
This is what they mean by "The War on Drugs"?
posted by BentPenguin at 1:19 PM PST - 30 comments
Futurism and the Futurists is a comprehensive (but oddly self-promotional) website showcasing the ideas, biographies, and works of the Italian Futurists. Enjoy the painting, poetry, the fabulous theatre "sentesi," and of course, all those lovely
manifestos.
posted by Pinwheel at 10:58 AM PST - 15 comments
Pot in Canada may soon be a click away with the launch of a home-delivery service for medical marijuana over the Internet (more info on Canada's medicinal pot laws
here ).
posted by Badmichelle at 10:08 AM PST - 16 comments
Brains vs. bathing suits. University of Michigan researchers gathered men and women together and had them try on either a bathing suit or a sweater to see which they preferred for 20 minutes. Then they were asked to take a math test to "pass the time." The results? No appreciable difference for men while women scored considerably lower while in bathing suits. Could obsession with appearance be holding our girls back?
posted by hipnerd at 9:28 AM PST - 37 comments
Lott Resigns As GOP Leader. Senator Lott has bowed to internal and external pressure and has resigned his position as Senate majority leader. He will, however, not resign from the Senate altogether. Will Republican be able to recover, or have they been permanently weakened? Will Democrats still be able to capitalize on the scandal?
posted by ncurley at 8:21 AM PST - 95 comments
"Ana By Choice". Oh dear. To maintain your christmas cheer, avoid this saddening message board. By the way, for the Brits out there: more people are on anti-depressants today than voted for
Pop Idol.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:37 AM PST - 18 comments
Girl Culture, the photography of Lauren Greenfield explores the relationship that women and girls have with their bodies. Sometimes to positive effects, and sometimes to negative effects, but always intensely self-aware, as a guy I found myself often wondering how much of this was contrived for cheap effect. There is an underlying current of honesty in it though that makes it very effective.
posted by willnot at 7:28 AM PST - 25 comments
Smallpox Vaccination? The New England Journal of Medicine made available today an early release of articles from their planned January 30, 2003 issue, designed "to help inform the current national debate about smallpox vaccination" [more inside....articles unfortunately available only in PDF....]
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 12:26 AM PST - 31 comments
December 19
An Exercise in Identity A group of writers seeks to collaborate under a single pseudonym, not for fear of scorn or ridicule, but presumably because they think it makes for better business. Do readers have a right to know who a work's author really is, or can identity just be another aspect of the fictional work? (via Kuro5hin queue)
posted by Erasmus at 7:45 PM PST - 27 comments
"Picasso of keyboard funk" -
Professor Longhair would be 84 today if he were still alive. His distinctive meld of boogie woogie, blues, funk and Latin makes for piano that is quintessentially New Orleans...
Tipitinas, one of the more famous local music bars, took its name from his signature song. "Fess" was a seminal influence on such musical greats as James Booker, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, Art Neville, Doctor John and
Marcia Ball, one of my current favorites. You can hear a few Fess samples from
Crawfish Fiesta, arguably his best recording, issued just after he died in 1980. He was inducted in the R&R Hall of Fame as an
early influencer in 1993. Happy birthday,
Professor!posted by madamjujujive at 7:24 PM PST - 17 comments
Soccer Penalty Shoot-Outs Cause Heart Attacks English reasearchers have determined heart attacks increased shortly after an England/Argentina match that ended in a penalty shoot out. They conclude that in the interest of public health, penalty shots should be abandoned. Are they seriously saying this with a straight face? And what on earth prompted such a study?
posted by davebush at 5:31 PM PST - 20 comments
The F-22 Raptor is the next generation fighter for the United States. At nearly 97 million each, it will be deployed in 2004.This
site gives a remarkably detailed report regarding its design and function. Including such gems as "first-look, first-shot, first-kill capability" and " Humans are good differentiators, but they are poor integrators."
posted by JohnR at 5:19 PM PST - 53 comments
The job, the blog, and you. Interesting
Washington Post article I ran across today that discusses the pitfalls about blogging about your job. Makes some good points, especially how the blogging community needs to take account of things such as non-disclosure clauses in employment contracts.
posted by PeteyStock at 10:19 AM PST - 16 comments
On PBS last week, Senator Bob Graham said that there is "evidence that
there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the terrorists in the United States," but that "It will become public at some point when it's turned over to the archives, but that's 20 or 30 years from now. And, we need to have this information now because it's relevant to the threat that the people of the United States are facing today." Do you trust the government to keep the right informatin classified, or do we need to know?
posted by cell divide at 10:06 AM PST - 16 comments
Photos and more
photos from the Nautile’s firsts dives to the
Prestige wreck, a single-hulled tanker that broke in two while it was towed to open sea after the discovery of a breach in its hull.
It has been an ecologic and economic disaster for Galicia, Spanish’ northwest coastal region famous for its seafood. But it also has been a political scandal for the PP (Partido Popular), in the government both in Galicia’s autonomic parliament and in the central government, because of its late response and efforts to hide the catastrophe manipulating the public broadcast system (and the friendly private networks). Too little, too late,
Jose Maria Aznar.
While politicians throw shit to each other, a quarter of the 20.5 million gallons of fuel oil already spilled are now spreading through the coastline covering everything with what locals call “chapapote”, a sticky mix of sea water, fuel oil and sand. The Prestige sits now at 3.500 meters of depth, slowly leaking fuel oil to the surface. The Nautile, one of the few mini submarine that has been used to record and take pictures from the
Titanic wreck, it’s being hired by the Spanish government to
asses the situation (Spanish language link) and try to stop the leakage.
Popular action in the form of a white tide of volunteers has been phenomenal, forcing the government to act and assume responsibilities. But the issue at hand is much larger:
will the European Union effectively ban single-hulled tankers? Why the rules that govern the seas permit flag of convenience ships that can elude so easily its responsibility?See more
images (slideshow).
posted by samelborp at 9:54 AM PST - 12 comments
Information deemed useful to terrorists is
disappearing from government Web sites. I know this is old news, but this article details some of the specifics of whas has been happening. "The previous presumption, that publicly-funded information is the rightful property of the public until proven otherwise, has been replaced by the presumption that the public has to prove to a suspicious government that it deserves the information." I understand that as a nation we are hypersensitive now to terrorism, but isn't this just what the terrorists want? The loss of our freedoms to information?
posted by archimago at 9:50 AM PST - 14 comments
Zap those road burners!! Following up yesterday's banal car-talk thread, the Guardian reports that Dubya's Son of Star Wars is already taking out, inadvertantly , its first targets. In this instance hapless BMWs and Jeeps. Excellent I say- go for anything over two tons, 4WD, and moving on on a public thoroughfare.
posted by marvin at 9:48 AM PST - 12 comments
The United States should lead, not dominate. A piece by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. "From the dawn of human society up to the present time, we have been bedeviled by a persistent curse: the compulsion people feel to define the meaning of their lives in positive terms with reference to those who are like them racially, tribally, culturally, religiously, politically, and by negative reference to those who are different"
posted by four panels at 8:22 AM PST - 36 comments
Familiar layout? Most of you know
Noah Grey, and most of you will also know how much he values his intellectual property. This makes it even sadder when someone goes through the effort of bypassing Noah's 'please don't steal'-script, rips off his design, and even puts his own copyright information in Noah's disclaimer.
Besides the fact that this is morally wrong, is there anything that someone can actually do about this sort of thing? Suing is probably not the best option as that would be very costly and time-consuming, since the owner of this particular design lives in the US, and the 'thief' lives in Europe
posted by Mijnkopthee at 8:02 AM PST - 72 comments
Meet Senator Burns (R-Montana) "...The senator said the rancher asked him, "Conrad, how can you live back there with all those niggers?"...Senator Burns said he told the rancher it was"a hell of a challenge."...The anecdote was published and Senator Burns apologized...in 1991, immediately after a civil rights bill had been passed, Senator Burns invited a group of lobbyists, some of them white and some of them black, to accompany him to an auction....When asked what was being auctioned, he replied, "Slaves."posted by troutfishing at 7:46 AM PST - 42 comments
Mass arrests of Muslims in LA. The BBC is reporting US immigration officials in Southern California have detained hundreds of Iranians and other Muslim men who turned up to register under residence laws brought in as part of the anti-terror drive.
CNN,
FOX News, and the like have extensive coverage.....sort of.
posted by CrazyJub at 6:13 AM PST - 64 comments
Britannia BBC Rules The Radio Waves and no other broadcaster in the world comes close. Radio 4, The World Service and Radio 3 are simply the best radio stations for news, commentary and classical music there are. Now, their sparkling new channel,
BBC7, is full of comedy and drama greatness. The League of Gentleman, Rory Bremner, Stephen Fry, Griff Rhys-Jones... nobody does comedy or radio like the British and when the
two come together, it's bliss. Bless 'em! [
Specially for us non-license-paying foreigners listening in on the Internet... Real Audio required, nonetheless.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:20 AM PST - 32 comments
December 18
Ad this.
After seeing a movie premiere last night my idea of advertising is tainted. The movie was listed to start at 12:01 am. Unfortunately there were some ads to kick off the feature. The first
ad was met with an ovation of boo's...followed by the next 8. Then came the trailers...another 6.
Ironically, an actor from the movie was present and introduced
himself much to everyones enjoyment. However, he preceded to plug his next movie (aaaahhhh).
Finally came the movie came...just under a half hour later.
Point -> The whole process seemed to take the wind out of the start of the film.
posted by lightweight at 6:38 PM PST - 46 comments
War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning The AC130 video thread yesterday got me interested in
this book. The author - a veteran New York Times war correspondent - argues that, to many people, war provides a purpose for living; allowing individuals to rise above regular life and participate in a noble cause. He discusses nationalism, the wartime silencing of intellectuals and artists, the ways in which even a supposedly skeptical press glorifies the battlefield and other universal features of war, arguing not for pacifism but for responsibility and humility on the part of those who wage war.
posted by Zombie at 6:24 PM PST - 17 comments
"This car isn't meant to be an SUV, a mini-van, or a sedan" ... becuase, of course, it's a station wagon (the body type that dare not speak its name), albeit a sleek new Chrysler Pacifica, now starring in double-page spreads in your finer magazines. The Europeans have never stopped making great wagons, but its been a while since anything less apalling than the Taurus Wagon came out of Detroit or Tokyo.
posted by MattD at 4:18 PM PST - 49 comments
The Nashville Scene proudly presents the
12th Annual Boner Awards. Named for disgraced Nashville mayor Bill Boner, this is a rundown of all things "goofy, grisly and gnarly" that went down this year in Music City. From nude fender-benders to shop-lifting Vice Mayors, it's local interest, Nashvegas style.
