September 2002 Archives

"nearly 20" kids beat man to brain death with bats, shovels and boards Brutal stuff. One of the kids in custody is only 10 years old. The victim had "confronted them for throwing an egg at him and punched one teen in the mouth". They went and organized a mob, and returned, according to the Milwaukee Police. What do you do with a 10 year old murderer, anyway?
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 10:33 PM PST - 42 comments

There's a reason why you've been getting those 'RapeMaster' spam ads although we're not sure why, but alot of weird stuff is popping up in spam. I could live without ads for 'farmer girl on cow' sites.

To heck with thinking this out, it's obviously a massive conspiracy involving the Government, Government Ops, Ariel Sharon, the CIA, the Queen of England, Mothers who post bikini pics for pedophiles, Wired.com, Capitol Hill Blue and other forms of media to discredit the Internet while using the Internet to do it.

Anyways, what sorts of weird 'GovOps' spam are you getting in your mailboxes?
posted by RobbieFal at 9:27 PM PST - 10 comments

EBay in patent dispute. EBay is currently involved in a patent dispute with someone who claims to have patented the idea of online auctions in 1995. EBay believes it has found prior art in a USENET post from 1994.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 9:16 PM PST - 7 comments

EU officially excludes Americans from war crimes tribunal. "Defusing a trans-Atlantic spat, the European Union agreed Monday to spare U.S. citizens the fate of standing trial on war crimes charges in the newly created International Criminal Court."
posted by botono9 at 9:07 PM PST - 45 comments

Oh No - Not the O-Zone Layer AGAIN! It seems that our wonderful ozone hole over the Earth has split in two... Now you don't need to wear 100 sunblock just on Australia and Antarctica. But scientists *sound* a little happier, or perhaps I'm just reading into it a little too much.
posted by djspicerack at 8:33 PM PST - 4 comments

What lies beneath. Confirming what you probably already knew, "as we juggle eating, drinking and working at our work stations, the tight shadowy crevices between our keyboard become the computer equivalent of a black hole, sucking in pizza toppings, contact lenses, paper clips, the odd insect...". Germ freakery or a genuine hygiene concern?
posted by netsirk at 7:29 PM PST - 43 comments

The Rise of the Ideopolis "Democrats have been gaining strength in areas where the production of ideas and services has either redefined or replaced an economy dependent on manufacturing, agriculture, and resource extraction. Many of these areas are in the North and West, but they are also in states like Florida and Virginia. Republicans are strongest in areas where the transition to postindustrial society has lagged. Many of these are in the Deep South and Prairie States. As Democratic politics has evolved over the last decade, it has increasingly reflected the socially liberal, fiscally moderate priorities of these new areas -- what we call a politics of progressive centrism. Republicans have continued to espouse an anti-government credo closely identified with business and the religious right -- a politics that plays well in parts of the Deep South but not in a new postindustrial America." (Check out what's going on in Illinois). If that doesn't work, there's always the NASCAR Democrats.
posted by owillis at 7:13 PM PST - 15 comments

Geeky obsessiveness on a level that I can definitely get behind. A shot by shot analysis of the full trailer for "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers". The trailer is up in Quicktime here, for all us fanboys.
posted by GriffX at 6:32 PM PST - 19 comments

If you can spare a moment from histrionic rhetorical arguments about far away places you have no real experience with to involve yourself with practical ways to stop the trend toward a fundamentalist totalitarian corporate dictatorship in this country and step by small pragmatic step reclaim democracy, a good first step is to support Oregon's Measure 23, to promote comprehensive universal health care using a single payer public finance mechanism, or support healthcare for everyone in your state.
posted by semmi at 6:30 PM PST - 37 comments

Music compact disc distributors, retailers settle price fixing suit. But they're still busting our chops for downloading MP3s. This is ammo to Kazaa or WinMX the SOBs into submission, I say. What share of this cash will actually benefit consumers? By the way, part of the press release at the AG's site may be cut off. It's the bottom of the first page: Today’s settlement has three major components: 1. Sales Practice Changes. Defendants have agreed to an injunction preventing them from forcing retailers to increase CD prices and encouraging price competition between them.
posted by stevefromsparks at 6:18 PM PST - 7 comments

One sunny day, Bill Beaty was walking through a car park when he noticed a black car that appeared to have a series of interesting spots and highlights on its hood. On closer inspection, he also noticed several hand prints which had a curious property: they didn't appear to be on the surface of the paintwork at all but instead looked as though they were floating several inches below the surface. In some cases they even looked like they were floating above the surface. After thinking about this he came to realize that he looking at a kind of holographic effect but this kind of hologram didn't require all the usual paraphernalia nor was it caused by light wave interference. It was a kind of holography that could be used to draw pictures in 3D by hand. (More inside...)
posted by lagado at 6:10 PM PST - 10 comments

Bill O'Reilly's views on American protection of Israel, and the response of the Muslim World.
posted by yevge at 6:08 PM PST - 27 comments

Pakistani man denies having sex with Taliban American. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
posted by msacheson at 5:44 PM PST - 19 comments

"They were acting like bin Laden was hiding behind every door. That just wasn’t the way to be acting with civilians." According to this Newsweek article, some members of U.S. Special Forces seem to think the military's recent operations to track down Al Qaeda went a bit awry.
posted by moonbiter at 5:18 PM PST - 13 comments

Cicero, writing in the first century BC, mentions an instrument “recently constructed by our friend Poseidonius, which at each revolution reproduces the same motions of the sun, the moon and the five planets.” Archimedes is also said to have made a small planetarium, and two such devices were said to have been rescued from Syracuse when it fell in 212BC. This reconstruction suggests such references can now be taken literally.
posted by grumblebee at 4:43 PM PST - 9 comments

Need some office equipment? Maybe you'll want to check out the 8863 items from Arthur Andersen being auctioned off, starting tomorrow. Lots of printers, monitors, servers, apparently not much cable management, but no shredders that I've seen yet. Then again, I haven't looked through the 6 meg Excel spreadsheet of all items either. Just the ticket, in case you need 18 floors(600,000 square feet) worth of furniture and equipment. A cold, hard footnote to a pathetic and shameful story of integrity squandered.
posted by dglynn at 2:55 PM PST - 16 comments

U.S. helped Iraq start bioweapons program

"I don't think it would be accurate to say the United States government deliberately provided seed stocks to the Iraqis' biological weapons programs,'' said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. biological weapons inspector. "But they did deliver samples that Iraq said had a legitimate public health purpose, which I think was naive to believe, even at the time."

" -isn't iraq just another case of blowback and is anyone asking what the next round of "blowback" will be if we go in again?
posted by specialk420 at 2:46 PM PST - 35 comments

Is the US targeting al-Jazeera? In defense of al-Jazeera, they have interviewed Israeli officials and members of the Bush administration. They have also been critical of Arab dictatorships. In October of last year, Colin Powell tried to gag Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera's response? They did a story on the attempted censorship. Six weeks later, the al-Jazeera office in Kabul was demolished by a pair of 500 lb. bombs. Sami al-Haj, a cameraman for al-Jazeera, has been illegally imprisoned without charges by the US for nine months. His wife -- the mother of Sami's three-year old son -- assumed that he had been killed until she received a letter from him in April. Can we really say that their approach to journalism is biased and disrepectful, but ours is not?
posted by insomnia_lj at 2:18 PM PST - 14 comments

Student arrested with boxcutter & scissors. But the thing that really boggled my mind was this: "Since February, we've taken more than 25,000 boxcutters from carry-ons and off of passengers. We've taken more than 500 firearms and 215,000 knives," Johnson said." For one thing, I guess I had never realized how much box cutting went on in the US - but the bizarre piece is the guns. A half dozen I can see, but five freakin' hundred? How can that many people - in the post 9/11 world - still be trying to get serious weapony onto airplanes?
posted by MidasMulligan at 1:33 PM PST - 45 comments

Torricelli Considers Dropping Out Of His Re-Election Bid ...and Republicans' hopes to reclaim the Senate brighten. Why drop out now, with only 5 weeks left? Is Torricelli guilty of even more ethics violations than previously thought? (more inside...)
posted by jennak at 12:18 PM PST - 67 comments

Testimony of Teens Kidnapped w/ authorization of parents and taken to overseas "behavior modification" schools. After researching these schools almost 5 years ago I am horrified that most of them are still running and whose teachings are even showing up in the form of seminars in kindergarten. Has anyone else had experience with schools like this, whether directly or through a family member or friend ?
posted by bkdelong at 11:44 AM PST - 17 comments

American Dreams premierd last night on NBC. "This evocative drama -- set against the memorable, upbeat sounds of the 1960s -- depicts a more innocent America as seen through the youthful Pryor family of Philadelphia as they brace for cultural turbulence ahead that still resonates in this contemporary era." Several things along those lines in the show caught my attention. One being the way the 1960's mother role is portrayed. Is she content or is she oppressed? What happend to the everyday sit-down family dinner, where some things are not appropriate to say at the dinner table? Why did it seem like such a simpler place and time? Would America today feel the same pain if we lost our president? The show is not a whole lot different from the concept of the Wonder Years but it seems fresh compared to some of the other NBC dramas.
posted by Recockulous at 11:06 AM PST - 53 comments

BobCrane.com is a pay-pr0n site (don't worry; the first page, at least, is work-safe) that collects the explicit photos, films, etc. that "Hogan's Heroes" star Bob Crane took of himself and a ceaseless stream of female companions in his off-hours. What makes the site unusual is that it's run by Bob's son, Scotty, who takes particular pride in defending his dad's sexual prowess and mental health. This defense is necessary because Crane is being biopic'd in a new film by Paul Schrader which, according to a recent NYT article, imagines Crane as the archetypal sex addict, culminating in a still-unsolved murder. [reg. req'd: metafilter41, metafilter; much more inside.]
posted by blueshammer at 10:37 AM PST - 16 comments

RAPGEN Between the photo shoots, trips to the orthodontist for work on your platinum grill, and keeping your hos in check, you don't have time to sit down and compose songs. It's rare that you even have time to kick back with a 40. Producing with RAPGEN ensures that you'll always be keeping it real.
posted by adamms222 at 10:33 AM PST - 8 comments

The following is a [partial] list of the most frequently challenged books of 2001...
1. Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
3. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (the "Most Challenged" fiction book of 1998)
4. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
5. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
6. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
(Last week was Banned Books Week. Sorry this is late. Did you remember to hug your favorite banned book? Does anyone really think children need to be "protected" from these books?)
posted by Shane at 10:22 AM PST - 52 comments

Freedomland was an entertainment park, the largest anywhere in the world. It was New York's answer to Disneyland. Built in the shape of the United States, this 205-acre park's main theme was American history. It was divided into seven sections of our country, each with its own special exhibit or disaster. You could travel from the East Coast to the West Coast, all in one day. It only lasted frm 1960 till 1964 and considered one of the greatest failures in amusement park history.
posted by atom128 at 10:03 AM PST - 10 comments

American Heritage magazine's fifth annual Overrated and Underrated list is out, with this year's experts weighing in on the most overblown poet, underappreciated pirate, and overadmired Roosevelt, among many others. (See the Metafilter discussion of last year's list for more dichotomies.)
posted by arco at 9:32 AM PST - 17 comments

Myth Dispelled: Shoe Size, Penis Size Not Linked. I guess there's no need in buying my shoes two sizes too large any longer (pardon the pun). Damn you scientists!
posted by pallid at 9:18 AM PST - 22 comments

Are you writing a novel? An article in the NY Times urging would-be authors to pack it in. Given the quoted stat (that 81% of Americans 'feel they have a book in them'), and extrapolating it for the rest of the world, that still means that there are roughly 12,887 unwritten books out there in me-fi land. Is this true? And has anyone actually written theirs down?
posted by jonathanbell at 9:16 AM PST - 59 comments

David Hasselhoff notifies media that he's hit rock bottom. "I am *too* a tortured artist. See?"
posted by spotmeter at 9:07 AM PST - 30 comments

Theologian of the Year: Ms. Buffy. "We need someone who can not only deconstruct the problem of evil, but kick it's hiney; someone with a preternatural sense of comic timing and an eye for fashion."
posted by jacknose at 9:05 AM PST - 13 comments

The Demon in the Freezer An article by the author of The Hot Zone. " The water contained the whole molecules of life from variola, a parasite that had colonized us thousands of years ago. We had almost freed ourselves of it, but we found we had developed a strong affinity for smallpox. Some of us had made it into a weapon, and now we couldn't get rid of it. I wondered if we ever would, for the story of our entanglement with smallpox is not yet ended".
posted by Mack Twain at 1:57 AM PST - 10 comments

Republican Insider Hint #1: Apply foot to mouth and win. America ain't no democracy. Trent Lott on McDermott: "For him to be in Baghdad, the center of one of the most dangerous dictators in the world, with all kinds of weapons of mass destruction, to be questioning the veracity of our own American president, is the height of irresponsible," said Lott, R-Mississippi. "He needs to come home and keep his mouth shut." Yes, yes, we have three traitorous democratic congressmen in Baghdad presently, who are lobbying that government to allow the return of UN weapons inspectors.
posted by crasspastor at 11:41 PM PST - 94 comments

Did perfume from a dress make T.S. Eliot so digress? Or was it the scent of other men? A rash of biographies this year claim to have found closet homosexuals just about everywhere; Adolf Hitler, G.F. Handel, Friedrich Nietzsche and T.S. Eliot are all suspected – largely without substantial evidence – of being gay. [more inside]
posted by Ljubljana at 11:38 PM PST - 15 comments

Do you know what the Second Amendment actually says? UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh presents a remarkably clear, educated, and non-inflammatory explanation of the amendment, including plenty of historical references. As with my previous post (about Liberalism and Conservativism), I submit this not to promote a viewpoint, but to (hopefully) educate those who would debate about it.
posted by oissubke at 10:09 PM PST - 33 comments

A gaping but temporary hole has opened in the blogosphere. Will Vehrs claims that this week's PunditWatch will be the last of the venerated Sunday Morning political talkshow digests until November 5th--the weekend before the election. Who will step up to the plate at this critical juncture?       ...please?
posted by goethean at 8:11 PM PST - 10 comments

A six month reprieve. Congressman Sensenbrenner just last week proposed a bill that would delay for six months the effectiveness of CARP fees webcasters would otherwise have to start paying in October. The bill is up for a crucial vote on Tuesday. If you want to Save Internet Radio in the U.S., this is your chance! Call your representative (no time to use faxes or snail mail, just dial the Congressional Switchboard, 202-225-3121) and tell your Congresscritter to support HR 5469.
posted by IPLawyer at 6:22 PM PST - 9 comments

Agency disavows report on Iraq arms "The International Atomic Energy Agency says that a report cited by President Bush as evidence that Iraq in 1998 was 'six months away' from developing a nuclear weapon does not exist. 'There's never been a report like that issued from this agency,' Mark Gwozdecky, the IAEA's chief spokesman, said yesterday in a telephone interview from the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria."
posted by owillis at 1:41 PM PST - 52 comments

"Patience has its limits", she said after she pummeled a few snot nosed brats... after she removed her veil and burqa.
posted by jcterminal at 1:29 PM PST - 18 comments

This Green House, an Orlando couple's struggle to build the ecologically friendly home of their dreams: "The question eventually comes down to the price of environmental consciousness. I was asked, 'Why bother with all these things if the readily available alternatives are suitable?' And my best response is: 'Why not?'"
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:53 PM PST - 11 comments

Kodak Girl - Martha Cooper began her love affair with photography when her dad gave her a Kodak Baby Brownie sometime around 1946. A professional photographer, for the last 25 years she's also been an avid collector of photographica. Her focus is on images of women with cameras. Browse through more than a century of historic photos, quirky memorabilia, advertising, toys, comics, movie stills and figurines - it's a fascinating site! In her own photos, Ms. Cooper favors art, anthropology, and urban folk culture. Her colorful work can be viewed at NYCity Snaps.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:10 AM PST - 2 comments

Ever wonder just who's fattening who's wallet? The Transnational Corporations Observatory [multilingual] seems to know quite a bit. Now if i can only figure out how the ad council gets their money...
posted by phylum sinter at 5:00 AM PST - 3 comments

"All it takes is a snowball," he said, "to start an avalanche." Vaclav Havel speaks to Cuban exiles.
posted by swell at 3:16 AM PST - 10 comments

The last Minority Report in the Nation by Christopher Hitchens
posted by semmi at 11:45 PM PST - 46 comments

Ahhhh ahhhhhhh! (Flash link) I never knew the lyrics to Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," but I'm pretty sure I'll never forget them now. Animation! Vikings! And... kittens! However, as much fun as the video is, I'm not convinced it's historically accurate.
posted by headspace at 10:56 PM PST - 21 comments

Sometime in the past hour, explodingdog.com (no, I'm not linking to it) got its front page hacked. Now I can understand the motives behind hacking as cyber-terrorism (.pdf file), or to promote your political or social agenda, and I can't say that I totally disagree with hacktivism as a sort of civil disobedience. I also understand hacking as a way to show off your skills. But off all the sites out there, why would some stereotypical punk kids (or whomever) pick a great site like explodingdog to hack? Where's the challenge? So many hackers say they're out to free the Internet - then why attack a site that give away so much for free?
posted by anastasiav at 10:40 PM PST - 22 comments

Activists' names on no-fly blacklist - A federal "No Fly" list, intended to keep terrorists from boarding planes, is snaring peace activists. Several federal agencies -- including the CIA, FBI, INS and State Department -- contribute names to the list. But no one at those agencies could say who is responsible for managing the list or who can remove names of people who have been cleared by authorities.
posted by dejah420 at 9:45 PM PST - 20 comments

Returning to Reason Reasonably. Dreams of rationalism now dog university life, says Stephen Toulmin in his new book, Return to Reason. He argues that we must restore faith in our ability to reason about the moral life. Via Arts & Letters Daily.
posted by gd779 at 7:54 PM PST - 19 comments

I wasn't aware that mosquitoes even had breasts.
posted by zenpop at 6:26 PM PST - 10 comments

Owner takes car to dealer.
Tech takes car on joyride at 140 mph.
Tech writes up experience and posts to internet.
Owner reads tech's post.
Hilarity ensues!
posted by Wet Spot at 5:28 PM PST - 52 comments

Use P2P? You might be unknowingly stealing money from one of your favorite websites. Add-on software that come with the programs divert commission money from affiliate sales on popular websites like Amazon.com to the creators of the file sharing programs. Follow the link for instructions on how to uninstall the software. Yet another reason I use KaZaa Lite. I've got to get those MST3K episodes from somewhere.
posted by Pinwiz at 4:54 PM PST - 17 comments

Small house, big ambitions. I've always lived in small houses and flats so this would be the perfect little place for me. As people are progressively continuing to stay single for longer into their lives, are homes like these what they'd be looking for to settle into?
posted by feelinglistless at 4:04 PM PST - 23 comments

Project Blinkenlights transforms the Tower T2 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France into a huge computer screen. Wanna play a giant game of Tetris via your mobile phone? Or just wonder at the giant pixellated images which the Parisiens can? Go here! Or if you have Unix on your computer, you can hook up live. Those wacky Euro's, eh?
posted by dash_slot- at 1:40 PM PST - 7 comments

Is this poetry? How about this, this or this? They're all examples of visual or concrete poetry, which has a long history. The modern version grew out of Lettrisme and helped give birth to the worldwide mail art movement. Two leading visual poets, Uruguayan activist Clemente Padin and Argentinian Edgardo Vigo, both had serious run-ins with dictators during the 1970s. The huge Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry puts gem after gem at your fingertips. Another great collection: Brazilian Visual Poetry. [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 12:35 PM PST - 39 comments

Bored with all the usual vacation spots? The Iraqi embassy considers Iraq safe for travel, and they are probably about 80 percent right. It's the 20 percent you have to worry about.
posted by konolia at 12:07 PM PST - 2 comments

Apple releases iSync barely meeting its promise to unveil the software before the end of September. Will Apple's iSync finally take the hassle out of syncing between PDAs, online calenders, email, and cell phones? Why hasn't anyone else made this kind of software?
posted by jragon at 11:01 AM PST - 19 comments

Meet Edgar Sanchez

He's 'Helmet Man' at Kansas City Chiefs football games.
He runs a store that sells 'George Foreman grills.'
He sells hot dogs in downtown.
He appears on the radio.

