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July 2004 Archives
July 31
Most of us are whiners, blaming circumstances for our failings; a precious few function in a self-sufficient bubble and able to shape their circumstances, never accepting the role of being a victim.
Inder Parmar is such a man.
posted by semmi at 11:07 PM PST - 9 comments
The Pope to Women: "get back in your place" - The Vatican, fearing it may still share some semblance of the same reality as the rest of us seeks to rectify this problem by telling women that they should stop hoping for the same things as men have.
"The obscuring of the difference or duality of the sexes has enormous consequences on a variety of levels," the document said, asserting it has inspired ideologies that "call into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father."
It also warned of challenges to fundamentals of church teaching, saying the blurring of differences "would consider as lacking in importance and relevance the fact that the Son of God assumed human nature in its male form."posted by Space Coyote at 4:09 PM PST - 128 comments
Meet Vernon Blake. Vernon Blake was a Systems Admin for the Alabama Department of Transportation, and it was 'well known' in his office that a certain supervisor spent far more time playing solitare on his computer than he did doing anything else. Inspired by a campaign to
stop waste in Alabama government, Vernon installed a screen capture utility which took
717 screenshots (.pdf) over 7 months, documenting a clear pattern of non-work related use of the computer. The results? The supervisor was given a
written repremand. Vernon Blake was
fired.
posted by anastasiav at 9:45 AM PST - 38 comments
Bush camp solicits race of Star staffer. President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney.
The jounalist's name was Mamta Popat. She sure
sounds like a terrorist.
posted by JeffK at 8:45 AM PST - 30 comments
The Lewis Walpole Library has digitized 10,000 images from its superb collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century satirical prints -- not the only collection of its kind on the Internet, but certainly one of the largest and best. Search under "Gillray", "Rowlandson" or "Cruikshank" and browse a selection of images from the golden age of English caricature. Everyone will have their own favourites, but here are a few of mine: Rowlandson's
Author and Bookseller, Cruikshank's
The Headache and Gillray's
Advantages of Wearing Muslin Dresses.
posted by verstegan at 2:04 AM PST - 4 comments
The Top 50 Worst Guitar Solos (revisited). On Jimmy Page's solo in Radioactive:
He pieces together an angular, steely synth-guitar catastrophe that probably only the eunuchs in Yes could warm up to.
And Angus Young's solo on "Ballbreaker":
Take away the hyperactive Chuck Berry duckwalking and frantic head- bobbing and you're left with some extremely constipated rockabilly soloing. And what the fuck is these guys' fixation with men's genitalia all about, anyway? [more inside]
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 1:43 AM PST - 54 comments
RPG's as an art form (via Something Awful) " I've also been encountering different variations of the same monsters; for example, I was walking in these hills and was attacked by a slime with Ray Bans and a fedora. Another time it was a slime with a fake beard and glasses. I think whoever is producing these things, either the Dragonlord or some bored wizard, just ran out of ideas and are dressing them up to fool adventurers such as myself. I'm harder to trick than that, you sly devils.
"posted by sourbrew at 1:21 AM PST - 7 comments
July 30
Road Trip USA. This simply titled site is one of the better travel sites I have seen for back-road ramblings around the USA. Not only are the routes described some of the best, the writing is extensive (at least book length), of high quality and obviously by someone who has traveled every single mile personally. I only wish I had it on my last trip. Recommended for the arm-chair or car-seat traveler alike.
posted by stbalbach at 10:43 PM PST - 4 comments
No time to pick out your own music? Still like the CD format? Live in the UK? Well has
The Rough Trade Shop got a
club for you. Is this outmoded on arrival or an interesting variant on old style "X-Of-the-Month" clubs? I know I sometimes find it overwhelming to keep up with what's new'n'exciting.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:57 PM PST - 8 comments
Matt Darey just released a new album. Not a huge deal in itself, I suppose, but hearing it made me curious. So I found
Trance Airwaves. Which led me to
this site. All because I listen to
this internet radio station. Makes me glad that I decided to listen to trance tonight.
posted by BlueTrain at 7:15 PM PST - 6 comments
Lost Dog Held for $10K Ransom
An elderly man went out for a walk with his dog, on the way home, the dog disappeared. A friend helped him make some Lost Dog posters and he waited by the phone for some good samaritan to return his only companion.
Instead, he got a call from someone demanding $10,000 or he'd never see his dog again. He gathered up half of his savings and went to pay the ransom. The dognapper brandished a knife, took the money and said the dog was tied up to a post nearby. It wasn't.
He went home brokenhearted until he heard a car door slam outside and his dog came running up to greet him. Now he wonders if the dognappers were putting him on the whole time.
posted by fenriq at 3:46 PM PST - 24 comments
'South Park' Drawn to Syndication Sex and the City is one thing and being shown on cable anyway, and I understand they've been shooting a syndication-friendly version of the Sopranos, but how will they clean up these cartoon freaks enough to appear on broadcast TV?
posted by billsaysthis at 2:36 PM PST - 26 comments
For nearly a quarter of a century
Thor the Barbarian waged a lonely crusade against tyrannical bureaucracies and disempowering systems. Undaunted, he faced the monstrous social evils of our day head on, as an unsung organizational change agent... as a professional inside New York's vast mental health network. Real interview
here (about a minute in) - scroll down to the Thor - LIVE link.
posted by dobbs at 8:55 AM PST - 4 comments
Tired of engagement news? Break Up News is the place to get the skinny on recently ruptured romances or to announce to the world that you're back in the game. And, if you are, (or have other untraditional news you want to share,) consider
Other Announcements, which offers
greeting cards for calling off your engagement or wedding, moving in together, getting divorced, coming out, and getting your boobs done. (Though not all at the same time.)
posted by onlyconnect at 7:58 AM PST - 2 comments
Fuel Cell Breakthrough?
The University of Houston claims to have achieved a breakthrough in thin film solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). "Imagine a power source so small, yet so efficient, that it could make cumbersome power plants virtually obsolete" Utter marketing hype, or are they really onto something?
posted by Irontom at 7:42 AM PST - 6 comments
Skinbag - looking for that flayed flesh look for your fall fashion statement? Look no further, your epidermic, polysemic clothing and accessories are here.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:13 AM PST - 23 comments
Pages of the Past The Toronto Star has digitized each of its issues from 1892-2001. And they're searchable. And they're online. Unfortunately, access starts at about a buck an hour—but 1945 is free!
posted by DrJohnEvans at 5:20 AM PST - 7 comments
We have all seen online quizzes to aid in making important life choices. For instance, this
quiz purports to guide you in making career choices. Confused about religion and seeking to find a faith that suits your beliefs, now we have
Belief-O-Matic.
posted by caddis at 4:32 AM PST - 22 comments
July 29
Earlier this month, internal white house rumors were leaked saying that ideally, it'd be great to find an Al Queda suspect during the week of the Democratic National Convention, since the Democrats would likely be grabbing headlines. Sounds like some crass opportunism instead of truly protecting the republic from terrorists, doesn't it?
Well, what do you know, today
this message floated
at the top of CNN.com, more important than Kerry's keynote.
Even though the guy was caught on Sunday, we don't hear about it until today.
Foxnews looks the same way (
screenshot), with the Al Queda headline above Kerry's one day in the sun at Fox News. But it's all just a coincidence and we're not being played like a fiddle. Sure.
posted by mathowie at 1:29 PM PST - 94 comments
Ricky Quits Football to Smoke Dope
Ricky Williams knew he'd failed a third drug test and retired from football before his coach found out.
Says Ricky, "I didn't quit football because I failed a drug test," he told the Herald. "I failed a drug test because I was ready to quit football."
Williams said he's not addicted to marijuana. And I'm sure he can quit anytime he wants to but maybe he got confused and quit his profession instead of his "hobby"?
Is this the first time a star athlete's quit because he wants to hang out and smoke dope?
posted by fenriq at 12:28 PM PST - 81 comments
RIP Francis Crick. The man who helped discover the secret of life is dead.
posted by rushmc at 9:41 AM PST - 31 comments
This website exists because astrosociology is not yet a widely recognized subfield of sociology, and therefore it can benefit from a centralized approach. It is intended to serve as a catalyst for the growth of astrosociology from a general state of nonexistence.
As a little known sociologist fights his
lonely quixotic battle to introduce
a new sociology subfield, some who are stuck in their earthbound paradigm
object.
posted by found missing at 7:03 AM PST - 8 comments
A longtime Jacksonville weblogger normally devoted to wonky subjects like his
blogging software made a
frank public admission on his weblog recently: "I had an affair with another woman. My wife was a severe depressive and I was uncaring and unfeeling towards her when she needed me the most."
posted by rcade at 6:52 AM PST - 55 comments
The physicist Shariah Afshar has used a beautifully simple
experiment, which no-one seems to have thought of before, to disprove Bohr's
principle of complementarity, something which has been pretty much unchallenged for 80 years. He may also have gone some way towards showing that there is no such thing as a photon, and that Einstein's Nobel prize should be revoked. So, big stuff. What do you physicists think?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:36 AM PST - 35 comments
In 1934, the only thing standing between a
fascist coup and democracy in the United States was the courage and honor of one
man.
posted by euphorb at 2:22 AM PST - 50 comments
July 28
"When I picked his head up, it wasn't even connected," he recounts later that night in the rushed, excited tones of a youngster describing finding a forbidden fort in the woods. "The only thing holding his head on was skin. It felt like... wet goo. But with broken bones, so it was jagged. Squishy but crunchy. His head felt like solid Jello with shards of broken glass."Gidget
Gein picks up
dead bodies.
posted by angry modem at 9:40 PM PST - 16 comments
Devirginize Marc dot com In short, up until now, just a few months shy of my 27th birthday, I am a virgin for one simple reason: the dream of making a Web site just like this. Is this what Internet dating has come to?
posted by onlyconnect at 8:10 PM PST - 42 comments
G.O.P. D.O.A. , the new novel by Brooklyn-based
Contemporary Press, just got
denied a reprinting by St. Louis-based
Plus Communications. Although they printed the first edition less than one month ago, the publisher says that their religious clients would be upset by the book's 'language' and have refused to reprint it.
I guess that is in the same spirit as Rev. Breedlove's attempt to
rekindle the tradition of book burning earlier this month.
posted by Miyagi at 6:25 PM PST - 12 comments
Tax Man Bush says tax cuts stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, he's fallen more than 2.2 million jobs short of the projection made by his own economists.
posted by Postroad at 3:16 PM PST - 6 comments
Will Ferrell spoofs GWB for
ACT ... "you caught me mending my fences, one of the many things i do on my ranch ..." (streaming QuickTime or WMV).
i know it's partisan crap, but still pretty funny ... until the end.posted by mrgrimm at 11:48 AM PST - 33 comments
Rape as a weapon of war: sexual violence and its consequences Amnesty International offers a stirring and comprehensive account of what's going on in Darfur:
"When we tried to escape they shot more children. They raped women; I saw many cases of Janjawid raping women and girls. They are happy when they rape. They sing when they rape and they tell that we are just slaves and that they can do with us how they wish." [more inside]
posted by The God Complex at 10:39 AM PST - 39 comments
The Wall Street Journal offers RSS feeds ...headlines only, alas, and you still have to be a subscriber to read the full stories. But it's still a big endorsement of this technology by a major newspaper. Any other papers offering feeds? [Sample WSJ feed
here, additional info inside.]
posted by me3dia at 8:52 AM PST - 11 comments
July 27
Lincoln/Net Lincoln's political career in antebellum Illinois. View by "historical themes" or search for images, text, and audio.
posted by thomas j wise at 8:47 PM PST - 2 comments
DOWN FOR THE COUNT At around 8:50, Soubirous’s campaign manager, Brian Floyd, received a call from an election observer in Temecula informing him that the vote count had been stopped – apparently by Registrar Mischelle Townsend herself. The reason was not made clear. So Floyd and another Soubirous campaigner named Art Cassel jumped into a car and drove to Townsend’s office to investigate. Sure enough, the counting area appeared to be near-deserted. But then they noticed two men huddled at one of the vote tabulation computers.
posted by jonah at 7:40 PM PST - 53 comments
USA Today Dumps Ann Coulter Citing editorial differences, USA Today dropped Ann Coulter's column before it even began in the paper.
