MetaFilter

Ralph repents? Or something? The man many Democrats see as just a few steps short of an evil spawn of Satan for being a 2000 election spoiler has issued statements of support for 13 non-Green candidates in tight races. These are all Democrats, including Jean Carnahan (Mo.), Tim Johnson (S.D.) and Tom Strickland (Co.). "I certainly don't want Republicans controlling Congress," Nader said. What happened to the "things have to get worse before they get better" theory? Or has the situation in D.C. indeed grown so bad that at least some Dems. are turning far enough left for Nader? (Note: He'd thrown support behind Wellstone, even though there's a Green candidate for Senate in Minn.)
posted by raysmj at 10:40 PM PST - 44 comments

Listen to a true ready made Halloween horror story about a David vs Goliath type struggle. On her October 24th show Caroline Casey creator of the VisionaryActivism Radio show interviewed Percy Schmeiser a canola farmer from Saskatchewan Canada whose organic Canola fields were genetically contaminated with Monsanto's Round-Up Ready Canola. Schmeiser a 40 year organic canola seed saver is in the fight of his life against the powerful Monsanto corporation. This powerful interview should make you cry and provoke you to clean your pantry and refrigerator and rethink food choices like I did.
posted by thedailygrowl at 10:33 PM PST - 17 comments

Friday Fun (posted early). "Do It Yourself" virtual building blocks (similar to the virtual Legos a while back). Addiction Rating: Mid-Range (no worries--it won't eat your life like Bookworm did). Very simple blocks can make surprisingly beautiful, even complex creations (awfully tough to approximate a Gothic groin vault with the available shapes, but trying's half the fun). (Signup 'membership' is free.)
posted by Shane at 7:39 PM PST - 7 comments

This isn't about agriculture. Today, twelve prairie farmers have surrendered themselves to RCMP, rather than pay a fine for their illegal activities. Their mutual crime was choosing to export their wheat crop independently, rather than through the Canadian Wheat Board. Are state-run agricultural monopolies appropriate, especially when their authority is exerted unevenly throughout the country? Do you think the action taken by these farmers is justified?
posted by vesper at 5:45 PM PST - 17 comments

Halloween isn't just for kids anymore. Even bigtime celebrities got all dressed up this Halloween. Well that's not exactly true - photoshoppers with too much time on their hands did the work for them. Vogue Magazine, take notes.
posted by hidely at 5:20 PM PST - 5 comments

Today's Special Quiz is Horror and Gothic, naturally. But tomorrow it could be Nabokov, Orwell, Beckett, Virginia Woolf, James Ellroy, Lorca or a lot of other writers featured in these amusing literary quizzes from The Barcelona Review. Just choose your own. Most quizzes are in English or Spanish; none are too easy or too erudite and, best of all, most of them have answers too.
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 5:15 PM PST - 2 comments

andy goldsworthy's current project
over the course of a month, artist andy goldsworthy will create works each day in the countryside surrounding his home in scotland, photograph them, and email the photographs to a gallery in san francisco where they will be printed out, and hung on a wall.
in a time when much conceptual art seems increasingly abstract and difficult, goldsworthy's work feels -- at least to me -- accessible, comforting, and wonderful.
what are some other artists that elicit that response in mefi readers? who's work do you like and want to share?
posted by dolface at 3:50 PM PST - 12 comments

Tunes are over-rated.
If you have the type of mind that rejoices in complex mathematical patterns, obscure terminology, and the blurred line between Science and Art, you will find the peculiarly English art of Change-ringing intriguing.
posted by Catch at 3:31 PM PST - 19 comments

French McDonald's ads: Don't 'abuse fast food' - McDonald's France runs ads suggesting that children not eat its food more than once a week.
posted by stevengarrity at 3:16 PM PST - 32 comments

Literary Gothic offers up a splendid smorgasboard of literary ghosts, ghouls, goblins, and, of course, gothic. As a Victorianist, I have a particular predilection for their ghost stories. Many more Victorian tales of the terrifying--and just plain weird--can be found at this site, which also features an ongoing reading group. [more inside]
posted by thomas j wise at 3:02 PM PST - 8 comments

Most people think of trick-or-treating, costumes, and jack-o-lanterns, but for me, and a lot of other Southern Californians, Halloween was always about Oingo Boingo's Dia de los Muertos concerts. With t-shirts inspired by Jose Guadalupe Posada, huge paper-mache skeletons jerkily moving to "Dead Man's Party", xylophone games and at least three hours of madcap music, you could always be guaranteed an excellent time. Unfortunately, the band broke up in 1995, so all we have now is tr ibute bands, Danny Elfman's filmmusic career, and a heck of a lot of really cool t-shirts .
posted by Katemonkey at 2:08 PM PST - 12 comments

"When my mom was a teenager, one of her most gratifying hobbies was sneaking into morgues to see dead bodies." Baltimore City Paper's Suz Redfearn takes us along on Georgetown University's Mini-Med School's trip to the dissection lab, for Human Anatomy: The Inside Story.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:03 PM PST - 5 comments

Ewww... Even for Halloween this one's a bit creepy. I don't think I'd ever want a plasma screen above my casket providing "a lively counterpoint to the display of an open casket." And what healthy person has time to record their life in such a fashion? They should be out living it.
posted by MediaMan at 1:16 PM PST - 7 comments

The Devil's Bridge. For Halloween, tales of bridges where the devil took a hand in the building: "If I help you, I'll have the soul of the first who crosses the bridge!" But the devil gets fooled... [more]
posted by languagehat at 1:15 PM PST - 9 comments

The faboo world of New York high society revealed! Bizbash.com reviews the "cheapie centerpieces" at the Lord of the Rings DVD party, the hot-pink truffles at Ivana's disco bash and the stilletto-shaped Manolo Blahnik cookies at the 'Sex and the City' premiere. NFL ice sculptures, Scrabble serving trays and bone-shaped doggie breath mints in silver bowls are among the delights. Those hand-tied veggie crepe bundles at the VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards sure do look de-lish. Be sure to check the cocktail menu at the venture capitalists' "Back to Reality" bash - held at McDonalds - and the "funky registration area" at last January's World Economic Forum. [more tackiness inside]
posted by mediareport at 1:15 PM PST - 5 comments

It's not too late to carve a pumpkin tonight, and the pumpkin lady has got you covered. Included on the site are full instructions and a pattern to create the most l33t pumpkin on your block.
posted by mathowie at 1:13 PM PST - 9 comments

"DO NOT EAT" The Secrets of Silica Gel Exposed! What's in this tiny little packet that comes with almost everything? "these little packets which seem to have more "DO NOT EAT" warnings on them than, for instance, rat poison or antifreeze..." Mmmm Who's Hungry?
posted by devo at 11:35 AM PST - 46 comments

Against the Grain (A Rebours) by Joris-Karl Huysmans, 1884. Virtual Reality 19th Century style with illustrations--the quintessence of decadence.
posted by y2karl at 11:15 AM PST - 14 comments

Medieval Wall Painting in the English Parish Church A growing, and already comprehensive resource, with many (occasionally gruesome) images and scholarly commentary. A directory of images which can be seen in parish churches. Some interesting sub-pages :- Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Works of Mercy, Scenes from Genesis, and the Warning Against Idle Gossip.
posted by plep at 10:15 AM PST - 5 comments

What would have you done differently? A collection of regrets that run the gamut from silly ("Cut the blue wire.") to poignant ("Not let her go.") to just plain inspiring ("Taken that chance.").
posted by Polo Mr. Polo at 8:52 AM PST - 31 comments

Popular Weed Killer Feminizes Native Leopard Frogs Are feminized frogs a canary in the cage? Loss of amphibians in its own right is unacceptable. But are there problems yet unknown higher up the cornbelt food chain?

"Native male leopard frogs throughout the nation's Corn Belt are being feminized by an herbicide, atrazine, used extensively to kill weeds on the country's leading export crops, corn and soybeans, according to a survey conducted by University of California, Berkeley, biologists and reported this week in Nature." [...] "Atrazine has been used on crops since 1956 and currently is the most widely used herbicide in the nation". [...] "Hayes suspects that atrazine boosts the activity of an enzyme, aromatase, that converts male sex hormones, or androgens, to female hormones, or estrogens. The lowered androgens and increased estrogens allow egg cells to grow within the testes, which is normally impossible. Atrazine's effects on aromatase have been demonstrated in fish, reptiles and mammals, but not yet in amphibians.
posted by fred1st at 8:52 AM PST - 9 comments

How gay panic gripped 1960s Royal Navy One sailor reportedly picked up a prostitute who he believed to be female. Realising he wasn't who she appeared to be, the sailor reportedly declared: "Blimey, you're all there!" Nevertheless, he apparently became "infatuated". This kind of incident led admirals to argue that most of the men accused were only inadvertently homosexual, rather than dangerous "perverts".
Just-released documents from the UK Public Records Office show some interesting attitudes among the Navy hierarchy at the time. The rationalising of the various activities uncovered is actually quite creative, and weirdly more tolerant than that in subsequent decades, when gay activity got people summarily thrown out of the forces. Even this particular 'crisis' eventually triggered a new 'education' programme on the evils of homosexuality though. In this instance, the pendulum seems not so much to have swung as to have careered wildly in all directions. A bit like the sailors.... (sorry).
posted by jonpollard at 8:41 AM PST - 11 comments

100 scariest movie moments Retrocrush is listing their top 100 scariest movie moments, and so far, the quality is pretty high -- well-chosen scenes, and interesting writeups. And one exploding head. You've been warned. Happy Halloween!
posted by GaelFC at 8:41 AM PST - 80 comments

"There was only one giant golden spruce in the world, and, until a man named Grant Hadwin took a chainsaw to it, in 1997, it had stood for more than three hundred years in a steadily shrinking patch of old-growth forest in Port Clements, on the banks of the Yakoun River, in the Queen Charlotte Islands." A fascinating read, from this week's New Yorker.
posted by GriffX at 8:11 AM PST - 24 comments

eBay Prevents Musician from Selling Own CD-Rs
posted by entrustNoOne at 7:43 AM PST - 17 comments

FCC chairman Powell urges overhaul of radio airwave policy. Did the universe of available media just get smaller again? AP says "consumer advocates praised [powell's] position", but did the AP talk to the right consumer advocates ?
posted by jfc at 7:30 AM PST - 8 comments

"You will have heard, Dr Sir I doubt not long before this can have reached you that Sir W. Howe is gone from hence. The Rebels imagine that he is gone to the Eastward. By this time however he has filled Chesapeak bay with surprize and terror." - Sir Henry Clinton

Spy Letters of the American Revolution is an excellent site offering such gems as a captured letter written from Rachel Revere to husband Paul, a message from a colonial scientist written in invisible ink, and Benedict Arnold's encrypted message to the British offering to surrender West Point for £20,000. The site includes photos of the documents, back-stories on each letter, profiles of the people involved, and descriptions of methodology, as well as a timeline and route map.
posted by taz at 7:02 AM PST - 8 comments

Infinite Wheel is a fun interactive dub music playground. If you have speakers, enjoy!
posted by adamms222 at 5:52 AM PST - 10 comments

The Mastodonte Project is a way of inserting comments into the referrer logs of the company who are inserting adverts into blogger's referrers... they were not expecting Mastodonte to publish the results!
posted by LMG at 5:09 AM PST - 26 comments

Chinese culture. Calligraphy, and Chinese rural architecture.
posted by hama7 at 5:08 AM PST - 13 comments

Nineteenth-century drug paraphernalia has been found by archaeologists working at Ottawa's LeBreton Flats. The LeBreton Flats was a working-class neighbourhood just west of the Parliament Buildings. The find is from the notorious Occidental Hotel, and predates the 1900 fire that burned the neighbourhood to the ground. It was rebuilt, and carried on until the National Capital Commission tore it all down in 1962. It's been an empty field ever since, as proposals to make use of this prime space have come and gone. (Maps and images.) This year they finally began decontaminating the soil -- the new Canadian War Museum is planned for part of the site (campaign) -- whereupon this discovery was made.
posted by mcwetboy at 5:08 AM PST - 9 comments

Reply To All button considered harmful An employee (called a manager in the headline but a millwright in the article) was fired from Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY when he replied to an email announcing "National Coming Out Day" (hint: he wasn't in favor). But in addition to the sender, his message went to about 1000 other employees. Kodak says he was terminated when he refused to admit that sending it to all those people was wrong, not for it's content. Is this Political Correctness run amok or justifiable?
posted by tommasz at 5:00 AM PST - 53 comments

80's ROCK IS DEAD (LONG LIVE 80'S ROCK) Holy crap, I saw an ad on the teevee for a new BOSTON album called Corporate America. A new Boston album! A self-described "in your face" indictment of big business and what it is doing to our world. You'll be comforted to know that the music is still way overproduced and the political content has all the impact of Mike + the Mechanics "Silent Running." In other words — don't change a thing! It turns out all the big 80's rockers have 2002 albums, even the little king himself: Phil Collins. Testify. I'll be damned if one of his new songs doesn't sound like "Take Me Home (Redux)." Def Leppard's "X"? Same. Poison's "Hollyweird"? Same! Poison even does a party rock version of The Who's "Squeeze Box." Wonderful. Bon Jovi, Rush, Robert Plant — what year is this again? Who cares. Let's rock. As soon as this Family Ties is over.
posted by Dok Millennium at 1:54 AM PST - 35 comments

Googie? Does your bowling alley have an inexplicable Tiki motif? Does your neighbor's house vaguely resemble a flying saucer? Does your coffee shop suggest, architecturally, that the secrets of the atom are being exploited within? Well now, you can call it by name. Googie. Who knew?
posted by condour75 at 12:44 AM PST - 39 comments

Even though it was tricky to rock around, he wore his Adidas proudly. RIP Jam Master J of groundbreaking rap group Run DMC was shot and killed today. Remember where you were when these forerunners of rap came on the scene?
posted by wolfgangnorton at 8:13 PM PST - 60 comments

Light, Secret Places And Books: Photographer Sean Kernan's startling and beautifully literary interpretation of Jorge Luís Borges is based on his The Secret Books album and was reviewed on The Garden of Forking Paths, that definitive, ever-fascinating Borges website. It's a small consolation for those, like me, who would have have liked to be in Barcelona today for the opening of the Cosmopolis exhibition, which celebrates the stormy, but enduring identification of Borges with Buenos Aires. The relationship between writers and places is always interesting whenever they grow into each other to the point of almost becoming each other. Joyce is Dublin; Kafka is Prague; Pessoa is Lisbon. What other, less obvious identifications are there? Is the relationship more like mutual cannibalism, mythical reinforcement, a touristy marketing scheme or the peaceful symbiosis it's generally made out to be?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:36 PM PST - 40 comments

Robert Flores' 22 page farewell. The man who shot and killed three people at the College of Nursing. Makes for interesting reading and should inspire some discussion as to the stereotyping of whites among whites. Please do read the whole thing, although I doubt you would be able to put down after having started.
posted by ( .)(. ) at 5:18 PM PST - 109 comments

More guerilla corporate advertising. So another major technology company vandalizes a city (a la the peace-love-penguin thing) and gets a slap on the hand. Obviously, this company can afford any punishment that could come their way for mere vandalism, and the publicity about the punishment process itself just leads to even more free advertising for them. (Not to mention, the free advertising they're getting from people like me commenting on the publicity ;) ) Can anything be done to keep the judicial system from becoming a new advertising medium?
posted by badstone at 3:06 PM PST - 16 comments

Apocalypse Cow! In the most bizarre collaboration between the American Christian Right and ultraorthodox Jewish Zionists in Israel, Pentecostal minister and Georgia cattle farmer Clyde Lott has collaborated with the Temple Mount Institute of Jerusalem to breed a red heifer suitable for purifying the foundation of a rebuilt version of Solomon's Temple, which ultraorthodox Jews hope will lead to the coming of the Messiah. The problem is that the proposed site for the rebuilt temple is on the same site as the al-Aqsa mosque, the holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. Some Zionist extremists in Israel have attempted to "solve" this problem by plotting to blow up the mosque, which doesn't exactly promote peace in the Middle East. And to think all of this could have been started by a cow that looks like it should have belonged in "the Horse of a Different Color" sequence in the Wizard of Oz!
posted by jonp72 at 2:35 PM PST - 43 comments

This story has been feature in the media a bit lately, but something on the second page caught my attention, it was mention of a '4G' wireless technology that was also a weapon of mass-desctruction. The article mentions a press release which revels the company is called Gaiacomm and a quick search reveals quite a few more 'press releases' (1, 2, 3, 4). So, is this for real or what? Can my 802.11b card be used as a weapon?
posted by sycophant at 2:31 PM PST - 9 comments

Are you "e-fluential"? It's possible you are without even knowing it--you never know who might be listening in. While I don't find all gadget/soft drink/product discussions insidious, it does seem like they pop up pretty regularly. Has anyone here been contacted? Or are these companies (and others like them) just targeting product-oriented boards?
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 2:08 PM PST - 35 comments

Standfotografie. A collection of film stills by Austrian photographer Petro Domenigg. Loose English translation here.
posted by plexi at 1:04 PM PST - 1 comment

CIA funds "alternative" media through nonprofit foundations? "The multi-billion dollar Ford Foundation's historic relationship to the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] is rarely mentioned on Pacifica's DEMOCRACY NOW / Deep Dish TV show, on FAIR's COUNTERSPIN show, on the WORKING ASSETS RADIO show, on The Nation Institute's RADIO NATION show, on David Barsamian's ALTERNATIVE RADIO show or in the pages of PROGRESSIVE, MOTHER JONES and Z magazine. One reason may be because the Ford Foundation and other Establishment foundations subsidize the Establishment Left's alternative media gatekeepers / censors" -- heavy claims. A several part report, in considerable detail. My note - the Mexican PRI, when it ran Mexico, used to fund a whole constellation of Mexican Leftist groups - the threat of withdrawing funding $ proved a very effective way of keeping dissent within "safe" limits.
posted by troutfishing at 12:48 PM PST - 27 comments

Oregon Measure 23 Oregon's single-payer-health-care referendum: Sanity in the face of returning double-digit annual cost increases (after an HMO-induced respite), or a tax-and-spend, job-destroying nightmare which even the public-employee unions (not well-known supporters of any for-profit system) oppose?
posted by MattD at 12:32 PM PST - 38 comments

"Kmart Forever is a community gathering place for employees, retirees, friends, family and supporters of Kmart. Kmart started this site after receiving thousands of emails, calls and letters from people like you asking how they can help support the company. We all want to do what we can to make sure Kmart is with us well into the future."
Of course, such blatant PR cheerleading is bound to be parodied by those of the opposing view -- witness Kmartsucks.net's innovative design.
posted by me3dia at 12:24 PM PST - 10 comments

CNN Newswatch. Is this AOL's big entrance into the web services market? Is it a proprietary take on the microcontent client? They say it will make you a better person. But it sure looks like the old next big thing, Netscape Netcaster. Surely this technological leap puts AOL ahead of .Net in the Web Services market. Will Microsoft ever be able to offer a similar technology?
posted by putzface_dickman at 12:22 PM PST - 20 comments

Halloween Eve - Growing up in the seacoast-area of NH we called it Beggar's Night because that's when we went trick or treating. But many of my colleagues from Massachusetts call it Cabbage Night or Mischief Night (also, Top 10 Things to Do on Mischief Night). In Detroit, the call it Devil's Night. Another friend called it Door Bell Night. How do you refer to Halloween Eve?
posted by MediaMan at 12:04 PM PST - 35 comments

Obsolecence and adolescence I came of musical age during the beginning of the tectonic shift between cassette/vinyl/CD (vinyl on the way out, cassette taking precedence and CD waiting in the wings). Crushes, science and lots of bad music I still love (yeah, too much Anglophilian pop) was spooled on those tapes. This story about the demise of the cassette has it all! And it's a great bit of writing, too...
posted by chandy72 at 11:20 AM PST - 26 comments

What is America and what is its role in the world today? Not being American, I often find myself in conflict when speaking to them about their country. Looking for a way to express my views, I find myself agreeing more and more with Fareed Zakaria’s viewpoint.
posted by Baesen at 10:18 AM PST - 29 comments

Dave Winer's not happy about the fact that people are tweaking the orange XML icon used to link RSS/RDF feeds. You've seen that orange button saying XML at various sites, including MeFi. Milo just put up one saying RSS instead of XML, which was based on a point brought up by xiffix, "In hindsight, appropriating the global acronym XML for this narrow use was a mistake. The button should say RSS. Hopefully, people will take Dave’s suggestion to do something completely different to heart and abandon the Userland attempt at a standard icon"
posted by riffola at 10:10 AM PST - 28 comments

Russian gas clues point to cocktail. Events show that the Russians were organized to respond to various terrorist eventualities, but not prepared well enough to take into consideration the lateral side effects. I wonder how this scenerio would have played in the US?
posted by semmi at 9:35 AM PST - 23 comments

Got Milk? High? Do we really need a town called Got Milk?, Calif.? One town is thinking about changing its name to get money. Is this a cool idea, or are marketing people going nuts?
posted by scudder at 9:18 AM PST - 21 comments

Iran and Iraq: too much there for countries to ignore If the peaceniks in the U.S. insist that going into Iraq is an attempt to get hold of the oil, then it might equally be said that those nations opposed to an American attack on Iraq also have self-interest in not wanting America to enter Iraq.
posted by Postroad at 9:11 AM PST - 14 comments

The werewolf myth lives at this site, with essays, reviews, fiction and art, while the likely genesis of the werewolf mythos has its roots in folks like Larry Gomez, just your ordinary guy with congenital hypertrichosis.
posted by headspace at 8:56 AM PST - 4 comments

Eight blogger archetypes? A funny story on Kuro5hin describes various types of webloggers in the blogosphere. Are they they missing a few blogger types or did they nail it?
posted by Argyle at 8:54 AM PST - 26 comments

President To Author: Your Book Is Unpatriotic " "The letter began by thanking me for sending the book," Hudson said. 'Also, I'm from Austin, Texas, and the president touched on the fact that I was a fellow Texan, congratulating me on my book. But he was setting me up for the one-two punch. Because he called the book unpatriotic and ridiculous and just plain bad writing. Beyond that, I've been instructed not to talk about the contents of the letter for the time being.'"
posted by owillis at 8:43 AM PST - 30 comments

Between Wellstone and Veblen, I got to thinking about my alma mater. There are a few others, off the top of my head, that this tiny, out-of-the way school can lay claim to. How many other prodigal children come from small colleges? Kofi is one, from another small Minnesota college. Who else? Schools with more than 2,500 students need not apply.
posted by RKB at 8:23 AM PST - 18 comments

Criminal profilers are racist for not thinking a black man could fire a rifle well enough to be the sniper. They didn't think a black person could be smart enough" to pull off three weeks of terror, driving into very public places, hitting his mark, then eluding all the local, state and federal officers. Wow.
posted by BirdD0g at 8:19 AM PST - 26 comments

"Jury of your peers," perhaps... but a celebrity juror on a celebrity case can certainly open a can of worms. Especially when they've worked together in the past. (more inside)
posted by Fofer at 7:47 AM PST - 13 comments

"The Blog Twinning Project asks people to tell it which blogs they consider to be similar, and tallies results. Pairs of blogs with lots of mutual votes are declared 'twinned'."
Not a bad way to discover new reading material.
posted by Scottk at 7:39 AM PST - 5 comments

Boy Scouts tell Atheist Eagle Scout he has one week to declare his belief or get out. On membership applications, Boy Scouts and adult leaders must say they recognize some higher power, not necessarily religious. "Mother Nature would be acceptable," said Brad Farmer, the Scout executive of the Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts. Hmmmm...
posted by quirked at 7:32 AM PST - 43 comments

Cigarettes are good for you, say "scientists." Yes, that's right. According to the Times of India the National Institute on Drug Abuse did a study in Bethesda, MD that reports that nicotine aids in concentration. The "Times" also says that this means new things for sufferers of ADD. Unfortunately, NIDA doesn't seem to want to say much about this new study on their own website. I wonder why the "Times of India" is all in English. Well, if you need a new reason to justify smoking, you can take this at face value, but something tells me there's more to this story than is instantly obvious.
posted by magikeye at 7:29 AM PST - 26 comments

City of London Churches 'The ‘Square Mile’ that constitutes The City of London is a world financial centre where 300,000 people work and nearly 500 foreign banks have an office. Less well known is that amongst the largely uninspired office blocks are hidden around 50 current or former churches and other places of worship, either complete, converted into offices, or in ruins. Once there were nearly 100 parish churches within the City boundaries but the Great Fire of London, the migration of residents to the suburbs, and Hitler’s bombs have done most to reduce that figure. Many of the surviving churches are, famously, Wren churches. After the Great Fire he had the unique opportunity of designing over 50 churches, and he gave full rein to his imagination ... '
A guide to 55 churches in London's financial district; best seen on a weekend, when the City is virtually deserted. Whilst the majority are Wren churches, there are some exceptions - St Bartholomew the Great, which dates back to Norman times; the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue in Great Britain; and the Dutch Church, which was drawn by van Gogh and important to the Huguenot community. Particularly worth a visit is St. Bride's, the journalists' church; the design of the wedding cake is based on the shape of its spire.
posted by plep at 4:49 AM PST - 27 comments

For all those words-lovers among us, the Visual Thesaurus from Plumb Design has recently been updated, to celebrate the company's 5 years anniversary. The classic edition we all know is still available here. Just beautiful.
posted by XiBe at 4:03 AM PST - 22 comments

The Iraq Research and Documentation Project (IRDP) website is a collection of resources documenting the government, politics, and society of modern Iraq. IRDP is engaged in the gathering of information of diverse content and format (official government documents, maps, citizen testimonies, reference sources, chronologies, bibliographies, notable articles, human rights reports, photographic and other images, audio and video materials). This online collection is made available to the public to provide a window into the inner workings of the repressive state system evolved under the aegis of the Iraqi Ba'th Socialist Party in Iraq since 1968. [More Inside]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 2:53 AM PST - 23 comments

Trial by Tabloid? Top BBC presenter Angus Deaton has been sacked after a sex & drugs scandal. He has presented comedy news quiz Have I Got News For You for over ten years. So, is ti right for him to be sacked after trial by tabloid? Do we actually care what our T.V. presenters get up to after the cameras are turned off?
posted by prentiz at 1:36 AM PST - 16 comments

Thorstein Veblen , Economist and Social Commentator, who contributed to the common tongue the phrase conspicuous consumption.

Who was Thorstein Veblen--and why should anyone care?

I should like him for his writing style alone:

The appreciation of those evidences of honorific crudeness to which hand-wrought goods owe their superior worth and charm in the eyes of well-bred people is a matter of nice discrimination. It requires training and the formation of right habits of thought with respect to what may be called the physiognomy of goods. Machine-made goods of daily use are often admired and preferred precisely on account of their excessive perfection by the vulgar and the underbred who have not given due thought to the punctilios of elegant consumption. The ceremonial inferiority of machine products goes to show that the perfection of skill and workmanship embodied in any costly innovations in the finish of goods is not sufficient of itself to secure them acceptance and permanent favor. The innovation must have the support of the canon of conspicuous waste. Any feature in the physiognomy of goods, however pleasing in itself, and however well it may approve itself to the taste for effective work, will not be tolerated if it proves obnoxious to this norm of pecuniary reputability.