And he was in the Witness Protection Program for testifying against Sheik Omar Rahman, the man behind the bombing of the World Trade Centers.
posted by RobbieFal at 10:04 AM PST - 4 comments

Anyone go to the anti war protest in London today? The number of the people has been estimated from between 3000 (by the police) to 350,000 (by the organisers). I reckon 200,000. Either way, its the largest peace protest ever in the country. Me and my friends sign was a great success, with many people commenting on it/photographing it. It was the only black one we saw, so easily stood out. It said 'Its all about the oil' on one side, and on the other there was a picture of Bush looking stupid, and 'No to War'. The protest was peaceful (or was when I left) and on the whole, a success. The only question is, will Bush and Blair take any notice?
posted by Orange Goblin at 9:39 AM PST - 130 comments

Turkish Police Seize 33lbs of Weapons-Grade Uranium. The destination of the Uranium is still under investigation but it was seized 155 miles from the Iraqi border.
posted by Mick at 8:35 AM PST - 43 comments

Looks like Verisign forgot to renew their UK domain name.
posted by timeistight at 12:00 AM PST - 15 comments

Musician on the Moon Lucia Pamela passed away this June at the age of 98, but not without garnering several moving tributes from her fans. Ms. Pamela not only believed that she had a pink Cadillac that could fly to the moon, but released a concept album about it. She also sponsored a coloring book contest to promote a surrealistic space-age coloring book that later inspired a song by Stereolab. A true American original.
posted by jonp72 at 9:26 PM PST - 5 comments

"We're Jeff and Tracy. We're Your Good Neighbors. We Smoke Pot." Jeff and Tracy were tired of drug war advertising that demonized them. So they decided to create their own ads to 'come out' as normal, all-American pot smokers.
posted by Dirjy at 8:07 PM PST - 155 comments

Liberalism FAQ and Conservativism FAQ describe the differences (and similarities) between the two oft-discussed by seldom understood political mindsets. Both FAQs are detailed, concise, enjoyable, and not annoyingly biased. Read with caution: Knowing your enemies sometimes makes it less fun to bash on them.
posted by oissubke at 5:21 PM PST - 25 comments

Centre for Contemporary Images. Provides things such as Up to 625.
posted by plexi at 5:19 PM PST - 2 comments

Making the case for United Nations intervention against the United States - Ted Rall takes a look at the world situation from a slightly different perspective. The scary thing is that this could run unedited in the newspapers of many countries around the world and their readers would agree with it. Is America out of touch with the rest of the world?
posted by Argyle at 3:56 PM PST - 68 comments

The Truth Squad - ABC News wants your help. Specifically, the ABCNEWS Political Unit Election Watchdog (PUEW), looking to keep upcoming elections as truthful as possible, wants you to gather up your election mail; take notes about the campaign-related phone calls you get; and send them your tips and credible accounts, so that they can go through them. They have a page of descriptions of what they are looking for. Are they expecting things to be particularly ugly? Are they trying to dig something up, or is this really an attempt to neutralize election season lies?
posted by mikhail at 3:08 PM PST - 8 comments

How many Saddams are there? "A German television network said on Thursday it had made a scientific study of 450 photographs of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and concluded there are at least three doubles posing as the Iraqi president."
posted by owillis at 1:54 PM PST - 38 comments

CSS Art? The weblog of Steven Champeon is in hiatus-mode now. At the moment it presents certain photos on the first page. Photos? If you click one, you get something that looks like a badly increased jpeg or something. But it isn't. Take a look in the source code. How did Champeon made that? And: Why?
posted by ronsens at 12:23 PM PST - 20 comments

Two ways to destroy Chemical Weapons. When UNSCOM was in Iraq they destroyed in place tons of chemical weapons: VX, Sarin. and Mustard gas were burned out in the open. The effort to destroy the United States' aged chemical arsenal includes building special incinerators costing over 1.5 Billion Dollars each. If we didn't need them in Iraq why do we need them here? What's the difference? And now that the incinerators are ready for testing why is the goverment switching from burning to neutralization with water at three sites? Billion Dollar toilet seats?
posted by Mack Twain at 11:47 AM PST - 7 comments

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) could cost the Democrats control of the Senate after a former aide tried one of the dumbest political stunts ever. The aide attended a strategy session of Harkin's opponent, Rep. Greg Gaske (R), and taped the discussion. He then gave a transcript to Harkin's campaign manager. As expected, Republicans are turning it to their advantage. The Democrats control the Senate by just one seat. Did Harkin's campaign just hand the Senate to the GOP?
posted by PoliticalJunkie at 11:25 AM PST - 34 comments

Meet ILL Mitch. He raps, he boards and sometimes he punches and raps.
posted by Bag Man at 11:00 AM PST - 13 comments

Information gods amongst mortals is the first in a series of three blog entries (so far, anyway) by Brad Wardell on the topic of the growing knowledge gap between the net-savvy and the non-wired. I found the link in a newsletter from WinCustomize today. They plugged all three:

1. Information gods amongst mortals
2. The Information Gods respond
3. Information Gods Srike Back

He explores the theory that those who are net savvy are quickly leaping ahead of the non-wired among us: "You know the situation. Someone has told you something you want to know more about and within a few minutes you have gotten yourself up to speed on it. You did it through the use of the Internet. A combination of search engines and helpful websites have educated you on that topic."
posted by tbc at 10:17 AM PST - 12 comments

Comic books, cannibalistic worms, albinos, copyright infringement, and the Blues. This story has it all.
posted by anathema at 10:07 AM PST - 6 comments

Blondes 'to die out in 200 years' . The last natural blondes will die out within 200 years, scientists believe. A study by experts in Germany suggests people with blonde hair are an endangered species and will become extinct by 2202.

[Insert blonde joke here]
posted by MintSauce at 9:50 AM PST - 66 comments

A course that uses LEGO beams, plates, gears, motors, a 68HC11 microcontroller board programmed in C, and various sensors to construct autonomous (i.e., self-contained, no direct human control) robots to hunt down and retrieve eggs. How come I never got to make things like this when I got my engineering degree? There's video too. Other cool projects are a walking machine, a human powered sub, or a future truck. I wish the real world of engineering was as fun and creative as college.
posted by jonah at 9:39 AM PST - 8 comments

'The guy who tried to kill my dad.' Setting aside partisan bickering, this description of Saddam Hussein by George W. Bush today sent my mind reeling. Is this in reference to something published in the past that is just escaping my mind? The Reuters version of the story adds that it is reference to "an Iraqi plot to kill former President George Bush after the 1991 Gulf War." Anyone have a link to that older story?
posted by bclark at 9:36 AM PST - 36 comments

Scott Ritter on Weapons Inspection, Chemical, Biological and Nuclear WMD Why hasn't the American media picked up on these issues that are being put forth by Scott Ritter? Is Mr. Ritter correct in his assessment of Iraqi capabilities?
posted by FullFrontalNerdity at 9:20 AM PST - 44 comments

Think of the children! Is the crayon-toting lobbyist the next big thing in politics? Is this a legitimate political strategy or despicable behaviour on the part of the teacher? Charles Helwig at the University of Toronto has some evidence that elementary school age children have some understanding of democracy and freedom of speech and "can use those concepts to evaluate political systems". How old does a person need to be to voice an opinion? (via plastic)
posted by snarfodox at 8:14 AM PST - 23 comments

First there was L. L. Cool J vs. Kool Moe Dee and the Bridge Wars. Then came Biggie and Tupac with the west coast, east coast rivalry. Now rap battles have transcended mediums, I give you Ludacris vs. Bill O'Reilly. Word.
posted by Dr_Octavius at 8:11 AM PST - 49 comments

Do you feel a little lighter when you go to visit your Aunt Betty in Poughkeepsie? Maybe this gravity map can shed a little light on the subject.
posted by NedKoppel at 8:07 AM PST - 7 comments

At last, the United Nations earns it's keep.
posted by flatlander at 6:19 AM PST - 40 comments

Rubberboy demonstrates that alphabet art can be used as more than just a creative teaching tool for kids. Artists have a long tradition of using the ABCs as a canvas for the macabre, the sacred, the erotic and the just plain kinky. warning! links contain flash and some NSFW material.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:57 AM PST - 10 comments

Hurah! It's Friday! Time to do some work! Well, actually, no. But this is a seriously good game that combines "pairs" with something of the "Street Fighter" genre. It's also written by a mate of mine who I went to uni and shared a house with. Anyone else got any 1 or 2 player games worth wasting the day with? 5 hours to go to beer and counting ...
posted by ralawrence at 4:13 AM PST - 10 comments

If you still go to raves, think twice before popping that pill this weekend. A new study by JHU suggests that the long-term effects of esctasy could lead to conditions similar to Parkinson's. [related: Erowid's MDMA vault]
posted by hobbes at 3:32 AM PST - 37 comments

What's So Absurd About Partisanship? The Lying in Ponds* website is a clever attempt to measure partisanship in the daily columns of the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Although - or perhaps because - its methodology is simple and straightforward, its conclusions, though necessarily unsurprising, are quite interesting, often amusing and seem fairer than er, more partisan "media watch" thingies [Don't miss their 2002 Top Ten.]. But why is being openly partisan seen as such a terrible thing in America? Why is so much time and effort expended to hide it or deny it? Or, put another way, why is bipartisanship such a desirable thing, often presented as being somehow above politics? Is it American exceptionalism again?
*[Echoing what Dennis said in Monty Python And The Holy Grail: "Listen!Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!"]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:04 AM PST - 20 comments

A professor of vision science at MIT understands that life isn't just black and white, even though we often see it that way. This amazing illusion proves it, and these slick, fast-loading, Flash demonstrations of lightness perception show how it's done. (My favorite is the "Koffka Ring".) White paper here, for deeper background.
posted by taz at 1:27 AM PST - 29 comments

Wilton's Word and Phrase Origins is a well researched etymology site that puts out a fine newsletter in .pdf form, has a pretty consistently interesting discussion group, and is sometimes referenced by MeFites.
posted by sklero at 12:19 AM PST - 5 comments

And now, from the news of the weird..
It appears some weird pranks have been played on some people in Kansas City

The items used in these pranks:
A TV, A bag of trash, A Tire.

And, the link between all these:
They were all painted white and the Elvis song "Return to Sender" was playing on a recorder from all these items.

Weeeeeeeird...
posted by RobbieFal at 9:46 PM PST - 18 comments

Did Lenient Fire Codes Make 9/11 Worse? Tony Fitzpatrick, the designer of the London Millennium Bridge, developed computer simulations with the help of an engineering consulting firm, in order to generate new suggestions for safeguarding buildings from terrorist attack. Fitzpatrick's conclusion: In the end, ordinary fire codes might have saved the World Trade Center victims.
posted by jonp72 at 9:10 PM PST - 10 comments

Jedi (n) and Klingon (n) will now be listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. As will Ass-Backward. Given MetaFilter's interest in grammar this seems worth noting. How the editors decided that "Jedi" is worth inclusion but "Stormtrooper" is not is a conversation I would have loved to have heard. Naturally, people complaining about such inclusions ain't new. However, when words are removed from the same dictionary it's hardly noticed. Clearly unused words go away, so why do people make a stink about this year after year? Slow news cycles? Or is it an extension of the Prescriptivist - Descriptivist Argument with the Prescripts making a push for the "hearts and minds" of the public?
posted by herc at 4:11 PM PST - 35 comments

One of my co-workers commited suicide. There were no apparent signs; on the contrary, she was young, dedicated, driven, and personable. I was shocked to learn that suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S. It doesn't make sense to any of us, but it makes you think a lot more about the lives of the people we often spend eight hours a day with.
posted by mad at 3:34 PM PST - 71 comments

Israeli-Arab Hero this kid had a lot of guts - will he get the recognition he deserves in israel or the US? username: metafilter password: metafilter
posted by specialk420 at 3:01 PM PST - 11 comments

An Open Letter to Congress from the editors of The Nation. All the makings of a final plea.
posted by mooseindian at 12:47 PM PST - 91 comments

Scientists grow pig teeth in rat intestines. Wait! Keep reading . . .
[This] experiment suggests the existence of dental stem cells, which could one day allow a person to replace a lost or missing tooth with an identical tooth grown from his or her own cells.
So can I stop flossing now?
posted by mikrophon at 11:58 AM PST - 25 comments

For years, it's been observed that some people infected with HIV never develop full-blown AIDS. Now American and Chinese scientists think they know why. But remember kids, barebacking is still dangerous, and a cocktail is not a cure. Maybe this research will change all that.
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:57 AM PST - 21 comments

cool or creepy? apple is hyping the way forensic detectives in a southern town have gone mac. are we supposed to focus on the guy with the ipod or the corpse on his screen?
posted by subpixel at 11:40 AM PST - 32 comments

War as a Way of Life The latest Reggio/Glass collaboration - Naqoyqatsi - is coming out Oct. 18. From the looks of the trailer, this could be the coolest of the trilogy. Of course, who could forget the scene from Koyaanisqatsi where Reggio jumps from scene of Twinkies rushing through production line to fast-forward scene of daily-grinders moving up escalators in subway station - priceless. Just more 70's grad-student dope-smoking backdrop -- or essential media for our age?
posted by minnesotaj at 11:32 AM PST - 15 comments

Nonograms (also known as "Griddlers" or "Paint By Numbers") were invented by Non Ishida in 1987. Originally trying to design pictures that could be created by turning the lights on or off in the windows of skyscrapers, Ishida soon realized that the same principle could used as the basis for a new genre of logic puzzle. Since then, enigmatologists around the world have wasted hours solving them online and completing entire books of these elegant brainteasers.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 10:15 AM PST - 16 comments

Vovox: An alga consisting of photosynthetic, flagellated cells, organized into a spherical colony, which may contain daughter colonies. But the main issue is: they're really neat-looking. And here they are in anaglyph 3-D.
posted by interrobang at 10:13 AM PST - 11 comments

Whoa! Gag! They did what?? "The history of drinking urine for therapeutic purposes dates back at least to the Holy Roman Empire when great urinal troths were erected in the public squares......" courtesy of WFMU magazine
posted by protocool at 9:15 AM PST - 49 comments

X-treme juggler! Jason Garfield is, apparently, one of the best jugglers in the world. (I'm not a fan, I happened across this link while perusing Todd Smith Juggling Equipment.) Jason is quite a juggler, judging from the video clips (Quicktime). He's also quite full of himself, judging from his bio and his Rules of Life. Just thought I'd share the weirdness.
posted by starvingartist at 9:01 AM PST - 30 comments

Would you have the patience to apply for this job? 142 occupational questions. Some are thought-provoking, others need to be unpacked like a philosophical argument (scroll about halfway down the page for the beginning of the occupational questions section). If you want to apply for the archivist position at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, in Austin, Texas, help yourself.
posted by datawrangler at 8:41 AM PST - 13 comments

Electraum is a great collection of amazing electronic and ambient mp3s(try the Cerebellum, Red Lines or Kunstner for good examples), mostly from unknown artists. The mp3s rotate monthly, and there's a mailing list you can join to remind you when the music changes. You've already missed the previous seven installments, but there's plenty more to go around...
posted by 40 Watt at 8:04 AM PST - 4 comments

CNNNN: Chaser Non-stop News Network. This week, the Terrorthon reveals that Iraq is a bad place. "Last week, President Bush demanded unconditional access for weapons inspectors. And what does Saddam go and do? He gives unconditional access to weapons inspectors. Can you believe the nerve? It was a very aggressive act of compliance. Very provocative compliance. President Bush mustn't take yes for an answer." Must-watch for all Americans... From the same gang that brings you The Chaser, which continues dispite problems with its distributor over this story. Apparently it was in bad taste. I just thought it was funny...
posted by robcorr at 8:01 AM PST - 11 comments

This Saturday is "Public Lands Day" in the US! You can volunteer to help clean up some of the 262 million acres of land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management! While cleaning streams and repairing livestock fencing, you can ponder how come in the 21st century the BLM still leases over 163 million of those acres to private ranchers for a pittance! This antiquated, marginal, money-losing institution has damaged 80% of the waterways west of the Mississippi, threatening entire species and ecosystems. A new book, Welfare Ranching, lists and illustrates the many problems with federal livestock grazing, and there's now a campaign to buy out ranchers' permits and turn the "wild" west back over to nature.
posted by soyjoy at 7:11 AM PST - 12 comments

Expelled for Blogging? Kid threatened with expulsion after having the nerve to blog from school. I assume his high school had nothing else to crack down on other than the gangs of bloggers up to no good like keeping a tech journal.
posted by Coop at 6:59 AM PST - 33 comments

Re-Shape Your Eyes While You Sleep? Wow - I don't know about you, but if I could wear contacts during my sleep that I *took out* when I woke up and didn't have to wear any all day, and I could see, then I'd do it in a second. When will it become reasonably priced?
posted by djspicerack at 6:59 AM PST - 25 comments

NYC Subways and then some. This has been one of my favorite sites for a long time. It's amazingly comprehensive, and not just being content with New York, it covers nearly every other subway in the world as well. If you're not into the technical details, just enjoy the thousands of pretty pictures.
posted by The Michael The at 6:23 AM PST - 20 comments

The street where my office is will most likely be fenced off and guarded by police when I roll in tomorrow morning. Conventional wisdom in D.C. for tomorrow is: a) Don't try to drive b) Don't try to take the Metro, either. Great.
posted by GriffX at 6:15 AM PST - 76 comments

Satire is alive and well? "Taliban Reunited is the simple way to find out what your old terrorist chums and captives are doing now." (Satire is dead?)
posted by MintSauce at 6:02 AM PST - 3 comments

Don't get used to looking at houses on the Internet. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is proposing a rule that allows realtors to withhold some/all of the information in the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) from websites. The NAR says the MLS is intended for "Broker-to-Broker" and not for consumers. It is designed to produce customer leads, not to give sufficient information for decision-making
posted by patrickje at 1:01 AM PST - 18 comments

Typical jokes aside, the Make Your Own Bush Speech application is a great use of flash. Some fun hints: layer phrases over one another for added effect, and always end with the "afghanistan and beyond" blurb. Now if I could only save the speeches out as mp3 files, and layer some beats underneath...
posted by mathowie at 12:47 AM PST - 38 comments

Iraq trains terrorists? Conclusive evidence from our leaders? Why do I suddenly feel like I am living in Oceania?
posted by FilmMaker at 12:37 AM PST - 39 comments

The Guardian announces weblog competition winners! and commends 30 in all, so at the very least there are some new and interesting places to have a little surf. I hadn't heard of any of them before and the ones I have had a look at are worth a second glance, although , at the risk of appearing a mite cynical, there seem to be plenty of Guardian links in a couple of them.
posted by Fat Buddha at 12:35 AM PST - 21 comments

Britney Spears, Madonna, Other Stars in TV Ads on Piracy "Too many people don't realize that when you download a song you like from a peer-to-peer network or some other unauthorized Internet source, what you're doing is stealing music," says Britney. Somebody ask Brit if she knows what peer-to-peer means. This is the latest Big Idea from the RIAA.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 10:21 PM PST - 78 comments

Kazaa to RIAA; "Catch us if you can!" Although I was initially skeptical, it seems as though Kazaa's decentralized system is proving to be a problem for the RIAA. With Napster, it seemed like they caved almost immediately. What I'm wondering is, does Kazaa actually have a change at establishing some sort of favourable ruling concerning file-trading / P2P? I know it's probably too early to tell, but speculation makes for great conversation some times.
posted by Dark Messiah at 10:05 PM PST - 15 comments

A bill is currently being pushed through Congress that will give health care providers, including those that are federally funded, the right to refuse to perform abortions or administer contraceptive medication for personal moral reasons. Next week: firefighters allowed to let houses burn down because they hate the color of the curtains.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 8:41 PM PST - 72 comments

Alana Dung passed away quietly in her sleep at age 3 from leukemia, but not before inspiring 30,000 people in Hawai'i to register themselves with The National Bone Marrow Registry. Since her parents and brother were not marrow matches, her family made her battle public. To honor her memory, they eventually formed the Alana Dung Research Foundation, an organization dedicated "to support research efforts designed to improve the quality of life for children with serious illnesses." Her brief life also inspired a play. Is your marrow registered?
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:21 PM PST - 17 comments

Originator of term "Shareware" Dies
Bob Wallace, was born in Washington, D.C. in 1949, the author of PC-WRITE, and one of three persons credited with coining the term "Shareware" was found dead at his Northern California home on Friday, September 20th, 2002. In 1978, Bob joined Microsoft (the company that wrote MS DOS for IBM) when the company had only ten employees. He was employee number 9. Five years later, Bob decided to break with Microsoft (which by then had grown to company of over 300 employees) and establish his own company: Quicksoft. Among Quicksoft's innovations in software design and marketing was the "shareware" concept. Cause of death was determined to be pneumonia.
posted by jackspace at 5:55 PM PST - 24 comments

Do you plan to stay at a Marriott hotel any time soon? If so, you might want to relieve yourself in the dark since a spy cam was found in a Marriott hotel's bathroom lighting fixture and connected to the same circuit so as to turn on with the lights.
posted by David Dark at 5:45 PM PST - 24 comments

Riding The Reputation Seesaw: I'm a sucker for underrated/overrated lists anyway, but this series of short articles from underrated American Heritage magazine is one of the best I've ever read. I specially liked the haphazard criteria for selecting the categories, leaving out some of the most obvious.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:30 PM PST - 17 comments

Think the upcoming Ice Age theory has died? It's been mentioned once or twice in discussion threads, but I spent some time in the library recently reading this very interesting article from Discover magazine. I was discussing it with a meteorolgist friend of mine, and supposedly the mini-ice age theory is very alive and has a lot of support. Should we start buying more electric blankets?
posted by mychai at 4:38 PM PST - 12 comments

Kinoko-ya has stunningly beautiful pictures of mushrooms. (Please don't crash the site, gang; I'm using it for research...)
posted by realjanetkagan at 3:20 PM PST - 25 comments

Who's richer: Montgomery Burns, Cruella De Vil, or Bruce Wayne? On the heels of last month's Top-Earning Dead Celebrities list, Forbes brings us their Fictional Fifteen, the wealthiest made-up people in the world. Anyone see any egregious exclusions?
posted by GreyWingnut at 2:33 PM PST - 51 comments