The disputed column on www.anncoulter.com begins "Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston" and devolves rapidly into a bitter little snark against Democrats. I wonder why USA Today had a problem with it?
It ends with "I'd say I love all these Democrats in Boston so much I want them to go home, but I don't. I want Americans to get a good long look at the French Party and keep the 7-11 challenge in mind."
posted by fenriq at 10:34 AM PST - 139 comments
July 26
"You know, Luke Skywalker was able to kill the Death Star with his beleaguered band of warriors, but I'm not sure that that's the model we should shoot for -- shoot the thing down the middle of the tube and hope it blows up the Death Star. We need to build our own answer to the Death Star.''
The beginning of the end for the Democratic Party, at least in name? (And what will take its place? Is the Republic turning into the Empire?)
posted by Tlogmer at 9:41 PM PST - 24 comments
Getting back into the groove : In the corner of a California university laboratory, two men are battling against time to perfect a machine that will read old recordings - using special microscopes to scan the grooves - and software that can convert those shapes into sound. Their work could bring history to life.
posted by starscream at 7:02 PM PST - 15 comments
Realizing the Promise and Potential of African Agriculture Africa is rich in both natural and human resources, yet nearly 200 million of its people are undernourished because of inadequate food supplies. Comprehensive strategies are needed across the continent to harness the power of science and technology (S&T) in ways that boost agricultural productivity, profitability, and sustainability -- ultimately ensuring that all Africans have access to enough safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs. This report addresses the question of how science and technology can be mobilized to make that promise a reality.posted by tcp at 11:44 AM PST - 13 comments
A threat to national security! Adam McGaughey, the owner of a Stargate fansite has been slapped with criminal charges (Criminal Copyright Infringement and Trafficking in Counterfeit Services) after being reported to the FBI by the MPAA for including Amazon links to encourage fans to purchase DVDs of the show. To build its case, the FBI invoked a provision of the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. And, since he "conspired" with thousands of fans worldwide by providing these Amazon Market links, he could be facing up to 20 years in jail if the government
invokes RICO.
posted by headspace at 9:20 AM PST - 63 comments
Scott Ritter on Iraq. Some interesting reading here from the man who stood up to the President, the pundits, the media, etc and told the world that chances are Iraq had few to no WMD. Now he's warning us that Saddam's people are really in charge and how Allawi's government is doomed to fail.
Man, I hate the IHT interface.posted by skallas at 7:53 AM PST - 27 comments
Backyard Third World
John F. Kennedy saw it and pronounced it a shame on our nation. Lyndon B. Johnson tried to change it. The "compassionate conservatives" have exacerbated it. I wanted to share it with you. Isn't it time for real change? Hasn't the exploitation of this place and these people gone on long enough?
posted by nofundy at 7:36 AM PST - 34 comments
I've seen it happen where these types of managers have the nerve to hold this type of book up in front of a group of people and imply the problem is the workforce for not choosing to be happy about poor leadership. From an
Amazon review of
Fish!. I've been motivated with that twice. A friend of mine was encouraged to take
The Flight of the Buffalo and another is going to a sponsored
Dale Carnegie class. So, who's
moved your cheese?posted by pieoverdone at 5:42 AM PST - 55 comments
Ted Turner is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore: "the government [is] not doing its job. The role of the government ought to be like the role of a referee in boxing, keeping the big guys from killing the little guys."
posted by limitedpie at 12:51 AM PST - 22 comments
July 25
"Animal Vegetable Video endeavors to create the world's largest collection of video footage that has been captured from the perspective of animals, plants, and the environments they inhabit." The
navigation is a little wacky (click on the animal to see a video, or on the habitat to see more videos), but anyone crazy enough to strap a camera on the back of a tarantula is okay by me.
posted by majcher at 5:28 PM PST - 3 comments
Kerry's Democrats: The Conservative Party? So thinks Andrew Sullivan: "I may not find myself the only conservative moving slowly and reluctantly toward the notion that Kerry may be the right man - and the conservative choice - for a difficult and perilous time."
Similar thoughts were published recently by AEI: "If the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' still had any meaning in American foreign policy, George Bush would happily style himself the true liberal--the radical, even--in the upcoming election and paint Kerry as the conservative, the reactionary." Food for thought in front of the convention this week.
posted by dagny at 5:16 PM PST - 42 comments
Blackwashing --
So I tuned into C-SPAN with interest to hear what a leading voice in the black conservative movement had to say. But then a funny thing happened: the African-American spokesperson for Project 21 caught a flat on the way to the studio, and the group's director had to fill in. And he was white.
CSPAN video here (real)--bizarreposted by amberglow at 12:16 PM PST - 63 comments
Zen. A nice flash intro. Use the mouse, Grasshopper!
Yes, it shows lack of enlightenment to smite the buzzing fly, but it's the only way you'll get into the site, so overcome your Buddha-nature for once in your life.posted by languagehat at 11:45 AM PST - 16 comments
Big Ideas. "Eating, sleeping, procreating, laughing - and trying to create a world in which we can do these things unmolested - have all been far greater drivers of human ingenuity than time machines or battery-operated scooters."
- "We may no longer hold high hopes of the state, but if the study of individuals reminds us of our common humanity and prompts us to reassess the merits of the collective, let’s welcome it."
posted by MintSauce at 9:54 AM PST - 3 comments
Correcting the Record. In meticulous detail the 9/11 commission's report found that the hijackers had repeatedly broken the law in entering the United States, that Mr. bin Laden may have micromanaged the attacks but did not pay for them, that intelligence agencies had considered the threat of suicide hijackings, and that Mr. Bush received an August 2001 briefing on evidence of continuing domestic terrorist threats from Al Qaeda.
posted by the fire you left me at 7:26 AM PST - 57 comments
July 24
Giga Society: the world's most exclusive high IQ society, where an IQ of 196 or higher (one in a billion) is required to join. Not quite as cranially-advantaged? Well, there's always the
Oath society, which'll take you if you're only one in a thousand (a mere 150 IQ or higher). Big brains and design skills (or
language ones, for that matter) don't mix well, though, it would seem.
[more inside]posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:22 PM PST - 86 comments
Verizon goes Vonage? ATT, announced this week that it's giving up on residential phone service. And here, from the look of it, Verizon is starting to offer what I believe is Internet-based phone service. Is the Internet the future of phone?
posted by ParisParamus at 6:53 PM PST - 27 comments
The Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi now has a digital archive containing 10,000 images of medieval stained glass from English churches and cathedrals: a wonderful resource for anyone interested in medieval art.
These stunning images of the windows at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, are just a tiny fraction of the extraordinary riches available on the site.
posted by verstegan at 7:40 AM PST - 14 comments
Poll Shows Growing Arab Rancor at U.S. Arab views of the United States, shaped largely by the Iraq war and a post-Sept. 11 climate of fear, have worsened in the past two years to such an extent that in Egypt -- an important ally in the region -- nearly 100 percent of the population now holds an unfavorable opinion of the country, according to two polls due out today... More within
posted by y2karl at 12:06 AM PST - 126 comments
July 23
Peer to Peer Politics Here's an idea the RIAA can get behind:
Thad Anderson, a second-year student at St. John's School of Law, has launched a peer-to-peer network that allows users to access and share government documents.
More than 600 court and government documents, including memos, communications and reports, are available on his OutragedModerates.org site, and can be accessed through the Kazaa, LimeWire and Soulseek P2P networks.
Among those documents available are the Abu Ghraib prison scandal memos and the Senate Intelligence Committee report on government intelligence leading up to the Iraq War. The concept of using a P2P network to share embarrassing documents is interesting ... considering some in Congress have proposed an outright ban on the P2P file sharing systems that are widely used to trade music, movies and porn.
via Politics1.composted by Rastafari at 8:28 PM PST - 9 comments
You may not have heard of Jansenism. But on
May 1, 1727 one of its more prominent members, Francois de Paris, died. He was a popular fellow for his charitable works and lots of people visited his tomb. That's when things got weird. At first it was just a bunch of people claiming to have been cured of things like "cancerous tumors, paralysis, deafness, arthritis, rheumatism, ulcerous sores, persistent fevers, prolonged hemorrhaging, and blindness."
Then things started to get really
weird.
...The mourners also started to experience strange involuntary spasms or convulsions...the 'convulsionaires,' as they came to be called, displayed...the ability to endure without harm an almost unimaginable variety of physical tortures....
These events lasted years and were witnessed by thousands as well as commented on by the likes of David Hume and Voltaire. Louis-Basile Carre de Montgeron investigated it for the Paris Parliment and published
La Vérité des Miracles in three volumes detailing the events. The tortures were asked for by the convulsionaires. Montgeron details one time when while having an iron drill hammered into a convulsionaire's stomach he, "maintained an 'expression of perfect rapture,' crying, 'Oh, that does me good! Courage, brother; strike twice as hard, if you can!'"
posted by john at 6:38 PM PST - 11 comments
Oh, You Mean Those Records The Pentagon released "newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard." The earlier statement that the records were inadvertently destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight."