From Chapter Six - Pecuniary Canons of Taste of the work entire, The Theory of The Leisure Class. Feel free to consume conspicuously.
posted by y2karl at 11:27 PM PST - 7 comments

Stop making excuses for Muslim Extremists Still licking my mefi wounds that I received last week when I posted a NY Times article discussing the recent rise of crime in France, in which the author states that a recent immigrant was murdered solely for his North African heritage, and also reports that the mayor of Paris was also attacked in the same week - yet the author does not bother to mention that the attacker was a Muslim who 'didn't like homosexuals'. Has anyone else noticed how the media is downplaying the role of Muslim extremism since 911 ?
posted by Kaslo at 10:52 PM PST - 68 comments

What do you think of when I say United States? Probably not this.
posted by humbe at 10:08 PM PST - 62 comments

Lofoten Photogalerie - armchair travel through this breathtaking gallery of photos from Norwegian Islands located within the Arctic Circle. The region offers awesome vistas in every season. Links courtesy of Mefioso Kogiak who has an interesting story on his site about how he found this gem.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:52 PM PST - 18 comments

Hunting for a wife? I want a foreign one, please. With nice Christian values. Can you make that happen?
posted by dopamine at 9:32 PM PST - 18 comments

France surrenders
posted by damn yankee at 7:58 PM PST - 14 comments

The Vatican vs. the laity - NPR's All Things Considered had a report today about Catholic laity groups pushing for more say in how the Church is run, especially in light of the scandals of the past year. The Vatican claims that giving too much power to laypersons, which make up 99% of the body of the Church, is in violation of Canon law. Laity groups claim that when there are laypersons serving in administrative bodies, they are mere rubberstamps appointed by the bishops. Can the church be more responsive to the its membership without unmaking its fundamentally hierarchical character? (The audio stream may not be available yet, but when it is you'll need RealAudio, Windows Media, or Quicktime to hear it.)
posted by RylandDotNet at 5:02 PM PST - 16 comments

Inarguably, I think, using contact lenses solely to change the way you look (for halloween, perhaps) is a wonders-of-technology experience, one that reached critical mass some time ago. There have been cases of permanent injury, though, and the NY Times reports that the F.D.A. is cracking down. How great is the risk, and can it be mitigated? (Other than, you know, by actaully getting them via perscription.)
posted by Tlogmer at 4:42 PM PST - 21 comments

Recently, the armed forces announced that it would seek the approval of congress to begin recruiting non-citizens, specifically arabs, into the special forces. Seems reasonable enough, we all know the army is lacking native Arab speakers. Meanwhile, the Federal government is firing every non-citizen from their job as airport bag checkers (1200 in San Francisco alone - mostly Filipino). An interesting paradox in our war against terrorism? An unfortunate cost to enure security? A cruel injustice to working men and women? Who could do more damage, a Delta Force member, armed to the teeth and trained to kill acting as forward observer for air and artillery strikes? Or the guy checking your shaving kit?
posted by pejamo at 2:29 PM PST - 20 comments

The scariest costumes this year represent those that crushed the dreams of many, bilked millions from strangers, and got away. Psycho Killers? Crazed Snipers? No, Forbes gives you: CEO Halloween masks. I know the kids will love going as Martha. It's a good thing.
posted by mathowie at 2:07 PM PST - 14 comments

ATTENTION: brothers and sisters. Does the thought of your siblings naked send a shiver up your spine? Well, according to psychologists and people who study adoption, siblings and other close kin who reunite after being separated at birth often experience 'Genetic Sexual Attraction', a potent and embarrassing lust for the estranged relative. You may have heard that 'opposites attract', but scientists have long known that people are, as a basic rule, attracted to physically similar people. Now let the chorus of 'ewww' commence...
posted by dgaicun at 2:03 PM PST - 42 comments

Each year in the US, nearly two and a half million high school seniors enroll in college. Nearly one million do not. They are overwhelmingly poor, rural, and white. The Washington Post has profiled one such young man.
posted by ewagoner at 1:37 PM PST - 28 comments

The Quest for the Three Year Sandwich "This bad boy will last a minimum of three years at 80 degrees, six months at 100 degrees. They will travel to the swampiest swamp, the highest mountain, the most arid desert." Great. So glad my tax dollars are getting put to good use. If they want prepackaged food that's been around for ages, there's a corner store near my house that can fix them right up. Is this sort of thing really needed?
posted by slackdog at 1:11 PM PST - 22 comments

Religion! What Is It Good For? Absolutely nothing? Perhaps not. Michael Prowse, a lifelong atheist (and Financial Times columnist even!) had this to say in an article for Prospect:
"Having accepted that meanings are always contestable, I have found myself more able to focus on what religious people do, and less on what they say. Are they "better" people than the irreligious? Of course not. Are they better people than they would be were they not religious? Probably, and this is what counts for me.".
Meanwhile, another atheist, Jared Diamond, writing (brilliantly, as the author of Guns, Germs and Steel always does) in the current New York Review of Books, addresses religion in a (let us say) more scientific way and, though more sceptical, leaves a similar question mark hanging. So, in a nutshell: can there be something in (or about) religion for atheists too?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:32 PM PST - 138 comments

For this installment of Oissubke's trip around the world, I bring you not tourism, not language, not culture, for this location is fascinating simply by virtue of its bold architecture. The buildings here are not quite New York, but not quite Las Vegas either. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Dubai.
posted by oissubke at 10:48 AM PST - 20 comments

ICQ Snobs, Sorry: You now must communicate with the AIM Hoy Paloy. Another defeat for Cyber-Elitism!
posted by ParisParamus at 10:47 AM PST - 78 comments

"Hitler must have committed suicide after he found a skinny Jewish kid from Brooklyn stomped on his top hat." The story of a Jewish G.I. that stole a tophat from Hitler's Munich apartment is the latest documentary vehicle by noted independent filmmaker, Jeff Krulik. Famous for "Heavy Metal Parking Lot", Krulik will be viewing "Hitler's Hat" at the MOMA in December. You can read current interviews with the artist here and here, or view his movies in quicktime and realplayer format here. Unfamiliar with his work? Start with these two shorts.
posted by machaus at 10:45 AM PST - 5 comments

RealNetworks opens up. RealNetworks today launched the Helix Community which provides the source code to its RealPlayer client (the server and encoding components are coming later). This will present the first end-to-end open source media delivery system- Apple has open sourced its streaming server, but not its clients or codecs; Microsoft's Windows Media platform is totally closed. Marketing ploy or real step forward for the software industry?
posted by mkultra at 10:36 AM PST - 22 comments

Family Asks Cheney Not To Attend Wellstone Service. "Upset by Republican activities", the Wellstone family has uninvited Cheney to Sen. Wellstone's funeral. This article suggests that it's as much an issue of the awkwardness of Cheney being at what might amount to a Democrat rally, as it is about the family not wanting him there.
posted by badstone at 10:28 AM PST - 59 comments

In college, I had an Turkish Electrical Engineering professor who used to open every class period with a story about Hoja (or Hoca, spelled the Turkish way), the bumbling yet clever 'folk philosopher'. He is known throughout the middle east also as Mulla Nasrudin and people from Azerbaijan to North Africa claim him as their own. Here are a few collections of stories about this 'comic sage': The definitive Hoja resource, a geocities site, Turkish Trickster, This reminds me of a story..., turkish humor. Enjoy!
posted by jnthnjng at 8:28 AM PST - 5 comments

With all due respect to the Classic Scary Movies discussed below, nothing says "Halloween" like Cheese! From the marketing schtick of William Castle to the liberal use of gore by George Romero, horror movie directors have done their best to give us their worst. As a child I was scarred for life so that to this day I cannot look at mist-covered snow-capped mountains without thinking of The Crawling Eye. Anybody else want to confess to having the poop scared out of them by movie crap?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:08 AM PST - 84 comments

What is Bagotronics? "At Bagotronics we are IN business FOR business. Our scientists, engineers and designers work to develop the innovations that fuel the e-business engine that drives America's economy."

Entertained by an (unfortunately not reproduced on the website) full page ad in the SJ Mercury News, promising a time machine and including an apology to old H.G., I wondered what was up. The ads, the website, all say to stay tuned until Thursday for details, but I'm not really that patient. But quick searches of MeFi, /., and Google turned up nothing, so I swerved over to my favorite lookup service and found that this is simply an advertising comeon, with the site owned by humongous advertising agency Ogilvy & Mathers.
posted by billsaysthis at 8:06 AM PST - 9 comments

Which is more scary: that this girl is 20 stone at the age of 11 or that the reporter thinks her friends are an ideal weight at 1/4 of her weight? Take her to 5 stone and a BMI of 11 would put her well below the anorexia threshold BMI of 16.

But would her friends accept they could have a problem? Probably not. What causes Anorexia? Strep? Genetics? Models? Something else?
posted by twine42 at 7:46 AM PST - 29 comments

War of the Worlds (this is not about Bush) Don't own a television? Want an alternative? Live performance, live orchestra, no net. October 30, 2002 8-9 PM Eastern. Glenn Beck recreates Orson Welles chilling performance that captivated a nation along with full orchestrations and foley effects. this is a radio broadcast
posted by RunsWithBandageScissors at 7:39 AM PST - 5 comments

Are Ernie and Bert gay? What is Gonzo? Find out the answers (question 19 and 10, respectively) and more at the Muppet FAQ. Read the profiles of your favorite Muppets like Zoot or Animal. Or maybe you'd be interested in one of the Henson feature creatures and its background. Read about it. Explore the fascinating world of Jim Henson and muppets in general.
posted by ashbury at 7:28 AM PST - 14 comments

Rumplestiltskin gets torn in half, Cinderella's stepsisters get their eyes pecked out, and Snow White's stepmother dances in red hot iron shoes until she dies from exhaustion. These are the original endings to the non-sweetened, and sometimes unsavory, fairy tales collected or written by by reclusive librarians Jacob and Wilhelm, better know as The Brothers Grimm. Their first book, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Childrens' and Household Tales) was published in 1812. Several more books, mostly of folk tales collected from willing relatives and friends, followed, some containing bizarre and disturbing stories with less than happy endings. As the National Geographic Grimm site puts it, "Looking for a sweet, soothing tale to waft you toward dreamland? Look somewhere else. The stories collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 1800s serve up life as generations of central Europeans knew it—capricious and often cruel." Check out the strange 1960 Mp3s and RealAudio files of some Grimm tales.
posted by iconomy at 6:42 AM PST - 26 comments

The first trans-Atlantic handshake will be attempted today via the Internet. Apparently, this day could one day rival the significance of March 10, 1876. And of course, we all know where this is headed.
posted by Fofer at 6:19 AM PST - 18 comments

Linking to hate. Do links to hate-filled websites help to promote hatred or do they help to combat hate by exposing these sites to broader scrutiny? How does Google fit into the picture? (No direct links to hate groups)
posted by joemaller at 6:05 AM PST - 13 comments

"Sometimes I question the wisdom of continuing on in a profession that is under siege and under valued. I am aging, I am tired and some days I don’t know how I can continue to teach the newest and brightest of our profession." Part of an essay written last year by Cheryl McGaffic, one of the nursing professors killed by a disgruntled student at the University of Arizona yesterday.
posted by rcade at 6:02 AM PST - 13 comments

"Cops of the World": remembering Phil Ochs -------------------------------------------- Ochs lyrics: “We're hairy and horny and ready to shack. We don't care if you're yellow or black. Just take off your clothes and lie down on your back.'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys. We're the Cops of the World.”------------ LISTEN to his songs (realplayer/quicktime) Amidst the unilateralist talk of invading Iraq, and the (mostly media ignored) “biggest anti-war protests since the Vietnam War” [quote-Wash.Post,Oct. 27] last saturday, I thought of Phil Ochs......some of his songs [see Ochs lyrics index] haven't aged well, but some are still as searingly acidic as the day he wrote them, as above or in ”Love me, I’m a liberal”:“Once I was young and impulsive, I wore every conceivable pin...But I've grown older and wiser, and that's why I'm turning you in. So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal.” ------- Phil Ochs ------- (born 1940, suicide 1976)
posted by troutfishing at 5:42 AM PST - 22 comments

A speculative bubble is created when objectivity, reasoning, and valuation give way to greed and an insatiable desire for profits. On this date in history... October 29, 1929: The date of the stock market crash that marked the start of the Great Depression in the United States. Could it have been averted by the reading of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay?
posted by puddsharp at 2:08 AM PST - 20 comments

The Owl House. The Owl House and the Camel Yard were home to the reclusive South African artist Helen Martins. A place of archetypal, almost mythic outsider art, Miss Helen transformed her home with the help of her collaborator Koos Malgas.
' That simple decision, to embellish her environment, was to grow into an obsessive urge to express her deepest feelings, her dreams and her desires. ' Here are some pictures.
posted by plep at 1:10 AM PST - 5 comments

TRICK OR TREAT! Celebrate All Hallow's Eve by watching some great scary flicks on cable, including the premier of a newly restored print of a long lost Lon Chaney classic, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT [1927], or F.W. Murnau's NOSFERATU [1922]. Or head out with all the other creatures of the night. You'll need to hurry and buy your mask, and your creepy contact lenses, your fake teeth, or maybe you just need a corpse...
posted by crunchland at 11:39 PM PST - 9 comments

Paul Bourke of Auckland has an excellent set of elegant and informative webpages for the kind of math you look at. Even if math perplexes you, his pages are still quite pretty and often make for interesting reading regardless. Every place I've worked between college and now, Paul has given me pages that nicely explained how to do somthing I needed to do and even personal help on occasion. Here's to you, Paul!
posted by tss at 11:22 PM PST - 5 comments

"I was driving a Lexus through a rustling wind." Did anyone recognize the opening sentence of Don DeLillo's Underworld? First lines often set the tone for a whole novel but they're fun on their own too. So, after reading this article by John Mullan, I found this interesting quiz to test my identification skills. Well! The warm-up exercises are recommended for giving you a false sense of security, btw... And here's a bonus quiz for Faulkner fans. Just one example: "The jury said "Guilty" and the Judge said "Life" but he didn't hear them." They don't get much better than that, do they?
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 10:40 PM PST - 36 comments

At age 15, it didnt occur to Karl Stanley that there was any reason he couldn't build his own personal submarine -- so he transformed a ten-foot steel pipe into one of the most innovative subs in the world. You too can build your own submarine out of an empty propone tank. Or from an industrial buoy. Or this one for $400. Or this one in the garage. More DIY submarine ideas and discussions at psubs.org
posted by stbalbach at 7:46 PM PST - 18 comments

U.S. Vows to Disarm Iraq with or Without U.N. We lead. You follow. Or get out of the way. How this will play out in terms of the very existence of the UN in the near future, the EU, and our attempt to maintain good relationship with Arab countries is anyone's guess. What is yours?
posted by Postroad at 6:09 PM PST - 79 comments

Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes; Big Brother goes retro. In the artistic tradition of classic London Transport poster art comes this sinister-looking campaign. Reminiscent of these parodies, but the art is better and they're not kidding.
posted by George_Spiggott at 3:36 PM PST - 29 comments

It's cute. It's funny. It's simple. It comes in different sizes and offers lots of goofy artistic possibilities. Its silly commercials [quicktime] will crack you up. It is nothing, really. It is just Meary.
posted by mediareport at 3:25 PM PST - 27 comments

Godplaying for the Do-it-yourselfer. Well, it's a frigid October Monday, and Bride of Frankenstein is on the telly. So, for the would-be re-animator, some helpful hints: First, some background research. Biochemical Cascades associated with cell death. And even Newton knew to stand on the shoulders of other mad scientists. You'll also need a corpse. Manbeef seems to be defunct. You might be able to steal one from a University. If you're on a budget, you can probably get a good deal from these guys. Apparently it's a buyer's market. Obviously you'll need one of these things too. This page has full plans for an assortment of tesla coils and lighting balls and the like. If you're a purist, you'll want your choice of human brains. This might be a good place to start. But you really gotta ask yourself: Why bother with all that wetware?
posted by condour75 at 2:30 PM PST - 4 comments

One of Our Inflatable Tanks is Missing. The UK has been returning to normal operation today after our latest storm (apart from the power, oh, and the trains but a state of disruption is 'normal' for the trains). The saddest story is of Christopher Vince, who died saving his brother. The silliest is that of the army and their lost inflatable tank.
posted by anyanka at 2:29 PM PST - 12 comments

The man who wrote 10,000 Grooks (grooks, grooks, grooks), Piet Hein, was also the inventor of Hex and the creator of the Soma Cube. In the design world, he is most famous for the SuperEllipse, a figure that rivals Buckminster Fuller's geodesics in ingenuity, an aesthetic balance between a circle and a square, and a mathematical figure which has been used to design a square in Stockholm. From the SuperEllipse, you can get the SuperEgg, a strange solid which will unexpectedly balance on one end and has been mistaken for an alien artifact.
posted by Winterfell at 2:16 PM PST - 11 comments

Todd Levin: "The United States of America According to my Racist Aunt" There's one in almost every family, and Todd does a hilarious map of the wisdom his racist aunt has shared over the years.
posted by leslie at 2:09 PM PST - 71 comments

Need something to brighten up your Monday? Get your mind off of work? Rather than actually surfing the internet, try the Realistic Internet Simulator!
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 1:56 PM PST - 11 comments

What a bunch of feral Slashdotters had to say when Blogger... got hacked recently “I would put forth the theory that communication may have been one of the very shortcomings that channelled so many veteran Slashdotters into their chosen field of hunched backs, Help Desk apps that prevent human communication, and Barney Miller-school hair concepts” – John Kusch
posted by joeclark at 1:31 PM PST - 33 comments

"We Will Never Forget 9/11/01" Hmm, so this is what happens when "9/11" becomes old news. I'm not American, I don't know anyone who was touched by what happened that day, but I am utterly appalled by this.
posted by chrid at 12:57 PM PST - 55 comments

Here is an excellent article on Rationality versus Values. Personally though, I'd rather be free of more mundane risks such as traffic accidents than say, extraordinary risks such as being held hostage in a theatre... but that's just my opinion.
posted by titboy at 12:40 PM PST - 10 comments

Still Avant-Garde After All These Years: Alexander Rodchenko: An outstanding collection of classic images and portraits from the bookmarkable, browserrific Howard Schickler Gallery. [Via gmtPlus9.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:53 AM PST - 5 comments

The Condiment Packet Museum exists to provide documentation and display of condiments found on packets. The packets in the Museum are specifically all packets other than sugar packets, which are currently well documented by other sources.
posted by DailyBread at 11:49 AM PST - 27 comments

Dear Saddam, How can I help? Whadya need? Weapons? Network capabilities?
posted by Raichle at 11:38 AM PST - 8 comments

Does this seem incongruous to anyone else? (-cnn) Two professors were shot and killed Monday at the University of Arizona's College of Nursing A student was "disgruntled" at the professors and shot at them. I am (sadly) not too surprised that something like this would happen on a college campus, but it does seem strange that it would happen at the College of Nursing.
posted by valval22 at 10:50 AM PST - 48 comments

More calls for stricter gun laws. Would new gun laws help or would criminals like John Mohammed just ignore any new laws and find a way to acquire more weapons anyway? [more inside]
posted by jasontromm at 10:45 AM PST - 160 comments

Formula One tweaked! The Formula One Commission met earlier today at what was touted as the most important meeting (PDF) in the last 20 years to discuss ways to rescue Formula One. The biggest outcome was to have single qualifying laps on Fridays and Saturdays, the historic Spa circuit was dropped from the calendar due to tobacco advertising restrictions. [More inside]
posted by riffola at 10:10 AM PST - 17 comments

America Still Unprepared - America Still in Danger, a new report sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, claims that "a year after September 11, 2001, America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil. In all likelihood, the next attack will result in even greater casualties and widespread disruption to American lives and the economy. The need for immediate action is made more urgent by the prospect of the United States going to war with Iraq and the possibility that Saddam Hussein might threaten the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in America." While of al Qaeda, George Tenet says that "the threat environment we face is as bad as it was before Sept. 11. It is serious—they have reconstituted, they are coming after us." This is not comforting (more inside.)
posted by homunculus at 10:03 AM PST - 4 comments

A European voice makes good case for Bush. Being ambivalent about Iraq, I found this to be one of the more thoughtful cases for Bush. Maybe if Dubya was making it this eloquently instead of lying and stonewalling people would be more supportive.
posted by McBain at 9:56 AM PST - 26 comments

Russian Theatre Debacle : BZ Gas? BZ Gas.. your friendly 'non lethal' incapacitator. Originally designed for military use, (" Just blow their minds, move in, and take over") they gave it to 2800 soldiers at Edgewood before the CIA got hold of it. Due to shifting wind patterns, BZ's tendency to trigger maniacal behavior, and the difficulties of controlling the amount of BZ absorbed during combat undermined its usefulness as a nonlethal incapacitant. An overdose of BZ could be fatal - and those tests had been concluded on physically fit army troops. This little puppy is simple to produce , and shows up in films, the Bosnian Serbian Army and also South Africa. Oh yeah - some people call it a warfare agent , others call it a Calmative agent... ( tell that to the relatives of 115+ russians). People disagree whether its short term effects are anything from 6 hrs or 2 weeks and long-term damage is still unknown.. Lovely stuff.
posted by HeadSessions at 9:38 AM PST - 47 comments

Your special day. Afterwards, you curl up in a corner with your new better half, gorging yourselves on leftover wedding cake and laughing over the pictures. You sift through the thoughtful presents your guests have selected, piles of dishware and linens, decorations and photo albums that will fill your home for years to come. Soon, you come to the most special present of all ... a coffee table book entitled Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America??!!
scroll down to #389
posted by grrarrgh00 at 9:26 AM PST - 19 comments

Oissubke's voyage continues this week (sorry for the delay, but I had to wait for a boat to come by Gough Island to pick me up) with the Kingdom of Talossa. Not only does this obscure nation have an online government website, but they've put all kinds of data online with their official database system. Not bad for a nation with a (hard to see) Berber heritage. They also have a fascinating language (PDF) and printable Talossan-English and English-Talossan dictionaries for the language geeks out there.
posted by oissubke at 7:50 AM PST - 10 comments

Remember the Dialect Survey ? The results are up.
posted by rtimmel at 7:31 AM PST - 10 comments

Lingerie Barbies. From FAO Schwarz. This is not a spoof.

(Personally, I'll pick black over white any day of the week, but that's another story)
posted by magullo at 7:18 AM PST - 33 comments

If sex is a pain in the a$$ (so goes the joke) then you are doing it wrong. But what if it's a pain in the head? 1 in 100 people will suffer from Orgasmic Cephalgia, causing blinding headaches when approaching orgasm. It's nothing more than a blood vessel dilating and causing pain that can only be stopped by coitus interruptus. Then again, it could always be a sexually induced brain hemorrhage...
posted by twine42 at 6:40 AM PST - 9 comments

Don't call her frigid. After ten years and almost four millions dollars, Glacier Girl, a P-38F ditched on the ice of Greenland, flies again in Middlesboro, Kentucky. While the restoration and recovery of any old craft is interesting, Glacier Girl was pulled out from under almost 270 feet of ice. Her story, in words and pictures. (and oddball html.)
posted by eriko at 6:03 AM PST - 6 comments

What makes for a successful life? Luc Ferry, French minister for education, recently released a best-seller which aims to work out what is success today and what makes for a successful life. So, what do MeFiers think - what is success? Who today is successful? What makes for a successful life?
posted by jonvaughan at 5:48 AM PST - 17 comments

The Guardian isn't so good at letting you link to their articles anymore. But if you use this link then click on "printable version" you might get to the site I want you to link to. My title being: If you're Jewish and American its hard to know whose side your on these days.
posted by donfactor at 4:52 AM PST - 20 comments

Sky Witness - New Site from Sky News Yet another another example of "big media" embracing audience involvement. Sky is asking people to "tell us in no more than 300 words how a particular news event touched your life," including eye witness accounts, and photos. The "most compelling" entries will be published on a special site at the end of the year. Anyone who has read the 9/11 Metafilter thread will know how extraordinary such commentary can be. Anyhow for the wordsmiths here, this could be a great opportunity to show just how clever you are ;-) My question to MF - how far can this go - should, or will big/national/local media open up far more to audience involvement?
posted by RobertLoch at 4:24 AM PST - 5 comments

The Postage Stamps of Donald Evans (scroll down a paragraph or two) A rich and complex internal world expressed through postage stamp art.
'When Donald Evans (born Morristown, New Jersey USA in 1945) was a boy, he drifted from his hobby of collecting postage stamps to creating his own postage stamps of countries he made up in his imagination ... He left behind an astonishing planet seen through its nations' postage stamps, thousands of them, all drawn to postage-stamp size, with all the familiar periphery of postage stamps hand-done ... '
posted by plep at 1:04 AM PST - 18 comments

American brands PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Western Union are advertising on Hezbollah television. The Iranian-backed and funded group has been implicated in the attacks against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans in 1982.
posted by semmi at 8:13 PM PST - 29 comments

Motorbikes the new craze for Iranian Women. More taboos crumble in Iran, as women sign-up in their thousands for motorbike riding classes. Women have been allowed to drive cars, but not ride bicycles or motorbikes since the Islamic Revoluion. The problem now is to find women motorcyclists able to train those who have shown interest.
posted by Jimbob at 8:10 PM PST - 4 comments

It's the eve of the election, and control of the Senate is up for grabs... but Senator Wellstone dies tragically in a plane crash.
Who you gonna call?!
MONDALE!!!