Bumfights.com producers arrested and charged with "conspiracy, solicitation of a felony crime and illegally paying people to fight". The site itself was discussed here a few months ago. At that time, there was disagreement as to the legality of the tapes. The producer defended his legal footing saying that the participants signed releases. Looks like that wasn't enough, hearing to start Oct 10th.
posted by jonah at 1:26 PM PST - 60 comments

Similarities between the United States and the Roman Empire. With the comparrison having become common, it is interesting to consider just how much the two really have in common. What would Cicero think?
posted by homunculus at 11:34 AM PST - 48 comments

Daschle Accuses Bush of Politicizing Iraq Debate "You tell those who fought in Vietnam and World War II they are not interested in the security of the American people" because they are Democrats, Daschle said. "That is outrageous. Outrageous." The full text of Daschle's comments. Do we finally have an opposition party?
posted by owillis at 11:04 AM PST - 74 comments

Mel Gibson wants to do a movie on the last 12 hours of Jesus's life. The only issue? He wants to do it totally in Latin and Arameic without subtitles. A cool way for Hollywood to branch out from the norm, or artsy pretension from a rather boring actor? Time may tell. Seen also on AICN.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:41 AM PST - 55 comments

Donald, do you know what those Germans are up to? Like, comparing everyone and their hamsters to Hitler? [Spoiler alert: the first comment explains it, for those who don't get it]
posted by vowe at 10:23 AM PST - 27 comments

In the new LRB, a pretty good attempt to answer the pressing question - why do the Bush people want to attack Iraq so much?
posted by Mocata at 9:34 AM PST - 20 comments

The Plight of the Pregnant Prisoner. Every culture has to decide what to do with their pregnant prisoners. Here in the USA, are we doing the best we can? And then there is the whole abortion debate.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:26 AM PST - 6 comments

A Visual Journey: Photographs by Lisa Law 1965-1971 Lisa Law's photographs provide glimpses into the folk and rock music scenes, California's blossoming counterculture, and the family-centered and spiritual world of commune life in New Mexico. They are moments that she lived, witnessed, and recorded on the frontier of cultural change.
posted by konolia at 8:48 AM PST - 3 comments

So how would you spend your retirement? In the grand tradition of the backyard Falcon and Gundam (link in Flacon thread), a retired Canadian Navy officer built a German submarine. In his garage. With "egg poaching cups and a motor from his wife’s blender", among other items. Sadly, he died before its launch. (more inside)
posted by GhostintheMachine at 7:51 AM PST - 6 comments

Think you're smart? How does your test-taking ability stack up to your forebears? Could you have graduated eighth grade in 1895? Been accepted into college in the 1930s? What do you think - is it easier to be a student today or harder?
Oh, here's a cheat sheet in case the 8th grade exam proves too challenging!
posted by madamjujujive at 7:41 AM PST - 32 comments

Mullet Talk, FM morning radio show comedy at it its finest. Of course, in Pittsburgh we appreciate the finer things in life. Sadly, this is the only episode I could find on the web.
posted by Recockulous at 7:38 AM PST - 10 comments

Milk and meat from cloned cows and their offspring may be on store shelves by next year. Apparently breeders are already raising "scores" of clones in America. Just another step to making animals to suit our needs (domestication, organ cloning, and Silk from goat's milk.
posted by LordMcD at 7:27 AM PST - 30 comments

What do you get when you mix 50 pounds of silly putty, a parking garage and bored techies? Ahh, the hilarity (AVI link).
posted by psychotic_venom at 6:58 AM PST - 19 comments

The end of an era? The Miss America crowning had just 12 million viewers tune in this past Saturday, the lowest viewership in the history of the pageant. Are people turned off by this type of competition? Or are there just better things to do on a Saturday night?
posted by MediaMan at 6:27 AM PST - 36 comments

Satire is dead. "On Monday 23rd September, the Metropolitan Police (acting with the support of The Internet Watch Foundation) contacted my web host, Webfusion (aka Host Europe), and requested that thinkofthechildren.co.uk be 'removed from the public domain'."
posted by MintSauce at 4:54 AM PST - 31 comments

"He was twitching and his eyes were not quite shut ... I thought he was dead."   With the rise in home-computers during the mid-nineties came the fall of game arcades and their unhealthy drifter culture. The family-oriented nVidia and ATI companies provided home-entertainment and the final nail in the coffin for the infamous arcade. That was until late 1998, and DDR. Dance Dance Revolution swept the nation and kids exchanged "moves" like bubblegum. It was a juggernaut. It was out of control. DDR claimed victim after victim, with no signs of stopping...
posted by holloway at 1:36 AM PST - 14 comments

The State of the Nation's Ecosystems - According to a report commissioned five years ago by President Clinton and finally completed and released, the United States may have no streams left that are free from chemical contamination, and about one-fifth of animal species and one-sixth of plant types are at risk of extinction.
posted by dejah420 at 1:13 AM PST - 14 comments

In 1900 a sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck of an ancient merchant ship off the tiny island of Antikythera near Crete. The corbita, dating from the first century B.C., was heavily laden with treasure of all kinds, original bronze life-size statues, marble reproductions of older works, jewelry, wine, fine furniture and one immensely complicated scientific instrument. The Antikythera mechanism was originally housed in a wooden box about the size of a shoebox with dials on the outside and a complex clockwork assembly of gears inscribed and configured to produce solar and lunar positions in synchronization with the calendar year. By rotating a handle on its side, its owner could read on its front and back dials the progressions of the lunar and synodic months over four-year cycles. The device has been estimated to be accurate to 1 part in 40,000. (more inside...)
posted by lagado at 11:06 PM PST - 15 comments

August Strindberg & Helium. In 1978, the artist and writer Edward Gorey met the members of Monty Python at a fort in Tunisia. The group was in the process of filming The Life of Brian. Although Gorey contributed little to the finished product, the British troupe's impact on him was sizable. In the twenty years that followed, Gorey slowly retired from civilization. Since 1996, he has been studying Macromedia Flash. Strindberg & Helium is the result.
posted by Marquis at 9:58 PM PST - 36 comments

Spike Jonez's hilarious new IKEA ad (click the TV to watch it, you'll need Quicktime)... ...and here's the Slate.com article that led me to it.
posted by adrober at 9:52 PM PST - 45 comments

The Timecube guy has gone even more insane than ever before. Some quotes on his site right now.

"Tis Time to kill any educator who does not teach Cubicism above cubelessness."

"Time Cube debate denial is educator evil. It is not immoral for students to kill all educators who ignore Nature's Harmonic Time Cube or suppress free speech rights to debate Time Cube Creation Principle. Ignorance of Time Cube is Greatest Evil."

Will the Time Cube guy soon meet up with the FBI? I'm sure endorsing murdering of teachers isn't legal.
posted by RobbieFal at 8:49 PM PST - 32 comments

"Friend, was you up all night long getting in trouble? Did you happen to rob the grocery store? Did you kill somebody last night?" I grew up listening to Pearlee Toliver, also known as the Jewel of the Dial, voicing radio ads and spinning gospel as only she could. "Why not check it out and lock it in?" [More inside.]
posted by littlegreenlights at 8:24 PM PST - 1 comments

Gore: Saddam must go Al Gore has told Iraqi opposition politicians that the United States remains committed to the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein. "There can be no peace for the Middle East so long as Saddam is in a position to brutalise his people and threaten his neighbours" - Al Gore [more inside]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 7:47 PM PST - 47 comments

Farkers requested that this be spread to all communities on the web. It is absolutely Snopes approved.
posted by oflinkey at 4:35 PM PST - 64 comments

Keanu = Krypotonite? The only thing he has in common with the Man Of Steel is his last name!
posted by peachwood at 2:01 PM PST - 52 comments

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, revolutionary and founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, would be 100 years old today.
posted by Silune at 12:07 PM PST - 30 comments

U.S. forces head to Ivory Coast - with all the debate for/against military action in the middle-east, I'm pleased to see US forces being deployed to protect innocent people. "Their first task may be to retrieve about 100 American children who have been trapped at a school in the city of Bouake for five days and to protect Americans in three or four Ivory Coast towns held by rebels. "
posted by Stuart_R at 10:23 AM PST - 28 comments

Here They Are, Science's 10 Most Beautiful Experiments. My fave? Foucault's pendulum. The one in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry always fascinated me (NYTimes link).
posted by o2b at 10:20 AM PST - 11 comments

23 dead, numerous injured in a temple in Gujarat, India. About 3 - 5 terrorists carrying AK-47s entered the temple complex and started shooting indiscriminately, a couple of grenades were detonated too. Indian special forces are currently engaged in a shoot-out, as Gujarat is placed on red alert. Some claim this act was done to disrupt the elections in the state of Jammu & Kashmir.
posted by riffola at 10:07 AM PST - 20 comments

Want your independent coffeehouse to be a success? Pray for a Starbucks to open next door.
posted by NortonDC at 9:28 AM PST - 54 comments

Michigan: Land of Alternative energy? "DTE Energy [Detroit Edison] said Monday it has a deal to build and test a hydrogen system capable of generating more than 15,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. The $3-million test project, funded by DTE and the U.S. Department of Energy, is to be operational in 2005. " Wayne State University is also jumping on the bandwagon. What, if anything, is your town doing (or claiming it will do)?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 7:39 AM PST - 15 comments

Is Jesse ever happy? You'd think he'd be happy with the #1 movie in the country for 2 weeks straight being a movie that is cast totally with black people. But nope, he's not. He's upset because there was a goof on Rosa Parks and MLK Jr. Wasn't this just a movie?
posted by the_0ne at 7:31 AM PST - 83 comments

Who'll Be The First To Have Sex In The Museum Of Sex? New York's new museum opens Saturday. As an online aphrodisiac, it's offering a titillating map of sexual congress in Manhattan, [Click on 1001 Nights In Manhattan and be prepared for a full-screen invasion] as well as an interesting exhibition of photographs by Paul Duda called The Pubic Parade and librarian Ralph Whittington's extensive collection of significative pornography, recently acquired and welcomed by the art community. All of this obviously points to an important, earth-shattering question: where exactly is the funniest place you've ever had sex?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:26 AM PST - 66 comments

Ex-dot-commers are considering other careers. In this case, a potentially lucrative, more recession-proof trade: Bartending ("When times are good, people drink. When times are bad, people drink.") Not a terribly enlightening article in itself, but tell me: Have you or a friend abandoned a tech field? What's your new job?
posted by Shane at 6:47 AM PST - 27 comments

Don't forget to meet some old friends tonight. Warning the official link is a spoiler, so you've been warned.
posted by Beholder at 5:31 AM PST - 52 comments

"I asked who was playing. A Moroccan group, said the cabbie. He told me its name. Did I want to know what it was singing? Certainly. It was a plea to Israel from the Arab people. The chorus was, 'We have the same father. Why do you treat us this way?' Who might the father be? I asked. 'Ibrahim,' he said. 'The song is called Ismail and Isaac,' after his sons."
posted by artifex at 3:58 AM PST - 8 comments

Is Libya next? This story in Israel's Ha'aretz has a very very interesting lead: "The U.S. agrees with Israeli assessments that Libya has renewed its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb, and that those efforts have been stepped up since 1999, when the UN sanctions on the country were removed." Not only that, Ariel Sharon says that he believes the Iraqis might be helping build said nuclear bomb, and that Libya might attain nuclear capability before Iraq does. And not only that, the always-exciting "unnamed experts" suggest that Pakistan and North Korea might have a hand in this as well. Libya is still on the State Department list of nations that support terror, so why hasn't this story been getting any play stateside? Is it really overstating the case to suggest that Bush's new doctrine of preemptive strikes without hard evidence, if applied across the board, could very well lead to world war?
posted by textureslut at 2:43 AM PST - 76 comments

Finally released, The British Government's Dossier On Iraq appears, after two hours of reading, to be quite remarkable in it's - well - unremarkableness.(.pdf link from mainpage)
posted by Doozer at 2:14 AM PST - 28 comments

Nawal El Saadawi seems to think that for any type of fundamentalist religion women are like canaries in the coal mine for the dangers to follow. Female genital mutilation would certainly seem to be a pretty good pointer to get out of the mine, if you ask me. She points out the hypocrisy of the "post-modern veil" and politicians who criticize the Moslem notion of propiety without acknowledging the West's notions of female attire is similarly veiled. I'll grant her that. But, I'd rather wear some smart eyeliner than a head full of burka. I wonder if the propensity of Western couples to have the man drive is anything like the Saudi propensity to disallow women from driving, only with a Western middle class less restrictive enforcement policy? Do the spinsters in Saudi Arabia have sex? And how? And with whom? Why are sexual minorities in 26 Middle Eastern Countries outlawed? What are the reproductive & sensual habits of the Islamist Fundamentalist?
posted by filchyboy at 1:33 AM PST - 51 comments

While it's hard to say when the dotcom bubble began to burst, it's now officially clear when the internet stock bubble ended, which would be today. With the NASDAQ taking the first dip to 1996 levels, it's time to grab a Webvan-delivered 40oz out of your orange Kozmo-surplus bag and tip it in honor of all them Pets who still can't drive.
posted by mathowie at 11:52 PM PST - 20 comments

I vividly remember watching Ken Burns' amazingly great The Civil War during the Gulf War. Now that we're apparently having a Gulf War sequel, The Civil War has been remastered and re-released. The Washington Post jumps on the bandwagon with an online discussion with Ken Burns and a great Flash map of the campaign from the Seven Days to Antietam.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:34 PM PST - 9 comments

This may not make as effective a sales pitch as "weapons of mass destruction," but with two oil men in office, it can't be ignored as a possible ulterior motive to war in Iraq. Am I a cynic or should we be asking if this "preemptive" war is really about what they are saying it's about?
posted by karlcleveland at 11:15 PM PST - 7 comments

CodeDoc, a new exhibition at Whitney Artport, forces us to view the scripts and codes that generate software art before seeing the “art.” The other aspect of the curatorial premise: each artist's code must create art that connects three points in space.
[via rhizome].
posted by hama7 at 11:09 PM PST - 12 comments

Dr Venter says he will be able to provide an individual's genome on a CD in about a week for $712,000 (£400,000) from later this year with the ultimate goal to sequence someone's entire genome in 24 hours for $1,000 (£562).
posted by nasim at 10:44 PM PST - 9 comments

Is Germany next on the list? Well, no, but the way the Bush administration approaches diplomacy needs some work. Is a war in Iraq worth "poisoning" America's relationship with the international community?
posted by elwoodwiles at 9:48 PM PST - 30 comments

Gore Assails Bush's Iraq Policy The text of former vice president Al Gore's speech before the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.
posted by semmi at 9:17 PM PST - 42 comments

The Trick Behind the Trick? A great piece about the subtle and ongoing dismantling of democracy in America by the Bush Administration. What's so sad about this ongoing disaster is that there are no Republicans willing to stand up for liberty, when the last great speech by a President on our present danger was given by Eisenhower.
posted by minnesotaj at 5:31 PM PST - 49 comments

Ah, skydiving. The air around a dropzone, especially a big one like SkyDive Chicago, is pretty rarefied: a newcomer to the sport like myself is entirely lacking in cool, even if normal people think having made even one solo jump is pretty impressive. I'm certainly nowhere near the cool-level of the Golden Knights, the Army's team of crack parachutists. Speaking of them and SDC, they were of course there when this year's national championships were held in August. I especially liked the video of them showcasing their excellent HALO technique.
posted by kavasa at 5:30 PM PST - 20 comments

~Did I ever tell you I'm your hero? I am the subtext beneath your sling~
[Not work-safe. Don't read it out loud, anyway.]
While Nerve strives for intelligent, what about full-on intellectual erotica? I submit Foucault's Pendulous... at Suspect Thoughts. Not – at all – to be confused with Foucault's Pendulum, which oddly enough has its own bit of intellectual erotica in it that ties together the Khaballah, new pregnancy, and a woman telling her husband he's being an idiot, all at the same time.
posted by Su at 3:24 PM PST - 3 comments

Reporters Find New Outlet, and Concerns, in Web Logs according the Gray Old Lady today. I never read the blog by Steve Olafson, a.k.a. Banjo Jones, but it was shut down at the request of his employer, the Houston Chronicle. Today's NYT article confirms he was fired over it. Other journalists mentioned: Eric Alterman, Dan Gillmor, Mickey Kaus, and Sheila Lennon (professional blog | personal blog).
posted by tbc at 2:49 PM PST - 4 comments

Schplerter. Schplutz! Sklop, splerd, and splood, too! No, I'm not cussing you out. I am telling you to get thee hence to the Museum for Non-Primate Art, where you can learn what these terms mean, as well as see cats dance and paint!
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:15 PM PST - 6 comments

Given the fact we will have a lot of soldiers in Iraq for a long time after we invade them, not to mention in Afghanistan and other places all over the world, what do you suppose the odds are of the draft being reinstated in some form?
posted by QuestionableSwami at 1:25 PM PST - 89 comments

The demise of the honey bucket. Many of us take running water and sewage services for granted. The Alaska Dept of Environmental Conservation is slowly converting rural Eskimo villages from a "fill and haul a bucket" sewage/water system to modern services. A fascinating look into the logistics required to bring these services into remote Artic villages.
posted by patrickje at 1:19 PM PST - 1 comments

"Why isn't Burma on Bush's 'Axis of Evil' list?" A fair question considering the threat to its neighbors from its drugs and weapons trades, its nuclear ambitions, and its continuing horrible treatment of its own people. And though Aung San Suu Kyi was released shortly after Kurlantzick's article was written, the junta still has not held substantive talks with her, but they have continued with their plans to build a nuclear reactor (perhaps they're looking for a promotion from the measly 'Axis of Occasionally Evil'.)
posted by homunculus at 12:10 PM PST - 33 comments

Is self-regulation a legitimate approach to protecting copyright on the internet? This question is being debated at Spiked online which has commissioned responses from a variety of sources and also welcomes comments from readers.
posted by anathema at 10:57 AM PST - 5 comments

Cooking the Books The Office of National Statistics feels that the UK population is a little too small - so they're inventing one million people to fill the gap. Why did they do a census if they were going to make it all up?
posted by tabbycat at 9:27 AM PST - 9 comments

"In late January 1994, Cobain, Novoselic, and Grohl entered Bob Lang's studio in Seattle for their final recording session. Following a long jam, they captured this powerful tune in one take, including the gut-wrenching vocal -- a spooky, ambient intro of echoed harmonics and a fractured guitar solo." --Jim DeRogatis
posted by Reggie452 at 9:09 AM PST - 76 comments

Is Pippi Longstocking the devil? Read this and let me know what you think.
posted by Raichle at 8:59 AM PST - 32 comments

Silence is Golden: A bizarre legal battle over a minute's silence in a recorded song has ended with a six-figure out-of-court settlement.
posted by LinusMines at 8:38 AM PST - 24 comments

So that woman on video beating her child... WAIT! Don't delete this yet. Something I found interesting was that at least one news article mentioned that she was an Irish Traveller. Apparently there are ten thousand Irish Travellers in the USA but little is known about them academically , as a result, they have developed a rather negative stereotype, primarily as con artists and scammers. Probably one of the only nomadic groups left in modern times, these gypsies are a discriminated race in native Ireland.
posted by dirtylittlemonkey at 8:00 AM PST - 91 comments

A font created by the hive-mind and other excersises of the mob.
posted by pedantic at 7:52 AM PST - 16 comments

Google's News has launched as a new tab on their other search interfaces with a heavy redesign, though it still carries a "beta" label. The front page changes every few minutes based on some hidden popularity algorithm, as do the sub-pages. Featuring a stark ad-free design that looks quite a bit more attractive than CNN.com or any other major news site, perhaps robot-collected news is the wave of the future.
posted by mathowie at 7:27 AM PST - 40 comments

Caroline Myss, Ph.D., is a wildly popular best-selling self-help author, loved by Oprah and PBS stations. She has her own show on Oxygen. But in what did she earn her cherished and paraded Ph.D.? Intuition and Energy Medicine. Where did she earn it? From a non-accredited correspondence school. Who founded the department from whence she graduated? She did. She maked it up. I'm always a bit skeptical of the intelligence and merit of anyone who so prominently adorns their pop writing with academic credentials. Here, my skepticism seems vindicated. Any other gurus out there with bogus credentials?
posted by dilettanti at 7:09 AM PST - 38 comments

The All Species Inventory is a non-profit organization dedicated to the complete inventory of all species of life on Earth within the next 25 years - a human generation. It's an interesting project, based on open-source ideology (check out their "Principles") but seems to be limiting itself to strictly Linnaean methods.
posted by Irontom at 6:02 AM PST - 10 comments

"'The best thing is being able to write my name,' says Siddiqa, 18...." Simple and powerful lessons are being taught in Afghanistan.
posted by donkeyschlong at 4:46 AM PST - 8 comments

Cats Can Be Workaholics Too, You Know! Some, like Doncaster's sixteen pest-control experts, hate being out of work so much they're desperately looking for new fields of employment. Others are important tools of bibliographic research. Non-intellectual types prefer police work and other less desk-bound jobs. Shopcat.com has compiled a state index of these working stiffs so grateful citizens may more easily seek them out and warmly shake their paws: Good work, guys! How can anyone still imply you're a bunch of lazy, selfish bastards whose breath smells of cat food? [ My favourite employee, who's many a time given me her signature cold-shoulder treatment is Matilda, the official recepcionist and furniture-duster at the Algonquin Hotel in New York.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:57 AM PST - 13 comments