[Previously discussed here and here.]posted by kirkaracha at 4:18 PM PST - 39 comments
In
Fleep, a 44-page comic strip by Jason Shiga, the protagonist is trapped within a telephone booth sealed in concrete. Can he escape using what few resources are available to him?
posted by LinusMines at 8:19 AM PST - 38 comments
The Velvet Underground's White Light White Heat played on banjo, bass guitar, ruler, music box, violin, toy piano, electric guitar, accordion, squeezebox, euphonium, ukulele, kazoo, xylophone, pixiphone, uumskither, mbira, pod, delay, turntable and percussion.
posted by ubueditor at 6:32 AM PST - 8 comments
According to
multiple recent nationwide polls, the
presidential race is a dead heat, with the spread
within the margin of error. Some have Bush by a
couple points, some say Kerry by a couple. But take a look at the way the race is represented by
www.electoral-vote.com, which tracks polls state-by-state and
takes electoral votes into account. Suddenly, the tally is Kerry 332, Bush 195.
posted by msacheson at 1:00 AM PST - 130 comments
July 22
Eyeballoverload can be described as follows: "Nick Spark is a California-based photographer who specializes in montage or composite photography. This is a technique in which dozens, if not hundreds, of photos are seamlessly pasted together to create a unified image. The result is a balanced, yet highly detailed view of reality... albeit slightly enhanced."
posted by euphorb at 10:27 PM PST - 8 comments
Crosby Nash 2004 offers voters a new choice in the upcoming November election -- all of the criminal history of
David Crosby combined with the cynicism of
Graham Nash. Says Nash of the Vice-Presidency: "’We’ll have two presidents, and between us we have vice covered." Somehow I don't think
Neil Young would approve...
posted by denbot at 9:55 PM PST - 6 comments
Animusic Just saw a video from thes folks as a between shows filler on PBS. Remember Herbie Hancock's robotic music video from the mid-80s? This is classical music but even cooler--no hands used in playing--endorsed by Jon Anderson and Alan Parsons.
posted by billsaysthis at 8:04 PM PST - 9 comments
Open Source Local Journalism. "A small California newspaper [
The Northwest Voice] has undertaken a first-of-its-kind experiment in participatory journalism in which nearly all the content published in a regularly updated online edition and a weekly print edition is submitted by community members." Is the editor of your local newspaper aware of this?
posted by Blue Stone at 10:42 AM PST - 7 comments
The Triangle Factory Fire of 1911. 'This site includes selected information on a terrible and unnecessary tragedy involving the death of many young working women in a New York City sweatshop at the beginning of the 20th century and the resulting investigations and reforms. '
posted by plep at 9:45 AM PST - 7 comments
"Mr. President, pardon Papa Jack" In 1908 a former Texas
dockworker and
inventor named
Jack Johnson became the first African American boxer to ever win the world heavyweight title. His victory
sparked race riots and prompted
a search for a "great white hope" (writer
Jack London asked white fighters to "wipe that smirk off Johnson's face"). But then Johnson defeated two "white hopes", one of whom was the legendary Jim Jeffries. In 1912, authorities went after
Johnson in court. His crime? Messin' with the white woman. Charges were brought against him
for violating the Mann Act, a
federal law that made it a crime to transport a woman across state lines for "immoral purposes." He married the woman, but he was sentenced to a year in prison anyway. Johnson fled the country, living in Europe as a fugitive for seven years,
losing his title Havana in 1915 to a much younger white opponent
after a 26-round fight in 100-degree-plus heat (Johnson possibly threw the fight in exchange for leniency that he never received). He returned to the U.S. in 1920, surrendered and served a year.
He never again was given a chance to reclaim the title. When
he died in poverty aged 68 in a car crash, not one boxer attended his funeral. Now
a group of US Senators (among them Hatch and McCain), prominent African Americans (Samuel L. Jackson, Jesse Jackson, many others) and boxing writers
seek a posthumous Presidential pardon for "Papa Jack".
(more inside)posted by matteo at 7:52 AM PST - 26 comments
The forgotten technology - "I am a retired carpenter with 35 years experience in construction ... I have began to build a replica of Stonehenge with eight 10 ton blocks on end and 2 ton blocks on top. One man, no wheels, no rollers, no ropes, no hoist or power equipment, using only sticks and stones."
(some slow loading clips on the pages)posted by madamjujujive at 5:34 AM PST - 31 comments
Eun
oia ("beautiful thinking") is the shortest word in the English language that contains all five vowels.
It is also the title of a
poetry collection by Canadian author Christian Bok. In addition to writing each chapter using only words that contain one vowel, (
Flash presentation of Chapter "E") Bok also
greatly limits himself in other ways.
An amazing accomplishment that won the $40 000 Griffith Poetry Prize in 2002,
Eun
oia is best experienced in its spoken form. (
MP3 links)
(If you don't know Bok's poetry, you still might know his other work. He has also created artificial languages for two television shows: Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict and Peter Benchley's Amazon.)posted by Jaybo at 12:16 AM PST - 18 comments
somnambules is a choreographic and interactive show for the Internet in 12 scenes and their preludes. It puts together contact dance, painting, video and music. [note: shockwave]posted by crunchland at 12:10 AM PST - 1 comments
July 21
Your Tax Dollars At Work! What better way to help the homeless find housing and employment than through a website? Surely the Internet is the solution to all society's problems.
posted by ilsa at 9:37 PM PST - 8 comments
The Great American 'Garage Mahal' - cars, houses and garages of the American super-sized new affluent class grow ever larger :
"three separate two-car garages attached to his $750,000 brick abode: one for his son Brandon, one for his wife, Janice, and one for him. His garages' many amenities include carpeting, cable TV, speakers wired to the home stereo system and a bathroom. "I've always liked garages and I don't think you can have enough of them," " Mr. Bernard said."posted by troutfishing at 8:54 PM PST - 25 comments
georgebush.ca seems quite topical given the
recent legal wrangling that Michael Moore has been enduring at the hands of conservative Canadians, offering the chance to "join a growing group of Canadians that want to prevent the re-election of George W. Bush this November 2nd."
posted by denbot at 7:42 PM PST - 27 comments
The Movement is a 7-member art project, conceived (somewhat) as a multimedia version of the games Telephone or Exquisite Corpse, in which each member "adds a voice to the work -- a voice which expands the work, a voice which modifies the work, a voice which contests the work" through text, image, or sound. Initiated by writer/musician/
radio host Julius Nil, the brother alter-ego of Olias Nil (himself the alter-ego of Seth Cohen) of the late, lamented
Fire Show and Number One Cup. Includes work from Nil's Fire Show/Number One Cup collaborator, musician/photographer
M. Resplendent .
posted by scody at 1:02 PM PST - 1 comments
Its obesity talk time, again. "Once the fried dough embodiment of hot and fresh, Krispy Kreme has transformed its original glazed doughnut into a new frozen beverage for summer."
You heard that right. A donut
drink. The United States is still food innovator #1!
posted by 4midori at 12:56 PM PST - 61 comments
The Daily Show wins an award for news programming? this seems pretty funny to me. and sort of sad that a fake news show gives me better news than the real news shows.
the daily show beat out several other real news programs to take the award.
i find that stewart is a less biased host than many on the news today, regularly features people from conservative and liberal camps, and is a pretty damn good interviewer, spending more time asking about things people care about and less time grinding an axe. he's also very good at getting his (mostly liberal) audience to respond politely to conservative guests. so why can't i find that in a real news show?
posted by caution live frogs at 9:58 AM PST - 57 comments
If you're ever looking for free wireless in the Bay Area, and you've got an iPod with you, a project from
Bay Area Wireless called wiPod has you covered. It's a listing of all known free points in the region, sorted by city and location, and can be viewed on any iPod (
screenshot,
direct download).
posted by mathowie at 9:54 AM PST - 5 comments
The news this morning included a small blurb about
today being the anniversary of the first human killed by a robot. No doubt this is important to note due to the release of
I, Robot but it appears to be incorrect. The first incident I can find was on
January 25, 1979. Since then OSHA has recorded at least
10 more deaths in US factories alone. Japan saw it's first in 1981 and as a result it's Ministry of Labor
requested a 20% budget increase for its robot related activities. All these incidents can be classified as accidents but it does force me to wonder how dangerous they will be when AI advances further. Should we mandate the
Three Laws of Robotics?
posted by jwells at 7:10 AM PST - 22 comments
"We plan to put Beauty to sleep by chemical means, and then we’ll flip a fair coin. If the coin lands Heads, we will awaken Beauty on Monday afternoon and interview her. If it lands Tails, we will awaken her Monday afternoon, interview her, put her back to sleep, and then awaken her again on Tuesday afternoon and interview her again. The (each?) interview is to consist of the one question : what is your credence now for the proposition that our coin landed Heads? When awakened (and during the interview) Beauty will not be able to tell which day it is, nor will she remember whether she has been awakened before. She knows about the above details of our experiment. What credence should she state in answer to our question?"
In light of the recent thread on the
Monty Hall problem, here's a probability puzzle that's even more mind-bending: the
Sleeping Beauty problem. Some people say the answer is
1/2. Some people say the answer is
1/3. Some people say there is
no answer.
Papers have been written which can't resolve this one.
posted by salmacis at 3:15 AM PST - 40 comments
July 20
Virtual Iceland Field Trips. 'Interactive geological map of Iceland showing 7 areas for which virtual field trips can be viewed. Choose, for example, according to the geology or age of the country to see the variation in landscape. '
posted by plep at 11:37 PM PST - 2 comments
Patrick "Ask a Pilot" Smith opines on "Terror in the Skies, Again?" Smith: I, for one, fully admit that certain acts of airborne crime and treachery may indeed open the channels to a debate on civil liberties. Pray tell, what happened? Gunfight at 37,000 feet? Valiant passengers wrestle a grenade from a suicidal operative? Hero pilots beat back a cockpit takeover?
Well, no. As a matter of fact, nothing happened. Turns out the Syrians are part of a musical ensemble hired to play at a hotel. The men talk to one another. They glance around. They pee. That's it? That's it.
posted by skallas at 10:35 PM PST - 68 comments
Want to play twenty questions? Play twenty questions against a computer. It can be startling good, sometimes, though there are a few things that still aren't in the database. Still, a decent time waster, if only for a little while.
posted by synecdoche at 8:15 PM PST - 59 comments
Canadian Tax Dollars at Work I am sure there are some hard
drinking working Metafilterites out there that could be Canada's official wine co-ordinator. You would have to give wine away to senior politicians and hard stuff like that.
posted by Coop at 2:58 PM PST - 9 comments
Most of the rhymes kicked therein cannot be quoted in a family publication, but observers gave Mr. Cheney credit for his deceptively laid-back flow. Mr. Leahy was applauded for managing to rhyme the phrases "unethical for certain," "crude oil spurtin'," and "like Halliburton."posted by xmutex at 1:10 PM PST - 15 comments
Clinton’s Former Aide Drops Windfall in the Lap of Bush Campaign "...Presidential challenger Kerry will have to think twice before attacking Bush on national security issues lest he lay himself open to reminders that a former Clinton aide and his own adviser was caught red-handed misappropriating classified materials that revealed how a Democratic president mishandled the threat of terror...."
posted by Postroad at 8:38 AM PST - 46 comments
"It would have been so much easier to just slap a Playboy logo up on the screen, we have the animators animate breasts jiggling, and we have the programmers program a breast-cam, and then we ship it. People would buy it anyway." So says Brenda Brathwaite, Lead Developer for
Cyberlore's Playboy: The Mansion, a Sim/Tycoon game coming to stores this holiday season. You may remember Brenda from her 22 year history in the industry, having worked for Sir-Tech in the early days (the creators of the venerable
Wizardry series of RPG games). This is part 3 and the conclusion of a
three part interview with Brenda.
posted by thanotopsis at 8:15 AM PST - 2 comments
Just in time, you’ve found me just in time. Richard Linklater, like
Wong Kar-
wai, is a lyrical and elegiac filmmaker. In many of his films, as in many of Wong's (and as in
Ming-liang Tsai's
What Time Is It There?), the subject is
time -- the
romance and poetry of
moments ticking by, the wonder and anguish of living through and then remembering an hour or a day.
In 1995 Linklater made
Before Sunrise, the story of
the chance encounter of two strangers (an American young man and a French young woman) on a European train and their sleepless night in Vienna. Now ten years have passed, and they meet
again in Paris: they -- and the audience -- only have 80 minutes to make up for the time they lost,
Before Sunset. Linklater's new film,
shot in uncut Steadycam takes (the longest clocks in at 11 minutes), in a sense
is about how we create selves just by talking. But it’s also about how we become prisoners of time.
Towards the end of the movie,
Celine, sitting in the backseat of a car with
Jesse, starts to caress his head while he isn't looking, then suddenly pulls back, and that simple curtailed gesture carries in it a sense of tragedy,
the consequence of the weight of time...