(The previous few years are also available for the truly curious.)posted by mikrophon at 2:32 PM PST - 11 comments
"Hell Bent" - the title I've given this sculpture, is the culmination of an untold number of hours work. The sculpture depicts a modern Formula One car at speed, mid-turn, and indeed in the
wet.
posted by snez at 12:02 PM PST - 10 comments
Renaissance Man... Prospector, Trapper, Pony Express Rider, Army Scout, Buffalo Hunter, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, National Folk Hero, Supreme Showman, at one time the most famous and recognizable man on the planet, he was also an anti-slavery fighter, a Peacemaker,
advocate for the rights of Indians and women, and a conservationist. 1700 fictional dime novels were written about him, but his real-life adventures made him bigger than life. William F. Cody, aka
Buffalo Bill.posted by Mack Twain at 11:46 AM PST - 7 comments
Cluster Bombs: The American Gift That Keeps On Giving. "During its air war in Afghanistan, the United States dropped nearly a quarter-million cluster bomblets that killed or injured scores of civilians, especially children, both during and after strikes, Human Rights Watch said in a
new report released today....Human Rights Watch found that the United States did not take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties, as required by international humanitarian law....As of November 2002, the International Committee of the Red Cross had identified 127 civilian casualties to cluster bomb duds-a number it stressed was only a partial tally of the total killed and injured since many go unreported. An astonishing 69% of the casualties were children."
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 11:26 AM PST - 62 comments
Gawker.com has arrived. All about New York, "Condé Nastiness, downwardly-mobile i-bankers, real estate porn -- the serious stuff". It's all good. It also looks like the latest attempt to make a living out of blogging. Will that ever happen?
posted by zimbobzim at 10:36 AM PST - 47 comments
augustadiscriminates.org is the website of choice for Martha Burk and the NCWO's "Hall of Hipocrisy", where they name the CEOs of companies who are members of Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters golf tournament. Burk has protested that Augusta should be banned from holding the Masters because they have not let women into their membership. So far, the Masters will have no corporate sponsorship in its broadcast on CBS. A few execs and pols have exited the ranks of members. Will more happen in the coming months to open the doors to women?
On a side note, you can check out
theburkstopshere.com where you'll find a collection of links to websites protesting Martha Burk.
posted by djspicerack at 9:57 AM PST - 39 comments
FTC creates national ‘do not call’ list While there have been state lists for quite some time, and some organizations (like the
DMA) maintain do-not-call lists requiring members to honor DNC requests, the FCC is now talking about a single, federal list that would require compliance from all telemarketers, and levy fines for non-compliance. Is this the end of telemarketing as we know it today?
posted by MidasMulligan at 9:56 AM PST - 40 comments
And this just in, from Germany ... This story is all the rage over there. It's a little too sick to describe, so I'll let you do the reading. What I find odd is that this article (from the English version of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) says he might have been "inspired by Jeffrey Dahmer," and the article in the NYTimes quotes a German saying he would expect this sort of thing in America, but not in his own country.
So I ask you: When did America become the home of ritualistic cannibals?
posted by risenc at 9:43 AM PST - 33 comments
At the time of posting,
Rotten Tomatoes has 1 'rotten' review and 76 'fresh' reviews for Peter Jackson's
The Two Towers. I thought it was a superb film, but I hardly thought it would unite the critics like this. This has got to be one of the most universally praised films of all time!
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:35 AM PST - 62 comments
Pehaps one of the advantages of massive cable channel proliferation is the market for geek sports.
Full Metal Challenge is the latest creation of
Cathy Rogers(slashdot) who also produced
Scrapyard Challenge/Junkyard Wars. (Previously discussed
here almost two years ago.) Contestants are given $3,000 and a month to build their own vehicle to compete in a variety of challenges with names "sumo", "wetropolis", and "hall of mirrors." One of the things that makes this show work is the color commentary by Rennaissance punk
Henry Rollins.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:27 AM PST - 18 comments
WTC Redevelopment Today at 1pm EST, the 7 proposed
new plans for redevelopment of the former World Trade Center site will be revealed. Currently, they're carrying the announcements of the new proposals (with architect descriptions of their projects) live on wnyc.org on the
Brian Lehrer Show.
posted by callicles at 8:03 AM PST - 30 comments
Man Beheads (statue of) Margaret Thatcher. His "sense of 'satirical humour' left him no choice but to carry out the attack" on the £150,000 Maggie as 'artistic expression and [his] right to interact with this broken world.'
Jury fails to convict and a retrial is scheduled. Perhaps there is a
creative solution to replacing the head?
posted by Shane at 7:56 AM PST - 17 comments
The Federal Theatre Project Collection. "The Federal Theatre Project was the largest and most ambitious effort mounted by the Federal Government to organize and produce theater events. It was an effort of the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to provide work for unemployed professionals in the theater during the Great Depression which followed the stock market crash of October 1929." Arguably the high water mark in the history of live theatre in America, The Federal Theatre Project was a program introduced as part of The New Deal. The
production archives for three of the major productions (two by Orsen Welles) are of particular interest. The success of Tim Robbins'
The Cradle Will Rock may have influenced
other's perceptions about the importance of Mark Blitzstein's lackluster (but controversial)
play of the same title.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:58 AM PST - 6 comments
One-in, one-out: the nominations. "Who should be granted honorary British citizenship and who should have it revoked?" The BBC's Today programme has its annual poll and this year, it claims, is a little different. Various celebrities, politicians etc will be giving their opinions and the result will be announced on New Year's Day. Who will you be voting for?
posted by Kiell at 1:03 AM PST - 6 comments
December 17
XXXmas! Wherever and whoever's celebrating, no matter what your religious beliefs are, Xmas (in the Christian-dominated world at least) means over-indulgence and conspicuous consumption. The standard fare and behaviour, however, vary wildly. Here's a
standard Christmas menu for Portugal and a glimpse into one of Barcelona's less savoury
traditions to start the ball rolling. Just how different are MeFi Xmas experiences? Hey, do they have anything in common at all?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:01 PM PST - 24 comments
Look out Aretha, here comes Joanna Levesque --an eleven year old, R&B prodigy, who has been wowing 'em since age two. She has major recording labels knocking at her door but hasn't signed with anyone yet. I discovered Joanna's music by accident browsing on
CD Baby. Her voice is amazingly mature and oh-so-soulful!
LISTEN. Do you think she's the next and future Queen of Soul?
posted by VelvetHellvis at 7:17 PM PST - 16 comments
"You are now clear to engage the vehicles." (Warning: 5.5 meg Windows Media video.) This video purports to be the gunsight view of an American AC-130 gunship targetting a compound, and its inhabitants and vehicles, in Afghanistan. Complete with battlefield audio. While I can't guarantee its provenance, it does appear to show what it says. Leaving that aside: How do you react to this footage? Does it change your view of the engagement in Afghanistan? Should more people see this footage? What has the lack of this sort of footage -- didn't we see much more of this sort of battlefield view during the Gulf War? -- meant to the war effort, and the war at home?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 5:57 PM PST - 126 comments
Bush Orders Missile System Deployed. President Bush on Tuesday ordered the military to begin deploying a national missile defense system with land- and sea-based interceptor rockets to be operational starting in 2004.
The decision to begin deploying a national missile defense, which has been criticized by Russia and China, follows
North Korea's announcement this month that it will proceed with a controversial program to develop nuclear weapons. Is the sky actually falling?
posted by Keyser Soze at 12:46 PM PST - 56 comments
Ahenakew Apologizes . In the interests of full disclosure, we Canucks have our own racist boneheads who embarass us as much as Trent Lott embarasses Americans. David Ahenakew is a former leader of the Assembly of First Nations and possesses Canada's highest civilian award, The Order of Canada. And just a few days ago he spewed vile racist comments... (more)
posted by five fresh fish at 11:40 AM PST - 66 comments
Are you bored with
your basic windsports? Grab a
Kitewing, and speed along on your favorite skis, snowboard, or skates at speeds approaching 65MPH. Still too tame? Hold the wing horizontal and you'll go
vertical. Just make sure to call your mom from the hospital.
posted by KnitWit at 9:47 AM PST - 9 comments
Santa found living on the South Pole....of Mars!?! Mysterious tracks that look like 250-mile long ski or sled trails have been found near the South Pole of Mars.
Researchers at the University of Colorado have found the broad, sweeping lines cutting through a section of the southern ice caps of the frigid planet, but haven't a clue what caused them. via the excellent laputan logicposted by Ufez Jones at 7:50 AM PST - 7 comments
You've been in Japan too long when... A) ...you are not surprised to wake up in the morning and find that the woman who stayed over last night has completely cleaned your apartment, even though you'll probably never ever meet her again.
B) ...you are not surprised to wake up in the morning and find that the woman who stayed over last night has completely cleaned your apartment, even though you'll probably never ever meet her again.
C) ...your hair is thinning and you consider it "barcode style".
Or perhaps if you're unsurprised that such a historically isolationist nation is now so
uniquely and openly fascinated with the opinions of those who have moved to their land...wow. This is somewhere I must travel to.
posted by effugas at 12:26 AM PST - 68 comments
December 16
Iraqis welcome war to remove Saddam A
survey (.pdf) taken inside(!) Iraq says Iraqis would favor a war to topple Saddam. The report itself is more interesting than the Independent piece.
The overall impression...was one of exasperation and even anger after twelve years of uncertainty and international isolation and even more years of warfare, combined with a growing sense that the current regime's days are numbered.
The report is most interesting in the details of Iraqis' expectations: that advanced US technology will somehow anesthetize Iraqi soldiers rather than hurt them, the US will rebuild their country for them, there will be no breakup of Iraq, nor postwar bloodbath, etc.