He's an alright guy and everything, but I just can't hear his name without thinking of "Names for Bands" from Jello Biafra's "No More Cocoons"...
posted by insomnia_lj at 2:30 PM PST - 28 comments

Two youngsters smash McDonalds store front, try to escape via drive-thru window. Police chase suspects for several hours before finally confronting them, tranquilizing them, and finally, executing them, all without a trial. Is this a justified reaction based on population data? Or can we as a civilization be doing more?
posted by damclean2 at 2:19 PM PST - 41 comments

Academic Fraud Watch, continued ...Emory University professor Michael Bellesiles has resigned in the wake of a report finding him guilty of unprofessional and misleading work. His book had previously come under fire (no pun intended) from gun advocates. (more inside, and the first link is from the NYT)
posted by Vidiot at 2:16 PM PST - 35 comments

Afghanistan leads in poppy production Now that we have rid the country of the nasty controlling party, it is good to return to normal business so that exports can help make this a better world. Is this a part of our re-construction plan?
posted by Postroad at 2:11 PM PST - 19 comments

Feet first? You're sick! What's this all about? Fetishism on its own is impotence. It should surely be an apéritif, an accompaniment, a starter - not the main dish. Men seem to use it as an excuse not to engage. For women it's just an item on the menu of love; not the make-or-break thing men seem to make it. What was that Adam Sandler film where he gets foot-whacked by brilliant, dreamy John Turturro? [Via very manly, ever-so-sensitive Bifurcated Rivets - I hate the way men post things and then cover themselves by saying "may offend"!]
posted by Schweppes Girl at 2:09 PM PST - 25 comments

Banning hip-hop. Police in San Francisco control the kinds of music clubs may play and promote. In key parts of the city, rap music has basically been outlawed.
posted by xowie at 10:49 AM PST - 58 comments

A few key points in a debate on file sharing. Oddly enough, Hillary Rosen tried to say there are no copy protected CDs in the US.
posted by robotrock at 9:15 AM PST - 15 comments

Rock art can be found throughout the world. Capturing a glimpse of the creativity of our ancestors can be excting and the focal point of a memorable trip. Find some great sites in Europe, Australia, The U.S. southwest or upper midwest. Housebound? Then take a virtual tour of the magnificent Chauvet Cave in France.
posted by madamjujujive at 8:18 AM PST - 17 comments

"God's boys on both sides of the Atlantic" It began back in February. Now, 6 letters, 350+ intellectuals later, the great debate rages on, though apparently and regrettably now censored in Saudi Arabia. Pity.
posted by Voyageman at 7:56 AM PST - 11 comments

North Korea: The Bright Eyes of Tailless Beasts: testimony of Sun-Ok Lee.
Inside the Gulag from the Hoover Digest.
Human Rights Without Frontiers: Concentration Camp Analysis
posted by hama7 at 3:09 AM PST - 11 comments

Want to listen to the World Series on the Web? Pay $9.95. I know, it's a sports post, so (most) everyone will hate it, but I see a disturbing trend of no more free media lunches on the Web. CNN went subscription months ago, and most other places I've gone for free video/audio are drying up. All I wanted was to listen to the game. But I can't find it anywhere. All the regular stations I listen to that carry the game are silent. And how will the Angels make a valiant comeback if I can't cheer them on? (sigh)
posted by TheManWhoKnowsMostThings at 7:36 PM PST - 23 comments

Fight the Power! "Telemarketers make use of a telescript - a guideline for a telephone conversation. This script creates an imbalance in the conversation between the marketer and the consumer. It is this imbalance, most of all, that makes telemarketing successful. The EGBG Counterscript attempts to redress that balance." It's own medicine time!
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 7:19 PM PST - 73 comments

Has Gore Vidal gone too far? Complicity, terrorism, and a heavy weight of proof from Mr. Vidal.
posted by four panels at 7:03 PM PST - 66 comments

If "dog bites man" isn't news, but "man bites dog" is news, what is "dog shoots man"? Sonny the gun discharging dog isn't the first animal to allegedly take-up arms against humans. Rather, animal caused shootings seem to be relatively common and a truly international phenomenon.
posted by nathan_teske at 6:33 PM PST - 13 comments

Americans the streets, finally! 100,000 (or so) in DC protest the war in Iraq. Parallel protests in cities worldwide. Why is no lawmaker stepping up to represent this constituency?
posted by jfc at 5:12 PM PST - 66 comments

Zippetty Hop! Cool, clickety Zippo tricks on Zippo's 70th Anniversary. Congratulations to the coolest American icon alive! [Via Filepile. Quicktime and Flash required, respectively.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:13 PM PST - 27 comments

Bush as a Dry Drunk Dry drunk is a slang term used by members and supporters of Alcoholics Anonymous and substance abuse counselors to describe the recovering alcoholic who is no longer drinking, one who is dry, but whose thinking is clouded.
posted by adamms222 at 3:05 PM PST - 63 comments

You know that horrible Lee Performance Khakis commercial where the woman spills red wine on her pants? Well this article from Slate.com critiques it and then tests it...to surprising results.
posted by adrober at 10:33 AM PST - 58 comments

Russian Forces Set Hostages Free. Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev said about three dozen of the estimated 50 hostage-takers had been killed and Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev said, contrary to earlier reports, that none of the gunmen had escaped. Terrorism loses again.
posted by David Dark at 1:45 AM PST - 90 comments

Trebuchets , Trebuchets, Trebuchets: where geeks get medieval on thine ass. Some people have a love of history, spare time and an excuse to buy more tools. (His Earth Viewer is cute, too) Also needed are open expanses--like in Australia. Note: Punkin' Chunkin' (©donkeymon 11/03/01) 2002 is coming up in a week. Will Team Banka's Pumpkin Slayer return? Also, there's Gulf Wars XII for y'all next March. And, courtesy Nova, for the shockwave addicted, Play Destroy The Castle! Manual here. Also, here's the Virtual Trebuchet java applet. And last, massive trebuchet linkage.
posted by y2karl at 1:40 AM PST - 16 comments

CNN ordered to shut down in Iraq. Reporters Without Borders has issued a strong condemnation of the Iraqi government's decision ordering the shut down of CNN office in Baghdad, where CNN has had an office for the past 12 years. All 6 journalists, including the bureau chief Jane Arraf are given up to next Monday to leave the country. I am unable to find the news on CNN website.
posted by taratan at 12:10 AM PST - 24 comments

Down the memory hole! An eye-opening comparison of how the various media outlets reported the removal of U.N. inspectors from Iraq back in the day (1998) with today (2002, and itchin' to fight).
posted by Dirjy at 9:59 PM PST - 16 comments

Arts & Letters Daily is back.
posted by semmi at 9:00 PM PST - 15 comments

Zen Stories to Tell Your Neighbors. "Pick out the stories that sound interesting. Read this hypertext book from 'cover' to 'cover,' or at random, or use the links at the bottom of each story to connect to other stories with similar themes. There's no right or wrong way to do this."
posted by Joey Michaels at 8:36 PM PST - 12 comments

United States Military Operations. Quite a few.
posted by four panels at 6:02 PM PST - 18 comments

Take off every 'zig'... for great justice! ZigBee is a promising entry into the field of personal area networks (PAN) -- the technology that will soon enable low data rate two-way wireless connectivity for everything in your house (e.g. keyboard, thermostat). For those keeping score, it's exactly '4.4' sweeter than Wi-Fi (ZigBee is aligning with the IEEE802.15.4 standard) and is designed to live up to two years on battery power (unlike Bluetooth, it's 802.15 brother currently fighting with deployment issues). The protocol supports authentication and public-key encryption, so no "All your toaster are belong to us" or (gasp!) wartoasting.
posted by eddydamascene at 5:13 PM PST - 11 comments

atari adventure. for your friday afternoon pleasure (via suppose)
posted by oliver_crunk at 2:53 PM PST - 23 comments

Actor Richard Harris dies "Don't let it be forgot - that once there was a spot - for one brief, shining moment - that was known as Camelot..." Such a sad day all around. R.I.P., Richard.
posted by dnash at 2:26 PM PST - 21 comments

Is this a Virus or just really sleazy advertising? www.friendgreetings.com is a free greeting card company. However, the e-card email that is received contains a link where you can view the e-card. Once you click that link, and accept the Security Warning and License Agreement, then the FriendGreetings application will be installed on your computer. Once it is installed, it will email all the addresses listed in your MS Outlook contact (or Exchange's GAL) list to invite them to download FriendGreetings products as mentioned in the License Agreement. Trend, McAfee, and others are treating this as a virus. Is it a virus or just another new and nasty way of advertising that preys on the fact that no one really reads EULAs anyway?
posted by aacheson at 2:26 PM PST - 24 comments

The Mark of the Beast? After the quick FDA approval of implantable human chips , Applied Digital Solutions , the manufacturer of the chips, has already launched a national campaign with the tagline "Get Chipped", and people are lining up. Other's are afraid, for one reason or another.
posted by Espoo2 at 2:22 PM PST - 28 comments

Glitch Art. When software fucks up, their display on-screen sometimes goes with them. Beflix finds the art in these glitches, and in all kinds: glitchy circuit design printouts and electron scans, for example.
posted by moz at 1:41 PM PST - 11 comments

The Compact Disc turns 20.
posted by lucien at 1:21 PM PST - 28 comments

Slavercise - If you're like me (who am I kidding; you're not) then you have trouble motivating yourself to work out, get to the gym, or ask for low fat milk in your latte. Aside from prizing sleep over mindless physical exertion, the idea of staring at a blank wall while stepping to the oldies drives me to depression. If only I could combine the burn of calories with the burn of a six foot rawhide leather whip cracking against my corpulent behind. < via Salon subscription>
posted by dirtylittlemonkey at 1:15 PM PST - 8 comments

The Obituary for Alan Walker Read, the man who tracked down the origins of 'OK' [from The Economist, by way of Slate] Your interest in Professor Read may be marginal, but where OK came from is pretty fascinating. Fourth word spoken on the moon?
posted by mojohand at 11:33 AM PST - 19 comments

Barbers getting snippy with Jesse In a beautiful turnabout, a group of barbers is demanding an apology from Jesse Jackson for his previous call for action against the movie "Barbershop."
posted by baltimore at 11:11 AM PST - 23 comments

Blogger Hacked A slashdot reader reported (on slashdot) that "Blogger has been severely hacked into, with users' passwords and e-mail addresses being replaced with 'hacx0redbyme' or 'hax0redbyme.' " Perhaps the most amusing comment in the ensuing discussion says "I'm glad I don't use a blog... I wouldn't want some l337 hax0r coming in and reading everything about my personal life!" But levity aside, is there some serious implication that a widely used web service is hacked? Is Pyra safe to use?
posted by namespan at 10:57 AM PST - 27 comments

Sen. Wellstone's campaign plane crashes in Minnesota. It's not known yet whether the Senator was on board.
posted by PrinceValium at 10:40 AM PST - 159 comments

Pee-Mail More Friday Fun. Now anyone can write a message in the snow. Finally, true pee-quality for all sexes.
posted by VelvetHellvis at 10:40 AM PST - 15 comments

Friday Flash Fun:Xeyes? Neko? Maukie!
posted by bonehead at 10:07 AM PST - 10 comments

Is it legal to moon the White House? These guys seem to think it is. I wonder if this makes their asses terrorists?
posted by clango at 9:55 AM PST - 21 comments

The Game of 1000 Blank White Cards. Yesterday's talk about Game Neverending and Nomic reminded me of this outside-the-box game that was first brought to my attention by an article in GAMES Magazine earlier this year. The game is quite simple: Before you play, you have to think up and create the cards. Create them how? What goes on them? How do you play? Anything goes. [more inside, including excerpts and more links]
posted by blueshammer at 9:54 AM PST - 32 comments

Vatican to test if trainee priests are gay. As if the Catholic Church doesn't have bigger concerns. They seem to be trying to throw dirt onto their own graves. Organized religion is SO last millennium. If a gay person really wanted to be a priest, wouldn't it be simple to "pass" a psychological screening? And what self-respecting gay person would want to be a part of something that seeks to exclude him?
posted by archimago at 5:56 AM PST - 77 comments

Pearl Jam Roach Motels. In response to an article last month revealing that Epic Records Group had glued CD players shut to prevent piracy of promotional albums (namely Riot Act by Pearl Jam and Scarlet's Walk by Tori Amos), music critics at PopMatters ask the following: "Who needs whom more? Do the media outlets need the record labels, since they release the albums that help them sell magazines along with the label's CDs? Or do the labels need the media outlets, without which the newest release by the latest youth-oriented pop contrivance would fall with a deafening thud?"
posted by jacknose at 5:50 AM PST - 27 comments

Manimals - discover the strange and unsettling world of photographer-digital artist Daniel Lee and his darwinian art.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:33 AM PST - 15 comments

Making Rehnquist Proud Just like Rehnquist and his earlier political service, Jim Crow is still hard at work. "Tim Hutchinson and the Republican Party have claimed that they want to reach out to African-American voters, but when election time comes they have nothing to offer but intimidation and harassment," Cook said. "We ask Tim Hutchinson and his party to stop disenfranchising African-American voters and obstructing the democratic process."
posted by nofundy at 5:23 AM PST - 14 comments

18 Ways to Hate Your Neighbour: Europe ’s Lesson To The World.
And: What European Tribes Think About One Another
via memepool
posted by hama7 at 4:14 AM PST - 60 comments

F--- OFF! This seemingly serious Tourettes information site uses an 'interesting' way to get attention. [link not too safe for work - no depraved images, just a large, prominent yell]
posted by humuhumu at 3:56 AM PST - 8 comments

Almost sixty years after the end of the Second World War, the battlefields of Western Europe, Scandanavia, Russia and the Pacific continue to reveal poignant relics of the men who fought and died. These links may be of interest to anyone with even a passing interest in military history.
posted by Doozer at 3:35 AM PST - 7 comments

Some Friday Fun "Banja is destined for everyone. Here, it is not a question of conquering, but of evolving within a whole way of life and of discovering its mysteries." Not a game for the bandwidth-challenged, unless you're REALLY patient.
posted by TheFarSeid at 1:20 AM PST - 13 comments

A Year Of Days In Poetry: Today is the day Chaucer died. James Beattie, Macaulay and John Berryman were born on this same day. This is just one of the ways of entering Ian Lancashire's magnificent, monumental Representative Poetry Online. The timeline, the glossary of poetical terms and the fascinating collection of poets' writings on poetry are equally rich and generous. In a word, bliss.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:34 AM PST - 10 comments

Jeb Bush linked to Terror Flight School Owner, whose plane was also seized for Heroin Trafficking. How can it be that not only is the Bush family linked to the Bin Laden family, but they just happen to have been travelers on a Lear jet which was seized with a record amount of 30 pounds of heroin. The owner of the Lear jet coincidentally, pictured here with Florida Governor Jeb Bush (which had to be retrieved from Google's diligent cache system since the page has since been removed), also owns the school where the alleged WTC leader Mohammed Atta took flying lessons. Coincidence? Or did Bush Know?
posted by jackspace at 11:37 PM PST - 42 comments

Since many of you most likely don't travel often to the Republican National Committee's Website, I thought I would share this with you... [More Inside]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 11:26 PM PST - 33 comments

Why has the attack of Parisian Mayor Bertrand Delanoe been ignored ? You'd need a neutron microscope to find news stories or analysis regarding the attack of Parisian mayor Bertrand Delanoe by a Muslim who stated that he 'didn't like politicians and didn't like homosexuals'. What would have happened had the attacker been a white Christian or a skinhead ? A sad example of political correctness stifling any debate, a la Pim Fortuyn.
posted by Kaslo at 9:30 PM PST - 41 comments

One Dollar Cuts So many times so many of us have said we would buy music online if the price were right. It looks like that opportunity is now here. Are we going to put up or shut up? Is this article going to end up as a piece of PR or as an online social shift? (via /.)
posted by Tystnaden at 5:50 PM PST - 49 comments

A secret industrial plot to curb male aggression? Study shows PCB's, Dioxin are making men into sissies! A secret Republican/industrialist plot? Hang on to your huevos! - A new study reveals that "prenatal exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins can influence play behaviors that reflect gender differences....Higher prenatal exposure to PCBs was associated with less masculinized play behavior in boys and more masculinized play behavior in girls. In boys as well as in girls, higher prenatal dioxin levels were associated with more feminized play behavior."
posted by troutfishing at 3:50 PM PST - 21 comments

Making huge leaps between memepool and Stanislaw Lem (all in one day), I stumbled upon an interesting connection. This link describes an extremely interesting phenomenon that I find tangentally represented in Solaris. Simulacra of all kinds in literature and film has always interested me, from Blade Runner, to A.I. As Halloween approaches, I'd like to know what other MeFiers have seen or read that has hit them in the deepest part of their 'uncanny valley'.
posted by oflinkey at 12:38 PM PST - 66 comments

Aperture at 50. The great photography magazine Aperture, founded by giants Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Barbara Morgan, and Minor White, is turning fifty years old. The cool part? To celebrate, they're holding fifty simultaneous exhibitions around New York City (PDF Map here). This is pretty fantastic for any photophile in the Northeast (or with enough cash, time, and desire to come to New York). I personally am going to try to see as many as I can.
posted by The Michael The at 11:14 AM PST - 4 comments

A small company with an obscure patent is suing e-commerce site owners. If you sell something on the web, you may be next. It's hard to tell if they have any legitimate claims or if they're simply extorting money from the people they threaten.
posted by mathowie at 11:02 AM PST - 25 comments

"That's not funny, that's sick!" goes the old National Lampoon comic caption. Well, maybe this link's both... Again, not for the faint of heart.
posted by BentPenguin at 10:52 AM PST - 32 comments

Build a face, Eric Meyer Photography. via Linkydinky.com. I couldn't wait for friday.
posted by tomplus2 at 10:08 AM PST - 24 comments

The third stop in Oissubke's worldwide journey -- Gough Island, a tiny, eerily beautiful, nearly uninhabited island in the middle of the South Atlantic. Only the sturdy and the brave dare call it home. [Plenty more inside].
posted by oissubke at 9:27 AM PST - 25 comments

Google censors search results "Google, the world's most popular search engine, has quietly deleted more than 100 controversial sites from some search result listings. "
posted by mert at 9:19 AM PST - 53 comments

Referer Log Spam. Seen this url in your logs yet? They're actually trying to get people to pay them to put bogus urls in your referer log. As if we weren't swimming in spam already.
posted by fraying at 9:14 AM PST - 42 comments

Around the globe, nations are testing and beginning to deploy "active sonar" technology, which uses extremely loud sound to detect submarines. "The problem? Active sonar can injure and even kill marine mammals." Save the Whales!.
posted by Domain Master 666 at 9:14 AM PST - 17 comments

The Anthrax investigator.
Ed Lake, a retired computer specialist, has decided to solve the Anthrax attacks mystery. So he has created a very comprehensive site about the facts of the case. He has a theory about who did it. Very impressive data gathering for a single individual.
posted by talos at 8:43 AM PST - 20 comments

Game Neverending. There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play. The game is in alpha right now, but it has managed to take over my free time. There is not a clear goal or purpose in the game, other than to keep experiencing and making. I can't figure out what has hooked me in.
posted by jonah at 8:33 AM PST - 35 comments

A rush, a push, and the land is ours. Bush enlists government in the GOP campaign. Unprecedented.
posted by plexi at 8:26 AM PST - 59 comments

Recent news reports have started me wondering about Swiss bank accounts and other offshore banking options. Whether you want to protect your assets, live tax free, incorporate with few regulations, launder money, or just escape from the US, an offshore account seems to be the way to go. Just make sure you don't get scammed.
posted by MeetMegan at 7:33 AM PST - 12 comments

In the Papers, New York 1's, pre-blog video blog, the best thing on television, is now available on-line. I am going to cancel my cable this weekend!
posted by djacobs at 7:24 AM PST - 11 comments

Protest Lord Of The Rings "The Two Towers"!!! "We believe that Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema's actions are in fact hate speech. The movie is intentionally being named The Two Towers in order to capitalize on the tragedy of September 11." Satire?....please.
posted by Dr_Octavius at 6:00 AM PST - 41 comments

The First Community Blog? Five years ago today, Caleb Donaldson pulled the plug on Geek Cereal, a social experiment that began on March 21, 1996. Some of the links don't work like they should anymore, but the calendar will get you to all the juicy bits. An interesting little time capsule. The site's demise is mentioned in this Ghost Sites 1997 obit, and in this virtual eulogy from Caleb's dad on MIT's website.
posted by tpoh.org at 5:56 AM PST - 6 comments

in nineteen hundred and twenty eight
disturbed by an increase in the property tax rate
andrew kehoe, a deranged man,
blew up the school in bath, michigan

Suprisingly, not many people know about the worst school related attack in US history. Do you?
posted by Degaz at 5:28 AM PST - 29 comments

This is the funniest MasterCard "Priceless" parody ever. My friend sent me this link, and I didn't think much of it on a glance of the URL, since MasterCard parodies are a dime a dozen. But this particular one is professionally filmed, original, and utterly hiliarious. (Windows Media ASF Stream)
posted by aznblader at 3:53 AM PST - 16 comments

Two men held in connection with sniper case And I was just getting used to seeing 24-7 coverage of it on every frigging channel. Now we'll have to hear about Iraq or Martha Stewart again.
posted by Davezilla at 3:31 AM PST - 93 comments

The 1880 census went online yesterday. I found my Great Grandfather John S Roberds. Born in 1847(100 years before me) he was farming in Missouri when his household was documented. My Grandfather Oscar was 6 in 1880. From my Great Grandfathers household I only know what happened to Oscar. He died crossing Woodward ave. going to work at Ford Motor Co.
posted by JohnR at 1:26 AM PST - 24 comments

Prop me up beside a jukebox is one option. Some think you'd be better off in a pinebox, there's always an Eternal reef. But now, there's an ecofriendly way to spend eternity, or at least a short time.
posted by SuzySmith at 12:47 AM PST - 11 comments

Let's learn about wavelets! OK, let's not. Notice, however, how differently wavelets are introduced across the web, and how widely authors construe terms like "gentle", "beginner", and "approachable." Do you know a website that clearly and creatively describes some complex topic? How do you teach well with the Internet?
posted by tss at 10:14 PM PST - 14 comments

"Don't Question Whether [They] Deserved Them or Not." Not only was no one held accountable for the visas unlawfully issued to the 9/11 terrorists, but now the State Department has rewarded officials responsible for the lax visa policies — that paved the way for the deaths of 3,000 innocent Americans — with large cash bonuses. [More Inside]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 8:39 PM PST - 56 comments

Claude Dallas: the last outlaw? In 1981, Claude shot two Fish and Game officers who had come to take him to town for being in violation of wildlife laws. Apparently he "lived by the laws of nature; not the laws of man." It took 15 months to finally bring him in and his run from the law inspired a movie. After being sentenced to 30 years in prison, Claude escaped from the Idaho State Penitentiary and inspired a song of his exploits. Was Claude "the last outlaw" or just a murderer? What place do outlaws and renegades have in today's society?
posted by Hall at 6:55 PM PST - 16 comments

Why 'sustainable development' is neither. Globe & Mail Columnist Doug Sanders takes a shot at "Sustainable Developemnt." He says the Left likes it because it doesn't involve big corporations, and the right likes it because it reduces government spending, but the phrase now has as many as 57 competing definitions.
He asks "Should we rush to make the world wealthier first, so that cleanliness will then take care of itself?", since the countries that are the cleanest and have the most protected land are those that are the richest. After all, he says, "we all want to be rich, and we all want to be clean -- but not necessarily at the same time". India Is Interested, China Has A Plan, and I think we've discussed The Big Summit.
posted by Blake at 5:28 PM PST - 26 comments

Track down who gave you flu. Phylogenetic analysis will give you the power to point an accusing and probably infectious finger at your cold passing associate with scientific rigor. I look forward to the legal circus that will ensue as everyone on the planet sues everyone else for passing on a cold.
posted by srboisvert at 4:37 PM PST - 8 comments

The strange range of human behavior continues to draw us like moths to a flame. Consider Amanda Fielding who continually performed self-surgery on her braincase, Catharina Geisslerin, the woman who vomited frogs, and the Collyer brothers, who collected so much junk that it crushed them in their own home. Samuel Johnson, compiler of the first dictionary of the English language, was compelled to whirl, twist, and make highly ritualized hand motions when going through doors. When he went for a walk, he touched every post he passed. If he missed one, he went back to touch it. Recent research suggests that obsessive-compulsive child behaviors can be caused by strep infection. Who do you think are the most interesting, eccentric, and compulsive personalities?
posted by Morphic at 3:43 PM PST - 30 comments

What do Margaret Mitchell , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , George Orwell & Adolf Hitler have in common - other than that they are authors? [Answer inside]
posted by dash_slot- at 3:23 PM PST - 21 comments

It's fun to watch your tax dollars put politicians in office. "Cheney has been the White House road warrior this year, hauling in more than $22 million for Republicans in 74 campaign appearances"
posted by the fire you left me at 2:22 PM PST - 14 comments

The First Measured Century contains quite a bit of information about American society; population, work, education, religion, health, money, politics, crime and more. Everything from the median marriage age to the percentage of Americans who believe it is wrong to go to the movies on Sundays (13%).
posted by edlundart at 2:17 PM PST - 5 comments

Hannes Bok - Virgil Finlay were the premier illustrators of fantasy and science fiction for the first three quarters of the XXth Century. Bok was influenced in both technique and theme through correspondence and visits with Maxfield Parrish. Finlay learned scratch board, hatching and stippling in high school and began his career by sending six unsolicited drawings to Farnsworth Wright, the editor of Weird Tales, and becoming an immediate hit with readers and writers alike. The two primary online collections of Bok are The Art Work of Hannes Bok, from Poetic's Pagan Pages, and this Hannes Bok cover gallery from from Richard Garrison's Art of the Fantastic. Finlay is more well represented, with these two galleries, provided by one indexxs, being the treasure trove......... --Step within the tent for the rest of Dr. Lao's presentation...
posted by y2karl at 2:16 PM PST - 12 comments

Carthalia. Andreas Praefcke's postcard collection of theatres and concert halls worldwide. I wish I had a passion for something.
posted by Catch at 1:52 PM PST - 7 comments

Gunmen hold about 700 hostage in Moscow theater Gunfire has been heard from a Moscow theatre where about 20 armed gunmen are reported to be holding the audience, believed to be about 700 people, hostage. More: Muslim members of the audience ... were also allowed to leave, Interfax said.
posted by falameufilho at 12:58 PM PST - 58 comments

There are 202 initiatives on the ballot in 40 states this election cycle. "53 of the measures represent direct democracy at work: ideas placed on the ballot by citizen initiative, often designed specifically to reverse legislative action." Some of the initiatives make sense, some of them do not. I've got a list of awards for various categories of initiatives. Some of these awards are given with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

• Most Wasteful: This award goes to the initiative that will waste the most tax-payer dollars. And the winner is North Dakota's Youth Investment Initiative.
• Do-it-for-the-kids Award: Arnold Schwarzenegger may be rehearsing for a political role as he leads the campaign for Proposition 49, which would require state funding for after-school programs. Shouldn't parents be taking care of their kids after school? Why is the state of California becoming a nanny?
• Highest Ballot Measure: Nevada's initiative to legalize marijuana. 'Nuff said.
• Up-in-smoke Award: It's a tie between the Missouri and Arizona initiatives increasing the tax on a pack of cigarettes.
• Dumbest Initiative: Animal rights activists have place an initiative on the ballot in Florida to protect pregnant pigs. This initiative is dumb because it takes the extreme measure of making an amendment to the Florida constitution.
• Smartest Initiative: "Politicians are like diapers, they both must be changed frequently—and for the same reason." Idaho's term-limits proposal takes this award. Runner up goes to Oregon voters who will decide whether to list a choice of "none of the above" on all state ballots.