(more inside, with Nina Simone)posted by matteo at 6:27 AM PST - 22 comments
Seed Magazine. Seed is a popular science magazine for our times aimed at smart, young, and curious men and women who are passionate about science and its fast-changing place in our culture.posted by srboisvert at 4:53 AM PST - 9 comments
July 19
Wal-Mart Locator 2004 - For years Wal-Mart has allowed RV owners to camp for free in their parking lots (sometimes to the
dismay of campground owners). But the Bay Area wants to
pull the plug on the practice for fear of the stores becoming impromptu homeless encampments.
posted by falconred at 3:58 PM PST - 29 comments
typoGenerator. typoGenerator is a random generator for 'typoPosters'. a typoPoster is a poster, created from images and letters/text that doesn´t have any sense, just to look good [via coolstop]posted by soundofsuburbia at 2:54 PM PST - 16 comments
Wouldn't it be great if you could get the weather from a poorly synthesized computer-generated voice? Well, now you can. Call 1-888-573-8255 and ask
Jupiter what the weather is like, or will be like, for nearly any city you want. (via
Cool Tools)
posted by euphorb at 12:07 PM PST - 12 comments
Brown = Terrorist - Part II With Bush running about the country telling us how much safer we are, it's fun to look at some of the so-called terrorists we're being protected from:
"Five Mexican citizens who stole cans of baby formula from store shelves throughout Iowa and sold them to a man of Arab descent for later resale."posted by y6y6y6 at 11:08 AM PST - 51 comments
Fountains of Youth and Health :
periodic,
therapeutic fasting and
caloric
restriction. Ben Franklin
wrote
of this, and
most
religions advocate periodic fasting. In the "Fasting Worm Study",
earthworms became nearly immortal.
Recent research
underscores the health benefits, which do not require overall caloric restriction (a "fast and
gorge" cycle works too) for humans. Fasting shows promise for the treatment of most addictions,
Cardiovascular disease,
Alzheimer's,
Gastrointestinal disorders,
diabetes, Uterine fibroid tumors,
Back and neck problems, high blood pressure, arthritis and joint pain, depression, perhaps
Huntington's Disease... Here's a clinic which specializes in
medically supervised water only fasts and offers recent studies and writings on the
subject (PDF, .doc, and .htm format). Fasting seems to be
very good for your brain overall. Meanwhile, inside : the
benefits of caloric restriction, which seems to dramatically slow many age-related diseases.
posted by troutfishing at 10:50 AM PST - 57 comments
Another touching, sad, chilling account of obesity in America. The story of Anamarie Regino, a 3-year-old who was abnormally large for her age. Anamarie was taken out of her parents' custody because, it was determined, her life was in jeopardy because of her size. This despite a 550 calorie/day diet and obvious signs that "too much food" wasn't an issue.
posted by hijinx at 10:37 AM PST - 78 comments
The scientific productivity of nations (pdf). An article by the UK's chief scientific advisor, published this week in Nature, quantitating the scientific output of different countries, normalized to per capita GDP, area of study, number of researchers, higher education research spending, and more.
A commentary, from a UK perspective.
posted by shoos at 8:52 AM PST - 6 comments
Every Sunday, it's Halloween in Harajuku. Hanging out by the train station at Tokyo's most fashionable district are young women dressed as nurses, but with white faces and a trickle of painted blood dripping from a lip. Men in their late teens or early twenties fidget under huge manes of spiky green hair and layers of black leather.
Some really amazing costumes can be seen
here. And by amazing I mean
interesting, and by interesting I mean
freaky.
posted by Jase_B at 2:53 AM PST - 30 comments
July 18
34 Million Friends was founded by
Lois Abraham and Jane Roberts to gather private contributions for the
United Nations Population Fund, and had gathered $1,957,613.31 in gifts and pledges as of July 4. For the third year in a row, the Bush administration is
withholding $34 million in aid because of
accusations that UNFPA supports China's policy of coercive abortions, despite
evidence to the contrary. UNFPA estimates the money could have helped prevent as many as 2 million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths, and over 77,000 infant deaths.
posted by homunculus at 5:17 PM PST - 16 comments
Dance, Voldo, Dance (embedded quicktime .mov) Two people controlling two Voldos (the #1 freak from Soul Caliber). Quite possibly the most amazing synchronized video game dancing you'll ever see.
posted by malphigian at 12:16 PM PST - 30 comments
Love on the Quiet.
One breezy evening a few months ago, 19-year-old Joseph Briggs did something he had never before dared to do growing up gay in New York: he held hands with and kissed his boyfriend in his own neighborhood... While New York is legendary as a place where gays and lesbians can live openly and free from prejudice, Mr. Briggs's story reveals a great deal about what might be called the other gay New York. Life in this New York unfolds far from the chiseled Chelsea boys, funky Village bars and relatively gay-friendly neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and Park Slope, Brooklyn, that represent the public image of gay life in the city. In the farther reaches of the boroughs outside Manhattan, gay life is often harder and nearly always more complicated. In these neighborhoods, the national debate over gay marriage can be much less important than the search for a doctor who does not squirm when talking about homosexual sex. And here is your
NYC Gay And Lesbian Population Distribution--a handy, color-coded map in
pdf format, which comes from
The Gay And Lesbian Atlas to provide more snapshots of life as lived, block by block, butterfly wing by butterfly wing, hometown and homeboy, in a time of more cultural
evolution than, say, revolution.
posted by y2karl at 6:33 AM PST - 22 comments
July 17
Russia To Send Troops To Iraq? If this takes place, will it impact the forthcoming election in the United States? "Sources close to Russia's Security Council say that Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to the request "in principle" and has directed the Russian General Staff to work up a plan by the end of the month. "
posted by Postroad at 12:02 PM PST - 32 comments
Fabchannel has nearly 200 streaming concerts online from Amsterdam's "temple of pop": Paradiso. Featured artists include Damien Rice, Franz Ferdinand, De La Soul and many more. 56k streams are freely available, broadband requires free registration.
posted by swordfishtrombones at 11:45 AM PST - 5 comments
PDN Photo Annual 2004 presents the year's most outstanding images from photographers, magazines, and agencies in 8 separate categories. The commercial work is great, but don't miss the personal and student categories.
(Flash intro. Note to sponsors: larger online images next year, please!)posted by madamjujujive at 5:53 AM PST - 8 comments
July 16
Write a Prisoner Offers a unique service. It connects you with your convicted-felon potential solemate. Fun for the whole family (NSFW)
posted by cjoh at 3:30 PM PST - 24 comments
Press button, wipe hands on pants ... NOT! FINALLY someone has done something about those crappy hand driers that never really worked in the first place. I encountered my first XLERATOR in the men's room of my local pool hall the other night. For a moment I feared it would blow the flesh off my tender hands. But no flesh-tearing was to occur; it performed its intended function flawlessly in about 10 seconds. My profound and everlasting gratitude to its inventor.
Best news ever? Do I need to get a life?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:25 PM PST - 38 comments
AP Seeks Release of Bush Military Records Records destroyed? Ah, the other set! ..."Records released so far do not put to rest questions over whether Bush fulfilled his National Guard service for a period during the Vietnam War, the AP argued in papers filed in federal court in New York.
Those records came from federal records clearinghouses.
Texas law requires separate record keeping for state National Guard service, and those records should exist on microfilm in Austin, the AP said. ..."
posted by Postroad at 11:39 AM PST - 23 comments
Failure is not an option, it's mandatory. "For more than three decades, the Republican Party has relied on the "culture war" to rescue their chances every four years, from Richard Nixon's campaign against the liberal news media to George H. W. Bush's campaign against the liberal flag-burners. In this culture war, the real divide is between "regular people" and an endlessly scheming "liberal elite." This strategy allows them to depict themselves as friends of the common people even as they gut workplace safety rules and lay plans to turn Social Security over to Wall Street. Most important, it has allowed Republicans to speak the language of populism."
An opinion about how the surety of losing wins votes for the Republican party.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 11:25 AM PST - 61 comments
The lid is blowing off. Tom Tomorrow reports that the story of the 107 imprisoned, tortured, and raped children in Abu Ghraib is beginning to break all over the world, as the US media remains in patriotic silence. We're already about to lose our first ally over this,
Norway.
posted by badstone at 10:58 AM PST - 84 comments
naval-history.net :: yet another fine example of how the web can help one man or woman with a true passion for a subject go from a hobbist to a published expert. Be sure to read the dedication to his dad at the top of the page.
posted by anastasiav at 9:21 AM PST - 1 comments
Bobby Fischer found, trying to travel from Tokyo to the Phillipines. He has been detained and is awaiting deportation to the states for attending a 1992 chess match in Yugoslavia in violation of international sanctions.
posted by o2b at 6:56 AM PST - 46 comments
Allawi shot inmates in cold blood, say witnesses. Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.
posted by waterfrog at 6:47 AM PST - 22 comments
July 15
Hundreds of kinds of mixed seeds, soil humus, and dry powdered red brown clay, form the solid components of
seed balls.
posted by sudama at 8:48 PM PST - 6 comments
When mobile phones
attackget attacked. Articles posted on
The Guardian and
Reuters today are reporting that mobile phones running on the
Symbian OS in Moscow are being targeted by a non-malicious virus/worm named
Cabir.
Only 49 phones have been infected so far by the worm which propagates via Bluetooth. The creators are
29A labs, a "group of virus writers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia who pride themselves in creating "proof of concept malicious viruses,"
Countdown to impending doom in..5..4..3..
posted by Lizc at 5:56 PM PST - 8 comments
Danzig gets knocked out. Now, I know that most of you probably aren't big on violence, however, I find a little jolt of comfort in seeing
Danzig dropped with one punch. It's like being back in high school and seeing a bully knocked out by a geek he'd been picking on.
(NSFW - violence and language)posted by fizz-ed at 5:11 PM PST - 39 comments
Is this a firsthand account of a terrorist "dry run"? Terror in the Skies, Again? On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles with my husband and our young son. Also on our flight were 14 Middle Eastern men between the ages of approximately 20 and 50 years old. What I experienced during that flight has caused me to question whether the United States of America can realistically uphold the civil liberties of every individual, even non-citizens, and protect its citizens from terrorist threats.
Read the whole thingposted by Rob1855 at 4:34 PM PST - 124 comments
"How do we nurture the healing side of religion over the killing side? How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state? OVER THE PAST few years, as the poor got poorer, the health care crisis worsened, wealth and media became more and more concentrated, and our political system was bought out from under us, prophetic Christianity lost its voice. The Religious Right drowned everyone else out. And they hijacked Jesus. The very Jesus who stood in Nazareth and proclaimed, 'The Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor.' The very Jesus who told 5,000 hungry people that all of you will be fed, not just some of you. The very Jesus who challenged the religious orthodoxy of the day by feeding the hungry on the Sabbath, who offered kindness to the prostitute and hospitality to the outcast, who raised the status of women and treated even the tax collector like a child of God. The very Jesus who drove the money changers from the temple. This Jesus has been hijacked and turned into a guardian of privilege instead of a champion of the dispossessed. Hijacked, he was made over into a militarist, hedonist, and lobbyist, sent prowling the halls of Congress in Guccis, seeking tax breaks and loopholes for the powerful, costly new weapon systems that don't work, and punitive public policies."