A fascinating and important portrait of a people at the end of their rope.
posted by ednopantz at 4:18 PM PST - 38 comments
Bar Signs. Modern Drunkard has posted a handy guide for the alcoholic in us all, a set of gestures to communicate your needs when it's too loud to hear, or just because, as the site says, "when words come out, whiskey can't get in."
posted by jonson at 1:18 PM PST - 21 comments
Columnist too hung over to cover case of alcoholic Rosie Di Manno,
Toronto Star: “I drank to grotesque excess the other night, waking up the morning after with a double-whammy red-wine-and-nicotine hangover.... The upshot is that I missed a full day of the trial I've been covering the past couple of weeks – a $750,000 civil suit brought by [Thomas] Kerr against nine police officers.... That night... was one of the few, very few, evenings over the past quarter-century when Kerr wasn't sloshed.” Journalist, heal thyself.
posted by joeclark at 11:18 AM PST - 8 comments
Self-fulfilling Prophecy? Enron video says maybe... A video from an Enron company party from 1997 shows executives or other employees playing execs making jokes during skits about how to make "a kazillion dollars" et al. Some of the "methods" they speak of apparently are exactly the things that brought the company down. Looks like the cat was let out of the bag in front of a lot of unsuspecting individuals..
posted by djspicerack at 11:06 AM PST - 4 comments
Laughter capital of the world? "Declining audiences, dull material, complacent comics: a crisis is looming ....London suddenly appears to be in the grip of a recession for the first time since the alternative comedy boom took off at the beginning of the 1980s." From a nation exporting
Bill Bailey(live in NYC this week) ,
Eddie Izzard,
Ali G, can this really be happening? (BTW I always thought
Canada tried to lay a claim to this crown?)
posted by Voyageman at 10:10 AM PST - 15 comments
"The mind has no Firewall" A discussion on the development of "Psychotronic" weapons From the US Army publication,
'Parameters': "An entirely new arsenal of weapons, based on devices designed to introduce subliminal messages or to alter the body's psychological and data-processing capabilities, might be used to incapacitate individuals." Ominous? Inevitable?
posted by troutfishing at 9:07 AM PST - 11 comments
Open Source Copyright. As a follow-up to
this thread, Creative Commons has now
officially launched. I'm quite interested to see the various content creators who take these licenses and run with them - amateur filmmakers, independent musicians, authors, writers, and technologists .....should have groups like the MPAA and RIAA quaking in their boots.
posted by bkdelong at 6:01 AM PST - 17 comments
Christians become aquainted with the Almighty. "When the Wheat Ridge man got laid off from his computer-programming job in June, his friends and family asked what they could do to help. He asked them to pray for him and offered a daily reminder: an automated text message on cellphones and pagers.
Now, Wostenberg, a devout Catholic, is offering that same technology to anyone who wants a psalm sent to him each day at 3 p.m. He's selling the service online at
PsalmWeaver.com
He charges $19.95 a year, plus a $4 setup fee."
posted by crasspastor at 12:59 AM PST - 16 comments
December 15
Republicans and Civil Rights A somewhat opinionated but generally fact- and history-based (which is why I found it unusual enough to post) look at the place of the Republican party in the history of American civil rights.
posted by oissubke at 6:51 PM PST - 61 comments
Not 421 CD burners but "the equivalent of 421 burners". Now, most agree the RIAA is grasping at straws trying to control something they clearly can't, but this seems to be the most amusing yet.
This article offers a suggestion or two concerning the possible music industry slump.
posted by robotrock at 10:09 AM PST - 22 comments
Cultural Commentary in 10 Easy Lessons "....there's an astonishing abundance of cultural criticism these days -- in magazines, newspapers, web sites, blogs, television....if you removed the five or 10 most abused forms of criticism, there would be a deafening silence. Or perhaps room for other kinds of commentary to grow..." With so much published and available these days. it's damn near impossible to sound original.
posted by Voyageman at 9:12 AM PST - 16 comments
December 14
Santa Rampage! Last weekend a horde of Santa's wreaked havoc on Washington DC's clubs, bars and adult establishments. Amazingly only one santa was decked in the entire evening.
posted by cpfeifer at 10:13 PM PST - 20 comments
I hope this isn't a double post. I've searched but couldn't find anything. It has special relevance to me since I am joining the Air Force in five months. John McCain (R-AZ) and Evan Bayh (R-IN) are pushing
a bill through Congress that will allow for a
short-term enlistment of 15 months into the military. Being 25 and wanting to pay off my loans, I may have taken this route had it been available to me. It would be especially helpful to college burn-outs to step out of college for a little over a year. Unless you are very anti-military, does this make signing "the dotted line" any more attractive?
posted by mychai at 11:58 AM PST - 29 comments
2002 looks like 2nd warmest year on record (since recordkeeping of global temperatures began in 1867, that is) and
glaciers are melting faster then ever - 30 years from now, after the great climate catastrophe of '017, when kids ask me what I did to avert it, I'll say - "see, there was this internet blog called metafilter that I'd post bad environmental news to sometimes
...what was the internet? what was a "blog"? why didn't I do more? well, there were these people called "skeptics", and there was this other thing called "the war on terrorism", and it all seemed so distant and speculative and we were all so busy, and it was hard to get around without a car, and the dogs needed to be walked, and I needed to have a cavity filled, and there was all that laundry, and my big toe hurt, and, and..."posted by troutfishing at 10:56 AM PST - 87 comments
In some places, they have firing squads or electric chairs.
In
Prague, they have
defenestration.
Defenestration, or the tossing of people from windows, is a
tradition there, popularized first by the defenestration of
1419 and later by the defenestrations of
1618 and
1948.
William Safire name-checked it in in
his column a few weeks back, and another mention of it can found in the
Houston Chronicle.
posted by charlesv at 10:40 AM PST - 19 comments
The film - starring Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry - "clearly proves" the US is "the root cause of all disasters and misfortune of the Korean nation" and is "an empire of evil", according to the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.
I can't get enough of these people.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:16 AM PST - 24 comments
Invisibles are scenes from films with the actors removed. Can you guess the film? Its pretty hard actually. I would imagine actually making the images is hard as well - clever colour matching in Photoshop, or is there another way?
posted by Orange Goblin at 8:43 AM PST - 26 comments
The Diamond Age begins. Research scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have bound DNA to circuits using a thin film of diamond as a bridge. Pathogens detected by the DNA, trigger it to send an electrical signal via the diamond medium to the circuit.
[MORE]posted by yonderboy at 5:58 AM PST - 7 comments
I found no post related to
the kid in Bellbrook Ohio being persecuted by his classmates, the high school Principal, and then the Secret Service for wearing a "NOT MY PRESIDENT" T-shirt. The persecution began when he drew crosshairs on the forehead. You can support irony by buying one for $13.00 at
Fat Wreck Chords.---I only post it now, three days later, as I see in my weblog's referer log that it's topical enough that that's how a few people found my site.
posted by giantkicks at 4:32 AM PST - 49 comments
The EU decides to expand and I am obviously looking forward to reading about and discussing this event when i log in on metafilter this morning, only to find that this story has not been posted. This is probably one of the most important changes in the European political landscape since the Wall came down more than ten yeas ago and I must say I am a little disappointed with you all that it was not linked and discussed last night. Shape up metafilter!
posted by FidelDonson at 4:32 AM PST - 43 comments
What is so scary about what this American is saying ? Call me all the names in the book you wish but I will admit that I enjoyed this interview that Lyndon LaRouche gave in the Turkish Magazine Yarin! Hear Me, Hear Me I must say that I am not a follower nor have never ever been a follower of our perennial Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche! I just thought the article pointed out some interesting points and is a worthwhile read!
Why do I feel as an American Citizen that I have to apologize for this? Well go ahead and do a google search- with the name LaRouche along with the words, mind control, fascists, communists, homosexuals, mind-control, CIA, totalitarian, or homosexual etc and you will bring up a multitude of links. What is it about this guy? Why doesn't he get such a bad rap in foreign countries (google search it)
h
b
posted by thedailygrowl at 2:10 AM PST - 12 comments
Crossing the Darien Gap. The Pan-American Highway is not quite Pan-American. There are 200 miles of untamed jungle, where Panama meets Colombia, called the "Darien Gap". Today, persistent kidnappings and cartel activity make it unsafe to cross by either foot or off-road vehicle. But it's been done a few times. Here is one such tale, a blog from the mid-seventies. [more inside]
posted by condour75 at 12:58 AM PST - 6 comments
December 13
David wins Fame Academy! Mix Big Brother with Pop/American Idol and you get the
Fame Academy, where 12
gorgeous under-30s are thrown into a
glorified stage school for a few months, and only one emerges an idol. The prize? Supposedly the 'biggest TV prize ever.' A £1 million recording contract, a fancy apartment in London, a personal shopper, chauffeur, and more. All is not lost for the 'losers' though, as they've all gained professional management and
Mercury Records is considering them all for solo careers.
In contrast to the 'Idol' shows, being couped up for weeks on end has caused even the
wackiest contestants to grow in their singing and songwriting abilities. So will this show reach the US? Probably, given
these other crossover shows.posted by wackybrit at 6:16 PM PST - 8 comments
Segata Sanshiro! Why show people the graphics and gameplay of your video game, when you can simply beat them into playing it?
posted by qDot at 3:56 PM PST - 5 comments
"No, Virginia Hayley, there isn't a Santa Claus" A substitute teacher in Florida was reading aloud to her class of Kindergartners when the subject unexpectedly turned to the existence of Santa Claus. Rather than perpetuate a myth, "Mrs. P" chose to come clean with the gathered five year olds, and explained that there was no Santa, and that all presents "come from mom and dad." Well, next thing you know, kids are crying, parents are protesting, and the teacher feels awful. In an effort to "make up for the teacher's lapse," the school district decides to send in a "Santa" to visit the class in order to "set the record straight":
"Today's visiting Santa, with a natural, full white beard, should convince even a classroom full of skeptics, said district spokesman Englehart. 'He's the real deal.'"
Great! Well, except for the fact that he's not.
(via obscurestore)posted by pardonyou? at 2:05 PM PST - 123 comments
What's the Frequency, Moby? Techno superstar
Moby was assaulted by a pair of mysterious assailants last night after a concert in Boston. "He wrote on his Web site that he is not angry about the attack, just mystified about the motive. He has asked the attackers to post an explanation."
Moby's journal has been discussed
previously, but is worth a look if you've never visited.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:15 AM PST - 47 comments
Sure, we all know the story about how Detroit developed, and then kept under wraps, a 100mpg carburetor is
false. However, affordable 80mpg family sedans
are real: behold the
Supercar! They are the results of a nearly decade-long partnership between
The Big Three and the Clinton administration. However the program was quietly shelved last June, the victim of the Bush administration, and corporate backpedaling. Read the whole sordid tale
here.