Earthquake hits the UK. 'Big one' too, 4.8 on the Richter scale, so not quite California standard. Anyone want to share their experience?
posted by derbs at 2:28 AM PST - 28 comments

Kodocha calls it quits. Kodocha Anime, one of the best known and most reliable anime fansub tape distributors, is closing down operations. Why? Because everything's going digital. [more inside]
posted by Slithy_Tove at 12:57 AM PST - 3 comments

SD proposing expanding jury powers to nullify unfair laws. South Dakota's proposed Amendment A would give juries the ability to accept a guilty verdit but let the offender go if it is shown that the law is either draconian or misguided - as is usually the case with victimless crimes like drug posession and 'in the bedroom' sex laws. Jury nullification: a necessary check on our over-legislated society or a potential breakdown of the modern justice system?
posted by skallas at 12:06 AM PST - 21 comments

"there were no multiple levels or screens, there was just one screen and it got harder and faster untill you died. Just. Like. Life."
posted by delmoi at 11:27 PM PST - 12 comments

21C Magazine Paul Miller (re-)launches an ambitious new magazine. Looks promising with such "Confirmed Regular Contributors" as Howard Bloom, Alex Burns, Erik Davis (yay!), Samuel Delaney, William Gibson, Jaron Lanier, Rudy Rucker, Douglas Rushkoff, R.U. Sirius, Bruce Sterling, and Margaret Wertheim :)
posted by kliuless at 8:52 PM PST - 24 comments

Jeb Bush's daughter found with crack cocaine, did rehab employees hide it? As this transcript of a 911 call indicates, Noelle Bush received special treatment that kept her in rehab and out of jail, at the same time her father opposes the Florida Right-to-Treatment Initiative, which encourages handling non-violent drug offenses with treatment rather than incarcertation. Strangely enough, the 911 transcipt indicates that Noelle Bush's rehab center was primarily targeted to drug-addicted women with children, which begs the question of why the childless Noelle Bush was in there in the first place. The hypocrisy of this branch of the Bush clan does not cease to amaze me
posted by jonp72 at 8:02 PM PST - 45 comments

"I'm not a monster." Remember the woman caught on film hitting her daughter? She's now in custody. "It's clear here the young lady lost her temper.." Well, yeah.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 7:13 PM PST - 17 comments

Sure you've been to The Met , and probably MOMA, but have you made it to The Apple Museum, Mozilla Museum, The Godzilla Museum (King Kong only seems to have a Lost & Found), Video Game Museum, Microsoft Museum, Atair Museum, The Voodoo Museum, The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, Butterfly and Insect Museum, Wooden Nickel Museum, The National Bird Dog Museum, and finally, A Web Ring, for the stranger ones, and a Directory, for the normal ones. Now go get some culture.
posted by Blake at 6:40 PM PST - 12 comments

Dunkin' Donuts founder passes on - From a single shop in Quincy, Mass. to over 5000 stores around the globe, William Rosenberg created what is probably world's most recognizable donut and coffee chain. (Well, maybe that's because I live in New England, where there's always a DD location within a block radius.) Rosenberg was 86.
posted by MediaMan at 6:15 PM PST - 31 comments

Yoni Jesner was a 19-year-old Jewish seminary student from Glasgow, Scotland, studying in Israel. He was fatally wounded in Thursday's bus bombing in Tel Aviv, but his family donated one of his kidneys to save the life of an eight-year-old girl. Her name is Yasmin Abu Ramila, and she is Palestinian.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:12 PM PST - 32 comments

Drive Me Insane! Want to send a man to the asylum? Paul Mathis's site allows you to control his lights, lava lamp, remote control car, and allows you to follow him around his Texan home camera by camera and microphone. I turned his lights on and off about ten times, so I've already had my fun. ;-)
posted by wackybrit at 6:03 PM PST - 8 comments

Coming of age in America is a ritual occasion with the goal of having an adventure that will serve as story fodder for decades to come. Whether it's waking up near death in a filthy Guadalajara alley next to some wealthy guy that you think you met in New Orleans or blowing most of your college savings on a weekend of tame debauchery in Amsterdam, the moment is meant to be simultaneously cherished and regretted for the rest of ones life.
posted by bunnytricks at 1:21 PM PST - 19 comments

Cosmic Baseball starts from the premise that Baseball is a metaphor for life. It celebrates individuality and creativity. Notwithstanding that cricket is the best available metaphor for life, there is loads to explore on this wacky site, not much baseball on it though.
posted by Fat Buddha at 11:33 AM PST - 6 comments

Your screensaver is boring.
Electric Sheep(Linux, OSX) produces animated flame fractals rendered via distributed computation. n 0 time(Win) draws its data from things such as a custom word list, cached web site text, your favorites, or your cookies. The Bank of Time(Win2k-, OS9-) grows plants based on your idle time connected to the net. Dirty Fingerprints(Win) leaves fingerprints all over your screen, generated by user clicks on contributing sites. Or, if you really want, you can join in the effort to crack various encryption methods(most systems) at Distributed.net. Deskswap(prev. link) has unfortunately been offline for months, due to bandwidth issues.
posted by Su at 10:32 AM PST - 18 comments

I just read that MIT will be offering free education via it's OpenCourseWare project (starting September 30th). This makes me very happy. Are there any other universities that offer similar services?
posted by Rattmouth at 8:38 AM PST - 16 comments

Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner is a spectacular Canadian film offering a rare glimpse into a rich aboriginal culture. It is written and produced by an independent Inuit film company and cast entirely with native actors from Igloolik, a settlement of about 1200 people in the Baffin region where it was filmed. Visually stunning, the story is based on local legend, with elements of stark realism, shamanism, suspense, humor and love. It's no surprise that it's raking in awards. I was spellbound. Can anyone recommend any other films by and about native cultures?
posted by madamjujujive at 7:15 AM PST - 34 comments

TRANSCRIPTS:
A case on Iraq - Rumsfeld's testimony to Senate Armed Services Committee, 9.19.02.
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.
GAO e-Government Proposal.
Senator Byrd on the Department of Homeland Security.
Today's bumper crop of limited audience government info links. "Maybe only 50,000 people want to know what's going on in Libya, but those 50,000 people are really important. You don't want to have more planes blow up. But maybe six million people want to watch Jerry Springer. Well, who owns the airwaves? Basically we do." Do you think that unprocessed, source texts are getting filtered effectively to the public?
posted by sheauga at 7:05 AM PST - 7 comments

The High Energy Weapons Archive and lance missile, both fairly dense sites.
Don't miss the interview with Sam Cohen where he mentions the existence of Red Mercury.
posted by hama7 at 4:46 AM PST - 20 comments

Computer gaming ,which once seemed in danger of being entirely trounced by the popularity of console games, now seems healthier than ever, with new game engines taking advantage of speedier processors and the improved capacities of the new age 3D cards. A mere week after the launch of the demo, the PC game Unreal Tournament 2003 has gone gold. Also being launched in the US is "The Thing" which picks up on the story from the John Carpenter movie of the same name. Gamers are also eagerly anticipating "Thief 3," "Doom 3," "Unreal 2," and "Deus Ex 2"
posted by lucien at 2:16 AM PST - 59 comments

More than a year ago, MetaFilter discussed a petition to bring "Spirited Away," the newest full-lenth animated movie by Hayao Miyazki, to the US. Released in Japan as Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, it is the most popular movie ever released in Japan and has it's US limited release this weekend. Do you think "Spirited Away" will "break through" to a wider American audience when Princess Mononoke didn't? What a wonderfully fantastic movie!
posted by gen at 10:11 PM PST - 32 comments

Dave's Art Nouveau page - Very cool Art Nouveau themed sketches and paintings by comic and fantasy artists. My faves are Batgirl, Cherry Poptart, and Vampirella. (Some of these aren't safe for work.)
posted by RylandDotNet at 8:54 PM PST - 13 comments

"Fundamentalism is the Enemy of All Civilized Humanity". The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), an organization fighting against the Taliban for the past ten years, commemorates Sept. 11 and describes Afghanistan one year later. What they describe ain't pretty: "With their second occupation of Kabul, the 'Northern Alliance' thwarted any hopes for a radical, meaningful change. They are themselves now the source and root of insecurity, the disgraceful police atmosphere of the Loya Jirga, rampant terrorism, gagging of democracy, atrocious violations of human rights, mounting pauperization, prostitution and corruption, the flourishing of poppy cultivation, failure of beginning to reconstruct, and a host of further unlisted evils, too many to enumerate."
posted by talos at 5:18 PM PST - 26 comments

Sand Art: it's everyone's favorite preschool art activity, now on your PC! Go sand art! Still, with this version you can't get into sand throwing fights with your friends...
posted by unreason at 4:07 PM PST - 5 comments

Your Appetite For Death And The Taste Of Its Mouth* With Seville's World Flamenco Fair coming up on October 3, I was astonished to find, thanks to the samples [MP3 and Real Audio req.] offered by the Flamenco World website, how revitalized it's recently been by eclecticism and sheer, uninhibited imagination. And here's an interesting collection of essays and links to pour over while you're listening...
*Nobody knows you. No. But I sing of you. For posterity I sing of your profile and grace. Of the signal maturity of your understanding. Of your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth. - Federico Garcia Lorca
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:36 PM PST - 3 comments

A new chapter in the nigerian letter fraud most recently discussed here. Yes, someone actually fell for it, and cost her employer $2.1 million in the process. via fark.
posted by Grod at 3:32 PM PST - 24 comments

Why a Duck? The most comprehensive Marx Brothers site on the Interweb. Thrill to their collection of sound clips! Learn what happened today in Marx history! Play a ton of Marx Brothers related games! Kill an entire morning reading about their career! Warning: Not to be confused with these Marx brothers.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:55 PM PST - 9 comments

Holocaust survivors with Alzheimer's are forced to relive Auschwitz. "At Baycrest's Apotex Centre, Jewish Home for the Aged in Toronto, 50 per cent of patients with dementia are Holocaust survivors for whom the loss of short-term memory condemns them, once again, to the death camps."
posted by mcwetboy at 2:12 PM PST - 20 comments

It seems that Pakistan is back in business "Officials from three Pakistani militant groups said in interviews this week that the government of Pakistan has allowed Islamic guerrillas to resume small-scale infiltrations into Indian-controlled Kashmir. " (NYTimes - regd' required)
posted by nish01 at 1:27 PM PST - 1 comments

Audio's next big thing? The American Technology Corporation proudly (and finally) presents a bug free Hypersonic sound system! No more unwanted interference! (Hat tipped in jonmc's direction.)
posted by soundofsuburbia at 12:21 PM PST - 8 comments

Robert Smithson is probably best known for his 1970 earthwork, Spiral Jetty, a massive piece that juts into the northern arm of Utah's Great Salt Lake. It's been hidden from view for decades by high water levels, but it's recently reappeared, and it's a mess out there.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:10 AM PST - 10 comments

Church of Scientology rewrites history. Archive.org, a site which archives the Internet for historical purposes, has been forced to block ALL archived material for Xenu.net, which contains "copyrighted" church information. The DMCA requires an immediate takedown of this kind of content, but it can be restored rapidly if the content owner (xenu.net? Archive.org?) appeals the decision and decides to fight the ruling. If so, it could be the undoing of the CoS, whose copyrights are highly suspect. Until now, the cost of fighting the CoS has forced defendants to settle, but there are good people out there who might see this as the perfect opportunity to act. Anyone up for a little pro bono work?!
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:18 AM PST - 27 comments

Somewhere in Australia, Black Mountain beckons the intrepid adventurer. Who knows what kind of dastardly creature(s) could be hiding in there! If you go there and come back alive, make sure you tell everyone about your experience.
posted by titboy at 6:01 AM PST - 9 comments

Free Speech 101 - We must acknowledge that people who use force to suppress the opinions of others are committing assault not merely on other humans and on the basic promise of free speech, but on democracy itself.
posted by semmi at 9:38 PM PST - 31 comments

The best guitarist you never heard in your life. Shawn Lane is an underground hero in guitar circles. Born 1963 in Memphis Tennesee, he joined Black Oak Arkansas at the age of 13 , beat Ted Nugent in a cutting contest, and made Billy Gibbons fall off his bar stool. Shawn now plays with the Jonas Hellborg Trio - Windows media clip here. I admit that fusion and guitar heroics are not to everyone's liking. But, if you like this kind of thing, you must agree that this guy is the the real deal.
posted by crunchburger at 9:21 PM PST - 19 comments

Cable channel FX to run 'American Candidate' competition. You heard me right, folks. Picture 'American Idol', but this time the winner gets to run for president. (Presumably via a whole lot of cash from FX.) Man, I can hear the Europeans mocking us already!
posted by tweebiscuit at 7:50 PM PST - 41 comments

Meet the "righteous babes" of the Libertarian Party In a welcome sign of new marketing savvy, North Carolina Libertarians have announced the "Ladies of Liberty" calendar. The fundraising, uh, tool features Lib candidates from across the country in patriotic and Vargas girl [probably nsfw] poses, and is the brainchild of the very glamorous state House candidate Rachel Mills. After her company's scandalous accounting caused Playboy to come knocking, Mills decided against using naked erotica as a campaign strategy, opting instead for a semi-clothed version. Don't get too excited, though; fellow state House candidate Jennifer Medlock says all of the women wear at least lingerie. She herself stops at a modest tank top, shorts and boxing gloves.
posted by mediareport at 4:00 PM PST - 27 comments

Ever wonder who collects information on DMCA violations?
posted by anathema at 3:02 PM PST - 8 comments

J'ECRIS JE DESSINE, Pour les enfants écrire, dessiner, lire sur Internet. Inventer des contes, faire des dessins, les publier.
posted by mikrophon at 1:11 PM PST - 26 comments

Robert (Willie) Pickton. Now charged in the murder of 11 Vancouver-area eastside prostitutes. Not sure if many outside of Canada have heard of this man. They've been digging up his pig-farm for months now and they keep uncovering more victims (now as many as Clifford Olson). There's still a lot more to search and a lot more women missing. How long have they known about this guy and when will the gruesome discoveries end?
posted by trillion at 12:48 PM PST - 16 comments

Avast, ye MeFi mateys!! I be Red Roger Rackham -- what be ye pirate name?? Nyar!!
posted by PeteyStock at 12:45 PM PST - 86 comments

Here's something that shouldn't be allowed to happen - The Congressional Medal of Honor Museum is threatened with closure.
posted by Pressed Rat at 12:41 PM PST - 7 comments

Drive on air. A new engine design that not only runs on air, but cleans it too.
posted by chrisroberts at 12:08 PM PST - 35 comments

Killings of dozens once again called "period of calm" by US media
What it boils down to is that from the perspective of many in the US media, Israeli lives are just worth more than those of Palestinians.
posted by mapalm at 12:06 PM PST - 30 comments

Celebrities killed graphic design. The sad and discouraging decline of magazine covers. With before and after pics. You have been warmed.
posted by magullo at 11:48 AM PST - 51 comments

Arming Saddam. "ABC News Nightline opened last June 9 with words to make the heart stop. "It is becoming increasingly clear," said a grave Ted Koppel, "that George Bush, operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to destroy."

Does it matter if no one reports it? Does a tree falling make a sound if no one hears it? Are these facts not relevant to the war against Iraq? For your debating pleasure, a blast from the past.
posted by nofundy at 11:43 AM PST - 33 comments

The Rapture Index This rather bizarre site is the Dow Jones of the end of the world. From the site, "You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture. " Whacked...
posted by Coop at 10:57 AM PST - 23 comments

Smoke Gets In Your...Eyes? According to Geoffrey Gray in The Village Voice, a lot of ex-smokers like to...watch. Whether they're pregnant women, nicotine voyeurs or just regular, filter-tipped voyeurs[comes with a pop-up and probably isn't endearing to employers], it seems that even this intensely physical pastime is becoming virtualized. So be it. But...what does it all mean? Can smoking really be vicarious?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:36 AM PST - 31 comments

It's nice being green. The south Sahara's getting its groove back, after 4,000 years.
posted by DenOfSizer at 9:59 AM PST - 9 comments

Study: One in five start-ups dot-bombed "Nearly one in five start-ups backed with venture capital at the peak of the Internet boom went out of business before first-stage investors could sell their shares, costing them billions of dollars, according to a study released Thursday". Does 20% seem like too small a number to anybody else?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 9:07 AM PST - 13 comments

This just in, file under "a" for addictive Horribly simple yet disturbingly addictive Friday Flash Spear chucker game
posted by bitdamaged at 8:52 AM PST - 34 comments

One Good Turn Deserves Another Mantaine Minis, 6, was living in a hut in a remote village in Kenya, in need of lifesaving heart surgery, when the improbable happened one day in June. A group of students and parents from the Langley School in McLean (Virginia) as on safari at the Masai Mara National Reserve, where Mantaine's father is a game warden. That's when someone from the village told a Langley teacher about Mantaine's heart problem. From there, things seemed to unfold quickly.
posted by tommyspoon at 8:35 AM PST - 5 comments

Nu Shortcuts in School R 2 Much 4 Teachers That's the actual headline from the NY Times. Can you guess what the teachers are concerned about? A point the story doesn't mention: as these kids grow up, will they change what we consider proper English?
posted by smackfu at 8:21 AM PST - 33 comments

Spend a day at the race tracks. It's Friday, so click away. Play to win. Play to lose. It's all about the virtual Benjamins.
posted by Dukebloo at 8:15 AM PST - 4 comments

Time to repeal Godwin's law? Ward Sutton's most recent cartoon makes an explicit link between Dubya and Hitler that some might call a cheap shot (and the cartoon, admittedly, is kinda weak since by the second panel you can see where it's going). But he's not alone: Germany's justice minister, who oughta know something about Hitler, made the same comparison in all seriousness. This isn't your standard "worse than Hitler" rhetoric; there are clear tactical analogies that are above and beyond the cynical strategies of most other global politicians this century. Or are they?
posted by soyjoy at 7:53 AM PST - 50 comments

JK Rowling's expecting - twice over. A new baby's on the way and the new book's almost finished. Ain't life grand.
posted by zimbobzim at 7:27 AM PST - 10 comments

Another year, another Chat. This year's Loebner Prize competition will be held next week in Atlanta, GA (at SciTrek and GSU). The yearly contest is a modified "Turing test" (seminal paper here) where people try to guess whether they're chatting with computers or with people.

There are some resources for rolling your own AI bot, but before you begin, think about these two sentences and you'll see what a serious problem natural language is: "We gave the monkeys the bananas because they were hungry" and "We gave the monkeys the bananas because they were ripe" (nod to this guy for the example). You have to know a lot about the world and the things in it to disambiguate the "they" in those sentences.
posted by zpousman at 6:34 AM PST - 15 comments

PeaceTrees Vietnam. Reversing the Legacy of War. "A group of American volunteers, including Vietnam War veterans, helped Vietnamese victims of the war move Thursday into a newly built 'peace village' on the site of a former U.S. Marine base. The 100 families who will live in the village lost relatives or limbs in explosions of bombs, shells or other ordnance left over from the war. PeaceTrees Vietnam, the Washington State-based nonprofit group which sponsored the $385,000 project, says it spent months digging out 339 pieces of ordnance both American and North Vietnamese to make the 100-acre site safe."

Beautiful project and story....but one can't help wonder how many years will pass before we reverse the legacies of today's (and tomorrow's) wars.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 1:20 AM PST - 39 comments

Between Abuse and Worms is Soldat
posted by holloway at 11:09 PM PST - 11 comments

A blip on the radar, or a sign of shifting opinions? Can recent events in the Republic of Korea be taken as an indication that the special relationship between the US and South Korea is changing, and that public sentiment amongst Koreans is turning against America? [more inside]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:55 PM PST - 43 comments

A Tribute to Ray Harryhausen - Stop-motion skeletons... Flash... and Fridays.
posted by Stuart_R at 9:35 PM PST - 9 comments

When was the last time we bombed Iraq? 1991? 1992? How about 4 days ago. And again six days before that to name just a few. The US Bombing Watch page keeps detailed tabs on all bombing attacks by allied forces since March 9, 2000, but the bombing has continued since the end of the Gulf War [via rc3.org].
posted by mathowie at 9:33 PM PST - 81 comments

Magnificent Obscessions II. In the original post, we had a blast exploring odd sites in which people displayed eccentric talents. MOs walk a thin line between genius and madness. These are people with "too much time on their hands." How I envy their crackpot devotion, energy and perfectionism. These are the True Geeks! (Fresh examples inside...)
posted by grumblebee at 9:27 PM PST - 14 comments

Meanwhile in the world of sports, two idiots attacked a Royals coach during a game tonight. At least it wasn't on Fan Appreciation night. Still, what a dark night for Comiskey.
posted by RobbieFal at 8:46 PM PST - 18 comments

How sick are we as a nation when this is done is public and no one notices. Of course, the coast was clear, as the mom checked before she launched this attack. But then, to read that the family, seeing the videotape of the beating, still protects their daughter, I have to come close to burning rage inside. Enough to make me wish she gets caught and prosecuted in Texas, where she has some links.
posted by Busithoth at 8:19 PM PST - 50 comments

Rally monkey time! Happy early Friday folks!