Bill Moyers on democracy excruciate.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 2:03 PM PST - 91 comments
Steve Jobs wants to tear down his home. But there's a problem. It's a
George Washington Smith-designed 1926 Spanish Colonial Revival house (mansion?) in Woodside, California, and preservationists feel it has historical significance. Jobs replies that he'll build something that will eventually become "more historically interesting" than the present property. (Given his penchant for
the steel and glass of I.M. Pei, that seems questionable.) But should he not have the right to do what he wants with his property? Tear it down, paint it purple, or fill it to the roof with Jell-O; whose business is it other than the homeowner?
note: first link leads to NYT, registration requiredposted by emptyage at 1:01 PM PST - 35 comments
Al-Jazeera, best known in the West for reporting on the Taliban and US-Iraq war, has, today, been
approved to broadcast in Canada, amidst complaints from Jewish groups, such as the
B'nai Brith, who are worried the content may be anti-semetic. What makes this interesting? Al-Jazeera will be one of the few news stations in Canada specifically warned by the Canadian government that it must censor itself for content.
posted by shepd at 12:49 PM PST - 38 comments
Drag Race Ride through the streets of Manhattan with some of the fastest urban bicyclists in existence as they race in the wintertime. Thrilling and unbelievable. The mpg is from a head mounted camera worn by one of the racers. More
here. Also don't miss the cameraman riding on top of a Jersey barrier
here. And here I was thinking that Times Square to Park Slope in 25 minutes was pretty quick. Thanks to
nervous.net.posted by n9 at 8:35 AM PST - 33 comments
Choose your own adventure! "The following imaginary scenario attempts to picture what would happen if the
IMF did not exist. It tells the story of a businessperson in a fictional developing country that is suffering from a shortage of foreign exchange. In the scenario, there is no
IMF to turn to in order to resolve the currency crisis. You will soon come to realize the difficulties of carrying on international trade in that imaginary world without the
IMF."
posted by livii at 7:25 AM PST - 21 comments
Sustainable oil? Over the past few years there's been a growing theory that oil is not created from the decaying remains of ancient biological life but is in fact a product of the Earth's geological processes and that the current estimated oil reserves may be off by a factor of 100. This theory was made popular by
Thomas Gold at Cornell way back in 1992 and has led to much more recent
research (warning: heavy scientific conent) which supports the theory.
posted by PenDevil at 2:29 AM PST - 31 comments
July 14
The American Merkin Company. (NSFW) Handcrafting merkins for over 150 years!
Has your last wax or razor encounter left you a little too exposed for the nude beaches of SXM? Are you getting on in years and finding that thinning hair leaves you a bit embarrassed? Why not try a merkin! Great for both females AND males!
posted by Jase_B at 7:00 PM PST - 22 comments
The Expedition (real audio link). Dylan Moran's 15 minute monologue about an expedition to the Arctic with his brother-in-law is the first in a series of 4 by top UK comics.
posted by gravelshoes at 5:17 PM PST - 7 comments
A Farewell to the Corps Colonel Wayne Shaw, USMC, Quantico, Virginia In recent years I've heard many Marines on the occasion of retirements, farewells, promotions and changes of command refer to the "fun" they've had in the Marine Corps. "I loved every day of it and had a lot of fun" has been voiced far too often. Their definition of "fun" must be radically different from mine. Since first signing my name on the dotted line 28 ½ years ago I have had very little fun. posted by konolia at 12:01 PM PST - 18 comments
Singer Songwriter
Devendra Banhart recently assembled an amazing mix of music exclusively for
Arthur Magazine entitled “Golden Apples of the Sun,” (
Pitchfork review) which has the high task of defining the West-cost based "freakfolk" scene. Featuring brilliant new artists (such as the breathtaking
Joanna Newsom,
Iron and Wine, and
Vetiver, among others), it was limited to 1000 copies (all of which are sold out). There should be a second edition, but in the meantime you can listen to the whole album on this
player.
posted by Quartermass at 9:41 AM PST - 25 comments
The Educator's Bed and Breakfast Network Lodging for US $34 per couple per night, and breakfast too! Required - a house of your own (or maybe a large apartment, I suppose) to host fellow members. Membership costs $35 per year with a one-time $10 initial registration fee. "Educators" is a broad category which includes teachers of all sorts, writers, journalists, researchers, librarians, probably DJ's....
many bloggers...posted by troutfishing at 8:50 AM PST - 5 comments
25 years ago a Chicago radio disc jockey had an idea for a promotional event.
Steve Dahl invited his listeners to bring a disco record to a double-header White Sox game. Between games he was going to blow them up. What happened was a
full scale riot that caused the White Sox to forfeit and disco to die.
posted by Bonzai at 8:21 AM PST - 117 comments
Lou Dobbs, Call Your Office If Lou Dobbs, the fair-trade crusader, only knew about this one!
A few months ago, activists and journalists were blasting the U.S. for plans to buy only branded drugs, made by companies like Merck, to treat patients in poor countries under the president's $15 billion AIDS relief program[...] The result is that the way has been paved for U.S. taxpayers to spend billions to buy drugs made in India that are copies of medicines invented in the United States
posted by Postroad at 8:10 AM PST - 34 comments
Expect a miracle? Freeman Dyson on Littlewood's Law of Miracles: "...the total number of events that happen to us is about thirty thousand per day, or about a million per month. ...The chance of a miracle is about one per million events. Therefore we should expect about one miracle to happen, on the average, every month." From his review of book debunking the paranormal (whose views he isn't entirely willing to accept).
Via
Marginal Revolutionposted by Jos Bleau at 7:55 AM PST - 33 comments
Catscan.com is one of the strangest sites I've seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
posted by karmaville at 12:00 AM PST - 80 comments
July 13
?????? ????? - Name:Zena Amaar / Location:baghdad, Iraq
I am 13 years old. I am in the 2nd class in AL-MUTAMAYSAT secondary school whech means the secondary school for excellent student.
I spend most of my time working on computer and reading stories, i have a library of about 75 books some of them are stories and the others are poetical books. Also i help my mother in housework.
My father is a lucturer in the colleg of engineering. At the same time he is postgradute student. He is working hardly to get the PhD in computer engineering.
My mother is assestant prof. in the colleg of engineering.
I have only one brother. He is in the primary school in the 4th class. I love my family so much. (via
sylloge :)
posted by kliuless at 6:59 PM PST - 14 comments
The Road to Tyranny (Realvideo). A sensational and informative
film by Alex Jones. Ignore the presentation, or, consider it entertainment if you wish, but there's some pretty good content in there including some surprising news footage from the aftermath of the OKC bombing 19 minutes in.
posted by euphorb at 6:43 PM PST - 18 comments
Roadless Act under attack. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced today the plan to lift a Clinton-era ban on building roads into wilderness areas on National Forest Service lands. Instead of keeping the ban at a federal level, the decision on wether or not to allow roads to be built would now be deffered to state governers.
I can't help but wonder, how is this in the public's interests at all? It is unreasonable to paint this as, "the biggest single giveaway to the timber industry in the history of the national forests", or does this really have value that the average American could benefit from?
posted by Hackworth at 10:09 AM PST - 63 comments
ONE AFTERNOON IN THE LATE 1970's, deep in the labyrinthine interior of a massive Gothic tower in New Haven, an unsuspecting employee of Yale University opened a long-locked room in the Payne Whitney Gymnasium and stumbled upon something shocking and disturbing.
Shocking, because what he found was an enormous cache of nude photographs, thousands and thousands of photographs of young men in front, side and rear poses. Disturbing, because on closer inspection the photos looked like the record of a bizarre body-piercing ritual: sticking out from the spine of each and every body was a row of sharp metal pins.
The case of the Ivy League posture photos.
posted by alphanerd at 8:44 AM PST - 34 comments
Pac-Mondrian! Art hits the arcade. Play the classic game while enjoying the Piet Mondrian-style background. Who says art isn't fun?
posted by ifjuly at 7:35 AM PST - 6 comments
German police revive rabbit "....by breathing through a ball point pen after he passed out in a house fire.....officers opened Napoleon's mouth with a pen and breathed down it while giving the pet a cardio massage, a police spokesman said on Saturday....The officers then rushed [ the rabbit ] by police car to a vet."
posted by troutfishing at 6:59 AM PST - 17 comments
July 12
Allmusic for Windows Clicking on some deep links into allmusic.com tonight turned up this-
Notice: You are accessing allmusic.com with a browser that is not currently supported. The appearance and functionality of the site could be impacted. allmusic.com is optimized for Internet Explorer 5.5 and above for Windows.posted by bendybendy at 9:39 PM PST - 47 comments
Hell On Earth. U.S. News... now has obtained all 106 classified annexes to the report... Taguba focused mostly on the MP s assigned to guard the inmates at Abu Ghraib, but the classified files in the annex to his report show that military intelligence officers--dispatched to Abu Ghraib by the top commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez--were intimately involved in some of the interrogation techniques widely viewed as abusive. The abuses took place, the files show, in a chaotic and dangerous environment made even more so by the constant pressure from Washington to squeeze intelligence from detainees. Riots, prisoner escapes, shootings, corrupt Iraqi guards, unsanitary conditions, rampant sexual misbehavior, bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and humiliations, and almost-daily mortar shellings from Iraqi insurgents--according to the annex to General Taguba's report, that pretty much sums up life at Abu Ghraib. Some PDFs are in
Shining a light in a real dark place.
See also
Making Torture Legal.
posted by y2karl at 6:51 PM PST - 25 comments
Yet another political flash cartoon! Anyone else getting tired of hearing the same bland crap about the upcoming election?
This flash cartoon somehow manages to be funny anyway, even though its subject has been done to death. It's brilliant, and definitely worth a look.
posted by Veritron at 2:54 PM PST - 27 comments
Press Box Red For 50 years,
Lester Rodney was a forgotten footnote in perhaps the
most controversial American sports
story of the 20th century:
Jackie Robinson and the
breaking of
baseball's
color barrier. Now, the 93-year-old Rodney is getting his due. In the decade before
Robinson debuted with the
Brooklyn Dodgers, Rodney was the
sports editor of the
Daily Worker, a newspaper (the
FBI files are
here on .pdf) better known as the house
organ of the
American Communist Party. With strident editorials and feature stories about what he dubbed "
The Crime of the Big Leagues," Rodney was an early, often lonely voice in the struggle to end segregation in baseball.
But Rodney's contribution was never acknowledged, because of that "
sickening Red tinge". Many baseball historians were staunchly anti-communist, and didn't want to acknowledge the contributions of the Communist Party. So Rodney's
role (.pdf file) was left out of the official story. With the publication of his
biography, Rodney's place in baseball's epochal story has introduced him to a new generation of admirers. "I wanted that ban to end because it was so unfair; I saw the tragedy of these great black ballplayers, like the
catcher Josh Gibson, who didn't get a chance to play. It's unimaginable today, but look at Barry Bonds: Imagine if he had been born earlier and been unable to play."