[use username/password for login] In the meantime, you'll have to settle for one of
these.
posted by thewittyname at 10:39 AM PST - 22 comments
Metafilter, you are my friend. This made me laugh A LOT. Plus you can replace "metafilter" with your friends' names and win brownie points! (Requires Flash and if you're at work, turn the sound down...)
posted by adrober at 9:59 AM PST - 31 comments
Treetop Bloggers Protest Logging A group of anti-logging activists are now ready to maintain
their own blog 130 feet up in an ancient redwood. I've considered
tree sitting, but find myself much more inclined to do so if I could continue working (or reading MeFi, as the case may be). Interesting intersection of technology and activism. Doncha think? (via
/.)
posted by maniactown at 9:58 AM PST - 6 comments
The Overcrowding Police Belleville inspectors and armed police officers show up without search warrants to check for occupancy code violations, and ticket people who don't let them in -- a practice experts say is unconstitutional.
.....
Invite friends over, babysit your grandchildren or allow relatives to spend the night in Belleville and you risk an armed police officer turning up at your door to search your home and give you a ticket.
Enforcement teams consisting of a housing inspector and a police officer do not obtain search warrants before showing up to check for occupancy code violations, a Belleville News-Democrat investigation found.
posted by nofundy at 9:15 AM PST - 14 comments
"Tornado in a Can" "To test their theory, the Vortex folks have thrown in rocks, diapers, tomatoes, sweet potato rejects from the farm down the road, 400 pounds of Oreo cookies, frozen pizza dough, even a dead bird.....The jellyfish, however, are a first." picture of "Tornado-in-a-Can" that sure is a big can. don't try this at home, folksposted by troutfishing at 7:50 AM PST - 17 comments
Good Ol' Foreign Home Cookin': Mexicans, Italians and other foreigners are just as surprised with what passes for Mexican and Italian food in the U.S. as Indians are to encounter
chicken tikka
masala or vindaloos in the U.K. Americans and Brits visiting the countries whose cuisines they think they know and love must be similarly surprised. Well, purists be damned! Not only is "faux foreign" cuisine sometimes very tasty (less pretentious than "fusion" cooking, for instance), in some cases (e.g. Tex Mex) it can be a damn sight better than the supposed original. And let no one argue these confusions aren't fun... [
Apologies it the post looks funny and full of ampersands and the links don't work: my first no-right-clicking post on a mac...]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:26 AM PST - 74 comments
Heritage of humanity This month's
Monde Diplomatique features an essay by one of the 2002 Nobel Prize winners in Physiology and Medicine, John Sulston. Sulston "writes about his battle to make the entire sequence of the genome public despite all the commercial attempts to patent it". His basic point is that: "If we wish to move forward with [Human Genome Sequencing], which will undoubtedly translate into medical advances, the basic data must be freely available for everyone to interpret, change and share, as in the open-source software movement."
The public human genome database Sulston refers to, can be found on the
Sanger Institute's website.
posted by talos at 1:08 AM PST - 2 comments
Moblogging! Yesterday's
Guardian Unlimited features a gently snarky piece by Jane Perrone, introducing a wider world to the possibilities of camera+mobile phone+Web publishing, à la
HipTop Nation. By my count, that's one month, five days from the word's coining to its first appearance in the major media (if you think the
Guardian counts as such, that is). Given such rapid memetic uptake, what do you think: flash in the pan, or new social structure abornin'? (Full disclosure: my site is linked from Perrone's piece.)
posted by adamgreenfield at 12:01 AM PST - 12 comments
December 12
The toughest Chelonia to every grace the media. Come on. Everyone had to love them at some point, with their pizzas and funny weapons.
This page has some interesting sketch art.
This one includes the complete cast of the cartoon and movies, with links to their career since said roles.
This site, my favorite, has the entire "Coming out of our Shells" tape for download. Remember the classic, Cowabunga?
posted by lazaruslong at 11:17 PM PST - 10 comments
One Got Fat "Somewhere along the line, a cute little safety movie for the kiddies turned into a dark journey through a grotesque nightmare world of misshapen monkeys in stupid hats." -
Scott Munroposted by quonsar at 7:32 PM PST - 20 comments
Busy Marquee. "The idea behind Busy Marquee is very simple and yet very immature: find signs that have interchangable letters, bring your Scrabble skills, and rearrange omnipresent advertising to form Dadaist bits of landscape." My boner is screaming hello!
posted by mcsweetie at 6:52 PM PST - 33 comments
Feng Shui for Web Designers Contains such helpful tidbits as "Macromedia Flash encourages curvy images and is therefore blessed with positive chi" and "The messy dithering of colours that occurs with JPEG compression is bad feng shui."
posted by oissubke at 5:53 PM PST - 16 comments
Need help trying to beat one of your
Vectrex or
Apple II games?
GameFAQs is the place you need to be. Covering just about any system on which one can play a game, this archive is for the serious gamer in you. Also, everyone should begin pronouncing "FAQ" as "fahh-queue". Thank you.
posted by WolfDaddy at 5:01 PM PST - 9 comments
Piracy is Progressive Taxation says Tim O'Reilly. Of the 7 lessons in this article,
"Free is eventually replaced by a higher-quality paid service" is probably the best model of how things will progress.
posted by tboz at 2:29 PM PST - 36 comments
A Mac user scorned is a dangerous thing... Gotta hand it to this guy: persistence pays off. After being scammed with $3000 in forged cashier checques in an eBay transaction, this seller took matters into his own hands. How secure do you feel making transaction over eBay and related services? What kinds of internet fraud have you faced or fear? And most interesting of all, to what extent have you gone to correct evils done to you?
posted by tgrundke at 1:08 PM PST - 51 comments
Froogle - Google launches a new beta site for Shopping. Apparently their spiders have been storing results they think contain items for sale, and now they're gathered and searchable/browsable via Froogle. No paid placements, but Text Ads still seem to be fair game.
posted by kokogiak at 9:59 AM PST - 42 comments
Animated chinese characters. Using the web and a bit of javascript this site draws Chinese ideographs. The site might be useful to some people but I'm just fascinated by watching the characters being drawn and by the idea of usring the web to teach people to use the
ancient technology of writing.
posted by rdr at 9:38 AM PST - 10 comments
8 Minute Dating. Start the clock! Is it possible to find your soulmate in under 10 minutes? Forget about those long romantic dinners and slow walks on the beach. The trend now is to just meet, greet, check for a spark and move on. Talk about making a first impression count!
posted by rrtek at 9:07 AM PST - 24 comments
The Perpetual War Fund - First there was the Vice Fund (covered in Mefi
Sept. 3). Now, The Perpetual War Portfolio:
"an evenly weighted basket of five stocks poised to succeed in the age of perpetual war. The stocks were selected on the basis of popular product lines, strong political connections and lobbying efforts, and paid-for access to key Congressional decision makers." Somebody's going to profit from the machineries of death. Why not you?
posted by troutfishing at 6:26 AM PST - 24 comments
You are the training manager in a large, progressive company.
You get 12 turns and a $200,000 budget, which you can spend in six ways...
[more inside]
posted by dg at 2:42 AM PST - 10 comments
December 11
How did they die, and why is it important?
The Death of the Father is an exhibit tracing the deaths of some modern political villains [Stalin, Ceausescu, Tito, etc.] and exploring the political importance of death-as-closure in the ending of tyrannical regimes. A bit pomo at times, but you get to see Hitler's teeth! Just one of the many fascinating sites from the
Cornell Institute for Digital Collections.
posted by jessamyn at 6:38 PM PST - 4 comments
Dress Rehearsal Rag: Well we have pre-nuptials; trial separations; 30-day pre-purchases; secondary virginity and revirginizing and preemptive wars: so why not hold your own funeral while you're still lively enough to enjoy it?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:40 PM PST - 7 comments
Legislators in Georgia next month plan to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision by introducing a bill that legally defines abortion as "executing" an unborn child, requiring any woman in the state who wants to have one to
apply for a death warrant, at which point the child still in the mother's womb will be assigned a separate legal guardian who may choose to appeal the application for the mother to abort the child. Such a case will then lead to a trial similar to a death row appeal in which a jury will decide who's rights are dominant in the case- the mother or the unborn baby.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 4:52 PM PST - 61 comments
Three Strikes Laws May Increase Murder Rates A recent
article in the journal
Criminology & Public Policy suggests that the politically popular "three strikes" laws may have the perverse effect of causing more murders. Because the sentences for murders and "third strikes" are the same, criminals have an incentive to change their M.O. to murder witnesses and police officers. Maybe using baseball metaphors in determining crime policy isn't such a good idea after all.
posted by jonp72 at 2:05 PM PST - 16 comments
Mix Tape for Dead Girl. Writing a eulogy used to involve hours of revising and a good thesaurus. Joshua Allen opts for a cassette of field recordings and madrigals instead. Found sounds find their way to lost loved ones.
posted by botono9 at 1:30 PM PST - 11 comments
BODYSCAPES® are NOT double exposures. Nor are they the result of computer montage. These unique landscapes are created by photographing toys and miniature "people" directly on the human body.
posted by ashbury at 11:17 AM PST - 15 comments
Stupid baby names. Parents share suggestions about misbegotten, badly-spelled monikers with which to saddle their innocent offspring for life:
I named my daughter Madyson Caite and I regret doing that because every little girl in the last 3 or 4 years has been named Madison. Everyone complements it, but I still hate it. I would rather call her Caite (Kate) but am not sure. Please, everyone, pick something normal for your child. If you choose something different and unique, please don't keep following the trends of Madisons, and Mackenzies, and Taylors, and Destinys. This is getting old. posted by beth at 10:55 AM PST - 201 comments
The barter system lives! Trodo.com is a recently unveiled bartering hub where you sign up, list three items you're willing to send away to new owners and start out with three credits for items of the same kind you listed, then accrue more credits every time someone requests one of your items.
posted by leahzero at 12:03 AM PST - 25 comments
December 10
Prepare for the worst ... says Mayor Mike, as NYC faces down a crippling transit strike.
For starters, cars carrying fewer than four people could not enter or leave Manhattan over any bridge or through any tunnel on weekdays, 24 hours a day. Commuters wishing to get into the city by car would need to pick up strangers -- and the city will facilitate this with staging areas. Unflappable New Yorkers are at least a little flapped. But the practice of strangers hitching rides with lone drivers isn't new to NoVa: There, they are called
slugs and body snatchers. [more inside]
posted by dhartung at 10:44 PM PST - 32 comments
Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe is a funny and inventive science-fiction series that originally aired in three-minute segments on NPR back in the 1980s. I remember listening to my dad's tapes of it when I was a kid. It's a great combination of absurdist humor and classic cyberpunk, and eminently enjoyable for anyone who likes radio drama.