Warning: Pulse pounding music and hot monkey action.
posted by gwong at 8:03 PM PST - 9 comments

US threat to [wait for it..] stop Iraq inspections
Ri-iiiight. What was that about giving clear and determined leadership to the world? About the need for "Mr Saddam Hussein ... to let inspectors back in his country to show us that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction"? That man is making a fool of his government, policies and his own people. What next?
posted by dash_slot- at 6:01 PM PST - 98 comments

The grayest of gray Republican eminences weigh in on the Iraq Debate. Brent Scowcroft, an ex-general with the prejudices and proclivities of his scholarly peers --the nattering nabobs of negativism-- proposes that the United States forget about invading Iraq. Henry Kissinger, one of the great American opportunists, has positioned himself as a kind of stealth critic, a loyal oppositionist who is doing his darnedest to nudge Bush in a multilateral direction. James Baker, who is intimately tied to a wide range of allegedly satanic forces and has an incredibly long and distinguished record of public service, to chasten George W. Bush's hawkish impulses on Iraq, proposes that the administration sponsor "a simple and straightforward resolution requiring that Iraq submit to intrusive inspections anytime, anywhere, with no exceptions, and authorizing all necessary means to enforce it."
posted by semmi at 4:31 PM PST - 11 comments

Multiple Sclerosis could be sexually transmitted! Not only that, your risk of developping the disease can double if you own a bird, but if you own a cat or a dog, your risk decreases...
posted by titboy at 4:17 PM PST - 28 comments

Davis signs $9.95 billion bond bill to boost high-speed rail
"Gov. Gray Davis signed a $9.95 billion bond measure Thursday that would clear the way for a high-speed rail system linking California's major cities."
this may be the first step in getting a decent rail-system going in the states. what do folks think about high-speed rail in general, do you think acela's recent problems are indicative of what we have to look forward to?
do those of you who have direct experience with existing high-speed rail systems have insights about the kind of obstacles this project might run into? will it revolutionize travel in the united states, or turn into a massive boondoggle?
posted by dolface at 3:31 PM PST - 34 comments

"One of the marshals said something like, 'We didn't like the way you looked,' " Rajcoomar recalled. "They also said something like, 'We didn't like the way you looked at us.'"
posted by artifex at 3:30 PM PST - 31 comments

Picture yourself says it was inspired by the Mirror Project. Both are repositories of photographic self-portraits. As much as MeFi readers like photo art, I thought I'd add to the genre.
posted by tbc at 2:57 PM PST - 4 comments

Snow White and the Seven Shao Lin Monks
Picture Snow White, frozen in motion, arms outstretched and her legs prepared for a kick (a la The Matrix). Just can't see it? Well the Folks at Disney can, and according to this CNN article. It seems that Disney is in negotiations with Yuen Wo Ping to direct a live-action martial arts remake of the classic Snow White film. This time Snow White seeks solace with seven Shao Lin monks who, in turn, come to believe the woman holds the fate of the world in her hands and protect her. I'm not much of a Snow White fan, but there are several Disney films that I think would benefit from some ass-kicking! Any other Disney films come to mind?
posted by DragonBoy at 2:06 PM PST - 18 comments

I'm sorry, WHAT? MSNBC and Newsweek (plus Fox and a few others not in this specific link) are reporting that an FBI agent/informant had a direct link to the 9/11 hijackers- he lived with them.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:05 PM PST - 20 comments

Cassius Marcellus Coolidge's body of work has been commented on before. I've been to the Met. and looked at this and it would never fit in a game room or above the urinal at the local trendy bar, but the works of C.M. Coolidge will. I also ran across another great American artist, Art Frahm but the link had already been discussed a couple years ago here. If you have not seen it its worth the visit. Art at it's best.
posted by mss at 1:41 PM PST - 4 comments

A solution to the world's terrorism problems? Mo Mowlam (formerly responsible for the UK government's drugs policy) suggests that terrorist activity is funded by drug trafficking and the best way to combat this is to legalise all drugs. Everywhere. Go Mo!
posted by hnnrs at 12:25 PM PST - 17 comments

Sweden's faultering population. Sweden has a population problem and it's effecting the economy. One women has come up with a brilliant solution.
posted by Grod at 12:09 PM PST - 25 comments

CNN.com Redesigned. "CNN.com has launched a new design that provides better navigation, larger photos, personalized weather, a new 'User Picks' feature, and more depth in specific subject areas, including technology, entertainment and world news." Is it really any better? I think it looks more cluttered than ever. What's the most usable news site?
posted by dayvin at 11:46 AM PST - 44 comments

Joyce Slaton takes the blame (or some of it) for over-hyped dot com boom reporting (maybe she read this thread). Journalists flog themselves and their inexperienced peers: "There were a lot of lifestyle editors that ended up on the business desk because that's where the pages were being added," says John Battelle, co-founder of Wired and founder and publisher of The Industry Standard." Will we ever again be so gullible?
posted by akmonday at 11:14 AM PST - 4 comments

Masaoka Shiki, the Japanese poet who revived the haiku, died one hundred years ago today, at the age of 34.
posted by Silune at 10:28 AM PST - 21 comments

Freeh's misplaced priorities. "The threat level grew so high that by December 1998, the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, issued a "declaration of war" on Al Qaeda, in a memorandum circulated in the intelligence community. Yet, Ms. Hill said, the intelligence agencies failed to adequately follow up on the declaration, and by Sept. 10, 2001, the F.B.I. still had only one analyst assigned full time to Al Qaeda. "

Whereas Freeh had 85 agents assigned to the continous microscopic inspection of Clinton's zipper. Politics trumps national security?
posted by nofundy at 10:14 AM PST - 21 comments

Life imitates "art" as the singer for Brazilian rockers ACC storms the studio, so to speak, and forces a DJ to play his band's record over and over for an hour. Are things really this desperate?
posted by mikrophon at 10:00 AM PST - 12 comments

The Ideal Prepuce. Enter the posthe and the akroposthion.
posted by plexi at 10:00 AM PST - 9 comments

Scrabble, as the experts play it. Review various championship scrabble games -- play by play, word by word. The board at the end of the final game of the 2001 World Championship includes such oddities as GAJO, DARG, and VOZHD, but also WITTIEST and PADDLERS. (You can follow that game from the beginning. Looks like the 2002 tournament doesn't happen for another few months.)
posted by Tin Man at 9:36 AM PST - 25 comments

Germany slips on its jack boots to keep in step with the USA In the wake of september 11th Most supposedly enlightened "western" countries have curtailed or outright forbidden free speech to groups suspected to be sympathetic to "terror". The question in my mind is how long until just being part of a political organization that opposes first use of violence and criticizes government policy (libertarians, Greens, CUSPA) will get you on the FBI "hit" list here at home?
posted by hoopyfrood at 9:34 AM PST - 27 comments

Before the Berlin Wall, there was Hadrian's Wall, one of the most successful attempts ever to keep noisy neighbours at bay. It's still an impressive sight, even though most of its stone has been recycled over the centuries. Nothing beats walking it in person, but thanks to the web you can see a 3D VRML model of one of its forts, read about the digital imaging of thousands of written documents unearthed at another, and even read a 2000-year-old request to "send me some cash as soon as possible".
posted by rory at 9:01 AM PST - 9 comments

Project Censored "Some of the stories on the list may deserve wider and more thorough coverage. But to label any of the subjects "censored" is either flat-out deception or an admission of astonishing ignorance. A quick stroll through the Nexis database reveals that nine of this year's top-10 "most censored" stories have already turned up in the New York Times, many of them with prominent placement, considerable depth, and angles not far off from Project Censored's leftist slant." Related article in Mother Jones.
posted by owillis at 8:51 AM PST - 30 comments

An annotated bibliography on weblogs & blogging A l blog site on blogging. History, uses, development, articles etc. with a very large list of links to all aspects of blogging.
posted by Postroad at 7:48 AM PST - 4 comments

The Son of God and Mexican wrestler El Santos team up to fight evil in Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter!
posted by the biscuit man at 6:33 AM PST - 18 comments

Have you got your boots on, Jack? Do you collar this jive? Listen all you righteous cats and canaries, it's copacetic. Don't be a hincty Jeff. Put on your cogs, get in there and focus on how to speak hip so you can dig what I am laying my racket about.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:51 AM PST - 12 comments

Win yourself life after death New Scientist are offering the chance of free cryonics in their latest issue; Arthur C. Clarke and Steve Jones react on BBC Radio 4. (scroll down for the realaudio)
posted by peterkins at 5:42 AM PST - 8 comments

WarChalkers are thieves Phone maker Nokia has come down strongly against warchalking. "This is theft, plain and simple."
posted by Mwongozi at 5:32 AM PST - 27 comments

Mayan Stairway reveals a longer chapter of missing history. New glyphs revealed by a hurricane at Dos Pilas, Guatemala, tell of "the attack on Dos Pilas by Calakmul in this powerful kingdom’s strategy to control the river trade routes between the Maya Lowlands and the Highlands of Guatemala in the Southwestern Petén and the resulting Dos Pilas’ acceptance of a subservient role in this affair." Same report in Spanish. There is also a weak New York Times report.
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:27 AM PST - 5 comments

Feeling Peckish? Like a big bald eagle? Order one now! Humour might be one way of trying to protect endangered animals but the bushmeat trade is no joke and fighting it is damn difficult, probably as difficult as fighting world poverty. Does anyone else feel that these jokes just aren't funny anymore?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:52 AM PST - 9 comments

The Mars Gravity Biosatellite Project is an unmatched international effort that pools top-notch technical talent from MIT, the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. The mission is nothing short of groundbreaking. The plan is to build a spacecraft capable of housing a small crew of mice, including pregnant females, which will simulate the gravity of Mars to determine its effects on mammalian development.
posted by David Dark at 10:15 PM PST - 9 comments

"Mr. Magoo." Just the man to run the Army in a two-front Middle Eastern war, right? username: metafilter password: metafilter via rc3.
posted by specialk420 at 9:17 PM PST - 9 comments

Area 51, truth seekers 0. Bush reissues order keeping Nevada site secret. I can't believe he had time to think about this with all the other shit he's stirring so hard.
posted by puddsharp at 8:55 PM PST - 16 comments

It's sad we lost, but the Mayor got what she had coming This woman is an atrocity to the beautiful city of Dallas - she is grossly uncouth, lacks class, and is not fit for the position of mayor in one of the greatest cities in America. She made a bet on the Cowboys when they started the season with a game against the Houston Texans - and lost. The agreement was that if the 'boys won the game, the Mayor of Houston would wear a 'boys cap and jersey at a city hall meeting. Likewise and reciprocal from the herself. Yeah.
posted by JessicaRose at 8:31 PM PST - 25 comments

Tumbling Woman A statue of a falling woman designed as a memorial to those who jumped or fell to their death from the World Trade Center was abruptly draped in cloth and curtained off Wednesday because of complaints that it was too disturbing. It's all right if you don't want to discuss it here and now. I was also in NYC and saw the towers on that day.
posted by neu at 8:23 PM PST - 70 comments

ESPN and Reality Based TV....together at last!! It's called Beg, Borrow and Deal, ESPN's new reality show. 2 Teams, 4 people each are dropped into Times Square with just the clothes on their back. They have to make their way to Alcatraz Island in 4 weeks. The catch? They must complete 10 of 40 challenges. These challenges range from difficult, (watch the Kentucky Derby from the infield and place a winning bet on the Kentucky Derby itself), to unbelievable (play horse vs an NBA player and win), to crazily impossible, (play 4 members of congress in a game of flag football in front of the Capital building in DC, one must be a senator).

To make matters worse, you're given no money or food or equipment. No contestant is allowed to touch any money during the game. They can only (ahem) beg, borrow and deal for favors from strangers or friends. Add to that, none of the sports teams or organizations know about the contest...

The Prize: Two tickets, all expenses paid, to four championship events of the next year.

I was skeptical at first, but man, what a great first episode. I haven't had this much fun since the original Survivor. It looks like the contestants had the time of their lives. It's like a super cross country sports scavenger hunt. Sign me up for next season!
posted by gwong at 7:43 PM PST - 24 comments

The Anti-Defamation League has release a new report, entitled: Jihad Online: Islamic Terrorists and the Internet [pdf] It outlines seven Islamists groups and their use of the Internet to plan, recruit, and even attack over the web. [more inside]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 7:24 PM PST - 9 comments

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike...
posted by grumblebee at 7:17 PM PST - 18 comments

Ever wanted to be an author but didn't know how to start? Here's your chance - a story already underway and waiting for you to add your contribution. [more inside]
posted by dg at 6:07 PM PST - 15 comments

Researchers zap Dan Aykroyd's brain; actor unzips own fly. Swiss scientists have simulated an out-of-body experience in a female epilepsy patient, by using electrodes to stimulate the angular gyrus section of the brain. Anyone have other examples of (supposedly) parapsychological phenomena struck down by the (supposedly) harder sciences?
posted by bingbangbong at 6:04 PM PST - 29 comments

I will not forget the liberal media who abused freedom of the press to kick our country when it was vulnerable and hurting. This is just one of the lines of text in a recent email forwarding. The piece is attributed to one Ed Evans, MGySgt., USMC (Ret.). Google turns up page after page of the exact same text. It's being plastered all over the internet, repeated hundreds of times by hundreds of people. By what means does something like this become so ubiquitous? If a person wanted to create this sort of buzz, how would they do it? How do you combat such a tidal wave of jingoistic hooey?
posted by pejamo at 4:45 PM PST - 49 comments

Is this a good idea? The SEC names an ex-Andersen partner to a top position regulating auditors. Why not have oil executives pick our energy policy while we're at it?
posted by spotmeter at 3:46 PM PST - 11 comments

Fire up that warp drive. In this week's issue of Nature, physicists claim to have made 50,000 atoms of antihydrogen. Not only is this a lot more antihydrogen than has been produced before, the stuff is cold -- read slow-moving -- so it's possible that physicists will finally be able to trap it and study it. (Less technical news story here.)
posted by ptermit at 1:56 PM PST - 26 comments

Tired of your office mate's irritatingly cute Hello Kitty USB hub? Balance the forces of cuteness with Hubzilla. (Via Macintouch)
posted by nathan_teske at 1:35 PM PST - 26 comments

Paging Winston Smith... Not content with mere cynical doublespeak, the Bush Administration is now trying to shape government reports and research to agree with the President's beliefs: an EPA report omits a section on global warming for the first time in six years; the Department of Health and Human Services is being "restructured," eliminating committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views; and at the Department of Education, old studies that contradict the current administration's policies are being removed from the agency's web site. When you add this trend to the administration's "permanent war," I suspect George Orwell is smiling somewhere...
posted by mattpusateri at 12:45 PM PST - 42 comments

What is pain? It can get pretty technical. There are several different theories. Regardless of what you think pain is, it turns out that men can deal with it better than women. *Flexes muscles*
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 12:23 PM PST - 33 comments

"When you talk about running electricity through someone's genitals, most people think of torture. However, we have found that low power, high frequency (audio) current can produce some very interesting tingling and throbbing sensations." Bored of the same, day-in, day-out masturbation routine? Try electronic masturbation! "
posted by Pinwheel at 12:12 PM PST - 28 comments

Edith's Huge Interface. Some kind of Usenet spamming strategy that I don't understand provides a rich resource for band names, random subject lines, and Mefi taglines. "Hey, I'll annoy the robot!"
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:16 AM PST - 28 comments

What do Prince William, Sir Winston Churchill and President George W. Bush have in common? They're all blood relatives.
posted by TBoneMcCool at 10:59 AM PST - 25 comments

The Black Belt TV Network. An L.A.- based producer is trying to create a new 24-hour martial arts TV channel airing nothing but kung-fu movies, kung-fu tournaments, Kung-Fu the series, and cartoons where the characters are doing kung-fu. Say producer Larry Kasanoff, "We want to do the same thing for the martial arts that MTV did for music," a line that merits numerous possible responses so obvious I'm not going to touch them with a ten-foot kendo stick.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 9:54 AM PST - 54 comments

They vanished in a variety of circumstances. A 52-year-old security man disappeared from an inn; a 22-year-old bar hostess went missing after dropping off her children at a day-care center; two college students on summer vacation went missing near a beach; an engaged couple disappeared after apparently stopping at a seaside lookout. They lived and died with their kidnappers.
posted by i blame your mother at 9:47 AM PST - 24 comments

According to this guy we have become an over-regulated society, directed towards obedience, bordering on totalitarianism. While much of what he says here is not new to us, it does appear that with each new law put into effect, we are incrementally giving up more and more of our freedoms. So, when is the breaking point? Some laws and regulations are necessary, but have we already gone too far? (More interesting/entertaining rants from him here.)
posted by eas98 at 9:33 AM PST - 23 comments

...a $17,100 traveling toilet box; a $15,000 dog umbrella stand; a $6,300 sewing basket; a $6,000 shower curtain; $5,960 for two sets of sheets; a $2,900 set of coat hangers; a $2,200 gilt metal wastebasket; a $1,650 notebook; and a $445 pincushion. Yes, it's more insane corporate greed: Tyco Details Lavish Lives of Executives (NYT link, 'free' regis. req'd)
posted by Shane at 9:19 AM PST - 22 comments

As it is... Bhagavad Gita Art - love it - (as seen in those Hare Krishna books they give out around the world) and makes sure not to *always* stick with Eastern representations. I think Dubya should do more of this... whaddyathink?
posted by HeadSessions at 9:18 AM PST - 10 comments

Bad News for a Wednesday I certainly hope that some good can come out of this tragedy. Perhaps that's a bit of wishful thinking on my part.
posted by tommyspoon at 9:16 AM PST - 11 comments

India's slide into facsism... An essay in The Nation by India's Arundhati Roy — novelist, essayist, activist — lays down the facts around a very troubling assertion: people-heavy, nuclear-armed, legitimacy-seeking, proto-super-power India is quickly becoming a fascist state.
posted by silusGROK at 8:59 AM PST - 14 comments

Parents charged in death of girl forced to drink water - Forcing a 4 year old to consume large amounts of water seems like an odd way to promote family bonding. Death by over watering can happen, but this sounds more like an episode of Law & Order.
posted by MediaMan at 8:57 AM PST - 20 comments

Would you like some cheesecake with that coffin? An Italian coffin maker and funeral home is using sex to sell... coffins!? Can this be for real? Advertising at its finest. Cheesecake is here (scroll down to "Cofani funebri e fascino" and click the links below) and here (a calendar? what the?).
posted by internal at 8:22 AM PST - 26 comments

Black-Jew Rift Widens After Southern Primaries WASHINGTON — Participants in this month's Congressional Black Caucus conference say the defeat of two black House members in bitter primaries not only suggests a widening rift with Jewish Democrats, but trouble within the Democratic Party itself. I have long considered the Democrats in trouble: one of their charms. A Black loses to another Black and it is the fault of the Jews? Reparations? Assuming there had been a strong lobby at work to get the Jewish vote to come out against these candidates, is that un-American? Don't we vote for those we feel best serve our interests? Odd that he Protocols of Zion not mentioned.
posted by Postroad at 7:35 AM PST - 26 comments

This war plan forces me to stand by the dictator who tortured me. Iraqi writer, an exiled dissident and victim of Hussein's regime speaks against war and sanctions: "You are "either with us or against us", they say. As an Iraqi that means choosing between war and the dictator. To be on the side of the oppressed does not mean we are unaware of the complexity of the situation. To campaign for the lifting of sanctions, for an end to the paralysing bombardment and daily threat of war is to stand by the Iraqi people; it is that policy which will help them to change the oppressive regime. Any change should be initiated from within Iraq, not imposed by Bush or Blair."
posted by talos at 7:34 AM PST - 11 comments

Duplex Planet , David Greenberger's legendary zine which has spawned books, CDs, comic books, and videos, finally went online sometime this year. "In the universal experience of aging we are desperately short of meaningful guidance. The Duplex Planet offers some lessons and examples," says Greenberger. Does he succeed, or is DP just an artful "seniors say the darndest things"?
posted by kmel at 7:34 AM PST - 8 comments

Help me leave my husband. No, not me. A woman named Peggy from Seattle, Washington saw Save Karyn and decided to do the same thing to help end her marriage. more inside..
posted by SuzySmith at 3:42 AM PST - 57 comments

Each of these reflects on the growth and implications of technology during the 20th century from early air transport to the current ethical debate on the future of our species. The Hindenburg, Bikini Atoll and Dolly the sheep: Steve Reich and Beryl Korot's new video opera, Three Tales.
posted by monkey closet at 3:31 AM PST - 2 comments

Enron course original documents - University of Chicago. Actg 494: Special topics in Accounting: Accounting and Disclosure After Enron
posted by sheauga at 2:03 AM PST - 5 comments

It's The Way You Quote Them: Frosties is a cracking new collection of quotations from Ariga, expertly and eccentrically selected by one I.Frost, who defines himself as "friend, philosopher and jurist" . Unlike many online dictionaries, it includes generous helpings from its chosen authors; proper references; unexpected quotations (rather than the same old chestnuts) and, above all, personality. Bravo!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:06 AM PST - 25 comments