Anybody else have any more nominations?
posted by jasontromm at 12:39 PM PST - 55 comments

Liftoff with the Space Shuttle. NASA attached a small RocketCam to the side of the External Tank on the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis earlier this month. You can also download the full video.
posted by Mwongozi at 11:45 AM PST - 3 comments

Iraqis linked to Oklahoma atrocity This rumor has been arond for some time now, and the Bush group certainly might like to see a connection to Iraq, though the official version seems to deny such a connection. Is this a political move to make legitimate a war against Iraq or an attempt to re-open what might have been a botched detective job originally, or just plain utter nonsense?
posted by Postroad at 11:41 AM PST - 16 comments

Many of us learned about Rick Gleason, the Canadian badly injured in the Bali explosion, through the efforts of his friend, known to us on MetaFilter as stavrosthewonderchicken, who published regular updates on Rick's condition on his blog (see also this thread). Sadly, Rick has died in a Melbourne hospital (CBC, Canadian Press).
posted by mcwetboy at 11:16 AM PST - 131 comments

Helplessly Addicted to eBay Barbie!
posted by bclark at 10:59 AM PST - 10 comments

Strippers a better catch than a woman lawyer in a big firm? The Greedy Associates boards typically obsess over how hard it is for a 27-year-old, already making $150,000 a year, to make their Christmas bills without a mid-four-figures bonus. "Howard Beale" sparked a debate on whole 'nother issue...
posted by MattD at 10:33 AM PST - 24 comments

KozmoPr0n! Problem: You're ready to rub one out, but the adult video store is a lengthy 2 blocks away! For those of us living in Manhattan or Brooklyn, quality DVD porn is now just a phone call away, a la Kozmo or UrbanFetch. (something tells me this place will stay in business a bit longer...)
posted by adamms222 at 10:21 AM PST - 26 comments

The Mac is a typewriter. The ElectriClerk combines a 1988 Mac SE with a 1923 Underwood typewriter to produce "a fully-functional retrofitted prop computer." (Hmmm...where have I seen this before?) [via dive into mark]
posted by kirkaracha at 10:12 AM PST - 7 comments

Hyping the Sniper scared? Are you safely bunkered down at home watching Sniper Network News? Or do you, all spocklike and rational, calculate your risk from sniper fire from CDC mortality tables and conclude that death by sniper is only a little more likely than death by falling coconuts? Or do you decide to make your own 50 caliber sniper rifle in your home workshop to get them before they get you?
posted by troutfishing at 10:03 AM PST - 20 comments

I must keep on the move. I must not allow them to stop me or trace my whereabouts. I must keep on the move. I must not allow them to stop me or trace my whereabouts. I have set the date for the release in the future to allow time to build publicity. With the worlds full attention, these secret agencies or privately run factions cannot deny or lie to the public about what I will reveal. This smacks of hoax, but I'm leaving the final decision on that up to you.
posted by bryanzera at 9:46 AM PST - 83 comments

"Religions potentially offer practical, social, and motivational benefits to their adherents. But religions differ among themselves in the degree to which they motivate their adherents to have children, to rear those children to become productive members of society, and to convert or kill believers in competing religions. Those religions that are more successful in these respects will tend to spread, and gain and retain adherents, at the expense of other religions." So says Jared Diamond in his review of David Sloan Wilson's book, Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society, which views religion from an evolutionary perspective. Another writer interested in the evolution of religions is Toby Lester, who examines how present-day religious movements are "mutating with Darwinian restlessness."
posted by homunculus at 9:45 AM PST - 5 comments

Elephant 6 is no longer. The sprawling music collective centred around the Apples in Stereo has officially disbanded. Alas, I guess that really does mean Neutral Milk Hotel and the Olivia Tremor Control are kaput. Sad. If these names mean nothing to you, and you're in search of good new music (as seems to be a recurring MeFi thread), check out the E6 collective, not to mention the new Apples album. You won't be disappointed.
posted by chumptastic at 9:42 AM PST - 13 comments

Postmodernism is hard to define; however it is easy enough to apply to academic writing. The ideas set forward by Foucault have now been (successfully?) combined with computer programming. Not sure what it all means? Take a look at some background reading for art-theory-challenged.
posted by blindcarboncopy at 9:40 AM PST - 11 comments

What's wrong with this teacher's comments? A Pasadena HS teacher circulated a letter with his complaint that African American students at the school are the reason for bad behavior and low test scores. He's now suspended...rightly? More inside...hoping to keep this civil, too...(thanks to Jim Romenesko)
posted by serafinapekkala at 9:28 AM PST - 67 comments

Tom Lehrer Sings The Periodic Table. [Flash required]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:05 AM PST - 19 comments

The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard M. Helms, former CIA director, is dead. "We're not in the Boy Scouts," Richard Helms was fond of saying when he ran the Central Intelligence Agency. He was involved in many suspicious covert operations -- in 1970's Chile for example -- and JFK consipracy nuts even linked him to the president's assasination. George Tenet now calls Helms "a great patriot". He was fired by President Nixon when he refused to block an FBI probe into the Watergate scandal. Want to know more about the man? Check out Thomas Powers excellent story in "The Atlantic" Oh, and his niece was the semi-official Taliban ambassador to the USA
posted by matteo at 9:04 AM PST - 14 comments

"Bird of Prey" unveiled. Boeing revealed the formerly supersecret stealth prototype last Friday in St. Louis. More information at: a New Scientist story, a Popular Science report, Jane's Defense Weekly (subscription required), Boeing's press release and a couple of movies (13 Mb mov or 50 Mb mpg). More...
posted by Irontom at 8:50 AM PST - 22 comments

The international Press Freedom Index (Sept 2001-Oct 2002), published by Reporters Without Borders contains some surprises. Based on questionnaires sent to "...journalists or foreign correspondents living in the country, researchers, [and] legal experts...", RWB ranked the United States 17^th, below Slovenia and Costa Rica. Why? "The poor ranking of the United States (17th) is mainly because of the number of journalists arrested or imprisoned there. Arrests are often because they refuse to reveal their sources in court. Also, since the 11 September attacks, several journalists have been arrested for crossing security lines at some official buildings. "
posted by astirling at 8:47 AM PST - 9 comments

"It's a postmodern waste-scape of continuous urbanization." Welcome to the Pearl River Delta, China. (via /.)
posted by four panels at 8:30 AM PST - 3 comments

Bin Laden Unmasked? Robert Fisk [ducks] reviews a '215 page treasure trove' written by an Al Jazeera journalist and published in Beirut. It contains a 'wealth of information' about the elusive billionaire and his followers. He communicates over the Internet - no surprise there - but the book gives some clues as to the site used: al-Nidaa, 'The Calling'. Can you find it? The words of Mullah Omar are apparently distributed on site called the 'Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan', wild goose chase? You decide.
posted by grahamwell at 7:39 AM PST - 5 comments

"A play? In Gaza? About feminism? With Palestinian actresses? Unbelievable!"
posted by talos at 6:52 AM PST - 4 comments

The Wildlife Conservatory Society has just released a new map of the Human Footprint on Earth. With this map (pdf) you can see just how much wild space isn't left. For a closer look at each continent look here. So what do we do about it? Terraform the moon? Or maybe Mars? Or is our best bet for keeping Earth habitable simply to go electric?

And just to clarify, I'm talking about the impact of humanity on the earth's natural resources, not the supposed giants humans that walked with dinosaurs.
posted by Bones423 at 6:38 AM PST - 28 comments

Butter sculptures can be rather elaborate, and are a folk art favorite at country fairs in the U.S. And on the other side of the globe in the ancient Himalayas, butter sculpting is an ancient symbolic tradition among Tibetan Buddhists, and is also an integral part of annual festivals and celebrations.
But in other dairy art, cheese sculptures haven't achieved quite the same level of dignity.
thanks to Wordforge for the Jim Victor link.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:24 AM PST - 14 comments

Our creative team... will come up with ideas you never even thought of. How could you? You don't have the talent we do.
Their clients are more than a "faceless conglomerate", they have cats.
posted by psychotic_venom at 6:06 AM PST - 9 comments

Who owns the moon? Apparently these people do, and they’re selling it off acre by acre. They are “The founders and leaders of the extraterrestrial real estate market.” Do we really need a Galactic Government with an embassy on the moon? I guess The Federation had to start somewhere. This just begs the question, “Does Venus have its own laws?”
posted by archimago at 6:03 AM PST - 16 comments

President Bush is in fact doing just about everything his critics demand: If the administration really had contempt for the UN, it could withdraw its support and let that organization complete its collapse into a Third World debating society. If Bush wanted to lash out at every threat in the world, America's near-$400 billion defense budget could provide the soldiers, tanks, airplanes, and missiles to wage several small wars at a time, from Libya to North Korea (and most places in between). If America were trying to seize the world's oil reserves, we could have swept aside the Saudi sheiks long ago. If we were indifferent to the casualties of enemy civilians—and the only alternative is to be indifferent to the deaths of our own soldiers and civilians—then anti-war academics would have to give up tallying those casualties one-by-one. But none of this is actually happening.
posted by dagny at 3:47 AM PST - 99 comments

I generally give little thought to how the Internet works, as long as it does work. Well, on Monday, 9 of the 13 "root servers" that manage traffic on the Internet were hit with a denial of service attack for about an hour. You can see the spike in traffic on one of the servers in this graph. All this made me think about the fragility of the Internet and what I would do with myself if the Internet got knocked out, say, for a matter of days. Maybe I would finally learn to cook something besides pasta... What would you do?
posted by epimorph at 1:26 AM PST - 37 comments

a flash rubik's cube.
posted by Spoon at 12:53 AM PST - 12 comments

It's nearly time for National Novel Writing Month 2002 This was discussed in detail on mefi last year, and plenty of interest was shown. Now you should take it to the natural conclusion: a collaborative novel attempt. It might be bending the rules a little, but surely Metafilter users could come up with 50,000 words between them in a month. Maybe this is short notice, but I'd like to see an attempt...
posted by tapeguy at 8:34 PM PST - 45 comments

I've always been fascinated with the idea of having a photographic memory. They have products saying you can train yourself but I don't buy it. Can you really train your kid to have a photographic mind before age 6? I'm curious how many Mefites have snapshot memories.
posted by Degaz at 7:59 PM PST - 36 comments

Post a great earnings quarter then cut jobs and send them to India. Nice job Bank of AMERICA
posted by Macboy at 7:56 PM PST - 21 comments

For some, Halloween can mean candy, treats, and tricks. For others, Samhain can be an important religious holiday. The Witch's Sabbats are the calendar of pagans, where the celebration of time is underway. There are more rituals then could all be linked. Some prefer solitude, while some prefer groups. There is a Christian understanding of the correlation between Pagan holidays and Christian holidays. But then some people pull the old Bible out. And then some people just miss the point entirely.
posted by benjh at 5:05 PM PST - 28 comments

Virginia is for Snipers. The owner of a Richmond, Virginia vintage clothing store has created T-Shirts with large red targets on the back and a play on the "Virginia is for Lovers" tourism slogan on the front. The clothing store owner has displayed a track record of being a little off kilter...
posted by machaus at 4:08 PM PST - 37 comments

Fun Gifts. The Season for Giving is soon upon us. The web contains a colorful collection of odd but interesting gifts. Some particular favorites include: sushi jewelry, Klein bottle hats and glassware, Zanti Misfits, and Homer Simpson's Rubik's cubes. (Note for sale yet is the ever-popular Matrioshka Brain.) What fun and strange gifts have you found in your peripatetic searches of the web? What fun gift would you most like to receive?
posted by Morphic at 3:24 PM PST - 9 comments

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle may be hindering DC sniper investigation. An interesting, albeit unanswerable, question: Is the sniper responding specifically to feedback from the media -- or are the examples in the linked article "cherry-picking" to make the point? Also, apparently the art of "profiling" as practiced by TV expert commentators can very effectively destroy any profile investigators may have constructed on the guy. Think before you post to this thread: the sniper could be a Metafilter reader.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:47 PM PST - 53 comments

Continuing Oissubke's trip around the world, I bring you Liechtenstein: Where Democracy and Monarchy Harmonize! (More inside...)
posted by oissubke at 1:47 PM PST - 12 comments

DVDs are bad for business? They are, according to the producer of "Attack of the Clones." Although it seems to me that every week I hear about a new box-office record being shattered, Rick McCallum says such things as: "I don't think there's a single movie that can survive on box office gross alone; it just doesn't exist anymore" and my favorite: "Literally, our very lives are at stake now. George and I are just praying that we can finish 'Episode III' in time, before it's all over." What do you think? Legitimate concern, or more ridiculous whining by millionaires lobbying to place restrictions on technogy?
posted by eas98 at 1:08 PM PST - 56 comments

Finally, a holiday we can all get behind. Saturday, November 2 is the American Homebrewers Association’s 4th Annual Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. Find a location near you to help you create the nectar of the gods. "To alcohol! The cause of – and solution to – all of life’s problems."
posted by mathowie at 12:52 PM PST - 16 comments

Nokia Game is back with a vengence (certainly here in the UK anyway), and claiming to be "an experience you will never forget". Will it be? Will it surpass the last two Nokia Games, which became clouded in game-playing techies' catty derision of the technology used? Will the huge band of followers at the cunningly titled fan site Nokia-Game return again? And, more pressingly, will they still create stunningly TV, radio and newspaper adverts, so we can all boast again that we're part of it?
posted by wibbler at 12:15 PM PST - 12 comments

Le Voyage dans la Lune/A Trip to the Moon A tree grows in Houston. Apparently a cache of tree seeds were carried into space by an American astronaut in the early 1970s. They were carried home, planted, grown into seedlings, and distributed around the country, mostly in honor of the 1976 bicentennial. Anyway, no one took note of where the moon trees went. A curious NASA scientist is on the hunt for the locations of the moon trees. Do you have a moon tree in your town? Do you have a documented historic tree in your area? Are your local trees protected? Does this make local residents irate?
posted by jengod at 11:51 AM PST - 13 comments

Keys of Nutrition You may not be familiar with Ancel Keys, but his discoveries about nutrition and health are behind much of the dietary advice people now receive. Have you ever wondered who proved that the amount of cholesterol in food did not influence the amount of cholesterol in the blood? Do you know what causes high cholesterol? Do you like olive oil but need a good rationalization to keep using it? (hint: there is one) What dietary advice has most fascinated you, or helped you the most?
posted by Tystnaden at 10:55 AM PST - 17 comments

Sex Therapy or Chemotherapy? If you suddenly start collecting pornography, soliciting prostitutes, making sexual advances toward young children and lusting for your 90 year old landlady don't worry, you may not be developing socially and legally deviant behaviour but you actually may just have a brain tumour. I thought brain tumours just gave you headaches and blurred vision but apparently they can cause all kinds of symptoms and uncontrollable urges.
posted by henriettachicken at 10:53 AM PST - 4 comments

NJ Guido! A site for guidos, by guidos... hilariously enough! The pics are great (actually, many hotties), but the clincher has got to be the proud testimonials (under "writings"). Can anybody say B&T?
posted by adamms222 at 9:42 AM PST - 52 comments

"I took the picture of Kelly's butt, I saw she was naked and I took it." Theresa King, Photographer, Age 5.
posted by pedantic at 9:18 AM PST - 17 comments

Woman injured by obese passenger offered $20,000 by Virgin Atlantic With two-thirds of US citizens overweight, and one-third classified as obese, some airlines are charging one person for two seats (previous discussion). But who's responsible when a large passenger injures someone — the passenger or the airline?
posted by dayvin at 9:14 AM PST - 58 comments

Toxic House
"This is a site about the hazards of indoor pollution, largely created by the synthetic and organic chemicals that are a part of our daily lives. It might sound like a place you want to stay away from, but really it’s a place intended to help you make informed decisions about the places and spaces in which you live."
posted by theRegent at 8:04 AM PST - 13 comments

Crime experts in the spotlight - The sniper shootings are an ugly mark against society, but they've been a boon for my alma mater's criminal justice program and the likes of James Fox, Jack Levin and Edith Flynn. It has to be quite a contradiction for people in this line of work: The longer the killing spree goes, the more attention they get, but more innocent victims die.
posted by MediaMan at 7:53 AM PST - 6 comments

Have you grown weary of the tiny, grayscale maps of Iraq and the Middle East accompanying most newspaper stories on the region? TomPaine.com went in search of better geographic tools, and found them at the University of Texas' Online Library, with links to dozens of maps—political, topographical, historical—of a region many Americans have never scrutinized geographically. More inside... [via TomPaine.com]
posted by silusGROK at 7:39 AM PST - 7 comments

Drew Carey had a date with a Furry on last nights episode. Can you think of any other occasions where internet based subcultures or fads have broken through to prime-time? Is it only a matter of time until someone on 7th Heaven gets in trouble because of a post on a weblog?
posted by quibx at 7:22 AM PST - 34 comments

And my opponent was all like beepbeepbeepbeepbeep... Bob Ehrlich is running for governor of Maryland. Bob Ehrlich's ad agency has seen the Apple ads and likes what it sees. Bob Ehrlich and his agency think it would be a great idea to jump the Zeitgeist Train: "I used to be a Democrat, but I'm switching."
posted by baltimore at 7:12 AM PST - 14 comments

Distributed computing gets a huge success. The folding@home project has successfully mapped the folding of a protein, which could lead to important research into degenerative disorders. They achieved 2000 years' worth of computer number crunching using the spare CPU cycles of people's home computers. For those of us without PhD's, you can read about it here. I'm still looking for space bugs.
posted by mkultra at 6:25 AM PST - 6 comments

One of the better online dictionaries for technology-related material that I've seen. And it's free! What's better than free? Nuthin. The title is a bit misleading as it's not as comprehensive as a traditional encyclopedia, but it's helped me every time I've needed it.
posted by archimago at 5:59 AM PST - 12 comments

The Long March - A Walking Visual Display. "Its aim is to take both contemporary Chinese and international art to a sector of the Chinese public that is rarely, perhaps never, exposed to such work. Specifically, we will bring art to those people who live in communities along the route of Mao Zedong's historic Long March. Mao's 'March' symbolized the deliverance of the Communist ideal to the Chinese proletariat. It is with this symbolism in mind that we now choose to march contemporary art out to China's peripheral population." via ArtKrush
posted by Stan Chin at 11:39 PM PST - 5 comments

Conservatives rare species on campus "A poll by the Enterprise Institute showed that professors registered as Democrats outnumbered Republicans at Stanford, 151 to 17. At Berkeley, the lopsided score was 59-7. At Cornell, 166-6. And so on." When I was in college, I guess I was too busy trying to earn my degree to notice if conservatives were allowed to exist or not. I don't remember much political indoctrination in my physics or differential equations classes. Are the campuses really like what this columnist suggests?
posted by munger at 10:43 PM PST - 148 comments

Media Democracy Day promotes a mass media system that informs and empowers all members of society. Media Democracy Day connects existing critical and creative media with active social movements, creating a coherent message for public attention and local and global action. It was October 18.
posted by botono9 at 6:16 PM PST - 9 comments

Ask a scientist It's quite possible that every science question you have ever wondered about has already been answered. Thousands of science questions & answers, from anti-matter to zero gravity simulations, all with explanations even a scientific neophyte can easily understand.
posted by pemulis at 6:06 PM PST - 7 comments

In Australia, "Intrernet Stalking" could get you 10 years in jail, but here in the States, you'll probably get on a tv show or your own DVD.
posted by peachwood at 5:14 PM PST - 11 comments

Burmese villagers sue Unocal in an L.A. courtroom. The villagers are charging that Unocal is responsible for human-rights abuses committed by the Burmese military along the company's $1.2 billion Yadana gas pipeline. Here's a Unocal website responding to the suit. And the Free Burma Coalition's Unocal Page.
posted by Ty Webb at 3:25 PM PST - 11 comments

Parallel universes Alternate universes may exist besides our own in some ghostly manner. Various science-fiction series explore parallel universes, but what do serious physicists think? Hugh Everett III's doctoral thesis outlines a controversial theory in which the universe at every instant branches into countless parallel worlds. Physicist Andrei Linde's theory of self-reproducing universes implies that new universes are being created all the time through a budding process. Stephen Hawking's quantum cosmology also suggests the possibility of other universes connected by wormholes. Some scientists feel that the famous photon double slit experiments proves the existence of parallel universes in which a photon from one universe interacts with a photon from another. Black hole theory suggests that black holes may be portals to parallel universes.
    Science-fiction stories about parallel universes always delight the mind. Two of my favorite SF novels on parallel universes are Heinlein's Job and Number of the Beast. Several others intrigue me, such as The Neoreality Series, Diaspora, and Parallelities. Science books on the subject include a famous book by David Deutsch.
    Do you have any favorite books on parallel universes or parallel realities, fiction or nonfiction? What do you think? No doubt, scientists and science-fiction authors will continue to explore the concept in the decades to come.
posted by Morphic at 2:31 PM PST - 62 comments

Oh Yes! Hockey season is here again. Came across a few good Blogs with a hockey theme. The Hockey Pundits, Goalie Girl, Puck Hog, Off Wing, Puck Update
posted by rampage at 2:22 PM PST - 23 comments

Finally, some good news for webcasters and internet radio. In lieu of the per-song, per-listener rates that were certain to sink internet radio, flat rates and annual caps look like an acceptable compromise that will let the new music venue survive, and perhaps thrive.
posted by mathowie at 1:49 PM PST - 20 comments

Jorlon khaan bain ve? The first stop in Oissubke's trip around the online world is the beautiful land of Mongolia. Take a moment to leave the America-centric (not that there's anything wrong with that!) Web and see what the internet looks like from someone else's eyes...

• Mongolia Online
• Mongolian Tourism Board
• Mongolia World
• Virtual Mongol
• Government of Mongolia
• National University of Mongolia
• Mongolia Today
• Gobi Business News
• Mongolian Student Network (nice!)
• Open Web Center
• Montsame News
• Liberal Women's Brain Pool
• Humane Person Center
• Bank of Mongolia
• MN Domain Name Registry
• Netcraft on Mongolia
• Mongolian script (hints of Tolkien?)

I've tried to pick sites that provide unique and interesting insights into the Mongolian internet, not just whatever Google coughed up for "Mongolia". Unless this post particularly annoys people, I'll plan to continue my journey with Liechtenstein in a few days.
posted by oissubke at 1:36 PM PST - 28 comments

Worthless Word for the Day. Ever feel as if an "obscure, abstruse and/or recondite word" was forced into a newspaper/magazine/quote? Now there's a site that finally finds and provides wwftd! Impress your friends.
posted by geoff. at 1:13 PM PST - 13 comments

First Proof of Jesus Found? o ye of little fraith: repent. The last shall be first--unless this turns out to be bogus.
posted by Postroad at 12:07 PM PST - 95 comments

Christina Aguilera unintentionally promotes Thai sex tourism in latest video. Somebody fire the set designer quick!
posted by monkeymike at 11:52 AM PST - 43 comments

An important breast cancer test is now unavailable in British Columbia because of the American company which holds the relevant patent. The B.C. Cancer Agency has been forced to stop the tests after legal threats by Utah-based Myriad Genetics Inc., which has a patent on two genes that can signal whether a woman may develop hereditary breast cancer. I think this is a perfect example of why patenting genes is a terrible idea. Via Slashdot.
posted by homunculus at 10:02 AM PST - 39 comments

We like the cars, the cars that go "Vroom" All that quiet too much for you to take when you're tooling around town? These inventors have reverse engineered the noise reduction technology to make a product that can reproduce "the endearing and unique audible sound signatures of 1950s, 1960s and 1970s classic cars and motorbikes." Hot Wheels will probably want a piece of the action to help save wear and tear on kids' vocal chords as they play Fast And the Furious. Would anyone pay for this hi-fi feature? Or is this a non-starter only good for a few cheap laffs and links?
posted by chandy72 at 9:54 AM PST - 18 comments

Richard Powers - His sleek surreal and otherworldly abstractions changed science fiction illustration and, in the process, the stature of science fiction itself. Here is the Richard Powers Catalog from Vandewater Books. From the e-zine Strange Words Archive, comes The Powers Years part of Collecting The Ballantine Originals, and check out the thumbnails amid and after the Richard Powers essay at Hedonia--who are the very wave of the future in so many ways at once! David G. Hartwell remembers Powers the man. Here is another from his son in download form from Paper Snarl, where Powers is well regarded. And check out the links at the Richard Powers Cyber Art Gallery - everything from a Goth art gallery to Terence McKenna's Dream Museum. But don't click on Miss Stephanie Locke if you're at work! Oh, and the Strange Worlds archive is worth a gander, too...
posted by y2karl at 8:56 AM PST - 10 comments

Tumor-induced Pedophilia - the BBC reports on an american man who, at the age of 40, developed completely uncontrollable and ammoral sexual impulses after developing a tumor in the right lobe of the orbifrontal cortex. After the tumor was removed, he returned to normal. More inside...
posted by Irontom at 8:42 AM PST - 28 comments

There are those slaves who lived on the plantation, and there were those slaves who lived in the house... Colin Powell was permitted to come into the house. Harry Belafonte starts out with a flame but then shows himself to be a more eloquent and tenacious critic of Bush policies than any Democrat on the scene. What does it tell us about the state of our two-party system that we have to rely on Rat Pack era crooners to speak out like this in public?
posted by alms at 7:44 AM PST - 69 comments

Yesterday I saw a wonderful movie - Spellbound - a documentary about the annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee - which won the Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at SXSW. It explores the dynamics surrounding kids and parents desire for success in the competition, reconciliation with failure and differing models of education, competition and success. When I was a kid I was on the TV show It's Academic - along with lots of other famous faces. While you may want to make fun of the show - I still remember it fondly. My parents were happy to see me compete but generally unconcerned about the outcome in any way. Now we've got Math Olympics, the Academic Decathlon and a host of other competitive ventures. Any other MeFites remember school days competitions and the drive to succeed?
posted by dhacker at 7:07 AM PST - 29 comments

Damn La Difference! Europe (and apparently Japan) seem to be going through a Dickies craze. You say work wear; we say American blue-collar chic. You pay $20 for an industrial shirt; we pay $100. Should we call the whole thing off? [More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:55 AM PST - 38 comments

Does this story about the US govt making someone disappear for no admitted reason scare you as much as it scares me?
posted by lerrup at 6:28 AM PST - 32 comments

Centre of Great Britain The BBC (God bless 'em) are running a series of "Centre of ..." stories. No-one in the UK seems to care, do other nationalities care more about their country's centre of gravity?
posted by daveg at 6:22 AM PST - 12 comments

doonesbury adds a blogger... it was only a matter of time.
posted by moth at 6:12 AM PST - 11 comments

MoveOn PAC. A small donor political action comitee.
posted by four panels at 2:06 AM PST - 10 comments

Newsweek previews Cobain journals. (link from Drudge)
posted by alfredogarcia at 5:40 PM PST - 44 comments

Dictator and/or Television Sit-Com Character Remember this site? For two years now it's been sitting there, growing stronger. Are there other game sites where you should just forget it, they know too much?
posted by kablam at 5:20 PM PST - 72 comments

Ask A Librarian. The Library of Congress's answer to Google Answers.
posted by skwm at 2:35 PM PST - 9 comments

"Through your vision, creativity and dedication, you'll be able to reach for the stars and help your customers reach for the stars," she encouraged them. "You are at the forefront of a revolution in understanding the way people use their imagination and creativity to interact with information and interact with each other."