(login details for LATimes story in the main link: sparklebottom/sparklebottom)posted by matteo at 5:11 AM PST - 35 comments
Making the Modern World brings you powerful stories about science and invention from the eighteenth century to today. It explains the development and the global spread of modern industrial society and its effects on all our lives. The site expands upon the permanent landmark gallery at the Science Museum, using the Web and dynamic multimedia techniques to go far beyond what a static exhibition can do. Terrific
wrapping, excellent
content.
posted by tcp at 2:24 AM PST - 4 comments
July 11
Long ago in the town of Palermo in Sicily some monks got together and decided that they wanted to start praying to one of their own after he had passed to the Great Beyond
so they embalmed him. Four hundred years and 8,000 corpses later you can see
the Capuchin Catacombs for yourself.
posted by euphorb at 10:57 PM PST - 18 comments
Working Girls Jay, your average john, discusses his experiences with Working Girls -- as in, they work the "oldest profession". Nicole, a Working Girl, shares her experiences. Together, they try to educate people about what it means to be a "Callgirl" and the motivations behind those who are johns and prostitutes.
posted by SpecialK at 5:15 PM PST - 92 comments
Outfoxed, a documentary detailing Fox News's Republican bias, is being shown at house parties organized by MoveOn next Sunday amidst concerns about its extensive use of Fox News footage. Check out the
article in today's NYT Mag section or
sign up to host a screening at your house. I haven't seen this yet, but the stuff I've read on it makes me think immediately of
this film.
posted by alphanerd at 3:25 PM PST - 44 comments
The G.W. Talking Sockpuppet The Idiot's Guide to Presidentiable Speechwriting For Dummy
::blink :: ::blink :: ::blink :: ::blink :: ::blink :: ::blink :: ::blink :: ::blink :: ::blink :: ::blink :: posted by y2karl at 12:49 PM PST - 9 comments
Who says shopping's a sin for a socialist? On and on it goes, this notion that a political stance wraps everything you are expected to say in a neat brown paper parcel.
A nice little meditation on political ideology for your Sunday morning from the Globe and Mail's Heather Mallick.
posted by Quartermass at 7:52 AM PST - 21 comments
'The Dots Never Existed' Taken together, the facts in the report show that virtually every major claim President George W. Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq—from Saddam's growing nuclear program to his close ties with Al Qaeda—was either wrong or exaggerated.posted by Rastafari at 12:03 AM PST - 63 comments
July 10
A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller. He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied: "Everyone is fine, especially your father." When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came: "You have no clue who your real father is."--that's one of the jokes from
The Laughter Lover (Philogelos), an ancient Greek joke book published in the 4th or 5th century AD. The New Yorker commented on it, and other old jokes
here, stating about one of the possible authors:
... there is some scholarly speculation that the Hierocles in question was a fifth-century Alexandrian philosopher of that name who was once publicly flogged in Constantinople for paganism, which, as one classicist has observed, “might have given him a taste for mordant wit.”
posted by amberglow at 9:45 PM PST - 12 comments
MP3 Blog Roundup • A far-flung variety of free mp3 singles posted almost daily. Without
Sense's roundup I would have never stumbled across the excellent
Enchanted Sounds
of the Islanders. Equally worth bookmarking:
Fat Planet,
NewFlux,
Pop77,
ScissorKick,
TangMonkey,
TtIKtDA,
Tofu Hut,
Cocaine Blunts & Hip-Hop Tapes,
Music for Robots,
Soul Sides,
MoistWorks,
A Million LoveSongs,
Copy Right?,
The Big
Ticket,
TalkieWalkie,
Bubblegum Machine,
Fingertips,
#1 Songs in Heaven,
Mythical Beast,
Fruits of Chaos,
Moebius Rex...
posted by dhoyt at 6:11 PM PST - 43 comments
“I bid you peace…” Jeff Smith,
The Frugal Gourmet, dead at 65. One of television’s most popular cooking shows throughout the 80s and 90s, The Frugal Gourmet defined the genre. An ordained United Methodist chaplain, Smith lost his PBS show in 1997 after eight men accused him of sexual assault during the 1970s. Denying the allegations, Smith nonetheless settled the cases out of court. Did the Frugal Gourmet do the
ultimate shark jump? Maybe someone should ask Elmo.
posted by wfrgms at 1:20 PM PST - 28 comments
Fork-you! :: spend a rainy Saturday afternoon learning how to bend forks with your mind. Sort of.
posted by anastasiav at 12:53 PM PST - 4 comments
Europeans on Europeans. Reader's Digest dispatched researchers to 38 towns in 19 countries across Europe, from the UK to Russia, inviting nearly 4,000 respondents to comment on any country but their own. Italians finished as "most liked," Germans as "least liked," Belgians as the "least sexy," and Paris triumphed as "favorite European city." The full results can be seen
here. (
PDF)
posted by Ljubljana at 1:47 AM PST - 39 comments
July 9
With Jack Ryan dropping out of the Illinois Senate race due to the sex club allegations, who should replace him on the ballot? For one group of Illinois Republicans, there's only one man for the job, a man who already has plenty of name recognition and knows a little something about winning...
Mike Ditka.
posted by SisterHavana at 1:44 PM PST - 25 comments
Brown Equals Terroist - the story of a photography student who refuses to provide his ID to a security officer, and is swiftly confronted by Homeland Security. His ongoing struggle with the event is chronicled in the related
blog.
posted by falconred at 11:18 AM PST - 112 comments
Home is where the heart is. Karl Taro Greenfeld, journalist and author of
Speed Tribes, among others, has a nostalgic piece in Time Asia (Aug. '03) recounting his heady youth in Tokyo alongside his thoughts on his ailing Japanese grandmother.
posted by gen at 10:18 AM PST - 5 comments
"Disposable" Instant Messaging. Click a link and chat to someone with just your browser
*. "Include [a link] when you create eBay auctions, Craigslist personals, weblogs, moblogs, personal websites, Friendster, etc. and viewers will be able to contact you instantly."
*Requires Flash.posted by Blue Stone at 9:01 AM PST - 20 comments
free games ~ Rockstar Games gives you two of their classic games,
Grand Theft Auto (the original) and
Wild Metal, modified to run on modern machines.
[note : download at your own risk, windows only executables]posted by crunchland at 7:50 AM PST - 25 comments
Friday Fun! It's good to see a local advertiser with the guts to go for a "funny" ad campaign. I imagine these get a good response. If I lived in Oregon, this place would get my business (well, if they sold Hondas). Viva la Trunk Monkey!
posted by Ynoxas at 7:05 AM PST - 14 comments
The dog ate my service records. The Pentagon has announced that the payroll records for National Guard service for three months between 1972 and 1973 have been accidentally destroyed. These three months coincidentally cover the disputed period of George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. (Similar Google link
here, via
dKos)
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 5:00 AM PST - 71 comments
Play it loud! The Polyphonic Spree. This is just great for a bit of Friday distraction. It sounds as if it's right out of the Sixties.
Enjoy!
posted by essexjan at 2:58 AM PST - 37 comments
July 8
Save The Children calls on release of Iraqi children from jails. This apparently in response to
recent media reports on the abuse of children in Iraqi prisons. And it's not just Save the Children who is concerned, but UNICEF, Amnesty International, and the Red Cross.
Infact, Congress has called for
a special briefing tomorrow from the Pentagon on "confidential reports" from the Red Cross on prison conditions in Iraq. The Pentagon is closing the briefing to the public, however, and apparently thinks that even Congress shouldn't know the details of how we treat prisoners.
"It's something of a stretch of policy and procedures to give them to the Congress," Rumsfeld spokesman Larry Di Rita said.
posted by insomnia_lj at 7:46 PM PST - 18 comments
Anacrusis is a collection of short stories. Very short stories, written under a strict length constraint. It's a perfect way to get your daily dose of weird, funny, thought-provoking fiction.
posted by wanderingmind at 3:40 PM PST - 5 comments
July, 2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic: "The HIV epidemic is worse than ever." "As the AIDS pandemic enters its 24th year,
the number of people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection continues to increase steadily. Two thirds of infected persons are in Africa, where the epidemic exploded during the 1990s, and one fifth are in Asia, where the epidemic has been growing rapidly in recent years." A
new report from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS shows that "
"in short, the epidemic is outstripping efforts to contain it." "We're talking about more than 8,000 deaths every single day and in the war against AIDS we know the tools that work, we know the sorts of intervention that work,
and if an administration is choosing other than these, and is doing less than it ought, then they're absolutely responsible." As prevention fails and more people die,
some are "still insisting that only brand-name AIDS drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, most of them manufactured by big U.S. pharmaceutical companies, can be bought by beneficiaries of U.S. aid, despite the fact they are as much as five times more expensive as their generic equivalents manufactured in poor countries."
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 12:20 PM PST - 11 comments
Cost of sex with a girlfriend and wife calculator. The people at
NoMarriage.com are have devised some formulas for determining how much you need to shell out to get a little nookie from your significant other.
posted by chunking express at 11:39 AM PST - 103 comments
"The entry is dated June 1981, and while I have no memory of writing it, the penmanship is unmistakably my own. There, between accounts of my grandfather dying and a game-winning double I hit in Little League, is an account of my being raped three years before. I concluded the entry by wondering
what I would do if I ever met the man who'd raped me on the street once I myself was a grown man." Original article is a few months old but the follow up (
here) is fresh.
[romenesko]posted by dobbs at 10:39 AM PST - 19 comments
Eastasia plans attacks on Eurasia "Efforts each of you make to be vigilant – such as reporting suspicious items or activities to authorities – do make a difference. Every citizen using their common sense and eyes and ears can support our national effort to stop the terrorists.
Thank you for your continued resolve in the face of the ongoing threat of terrorism. We must continue to work together – to ensure that the freedom we just celebrated continues as the hallmark of this great nation."
Are you
scared yet?
posted by skechada at 10:07 AM PST - 57 comments
Her name was Courage & is written Olga "Olga"
(.pdf file in main link) is
Olga Rudge,
violinist, first promoter of the
Vivaldi Renaissance, and longtime companion of the
poet Ezra Pound.
Pound maintained a complicated and
delicate balance between the two most significant women in his life, Olga and his wife
Dorothy Shakespear (who, among other things, was
the daughter of Yeats's mistress).
‘‘Paris is where EP and OR met, and everything in my life happened,’’ Olga (listen to her voice
here) said later of the chance encounter with
Ezra at
20, rue Jacob, in the salon of
Natalie Barney. They were together for
fifty years, through the
dark-night years of
Pound's madness (arrested in 1945 for
treason, deemed unable to stand trial and sent to an American mental institution, he once suggested to the UPI bureau chief in Rome
that the United States trade Guam for some sound films of Japanese Noh plays, asked Truman many times to make him Ambadassor to Japan or Moscow;
Guy Davenport reports dining with him one evening and all Ez said was "gnocchi"), until
the poet's death in 1972.
She lived on for another quarter century, turning up at conferences of
Pound scholars --as far afield as Hailey,
Idaho, Pound's birthplace, where she gave a
lecture in the local movie theater. "Write about Pound", she told publishers who asked her to write her autobiography.