The "merger" of the Egyptian Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad and the Saudi Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda in 2001, based on the foundation of Qutb's book "Milestones", provide outlet for those who have no other way of expressing their objections to the authoritarian regimes of the countries they live in, and the reach of American power in the Middle East.
posted by semmi at 9:44 PM PST - 19 comments

Mars Austrailia creates fake band and single to advertise Starbursts. It is the latest marketing idea: create a fictitious group named after your brand and release a cheesy song that gets radio airplay and is sold as a music single to teenagers. The song is Get Your Juices Going, by fictional pop group Starburst. It has secured high-rotation airplay on radio station Nova 96.9 and has had its promotional video featured on Video Hits. The song's lyrics were written by copywriters and the video, in which the group's identity is hidden, was created by television commercial producers. Not once, however, is the pop group linked to Mars.
posted by ncurley at 3:27 PM PST - 67 comments

Your guide to recent corporate scandals. An excellent visual description of recent corporate scandals and all the connections between the different firms and people involved. There is a small pop-up thingie that comes up if you drag your mouse on any box (the techies will know the more precise term for it).
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 3:22 PM PST - 11 comments

The following sing I a book. a book of art. of mind art as that which he hid reveal I. Tom Phillips made his first Humument pages in 1966 and continues to make them. He drew new meanings out of a forgotten Victorian novel - A Human Document by W.H. Mallock - by painting over or otherwise obscuring most of the words on the page, leaving pithy fragments. The result is wonderfully allusive, poetic and occasionally wise as well as beautiful to look at. He's used it to comment on Dante's Inferno and Joyce's Ullysses, made a sort of opera out of it, and it's dead postmodern to boot.
posted by Grangousier at 3:00 PM PST - 11 comments

Whoa! It seems so obvious now! This is the ultimate "kill two birds with one stone"...
posted by GernBlandston at 2:20 PM PST - 28 comments

River found under Sahara Russian satellites have discovered a river flowing 700 feet under the Sahara. It carries enough water to supply 50,000 people and is said to surge with "colossal power". ---the thing that interests me most about this is the economic impact that this will have on the area. seeing as how wars are being fought over water supplies in the area, what do you see as the most likely result of this discovery??
posted by daHIFI at 1:48 PM PST - 24 comments

Enron 'Crooked E' For Sale "The ultimate symbol of the bankrupt power trader -- one of the ubiquitous chrome signs dubbed "the Crooked E" for its distinctive slant and commentary on the company's questionable dealings -- is on the auction block." The sign is only one of thousands of items up for sale September 25th and 26th, at the Houston Radisson Astrodome hotel.
posted by gummi at 1:41 PM PST - 7 comments

An unfinished work representing a centuries-old mystery and containing an encrypted signature, Pythagorean philosophy and celestial numbers... Could it be the new Neal Stephenson novel? Actually, it's Johann Sebastian Bach's "Art of Fugue", believed by some to have been conceived as "absolute music" never intended to be played at all. Artist Elizabeth Harington has created a lovely and loving visual interpretation of the work in the form of 14 folded sculptures (nicely presented by Colophon).
posted by taz at 1:11 PM PST - 12 comments

Hearings for court nominees restored. "It was not until the Democrats regained control of the Senate last summer and Leahy assumed the chair that hearings and confirmations resumed. As of this writing, the Democratic-led Senate Committee had held hearings on 82 Bush nominees, approving 80 of them -- including 16 women. The full Senate had already confirmed 73. This is normal -- traditional. It was not that way from 1994 to 2001."

It's enough to make a Shrub hugger angry, isn't it?
posted by nofundy at 12:06 PM PST - 41 comments

If you find the events of the Lindbergh kidnapping too convoluted and confusing (since Bruno Hauptmann may have been innocent), clear up the mystery by reading this really biased series of contemporary comic strips. And on a semi-related note, did you know that Norman Schwartzkopf's father was the main policeman in the case?
posted by interrobang at 11:42 AM PST - 6 comments

Snoop Dog to appear in Muppets Movie "The two-hour film, which is currently in production in Vancouver, will feature cameo appearances by Oscar winners Sir Michael Caine and William H. Macy, Snoop Dogg, Carson Daly, Jon Stewart, Kelly Ripa and Rachel Hunter, among others."
Unless The Muppets has suddenly become a program for adults, not kids, what a horrible idea. Would Jim Henson approve of this? I know, let's put Eminem on the teletubbies show!
posted by 4midori at 11:35 AM PST - 50 comments

The Antarctic Ozone Hole Predicted to Close by 2050
Australian scientists at CSIRO have confirmed their earlier predictions that the ozone depletion in the Antarctic is slowing, and ozone will steadily increase from 2005 on. The "hole" will close by 2050. "[Paul Fraser, chief of CSIRO, said] 'I think this shows global protocols can work,' ... while acknowledging that 'the economics' of greenhouse gases were far more complex than the CFC issue." (1). An interview with Fraser by ABC is here (2) Some past stories (3, 4).
posted by rschram at 11:19 AM PST - 6 comments

Hispanic Heritage Month began in the U.S. this past Sunday. Food, music, dance, art, language - our lives are richer for the far-reaching cultural contributions of our Hispanic neighbors. Who or what aspects of this varied culture would you join me in toasting this month? Me, I raise my glass to some of the wonderful contemporary artists who keep traditional folk themes alive.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:26 AM PST - 47 comments

Seen any St***n S***rb**gh films lately?

CleanFlicks, a Utah (US) based company, is using digital editing to "clean up" popular films by removing the sex, nudity, profanity and extreme violence (for example, the edited natural born killers runs approx. 2.5 minutes, while the CF version of Resevoir Dogs is titles and credits only). Recently the Colorado licensee of Cleanflicks got wind of a potential lawsuit by the Directors Guild of America. Deciding not to wait for this to even get off the ground, Cleanflicks has decided to sue 16 of the directors that are apparently most offensive to them.
posted by i blame your mother at 8:51 AM PST - 116 comments

Some Good News for a Tuesday Now that a third cabinet official has been held in contempt over the handling of funds owed to Native Americans, is a big check in the mail? Or will the Interior Department claim that they are out of stamps?
posted by tommyspoon at 8:43 AM PST - 25 comments

Take a hint from the MPAA, Ms. Rosen. The IBC met to talk about problems with digital video/movie piracy, and came to the conclusion that they're at fault, not movie pirates. "We have met the enemy, and he is us." They realized if they offered a reliable, affordable online video service... it might actually work! I'd sign up for cheap downloads, and no return hassle. You?
posted by gramcracker at 8:36 AM PST - 11 comments

Shazam! The Media have been talking about it for a while, but this Music Identification Service for British (nyt) mobile phones is finally here. For 50p, you can place your mobile phone next to any machine playing groovy unidentifiable music, and within a minute, it'll text and tell you what's playing. So far, I've worked out that it's great at identifying Sheryl Crow and Bush tracks, but it's not so good at identifying traditional Greek folk music.
posted by seanyboy at 8:31 AM PST - 11 comments

Speed of light broken with basic lab kit. Physicists at Middle Tennessee State University report that they've broken the speed of light using only $500 in off-the-shelf equipment that can be set up in less than an hour. Don't expect warp drives any time soon, but this does open up a cool area of science to the "two guys in a garage" arena. Is there a Jobs & Wozniak out there who will kick start a transportation revolution?
posted by mkultra at 8:15 AM PST - 22 comments

Sen. Paula Hawkins was at one time curious about what kind of toys Frank Zappa's children played with. Now we know: Among Dweezil's collection was a 1963 Fender Stratocaster owned, played, and burnt to a crisp by one Jimi Hendrix. Now, Dweezil is selling the thing, but not to buy a new car or house or something. He's trying to raise funds to refurbish his old man's studio. Zappa once wrote an essay about how to raise fantastic children. It seems from this story that he did exactly that.
posted by NedKoppel at 8:06 AM PST - 12 comments

McDonalds will be a franchise in The Sims Online computer game. Will my Sim character get fat if he eats at a Sim McDonalds? I guess we'll need Sim lawyers to help us out on that one.
posted by Beholder at 7:38 AM PST - 27 comments

"One nationally renowned academic ... was recently called by an administration official to talk about serving on an HHS [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] advisory committee.... To the candidate's surprise, the official asked for the professor's views on embryo cell research, cloning and physician-assisted suicide. After that, the candidate said, the interviewer told the candidate that the position would have to go to someone else because the candidate's views did not match those of the administration."
The overhaul of the U.S. public health advisory committee system begins with politics and ends with canning those who disagree with George W. Bush. The public interest is somehow left out of the process.
posted by PrinceValium at 6:38 AM PST - 21 comments

Nüp2 Incorporated will revolutionize the electronic memory business. Using our patented memory technology and our patent-pending "Topolithographic" manufacturing process, we will develop and produce solid-state electronic memory having gigabytes of storage in a tiny package for just a few dollars per Gigabyte. Hoax? Vaporware? Revolution in data storage? You decide.
posted by RylandDotNet at 6:38 AM PST - 3 comments

Bush is "skeptical" about Iraq's announcement to allow weapons inspectors unconditionally. As the administration prepares for war with Iraq, the rogue state led by everyone's favorite madman agrees to pretty much everything the U.S. has demanded. So, we're not going to invade, right? And the fact that this is an election year has nothing whatsoever to do with any of this, right? And Iraq didn't just agree to this to make the U.S. look stupid, right? Right?
posted by vraxoin at 6:32 AM PST - 42 comments

The Fire Piston was a truly ingenious invention, which makes the modern equivalent look pretty primitive. Thanks Prometheus.
posted by shinythings at 6:27 AM PST - 4 comments

City officials to give away weed. A Santa Cruz councilman wants to show solidarity with those arrested in a recent federal raid on a medicinal growing operation. Apparently "the whole community is up in arms about this." This, being the raid, not the medicinal use of marijuana. Is the general public's attitude finally starting to sway?
posted by FiveFrozenFish at 6:23 AM PST - 20 comments

Beauty queens take a stand against stoning. I guess it's bad luck for Miss World that their contest this year was scheduled to take place in a country increasingly subject to Sharia law. Meanwhile Nigerian Muslim activists decry neckless nudity.
posted by alms at 6:04 AM PST - 6 comments

In August, we had Pyramid Rover. Now we know what's behind that door. Another door.
posted by monkey closet at 3:22 AM PST - 15 comments

There appears to be a three-minute discrepancy between the time that Flight 93's black box stopped recording and the time that it actually crashed. Hmm ... I wonder if ... nah.
posted by textureslut at 2:41 AM PST - 69 comments

From the secret world of the "black budget" comes the story of a man who wants to know the truth about the army's research into anti-gravity technology and zero-point energy ("There's enough energy in your coffee cup to evaporate the world's oceans many times over." ). Is he a lunatic? A "Ufologist"? Nope, he's an award-winning defense and aerospace reporter for Jane's Defence Weekly, the highly respected magazine on international military and policy issues. In fact, he says, the loonies may be right! He thinks there probably are saucerlike flying objects, but they're not alien, they're made in the USA (who got the technology from the Nazi's - who else?). He even goes so far as to suggest that the CIA has a program to discredit people who see UFO's. I like my stories rich, and this one is very rich. (via Atlantic Unbound)
posted by NekulturnY at 1:52 AM PST - 13 comments

Only in America can a sitcom about prisoners in a German POW camp can become a cult favorite even 35 years after it debuted

That's right, it's Hogan's Heroes. It's still lingering on the web, either in the form of bands, bobble head dolls, people trying to sell Klink uniforms and of course, creepy fan fiction

In our P.C. society, could America accept a show with such a weird almost-offensive story like Hogan's Heroes, or would it be run off the air in weeks?
posted by RobbieFal at 10:46 PM PST - 25 comments

Well, I know somebody out there in Mefi land will find some use for fifty years of underwear advertising and packaging... I know I did.
posted by Newbornstranger at 10:02 PM PST - 6 comments

Preventing Piracy With Krazy Glue. (NY Times) Man...what will they think of next?
posted by stew560 at 8:13 PM PST - 23 comments

Looks like Boeing finally decided to exploit the wing-in-ground effect. Did they get inspired by the most famous ekranoplan ever, the Caspian Sea Monster?
posted by titboy at 7:40 PM PST - 22 comments

Radioactive Recycling. "If the Department of Energy has its way, the nation's nuclear garbage could end up in everyday items like bicycles, frying pans, and baby strollers." The East Tennessee Technology Park, was once known as "the K-25 site. Its mission: to produce highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons." Now, efforts are being made to recycle some of the irradiated scrap metal into unlabeled household objects. On the plus side, any radioactive metal that finds its way into your kitchenware won't be headed for Yucca Mountain.
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:15 PM PST - 12 comments

It's 25 Years Ago Today Since Maria Callas Died. There's a badly designed but well-intentioned and informative Italian website to commemorate the anniversary and there's the film Callas Forever, directed by one of her best friends (and the director of many of her most memorable operas, Franco Zefirelli. It premiered today. Mozart's Requiem was also played at the concert held in her honour tonight in Athens. I can't help thinking, though, that the Web is sorely lacking in resources about one of the greatest, most goosebump-provoking singers who ever lived. In fact, classical singers and classical music in general seem very (increasingly) badly served. Even the glorious Andante magazine, which I recently linked to, looks like it's disappeared...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:54 PM PST - 21 comments

Iraq accepts weapons inspectors unconditionally , think vice president cheney is ready to start thinking about a peaceful settlement to the stand-off?
posted by specialk420 at 4:28 PM PST - 91 comments

Robots vs. bunnies! Dust bunnies, that is. Roboticist Rodney Brooks, who you should know because you should have seen Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, co-founded iRobot, which is releasing its first consumer model this week: Roomba, the vacuuming robot. Even once you've seen it in action (which, of course, I haven't), it's probably not going to convince that the future has arrived or get you thinking about the moral rights of robots, but every consumer tech movement has its watershed, and maybe this will turn out to have been a Big Step for getting robots in our daily lives. The author notes that iRobot "hopes that one day Roomba will do for vacuuming what dishwashers did for dishwashing."
posted by blueshammer at 2:10 PM PST - 18 comments

Meals-Ready-to-Eat (MRE)
Developed by the Wornick Corporation together with the DoD Combat Feeding Program, it has been a mainstay of the US Army since it replaced C-Rations in the 1980s. In recent years, the menu has been evolving. (whither Omelet w/ Ham?) Still interested? Read the taste tests and shop for MREs. Also check out the other products coming soon to a battlefield near you (hmmm... Shelf Stable Pocket Sandwiches)
posted by patrickje at 1:47 PM PST - 38 comments

What are the ethics of forwarding an e-mail you were not mean to receive? What if it is sure to humiliate the sender? What if it ends up entertaining untold numbers of people around the globe?
posted by davidfg at 1:08 PM PST - 35 comments

The lost Egyptian city of DeMille In 1923, Cecil B. DeMille built an Egyptian city in the dunes of the Guadalupe Desert north of Los Angeles as the set for "The Ten Commandments," the first true Hollywood epic. Cost over-runs on the filming left too little money for a complete dismantling of the set, so DeMille had it buried instead. In recent years the set has been partially uncovered by Pacific winds, revealing the remains of three-story-tall plaster sphinxes and other artifacts, and leading to a campaign to excavate and preserve this important piece of film history.
posted by me3dia at 1:03 PM PST - 15 comments

GAO to USDA: Put your money where your mouth is! Despite advising Americans to eat "Five a Day" of fruits & vegetables, the USDA still spends a disproportionate amount of your tax dollars propping up meat production & consumption. In the wake of the enormous ConAgra beef recall (after the USDA waited two months upon finding E.Coli), lawmakers and newspapers are now openly questioning the links between the USDA and the meat industry. I think the question's already been answered definitively - a federal judge found a clear conflict of interest in the dietary guidelines panel - but are there alternate explanations?
posted by soyjoy at 1:01 PM PST - 10 comments

The United States has invited you to "War on Iraq"
posted by mathowie at 12:13 PM PST - 38 comments

The Bolan Tree.
Today is the 25th Anniversary of the accident in which folk-singer turned glam pioneer Marc Bolan died. The tree his car hit - driven by his partner, soul singer/producer Grace Jones - has been purchased by a fan group [T-Rex Action Group], who have also contributed a bust sculpted by Canadian Jean Robillard (with Quebec Government Cultural Attaché to Great Britain attending the unveiling today).
You may not think you know his music, but if you've seen Velvet Goldmine or Billy Elliot, watched the NBA Playoffs on TNT [using 'Get It On/Bang A Gong'], or ever wondered where the ubiquitous '20th Century Boy' [with the definitive power chord + squeal opening burst] comes from, now you know.
Marc inspired devotion in his fans, and respect from the likes of Bowie, the Damned and Billy Idol in his own lifetime - and influenced musicmakers like The Strokes & The Red Hot Chili Peppers [according to this article in The Philidelphia Enquirer].
Dandy's in the Underworld, indeed.
posted by dash_slot- at 11:59 AM PST - 34 comments

Recombinant music has been around since the 19th century and now there is an amazing online tool for fans of both the samplers and the sampled.
posted by cadastral at 11:46 AM PST - 10 comments

Killer Carp Must Die! Biological control of invasive species is one solution, but I prefer to support small business. Forget about avoiding perverse incentives, just consider the aesthetic merits of hats over haemorrhages. Of course even the commercial solution can be ugly.
posted by stinglessbee at 11:14 AM PST - 4 comments

Mr. Blonde, Mr. Pink, Mr. White, Mr. Brown, Mr. Orange, Mr. Brinjal.
posted by donkeysuck at 10:48 AM PST - 17 comments

God Save the Subjunctive. Because if he doesn't, who will? And there's more, oh so much more, to this intricate thing we call language. What does it mean?, where did it come from? And how would ancient Babylonians write your name, anyway?
posted by headspace at 9:50 AM PST - 26 comments

The Cat Mantis No more cat hips thrust in your face! No more selfish pussy aggravation!
posted by ginz at 9:36 AM PST - 12 comments

Sweden bucks the trend. In a heated election yesterday, Swedish voters ended the European left's losing streak. Despite having the highest taxes in the industrialized world, Swedish voters rebuffed the tax-cutting, center-right parties that proved so successful in Denmark, Austria, Italy, Portugal, France and Holland. With Germany's Socialists suddenly ahead in the polls, and the implosion of Austria's far-right Freedom Party, is the center-right revolution in Europe out of gas?
posted by Ljubljana at 9:02 AM PST - 23 comments

Where did you sleep last night? Was it in a cave? A lighthouse, or a treehouse? Maybe it was in a teepee, a castle, or a vintage trailer. Perhaps you even slept underwater. What's the most interesting place you've ever paid to lay your head?
posted by gottabefunky at 9:00 AM PST - 28 comments

Religious Fundamentalism: 1, Science: 0. In a stunning knock-out blow to rational thought, the United States tells Darwin, "Not so fast, bud. We better check with God before naming you the head honcho of evolution." Read the article carefully-on first read the new law sounds benign enough. Legislators claim the law will only require that the "debate" between creationism-evolution be discussed. Sounds simple, right? Think again. Once again, the Ohio mentality begs me to flee this state...
posted by tgrundke at 8:38 AM PST - 100 comments

Baseball's Sad Lexicon. Messrs. Tinker, Evers and Chance first appeared in a box score 100 years ago today. (LA Times, &c.)
posted by xowie at 8:23 AM PST - 3 comments

Few Advertisers Use Pop-Ups (or do they?) "Though they seem to be everywhere on the Internet, pop-up advertisements are used by less than 10 percent of all companies that advertise online, according to a report from Nielsen//NetRatings." Do you buy this? Is this industry propaganda or a true description of what is out there? The sites I visit regularly all seem to have pop-ups (e.g. nytimes, espn, slate, theatlantic.com). For the last 1 month or so, ESPN seems to launch two pop-ups when I first visit them, in fact. What has your experience been?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 8:19 AM PST - 28 comments

"I can sympathize with you, but I can never feel your pain," as stated by a Turkish taxidermist in the film Taste of Cherry, by Abbas Kiarosatami, Persian director of great works of cinema. This film's poetic, universal message can apply to anyone who is trying to come to terms with loss, especially a year after that day. more inside
posted by insomnyuk at 4:38 AM PST - 12 comments

Need a user's manual for your DNA? Sure that there's some bug in there you could fix if you knew how to? Here are the tools you'll need. I know the web isn't relly about one-to-many publishing, but just sometimes it does it wonderfully well.
posted by alloneword at 4:35 AM PST - 3 comments

AES may have been broken. The new standard in crypto, AES, and other algorithms, appear to be vulnerable to xsl. This is not a practical attack, yet, but if you're interested in crypto it's fascinating (and shocking) news.
posted by andrew cooke at 4:06 AM PST - 7 comments

What's our government doing right now? Nobody cares. (via David Cogswell) "There is this gap, you see, this enormous, gaping separation between what the honest and ardent and yet often shockingly misinformed populace believes drives the heart of this great nation, and what actually drives it." Slap a new adhesive flag over the one bleached by the summer sun and let's get to it. This really has to stop.
posted by crasspastor at 11:15 PM PST - 22 comments

An Editorial from Jane's, 9/11: in search of context and meaning "Fiction, non-fiction, news, news analysis and opinion... And unfortunately we continually mix and merge these groupings, using them in similar ways and often believing them to contain similar weight and importance." "We now tend to respond to the news rather than attempting to get behind it and create policy."
posted by semmi at 10:18 PM PST - 7 comments