Source of this quote:
(a) CEO Carly Fiorina giving a pep talk to HP employees.
(b) Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao addressing striking west coast dockworkers.
(c) Former gubernatorial candidate Janet Reno speaking to Florida election workers.
(d) Hillary Clinton channelling Mother Teresa at a bible sales meeting.
(e) Astronaut Sally Ride providing encouragement to a convention of telemarketers.
(via Washington Post)
posted by Wet Spot at 10:14 AM PST - 56 comments

OK, so not only is this a link for guitar bores, its also a link for Europe-based guitar bores. For shame! However, Stringsdirect are more or less the living embodiment of everything that makes buying on the internet great. Really cheap, really simple, really quick. (Well, they were for me yesterday...) And they sell Line 6 PODs as well. You really have no excuse not to buy one now. Awww hell, let's start a Shred-Thread...widdly..widdly..widdly...weeeee
posted by Jofus at 9:16 AM PST - 20 comments

Photos taken from the space shuttle have revealed what is believed to be a 1.75 million b.p. human-made bridge from India to Sri Lanka. Incredibly, legend says the army of Vanaras (monkeys) built a bridge across the ocean to enable Rama (a Hindu Moses) to conquer Sri Lanka, possibly makeing it a 1.75 million year oral tradition. It is proposed to be a land bridge again.
posted by stbalbach at 7:22 AM PST - 57 comments

What is Evil? The question of evil has fascinated humans since the dawn of humanity, and today the topic is of increasing relevance. Consider a page on African evil, a discussion of the Top 10 Evil people of all time, and a compelling page on the seemingly evil acts perpetuated by Americans. What are your views on evil?
posted by Morphic at 6:12 AM PST - 38 comments

The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores and Morrissey is the most enchanting of them all. After years of dithering, mitigating, litigating and downright procrastination, it seems another comeback is in the works. Of the five new songs recently performed in Arizona, at least two of them (The Last Of The Gang To Die and I Like You) are as good as anything he's ever done. I'd say he's all keyed up for a cracking, newly miserable, yet peppy and poetic middle age. Perhaps every day is not like Sunday, after all... [Quicktime for the main link; MP3 for the songs. For the lastest information on The Moz, check out the Mrs Shankly website; Morrissey Solo; Morrissey Tour and Ambitious Outsiders.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:07 AM PST - 35 comments

They want to kill us all Forget the ‘root causes’, says Mark Steyn. The massacre in Bali was part of the continuing Islamofascist war against the West, and those who ignore it are sleepwalking to national suicide I wait now--loaded with my meds--for the Left to call for more understanding, help for the poverty stricken, and understanding. Incidentally, if you turn to http://www.debka.com/ today, you will see that they claim Bin Laden alive and well in Saudi Arabia!
posted by Postroad at 5:33 AM PST - 105 comments

La Speranza - take a surrealistic Sunday stroll through Viennese artist Luigi La Speranza's gallery of illustrations, watercolors, paintings and sculptures.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:28 AM PST - 7 comments

A million Japanese boys, hiding in their rooms. I didn't know about this - but then again, by definition, maybe I wouldn't. Domestic hermits aside, I frequently see behavior I'd identify as "borderline mentally ill" slide right under people's radar here in Tokyo, and I'm certain a nihonjin might think the same thing after a year in my hometowns, New York and San Francisco. What culturally-specific form does neurosis take in your neck of the woods?
posted by adamgreenfield at 2:35 AM PST - 51 comments

Will this comedy ever cross the atlantic? The Office, now half way through its second series, must be the sharpest, funniest and most tragic t.v. comedy the BBC have made in a long time. A spoof documentary set in the office of a paper wholesaler whose manager, David Brent, is obsessed with his motivational bon homie and oblivious to the fact the rest of the world thinks he is a bumptious idiot. The clips give some idea of the style but maybe the humour is too British to travel far.
posted by rolo at 1:44 AM PST - 22 comments

One Left wing site's idea of tolerance and respect for divergent opinions. Truly hysterical (in all meanings of the word) post from the administrator of the Democratic Underground's message board announcing that from now you're only allowed to post messages that they agree with. No pro-Green Party points of view allowed, and certainly no Republicans. After all, they're evil. Not mistaken, mind you, nor misguided. Nope, anyone who's to the right of the Democratic party is evil. This sort of moral absolutism reminds me of, well, the Taliban.
posted by mojohand at 8:12 PM PST - 43 comments

A look into peacekeeping training being conducting in Chile with the U.S. and most South American countries participating. A rare view of the interaction between national militaries to improve good relationships. The pics are great, too.
posted by mcchesnj at 6:09 PM PST - 1 comment

Sean Penn totally disses President Bush in the Washington Post but because he did it in a full page ad and not an op/ed column it is totally unlinkable to those of use on the web, and therefore dies on the vine. Two questions: How can one find the full transcript to Penn's advertisment, and why is it that only Republican movie stars are allowed have their voices heard in political discussions?
posted by tsarfan at 3:30 PM PST - 63 comments

"Clean" Elections Fiasco I have the misfortune to be a voter in Arizona, a state which has instituted a so-called "Clean Elections" system, in which candidates who campaign a certain way qualify to be eligible for funding matching that of other candidates. The goals are to "eliminate special-interests" and "level the playing field", but it has backfired badly. How can I retain my political voice when contributions to my preferred candidate wind up being matched (with taxpayer money) for the other candidates? We're in the middle of a fiscal crisis in this state, and candidates are being funded with millions of dollars of campaign welfare taken from public funds, which (as always) is being used for mudslinging. What part of "Clean" is so confusing? I can only hope that my boy Jeff can work some miracles.
posted by oissubke at 3:10 PM PST - 8 comments

A new type of Anti War Protest: $ for PACs ”MoveOnPAC.org, an Internet site, has raised more than $1 million in 48 hours for what it calls four "heroes" of Congress who opposed the Iraq resolution.” (Wash. Post article 10/17). Better than marching in DC? I gave.
posted by troutfishing at 1:53 PM PST - 16 comments

This news item turned out to be a hoax. Has Reuters been fooled again? I certainly smell a rat... (I know the original mefi link pointed to the BBC, but the BBC picked it up from Reuters)
posted by titboy at 12:48 PM PST - 10 comments

Eldred V. Ashcroft Transcripts are now online.
Maybe someone can help me better understand if it looks like there was a "winner"?
posted by Blake at 11:05 AM PST - 15 comments

A NYTimes book review of Richard Davenport-Hines' 'The Pursuit of Oblivion' by Christine Kenneally talks about trying to help erase the stigma of drug use by placing it in a historical context that 'sees it as part of the repertoire of normal human activities'. Looks like one to put on the shelf next to 'Writing on Drugs' and 'Food of the Gods' :D but I was also thinking it might help raise popular awareness that might support research efforts like HRI's and MAPS!
posted by kliuless at 6:15 AM PST - 5 comments

Big Brother dances with joy.
posted by Beholder at 8:40 PM PST - 33 comments

Is NPR losing out to Christian radio? It's that time of year again, our local NPR station is running their pledge campaign and they're not doing very well. His Radio and K-LOVE are on the rise and they don't have to suckle the government sow to run their businesses.
posted by jasontromm at 7:09 PM PST - 55 comments

www.blackpeopleloveus.com From memepool, but I just couldn't resist and I thought it deserved your attention and discussion. Oh that Sally and Johnny, fo shizzle my nizzle!
posted by Stan Chin at 6:29 PM PST - 35 comments

Who's destined to be a millionaire? A little Friday night Calvinism from the people at Marketplace.
posted by condour75 at 4:11 PM PST - 11 comments

Go Google! People continually invent new games to play with Google and Amazon.com to find curious content and excercise the system. First there was Google Whacking (here and here). Then there was Google fighting, Google sets, Google image whacking, Google Bombing, Google Grokking, Amazon whacking, and Google poetry. What similar games have you played, invented, or enjoyed?
posted by Morphic at 3:56 PM PST - 15 comments

A "spiritual perspective frappé" for the war weary. Some things are perfect, just as they are. Go now and refresh your weary soul with wisdom and a wry smile or two.
posted by Tiger_Lily at 2:51 PM PST - 23 comments

The male species has it easy. Feminist magazine Amp meditates on whether women should hover or plonk when they go to the bathroom. "It's like learning how to whistle. You have to learn how to position your lips for the best results." This article isn't work safe. In fact I'm not sure if it's safe at all.
posted by feelinglistless at 2:22 PM PST - 30 comments

Why Do Marriages Last? Amidst all the psychobabble and religious dogmatics you find on this subject, I found Robyn Parker's review of the relevant literature to be useful, wise and true. After all, aren't the rules of a lasting relationship, whatever your gender or sexuality, the same that govern friendship, loyalty, companionship and fun? Is marriage the secretive exception it's made out to be? Are there really any rules we don't instinctively, from about the age of seven, already know? As some Rabbi once said, the three words that most often save a marriage are not I love you. They are, in fact: I was wrong. Not that easy; but not that difficult either...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:05 PM PST - 36 comments

Hubbert's Peak: the impending oil shortage Is this the REAL reason behind the push to invade Iraq? In 1956. M. King Hubbert, a respected petroleum geologist, predicted - to within a year! - the peak in US oil production: 1970. US oil production has declined every year since. Using the same statistical methods, others now predict a world peak in oil production within a decade or even as early as 2006.
posted by troutfishing at 1:38 PM PST - 21 comments

Smart artists benefit from "piracy". Jane Magazine recently completed their "Reader-Produced CD". The songs were chosen from reader submissions and final selections were made by Jill Cunniff (of Luscious Jackson) and Kendall Jane Meade (of Mascott). All of the songs can be downloaded, which will most likely lead these bands to greater commercial [and financial] success than they would have had without the Jane CD. These artists are smart, and the music is good. Jane shares music all the time, and it's usually good. Kind of an example of the ideas presented in this post in action. Apologies in advance to all the manly men who look at a girly magazine.
posted by valval22 at 1:33 PM PST - 8 comments

Boris Artzybasheff -- the master of the Anthropomorphic who made men out of machines and machines out of men. a master craftsman, with a wide array of techniques at his command, as Alexei Panshin put it. And here is his letter Q contribution to Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation. Submitted for your approval from...
posted by y2karl at 1:13 PM PST - 6 comments

The PowerPoint Anthology of Literature from Daniel Radosh, formerly of Modern Humorist. This collection is a little uneven, but the ones I think are lame you'll probably like, and vice versa. The first slide alone is pure genius.
posted by soyjoy at 1:11 PM PST - 11 comments

The Pocket President. Want an enormous tax cut for the wealthy? Need a pesky environmental regulation indefinitely "reviewed"? With the Pocket President, all this and much more is within your grasp. 7 inches tall, printed on sturdy cardboard, and free shipping! You can even download a sample.
posted by josephtate at 12:36 PM PST - 21 comments

Terrorist Financing is a new report by the Council on Foreign Relations on al Qaeda's financial network. It claims that the Bush administration "appears to have made a policy decision not to use the full power of U.S. influence and legal authorities to pressure or compel other governments to combat terrorist financing more effectively." The most important source of al Qaeda's funds are charities and wealthy individuals from Saudi Arabia. But while the Bush administration may be unwilling to confront the Saudis directly, they are seeking to have their financial assets in Europe frozen.
posted by homunculus at 12:21 PM PST - 2 comments

The New Transatlantic Project "Ultimately, Europeans, precisely because they share our values, are likely to be the most dependable allies we have..." An attempt at exploring (no, overcoming) the US-Europe divide by Ronald Asmus (Council of Foreign Relations) and Kenneth Pollack (Brookings Institution) in the Hoover Institution's latest Policy Review. Anyone taken by prior discussion re Robert Kagan's "Power and Weakness" in prior Policy Review should find this worth a read.
posted by Voyageman at 12:04 PM PST - 2 comments

The West Wing debunker. I have grown to hate this show even though I agree with its politics. The show occasionally brings up interesting topics but it is so goddamned sanctimonious. I worry that people think this is how our executive branch works. I hope this isn't a double post.
posted by McBain at 11:20 AM PST - 46 comments

Mayonnaise. It spawned the discovery of the Casimir effect, which proves that the universe will always expand. Invented in 1756, George Washington Carver seemed to have his hand in it. Not to be confused with its more-disgusting knockoff, mayonnaise has a lot going for it. A favorite Spelling Bee word, a racial litmus test, a hair conditioner--is there anything mayonnaise can't do? Mefi says you can even win prizes with it! What other condiments have spawned theories? Sunday school kids learn about faith and mustard seeds, but is there anything out there for ketchup?
posted by TheManWhoKnowsMostThings at 10:23 AM PST - 100 comments

Our Way: The trouble with being the world's only superpower, by Fareed Zakaria, discusses the U.S.'s role as the world's sole superpower, and gives a historyof the U.S.'s relationships with global institutions. Great reading.
posted by Ty Webb at 10:09 AM PST - 15 comments

kiddie art If you work in an office with lots of people, chances are that you work with a person who hangs pictures up that their kids have drawn. The pictures are always of some stupid flower or a tree with wheels. These pictures suck; I could draw pictures much better. In fact, I can spell, do math and run faster than your kids.
posted by batboy at 9:18 AM PST - 39 comments

"What is lower than a child molester?" asked Alex and Derek King's prosecutor: the author has a couple suggestions. Despite his efforts -- or because of them -- the conviction for the murder of their father is overturned. The jury's forewoman calls for a new trial. Others in Florida doubt that children should be tried as adults at all.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 9:18 AM PST - 4 comments

Hello Kitty remakes "The Blair Witch Project." This is either the most clever or most inane Yahoo! Greeting I've ever seen...wait, is "inane Yahoo! Greeting" redundant? Happy pre-Halloween Friday...does anyone remember TBWP fondly these days, as the nights grow spooky? Going to see "The Ring" tonight?
posted by serafinapekkala at 8:16 AM PST - 32 comments

The Cacophony Society "In a sense, we never create anything new at all. We never claim to come into a town and teach people how to be amusingly subversive. They're already doing it! We just raise the bogus flag, and see who will gather under the flagpole for further mischief."
posted by bunktone at 8:14 AM PST - 8 comments

Wall hangings for your peace loving sims. I've only logged about three sim hours, but this inspires me to boot up my little sim family. When the Sims online comes out, can we have sim protests at the sim white house, or sim mefi protests at mathowie's sim house?
posted by djacobs at 8:11 AM PST - 11 comments

The Melting Snows of Kilimanjaro. Lonnie Thompson, a professor of geology at Ohio State University, writes in the latest issue of Science magazine that the icepack on Mt. Kilimanjaro may disappear within 20 years. Aside from the fact that most of the recent activity could be pegged to global warming, ice cores indicate that a deep drought 4,000 years ago halted the original growth of the icepack. Interesting info on this also available via OSU's research news area here.
posted by PeteyStock at 7:53 AM PST - 13 comments

Braingirl - she's brainy, she's bizarre, she's curiously compelling and she has a sidekick named Bag Boy. See all 8 episodes. Flash & sound effects alert, and not safe for work unless you work at a pretty funkified place.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:48 AM PST - 13 comments

France provided Iraq with aircraft to launch AMDs [arms of mass destruction] And they gave me (I bought it) the Renault Dauphine! Looks like the U.S. is not the only country that our home boys can complain about as far as foreign policy matters.
posted by Postroad at 5:10 AM PST - 24 comments

Enter the peculiar world of Glasgow-based artist David Shrigley. (10 links)
posted by misteraitch at 4:37 AM PST - 15 comments

French Spiderman does it again! Alain Robert has just sucessfully made it two-thirds of the way up the 50 storey 1 Canada Sq in London's Canary Wharf before being arrested by police in a window-cleaning cart. It's like a war zone down there. As soon as any news links appear i'll post them here.
posted by andyHollister at 2:12 AM PST - 39 comments

"You can call it 'Journeys with George'... but spell it with a 'G'..." A network television producer's video diary of her year and a half-long roadtrip on the campaign trail with George W. Bush during the 2000 election. An all-access pass to behind the scenes with W, from the primaries to Bush imitating Will Farrell imitating Bush. [more inside]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 11:48 PM PST - 12 comments

Mother Earth is Lookin' Good These Days --Maybe I just have a lack of culture, but I didn't know anything about earth erotica photography. Also didn't know if I should be viewing the site at work.
posted by DailyBread at 11:16 PM PST - 24 comments

England and USA disagree on the death penalty. Jordan is back in the NBA. The New Yorker interviews Radiohead. Men like action babes. A foster girl dies alone. Bob Dylan doesn't dig newfangled music. A bunch of folks of questionable coolness try to cash in on Marvin Gaye. Find this historical distribution of your surname. Rabbits still don't make sense. The date? September 10, 2001, possibly the most forgotten day in American history.
posted by oissubke at 10:15 PM PST - 37 comments

Woody Harrelson, the man who among other things has been arrested for hanging on the Golden Gate Bridge to protest redwood logging, wrote a surprisingly lucid op-ed about Iraq in the Guardian today. "I have been here three months doing a play in the West End. I am having the time of my life. I love England, the people, the parks, the theatre. The play is great and the audiences have been a dream. Probably I should just relax, be happy and talk about the weather, but this war is under my skin - it affects my sleep." Regardless of your politics, you've got to admit he's not a bad writer.
posted by joebob at 5:32 PM PST - 57 comments

The international language of Apple. The same music, the same look, the same clothes. The ads may be in Japanese, I may not understand a word, but if I didn't already own one, I'd feel compelled to Switch.
posted by blefr at 3:57 PM PST - 46 comments

A Sobering Message to Drunk Drivers. "Not everyone who gets hit by a drunk driver dies."
posted by uftheory at 2:27 PM PST - 38 comments

Come on down!!! You're the next contestant on the Price is Right! A fixture of television since 1972, who can forget the Pricing Games or the lovely Barker Beauties? [warning: swimsuit porn, pop-ups, gator, what would your mother think?] My favorite pricing game was Plinko. Learn how to build your own Plinko for your home and fine tune your mathematical strategy and hopefully get on the Record Book. Even if Bob Barker thinks the show's going to end soon, you can participate in Fantasy Internet adaptions if it does. I bid one dollar!
posted by Stan Chin at 2:09 PM PST - 14 comments

MAME Rock: Thankfully, Grand Master Peter is back to his old tricks! [Requires Shockwave and speakers, not to mention a good memory and a high Rawk tolerance threshold.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:19 PM PST - 10 comments

Dear Soldier of the U.S. Military: "With all due respect, I want you to know that if you participate in this conflict, you are not serving me, and I don't support you." A West Point graduate weighs in on the impending war.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 1:13 PM PST - 123 comments

"Verbal" Amon Tobin throws down some old skool TRON visuals. (Quicktime Required) Amon Tobin not only has come out with a dastardly new album but he's also on tour in the US this next few months; the guy is a master of the sampler and should not be missed. The video rocks hard as well, I'd like to see this one on the big screen. I sound like a frickin' marketing weasel (which I'm not), but this guy deserves all the publicity he can get.
posted by jeremias at 12:19 PM PST - 22 comments

Pacronyms An "alphabetical list of acronyms, abbreviations, initials, and common names of federal political action committees (PACs)." And if you ask me, there's TDMOT.
posted by WolfDaddy at 12:15 PM PST - 3 comments

The end of free online news is in sight according to Reuters. I think they are premature, but assuming for a moment that this is in fact the trend, what will this do to Metafilter? {More inside}
posted by BentPenguin at 10:34 AM PST - 42 comments

Hydrogen Cars. I had been expecting something akin to the Sinclair C5, but these are full production models within the Ford Focus range. The article predicts that although they'll initially appear in niche markets such as public transport, in a few years we'll all be able to drive about in them, creating a cleaner, happier world.
posted by feelinglistless at 10:31 AM PST - 23 comments

"I'm not sure which planet they live on" While Wesley Clark stumps for War on Public Radio’s darling station WBUR, “Hawks in the Bush administration may be making deadly miscalculations on Iraq, says Gen. Anthony Zinni, Bush's Middle East envoy.” To answer Zinni’s question: they’re certainly NOT living on planet “accidental armageddon”, or planet “C.I.A. Warns That a U.S. Attack May Ignite Terror” or planet "Butler Fears Israel could Use Nukes". I’d say they’re on planet Shifting rationals for war, planet Pax Americana, planet “Bullish on War”, planet “G.I.Joe’s Forward Command Post”, planet “Universal US Draft”, planet “Blanket immunity for US” and when they’re not thinking about war, they go to planet “upward wealth transfer” and also hang out sometimes at planet “genetically targeted weapons as politically usefull tools and perception reengineering via nanobots, psychedelic drugs and valium” But they stay far away from planet “Origins of Fascism in the US”. And they hang garlic on their beds to ward off planet "Is Bush a commie mole trying to destroy capitalism?" from the Krugman nebula.
posted by troutfishing at 10:29 AM PST - 34 comments

The Ceramic and Metal Sculptures of Clayton G. Bailey Take a look at Bailey's Studio Cam to see what he's been working on lately. It might be one of his life-size metal robot sculptures or a sonic pop ray gun or maybe it's Bender! (via In4mador)
posted by KathyK at 10:28 AM PST - 6 comments

HTML Gone Bad: We know that laughter is the best medicine, so our group of scientists work nonstop collecting and categorizing lousy web pages. We spend weeks exposing each page to constant ridicule and heavy sarcasm. After they are tested, we pass the links along to you.
posted by Fabulon7 at 9:51 AM PST - 14 comments

The Sound of Magic: an amazing homage to the ambient sounds of various Disney Mecca, is also an amazing site: beautiful, whimsical, nicely architected, and with plenty of content [via DollarShort]
posted by silusGROK at 9:31 AM PST - 8 comments

Crapola.com - finally a place to purchase Unsavoury Products Online: postmodernist door knobs, Sodom & Gemorrah Bible Playset, Six Bags of Yak Vomit, and more. Also check out their Fatal Copyright Warning.
posted by jacknose at 8:50 AM PST - 5 comments

Space Needle Missing from the Seattle Skyline? (subscription) The rumor is someone bought the Space Needle in Seattle and moved it to their house. No! It was an ad for the lottery. Do TV channels need to make it clearer that something is an ad, or do people need to be more careful watching TV?
posted by scudder at 8:21 AM PST - 28 comments

An example of innovative web design This was a site made for last tuesday's Buffy episode. I thought it was a really good example of what could be done with design...and there's not even any flash. Just the poems and pictures of a fictional girl who knows she's about to die.
posted by nyxxxx at 6:21 AM PST - 60 comments

The US government recently released a draft of the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, essentially it advocates ensuring security through consensus, with vendors, government agencies and consumers taking responsibility for the tools they use. That's not enough for Marcus Ranman who in the TISC newsletter advocates passing legislation mandating consumers and ISPs to install firewalls and anti-viral software. At what point does an individuals (corporate or consumer) chosen level of computer security become a concern for the federal government?
posted by cedar at 6:20 AM PST - 7 comments

The shockwaves from Bali ripple outward. John Sidel explains the likely impact on Indonesia, whilst Clive James and Germaine Greer discuss the impact on Australia. Thanks to Miguel for the two lost links. The Independent leader which caused such offence is here. For many, for whom 9/11 was remote, Bali is close and personal.
posted by grahamwell at 4:32 AM PST - 57 comments

Museums in Japan: 387 total. Many in English.
posted by hama7 at 4:11 AM PST - 22 comments

Surviving a Sniper A great article about saving one of the D.C. sniper victims: The doors to the Bowie Health Center had just been unlocked, and Tom Lyons was catching up on paperwork before the usual parade of cut fingers, sore throats and headaches began. [...] He was savoring one last cup of coffee when he heard someone shout for him in the hallway. We've got a gunshot wound!
posted by tommyspoon at 4:02 AM PST - 26 comments

My name's not Brian! Ryan Adams gives a fan a refund and asks him to leave a concert when said fan asks him to play "Summer of '69". Have you ever been to a concert where the performer lost it at the audience? I guess even folk rockers can be divas...
posted by PenDevil at 2:02 AM PST - 119 comments

Imagine my glee in finding Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable online and searchable. Then, imagine my glee in finding out that Tom and Jerry have a non-animated past. AND they're a drink. AND they're a play!
They (the originals, that is) used to be wildly popular. Now they're all but forgotten, except in cat / mouse form. What wildly popular "works" will our great grandchildren forget completely? (I had to wash my cache out with soap after that last one)
posted by condour75 at 12:09 AM PST - 11 comments

Arsonists try to burn down a mosque in Melbourne, Australia I was going to title this link 'Another terrorist attack', but I was concerned that would unduly alarm people: Deputy Victorian Police Commissioner Bill Kelly said police had no evidence to suggest the Doncaster attack was a response to the Bali bombing. "It's not being looked at as a retaliation attack, it's just being looked at as an arson attack on a building," he said. "But obviously given what has happened last Saturday that puts another dimension into the investigation to follow-up on to make sure it either is or isn't politically or religiously motivated." Terrorists or arsonists? I suppose it depends upon whether you're Muslim or not. Sounds like terrorism to me. But like us easy-going Aussies like to say: 'No worries. She'll be right, mate.' Damn them all.
posted by chrisgregory at 12:06 AM PST - 27 comments

Everything you ever wanted to know about sunken ships. Passenger liners from the Titanic to the Andrea Doria. Military vessels from aircraft carriers like the USS Forrestall to submarines like the Kursk. I found this site by accident and got lost in it, some of the sections are just gorgeous, even though all the stories are tragic.
posted by biscotti at 11:13 PM PST - 11 comments

North Korea is working on a nuclear weapon?? Maybe that whole Axis Of Evil thing wasn't too far fetched.
posted by Degaz at 7:09 PM PST - 99 comments

Not content on resting on its laurels, BMW brings in a new season of The Hire on bmwfilms.com. w00t.
posted by hobbes at 6:25 PM PST - 9 comments

Hundreds of people with criminal records in Maryland may have been allowed to purchase guns illegally this year because the state temporarily stopped conducting background checks for the FBI.[More Inside]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 6:23 PM PST - 18 comments

Infant's nose and lips bitten off by a wild raccoon that was illegally kept as a family pet. Luckily, surgeons were able to re-attach them. "Doctors at the Iowa Clinic say wild animal bites are 100% preventable if parents don't allow the animals to rome freely in a home." Duh. Who's fault is this, if anybody's?
posted by Kevin Sanders at 6:17 PM PST - 26 comments

"The only thing that Berretta has is the sales people." The Standard issue M-9 has left Afghanistan vets feeling shafted. Some Marines have opted to carry .45s. But it's not just the pistol that's under-powered. The M-16 and its 5.56mm round lack stopping power too. It doesn't have the greatest track record from its first adoption during the Vietnam War. Despite the glowing report of Project Agile. How many times do we have to witness penny-pinching Pentagon Wars putting our armed forces at greater risk?
posted by john at 5:29 PM PST - 38 comments

Here is a list of the ten most dangerous jobs. Of course, I suppose that depends on who you ask. But don't stop there! The Bureau of Labor Statistics site has lots more interesting (albeit overwhelming) information.
posted by FilmMaker at 5:00 PM PST - 30 comments

A mummified hound dog in Georgia, "carefully preserved by the resin of a hollow chestnut oak," finally gets a name.
posted by anathema at 4:01 PM PST - 15 comments