I was delighted recently discover that not only is it available to buy on CD, but
the entire thing is online in streaming quicktime to listen to!
posted by GriffX at 6:23 PM PST - 7 comments
DC church approves same sex union. From the article:
The unanimous decision on Saturday by its board of elders places the 159-year-old congregation, where U.S. presidents James A. Garfield and Lyndon B. Johnson once worshiped, among a small number of D.C. area churches that permit such services, often called "covenant ceremonies."
No leading questions this time, (see saturday's "gun post") just curious if this is happening elsewhere in the U.S.
posted by buz46 at 3:29 PM PST - 9 comments
CAPTCHA is the Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart. The test promises to keep online polls honest, block search engine bots, and end spam as we know it. The program generates and grades tests that (1) most humans can pass and (2) current computer programs can't pass. For example, humans can read distorted text but current computer programs can't. To see if you're human or not, take a Captcha test yourself
here. To read more check out this
nytimes article.
posted by josephtate at 1:17 PM PST - 27 comments
So that's why the economy is so bad. The USPS is looking for $65 million dollars worth of white mail postal tubs. If you work in an office or deal with a mailroom, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The penalty for not coughing them up? 3 years imprisonment and a $1000 fine. (I read it on the side of one of the boxes I have by my desk).
posted by gwong at 10:40 AM PST - 24 comments
Atapuerca (in Spanish, with incomplete English translation) is the site of the earliest European hominid ancestors yet found in Europe. Two of the most stunning finds are
Gran Dolina, where the first
Homo antecessor fossils were found, and Sima de los Huesos, site of the most complete
Homo heidelbergensis fossils ever excavated. And soon: an
exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in New York. I know my plans for January 11th.
posted by The Michael The at 10:27 AM PST - 3 comments
Corporate Freeloader Chief is Bush's Choice to Head Treasury John W. Snow, President Bush's choice to replace the fired Paul O'Neill as Secretary of the Treasury, is the CEO of CSX.
In three of the past four years,
CSX Corporation, paid no federal income tax at all. Instead of paying taxes, CSX supplemented its $934 million in pretax U.S. profits over the four years with a total of $164 million in tax rebate checks from the federal government.
"If the President's goal is to encourage even more corporate tax sheltering, then Mr. Snow looks like a fine choice to help him do so," said Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. posted by Blake at 8:30 AM PST - 82 comments
When the
Romans ran out of fresh water, they built
aqueducts. When C17 Londoners ran out, they built
The New River. Snaking from Chadwell and Amwell springs to the New River Head, it's not new, it's not a river, but it is the largest body of non-tidal flowing water in Europe and one of few local habitats for dragonflies [
geocities].
Over
40 miles in length, and taking just 4 years to complete, the river was opened in 1613. But it ran over budget and didn't make a profit until 1633, two years after it's designer and chief financier,
Hugh Myddelton, had died.
posted by twine42 at 6:39 AM PST - 6 comments
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah: The decline of literacy essay has been a cyclical product since the ancient Greeks. Isn't it funny contemporary doomsayers never mention that reading and writing medium. hot on the heels of text-destroying television, that is the Internet? Or doesn't it count? Hands up those who wish the good
Marshall was still around to put us right.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:11 AM PST - 28 comments
The High Court of Australia has decided that you can defame someone in Australia by posting an article on a website hosted outside Australia, if that article is read by people inside Australia. I suppose this means that anyone posting on the internet is subject to Australian defamation law. (Unless you decide to block requests from Australian browsers.)
posted by grestall at 12:05 AM PST - 13 comments
December 9
Budget Orgy Calculator - tis the season for festivities, but all those galas can be a bit hard on the wallet. This handy party planner helps you to calculate your costs in advance and keeps you from forgetting important details.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:07 PM PST - 8 comments
The Dubya Doll is making its way through commercial America. With 17 slogans and phrases, such as "We will continue putting food on your family." what red-blooded American wouldn't want one?
"My Daddy was President you know." not included.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 4:06 PM PST - 17 comments
Enter ... the Rawhide Kid! Marvel is about to unveil the first openly gay gunslinger. Name's the Rawhide Kid. Its creators say it will likely be campy. With a name like that, how could it be anything but?
posted by risenc at 3:23 PM PST - 22 comments
The Liberaral Quandry on Iraq [nytimes reg req'd]. [warning : iraq political story]. As a "liberal hawk", I have had some issues regarding whether to support a war with Iraq or not. In this article, George Packer talks to four liberals (David Rieff, Leon Wieseltier, Michael Walzer and Paul Berman) about what they think, and presents a sort of top ten list of reasons for or not. After reading the article, I'm a little less confused about where I stand, and a little closer to coming to grips with it
posted by rshah21 at 12:55 PM PST - 29 comments
MikWright: Find old family photos. Slap them on greeting cards with hilarious captions. Sell them. Make many people very happy and entertained. MikWright rules.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:31 PM PST - 10 comments
oh look. it's chris rock impersonator, chris tucker, up to his old tricks again. ha ha... such a kidder that guy.
posted by xmattxfx at 11:04 AM PST - 39 comments
Possums are labelled an ecological pest in New Zealand, so apparently it's considered "pro-environment" to exterminate the little buggers. With that good feeling about wearing fur in your minds, save the forest and ease your holiday shopping at the same time with some fine New Zealand Possum Fur
G-strings and
nipple warmers. (Probably NSFW) But don't leave out the kids' Christmas lists! Make sure they get this season's hot toy- a
possum hand puppet fashioned straight from the carcass of the real thing! Mmmm, it's still warm.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 10:31 AM PST - 18 comments
Bullets Frozen in Mid-Impact. This may have been posted before, but I couldn't find it; it's a series of photographs of bullets hitting objects, taken with a VERY high speed camera, frozen in mid-impact. This is NOT, for the record, an invitation to discuss your POV on gun control.
posted by jonson at 9:54 AM PST - 33 comments
A monster of a poll (by America's monster pollster PEW) asking 38.000 people (!) in 44 countries what they think of America. VERY interesting!
posted by acrobat at 7:04 AM PST - 41 comments
December 8
This is the text of a painting called "Arsewoman in Wonderland," shortlisted for the UK's Turner Prize 2002. Fiona Banner's painting consists entirely of a textual narration of a porn film; specifically, a porn film dedicated to an extended exploration of anal sex, with an "Alice in Wonderland" theme. (Apparently, dwarves are also involved.)
The Turner, which comes with a £20,000 purse, ostensibly recognizes the best British art. Now, I love a good conceptual dig as much as the next guy, but does Banner's painting really challenge the way we "compartmentalise private and public behaviour," let alone represent the best the British art world has to offer?
posted by adamgreenfield at 8:17 PM PST - 49 comments
Is it all about oil? Daniel Yergin (
The Prize) discusses Iraq's oil after Saddam. I found it highly informative and somewhat surprising. He emphasizes the small role that Iraq will play in the oil market. By the time production ramps up in five years, Iraq will still be a second tier producer, grouped with Norway and Mexico. Not exactly the petro bonanza some predict. There are more predictions by this veteran oil-watcher.
posted by ednopantz at 10:03 AM PST - 63 comments
December 7
Peace Activist Philip Berrigan Dead at 79 Yes, I know, obituaries are depressing. But this man was one of my very few heros. He fought a good fight, but in this age of corporate sponsored and government promoted dimunation of conscience can a single person "bearing witness" to the immoral actions that go on in this world really make a difference? Or is the idea of citizen protest just a quaint vestige of another era?
[
NYT link]
posted by ahimsakid at 9:18 PM PST - 8 comments
Chiengora is the fancy term for dog hair used to make mittens, hats, sweaters, and more. This site will teach you all about chiengora and how to hand spin it into yarn. If you'd rather just brush your dog and send the fur to someone else to knit, check out
Rover's Comb.
posted by acridrabbit at 6:33 PM PST - 12 comments
One word posts a word a day. You have one minute to type as much cobblers as you can. It sounds daft, but it's a bit compelling.
posted by Fat Buddha at 1:56 PM PST - 16 comments
U.S. Writers Do Cultural Battle Around the Globe (NYTimes, reg. req'd). So many questions spring to mind... Is it productive for the government to do this, or should it be the role of civil society? Should such efforts attempt to portray an appealing version of the U.S., or an accurate one? Where would you direct people who, in good faith, want to gain insight into the "American mind" through the written word, or others forms of art?
posted by stonerose at 9:20 AM PST - 9 comments
Son of NRA big wig arrested in road rage shooting. How will Chuck Heston spin this one?
The local TV news reported this without a hint of irony, and the post barely covered it. What Happened to the "Liberal Media"? Have they been co-opted?
Has anyone seen more extensive coverage of this?
I realize that the article I linked does not contain much info, but I guess that is sort of my point. Should this not be a catalyst for discussions about gun control in this country?
posted by buz46 at 7:06 AM PST - 89 comments
The Humble Penny? A site to help visualize large numbers with the common US coin. And to think I've been cursing them for so long. If I'd saved 10 million of the little buggars I'd have $100k.
posted by yoga at 6:57 AM PST - 15 comments
Another "magnificent obsession" site, seasonally spiced:
oldchristmaslights.com is a huge attic space, packed to the rafters with illuminating images and information; history and pre-history, manufacturer backgrounds, timeline, patents, vintage advertising, trivia - it's all here, plus a "
Light Set Gallery" and more. Plug in and enjoy.
posted by taz at 3:15 AM PST - 23 comments
December 6
What the hell? Republican leader of the Senate, Trent Lott, says that the United States would have been better off if then-segregationist candidate Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948. Wow...I want to hear Fox News, Rush, etc, spin Lott's way out of this. Also, does saying this have anything to do with the election in Louisiana on Saturday?
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 8:50 PM PST - 61 comments
DDR meets the keypad in this flash game. Interesting adaptation and in my opinion, exceedingly difficult. Watch out for
RSI. Couldn't find the title site in search, so apologies if it is old.
posted by rudyfink at 5:10 PM PST - 21 comments
At least this guy’s not giving up. "I can't quite figure out what's going on at 1704. From the landlord on down, they seem to have a pact with the devil. Other than the roof over there, every other aspect of that building is wrong. Everything. 1704 is a malignancy killing this whole block." Amazing documentation of someone not afraid to take a stand in Baltimore. (more inside)
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 3:16 PM PST - 17 comments
Walking on Wind. Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist who creates sculptures that use wind power to walk. They're amazingly lifelike and organic - like a physical version of
Sodaplay. More images (and a short video) at his
website.