(more inside, with Cantos)
posted by matteo at 7:53 AM PST - 15 comments
Running of the naked bull-equivalents? (warning - NSFW, maybe - pic of naked female buttocks) Wouldn't this PETA protest, over bullfight cruelty, be more directly analogous to the "Running of the Bulls" if the naked runners were to be chased by a herd of meat eaters, on motor scooters, armed with stun guns?
posted by troutfishing at 7:43 AM PST - 25 comments
Xaphoon! It's a saxophone! No, it's a clarinet! It's dirt cheap and it fits on your pocket! Apparently these have been around for twenty years, but I've never heard of them before. I've ordered myself one of the plastic ones. Has anyone here played one of these things?
posted by chrid at 6:29 AM PST - 16 comments
July 7
"It would be best if the arrest or killing of [Osama bin Laden] were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July." During the first three days of the Democratic National Convention, the Bush administration offers
The July Surprise.
posted by four panels at 6:13 PM PST - 108 comments
Follow the blooming of the Corpseflower. The Titan opened about halfway during the course of the morning and afternoon yesterday, giving off stronger waves of odor as the day progressed. The peak odor and opening was in the early evening and by 10PM the pulses of odor became less strong. The daily progress of the Amorphophallus Titanum.
posted by jokeefe at 5:26 PM PST - 7 comments
Lawmakers ask that U.N. monitor election "A group of congressional Democrats, led by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, has asked the United Nations to monitor this year's presidential election." Fortunately, the UN said no. Unbelievable. I hope that everyone that signed this letter will lose their seat in the November election. What a shameless publicity stunt. "Besides Johnson, Democratic members of Congress signing the letter to Annan were Julia Carson of Indiana; Jerrold Nadler, Edolphus Towns, Joseph Crowley and Carolyn B. Maloney, all of New York; Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Corrine Brown of Florida, Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, Danny K. Davis of Illinois and Michael M. Honda of California."
posted by Oxydude at 1:26 PM PST - 114 comments
Wave of Outings hits Congress--Closet-cases running scared --being targeted are the closeted anti-gay members of Congress (and their staff), all a result of the Federal Marriage Amendment, due to come to a symbolic vote sometime before the election in November.
More here, too: “We have accepted for far too long fellow gays who work for horribly anti-gay politicians and thus help those politicians bash our community,” Aravosis said.
“It’s time we stopped tolerating this situation as normal. These people need, at the very least, to be confronted over their hypocrisy, and when we see them in public we ought to tell them we don’t approve.” And still more from
Signorileposted by amberglow at 1:17 PM PST - 86 comments
Disease Trading Cards!
Here's set two! There's diseases for everyone at the CDC 'kids' page!
[warning; squeam factor, PDF]
Caveat: Several search attempts to verify it's not got the Double Post Syndrome. Does not include bubble gum.posted by moonbird at 11:28 AM PST - 3 comments
Bill Sienkiewicz: aside from being an award winning comic-book artist (his New Mutants stint is my particular favorite), has also done some amazing film, televison and graphic work.
posted by signal at 11:25 AM PST - 10 comments
House of Bush, House of Saud, House of Cards? A superb, reasoned discussion of "How Does the Saudi Relationship With the Bush Family Affect U.S. Foreign Policy?" - regardless of which side you might agree with, it's one of the very few calm, rational media conversations on this topic.
posted by twsf at 10:52 AM PST - 23 comments
Wacky Packages are back!
Everyone's favourite stickers from childhood are back. The originals were developed by Maus author Art Spiegelman way back in 1967, with the
first series of stickers being released in 1973.
Sometimes
goofy, often
gross, Wacky Packages were a 10-year-old's dream come true (with
Garbage Pail Kids a close second).
posted by fizz-ed at 10:28 AM PST - 13 comments
Halliburton's business dealings in Iran: Waxman’s and Thompson’s complaints revolve around a Halliburton subsidiary called Halliburton Products and Services, which is based in Dubai and registered in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven in the Caribbean. As the Financial Times first reported, the subsidiary opened an office in Tehran in February 2000, when Cheney was still CEO of Halliburton. The subsidiary has sold $40 million worth of oil services in Iran.
Thompson, who is acting on behalf of the city’s pension funds, has asked Halliburton for clarifications about its business dealings in Iran, a country listed by the American government as a sponsor of terrorism and thus subject to stringent U.S. trade sanctions. Thompson claims that Halliburton has been using its subsidiary to circumvent a 1995 executive order barring American companies from doing business with Tehran.
posted by hoder at 10:27 AM PST - 5 comments
The Newsweek-Fahrenheit wars - Michael Isikoff's "seven errors, distortions and selective omissions of crucial information" detailed by Craig Unger, "
House of Bush, House of Saud" author (read excerpts of his book
at Salon.com, for members or by a "day pass") Isikoff has heavily cited Unger's book but, it seems, not bothered to read Unger's generously provided
source files. "Liberal" PBS is not excluded, as credulous (or ignorant) "On the Media" host Bob Garfield's July 2 interview with Isikoff
demonstrates. What shall we call such
pervasive, ongoing and seemingly willful patterns of inaccuracy, distortion, and selective omission?
posted by troutfishing at 5:39 AM PST - 34 comments
July 6
Joshua Green wrote an interesting and insightful piece regarding the current state of political advertisements.
Here is an example of an ad by a media consultant he refers to, based in Pittsburgh.
Another spin here. I've often wondered why they're so predictable. The Atlantic gives us a glimpse into poly. ad history and, quite possibly, its future.
posted by BlueTrain at 9:51 PM PST - 8 comments
Illegally imprison children for 13 years, make them do degrading things, deny them food to the point of degrading them further, force them as teenagers to wear diapers, tie them up, even give them mental problems! Get 9 months in a prison yourself. That's an expense rate of just about 17 : 1! Why not come to Canada and enjoy these exceedingly low rates today before they're gone?
posted by shepd at 8:41 PM PST - 55 comments
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday that
Israel is on the verge of a civil war. The Israeli Knesset held an emergency session on Tuesday to discuss the
growing threat of violence and anti-government assassinations--but this time, the anti-Sharon and anti-Likud threats are from
the Israeli Right, not Left.
Angry settlers (who are about to become
ex-settlers), egged on by a few
extremist rabbis, oppose Israel's disengagement and pullout plan from Gaza (which is already underway) and the West Bank:
"The General Security Service (GSS) believes that the next assassin of an Israeli Prime Minister is already here and is looking for an opportunity to strike. "This is not an academic possibility anymore. The danger is clear and present. A small core of settlers believes that Sharon is disengagement, and disengagement is Sharon, and they want to stop him," a GSS official told Channel 1 TV. "There are people who have already taken the decision that, come the day they are going to 'save Eretz Israel, that they are going to kill the PM or a minister, a defense official or a policeman." Ironically, the only people who oppose the pullout/disengagement plan even more than the settlers are Palestinians,
who oppose it 65% to 34% in a new poll, down from a previous support of 73% in February. [more inside]
posted by Asparagirl at 2:27 PM PST - 46 comments
Croatian Properties for Sale Charming little places for charming big prices. I've never been to Croatia, but I wouldn't have guessed that a 1,600 sq. foot apartment would go for $650,000... Is all of eastern Europe so expensive?
posted by Irontom at 11:00 AM PST - 14 comments
Mindguard ... protects your mind by actively jamming and/or scrambling psychotronic mind-control signals and removing harmful engrammic pollutants from your brain. It also has the ability to scan for and decipher into English specific signals so you can see exactly Who wants to control you and what They are trying to make you think.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:11 AM PST - 11 comments
In My Place. Brent posted a link on his blog today to an "ongoing, unfinished series of journal entries [he's been writing] since testing positive for hiv last year". I'm taking the entries one at a time, as they're poignant... so I've not yet read through them all. It's a brave thing... brave and beautiful.
God speed Brent, and I hope that your sharing will touch the hearts of those who suffer alone.
posted by silusGROK at 8:08 AM PST - 6 comments
That most peculiar of spectacles the
Fiesta de san Fermín (Running of the Bulls) seems to still exist and will be going ahead tomorrow. The event is held in parallel with
Feria del Toro (the Bullfighting Fair); the run itself seems to be in the interests of transporting the bulls to the fair while getting them good and
angry, confused, scared and weakened in the process. Being that the event is in honor of
Saint Fermín, when the
San Fermín church strikes 8am, the bulls are released and the runners get underway, trying to avoid them on their
just under 1km trip. On arrival at the Plaza del Toro (Bullring) they are herded into corrals and later released so the crowd can watch the matadors kill them in traditional bullfighting fashion
[wmv: 380k | 150k | 56k]. Of course, many people are
not really so keen on this event; and it seems
PETA will be holding one of their typically
daft protests.
Can't people just
throw tomatoes at each other or something?
posted by ed\26h at 3:48 AM PST - 7 comments
July 5
Sometimes bars give you a free beer on election night after you come in and show proof that you have voted. If you're wondering whether your local watering hole will be awarding your civic duty, check out
Election Night Drink Specials. Exercise your rights in this democracy, increase voter turnout,
and get drunk for free. It's projects like these that make me proud to be an American.
posted by mathowie at 11:34 AM PST - 25 comments
'Bad' Catholics "...From President Bush seeking the Vatican's help on social issues to the decision by some Catholic bishops to deny communion to pro-choice (but not pro-war or pro-death penalty) politicians and their supporters, some on the right are actively trying to portray John Kerry and others on the left as "bad Catholics." But such attempts could well backfire, as it appears the majority of Catholic voters dislike the selective and political co-opting of their faith. .."
posted by Postroad at 10:42 AM PST - 30 comments
The 100 Wonders of the World. A list, which includes both photos and a short description of all the wonders. The list may not be complete, but it's an interesting list for those of us, who love to travel.
Italy seems to be a nice place to start, with 12 of the 100 wonders (
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12).
posted by einarorn at 10:09 AM PST - 26 comments
July 4
The Jewish Encyclopaedia. 'This website contains the complete contents of the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia, which was originally published between 1901-1906. The Jewish Encyclopedia, which recently became part of the public domain, contains over 15,000 articles and illustrations.'
posted by plep at 11:56 PM PST - 9 comments
Health-care costs shoot up, millions in U.S. left gasping "...there are signs of growing frustration. The Gallup Organization reported in January that for the first time since 1992, when Americans are polled about urgent health problems facing the country, the cost of health care is No. 1, ahead of issues such as cancer, obesity, and smoking..."
posted by Postroad at 10:03 AM PST - 76 comments
In heartland, Cheney touts "conservative values" and therapeutic use of "F-word" After his
controversial, widely and
inconsistently reported use of the "F-word" - recently declared to be
"abhorrent" by FCC head Michael Powell (as uttered by Bono) - Dick Cheney's
"no regrets", "felt better after I had done it" justification suggests that the
"if it feels good, do it" ethic of the 60's counterculture has now spread to the conservative mainstream. Some see a
role reversal, as a confused type of postmodernist,
relativistic thinking gnaws into the conservative zeitgeist. Seventy year old Florence Orris, at a Parma, Ohio Cheney/Republican rally, sympathized with Cheney's "F-word" catharsis, and with relativist values : "I'm almost getting to that point with my Democratic friends..." (from main link) "Conservatism, as I understand it, has always had as its end the cultivation of virtue in the individual and the community," writes one conservative who asks - is it reasonable to look towards the state, and to potty mouthed politicians, for the
promotion of public values? Laments one observer of the "Culture Wars", "Who is behind the effort to
undermine our moral standards and enslave our people?"posted by troutfishing at 9:19 AM PST - 36 comments
July 3
The New European Football Champion Will Be Greece Or Portugal: Sunday's Euro 2004 match is the first final ever between two national teams who've never made a final before, after dispatching the biggest, richest European powers like England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France. Meanwhile,
Maria Sharapova, a 17-year old Russian from Siberia has
won Wimbledon, defeating the mighty Serena Williams. Perhaps size and money, despite the multi-million contracts, still aren't everything in sport. Or does it depend on the sport? [
More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:08 PM PST - 53 comments
Due to temporary budget shortfalls, I find myself spending my Saturdays elbow deep in breadmaking.