Japanese abducted by North Korea in Japan for brief visit. After many years of denying accusations, North Korea finally came clean last month and admitted to having kidnapped a number of Japanese civilians. Of the thirteen they admit to abducting, they say only five are still alive, and these five have been allowed a visit to Japan this week. On a less encouraging note, however, the five survivors were not allowed to bring their children or spouses and arrived donning pins bearing an image of the Great Leader. Is Kim Jong Il genuinely turning over a new leaf, is this just another part of a heartless cash grab scheme, or did the "axis of evil" speech intimidate them into softening up for a moment?
posted by shoos at 3:42 PM PST - 20 comments

Platforms A summary of Democratic, Republican, and other party platforms over the last 150 years. Prettied up, current versions can be found for Republican,Democrat,Green, and Libertarian parties (and probably others!). Do you read such things? Do you find that when you read them, your perception of the party matches with the text of the platform? Do you find yourself persuaded by the text of any platform? Provoked to thoughts on policy?
posted by namespan at 2:51 PM PST - 7 comments

My Gun was as Tall as Me is a new report by Human Rights Watch about children forced to become soldiers in Burma (Myanmar). They estimate as many as 70,000 soldiers are under 18, some as young as 11. (Previous posts about Burma and modern slavery.)
posted by homunculus at 2:38 PM PST - 4 comments

It's New, It's Wonderful, it's....No Cry Onions! from the nature.com website, scientists have identified the enzyme that causes a "tickling" of your tear ducts, ergo the ensuing crying. More genetically altered food - how are we feeling about this?
posted by djspicerack at 2:17 PM PST - 36 comments

What Mark Twain Didn't Say
posted by archimago at 1:31 PM PST - 30 comments

Legato and Avant La Nuit are two exquisite interactive pieces by Nicolas Clauss, a "painter who stopped 'traditional painting' to use multimedia and the internet as a canvas", working from his Flying Puppet studio in Paris. [ Requires Shockwave. Use your mouse.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:46 PM PST - 10 comments

Iraq run by the Corleone family? Found a good story on Saddam Hussein’s two sons who seem to be poised to rule. It's reported that Saddam's favorite movie is The Godfather and the similarities between the film and the family is pretty interesting.
posted by rampage at 12:39 PM PST - 23 comments

Attention all Peters, Parkers, or both: Your name may earn you a free copy of Spiderman on VHS or DVD.... Thats if you don't mind faxing over vital documents to Ebay subsidiary Half.com.
posted by dr_dank at 12:37 PM PST - 6 comments

Nyaah nyah nyaaah nyah! The Rules of Childhood. While searching for the origin of "Jinx! Pinch! Poke!" I came across Greasy Kid Stuff. Nostalgics rejoice! Regress into terminology like the "cootie shot" and proven methods of gaining elementary school fame. Also check out the radio program. Anything missing from this list?
posted by Stan Chin at 12:19 PM PST - 75 comments

Map-making for fun and profit! How would you like to be born on Buttlickin Ave? Is this for real? Or Someone messing with yahoo's map software? Inquiring minds want to know!
posted by Maxor at 10:39 AM PST - 33 comments

An Awkward Situation Flirting strangers suddenly find themselves a little closer than they wanted to be. Have you ever been in an awkward situation with a not-quite-stranger?
posted by oissubke at 9:52 AM PST - 38 comments

Woman gives birth to her own grandchildren. This just seems wrong.
posted by skwm at 8:15 AM PST - 52 comments

Timehunt. Time, philosophy, alchemy, tons of interactive puzzles and great flash. I can't tell you more, I'm still figuring it out.
posted by talos at 8:11 AM PST - 9 comments

Bush skeptical of ballistic fingerprinting. This article talks about Bush's (and the NRA's) reluctance to set up a national ballistic fingerprinting system to trace bullets back to the guns which fired them. Some feel this technology could be helpful in finding the DC sniper. Apparently, legislation to set up this system has been in the works for about 2 years, but this is the first I've heard of it. Any MeFi people know more about this?
posted by botono9 at 8:02 AM PST - 92 comments

Maybe they should have let Lance Bass on this one. A Soyuz rocket explodes 29 seconds after takeoff, killing one and injuring eight from the blast. Although it was not carrying any material destined for the International Space Station, launch delays caused by the investigation into the explosion might hurt the IIS project in the long run.
posted by LuxFX at 7:38 AM PST - 18 comments

The Free World is a resource for hosting all kinds of useful information: security information, cryptographic research, programs for the manipulation of patented or reverse engineered data formats (never mind that only processes can be patented and data format patents aren't legal in the first place) and possibly reverse engineering tools. One problem though. If you are a citizen of the USA, or under the jurisdiction of the USA, the license forbids you access. Why? The DCMA.
posted by salmacis at 7:32 AM PST - 3 comments

The DMCA isn't the only Dumb Law. So may Strange Laws, even Sex Laws. There's many fun Obsolete Laws still on the books. The list Goes On and On.
Not sure what laws to follow, try A Law Librarian, or, better yet, WWJD?
posted by Blake at 6:48 AM PST - 6 comments

The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S. to secure there a free society. We will accomplish this by first reforming state law, opting out of federal mandates, and finally negotiating directly with the federal government for appropriate political autonomy. We will be a community of freedom-loving individuals and families, and create a shining example of liberty for the rest of the nation and the world.
posted by BirdD0g at 6:31 AM PST - 67 comments

Is it all about oil? Iraq war protesters insist a war wil be about oil. Others say no. Here the writer argues that it is both--it is not all about oil but we will control the oil should we take control.
posted by Postroad at 4:49 AM PST - 49 comments

Saddam Hussein wins 100% of the vote in a hilarious display of so called democracy
posted by JonnyX at 2:38 AM PST - 65 comments

Led Zeppelin Reunion Tour. Collectively 168 years old, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and best-Who-guitarist-ever Jimmy Page (Warning: Geocities link, but so worth it, dude) have buried the hatchet and agreed to tour. Their collective age is 168. They will be joined by Jason, son of John. No news on reunion plans for The Firm.
_{If you haven't heard of Led Zeppelin, you can learn more about them in this FPP from last week.}
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:07 AM PST - 33 comments

It was bound to happen. Danger Porn is a site made exclusively for the Danger Sidekick and the browsing of porn.
posted by suprfli at 10:43 PM PST - 23 comments

What is Dick Rutan up to now? The reigning master of innovation in aerospace is up to something, as shown in the linked photo. But what is it? Rutan is also helping to bring us rocket powered airplanes and, of course, flew Voyager around the world not so long ago.
posted by billsaysthis at 8:09 PM PST - 22 comments

NeXTCube going up in flames. A photo shoot from 1993 that mirrored the companies history or just really cool. Too bad there is only one picture.
posted by riffola at 8:05 PM PST - 12 comments

Pavarotti: not enough food in world!
Luciano "If it weren't for singing I'd never stop eating" Pavarotti (who was once a UN 'messenger of peace') is now an official spokesman for the UN FAO's Anti-Hunger campaign. Yeah... Pavarotti => food => war on hunger??? Isn't that sorta like making Gene Simmons official spokesman for the 'War on De-Flowered Virgins'? [FYI: tomorrow is World Food Day].
posted by blackholebrain at 7:27 PM PST - 18 comments

Nuke Not Nuke Not News? *I do not endorse the source* However, one should consider the implications if this time it's not a fantasy. Are nuclear weapons now a poor-man's weapon? Is it time to call James Bond?
posted by kablam at 5:10 PM PST - 42 comments

Military may take part in DC Sniper Hunt The Pentagon is making some noise about possibly using military personnel and equipment in the hunt for the DC area sniper. I am normally not a paranoid conspiracy type but... Would it be unthinkable that the government could be behind the whole thing. First they put out trained snipers to kill random victims and scare the hell out of the public. Then the military come in and save the day. At the same time they set a precedent for using the military to "fight crime" in the country. While I don't think this is the case, would you put it past the current administration?
posted by Blubble at 3:51 PM PST - 76 comments

AOL kills the pop-up? "By ending third-party pop-ups and merchandise sales we are giving our members what they want," says Chief Executive Jon Miller. Clever strategy. Since there's now hardly any new users to attract to their service, they're trying to appeal to slightly more experienced net users. Are you annoyed by pop-ups? Would you sign up to AOL?
posted by tapeguy at 2:40 PM PST - 46 comments

Dear Friends: American Photgraphs of Men Together Partially inspired by the male imagery I found when reading this MeTa thread, I went looking for imagery of men expressing affection in non-pornographic photography, and was extremely affected by this particular exhibition. We would classify these images today as homoerotic. But are they truly such, or merely our interpretation of how men "should" behave toward one another in the 21st century projected onto 19th and early 20th century imagery? And why aren't men allowed to be as touchingly affectionate toward one another today as they were more than 100 years ago?
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:32 PM PST - 63 comments

MAAD: Muslims Against Advertising. In the spirit of Adbusters and other such organizations, a group of inner city Muslims living in the UK (Birmingham) have decided to fight back against "sleazy posters" that clutter their neighborhoods. MAAD will "improve" posters (advertising) with strategic attacks. Check out their comprehensive guide to the alteration of outdoor advertising.
posted by jacknose at 12:37 PM PST - 27 comments

Beer + Bums = Free Housing. Being a bum isn't easy. You have to panhandle lots of money, go Dumpster diving for treasure and hit up the friendly neighborhood liquor store a few times a day. Luckily, Seattle is finally recognizing how tough it is to bum for booze. Fat Tire with that free apartment, anyone? (Via The Raven)
posted by Happydaz at 11:23 AM PST - 46 comments

If you can't stand the heat, better stick to the kitchen of your dreams... Reading about the new industrial home chic in last week's Time and The Wall Street Journal, with its Viking and SubZero worship, how couldn't one be reminded of Mark Shatzker's now classic "My Dream Kitchen" piece for McSweeney's? In the light of all this fetichism, it deserves to be read afresh. For a sobering dessert, may I propose a look at Julia Child's kitchen, now in the Smithsonian?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:02 AM PST - 34 comments

What makes a serial killer? America has 6% of the world's population, but 75% of the serial killers (30-50 in total). And why are most killers male while most victims are female? Would you rather go to a thrill seeker or an angel of death? Can you reform one when you catch one?
posted by twine42 at 10:01 AM PST - 36 comments

Elephant in the living room: A radical Islamic Nuclear Pakistan (NYT reg. : name-metafilter password-metafilter) "Hard-line Islamic parties did unexpectedly well in Pakistan's election last week, and Pervez Musharraf's hold on power may be slipping. Do I need to point out that Pakistan is a lot bigger than Iraq, and already has nuclear weapons?...These guys [Bush Adm]want to fight a conventional war; since Al Qaeda won't oblige, they'll attack someone else who will [Iraq]. And watching from the alley, the terrorists are pleased. " -Paul Krugman, once again forced to state the obvious; the US is, effectively, helping with Al Qaeda's goal of radicalizing Islamic populations. In parts of Pakistan, they call Musharaff "Busharaff", and Nick Kristoff notes "Even in Kuwait, where Yankees have the best possible claim on Arab gratitude, a significant minority of men and women regard us as worms" and that "The most common name given to Pakistani boys born after 9/11 in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province reportedly was Osama." What does this have to do with a war in Iraq? Well.........
posted by troutfishing at 9:19 AM PST - 36 comments

Joni Mitchell on the state of the music business:
I just think it's a cesspool. I hope it all goes down the crapper. I would never take another deal in the record business, which means I may not record again . . . But I'll be damned if I'll line their pockets.
Also, Janis Ian on the effect of the internet on music sales.
posted by mikrophon at 9:07 AM PST - 42 comments

Mother Teresa fingered This is actually a rather shocking story because the criteria for a miracle at Lourdes, for example, are very strict. That's why there are so few of them.
posted by alloneword at 7:54 AM PST - 43 comments

Playing Chicken with Politics. What do you do when a defecting party from your coalition ends up in another coalition with your opposition (and thereby removing you from power in the local legislature)? Why you get a giant chicken to follow the defecting party's chairman around for two weeks! Is this just political grandstanding? And even if so would it be effective? Would it work anywhere else?
posted by PenDevil at 7:20 AM PST - 5 comments

The Fighting Sixties. "In 1962, faced with a resurgent fascist movement, young Jewish men and women came together to oppose them." Searchlight magazine, through a comprehensive guide to the Jewish 1962 Committee (62 Group) presents a thorough historical rundown of anti-fascist activity in London. Eye witness accounts of London Battlegrounds, intelligence led actions, multi-racial, anti-fascist gangs and local heroes fighting back - stories to remember but also to warm the cockles of the heart.
posted by niceness at 4:00 AM PST - 4 comments

Wallace and Gromit fans can now download one of ten short films from the BBC website. There are low (1.38 meg), medium (2.59 meg) and high (4.3 meg) quality versions available. To save, right click on the links and select "save as".
posted by ralawrence at 3:39 AM PST - 17 comments

In 1924 George Antheil caused a riot with his ballet score for 'percussion orchestra, two pianists, seven electric bells, 3 airplane propellors, a siren, and 16 synchronized player pianos'. In 1933, Hedy Lamarr caused a sensation by appearing nude on film. In 1942, Antheil and Lamarr jointly filed a patent for a secret communications system, having thought up 'an interesting scheme to control armed torpedoes over long distances without the enemy detecting them or jamming their transmissions' over dinner.
posted by misteraitch at 3:31 AM PST - 12 comments

Bush Doubted on 9/11 Panel Angry lawmakers accused the White House yesterday of secretly trying to derail creation of an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks while professing to support the idea. The White House responded by renewing its pledge of support for the proposal and suggesting an agreement was near.
posted by tranceformer at 3:15 AM PST - 38 comments

Strike at Government Lab Enters Third Month. This is happening at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, which studies highly contagious viruses. Maintenance workers are on strike and the replacement workers have been involved with missing equipment and an accident. The official site boldly declares that "Not once in our more than 40 years of operation has an animal pathogen escaped from Plum Island." Somehow I am not filled with confidence. And, while they say they only deal with animal pathogens, there is a lot of crossover with Foot and Mouth and West Nile. Should we be worried about this?
posted by sciatica at 11:13 PM PST - 3 comments

Can the current prohibition really be blamed on one guy? First he tells Congress that "marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind" and then World War 2 comes and farmers are encouraged to grow it. After the War, he turns around and tells Congress that it could be used by the Russians to make our men lazy and pacifistic. If he had kept his original argument, our men would be insane killers against the Russian army. What would the country be like if there never was a HARRY J. ANSLINGER ?
posted by Degaz at 7:27 PM PST - 25 comments

Why worry about the economy/job market/war/(insert newest overlord to welcome here) when the world is just going to end anyways? A humorous take on the many, many ways the universe could cease to exist, manmade and otherwise.
posted by qDot at 6:01 PM PST - 11 comments

Lowbrow Art takes its imagery from cartoons , consumer packaging, girlie magazines, big-eyed kitsch, and space-age bachelor pad nostalgia, then combines them into surreal and often nightmarish compositions that appeal to the lowest common denominator in all of us.
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:01 PM PST - 7 comments

Can biaised TV coverage of motorsports events be bought? The Aussport Post says it can. According to the linked article, Ford Australia signed a deal with Network 10, which has exclusive rights to telecast the V8 Supercars series, ensuring that other car manufacturers would be unable to advertise during telecasts of the series, in addition to guarantees of a certain amount of coverage of their cars during the series. Ironically, the car that lead the first 30 laps of the biggest race of the year, the Bathurst 1000, did not carry any Ford signage.
posted by dg at 5:06 PM PST - 5 comments

A New Milestone for Video Games? "Three of the nation's top retailers, including Wal Mart, on Monday said they had refused to carry a new video game billed as the first major release to feature full-action nudity and with prostitutes and pimps as major characters." I enjoyed their "banned ads" myself.
posted by owillis at 5:00 PM PST - 35 comments

Philosophy or religion? Some people like it, some hate it, some have even annotated it. But however you choose to define it, The Book of Heresies is an interesting approach to the idea of disorganized religion in the modern world.
posted by nick.a at 3:04 PM PST - 19 comments

Those of you old enough to remember watching sporting events in the late 70's and early 80's may remeber a gentleman with a rainbow colored wig who enjoyed holding up a sign reading JOHN 3:16. That gentleman was named Rollen Stewart and while he was ubiquitous for a time, he came to sad and bizarre end. His rise and fall detailed in this article and a short movie is an interesting cautionary tale about the nature of celebrity in a media saturated world.
posted by jonmc at 1:49 PM PST - 12 comments

Hail Mary, full of.... um.... what was that, again? The only Pope many of us have known, John Paul II, has decided that a millenium is long enough to change a prayer. Odd that two millenia are not enough to revisit female and married priests.
posted by dwivian at 1:32 PM PST - 39 comments

Just Duct-y..... Hmmm. Duct tape seems to be a fix for everything, even curing warts. Err...don't try this on the genital kind, I guess.
posted by bivouac at 1:18 PM PST - 16 comments

Brawny Man Finalists In the most tremendously important link of the day, the time has come for the public to select who will be the one and only Brawny man. The field has been narrowed down to several finalists. Which one will it be? Whose pecs will reign supreme?
posted by oissubke at 1:10 PM PST - 23 comments

Colleges losing money to students using cell phones. I suppose this only makes sense considering the popularity of wireless phones but I just never associated long distance charges as a money making proposition for colleges.
posted by cmdnc0 at 1:03 PM PST - 20 comments

Microsoft counters Mac's 'Switch' campaign using the testimony of an unnamed 'freelance writer' who seems to be all sorts of things, including a stock photography model.
posted by Hall at 1:01 PM PST - 51 comments

History of Breakdancing Casual fans of hip hop, breakdancing was a fad whose moment passed before the end of the '80s, tossed into the decade's time capsule along with acid wash and decent John Hughes movies.

Breakdancing may have died, but the b-boy, one of four original elements of hip hop (also included: the MC, the DJ, and the graffiti artist) lives on. To those who knew it before it was tagged with the name breakdancing, to those still involved in the scene that they will always know as b-boying, the tradition is alive and, well, spinning.

posted by DailyBread at 1:00 PM PST - 17 comments

Remember Brendan Thompson, the little boy with terminal cancer whose neighborhood put together an early Halloween so he could trick-or-treat? Well, he lost his battle on Thursday morning, but it sounds like his last month was a good one. (scroll to second story)
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:22 PM PST - 5 comments

The fate of Israel’s 10 lost tribes, which, after being driven from ancient Palestine in the eighth century B.C. by Assyrian conquerors, disappeared into ethnic oblivion, ranks among history’s biggest mysteries. Some Israeli rabbis believe descendants of the lost tribes number more than 35 million around the world and could help offset the sharply increasing Palestinian population. The Bnei Menashe of India are part of the solution to Israel’s demographic problems.
posted by stbalbach at 11:48 AM PST - 77 comments

How to build a bomb isn't all there is to the Internet as press would have you think. Anyway it's harder than just getting some plans, as this guy found out. So why not build a bomb shelter instead? Or build your own train, hovercraft, speedboat, car or plane - can't fly - don't worry build a flight simulator! Toast your success with DIY firewater cooked with your solar furnace. Enjoy your CB radio, listen to MP3s or toy with your sextant. And with all the kinky clothes and loads of pervy toys to make who has time to build bombs? I can see the bumper stickers now "Make leg spreaders, not war!"
posted by DrDoberman at 11:47 AM PST - 13 comments

Critique of the Pax Americana by Jay Bookman; a response by Donald Kagan, one of the plan's architects; and a response to Kagan by Bookman. (via Tapped)
posted by Ty Webb at 11:43 AM PST - 38 comments

Tools you can use. In my line of work, I'm often tasked with finding out information about local telephone numbers. This website is an invaluable aid to that end such as the ability to type in someone's area code and prefix and find out where the number is located, or to find out all the prefixes in a given area (ratecenter). Now you too can identify strange unidentified phone numbers your Caller ID reports to you.
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:04 AM PST - 17 comments

"No sir, that's not my fido." Iranian cleric denounces the "moral depravity" of owning dogs, and calls for their arrest. (Both dogs and owners.) "In our country there is freedom of speech, but not freedom for corruption," he said. Why do we pretend to understand the culture of the middle east?
posted by woil at 10:26 AM PST - 58 comments

Facing Time: A family's yearly self-portrait from 1976 to 2002 is both uplifting and unsettling; a bit like human life itself. How does one separate the morbid fascination with aging from the spiritual joy of growth? Not to mention the element of voyeurism... [From ZoneZero, via Eclectica.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:19 AM PST - 30 comments

So, I saw an interesting film this weekend. Here's a great site about the experiment on which it was based. Here's another equally disturbing experiment. Or you can just have fun running some psychological test on yourself. But, at the end of the day, who are we? Of what are we capable?
posted by pjgulliver at 10:04 AM PST - 15 comments

Wisconsin "loses" 2,900 sex offenders. It seems that the state of Wisconsin has "misplaced" approximately 2,900 of it's 9,000+ population of registered sex offenders. Apparently, they've moved within or out of the state without letting the state know. Jim Stingl of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel thinks we should all pitch in and help find those missing offenders, and offers some ways he's helping out already
posted by djspicerack at 9:19 AM PST - 17 comments

Adipose Nation: It's Time To Tax The Fat A Swiftian proposition to create a "glutton tax" for the ever-growing numbers of obese Americans. This topic is being thrown around a lot these days. Yesterday's New York Times (nyt registration req'd) presented a more factual, sober accounting of it stating yet again, that nearly two-thirds of Americans adults 20 to 74 years old are classified as overweight.
posted by ubueditor at 9:15 AM PST - 49 comments

Cruelty. (.swf file) Via the NYT Review of Books. Felix Jung hijacks your cursor (briefly) for a poetry break.
posted by Skot at 9:03 AM PST - 6 comments

They don't mean it Maureen Dowd suggests an Orwellian vision in Washington, wherein the Democrats and their Republican opponents say what they don't mean and mean what they don't say.
posted by Postroad at 3:44 AM PST - 26 comments

24.7 Million pounds of chicken/turkey meat recalled Because potentially infected by a dangerous bacteria (?) that can be destroyed by cooking meat to a temperature of at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Just FYI
posted by elpapacito at 7:30 PM PST - 41 comments

19-year-old student behind Finland's deadliest peacetime attack last friday found inspiration from the internet and was said to be a skilled bomb-expert. And yes, the internet as the source of all evil is being heavily discussed in the Finnish media again.
posted by inkeri at 3:57 PM PST - 31 comments

bob dylan covers don henley. bob dylan has been doing great covers on his latest tour. also 'brown sugar' by the stones and 'old man' by neil young. and lots of warren zevon who has untreatable lung cancer.
posted by alfredogarcia at 1:32 PM PST - 25 comments

30 years ago, a group of Uruguayan rugby players traveled to Chile to play a game against a local team. Their plane crashed in the Andes Mountains. The 27 who survived the crash were forced to eat their teammates in order to survive. After 72 days in the mountains, 16 were rescued. Their story was told in the book Alive and later a movie by the same name. Today those survivors reunited in Chile and finally played the rugby game. The Uruguayans won.
posted by einarorn at 1:03 PM PST - 9 comments

Mike Males, Ph.D., professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz, author and pro-youth advocate, thinks kids are getting a bad rap these days. He is very fond of pointing out that poverty and grown-ups are the biggest threats to teens today. His latest book, "Kids and Guns", is available for free online (HTML version on his homepage, PDF version at Common Courage Press). He even knocks the drug policy reform movement for making the same "save the children" diatribes as their opponents. His site isn't exactly the prettiest thing I've ever seen, but I haven't been so engrossed by something on the web in a long, long time.
posted by botono9 at 11:57 AM PST - 10 comments

Nature versus Nurture. A London teenager who had a bit of history and had been excluded from school was placed in public school by a television programme. He appears to have excelled, though how he is top of a class of 15 year olds at Latin is beyond me, unless he was a surreptitious Latin reader throughout his early childhood. I think there may be some ethical issues around this, but it does suggest that thousands of children are being systematically failed by the education system. Long live Rousseau. As it were.
posted by Fat Buddha at 10:15 AM PST - 41 comments

Edible books. The International Edible Book Festival is held yearly on April 1 in cities around the world. (Yes, I know, April 1, but this is apparently real.) Mmmm, I could just eat up a juicy novel right about now, like Great Eggspectations!
Link swiped from The Cellar's Image of the Day
posted by Slithy_Tove at 12:14 AM PST - 7 comments

Bomb blast in Bali Indonesia In what is believed to be a terrorist attack, a destroyed two crowded clubs in Bali. 150 people are confirmed dead, including an unknown number of Australians, Britons, French and Canadians, and authorities say the death toll is likely to rise.
posted by Tarrama at 9:40 PM PST - 118 comments

Tightwad Chic, Baby! The Thrift Revolution Begins! According to today's Observer, prodigality is out and thrift is in. Magazines like Budget Living and Cheap Date are thriving, while good old Tightwad Gazette and Frugal Fun have become modern classics of extreme mean-fisted hedonism. Can Cheapskate Cool, as practiced by Jarvis Cocker and other figureheads of popular culture, be a long way off? Is saving fun? Does it hit capitalism where it hurts or merely reinforce it? Or perhaps (sorry, can't resist!) you yourself have some penny-pinching tips of your own...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:33 PM PST - 34 comments

“President Bush’s case against Saddam Hussein ... relied on a slanted and sometimes entirely false reading of the available US intelligence, government officials and analysts claimed yesterday.” Another article on the same subject says, “Rumsfeld’s recent remark that the United States has ‘bulletproof’ evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Hussein struck many in the intelligence community as an exaggerated assessment of the available evidence.” One paper explains the differences this way, “The C.I.A. has to maintain its credibility for objective estimates. The White House is mobilizing the public and preparing foreign nations for a potential American invasion of Iraq.”
posted by raaka at 7:00 PM PST - 44 comments

I used to believe is a collection of ideas that adults thought were true when they were children. via fark
posted by Stan Chin at 2:47 PM PST - 60 comments

While scientists like Einstein and Heisenberg are familiar names, others like Nikolai Tesla have been largely forgotten by history, despite the fact that some of his work with electricity still cannot be replicated to this day. Despite this, claims of governmental conspiracies are probably fairly far from the truth.
posted by nick.a at 2:00 PM PST - 19 comments

These are not your grandmom's type of crafts. Twice a year in NYC and Chicago, SOFA (Sculptural Objects and Functional Art) holds spectacular exhibits to showcase the best contemporary sculptors and craftspeople throughout the world. The Chicago show is coming up October 25-27. Even if you can't attend, why not browse through images of past shows and links to more than 85 participating galleries?
posted by madamjujujive at 1:50 PM PST - 5 comments

Lost in Translation translates any bit of text you submit back and forth between another language (French, then German, Italian, Portuguese, and finally Spanish) and English ten times - the results are a cross between the results of a game of telephone and a Nostradamus prophecy. The best part (for me) is that it shows you the de-evolution of your phrase as it gets translated back and forth.
posted by anastasiav at 10:07 AM PST - 81 comments

An interesting analysis of the DC shooter from the Washington Post film critic (who is a hunter, has written a few novels involving snipers, and has taken two tactical shooting courses with sniper experts). I may look more closely at his review of Arnold Schwarzenegger's next flick.
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 10:07 AM PST - 34 comments