On Iraq, Where Are The Democrats? "Oh, the party's leaders speak: They appear on talk shows; they write op-eds; they convene congressional hearings. But most of what they say is best understood as highly articulate evasiveness. They have devised a series of formulations designed to make the party appear to be offering a clear response to the president's proposed war, when it is actually doing the opposite.". But now some are willing to outright question the timing of our newfound desire to eliminate Hussein: "It's hard not to notice that the sudden urgency of war with Iraq has coincided precisely with the emergence of the corporate scandal story, with the flip in the congressional [poll] numbers and with the decline in the Republicans' prospects for retaking the Senate majority"
posted by owillis at 9:59 PM PST - 18 comments

Bob Greene Quits after Affair with Teen Revealed No big deal in the broad scheme of things, perhaps, but for those who know of/have read Greene, this story is an extra-large helping of irony - basically, one of the high priests of wholesome, 50s-era Americana taken down by a sex scandal. On the other hand, it's not clear that he did anything legally wrong; nevertheless, the paper gave him the quick boot. We expect high ethical standards in politicians' personal lives, but is it fair to expect the same thing of journalists?
posted by risenc at 9:17 PM PST - 29 comments

IRAQFILTER: Coercive inspections - COMPLY OR ELSE. Full 60 page .pdf from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. TRANSCRIPTS: Donahue and Ollie North square off on Afghan covert ops and Iraq. Scott Ritter squares off with Fox News. SUBSTANTIVE DISCUSSION (inside, as per request):
posted by sheauga at 6:59 PM PST - 14 comments

Do you know this girl? C'mon people - lend this guy a hand. Let's face it, he needs all the help he can get...
posted by momorgan at 5:58 PM PST - 28 comments

Today's comic was too cool to pass up. I'm normally a big fan of Foxtrot to begin with, but Bill Amend really pulled a fun stunt in today's online comic. Who can spot the inside joke first? Does anybody else have a favorite memorable inside joke from the funny pages? c'mon, I couldn't resist so lets just pretend it's still Friday...
posted by LuxFX at 3:45 PM PST - 23 comments

This pidgin bible translation gives me the creeps. What happened to promoting literacy by example? Sure, it's important to use language that your readers are comfortable with, but come on already. Is it any wonder that education in Hawaii stinks?
posted by flestrin at 1:39 PM PST - 37 comments

Who the heck cares if Saddam Hussein gets a nuke? Not Pat Buchanan, who provocatively suggests we have little to fear from an Iraq armed with a nuclear weapon. Pat's isolationism and fundamentalism are obvious, so let's examine the specifics of his argument instead: "Stalin acquired nuclear weapons in 1949, but did not blackmail us out of Berlin. Mao acquired nuclear weapons in 1964, but did not blackmail us out of Taiwan...[F]or him to threaten us with it would invite annihilation...Why would Saddam, who sleeps in a different bed every night to stay alive, risk the utter destruction of himself, his family, his dynasty, his monuments, his legacy?"
posted by mediareport at 12:44 PM PST - 43 comments

"Pax Americana" "The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC)."
posted by tpoh.org at 11:17 AM PST - 46 comments

Television as a weapon of mass subversion? Netanyahu is suggesting that the US broadcasts such subversive programs as Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210 in Iran...
posted by titboy at 10:51 AM PST - 15 comments

New 100m world record
"Once again, the 100m record holder is truly the fastest man on earth"
posted by daveg at 10:13 AM PST - 19 comments

Matthias Wandel's Home page is reminiscent of an earlier time in the online world. It's a homepage in the pre-weblog sense, and it's full of the sort of interesting things that made me excited about the Internet in the first place. From marble machines that can divide by six to homemade pipe organs and the story of his dad's old sawmill, there is almost nothing on the site that fails to be interesting.
posted by Nothing at 5:51 AM PST - 15 comments

This LA Times article will get you clued in to some recent developments. But what is the most responsible course of action to deal with the Salton Sea? It's part of a complex hydrologic system and has a pretty unusual history. To me, this seems one of the best reminders that ecological issues are among the trickiest we face.
posted by Nicolae Carpathia at 11:36 PM PST - 7 comments

West Nile Virus got you down?

Then jump on the Bring Back DDT bandwagon, because it's time to kill something to stop the evil WNV!

Heck, DDT doesn't harm the enviroment or people, it doesn't!

Question to ponder: DDT, good thing to use in the US?, bad thing to use? or "Just like hunting for deer with a bazooka"?
posted by RobbieFal at 11:20 PM PST - 22 comments

Like it was so hard to get porno off Napster before. Well, that was quick. Spanish pornography conglomerate Private Media Group, Inc. has made a bid to take control of the now-bankrupt file-trading pioneer, in effort to created an already-branded network exclusively for trading adult material. PMG claims to have the largest library of online adult content in the world, with of course the exception of the hard drives of most 16-year-old male Napster users, hence their desire to expand their collection. Honest.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 10:36 PM PST - 15 comments

War Could Unshackle Oil in Iraq ..All five permanent members of the Security Council -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad. Okay, everybody say it with me now...It's about the OIL!
posted by bas67 at 10:07 PM PST - 38 comments

The Mind of a Madman. PRESIDENT SADDAM HUSSEIN’S ADDRESS ON THE ELEVENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GRAND BATTLE "MOTHER OF ALL BATTLES" JANUARY 16-17, 1991. See also President Saddam Hussein's speech on the occasion of the 14th anniversary of the day of the great victory over Iran and other funny stories. And now, for the rest of the story.
posted by Mack Twain at 9:54 PM PST - 10 comments

Where do you find new music? I have so much music that I need to proactively look for new stuff to add to my mixes. Sometimes I see something in a weblog or article that sparks my interest, but generally I look through favorite artists on Amazon and look for what others have bought. Epinions has some good lists as well, but a lot of it is crap like this. Sometimes magazines will have lists, and sometimes AMG's list of "related artists" is helpful if you know what you're looking for. It's always nice to find something you haven't heard before.

Where do you find new music?
posted by kevin123 at 8:31 PM PST - 64 comments

"Today we have nothing, no food, no money, no work for our young people. We thought the foreigners were going to help us, but they haven't." For some, the Taliban simply offered protection. Now that protection is gone.
posted by SpaceCadet at 8:25 PM PST - 33 comments

Homeland Security Cultural Bureau. "HSCB is protecting the interests of the country's national security by employing efforts to direct and guide the parameters of cultural production. " Actions include encouraging Hollywood to make less cynical, more patriotic movies, and shutting down art galleries whose subversive content is a threat to national security. I presume the site is a parodic/political commentary one--since as far as I know such a bureau has not actually been authorized by the Bush White House--but the makers of the site are holding their cards very close to the chest, with content that is nearly indistinguishable from what the real thing (a Bushian arts censorship commission) would actually be.
posted by Rebis at 7:28 PM PST - 12 comments

The Homeless Guy Weblog A weblog written by Kevin Barbieux, who lives in a homeless shelter in Nashville and has been homeless since 1982. The guy can write and has put together an amazing blog through some of the Bill Gates computers in the public libraries.
posted by Coop at 5:13 PM PST - 70 comments

Dear Dr. Tatiana - I am a queen bee, and I'm worried. All my lovers leave their genitals inside me, and then drop dead. Is this normal? - Perplexed in Cloverhill

Interview (Real Audio file) on NPR's Fresh Air with Olivia Judson, author of Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice To All Creation.
posted by Wet Spot at 4:58 PM PST - 2 comments

Saddam Hussein Trained Al Qaeda Fighters - Report Blair's evidence to convince the Brits that attacking Iraq is going after Saddam is needed because he has been directly involved with Qaeda network.
posted by Postroad at 4:06 PM PST - 27 comments

People for the Ethical Treatment of Alec Baldwin I'm not sure this is absolutely necessary to have on the Internet, and it may have been posted here before (sorry!) but I thought it was worthwhile. Make sure you check out the Baldwin Doofus-Alert Warning System - today, it's red.
posted by djspicerack at 1:33 PM PST - 19 comments

Fantomas Lives!
Fantômas is the Lord of Terror, the Genius of Evil, the arch-criminal anti-hero of a series of 32 pre-WWI French thrillers written by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. He carries out the most appalling crimes: substituting sulfuric acid in the perfume dispensers at a Parisian department store, releasing plague-infested rats on an ocean liner, or forcing a victim to witness his own execution by placing him face-up in a guillotine.
In 1912, Apollinaire founded the Societe des Amis de Fantomas which included prominent artists and writers. Magritte considered Fantomas to be a major influence in many of his paintings. Fantomas was not only a comic book but also spawned films, tv and radio shows and plays. (There is, of course, a modern band as well)(I read the Mexican comic book as a child)
posted by vacapinta at 12:13 PM PST - 6 comments

iCal weblogs via the iCal weblog. *head explodes*
posted by sudama at 10:39 AM PST - 21 comments

Negativland Uses Mosquito Fleet To Bite Clear Channel and the NAB. Six unlicensed FM stations in Seattle joined forces, simulcasting a fake "KJR-FM" broadcast created by members of Negativland. The spoofed programming repeatedly jabbed at the Clear Channel affiliate for claiming to play only "The Best Of The 60s and 70s", while injecting at least almost 100 songs from the 80s into it's smotheringly-tight, mechanised auto-pilot playlist. Snippets of the simul-pirate-cast can be heard here.
posted by tpoh.org at 9:00 AM PST - 46 comments

There's a new option available for pet owners who can't bear to say goodbye when their furry friends pass on: having them freeze-dried. Is this just a comforting alternative, or just a way to make some cold cash?
posted by debralee at 6:50 AM PST - 10 comments

MTV bans Public Enemy 's video "Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need" because the video contains the lyric "Free Mumia and H Rap Brown". MTV are willing to air the video if the lyric is cut. Public Enemy front-man Chuck D is vocal in his response. Responsible action or censorship in its worst form?
posted by nthdegx at 4:35 AM PST - 75 comments

Think of the children.
posted by metaforth at 1:20 AM PST - 37 comments

Fact Sheet 3: Chronology of Domestic Hate Crimes and Responses since 9/11 This only goes up to Janurary 2002, and probably only includes reported incidents, or incidents that were featured in the newspaper.
posted by filecrave at 12:12 AM PST - 18 comments

How many more terrorist cells are out there? Living less than half an hour from Lakawanna, where a group of men trained by Al Queda were just arrested, I'm rather nervous.
I couldn't help but be reminded of another another recent thread when MSNBC reported that the men were turned in by the local Muslim community.
posted by Kellydamnit at 11:39 PM PST - 19 comments

There's something out there
Target Body: J002E3 Spacecraft (UNCONFIRMED)
Observer Location: Los Angeles, CA
Coordinates: 118°14'27.6''W, 34°03'15.1''N

Since September 5th, the Minor Planet Mailing List (MPML) has been abuzz with speculation about an unidentified 16th- magnitude object. During the next 10 days the object will be moving rapidly across Aries and then Taurus, passing between the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters.
posted by riley370 at 9:52 PM PST - 29 comments

Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. Carl Sagan commenting (circa 1971) on an experience he had while high on Cannabis over at Marijuana-Users.com. One of the only efforts (along with Cannabis Consumers) to get people to "come out" and help remove inaccurate stereotypes from the mind of the public.
posted by botono9 at 9:17 PM PST - 64 comments

Signwave, the creators of Auto-Illustrator, have now released SleepTight. [Press release]
posted by Su at 9:10 PM PST - 6 comments

The LSD Blotter Art Gallery? The Moist Towelette Online Museum? The LED Museum? The Japanese Coffee Can Menagerie? Eighties LA Street Flyers? The Galley of Stakepark IDs? And my two favorites The Museum of Air Sickness Bags (check out those donations and swaps) and The Gallery of "Misused" Quotation Marks. What do they all have in common? They all can be found at the Museum of Museums. I've wandered through these galleries for hours.
posted by entrustNoOne at 8:20 PM PST - 14 comments

meshcap.com is, well, ummm, a gallery of mesh caps. You can almost smell the fried dough at the county fair as you peruse such fashion statements as this, this, this or this.
posted by machaus at 8:11 PM PST - 10 comments

EscapeRail finds beauty on every block - a photographic study of fire escapes.
posted by momorgan at 5:40 PM PST - 9 comments

Hunter S. Thompson's Advice to Bush: Quit! Political commentator, sports enthusiast and all around American treasure lets fly. When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.
posted by Ty Webb at 5:08 PM PST - 40 comments

Operation S.I.C.K. (Stop Inciting Children to Kill) is an independent network of students combatting the exploitation of children for armed conflict.
posted by ookamaka at 3:58 PM PST - 3 comments

This week in 1978, the most bizarre and hideous of murders was committed. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident was jabbed in the thigh with a deadly umbrella. The umbrella inserted ricin into him, killing him on September 11th, 1978. To this day, his killer has not been punished.

Question to ponder: Does the US CIA have their own 'deadly umbrellas'?
posted by RobbieFal at 3:49 PM PST - 38 comments

Intelligent Grappling: the new creationism? Teachers for Equal Time hopes that the addition of the warning stickers will pave the way for the teaching of its alternative theory, Intelligent Grappling, the theory that certain intelligent and conscious agents "push" things together. (hey its friday)
posted by skallas at 3:31 PM PST - 18 comments

The West Nile virus has leapfrogged into California. Don't you find it suspicious that there are no subversive theories of how this virus showed up at all in New York, and now in California?
posted by semmi at 2:31 PM PST - 29 comments

"The fight America has on its hands militarily is one thing. A fight our American intelligence and soldiery will not lose. Drunken, doped-up third world peasants paradise-bent on living as if it is still the stone age challenge us, now let them taste the full, unadulterated wrath of America's force. Let them drown in pools of their own blood." Call it "the ultimate pre-match promo:" the well-thought-out and eloquent political pundrity of The Ultimate Warrior. Yes, that one.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:28 PM PST - 23 comments

Why Aren't U.S. Journalists Reporting From Iraq? "This notion that the Iraqi leader is in cahoots with Osama will be easy to feed the American people. To the American people, one bad Arab is the same as the next, and Osama equals Saddam. People who wonder about the Bush war-urgency only need to think about this: there’s a blind spot that needs to be exploited now, before too many journalists get the idea to go inside Iraq and find out what’s really happening. As long as the Condi Rices, Dick Cheneys and other hawks are talking to journalists with no experience inside Iraq, they won’t get a raised eyebrow about this notion that the secular dictator is in bed with the jihadis -- even though [reports indicate]....the CIA has found no link between the Iraqi dictator and Al Qaeda."
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 1:48 PM PST - 55 comments

"Coz every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man" [via The Smoking Gun]
posted by Dirjy at 1:37 PM PST - 53 comments

Word 97 Users Abandoned by Microsoft? "Microsoft's flagship word processor has for years had a security flaw that could allow a criminal to steal computer files by "bugging" a document with a hidden code." Microsoft will fix the problem for newer versions of Word, but those of us who use Word 97 are more or less out of luck. As it turns out, the Microsoft Corporation page doesn't seem to have any easily accessible information on this issue.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:08 PM PST - 40 comments

Kurt Cobain's childhood is home for sale on eBay. "The inspiration for lyrics of many of his songs were derived from life in Montesano during these early teen years." [thanks spotmeter]
posted by mathowie at 12:54 PM PST - 17 comments

Boston is having a real brouhaha over grass-roots efforts to return to rent control. Here in D.C., some folks aren't happy about a massive vending machine in Adam's Morgan. Meanwhile, D.C. braces for protests surrounding the upcoming meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Is there, in this day and age, a debate raging about the equity, and even the efficacy, of capitalism? Is Marxism still a viable vein of thought in the modern age? Are free markets as self-policing as some folks argue? Or does industry require a more arduous watchdog?
posted by NedKoppel at 12:08 PM PST - 33 comments

Can the LA Times write a decent story about bloggers and blogging? They certainly didn't in their latest piece. Plus they took an interesting angle of writing about bloggers, but ignoring every single LA-based blogger despite the fact that LA just might be home to the largest community of bloggers on the planet. But LA shouldn't feel shunned, the Times didnt mention the Instapundit, Ev, or Metafilter either.
posted by tsarfan at 10:41 AM PST - 48 comments

Nothing Friendly About "Friendly Fire" WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two Air National Guard pilots may face criminal charges for their roles in a bombing that killed four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

A senior defense official said the Air Force is recommending that charges be filed against F-16 pilots Maj. Harry Schmidt and Maj. William Umbach. Pentagon officials were expected to announce the charges Friday after the U.S. Central Command and the Canadian government released additional details from a joint investigation of the April 17 tragedy.

what do you think? will this help prevent similar tragedies, will pilots think twice before they let fly on unsupecting canadian troops or wedding parties?
posted by henriettachicken at 9:44 AM PST - 20 comments

In a way, his works are like a butterfly collection - a vain attempt to capture fleeting, elusive life and beauty, by meticulous means. Joseph Cornell (1903-72), one of many misunderstood and underrepresented american artists IMO. A few of his boxes on WebMuseum.
posted by poopy at 9:43 AM PST - 11 comments

Nigerian scammer, meet James T. Kirk. Or, how to turn the scam around.
posted by misterioso at 8:53 AM PST - 31 comments

Welcome to the State Department... I mean, the Republican Party. "For some time, travelers browsing the State Department Web site for helpful tips about Guadalajara, Mexico, found much more than they bargained for when they clicked on a photograph of President Bush. The click transported them to a partisan playground, where they were told how to get involved with the Republican Party and even how to donate money to it." (Why does nytimes.com have all the good stories?- metafilter, metafilter)
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 8:46 AM PST - 11 comments

Mission Mini. Thieves have stolen 6 valuable paintings, and a Mini Cooper S. Read the mysterious novella by Scottish author, Val McDermid, and then fly to Barcelona to take part in this mystery. Mini has arranged plane tickets and hotel for you. Are you up for some sleuthing? Get briefed.
This could be one of the coolest interactive marketing campaigns I've seen in a long while. [some links contain flash]
posted by mad at 7:53 AM PST - 14 comments

Shaving for Uncle Sam. Stories like this just heat my blood. I swear that some people cannot see past their stars at what is really going on. Is this becoming a Gentleman's War? Next thing you know Special Forces won't be able to carry bullets in their guns.
posted by Stretch at 7:31 AM PST - 27 comments

Republicans' economic policy is now closer to that associated with the Democrats, and vice versa. "Since the 1960s, the Republican and Democrat administrations have switched places on economic policy. The pattern is so well established that the generalisation can no longer be denied: the Republicans have become the party of fiscal irresponsibility, trade restriction, big government and bad microeconomics." Who'd have ever thought Bush would follow a Keynesian economic policy? Meanwhile, as the budget deficit grows, Greenspan cautions fiscal responsibility.
posted by Kneebiter at 6:40 AM PST - 8 comments

Terrorists to make us "cry on 9/13" Looks like some terrorists have been picked up on I-75 in Florida, apparently on their way to the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area. Seems like the news media is definitely glomming on to the "special dates" scenario that's been spoken about a few times, i.e. 9/11, Friday the 13th, Halloween, et al. Do you buy into that, or is it just coincidence? Watch out for terrorists at your local Shoney's!
posted by djspicerack at 6:13 AM PST - 103 comments

The Ultimatum has been delivered to the UN... This conflict, simmering for over ten years is about to erupt. "In strict accordance with international law," unilatteral military action is imminent unless demands are met. Animosity has been mounting steadily for months, and Russia is ready to invade Georgia. "No one can deny today, and for ourselves we are certain, that Georgian territory is sheltering both those who are implicated in the attacks on the United States and a direct operative involved in the attacks on housing units in Russia," Mr. Putin said on Russian television, echoing the logic U.S. President George W. Bush has used to rally international support for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq. The United States said it would not support Mr. Putin if he carried out his threat to attack Chechen rebel bases in Georgia, and slammed him for suggesting he might. "The United States strongly supports Georgia's territorial integrity and would oppose any unilateral military action by Russia inside Georgia," a U.S. State Department spokesman said. This all seems rather hypocritical, business as usual new world order politics: Is the price of getting UN Security Council approval on Iraq going to be public and secret deals, and is this really about the Chechens, or about breakaway republics and Caspian Sea oil? And what about China? Will we rubberstamp their ambitions re: Taiwan, Spratley Islands, Mongolia? And finally, why Georgia? I know they put up a two-bit Olympics and never caught that one terrorist bomber, but really, Georgia?
posted by Mack Twain at 4:58 AM PST - 25 comments

Is This Finally The Best Of The Rolling Stones? Their website was redesigned earlier this month in preparation for Forty Licks, the upcoming anthology which is being touted as the definitive compilation of their best songs. Is it though? There have been, er, more than a few of them in the past - even (most shockingly!) a couple of very good ones. Nor do the four new songs exactly transmit over-confidence. More pertinently: does it (do they) still matter? [Or, are we better off sticking to the current Primal Scream reincarnation?]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:53 AM PST - 51 comments

Read it sideways. The first smiley was posted to usenet on September 19, 1982. Almost twenty years later, the original posting is uncovered on an old tape backup (after a search that smiley-inventor Scott Fahlman has dubbed the “Digital Coelacanth Project”). Of note: Mr. Fahlman thinks that AOL’s and MSN’s penchant for replacing the smiley-string with little pictures “destroys the whimsical element of the original.”
posted by sherman at 12:39 AM PST - 26 comments

It's big, it's bad, and it's coming your way. Beware Bonnie! No, no, wait. Hide from Hanna! Hmm, nope. Run from Rene! Geez, this naming thing isn't easy. How do you name a tropical storm? Should the name be masculine or feminine? Should it roll off the tongue with ease or be a mouthful? Are there some names you can't use? If a tropical storm was closing in on your neighborhood, what would you call it?
posted by debralee at 11:12 PM PST - 10 comments

Search Engines come into fashion and search engines go out of fashion, but only one Search Engine will be there for you when Great Cthulhu rises slowly from the Pacific waters, his slumber of a million years finally at an end!
Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!
link via the diary of Farq Q. Fenderson at K5.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:30 PM PST - 14 comments

A Blast from the Past. In 1998, George Bush, Sr. explains why Saddam was not removed in the Gulf War: "Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."
posted by owillis at 9:43 PM PST - 19 comments

Can't we just get George Bush and Saddam Hussein take E together? Two weeks ago a friend of mine and I were hypothesizing that we could avoid a war with Iraq if these two leaders would just hangout together, take MDMA, and talk to each other. From related experiences I can say that it would certainly help them work through their disagreements. What about you? Has ecstasy use helped or harmed your mental health? (And does anyone read Salon anymore?)
posted by popvulture at 9:42 PM PST - 34 comments

.i la lojban mo
Lojban is in many ways like any other language. There's an English-Lojban dictionary. There's a Lojban grammar. You can even get your news at Nuzban, a Lojban-only news site.