(found on boingboing)posted by O9scar at 2:23 PM PST - 6 comments
What war looks like. Susan Sontag has written an important essay on the intricate relationship we have with images of human suffering (e.g., war photography) in the December 9 issue of
The New Yorker. A sample:
Perhaps the only people with the right to look at images of suffering of this extreme order [i.e., gruesome combat horrors] are those who could do something to alleviate it – say, the surgeons at the military hospital where the photograph was taken – or those who could learn from it. The rest of us are voyeurs, whether we like it or not.
The essay is not online but there is an excellent
introduction with links to other galleries of the imagery discussed.
With a new war likely on the way, her essay provides a timely set of insights into wartime suffering and how it is usually depicted, often manipulated, and never understood.
posted by skimble at 1:26 PM PST - 43 comments
If you show up in Reeboks, I will kill you on the spot. Twenty-two University of Cincinnati students dressed for success for their final exam Wednesday night in "Global Civility." "I told them, 'If you show up in Reeboks, I will kill you on the spot,"' said Linda Ginter Brown, head of the Media and Cultural Studies department. "Trust me, they do not look like this on campus."
Ignoring the unintentional irony of a professor teaching a class on
civility threatening to kill her students -- if only jokingly -- is there not a double standard at play here regarding what kind of violence-laced language is acceptable in academic settings? Spoken by a student, whether to a fellow student or to a teacher, such a comment might have different consequences than a puff piece on CNN.
posted by damn yankee at 1:10 PM PST - 21 comments
Enter the Stick Figure! The lastest XiaoXiao stick figure game (Number 9, I believe), a sort of Double Dragonish thing this time around. Three cheers for flash friday.
posted by unreason at 12:15 PM PST - 11 comments
breathe -- the overdose game
"You and some friends have been drinking all day and you just scored & cooked some dope. The guy who went first barely got the needle out before collapsing in a weird position. What ya gonna do?"
do
you know what to do if someone overdoses, and what resources -- if any -- exist in your community to educate people about overdoses?
if there are no such resources do you think there should be, and what would you like to see?
posted by dolface at 11:20 AM PST - 18 comments
Santa Claus, elusive jolly old elf, has finally been located by someone curious enough (in both senses of the word) to use FedEx to track him down. (The page I linked to here only tells half the story; click that link down on the left to get FedEx's tracking page.)
posted by wanderingmind at 10:17 AM PST - 20 comments
A simple, absolutely perfect
short comic about musician/artist/music producer
Brian Eno (by cartoonist
Tom Hart). If this puts you in the mood, why not draw wisdom from one of Eno's (and artist Paul Schmidt's)
Oblique Strategies. Click
(or refresh if clicking doesn't work) for a new aphorism, like shuffling a Tarot deck and drawing a new card. "Honour thy error as a hidden intention" is one of my favorites.
(More inside for anyone still interested.) posted by Shane at 9:10 AM PST - 12 comments
Let's talk French Toast. I'm not going to deny that we LOVE pancakes here on MeFi...but I think that we need to expand our breakfast discussion repetoire. Personally, I've always found Mom's simple french toast recipe -- eggs, milk, bread, and that's it -- to be the best, but still, there's no shortage of
places on the
web to
find french toast recipes. Pass the maple syrup please!
posted by PeteyStock at 8:09 AM PST - 44 comments
What Happened To My Woodcock? Much as I love reading Mary Killen's etiquette column in
The Spectator, it has to be said it's becoming more and more exotic and self-consciously ridiculous. But that's nothing compared to the success of
This England magazine, Britain's best-selling quarterly, complete with a crusty, pastoral
editor's letter (Yes, Amanda, it was published in 2002) and a reactionary, anti-EU
petition. Add magazines like
Country Life and
The Lady,
Countryman or
The Field, and the old question once again arises: will there still always be an England or will it just become more and more parochial and eventually go undercover? Or just disappear?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:49 AM PST - 17 comments
Be a hero! That big bad Michael enjoys dropping his kids off balconies, and it's up to you to stop him... just don't get hit by falling vinyl!
posted by adamms222 at 7:43 AM PST - 11 comments
The Patriot Act Abuse Begins An amateur photographer named Mike Maginnis was arrested on Tuesday in his home city of Denver - for simply taking pictures of buildings in an area where Vice President Cheney was residing.
I reported, you decide.
posted by nofundy at 6:09 AM PST - 56 comments
December 5
Show and Tell Music - Thrift Store Vinyl. There are lots of vinyl sites out there, but some of the items in this collection had me
floored. And the quantity is just as impressive as the quality -- several pages of unintentionally funny Christian vinyl you have to see to believe. MP3 samples too! Via
BoingBoing, but got lost under a lengthy EFF post (which was also good).
posted by condour75 at 5:51 PM PST - 26 comments
Bigfoot is dead. The original 'creator' of the legendary bigfoot hoax has died. Some of his
"work". How much more difficult to pull off would a 'hoax' of this magnitude be today?
posted by cinderful at 1:30 PM PST - 17 comments
Magic 8 Ball Santa Witness the jiggling fat man! This couldn't wait for a Friday humor post. I've asked questions like:
Will that cute brunette ever return my call? Will the Cincinnati Bengals go undefeated next year? Oh those lonely times at work...Huzzah!
posted by lheiskell at 9:10 AM PST - 18 comments
Toad licking - Ever been tempted? DON'T: read this magisterial blog piece on the dangers of Toadlicking first!. But for
a really fun time, look for this hilarious documentary at your local independant video store:
"Cane Toads: An Unnatural History":
"When the Australian sugarcane crop was attacked by beetles, someone decided to import cane toads to combat the pests. But somebody didn't do their homework: beetles can fly, but cane toads can't. What can cane toads do? Reproduce, big time..." [I'll graciously leave the post on Australian plagues - of rabbits, toads, and so on - for somebody else. Then, of course, there's
Kudzu and Killer Bees...]
posted by troutfishing at 8:23 AM PST - 38 comments
It's Little, It's Lovely, It Lights! "I made my debut in the tail end of the fifties; just long enough to say I was there. I was this pink oval thing with a cord and yet I wasn't alone. For just a few months prior another pink oval thing made its debut. Actually its gestation period was a little longer than mine but in the end we found ourselves in the world together."
posted by quonsar at 7:20 AM PST - 22 comments
Hobbiton It's On!!! "
Yo, I'm harder than a Mithril coat / A hundred is the number of the orcs I smote / I battled Helms Deep and I took Minas Tirith / If you don't watch
out, I'll make your ass dissappeareth.." - Lord of the Rhymes. For those of you who can't wait to see
Legolas bustin' caps again in "The Two Towers," settle down for some
gangsta rap (5.61 MB MP3),
Middle Earth style. "
He's mean / he's green / Gollum beat box like you never seen!" (via
firda)
posted by lotsofno at 6:57 AM PST - 29 comments
RaptureLetters sends an email to your unsaved friends, after
the Rapture, explaining where your good soul has disappeared to. I suppose this means that they only employ
sinners, in order to ensure that someone remains behind to operate the site...
posted by adamms222 at 6:01 AM PST - 29 comments
That Show-Stopper: The Bloody Audience! Interrupting a performance of Hamlet,
John Barrymore once
threw a large fish at a group of coughing members of the
audience, shouting: "Busy yourselves with that, you damned walruses!"
Stephen Pollard, in The Independent, suggests people now behave in public as they do at home, oblivious of their fellow concert or theatre-goers.
Art-house audiences are equally annoying. Perhaps show rage will become the road rage of the 21st Century? [
The main link, addressing rock audiences, comes in very small type but is worth reading all the same. The third link is an amusing mini-play about audience harrassment.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:44 AM PST - 65 comments
December 4
Tips to be hip ... I like that bit."cope(d) with the indignity of slavery with the cool pose"
Although Kylie & (go) Russ (go) could have missed out.
posted by johnny7 at 10:35 PM PST - 32 comments
Interview with Ze Frank - "online performance artist and humorist". A link to the first of his projects, a wildly successful party invite, "How to dance properly" was
posted on metafilter in March 2001. "I sent the link to 17 friends ... By Monday it was getting over a million people a day, and I was getting over seven e-mails a minute." See the various
stats pages for a funny summary of the contents of some of those e-mails.
posted by atom71 at 8:52 PM PST - 6 comments
The Literary Review Bad Sex Prize 2002. A
runner-up: "In one fluid movement Herman rolled forward on to his knees, grasped Dorian by the shoulders, and kissed him. Such suction. They were like two flamingos, each attempting to filter the nutriment out of the other with great slurps of their muscular tongues. Adam's apples bobbed in the crap gloaming."
posted by mookieproof at 5:55 PM PST - 22 comments
Adult Siamese twins plead for separation Doctors in Singapore are considering whether to separate a pair of 28-year-old twin sisters who are joined at the head - an unprecedented operation for adults.
Neurosurgeon Keith Goh says he and his team will decide by the end of the year if an operation can be successful.
They went to Singapore after hearing about the successful surgery led by Dr Goh on baby twins from Nepal who were also joined at the head. The operation - if it goes ahead - involves separating two brains encased within a single bony structure in the head, Dr Goh said. The twins say they want to be separated because of deep differences between them. "We are two completely separate individuals who are stuck to each other," Ladan, the more extrovert of the sisters, told reporters. "We have different lifestyles," she said. "We think very differently about issues." The twins said that if their situation continues for much longer, they will not "stand it any more".
posted by Coop at 3:17 PM PST - 11 comments
"Pigman is trying to prove the Caine-Hackman theory. No matter what time it is, 24 hours a day, you can find a
Michael Caine or
Gene Hackman movie playing on TV." If only he had
TV-Now.com, which exhaustively roams schedules for whatever actor or genre you choose. I'm planning an
All-
Corey month myself. Call me for the shower scene in
Dressed To Kill.posted by Stan Chin at 12:58 PM PST - 36 comments
Talking Heads Avoid revealing and discussing issues that may be controversial. Especially so when the stories run counter to the government's "talking points." Yet another reason not to trust mainstream media for relevant and accurate news. Who can we trust to report honestly and without putting personal/corporate considerations first?
posted by nofundy at 12:20 PM PST - 25 comments
The Index of American Design The National Gallery of Art is showing some amazing watercolors commissioned by the Works Progress Administration between 1935 and 1942 to document a uniquely American cultural heritage of primarily traditional folk art (and employ out-of-work artists). I thought the
textile reproductions were particularly stunning in their detailed exactitude (rendering the thread count!) and really put to shame the so-called
trompe l'oeil paintings in the east gallery :D
posted by kliuless at 10:26 AM PST - 2 comments
Wal-Mart's Female Trouble
With shopping on many people's minds these days, here's a story detailing charges of worker discrimination practiced at that store everyone knows (it's also America's largest private employer).