6ixel BBC Online's attempt to attract vinyl, teletext and platform game lovers to the magic of digital radio stations. Actually I think that's going to require cheaper receivers not games, but this is still good fun.
posted by feelinglistless at 8:11 AM PST - 4 comments

I sure hope these guys aren't the only ones who will be voting next month.
posted by donfactor at 7:34 AM PST - 37 comments

Medical consequences of attacking Iraq. In a brief, but vivid, editorial, pediatrician and anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott decries the use of U-238 (aka "depleted uranium") weapons. (via boing boing)
posted by xowie at 6:23 AM PST - 32 comments

Science Groove. If this doesn't brighten up your day then frankly there's no hope for you. [Embedded MP3s] {From B3TA}
posted by Pretty_Generic at 5:05 AM PST - 8 comments

Blawgs: Blogs from the legal world. Lessig is not the only lawyer sharing his expertise in the blog format. Blawgs range from individual lawyers (Ernie the Attorney) to entire firms using a collaborative format to focus on a single practice area (such as the Supreme Court). "Almost every law firm is trying to build a knowledge management system for itself to take advantage of the expertise within the firm," Svenson says. "But with blawgs, it happens organically. If you gave your lawyers their own blawgs, pretty soon everyone within the firm could see who knows the most about different topics." Are knowledge management systems feasible or practical yet?
posted by ajr at 8:28 PM PST - 12 comments

He sells records. He sells homes. Is there anything Neal Smith can't do? Considering how industrious Alice Cooper has been, should we have expected any less from his drummer? Still, would you buy a house from this guy?
posted by herc at 8:14 PM PST - 8 comments

Political crybaby? Helena, Mont. - Republican Mike Taylor dropped out of the Senate race against Democratic Sen. Max Baucus yesterday, complaining that a Democratic Party ad was calculated to make him look like a gay hairdresser. I've seen a still from the TV ad. It used a video clip from the early 1980's that really does make him look awful. The thing is, most people looked awful during the early 80's, and the clip was from a TV bit Taylor used to host. Is this a cop out or does he have a legit gripe? Is it a low-blow to use an unflattering photo from someone's past? (Lock up those prom pics!)
posted by kayjay at 8:01 PM PST - 43 comments

How NOT to Start an Ancient Religion Not so much a DIY guide for time-travellers as "a list of 16 factors to be considered -- places where Christianity 'did the wrong thing' in order to be a successful religion." Hopefully thought provoking...
posted by agentfresh at 7:19 PM PST - 22 comments

Modest, Style-Conscious and Frustrated No More It's hard to be modest in contemporary America without coming off like a sack-wearing frump, so two moms and Nordstrom teamed up to offer some shockingly non-shocking alternative attire. "All are thrilled with the idea...It's snowballed almost out of control." Might dressing like a hooker go out of style someday?
posted by oissubke at 6:45 PM PST - 38 comments

What do you think when you hear the word "Skinhead"? Here's one that SURE to spark discussion if not an outright flame war! Do you hold the popular belief that "Skinheads" are nothing but low IQ neo- nazi sheep? How many Metafilter enthusiasts even know about the birth of the movement? It had nothing to do with race either!
posted by hoopyfrood at 5:31 PM PST - 53 comments

I'll take "Western Superiority Complexes" for $500, Alex... Let the wars begin: The ever controversial Ayn Rand Institute suggests that on the eve of Columbus Day we reject revisionist Politically Correct history that Columbus was a butcher. By what justification could we state that Western Civilization is superior to others? Is multiculturalism a bad idea? Does this suggest we have a 'right' to wipe out peoples inferior to us? Darwinism at its potential worst--or a scary reality to admit?
posted by tgrundke at 3:46 PM PST - 58 comments

"I was very lucky that she triped over my uncontios body beried under piles of ash..." A saga of epic proportions: some moron living inside his "Morrowind" RPG computer game writes his gameplay out as a novel. Welcome to a capsule indictment of American education and the consequences of the new "American Way." Thank heavens we don't live in Morrowind, where most people can't "right nor reed."
posted by Perigee at 3:39 PM PST - 20 comments

Happy Thanksgiving Long-weekend Canada! Whether you celebrate it in October or November, it's hard to deny that the true meaning of Thanksgiving is now about football (3 down or 4 down), food and family. Enjoy some Friday Thanksgiving Flash with Homestarrunner. And be sure to give to your local food bank.
posted by damclean2 at 3:09 PM PST - 13 comments

While MS-bashing is often too easy, this statement about recent security holes seemed especially astounding: "Outlook Express ships with every Windows system, or rather as part of IE, so it's on every system. But unless it is configured to receive mail, you are not at risk," said Scott Culp, manager for Microsoft security response. Interesting. Unless it is configured to receive mail, like, you know, an email program.
posted by judith at 3:02 PM PST - 30 comments

HEY! That's illegal! Aw, yeah the motherlode of illegality. The organizers of this exhibit seem to get it all right. The website doesn't skimp on the source material either. Wanna see George Bush wreak havoc on the Teletubbies bunnies? It's here . Wanna see Wally Wood's (Of The Realist and Mad ) version of a Disneyland orgy? It's here . Public Enemy sampled the Beatles but pulled the song because the licence fees were insane, listen to it here . Also, don't skip over the "contract" that pops up when you enter the site, it's classic.
posted by jeremias at 2:12 PM PST - 15 comments

A follow-up to last week's post about the racism conference at which all non-blacks were expelled, the sponsoring organisation of that event is now asking the white community to pay off its $200,000 debt from the conference. And it gets worse.
posted by swank6 at 1:21 PM PST - 32 comments

Gene Prevents 'Brains Everywhere' The human version of the gene probably is not involved in keeping the human brain inside the skull, but likely plays some other role in nervous system development in human embryos, says Alejandro Sanchez Alvarado, a developmental biologist at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Cool.
posted by Grod at 1:20 PM PST - 6 comments

Look at your hands. Is your index finger shorter or longer than your ring finger? Be careful because according to John T. Manning, those two fingers reveal a variety of characteristics about yourself to the world including assertiveness, attractiveness, reproductive success, hand preference, verbal fluency, autism, depression, health and disease, homosexuality tendancies, musical and sports aptitudes. [via Tigerbunny]
And while you are at it don't forget what the middle finger and a long second toe might reveal.
posted by oh posey at 12:49 PM PST - 37 comments

William James, The Nitrous Oxide Philosopher The fascinating history of laughing gas has always included goofy moments and famous users (Samuel Coleridge and Peter Roget among them), but few took the drug as seriously as American philosopher William James. He wrote an 1882 essay about the "intense metaphysical illumination" nitrous provided. Of course, laughing gas has dangers, can kill you if used stupidly, and can also send you to jail. But is hippie crack always bad? Or are there times when it might actually be kind of appropriate? [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 12:04 PM PST - 21 comments

Coming soon to a museum near you: Attack of the Dinosaur Mummy! (not really though). This very rare, complete dinosaur specimen decayed in such a way that its skin remained intact as well as the contents of its stomach. It was presented yesterday at an annual meeting of scientists.
posted by mathowie at 11:33 AM PST - 10 comments

Finally, some e-activism that fits into my daily online routine. It may not meet the approval of certain segments of the petition crowd, but General Interest peacemongers won't object. Can we actually do anything while we're just sitting here? I've always thought that organized protest is vital, not because it directly influences policymakers but because the public discourse is made up of noise. If you believe in something, you must holler about it! This glowing box has seemed so useless in that capacity. I guess it's become easier to aim dollars at the fight. And our WWW, as ever, puts us in closer touch with insane travel opportunities and virtual adventuring. Yes, there must be some value to networking. And if you're on the other side of the whole peace issue, I found something for you to buy online.
posted by damehex at 11:00 AM PST - 5 comments

Friday Fun! Excellent Scopitone from Sharpeworld, the B3ta orange kitten is back, this time playing the xylophone, and a dark but clever cartoon.
posted by sparky at 9:54 AM PST - 7 comments

We are all made of stars meat.
Some people wear their meat on their heads, some on their feet.
What to wear with your meat pants? A potato shirt.
posted by me3dia at 9:27 AM PST - 10 comments

Loaves and Fishes. Neatly tucked in amongst guitar stores and honky tonks, these folks are serving up the Bread of Life in Downtown Nashville.
posted by mikrophon at 9:12 AM PST - 7 comments

How do you say "caramel?" Unlike most Internet quizzes and surveys, Dr. Vaux's Dialect Survey won't pigeon-hole you into one of a finite set of types ("Your speech is most similar to Generic West Coast Dot-Commer, but with a trace of Oklahoma Trailer Park.") Which is just as well since folks like George Bernard Shaw, HL Mencken, and David Foster Wallace would tell us that pronunciation varies with the individual, and doesn't quite fall neatly into a standard type with odd variances. Rather, this survey is a purely academic method for collecting information on who says what where, and the maps at the end are interesting to look at. I know that the pop/soda/cola variance has been visited before, but what's up with people using "hosey" to refer to the "shotgun" seat of a car? (requires registration if only to track your answers)
posted by bl1nk at 9:06 AM PST - 75 comments

The Photon Belt ....along with Maitreya & the greatest sign....and Stargods & 36ft tall humans....all make for some far-out Friday frolicking.
posted by blackholebrain at 8:20 AM PST - 4 comments

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart is the new Wilco documentary, directed by rock photographer Sam Jones. It's part fan letter, part sharp reality soap opera on the personality conflicts that drive and tear apart great musical collaborations. Whither the band movie? This one has drawn comparisons to Hard Day's Night, Don't Look Back, and Rattle + Hum. Are those puff pieces or portraits of the artists...and what about comedies like Head and Spinal Tap? What makes a music movie compelling for fans and non-fans? More on Wilco inside...
posted by serafinapekkala at 7:40 AM PST - 28 comments

However you spell it, it sounds like good news. After five years of lobbying by the Aborigines, Australia set aside a huge chunk of the central Outback yesterday as the country’s largest national park. At 38,000 sq mi (98,000 sq km), Ngaanyatjarra is twice the size of Switzerland. This comes on the heels of the Canadian government's plans for ten new national parks and five new marine conservation areas over the next five years, a move greeted with skepticism by some. (And then there are those that say national parks are obsolete anyway). Has anyone been to any of these places?
posted by gottabefunky at 7:14 AM PST - 12 comments

Who is Delmart "Mike" Vreeland? The strange case of a man who made a handwritten note while in jail during summer 2001 predicting details of the Sept. 11 attacks. He claims to be an agent for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) with advance knowledge of the attacks. The ONI claims he is a conman and compulsive liar trying to save himself from extradition to the US.
In the end, this six-month investigation for GNN confirmed what many already know: Delmart Vreeland is a liar and an accomplished conman, adept at spinning tales, and manipulating allegiances to further his own goals. In other words, he is the perfect candidate for work in U.S. intelligence.
Who is Delmart Vreeland? - Conman, Intelligence Agent, or both?
posted by tranceformer at 6:48 AM PST - 19 comments

The art of the political campaign song is alive and well. Candidates in Ohio , Indiana, Tennessee, and Minnesota have 'em. What about where you live?
(Caution: All state name links are to sound files. Links to campaign sites inside.)
Heck, Lamar even got Bocephus.
posted by putzface_dickman at 6:27 AM PST - 8 comments

"It's safe to bite when the temperature is right!" "Thermy (TM) is the messenger of a national consumer education campaign designed to promote the use of food thermometers, developed by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)." Have you ever used a food thermometer when cooking at home?
posted by nickmark at 6:17 AM PST - 32 comments

Doomsayers refuted yet again, this time by the United Nations and the Institute for International Studies, who independently released studies declaring that humanity is, for the most part, in the best condition it’s ever been. (Former MeFi-er DenBeste comments here.) With more and more studies reaching similar conclusions as Bjørn Lomborg's "Skeptical Environmentalist" and the CATO Institute's "It's Getting Better All the Time", I'm on my way to buy myself a new pair of shades. The future does indeed look bright!
posted by dagny at 5:40 AM PST - 30 comments

I can feel it shrivelling already. Could anything be better calculated to make environmentalists look humourless?
posted by alloneword at 5:21 AM PST - 33 comments

So Long As It Doesn't Frighten The Martians: The already quite spaced-out Tate Museum [Shockwave permitting, check out Anish Kapoor's enormous new sculpture in the Turbine Hall] is now seeking new premises in Space.[More inside]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:59 AM PST - 9 comments

Tiny camera reveals the inside story for patient.
This is pretty dam clever. Girl swallows pill size camera, and doctors 40 miles away investigate her condition. Echos of Inner Space and The fantastic voyage
posted by monkeyJuice at 3:47 AM PST - 6 comments

As war looms, a Peace Prize is awarded. But not to Hamid Karzai, valiantly attempting to rebuild Afghanistan, or 154 other candidates, (a list which will be largely secret until 2052) individuals and groups which are working worldwide. Instead, the Nobel Institute has chosen former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The award is not just for his (largely unheralded) work in the last year, but for his "decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." Deserved? More so than others? Care to second guess the Norwegians on this one?
posted by Dreama at 2:55 AM PST - 68 comments

Wired just got hit with the ugly stick
posted by zeoslap at 11:57 PM PST - 54 comments

vs. Spy is going to travel the world! He is planning on going on a round the world trip on little more than some (small amount of) money, some gumption and some luck. By hook or by crook, he's going to go to South America, and then hopefully to Africa and other places after that. I think it's incredibly gutsy to do that sort of thing, just pick up and walk around the world. Anyone else done anything like that? Any advice or links?
posted by geekhorde at 11:31 PM PST - 5 comments

US Dept. of Education to erase website info which "does not reflect the priorities, philosophies, or goals of the present administration." Can you say 1984? Say it now....OVER and OVER and OVER again so you can GET USED TO IT......a brutal, clever strategy of the Bush Adm.to rewrite reality: erase problematic info and then channel money to people willing to produce the right stuff. Samizdat opportunity -- use a website capture program: WebWhacker costs $, but there are freeware site suckers available too. Orwell is turning in his grave.....Download and archive this stuff before it gets erased. Remember, Information Wants to Be Free!...or does it?
posted by troutfishing at 10:46 PM PST - 8 comments

Ferret Man for Lieutenant Governor? The candidate for Lieutenant Governor of the Libertarian Party of California has made it his personal crusade to legalize the domestication of ferrets in his home state. This is a reasonable political cause, but it has left the impression that California Libertarians are wacko, a trend that even bothers some Libertarians. Oh yes, the official Libertarian candidate for governor is a practicing Druid who lists Gene Roddenberry (?) as one of his favorite political philosophers. Is there something in the water at Libertarian Party meetings?
posted by jonp72 at 10:39 PM PST - 16 comments

Everyone's heard of peyote as a psychotropic drug of choice coming from Native American tradition, but peyote is far from the only kid on the block.
posted by nick.a at 10:25 PM PST - 10 comments

And so it is. At approximately 1:20 a.m., the Senate passed S.J. Res 45, a resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq. The vote: 77 yea, 23 nay. Some surprising yeas, including Clinton and Daschle. What happens next?
posted by damn yankee at 10:24 PM PST - 120 comments

"The Bookmobile [Internet Archive version] is a rolling digital library capable of downloading public domain books from the Internet via satellite and printing them anytime, anywhere, for anyone. Just as the bookmobiles of the past brought wonderful books to people in towns across America, this century's bookmobile will bring an entire digital library to their grandchildren."
This, then, is the sharp end of the Copyright extension argument currently before your Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft, [as blogged by all & sundry] [More inside...]
posted by dash_slot- at 7:49 PM PST - 7 comments

Not standing up to Bush on Iraq is costing the Democrasts money. I work fund raising for the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC, and all three have seen a drop in fund raising dollars over the last two months. The Dems claim it's a good year no matter what the numbers say, but I beg to differ, as a person working the frontline of their telemarketing campaigns the callers are hearing serious complaints from the donors, and we in middle management are getting no response on what to tell the donors. With the House having voted for Bush's resolution, and the Senate set to pass it, is it too late to save face with their donors?
posted by jbou at 7:14 PM PST - 11 comments

DID YOU EVER WONDER HOW THE FBI KNEW ALL THESE NAMES FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE ATTACK ON AMERICA? I know its just another anonymous site about 9-11 but it does highlight some interesting facts and prompts some questions about what the US government knew prior to the attack.
posted by JonnyX at 5:28 PM PST - 26 comments

You Shall Know Our Velocity, but you shall not buy it from Amazon or other large booksellers. The new novel by Dave Eggers is out. The reviews have come in quite positively (Time, Newsweek, NYT, SF Chronicle, among others). The main topic of discussion, though, is not the quality of the book, but the ego/stance/plan of Dave Eggers to not publish and sell it more widely (only 10,000 copies on first run). Will Dave Eggers succeed at NOT being a major commercial success, or will it happen despite his best efforts?
posted by msacheson at 4:33 PM PST - 36 comments

Messenger Spam, for those of you on Windows 2000/XP, you might want to check this out. I don't think it's going to be an isolated phenomena, seeing as how other bloggers (link has a link to a picture) are reporting it. Luckily, the first link has an easy solution to the problem, non-savvy users might be quite perplexed with the "important" looking dialogue box.
posted by geoff. at 3:49 PM PST - 13 comments

Bowling for Columbine is opening tomorrow. I know muckraking Michael Moore is a touchy subject around here, but I found his first feature since Roger & Me insightful in its stubborn search for an answer to the question: "Why is America so violent?" Other reviewers agree. Subtle he isn't, but when the news is as stark as it is today, maybe subtlety is beside the point. I hope that even some of you who aren't predisposed to agree with Moore will give this film a chance. Did I mention it's also entertaining as hell?
posted by muckster at 1:52 PM PST - 47 comments

A Charlotte couple who has been fighting for nearly two years to regain custody of their 10 children from the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services (DSS) could be thrown in jail if a district court judge finds them to be in contempt of court after a hearing tomorrow. When does government have the right to take your children without any explaination? And why will no one from our government discuss this situation?
posted by Macboy at 1:47 PM PST - 42 comments

TiVo, we hardly knew ye. After burning through $200 million in capital since 1997, TiVo has yet to turn a profit. Despite a cult following and 500,000 subscribers, Brendan Koerner concludes that TiVo is destine for the ash heap of history. So what do you think? Will TiVo be the next Apple Newton or Commodore Amiga?
posted by ncurley at 12:31 PM PST - 79 comments

"Your car will be watching the road even if you're not" Or so says DaimlerChrysler in their new ad campaign. Electronic eyes, infrared systems, ways to keep your eyes on the road better.... All in good time, as we all expected - but wouldn't you be worried if your car could just stop itself if it saw a squirrel in the road? (via the Wall St. Journal ad 10/9/02)
posted by djspicerack at 11:15 AM PST - 23 comments

Digital Clendening The University of Kansas Medical Center has an interesting archive of images and text relating to the medical profession. I'm not sure how I happened on this (I was just cleaning out my bookmarks - some google search found this but I don't recall what I was searching for).
posted by substrate at 10:19 AM PST - 6 comments

Pigs aren't the only animals getting cosmetic surgery: Cows in dairy shows are getting all manner of 'boob jobs' in a practice some compare to primping for the Miss America Pageant. "People really hate it when I compare cows to humans, but it's kind of the same," says one dairy farmer. Let's ignore the potential danger to human health of injecting stuff like silver directly into udders. My question is: Is there really such a wide gulf between Western culture's obsession with womens' breasts and and our refusal to wean ourselves, unlike the rest of the world, from milk?
posted by soyjoy at 9:42 AM PST - 76 comments

People are talking. Now, someone's listening. Late-from-the-gate tech startup BuzzMetrics "analyzes, measures, monitors, & influences the unaided consumer discussions that naturally occur in online communities." If that's not spooky enough, they continue: "Some consumers have more influence over public opinion than others, but targeting them has always been extremely difficult." BuzzMetrics is happy to identify negative posters and research their posting histories, among other services. Does this toe an ethical line? Does it change how you post to online conversations? Oh, yeah -- they're hiring.
posted by busbyism at 8:04 AM PST - 9 comments

"I've halved my motoring costs since I started running my diesel Subaru on cooking oil. The car runs just as well and even smells a lot better than diesel."

The police 'Frying Squad' are on the case and "home in on any car smelling like a mobile fish and chip shop". Other than the dreadful puns, are there other reasons why we shouldn't all run our cars on Mazola?
posted by niceness at 7:58 AM PST - 41 comments

When pigs fly - This journal by the artist Andy Feehan details his work with tattooed hairless animals. Regardless of your immediate reaction to the art, Feehan's compassion and love for the animals is sure to win you over. Normally, I disprove of weblog cross-posts, but I couldn't resist sharing after finding this via memepool.
posted by dirtylittlemonkey at 7:45 AM PST - 8 comments

Henrietta Lacks, a Baltimore housewife, died in 1951. Some of her cells did not die. In fact, had they been allowed to grow unchecked, they would have taken over the world by now. As it is, even as they proved invaluable to medical researchers, their baffling ability to regenerate resulted in contamination of three decades of cellular research, costing medical researchers millions of dollars. As far as science can tell, Henrietta's cells will never die. Creepy!
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 7:39 AM PST - 28 comments

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's decision to postpone the selection of a new dean of the Graduate School of Journalism and instead form a task force to rethink the school's direction and purpose has inspired some media commentators to ask the question: do journalism schools do any good? Claire Hoy is skeptical; Jack Shafer seems to be neither for them nor against them.
posted by mcwetboy at 7:38 AM PST - 7 comments

Ignore the fact we fired the last guy who spoke up. Anyone else want to say anything? Aquila head asks for comments, and fires the guy who points out that the $7.6 million severance package given to his brother would have kept 152 employees on the payroll at $50,000 each. (He also copied 1 or 2 thousand of his closest friends.) Who's right here? Would you express yourself freely?
posted by kcmoryan at 6:18 AM PST - 37 comments

High Art. Rick Griffin's famous flying eyeball poster is considered by many to be the single finest example of San Francisco psychedelic poster art. The image comes from this fabulous motherlode of eye candy that is Paul Olsen's Fillmore and Avalon poster collection. It is the largest and most complete collection of its sort. He would like to sell it as a whole--The Whitney Museum wants to buy it but can't afford it. That should tell you something. Come step behind the Indian bedspread curtain and smell the incense.
posted by y2karl at 6:12 AM PST - 20 comments

Nobel Prize for Literature. We've got a winner. Imre Kertesz from Hungary. Ever heard of him?
posted by ushuaia at 4:01 AM PST - 14 comments

That's "hearts and minds" to you, sunshine. As a former PSYOPer my ownself, I found this Village Voice primer on the field reasonably accurate on the facts, if rather skewed as to their interpretation. But what's a nonviolently-inclined soldier to do? What other methods of "winning without fighting" might be acceptable to a leadership seemingly hell-bent on bloodshed?
posted by adamgreenfield at 1:29 AM PST - 11 comments

The Journey to the West is one of China's most popular literary classics. This site illustrates one section of this important story, the birth of the Monkey King, with 100 beautiful images. You can also take the time to read selections from several other Chinese classics, notably The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Tale of the Water Margin and one of my all time favorites, The Romance of the Western Chamber. These works, and others on the site, are important in their own right, but are also significant because they are source material for Chinese film, TV and especially for Jingju, which Westerners call Beijing opera.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:31 PM PST - 16 comments

Ever wonder what molasses is? Or how it's made? The last of the old-fashioned craft of making molasses. At this point you're just a few steps away from making moonshine.
posted by nyxxxx at 10:50 PM PST - 24 comments

Army for sale! Russia will back the US in it's Iraq campaign only in exchange for money. Didn't they used to be a superpower? Now they are the A-Team?
posted by wolfgangnorton at 10:47 PM PST - 17 comments

Before we go to war based on whether or not Saddam (or the UN Security Council...) agrees to the Bush administration's proposed UN resolution, would anyone care to discuss what their proposed resolution actually says?
Apparently, the text of the resolution isn't in the public domain... but things leak. According to this article, the resolution allows the UN or its members (including the US) to station armed guards in Iraq, establish no-fly and no-drive zones, and create exclusive ground and air transit corridors. Robert Fisk, one of England's most respected reporters, believes the resolution is a poison pill, designed to lead to "regime change", whether he accepts it or not. So, what else do we know about the proposed resolution, and why isn't anyone talking about it?
posted by insomnia_lj at 10:43 PM PST - 32 comments

Sorry, Big Brother. Appeals court says Mormon Church can't restrict speech on sidewalks of Salt Lake City Plaza. "The city cannot create a 'First Amendment-free zone." This comes punctually after allegations that LDS security harrassed evangelical volunteers.
posted by aaronshaf at 10:41 PM PST - 84 comments

Think you know your gods? Most people know that the Greek god of war was Ares, and probably would know that the Roman god of war was Mars, but how many know the Norse, Aztec, Celtic, Hindu, Egyptian or Chinese gods of war?
posted by nick.a at 10:00 PM PST - 15 comments

It's not a news link if the news is total fluff. For your consideration: a suit drawn on stealing the idea to REMAKE a film, then a suit drawn over who saw a SAMPLE first. The debate! Which outweighs, legal chicanery or creative bankruptcy?
posted by damehex at 9:16 PM PST - 10 comments

Big Bird is bringing peace to Northern Ireland This brilliant (and timely) story is doing the net 'rounds. The scary thing is? This story is true. And to think: it was only next month Sesame Street was dealing with AIDS. Maybe Kermit will have sorted out Iraq by Christmas...
posted by tapeguy at 7:52 PM PST - 10 comments

Egg separator. Come on. This stuff is important.
posted by swift at 7:51 PM PST - 17 comments

Since Genetically Modified Organisms are a big no-no in Europe, some scientists are now focusing their efforts on TILLING (Targeting Induced Local Lesions in Genomes), a novel technology for rapid selection of a mutation in any gene from mutant plant, through the use of a mutagen, Ethyl Methanesulfonate (EMS). Will this method be seen as less dangerous than Genetic Engineering à la Monsanto? During my search on this topic, I stumbled on this entertaining story about DIY genegeneering.
posted by titboy at 6:47 PM PST - 6 comments

It's not your imagination, Americans (and those of us who live in similar cultures) really are getting fatter. The latest Journal of the AMA has the reports.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 6:06 PM PST - 23 comments

"And due to the flagrant violations of U.N. resolutions, we now order Israel, Turkey, Morocco, and most every other country to bow before us..." Otherwise known as 'things George Bush overlooked when planning his Cincinnati speech.' Numerous UN resolutions have been disregarded and have gone unpunished-Israel being one of the most serious violators. Who else believes that their most hard-assed university professors would fail them for using the rather weak, subjective arguments that have been popping up in political speeches lately?
posted by tgrundke at 5:24 PM PST - 24 comments

The 'Corporate Reform' President? Harken Energy, when run by George W. Bush used the practice of shifting troubled assets and large debts on a seperate set of books (like the much beloved Enron). Harvardwatch has memos (1, 2) right from where Bush personally took part in meetings authorizing the deal. Its good to see those Ivy League dollars at work.
posted by owillis at 5:17 PM PST - 22 comments