Sourdough bread is perhaps one of the most primal forms of bread relying an an artificial ecosystem of
hundreds of different bacteria and yeasts to digest grain flours and produce gas. The souring of the dough has
complex effects on the flavor of the resulting bread and is necessary for low-protein flours such as rye. Free starter cultures can be obtained from the
friends of Carl who continue his tradition of mailing his culture to anyone who sent a self-addressed stamped envelope. You can buy
cultures from around the world, but if you want to live dangerously, you can cultivate your own by just using a mixture of flour and water relying on microbial flora growing on the flour. Sourdough in some ways puts the art of hacking
back into breadmaking because it requires a deeper understanding of what is going on beyond just throwing a set of dry and wet ingredients into a bread machine.
Which could explain why I'm still lucky to get something other than a brick. But like beermaking, the DIY satisfaction makes up for many flaws in the final product. (And on final edit, I can't get away with making this post without the obligatory link to the
sourdough faqs.posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:27 PM PST - 32 comments
Rising Force Mud Remember back a couple of years, when the rage was "Multi User Dungeons "? You know graphical role playing. Well, its still around, And loads more interesting than the new online rpgs than the playstation has going.
So check it out and play awhile if you want.
posted by edmcbride at 1:11 PM PST - 15 comments
The Stop Bush Project
...a documentation of anti-Bush sentiment from around the world expressed through graffiti, placards, flyers and other spontaneous, 'guerilla' means.posted by moonbird at 8:19 AM PST - 77 comments
AlexWarp is a small java applet that lets you warp, stretch, distort and then save image files.
posted by carter at 6:13 AM PST - 3 comments
July 2
battle for the sudan - some friday flash fun for your playing pleasure. this is a fun game, but it takes a little practice to figure out the strategy. i recommend playing the computer until you can always beat it before playing other people. also, try out the suggested starting positions before trying to make your own.
posted by christy at 5:23 PM PST - 9 comments
Sexual abuse amongst the Amish has traditionally been handled by the Amish. However, some victims are breaking with their communities and exposing their cloistered world to legal authorities and losing their entire family in the process. (Nerve.com link, relatively SFW)
posted by nathan_teske at 3:31 PM PST - 10 comments
Sounds of silence You may not support the Bush plan to invade Iraq, but here is how he has helpeed bring democractic values to a country run by a tyrant.
posted by Postroad at 12:49 PM PST - 9 comments
On Monday, US Civil Administrator Paul Bremer handed over "sovereignty" to the Interim Government of Iraq in a furtive ceremony, two days ahead of schedule. Not the stuff that independence days are made of. How sovereign is Iraq; what kind of future does the ongoing process offer for that shattered nation; and most significantly, how can a genuinely free, democratic and prosperous Iraq be created? Al-Ahram Weekly, in these special pages, invited Iraqi journalists and intellectuals to provide some answers. via Informed Commentposted by y2karl at 10:18 AM PST - 10 comments
Retro toys: I remember using the garden hose to frantically try and dissolve that pink shit. We eventually cleaned the knife, but I remember big blobs of it still on the ground with ants stuck in it. We ended up keep Stretch's head as a trophy.
People reminisce about their old toys. Mostly about topics like how they
tortured GI Joe, made
mrs. beasley look like a victim of domestic violence, and knew that
Steve Scout was living an alternative lifestyle. Not every memory's a gem, but some are a real laugh.
posted by Mayor Curley at 10:01 AM PST - 11 comments
Too much time looking at staple? Simon Cox is trying to figure out what the perfect angle for a staple between several sheets of paper should be. Proof that there can be beauty in every little office things.
posted by TNLNYC at 6:33 AM PST - 14 comments
One slip and you're dead!
Marine cone snails are among the most venomous animals in existence, some producing as many as 100 different toxins. Due to their unique properties, the toxins are in hot demand for neuroscience research. Most researchers obtain the toxins from dead specimens, but one upstate New York biochemist is trying to farm them. Milking time is dangerous...
posted by Irontom at 5:48 AM PST - 13 comments
Homicide in Chicago: 1870-1930 July 25, 1899
Murphy, James, 28 years old, shot dead, saloon 1210 Wabash Av., by Lorezo Sodini, proprietor. Murphy refused to pay for drinks and ran out of saloon and threw stone through window. Sodini ran out and fired at him, killing him instantly. Harrison St. Station. Held by Coroner's Jury, July 29. Acquitted Dec. 9, 1899, by jury in Judge Baker's court.
Case number: 1498posted by tcp at 2:58 AM PST - 1 comments
Pen spinning is very cool. Have a look at
Pentrix, with
guides to help you learn,
videos of some very nice looking variations,
basic tricks and
combinations. A word of warning though, trying these things in an open environment may well annoy your fellow humans; but this may be the
only distraction for the bored and restricted office worker.
posted by ed\26h at 2:12 AM PST - 16 comments
Saddam Hussein. After his defiant appearance in court, is it impossible for him to face a fair trial? Does anyone feel he deserves one after his actions?
posted by emc at 1:27 AM PST - 63 comments
July 1
Hubble harvests 100 new planets during a 7-day sweep of the bulge of the Milky Way.. If confirmed it would almost double the number of known planets to about 230. "I think this work has the potential to be
the most significant advance in discovering extra-solar planetary systems since the first planets were discovered in the mid-1990s."
posted by stbalbach at 10:31 PM PST - 17 comments
Permanent Makeup. Look like yourself, only better!
Many of Nancy Ruth's clients are tired of applying eyebrow pencil day after day. Or they don't want their eyeliner to smear every time they cry at a movie or rub their eyes.
posted by fizz-ed at 3:10 PM PST - 33 comments
america's heart and soul - so, they wouldn't release fahrenheit 9/11, but this, this is okay. are they making efforts to distance themselves from any involvement with fh9/11, or do they want to make sure that washington
keeps listening?
From the chronicle:
Disney officials insist their 88-minute film, "America's Heart and Soul" -- stitching simple, positive vignettes of everyday Americans with sweeping vistas and up-tempo music -- is neither a response to Moore's politically charged hit nor any type of political statement itself.
more coverage
here, and a
review.
posted by christy at 2:57 PM PST - 34 comments
The
CDC recently issued new HIV prevention guidelines that would mandate all organizations that get any federal funding to submit all surveys, curricula, web materials, posters, ads, brochures, etc. to new community-based Policy Review Panels. Politically appointed censors rather than health officials will now decide what's acceptable in terms of HIV prevention and education. Materials must promote abstinence and include a message about the ineffectiveness of condom use in preventing the spread of HIV and STDs. There is a period of public comment on the new regulations until August 16.
- more inside - posted by madamjujujive at 1:49 PM PST - 39 comments
Churchgoers get direction from Bush Campaign: The instruction sheet circulated by the Bush-Cheney campaign to religious volunteers lists 22 "duties" to be performed by specific dates. By July 31, for example, volunteers are to "send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters or give [it] to a BC04 Field Rep" and "Talk to your Pastor about holding a Citizenship Sunday and Voter Registration Drive."
Isn't this blatantly illegal?
posted by widdershins at 1:18 PM PST - 43 comments
Mr. Roh, tear down this firewall! South Korea's
previous efforts to censor the beheading video of Kim Sun-Il have escalated considerably. They are now
blocking most major weblog services, including
Blogger/Blogspot, TypePad, and
LiveJournal -- a degree of censorship for weblogs even greater than that of China.
The rallying cry of opposition seems to be centering around
this letter :
"I am writing this letter not primarily to criticize all Koreans .... No, my purpose is more specific: to cause the South Korean government as much embarrassment as possible, and perhaps to motivate Korean citizens to engage in some much-needed introspection. To this end, I need the blogosphere's help .... The best and quickest way to persuade the South Korean government to back down from its current position is to make it lose face in the eyes of the world." If you are interested in giving the South Korean Ministry of Information and Culture a piece of your mind, please email them at:
webmaster@mic.go.kr.
posted by insomnia_lj at 12:28 PM PST - 16 comments
How long can he go? Jeopardy streak hits $697760 for 21 consecutive days.
This guys is simply amazing to
watch. He's had more airtime than some tv stars. Any bets to how long he can go?
posted by blahblah at 12:17 PM PST - 56 comments
MEMRI adds a TV monitoring project. MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) has added hundreds of clips from various Middle Eastern television stations (
list of sources here). The archive of clips can be found
here. There are amazing primary sources available, like "Saudi Sheik Sa'd Al-Breik on Human Rights in Islam and in the West", "Sheik Youssef Al-Qaradhawi in Favor of Democratic Elections in the Arab World", and "Former Dean of Humanities at Cairo's Ein Shams University: 9/11 was 100% American".
posted by loquax at 11:39 AM PST - 40 comments
Ben's Game. A young cancer patient, Ben Duskin, designed a video game, a LucasArts developer built it for him. The game follows a young protagonist as he searches for protection from the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy.
posted by o2b at 11:01 AM PST - 19 comments
Outsourcing comes to Iraq. Interesting article from the WP (login req'd, get one
here) about workers from countries such as India and South Korea, subcontracted by American companies, notably the ever-infamous Halliburtun. Effectively turned into indentured servants, these workers not only endure work conditions that American workers would never tolerate, but they do it in a war zone.
"Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said contractors' use of multiple layers of subcontracts makes it difficult for the U.S. government to ensure the fair treatment of the workers it effectively employs."posted by mkultra at 10:52 AM PST - 2 comments
Stasi, meet Highway Watch: The Department of Homeland Security this year gave $19.3 million to the American Trucking Associations, which is based So far, 10,000 truckers have signed on to become amateur sleuths. Over the next year, the goal is to add tollbooth workers, rest-stop employees and construction crews, creating a corps of 400,000 people drawn from every state. A child of
Operation TIPS, of course.
posted by amberglow at 10:30 AM PST - 20 comments
How Fox News Gets Ratings Move over Janet Jackson and CBS, here comes Fox News with the "full plow!" Descending to the depths and pushing the envelope for what constitutes "news," Rupert should be in for much larger fines than the little Super Bowl fiasco. Its good to see the mouthpiece for the Morality Party being bold enough to do what it takes to attract their demographic audience.
(NSFW, but fine for broadcast television)
posted by nofundy at 6:59 AM PST - 37 comments
Iranian woman 'gives birth to frog' (BBC)
"While it is unclear how this could have happened, the [Iranian] paper carries quotes from medical experts who say there are human characteristics to the animal....Medical history recounts stories of people who believed they had frogs - or even lizards or snakes - living and growing in their bodies....One of the most famous was the 17th Century case of Catharina Geisslerin, known as "the toad-vomiting woman" of Germany. " Could this be connected to that 20 pound
carp's apocalyptic warnings spouted in Hebrew, last year, as a fish cutter tried to club it to death with a rubber hammer to make it into gefilte fish? Or, maybe it was those new
tomatoes? Or an
Old Testament thing, maybe a
prophecy?posted by troutfishing at 5:32 AM PST - 16 comments
'I am Mahabir Pun. I would like to take you on a tour of my village (Nangi), and my country (Nepal and the Himalayas). I would like you to learn about our High School in Nangi Village, Nepal. Some people from abroad have visited and worked in Nangi and have interesting stories to tell you of their time here. '
posted by plep at 5:19 AM PST - 11 comments
Top 100 British...Intellectuals? Rock bands, schmock bands. Who are currently the cream of British Intelligentsia? Prospect
names 100 of (supposedly) the UK's finest and asks you to vote for your top 5, plus a write-in. The list is discussed further
here. Some entrants may make you
wonder, some may make you
gasp, most you just won't have a clue about!
posted by biffa at 4:17 AM PST - 22 comments