An informed consumer is a responsible consumer. Know where your money goes.
posted by mapalm at 9:13 AM PST - 58 comments
"The Brighthouse Institute for Thought Sciences plans to change the marketing world by using modern neuroscience methods to observe and understand the true drivers of consumer behavior. The Thought Sciences team uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a safe and non-invasive technique, to observe patterns in brain activity that reveal how a person is processing and/or evaluating a product, object or advertisement." (From their
press release.) Is this the next logical step beyond focus groups? And does this seem just a little bit creepy to anyone else?
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:32 AM PST - 25 comments
The internet may have given us a whole new access route to big-scale sex gadgets, like adult baby cribs and The Houdini Box, but sex furniture has been around since Botticelli.
By Sally Trash.posted by giantkicks at 1:37 AM PST - 4 comments
December 3
Bearpath is a gated community in Minnesota. It's not all that special, except for the fact that it's the only gated community in the state. With membership fees to the golf club topping
$10,000, it's obvious they want to keep out people who aren't filthy rich, or knows someone who is.
Places like Florida, California, or Texas have many more. What causes people to want to move out to the sticks and put up a giant fence around their property, with tightly controlled access to the neighborhood?
Is fear of crime a legitimate reason for digging in behind a fence with armed security guards? Or is it just to get away from people? Why is the thought of somebody isolating themselves this much from a community so fascinating?
posted by manero at 9:25 PM PST - 55 comments
In England it is called the "Graveyard Grannies'' problem, in France the "Chere Grand'mere," while in Bulgaria it is inexplicably known as "The Toadstool Waxing Plan".
Next week, college students around the world will be taking final exams. Their
grandmothers will be
dropping like
flies."
posted by Wet Spot at 8:29 PM PST - 15 comments
"
Oh, mighty city of New York, you are wonderful to behold--
Your buildings are magnificent-- the truth be it told--
They were the only thing that seemed to arrest my eye,
Because many of them are thirteen storeys high;
And as for Central Park, it is lovely to be seen--
Especially in the summer season when its shrubberies are green
And the Burns Statue is there to be seen,
Surrounded by trees on the beautiful sward so green;
Also Shakespeare and the immortal Sir Walter Scott,
Which by Scotchmen and Englishmen will never be forgot. "
The collected poems of William Topaz McGonagallposted by sgt.serenity at 5:42 PM PST - 18 comments
[A]nother race may have pre-dated native Americans. ....Dr Gonzalez told BBC News Online: "
We believe that the older race may have come from what is now Japan, via the Pacific islands and perhaps the California coast....this discovery, although it is very significant, raises more questions than it solves."
This seems like real news to me: the 'Bering Straits' route is still the dominant theory of pre-Colombian migration, is it not? Yet clearly, for
anthropologists, it hasn't that simple for quite some time. Are we on the verge of a new consensus about human expansion across the globe? Or is this doomed to fail, like previous speculation? [
Kon-Tiki, anyone?]
posted by dash_slot- at 3:37 PM PST - 42 comments
The Long Riders' Guild is an association of equestrian explorers who have ridden more than 1,000 continuous miles on a single equestrian journey.
posted by signal at 1:53 PM PST - 4 comments
In a long letter to Esquire magazine, the former head of Bush's Office of Faith-Based Programs blasts the White House as having practically no interest or expertise in making sound social policy: "[O]n social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and the only casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking." DiIulio may have a bit of an ax to grind here, but it is still a fascinating look inside the Bush policy-making apparatus. (The letter was the basis for an article by Ron Suskind in Esquire which is not available online [
press release here]. The saga leading to the publication of the letter is recounted in today's
Tapped)
posted by boltman at 1:02 PM PST - 22 comments
Tarkovsky's Stalker coming as video game in 2003. I always wondered how long it would take for a more artistically-informed bunch to come to the $18B/year video game market (bigger than Hollywood). Will our generation have its video-game counterparts to Faulkner and Fitzgerald? A David Foster Wallace or Don Delillo authored game? Are there other video games that can stand up as "Art?"
posted by minnesotaj at 1:02 PM PST - 65 comments
The other one in Weird Science What was it like to be a 15-year-old boy kissing 30-year-old Kelly LeBrock? Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) tells all about his childhood acting days. He did not turn to a life of drugs, but to a life of academia. Is it "healthy and important for us to see that the guy who played Wyatt is a real person"? I'm not sure about that, but it was an interesting interview, and, of course, a great movie.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:25 PM PST - 13 comments
Take a peek at this military timeline. And let's figure that the time from when Johnny, sergeant, age 25, gets home from fighting the war and tells 5 year old Junior about the experience to when Junior, Major/Lt.Col, grows up and wants to CAUSE a war, averages 30 years.
Now let's do some math...starting with the French and Indian War, 1754-1763. Add 30-ish years (21). American Revolution, 1775-1783. Add 30-ish years (38). War of 1812, 1812-1814. Add 30-ish years, numerous Indian wars. Add 30-ish years. American Civil War, 1861-1865. Add 30-ish years (37). Spanish-American War, 1898. Add 30-ish years (19). America in World War I, 1917-1918. Add 30-ish years (25). America in World War II, 1942-1945. Add 30-ish years (20). Vietnam War, 1964-1973. Add 30-ish years, and it's the turn of the millenium....it's now.
We haven't learned from 250 years of this cycle, and there's no reason to think we've learned anything since. I didn't count the Gulf War cause it wasn't much of anything, and I know the numbers are a bit forced...but I think this trend is worth discussing.
posted by taumeson at 11:44 AM PST - 44 comments
Sober Santa . Too much politics today, not enough Christmas fun. Here's a drunk Santa game from b3ta. Pretty tough once you get going.
posted by Stan Chin at 11:17 AM PST - 14 comments
McCain-Feingold doomed (NYT reg req) The law enforcing the soft money ban goes to court tomorrow. Opponents of the law will be led by Kenneth Starr (!), while the defenders of the law will eventually be led by Bush's solicitor general, Theodore Olson, the guy who argued the case that made George W. Bush president. Gee, that sounds fair --- everyone's an arch conservative. This law is toast. Back to the trough!
posted by fungible at 8:30 AM PST - 28 comments
How I love
Mutant Storm [demos available for Windows, Linux and, yes, Mac!]. It's amazing the
dross that the big players can come up with while games like this aren't even available in the shops. Yay for the web, I say.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:15 AM PST - 9 comments
Hunger rates highest in rural West. "Unemployment and prevalence of seasonal labor go hand-in-hand with hunger, experts say.
Oregon,
Washington and
Alaska rank high in both jobless and hunger rates. Across the West, the agriculture industry relies on seasonal labor to harvest everything from mushrooms to apples. Families that work in the summer often can't make ends meet in the winter."
posted by crasspastor at 2:14 AM PST - 6 comments
December 2
Sony writes 'article' for Salon. In an effort to find new revenue streams, Salon has published an ad/article written by Sony Corp.
National Geographic and
Parent Soup have also published ad/articles, though
the New York Times said no. While the articles do not directly reference Sony products, the feature people who do fascinating things with technology... technology which, it just so happens, is advertised conveniently right next to the technology featuring passage.
Is this sort of thing ever ethical? If so, what sort of disclosures are necessary. Clearly the ad/articles are intended to appear to be regular content.
posted by 4easypayments at 10:54 PM PST - 29 comments
'Saddam's men torturted me' A dossier of human rights abuses allegedly perpetrated by the Iraqi regime, including torture and rape, has been released by the UK Government. The full report
here (pdf).
Amnesty International is criticizing the UK government for the timing of the report's release. What do you think? Moral outrage at the servile scum that run Iraq's prisons or calculated manipulation of UK/US public opinion prior to an inexorable war to keep our SUVs?
posted by Zombie at 8:05 PM PST - 48 comments
Acting White *: In 1986, Professors Signithia Fordham and John Ogbu introduced this phrase into our cultural lexicon, presenting evidence that black academic underperformance might be partially or largely attributable to a devaluation of academic success by black students themselves. Needless to say, this theory was
controversial ...
[*via Arts & Letters Daily] [more inside]posted by grrarrgh00 at 5:33 PM PST - 31 comments
What's Joe's Big Secret? The FOX network has quietly finished production on "Joe Millionaire," a seven-episode series that combines elements of Fox's "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?" with ABC's "The Bachelor."
I won't spoil the "secret" for anyone who cares but isn't someone's financial status a valid factor when forming a relationship. If you lie to someone the entire time during a relationship doesn't that effect your perceptions and feelings towards the person who lied to you?
posted by suprfli at 1:20 PM PST - 51 comments
Bat Yeor is a
researcher of the life of dhimmi (non-Muslims) under Islam. How do other religions treat the 'infidels'? Judaism has the goy, but what's his rights? What about Christianity? Hinduism? Shinto? How has the legal view of the minorities developed in socio-political systems informed by different religions?...
posted by bokononito at 12:14 PM PST - 6 comments
Leniency for Terrorists
CIA memorandums strongly suggest, according to Bardach's book, that Bosch was one of the conspirators, and quotes the then secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, as writing that the "US government had been planning to suggest Bosch's deportation before Cubana airlines crash took place for his suspected involvement in other terrorist acts and violation of his parole".
Bosch's release, often referred to in the US media as a pardon, was the result of pressure brought by hardline Cubans in Miami, with Jeb Bush serving as their point man. Bosch now lives in Miami and remains unrepentant about his militant activities, according to Bardach.
Is there a double standard at work regarding terrorists?
posted by nofundy at 11:08 AM PST - 26 comments
December 2, 1823 President James Monroe made his annual speech to congress and outlined his policy that the American continents were "henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers" Since then the US has, for better or worse, at times
stood by the
Monroe Doctrine,
ignored it when they had bigger issues back home and even argued that it
doesn't apply in the case of American imperialism. Is it time to retool our Latin America policy now that Europe doesn't seem so bent on imperialism there, or is the Doctrine needed as
much as ever?
posted by Pollomacho at 9:40 AM PST - 9 comments
Want to talk about GOP? Not in the WSJ! The latest WSJ internal style guide has banned the use of GOP (Grand Old Party) as a reference that too few would be familar with. Republicans seem to find it amusing, considering their domain name, however. I'd just been speaking about this to a colleague a few days ago when someone at lunch asked what a GOP was. Do the other mediums follow suit? Is this as big a deal as some publications using the term "homicide bomber" instead of "suicide bomber?"
posted by djspicerack at 9:34 AM PST - 34 comments
It would appear that our original warning was not sufficient.This is the second message you receive when you right-click at this
website a second time. And then it LOCKS UP YOUR COMPUTER(use ctrl/alt/del to close browser and unlock.) The first time you right-click you are given this warning..