Remember this thread regarding Planned Parenthood of Iowa, confidentiality and a murder investigation? The county attorney has now dropped the case due to lack of resources. I was looking forward to the ruling on this one.
posted by justlisa at 4:14 PM PST - 4 comments

Reality check from Swiss Re and UNEP "The increasing frequency of severe climatic events...has the potential to stress insurers, reinsurers and banks to the point of impaired viability or even insolvency." "Climate Change and the Financial Services Industry", a UNEP report supported by 295 banks and insurance and investment companies around the world. The report concludes that, worldwide, loses from Climate related disasters are doubling every decade . NOAA generally concurs. Dr. Bob Gagosian, Director of Woods Hole, has even worse news. Should we take the scientific mainstream seriously? Or is it all "Junk Science"according to the industry funded Steve Milloy or the CEI, or even a New Age Pagan Conspiracy? Play on little humans......play on.....
posted by troutfishing at 3:02 PM PST - 15 comments

Swain, written and directed by Dave Jones, is the latest Flash animation from Transience's impressive body of work. Although all the pieces (and good games!) are subtly surprising, I particularly enjoyed Teev. In a time where the dominant credo is "messages are for Western Union", Transience seem to pushing an old-fashioned but timely agenda of poetry and peace, whilst using a refreshingly modern neo-expressionist aesthetic. [The website, apart from requiring Flash, has, like MetaFilter, been a bit unstable all day - but is definitely worth bookmarking.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:27 PM PST - 12 comments

And the Winner Is ... Tomorrow the Nobel Foundation will announce its 2002 award for literature. Anyone have a particular author they'd like to see get the gold?
posted by risenc at 1:09 PM PST - 86 comments

Women Mathematicians. With numerous biographies and photographs, this website indexes the many contributions that women have made to the field of mathematics. From Pythagoras' wife Theano and martyr Hypatia, also notable are the first female computer programmer and the first female Ph.D. recipient.
posted by moz at 12:47 PM PST - 17 comments

Vote Pancake? Some say no.
posted by putzface_dickman at 11:53 AM PST - 23 comments

"Dear policeman, I am God" found inscribed on a Tarot card. This latest clue in the Maryland sniper case will no doubt be tested and thoroughly investigated, although it was reported that it could be the work of prankster. If you have read the interesting post below by stevis ("I am who I am") of a Florida man who was legally denied the right to call himself "God", doesn't it make you wonder if the human desire to personify or impersonate God is a manifestation of the desperation for control over others, but not for the better? God, after all, wants you to surrender your life to the almighty. Or (mental illnesses aside) is it much more complex than that?
posted by taratan at 11:03 AM PST - 69 comments

There may be something in the human psyche that finds crumbling and abandoned structures somehow fascinating. In Abandoned-Places.com, Henk van Rensbergen, a Belgian airline pilot, has compiled an archive of brilliantly atmospheric and evocative images from decaying and deserted industrial complexes, airports, hotels and other assorted structures from around the world. Arguably superior in composition to those found on many comparable sites such as zone-tour.com and abandoned-buildings.com, his images can be haunting, intriguing or disturbing, but are always strangely compelling. Enjoy!
posted by Doozer at 10:39 AM PST - 22 comments

Professor Barnhardts Journal could become one of my favorite ezines. This week they have a short story from MST3000's Mike Nelson, and last week they had essays from Roger Ebert and T. Coraghasen Boyle. Bored with McSweeneys? Still bummed that Feed is gone? This zine looks like fun.
posted by braun_richard at 10:26 AM PST - 2 comments

The Art of Terror. Damien Hirst, one of Britain's most celebrated artists, told the BBC last month that the Sept. 11 attacks were "visually stunning" artworks and that the perpetrators "need congratulating." A stomach-turning account of how the art-dingbat world views the September 11 attacks.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:00 AM PST - 61 comments

A nighttime menace or kids having fun? Playing tag at night seems like a pretty harmless way of having a good time if you're a teenager. A group of my friends used to play Ghost in the Graveyard up at a lakeside cottage in the summer and it definitely got the adrenaline pumping on a dark night. For the kids of Bismarck, a rainy night alternative could be to make Ghosts in the Graveyard.
posted by MediaMan at 9:48 AM PST - 12 comments

Zoë is Google for your inbox (and outbox, too). It's written in Java and actually works on a number of platforms, using a browser-based interface. Jon Udell describes the way he uses Zoë in this O'reilly article.

But be warned: navigating through archived email from five years ago is as humbling as it is addictive.
posted by gdog at 9:38 AM PST - 12 comments

Metafilter is a genetically-modified sheep that keeps your carpets clean! It communicates with wireless devices and makes reassuring noises.
posted by revbrian at 8:54 AM PST - 127 comments

Comics for the Handicapped These are all funny, but in the wrong way. (via SA:ALD)
posted by oissubke at 8:34 AM PST - 20 comments

David Sedaris on tour Go see him in your town! Anybody see David Sedaris on Letterman last night? He read a new piece about a portable colostomy bag. Mr. Sedaris is a regular contributor to This American Life on NPR. If you haven't read or heard David Sedaris, you are really missing out.
posted by puddsharp at 7:09 AM PST - 38 comments

The virtuous image of the Bertelsmann media empire has been destroyed by a devastating historical study into the company's Nazi links that exposes its post-war success as built on a lie. The report, published this week, not only details the company's role in the Nazi propaganda machinery, but provides evidence of the company's use of forced labour during the war.
posted by tpoh.org at 12:53 AM PST - 12 comments

Long hair is cool. Shaving your head is cool too. You know what's cooler than either of those? Cutting off all your hair for Locks of Love. When you donate your hair to this non-profit, it will be made into wigs for children dealing with long term hair loss due to disease and burns that couldn't otherwise afford one. She's done it, they've done it, and so have all these people. It may be time to grow my hair out again.
posted by mathowie at 11:42 PM PST - 16 comments

Lawyers Gone Wild... Webpig, well known philistine webmaster of Internet Gossip has announced that he has been threatened with a lawsuit against his OTHER site camgirlsgonewild.com. Apparently he received a letter from the bloodsucking lawyers of girlsgonewild. They claim their company has a trademark on girlsgonewild, and only they are allowed to sell videos of drunk and stupid girls exploiting themselves unknowingly.
posted by rabbit at 7:42 PM PST - 13 comments

Nevada prosecutor accuses pro-marijuana group of using drug cartels for funding. A prosecutor has suggested a drug cartel backs efforts to legalize possession of up to 3 ounces of marijuana in Nevada. But an advocate for the proposal says the statement is "an outright lie, slanderous and libelous." Billy Rogers, spokesman for Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement (backed by the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), adds that Gary Booker, a chief deputy district attorney in Clark County, "ought to have his mouth washed out with soap."
posted by botono9 at 7:19 PM PST - 21 comments

Jimmy Brelsin has been taking stabs at Catholic Church over the last two days (the bishops are abusing money this time). As one of the last true beat reporters in NYC, if not the nation, he's been writing for underdogs for over 40 years. Fairly well too.
posted by SimStupid at 6:41 PM PST - 8 comments

First there was Haiku. Then came Christmas Haiku, Suburban Haiku, Gangster Haiku, Dog Haiku, and...Leprosy Haiku?
posted by nick.a at 5:57 PM PST - 20 comments

The MBTA, Boston's transit system, launched a redesigned Web site today. Fairly unremarkable, if you ask me, except that every single page features a prominent "Bobby Approved logo, which is supposed to mean the site is fully accessible to the visually impaired. In fact, it isn't, which you'll find out if you run a Bobby report on the site.
posted by agaffin at 2:41 PM PST - 32 comments

The New Yorker wonders whether the new Westin hotel at Times Square is the ugliest building in NYC. What do New Yorkers think? Is ugly architecture anything more than just poor business? What is the state of architecture in this country? (more)
posted by pejamo at 1:45 PM PST - 44 comments

A Chemistry Archive.
"Hello, chemist. Welcome to jail."
posted by the fire you left me at 1:41 PM PST - 10 comments

Executive Chute. Sorry, middle managers, staff, administrative support. Why don't you, uh, go ahead and try that elevator again.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:16 PM PST - 21 comments

St. Joseph's Feed Jesus Program
A brief but stirring photojournal of the homeless, waiting.
posted by plexi at 11:58 AM PST - 6 comments

'I am who I am' A Florida man wanted to legally change his name to "God" but a judge denied his request. So he took a passage from the Bible where Moses asks God who he is and hears "I am who I am or I will be who I will be" I'm suprised that a government official would be protecting a religion-based request. Is there anything you shouldn't be allowed to change your name to?
posted by stevis at 11:27 AM PST - 87 comments

Want to make sure Mr. Orwell was just a novelist and not a prophet? Some people have been coming up with ways to reduce your exposure to surveillance cameras. Others just put on plays for those who monitor the cameras. My favorite: zapping them with laser pointers.
posted by Irontom at 11:10 AM PST - 19 comments

"I Agree With Pat Metheny". Well, I do, and so does Richard Thompson in this live MP3 on his Web site. Ever since Pat Metheny made these comments about Kenny G there has been a lot of commentary, but Richard Thompson has put it to a folk song showing his talent as a guitar player, songwriter and singer. (Real Audio link)
posted by Eekacat at 10:39 AM PST - 47 comments

"If you like surfing the web, it is probably because you believe people are basically good." That's the Economist interpreting the results of a recent study by IBM researchers of how cultural characteristics apparently affect people's readiness to adopt new communications technologies.
posted by mattpfeff at 9:28 AM PST - 18 comments

The Russian Avant-Garde Book is an online version of the MoMA exhibit, featuring 112 books originally published in Russia during the intensely creative period between 1910 and 1934, before Stalin outlawed any style but social realism. The site is separated into three chronological themes and includes examples of futurist works, constructivist graphic design, children's books, propaganda, photography and photomontage, revolutionary imagery, architecture and industry, war themes, folk art and judaica...
posted by taz at 9:08 AM PST - 16 comments

Ever visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame? I haven't...I live in Florida. In honor of football season, however, check it out online. It has some pretty neat features, like how football teams got named, concise team histories, and a timeline of how American Football came about. Princeton vs. Rutgers in 1869 started it all....
posted by taumeson at 9:01 AM PST - 22 comments

The Gospel According to Harry Potter. Connie Neal thinks that she sees "glimmers of the Gospel" in the Harry Potter books. Not the most interesting attempt to counter the occult hysteria surrounding this book, but sure to stir up some hilarious controversy just the same.
posted by mikrophon at 8:47 AM PST - 19 comments

The Appalachian Trail is a continuous marked footpath that goes from Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia, a distance of about 2160 miles. It passes through 14 states and takes about 5 to 7 months to hike through. Hey, if a blind man could do it, so can you. If you are not actually up for hiking right this moment, you could always...(more inside)
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:15 AM PST - 22 comments

The Commercial Closet. The world's largest collection of gay advertising.
posted by adrober at 7:49 AM PST - 15 comments

hope you weren't planning on getting work done this morning... because this timeline from the centre for cooperative research has the 9/11 leadup and aftermath including all the players laid out like a twister mat. and it's all referenced. the most damning information? CTRL-F for "prophetically".
posted by three| at 5:04 AM PST - 45 comments

Enough Godwin: Saddam Hussein is not Hitler, George Bush is not Churchill, Kofi Annan is not Chamberlain, Israel is not Nazi Germany, neither are those who criticise it. Has Matthew Engel been reading Metafilter?
posted by niceness at 3:38 AM PST - 70 comments

Buzzcocks singer Pete Shelley shouted down for yelling "Fuck George Bush!" by an angry crowd at the Inland Punk Rock Festival in California (about halfway into the article.) At least according to a friend of some guy who writes for the Weekly Standard who took his teenage daughter to the concert and had no idea who the Buzzcocks were. Was anyone there? Did this really happen?
posted by transona5 at 12:07 AM PST - 76 comments

Non-blacks expelled from anti-racism conference. Delegates at an anti-racism conference voted last Wednesday to expel non-blacks from the meeting, saying it was too traumatic to discuss slavery in front of them. Ironic? Hypocritical? Justified?
posted by swank6 at 11:49 PM PST - 39 comments

Bush's "war on terrorism" may be fine and all, but shouldn't he be attacking something more pressing? In times of elevated terrorism threat levels, your leader has yet to do much about the situation, except promising federal help and sending his "thoughts and prayers" to the families of the victims. Isn't this domestic terrorism? When will we see similar pro-active measures taken against this terrorist just as Bush is taking against Saddam? And where's that gosh-darned knee-jerk reaction from the media that we've come to expect?
posted by manero at 11:15 PM PST - 47 comments

Do you love rubber duckies? Do you love Mr. T? Would you love the bastard offspring of a rubber ducky and Mr. T? How about Carmen Miranda? All this and more at Celebriducks.com. via memepool
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:02 PM PST - 15 comments

Ya, know... life just keeps becoming more interesting.
posted by Kodel at 7:23 PM PST - 16 comments

"Suppose you're devising a logo for a new wing of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an office charged with developing intelligence tools and integrating the government's existing surveillance networks. Suppose that it has a vaguely sinister name—say, the Information Awareness Office—and that it's to be run by a former Iran-contra conspirator. What would your design be?"
posted by zztzed at 7:05 PM PST - 16 comments

Taticular Nucyoular Weapons Dubya mispronounced the word "nuclear" "\nu"cle*ar\" in his speech 17 times this evening (take your own tally here). Wait. That's not a simple mispronunciation. It's a "folk etymology." Thanks, Ike. (Thanks, Homer.) Thanks also to Merriam-Webster. Apparently, this scourge of English is in the dictionary.
posted by NedKoppel at 7:00 PM PST - 105 comments

Take your pick, Mr. Hussein. You have two choices: War or peace pumpkins.
posted by insomnyuk at 5:45 PM PST - 31 comments

'Mais Non, Mais Non?'... Well, there goes the neighbourhood. You go for nigh on a quarter of a century crediting The Muppets with an all time classic, when you find out that it was someone elses - Italian soundtrack composer Piero Umiliani. Not only that, but used as part of the score for an oh-so-dodgy a Swedish porn film!?!?. But no, that's not the end of it, as it transpires (see bottom of page) that 'Mahna Mahna' was originally performed by a Frenchman, Henri Salvador, and was called 'Mais Non Mais Non'. Still, in any of these forms, it's one of the few songs that still makes me smile every time I hear it, especially so when accompanied by the visuals.
posted by boneybaloney at 5:26 PM PST - 19 comments

Who is Sergei Konovalov? Healer or crook? This email came through a mailing list I subscribe to. I found it fascinating but was unable to dig up any more information about this guy. It sounds like what he is doing is similar to the faith healers in America, however there seems to be no reports of him online or in any newspapers that I can find. Perhaps the MeFi collective can debunk (or authenticate!) this guy.
posted by camworld at 5:10 PM PST - 5 comments

M.C. Escher + Lego = ? I used to make spaceships and houses with my Lego not 3D representations of famous optical illusions! [via Filepile]
posted by bhell13 at 4:57 PM PST - 29 comments

"Dell 129 is also a 'mapback'. Dell published hundreds of paperbacks in this manner, the back of the book featuring a colorful map of the scene of the crime or events in the story. They were very popular in their day and are popular today with collectors as well." -From Gary Lovisi's essay about collecting paperbacks.
posted by interrobang at 4:32 PM PST - 4 comments

A Left-wing European human-rights activist's take on Iraq. No, not what you'd come to expect by now. Far from the pro-forma accepted perspective of the Left, Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, a German human rights activist makes a case for the war in Iraq in this insightful interview. He mentions plenty of things I haven't read about before in regards to Kurds and has quite a few strong words to say about Germany and the recent fashions of the European Left.
posted by bokononito at 3:37 PM PST - 24 comments

"Worst case is modern Armaggedon" Dick Cheney reportedly has ambitious plans to chop Iraq into little pieces but Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham worries that terrorist attacks against Americans were "highly likely" in the event of a war with Iraq, which Graham thinks could escalate into "modern Armaggedon". Also worried or unimpressed by the Bush Adminstration's rational for war (flash) a few Americans protested . The NYT and the Washington Post ignored the large protests in Britain, but nobody could ignore it when 1.5 million Italians hit the streets. Guess it's war anyway, eh?
posted by troutfishing at 2:41 PM PST - 30 comments

Bugs . They're what's for dinner. BABES may love 'em, but for all their purported nutritional value, I have no desire to eat maggots. Ever.
posted by mikhail at 2:03 PM PST - 8 comments

pickupyourowndamnsocks.com. What would you do if you found out that your significant other was keeping an anonymous, but very public, journal of things about you that drive them crazy?
posted by jonah at 1:31 PM PST - 150 comments

Guts and Glory. While the rest of south Louisiana recovered from hurricane Lili, we decided to check out a Louisiana tradition. Angola is the nation's largest maximum security prison, it has held many men, including famous, controversial, and their death row boasts a pro wrassler as a guard. The Angola Prison Rodeo is held every Sunday in October. Convict Poker says it all. Check out their newspaper, museum, music and films.
posted by puddsharp at 1:12 PM PST - 15 comments

The carnage continues
Israel killed 14 Palestinians and wounded some 80 others when a missile was fired into a crowd of civilians in Gaza City. And please, spare us your lectures.
posted by mapalm at 1:02 PM PST - 31 comments

Frank Keating , one of the UK's finest ever sports writers has retired from the Guardian. Mathew Engels appreciation concludes with links to ten of his finest pieces. This is brilliant writing which happens to concern itself with sport, so there is no need for any "doesn't this belong on Sportfilter" type snideness.
posted by Fat Buddha at 11:26 AM PST - 4 comments

Most of us were expecting that astronomers would discover a tenth planet and name it Persephone. A mostly harmless author preferred Rupert. One clique of New Age doomsayers claims that it is "Nibiru," or "Planet X,", which will come in 2003 to wreak havoc and usher in a new era under (I kid you not) our new alien overlords. Well, hang it all. Planet #9.5 has been discovered, and they called it "Quaoar." And I think Pluto is pissed.
posted by brownpau at 11:11 AM PST - 41 comments

Yemen, France Probe Tanker Blast Although Yemen claims the oil spill to be an accident, French autorities and others (DEBKA) believe this may be part of terror network acting up in oil route, driving up prices and fears.
posted by Postroad at 11:07 AM PST - 13 comments

The greatest bit of sports commentary ever, according to the Guardian, is Norwegian TV's Bjørge Lillelien's response to Norway beating England 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier in Sept 1981: "Lord Nelson! Lord Beaverbrook! Sir Winston Churchill! Sir Anthony Eden! Clement Attlee! Henry Cooper! Lady Diana! Maggie Thatcher - can you hear me, Maggie Thatcher! Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!" (Listen to it as Windows Media Audio) Is your favorite on the list, and if not, what is it?
posted by dagny at 10:56 AM PST - 36 comments

Space Shuttle Atlantis is about to be launched from Cape Canaveral. Watch it live. Blast off at 3:45pm EDT 07/10/02.
posted by JonnyX at 10:29 AM PST - 16 comments

Advertising and Idealism Clash at Colorado University. Most schools have pro-advertising courses(which are offered in the Business School) and those that take an anti-advertising approach(which are typically offered in Media Studies or Communication). Given the complex nature of the advertising world, is there room for both types of courses? By cutting departments with a more practical bent, are academics further weakening MBAs?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 10:15 AM PST - 7 comments

In 1972 the librarians were revolting. Now they're at it again. Katia Roberto and Jessamyn West are compiling a sequel to the famous (or infamous) classic of radical librarianship. [more inside]
posted by IshmaelGraves at 9:49 AM PST - 12 comments

Scramble bands. The Ivy League (as well as other U.S. universities, typically with bad football teams) have a notorious tradition of marching bands that don't march. Columbia's band recently got in hot water (again) for a swipe at the Catholic church during a Fordham game. Did you play in the marching band at your college? More importantly, did you play a real instrument? Me, I blew bubbles and played the squeegee mop at Columbia.
posted by mkultra at 9:23 AM PST - 28 comments

A self-organising electronic circuit has stunned engineers by turning itself into a radio receiver. It was supposed to evolve into an oscillator (through a genetic algorithm). This is astonishing and shows the power of evolutionary algorithms... [via missing matter]
posted by talos at 8:38 AM PST - 32 comments

You cannot take pictures of a ghost with a digital camera. And if you're not careful with that 35mm, you might mistake dust, sunlight, or fog for ghosts. Then again, maybe there are no ghosts on film at all, especially since there's a handy guide to faking ghost pictures right on the Internet. I guess when it comes to the paranormal, it pays to be objective and balanced. Boo.
posted by headspace at 7:25 AM PST - 30 comments

One big happy family Ottawa granted permission for three wives of a polygamist to stay in Canada permanently and an immigration official has warned that several more applications from polygamists' wives are likely on the way, according to internal government documents obtained by The Globe and Mail. The report says the women filled in "housewife" as their occupation on their applications for immigration. They stated they would receive financial assistance from Mr. Blackmore. Under marriage information, they wrote "not available."
posted by orange swan at 7:24 AM PST - 39 comments

The Red On The Blue (And On The Button): Terry Eagleton's description of T.S. Eliot's politics is easily the best definition of traditional Conservatism written by an untraditional Marxist I've ever read.[More Inside]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:12 AM PST - 25 comments

this childs game (java applet) is so complex you could use it to construct a computer. the original paper (postscript), is heavy going - if you're not a compter science student but would like to understand more try this wonderful book by one of the authors (example pictures).
posted by andrew cooke at 7:00 AM PST - 7 comments

Memories of a dead friend, posted bit by bit: this obituary for Milon Buneta (who died when he was 20, 20 years ago) is a weblog. His friend is writing it as a weblog because it's not a story newspapers would carry, yet the posts seem so poignant, brief, concentrated that it seems the weblog form is perfect for gathering the fragments we remember about our dead. Do you know of any other weblog obituaries?
posted by jill at 6:35 AM PST - 8 comments

New York company designs and produces 65% [bottom of page] of the worlds stamps. Their job includes making and promoting tacky "topicals" that will earn a few bucks for countries cashing in on the desire for collectibles. But thank god really because now we can enjoy Baywatch and David Copperfield stamps as well as the country of Mordovia's view on Clinton's impeachment plus many more. Here's the story of how Seattle writer Charles Johnson ended up on a stamp in Ghana.
posted by meech at 3:17 AM PST - 15 comments

A Fruit Has Been Built. A unique architectural piece that pokes your senses in creative ways, is also good-humouredly called the "Durians" by local Singaporeans. Durians, or otherwise titled King of fruits, are beloved by millions of South East Asians. The spiky building, officially known as "Esplanade-theatres on the bay", started construction in 1996 and will open (flash) to the world on the 12th October 2002.
posted by taratan at 11:51 PM PST - 12 comments

Arts & Letters Daily closes the door. "Arts & Letters Daily has been kept afloat by the goodwill of its editors, Tran Huu Dung and Denis Dutton, and it is now time for them to move on. " Lame! I don't read this site everyday but today it was live one minute and gone the next.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 11:12 PM PST - 47 comments

Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the founder of the Opus Dei movement, was canonized today. Opus Dei is a conservative movement within the catholic church, and counts many powerful people among its adherents - the current pope among them. However, it is not without its detractors and opponents. Some of the most important people in the Franco dictatorship were part of the group, as were several of the participants in the Venezuelan coup earlier this year. Should we keep an eye on these guys? They are certainly secretive and aggressive, but are they just a group of concerned, pious Catholics, or a power-hungry fraternity? I'm half-catholic myself, and certainly curious to hear if any Catholic MeFiers have thoughts on this subject. Even better, an Opus Dei member to clarify some of these misunderstandings...
posted by charlesv at 12:39 PM PST - 24 comments

As the Alberta government ratchets up its campaign against the Kyoto Protocol (and the Canadian government's support thereof), two environmental groups release a report that argues that Canadians could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent and save $30 billion a year in the process by 2030 (PDFs of the report summary and full report). And, if reducing emissions starts at home, you can apparently cut your own energy bills and emissions in half simply by stopping leaks and drafts in your house.
posted by mcwetboy at 11:19 AM PST - 11 comments

I'm currently doing a course in photography which, being an evening course, is going to require mastering the art of night time photography. I found a few sites on the subject and seeing as there seems to be a fair photography contingent here, I thought I'd share them. Note that these sites all offer interesting tips for creating night time photos.
posted by chill at 10:43 AM PST - 27 comments

How would it be to be a bee? Einstein has been quoted as saying that if the bee were to suddenly disappear, mankind would survive only another four years. So, make a bow to your insect overlords, and visit this site by a neuroscientist researching bee vision to experience first-hand how a bee sees. The B-EYE software allows you to set various parameters to see how a bee would view selected images, including Einstein himself. Or test your bee communication skills at Nova's "Dances with Bees" page, where you watch the dance of a hive mate and then try to locate the nectar source that he's mapping out. If you're still not impressed, consider that bees possess higher cognitive functions, including the ability for abstract thought. Finally, find out why nice bees don't always finish last in a look at the guerrilla tactics wielded against the dreaded "killer bee" by mild-mannered Cape honeybees.
posted by taz at 10:32 AM PST - 17 comments

So you want to join the circus. Well, it helps to have a speciality. Learn how to swallow swords, twist balloon animals, crack a bullwhip, ride a unicycle, spin plates, breathe fire, go to circus school, throw knives, or get started by street performing. You may make it to the big time, but beware of the consequences, and careers gone awry.
posted by Stan Chin at 10:19 AM PST - 9 comments

Islamic saints. The linked article, while a bit disapproving ("There can be little doubt that Muhammad would be displeased if he could see what passes for Islam in much of the Muslim world today"), gives a good description of the cult of saints and their tombs in popular Islam. [More inside.]
posted by languagehat at 10:14 AM PST - 8 comments

More mischief in Florida: Jeb's "devious plans" Unaware that a reporter with a tape recorder was present, Jeb Bush told Florida lawmakers last wednesday about his "couple of devious plans" to thwart the will of Florida voters. And that's not all....
posted by troutfishing at 10:11 AM PST - 19 comments

Reliquaries are containers built to hold objects of special religious significance, such as the foot of a saint, or the skull of a king. The art of European reliquary making reached it's zenith in the Middle Ages when craftsman created fantastic objets d'art for cathedrals and monasteries in the form of caskets, bodily appendages, and freestanding holders built to visually display occasionally gruesome bits of the venerated individual. The layperson had access to reliquaries as well, typically in the form of small lead crosses worn around the neck, containing pieces of bone or one of the ubiquitous fragments of the True Cross. Reliquaries are not unique to the Christianity, but can also be found in Buddhist and Islamic tradition.
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:52 AM PST - 27 comments

Next Generation Movies and Games Based on realtime emotion interaction. Mindsurfing?
posted by ginz at 5:35 AM PST - 4 comments

Conflict resolution: Western and Islamic Mediation approaches.
posted by semmi at 12:02 AM PST - 6 comments

Syd Barrett is still alive, surprisingly.
posted by pandaharma at 10:44 PM PST - 28 comments