Images and all text on our website are protected by copyright--DO NOT attempt to copy."give me one ping,give me one ping only please"
What..the..posted by JohnR at 4:21 AM PST - 84 comments
Freenoise. "This site exists to provide information on 'unusual' music and arts; the word "unusual" being easily replaced by 'unconventional,' 'non-mainstream,' 'underground,' 'extreme' or by any one of a dozen other useless labels." This includes such projects as
Cock E.S.P.,
Wrong and the fascinating
Panelectric Living Sinema. The
link page is of particular interest, as it could open up a whole world to the uninitiated. I wish they linked my favorite bug faced noise band,
Winter Carousel.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:54 AM PST - 8 comments
December 1
Missing an Opportunity: One thing not discussed at the world AIDS conference was the impact Christians, acting in accordance with a biblical worldview, can have on this crisis.
posted by jasontromm at 6:18 PM PST - 13 comments
Some other numbers "During the period known as the Aids epidemic, 14 million people died of heart disease while 9 million succumbed to cancer, which is 8.5 million more than those counted for AIDS."
And Aids is 100% preventable too. So why all the focus on it, to the exclusion of other diseases that pose much more horrible threats to us?
posted by bonaldi at 5:41 PM PST - 11 comments
But what about the kitties? Feline Immunodeficiency Virus. FIV has been recognized as a syndrome since 1986, and as with AIDS, has been found in stored blood samples dating back to the 60s. Unlike HIV, however, for FIV there's a
vaccine. Not that
everyone is excited about it.
Originally, this was to be a post intended to provide something lighter until
this appeared:
In addition, over 25 large cat species including, cheetahs, lions, and panthers have their own strain of the virus. Despite similarity among these viruses, transmission among species has never been documented. Scientists think that FIV is an old virus and may be the grandfather of all immunodeficiency viruses. Comparison of its' genetic code point to a virus that is millions of years old. Googling led to several topics.
posted by y2karl at 3:51 PM PST - 3 comments
The first mention of AIDS on Usenet was in the net.singles group back on December 20, 1982. In it, seven people grasp for information about the disease -- how it's transmitted, how long it takes to start to show symptoms, and what those symptoms could be. It's a window both into the early days of AIDS knowledge
and the early days of the Internet, and a fine example of people using 'net-based community groups to acquire information and ask questions.
posted by delfuego at 12:56 PM PST - 6 comments
I Wear A Red Ribbon "Why do I wear the Red Ribbon? I wear it because I CAN. I am still alive, still able to carry the message about the reality and urgency of AIDS and how HIV can be prevented. I carry this message for those whose voices can no longer be heard but whose presence can still be felt. What message is that? I carry the message-- to all who will hear AND listen-- that HIV/AIDS is, at this point, 100% FATAL... but it is also 100% PREVENTABLE."
She died in 1995 in a car accident.
posted by ashbury at 11:21 AM PST - 6 comments
An AIDS timeline from 1981-2001. As part of an exhibition by the Museum of the City of New York on
Gay Men's Health Crisis, one of the first service organizations created to help fight the disease, a very simple interactive timeline was created--just pick a year or browse through them all...from a "Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals." (NYT-1981) to "15,000 new HIV infections a day in 1999".
posted by amberglow at 10:22 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
In the Trenches with Love and AIDS. An HIV-negative gay man shares why he sleeps with seropositive men and how he deals with the danger :
"When his health finally collapses, you clean his diarrhea off the sheets and floor and swaddle him in diapers against his will. When he falls into a coma, you lie next to him every night and jerk off amid the scent of looming death. Your orgasms are great. You hold his hand as his last breath slips away and then his mouth drops open and foam bubbles out. They take him away but you can't let him go yet, so you don't change the sheets for two days, and you masturbate some more."posted by The Jesse Helms at 10:02 AM PST - 31 comments
Do you know River Huston? She's the poet laureate of
Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She is a sometimes
controversial HIV/AIDS educator,
columnist for
POZ, a magazine "founded primarily to get information to HIV positive persons", she authored
A Positive Life; a photo documentary book about women living with HIV. Yes, she is HIV positive, but it changed her life in ways she didn't expect: "It took getting an HIV-positive diagnosis for me to realize I was a
sex goddess. If there is one thing that will improve a girl's sex life it is finding out she has AIDS."
posted by ?! at 9:58 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Dr. Donald Francis He was portrayed by Mathew Modine in the classic HBO film
And the Band Played On, which told the story of how he discovered the AIDS virus 20 years ago. Earlier in his career he was a key member of the team that wiped out Smallpox (although he couldn't argue a few governments from keeping samples on ice
just in case) and the team that figured out how to contain outbreaks of the flesh eating Ebola virus--that was essentially him, though not his personality, that Dustin Hoffman played in
Outbreak. Now he's the president and chief scientist of Vaxgen, a company that expects to receive positive result from its Phase III human clinical trials of
AIDSVAX shortly after New Year's. If the results are as expected, AIDSVAX will be the first AIDS vaccine to go into production.
Like any other major issue in our age of delusions and self-deceptions, there are doubters and paranoids and conspiracy theorists too. Here is a neat little example of all three bundled up in one, from a publication titled
The Aids Mirage:
Donald Francis invents a viral epidemic. All the stop energy embodied by such efforts are really sad.
posted by billsaysthis at 9:45 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
Cure for AIDS is a song by
Dan Bern, whose voice and songwriting have labelled him The New Bob Dylan. Read the lyrics, listen to the clip...it may be a bit optimistic and utopian, but it's heartwarming nonetheless.
posted by Robot Johnny at 9:41 AM PST - 1 comments
The Hunt for the Origin of AIDS "The notion that AIDS arose from a polio vaccine made with contaminated chimpanzee cells is far from the only theory about how the epidemic started, and it is hotly disputed. The quest for the source of the epidemic is intensifying, as researchers scour the jungle for clues and try to "walk back" the disease genetically with the help of the world's most powerful computers."
posted by the fire you left me at 9:12 AM PST - 2 comments
CHAIN: Oklahoma's Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Information Network. A prototype web portal, designed to provide one-stop access to AIDS information for a state with a lower HIV infection rate. Funded by the National Library of Medicine. The concept is that people in small towns or rural areas can access information and contacts without leaving home. Web designers and MetaFiltrans - does the concept work? Seen anything similar in your community?
posted by sheauga at 9:04 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment
The Access to Essential Medicines Campaign is an initiative by
Medecins Sans Frontieres that seeks to "
lower the prices of existing medicines in developing countries, to bring abandoned drugs back into production, to stimulate research and development for neglected diseases that primarily affect the poor, and to overcome other barriers to access."
HIV is one target disease. The Campaign's
press releases,
press clips and
reports on HIV give a good picture of recent developments. In light of this evidence, does anyone care to step up and defend "
big pharma" and the governments of the wealthy North? Have we/they "done enough"? What would "doing enough" look like, given the scope of the crisis?
posted by stonerose at 6:27 AM PST - 5 comments
"35,000". The South African president
Thabo Mbeki is failing to deal with his nation's unbelievable AIDS epidemic.
Here are the opinions of his chief advisor on the disease. For balance,
here is the opinion of the UK government.
Do you agree with me that Mbeki is a dangerous man, and is a terrible choice to follow his
predecessor?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:35 AM PST - 6 comments
"
Right now there are hundreds of thousands of people in this country waiting for organs. Most of them will die before they get them. Many of them will die after they have been put on a waiting list."
- Larry Kramer,
actor/writer/producer/author & veteran esteemed activist, has survived nearly 12 months since
his liver transplant last December. [BTW, that's how long he said he needed to finish his mighty tome-in-progress,
'The American People']. The founder of
Gay Men's Health Crisis,
ACT-UP and other community action groups needed the operation due to a
co-infection with Hepatitis B Virus, a situation which is becoming increasingly common now that long-term survival rates for HIV+ folks improve, and other viruses have more deadly effects. Naturally,
the coming crisis in organ transplants leads the ultra-activist to a new, personal but less formal protest: a campaign for
presumed consent.
"In a previous interview Kramer also remarked that he did not feel welcomed or wanted at Mt Sinai. Other issues such as homophobia, AIDS-phobia and ethical concerns about "wasting good organs on HIV positive patients," or the fear that donors might stop giving organs if they find out PWAs are receiving them, have all influenced and slowed HIV positive transplant progress." In a recent New York Times interview, Dr. Fung (Kramer's surgeon)stated that "
homophobia has been one of the problems in moving HIV positive organ transplants forward. Such homophobia is veiled, and never openly admitted."
Kramer's liver transplant "has cost Medicare, so far, over $500,000 and Empire Blue Cross, so far, over $100,000 for the continuing medications I must take, including a monthly pop of some $10,000 for something called Hepatitis B Immune Globulin, which I believe I must receive for the rest of my life. And you need to get your blood tested every few weeks. That costs a lot too." How many HIV+ folks in the US - let alone globally - can afford that?posted by dash_slot- at 1:29 AM PST - 3 comments
"China's catastrophic mismanagement of its AIDS crisis has come to this: Xie Yan is trying to give away her son. Ms. Xie's husband died last year of AIDS, and she has the virus as well. They are the victims of government-backed blood-selling schemes that have left about one million people infected here in Henan Province in central China. Multiply Ms. Xie's heartache a millionfold, and you understand the cost of the Chinese government's cover-up of its AIDS crisis. If China continues to be more concerned with hiding the tragedy than confronting it, then today's Chinese leaders could kill millions of people over the next two decades. We in the West must exert strong pressure on China to act quickly to address the AIDS challenge."
posted by homunculus at 12:47 AM PST - 1 comments
"More than we can bear." The impact of the AIDS pandemic over the next 100 years may have effects even more far-reaching than many of us have considered. Joseph Riverson has some thoughts on what it will take to prevent a "Black Death" reality.
posted by litlnemo at 12:18 AM PST - 1 comments
To celebrate
World AIDS Day, MetaFilter is going to focus solely on HIV and AIDS related posts for the next 24 hours. Like last year's
observation on MetaFilter, this year's
Link and Think project asks everyone to think about the issues surrounding this disease, how it has affected you, others, and the world. Feel free to share information on prevention, research, or anything else related to the topic at hand.
posted by mathowie at 12:01 AM PST - 7 comments