Lojban, however, is a completely constructed language. Why Lojban? Well, Lojban came from Loglan, an invented language from the 1950's (Loglan was created as an experiment to study the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: succinctly, the idea that language and culture are hopelessly intertwined) Today, there are hundreds of invented languages and a thriving language construction community. Alongside well-known constructs such as Tolkien's elven languages and Klingon, there's also d'ni - the language of Myst, a language of flowers, opus-2 - a language that shuns word order and Teonat - a language of the imaginary inhabitants of Teon.
With the help of online language construction kits, you too can create your own language.
posted by vacapinta at 8:44 PM PST - 34 comments

Remember Bullet Time? Remember how it got damn annoying from overuse really quickly? When was the last time you saw something neat done with it?
Take a look at Lumasol.
posted by Su at 6:26 PM PST - 20 comments

Play with your food. Or rather, play it. The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra creates a unique sound using instruments made from vegetables. Then, they make soup.
posted by frykitty at 2:09 PM PST - 14 comments

The new national divide... In my high school town of Davis CA. it was "Coke". In the rest of California it seemed to be "Soda". Until I moved to the Northwest I always had an extreme hick-ish image of folks who say "Pop" and to a certain extent still do.

Where do you live and what do you say?
posted by aaronscool at 1:34 PM PST - 317 comments

"Why terrorism works." In an interview plugging his new book, Alan Dershowitz makes some interesting points and suggests some intriguing solutions vis-a-vis various Current Situations.
posted by donkeyschlong at 1:30 PM PST - 24 comments

Here's a transcript of the president's speech to the UN General Assembly this morning, for those who missed it. The White House has also provided a 21 page document [pdf link] detailing Iraq's history of defiance and disorder over the past decade.
posted by jammer at 1:03 PM PST - 84 comments

WOD hits new low in ridiculosity. From the Shameless Scare 'Em for Ratings files: Flush from the 911 hyper-commemoration news frenzy, but just a little disappointed that the evil-doers didn't do any (as hyped), the news media finds itself on 912 with too much time on their hands. What to do? Break out the tried-and-true emerging drug menace story you keep on hand for just such a news lull!
Khat, (briefly) touted as a new drug menace back when our boys were (briefly) in Somalia, was then shilled as the drug that made somalis into raving homicidal maniacs. IT'S BACK!! According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, chronic use can cause violence and suicidal depression similar to amphetamine addiction, though the agency said it was unaware of any examples(emphasis mine). no laughing now, they want you to take this threat seriously Some say its harmless, others like to compare it to Methedrine
posted by BentPenguin at 12:49 PM PST - 18 comments

Jeb Bush delivers Florida ... to Janet Reno's opponent in the primary. Not a repost of the trouble-at-the-polls brouhaha. Carl Hiaasen looks at the Bush team's "stupendous" backfire in targeting a second-tier candidate, eventual winner Bill McBride, in an apparently incessant string of TV ads that moved McBride from anonymity to a fearsome candidate. "Why else would the GOP buy so much TV time to slam him?" asks Hiaasen, and indeed, McBride's follow-up ads capitalized on this notoriety. By carrying the primary, the race against Bush gets more interesting: "Reno is a known quantity about whom most voters already feel strongly one way or the other," notes Hiaasen. "McBride is a fresh face with no Clinton baggage and a Bronze Star from the Vietnam War."
posted by blueshammer at 12:37 PM PST - 11 comments

An Anti-War Movement of One. by Philip Gold, senior national security analyst for Seattle's conservative Discovery Institute. "...of late, I've taken to constituting myself as an anti-war movement of one--a man of impeccable conservative credentials and long experience in the national-security field, a grumpy old Marine, who has grown infuriated with and appalled by both the conservative embrace of disaster and the enormity of the smallness of what passes for the anti-war movement today."
posted by Ty Webb at 12:21 PM PST - 15 comments

Fruit flies take death lying down. Some scientist somewhere noticed an interesting death habit, if you will, in fruit flies. One day they flop over upside down, and stay there, until they die - almost always ~14 days later. The live approximately 60 days. The point? They believe that something naturally triggers the onset of death and dying. Interesting.
posted by JessicaRose at 11:56 AM PST - 12 comments

Very bad news for Warren Zevon. AP reports that he has untreatable lung cancer. His quote: "I'm OK with it, but it'll be a drag if I don't make it till the next James Bond movie comes out." Damn. Damn.
posted by maudlin at 11:42 AM PST - 18 comments

Remembering the crazy dot-com boom. In November of 1998, a small California Internet provider named AvTel Communications announced they were providing local ADSL service to the community via a typical (and innocent, at least so it was thought) corporate press release. Business wires spin completely mis-interpret the release, CNBC talks about it on air, then clueless investors hoping to get rich quick start throwing money at the stock causing the stock price to rise an amazing 1284% in one day before trading is suspended. After several class-action suits, and a company re-name, the company managed to survive the hoopla, but only barely. Now they're being de-listed like yesterday's trash. Did something like this ever happen to a company for whom you worked? Let's share! (Yeah, I worked there then.)
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:17 AM PST - 10 comments

OK, no I guess I was the only one that thought this toy was cool (I have since bought one and enjoy it), but it would be hard to deny that the Zero Blaster is a very cool toy. See it in action.
posted by Sal Amander at 11:16 AM PST - 20 comments

I guess the media does have some good qualities after all. Yesterday was 9/11. Much of the media spend the day remembering what took place a year ago. A local pop radio station here in Pittsburgh B94 did something a little different. Yes they did the remembering but they also did something that went along the lines of "going about our business". They organized a little something called Operation Jumpstart Pittsburgh. They collected faxed and emailed resumes and hooked people up with companies that were hiring on the spot. It's nice to see the media doing something constructive for a change. I just wonder if anyone else might have some information about things that media outlets in other cities might have done like this.
posted by whirlwind29 at 11:12 AM PST - 5 comments

The Voice of the Prophet. Rick Rescorla was Head of Security for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in New York. A vet of three wars and a survivor of the 1993 WTC bombing. He saved many lives that day, but lost his own on Nine Eleven, no doubt again attempting to save lives as he had eight years before. If this is what Shrub means by a Patriot, he should listen to patriots instead of try to name Nine Eleven after them. Rescorla's words echo now in a startling matter-of-fact yet poignant way. I'll copypaste a partial transcript into the body of the thread for those who can't stream video.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:56 AM PST - 3 comments

Two-headed turtle found in Florida
Probably not all that interesting as a single link, but it turns out there are many animals out there with 2 heads. There's a Two-headed moose fetus, The Full Range of animals with 2 heads, Two Headed Snakes, and here's A Nice Bibliography on the double head topic.
As for the turtle, they let it go, "We didn't want it to become a freak in a freak show," they said.
posted by Blake at 10:13 AM PST - 17 comments

Ship searched for nuclear material after it was diverted from New York harbor, reports MS-NBC. Apparently a Department of Energy Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) was involved. Initial report states that elevated gamma and neutron emissions were detected.

Aside from this report--which is unconfirmed--how likely is such an attack? How do we deal with thousands of container ships, each holding hundreds of anonymous containers? This kind of attack scares me much more than airplanes dropping out of the sky.
posted by mooncrow at 10:10 AM PST - 17 comments

"You know, you cannot exercise your powers to the point of humiliation for others. That is what the Western world -- not only the Americans, the Western world -- has to realize. Because they (the have-nots) are human beings too. There are long-term consequences if you don't look hard at the reality in 10 or 20 [or] 30 years from now... I do think that the Western world is getting too rich in relations to the poor world. And necessarily, we're looked upon as being arrogant, self-satisfied, greedy and with no limits. And the 11th of September is an occasion for me to realize it even more." Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien reflects on September 11th, and not all Canadians agree with him.
posted by tranquileye at 10:10 AM PST - 65 comments

Finger Weights You you read that right. I think people are taking "whole-body" work outs a BIT far. As Comic Book Guy would say, "Worst product ever!"
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 9:20 AM PST - 16 comments

Viral Marketing Wants You! Do you want to hype the new season of your tv show? Recruit fans to post what you want them to post in the places you tell them to. Courtesy of the Hype Council. Sure to hit Metafilter soon!
posted by danhon at 8:57 AM PST - 18 comments

Another election debacle in Florida. One year and $30m in technology later, the Reno/McBride primary is marred by late openings and other assorted and sundry glitches. I know, it's a CNN link, but I can't resist anything that includes someone delivering the grade "F-minus-minus-minus" (later determined to be merely an "F-minus-minus" and some Drambuie). Any personal voting horror stories from our Florida contingent? Will the state become a case study in how "throwing money at the problem" never works?
posted by mkultra at 8:24 AM PST - 27 comments

Finally, a Fair Fight with Big Music From a Business Week Online column..."Telecom giant Verizon is battling the industry's bid to make it name a file-sharing subscriber. It's also defending your right to privacy. On July 24, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) made an unprecedented request of Verizon Communications (VZ). The music industry's trade association served the telecom with a subpoena, seeking the identity of a Verizon subscriber who had allegedly illegally traded digital songs by artists including Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and "boy band" N'Sync. The RIAA didn't specify why it wanted to know who the user was or what it would do with the information."
posted by fpatrick at 8:17 AM PST - 22 comments

Coudal Partners site is back. The website is for an advertising agency, but the quality of content is top-notch. With features such as the The museum of Online Museums and Photoshop Tennis to peruse, you won't even notice that you're on a business-related website. Any other websites with content that transcend the commercial nature of the website?
posted by monkeyman at 8:03 AM PST - 4 comments

When patriotism wasn't religious (nytimes) Last night in front of the Texas Capitol in Austin, the 9/11 memorial vigil featured singing of The Lord's Prayer; a Baptist reverend who talked mostly of caution against the "Islamic government of Sudan" and "Islamic mobs" who attacked Christians and Jews in Pakistan; and a Catholic bishop who addressed "our God" over 100 times. Am I wrong to think this amount of religiosity was inappropriate in front of a mixed public crowd at the statehouse? How can we be free when church and state are so intertwined?
posted by skyboy at 7:44 AM PST - 122 comments

Is RNAi the future therapeutic approach for tackling everything from AIDS to cancer. Already it is being touted as a molecular biological panacea. A lot of research has been carried out in vitro , just those crucial human trials to go.
posted by johnnyboy at 6:01 AM PST - 8 comments

Spectacular atmospheric optics.
Beautiful pictures of atmospheric phenomena, common and rare. You can also run your own halo simulations if you like... (Found in New Scientist's Weblinks, an extensive, annotated collection of all kinds of science links from all over the web.)
posted by talos at 5:23 AM PST - 13 comments

HE answers some queries A short list ( though more than 10 ) of modern commandments (via boing boing)
posted by johnny7 at 2:30 AM PST - 33 comments

Best. Video. Ever. (Well, not really. This is just a tribute.) Gotta love Tenacious D - what other band has merchandise like this?
posted by Fofer at 10:12 PM PST - 27 comments

N.Y. Lottery Draws 9-1-1 on 9/11 This is a pretty strange coincidence. Some people find coincidences everywhere. But, others say the world would be more surprising if coincidences didn't occur. Still, this is pretty odd. What coincidences have you experienced? Do you see meaning in them?
posted by popvulture at 9:19 PM PST - 51 comments

Campaign for Freedom. The Ad Council does some good work. This campaign has been running for a bit, but until yesterday I'd only seen the spot Main Street USA. The others in the series, like this and this are probably my favorites-- all the more so because we're heading in exactly that direction.
posted by Cerebus at 9:15 PM PST - 12 comments

U.S. troops on DEFCON 2 alert "The Canoe.qc.ca web site has learned that American Marines in the Persian Gulf have been placed on DEFCON 2 alert status, a possible precursor to war with Iraq." - the Canoe.ca site is often several hours ahead of more popular news sites (CNN, MSNBC, ect) with breaking news.
posted by stevengarrity at 7:45 PM PST - 22 comments

Are you being watched at work on the Web? And how carefully? The good news is that I finally have more than dialup at work. The bad news is that my Internet is filtered, or at least being watched via something called Websense. How common is use of such software these days? Does anyone have experience with this type of software? What information does it log? Can it be defeated?
posted by ParisParamus at 6:53 PM PST - 43 comments

Attempted hijack on Dallas to Houston flight? RTE in Ireland is reporting an American Airlines jet bound for Dallas, Texas returned to Houston Airport shortly after takeoff because of what an airlines spokesman called 'a security incident' on board...just a precaution or was something serious going on?
posted by tomcosgrave at 6:41 PM PST - 23 comments

Take Five - you won't be disappointed The perfect way to end a day of stress and media overload. This will take about five minutes, but stay with it. Sure, it's funny (VERY), but it's the messages at the end that make it worth watching the whole thing. Just when I was feeling like there was nothing worth looking at today...
posted by sparky at 5:14 PM PST - 50 comments

Silly Putty supersized. Indulge in tactile manipulation on the kind of scale that would make jealous schoolchildren weep. Do they come in giant plastic shells?
posted by Dukebloo at 5:10 PM PST - 10 comments

September eleventh certainly is an anniversary, but of more than you might remember. Historical Hindsight is a short piece on why some events are remembered and others forgotten. "The things that get remembered serve a purpose. They have to do something relevant in the present."
posted by raaka at 4:21 PM PST - 3 comments

Help yourself to an exploit. No biting social commentary here, just spreading the word on an ooky Win XP exploit in the form of a malicious Help Center request. The patch has been silently rolled into SP1, and is otherwise unavailable. Of course, if you want to install SP1, you'll have to agree to that nasty Trojan EULA.
posted by badstone at 2:39 PM PST - 17 comments

The Pakistani Sufi-Rock band Junoon have released their new English single "No More" which remembers the innocent victims of 9/11 and terrorism everywhere. Penned by Polar Livine of Polarity 1 and Salman Ahmad of Junoon the song can be heard/downloaded at the Junoon Website along with they lyrics. They might not be household names in the US but they are big in the subcontinent and elsewhere. They have appeared on US media many times including NPR took a deeper look in their role in presenting another face of Pakistan. Together Salman Ahmed, Brian'o'Connell, and Ali Azmat have relentlessly called for peace between India & Pakistan and raised enough controversy domestically to be banned by several "Democratic" governments in Pakistan.
posted by adnanbwp at 2:07 PM PST - 8 comments

Some sort of insanity must have possessed this guy, making him think he could write a prequel trilogy to Roger Zelazny's classic Amber series (ahem, not this one). Most reviewers agree--and you can read for yourself--that it's not very good. All this, and the fact that the Sci-Fi Channel also has sinister plans for the property means that there are only one or two nails left to be driven into the coffin of my childhood. Hooray!
posted by Hildago at 12:48 PM PST - 15 comments

Another entry to file under "we could have cured cancer, but..." I suppose this falls more under the MetaFark category than anything else, but researchers in the U.S. have devised new ways to make rabbits reproduce... like rabbits. Odd how that works.
posted by Veritron at 12:24 PM PST - 18 comments

Mooks and Midriffs. "Mook" is a good and useful word, and we should all start using it more often. Douglas Rushkoff made a special for PBS' Frontline about the selling of "cool" to America's adolescents. Buy it here, it's really worth watching.
posted by interrobang at 11:41 AM PST - 55 comments

Earth has a third satellite? Somehow I missed that a second one, Cruithne, was discovered in 1986. Is there a size or distance limit to something being considered a satellite?
posted by onhazier at 9:59 AM PST - 31 comments

NYT Arts story that conjectures critical (and popular) retro fixations are not only something new (or somehow newsworthy) but can be credibly associated with 9/11 sentiment. Oh, and freshly minted art isn't as good or noteworthy as the old stuff, even if that old stuff (Nevermind, Eastwood's Unforgiven) is from the early '90s. Pick apart, please.
posted by blueshammer at 9:27 AM PST - 15 comments

RPS. Not some new government organization, nor a new tech term. I am speaking of the age old decision maker, Rock-Paper-Scissors. Who knows how many important decisions in the course of history have been decided by this method. A little bit of fun here on such a somber day, just don't let your co-workers catch you practicing against the computer.
posted by Addiction at 9:00 AM PST - 18 comments

Today some of us thought it would be fitting to build a thread made exclusively of links, where each link would be allowed to speak for itself and be each user's personal take - his or her own wordless comment, as it were - on any of the many issues, meanings and aspects surrounding today's date. (Here's the MetaTalk thread where it was discussed).
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:45 AM PST - 189 comments

You Call That Evidence? Op-Ed from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists about the so-called evidence for the administration's claim that Iraq is "moving very near a nuclear weapon capability." Too bad something that at least seems to be approaching the truth will have nothing to do with whether we go to war or not.
posted by elgoose at 8:13 AM PST - 51 comments

Man awakens from 7-year coma. Peter Sana of Honolulu, Hawaii, finally began responding to human interaction last month after slipping into a Meningitis-related coma in 1995. Peter, we've got some good news... aaaaaaaaaand some bad news...
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 7:02 AM PST - 55 comments

SKELETONS have come out of the closets and are creeping along Cincinnati's streets. People say that Jim Cissell released them. Four years ago, Mr. Cissell decided that it was time to move the county's court records onto the Web. The documents were already public. They were already electronic. Where else to put public electronic documents but on the Internet?
posted by Irontom at 6:47 AM PST - 9 comments

Buzz Aldrin punches moon conspiracy theorist - Light on content but loaded up with a snappy title, this headline had me rolling. I can only imagine how 33 years of 'conspiracy theorists' could play on your nerves. If only there were places I could keep track of celebrities who loose it.
posted by dirtylittlemonkey at 6:46 AM PST - 41 comments

Simon Schama on the last year... Excellent stuff. The article moves from describing the immediate grief to an analysis of where events have taken America religiously, politically, and in its public life.

Apparently, the dead are owed another war. But they are not. What they are owed is a good, stand-up, bruising row over the fate of America; just who determines it and for what end?

posted by humuhumu at 6:04 AM PST - 14 comments

"In the most recent issue of the Arms Sales Monitor, the Arms Sales Monitoring Project finds that the War on Terror has provided the U.S. military with an excuse to begin arming regimes that had previously been blacklisted for human rights abuses, weapons proliferation, or brutal conflict" - Federation of American Scientists. The content of this document gives rise to a range of issues. Can arming new friends with advanced weaponry strengthen the long-term security of the U.S, or will this ultimately ensure renewed hostility arising from an apparent readiness to take sides in foreign conflicts?? One year on from 9/11/01, has the moral high-ground implied by the 'War Against Terrorism' been fatally eroded by turning a blind eye to the questionable ethics of 'friendly' states (the records of the Saudis, and arguably, the Israelis and others, may also be a case in point)?
posted by Doozer at 5:50 AM PST - 6 comments

George Bush's Article in NYTIMES. I was surprised to see an article by the prez on nytimes.com. We are used to presidents communicating through TV- but there the speech is picked up by all major channels in that case. It seems odd to see a sitting president use one newspaper to put forward a viewpoint. Perhaps, Al Gore's articles in the same space spurred dubya. Oh, by the way, what did you think of the story? Is this the work of a speechwriter or do you think it is genuine? Did everyone notice the absence of the word Iraq in this article? (The customary apology for the nytimes post applies. I believe you can still register as metafilter, metafilter.)
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 5:41 AM PST - 36 comments

On hallowed ground. Dave Barry writes about the Flight 93 memorial in Pennsylvania.
posted by owillis at 5:09 AM PST - 15 comments

Heres something for all the "L337" When was the first time someone babbled in "llama"to you? If you're a fan of the game quake check out this tongue in cheek guide to llama speak
posted by hoopyfrood at 4:49 AM PST - 24 comments

Bernard Herrmann: I've always loved Bernard Herrmann's music (symphonic or film) but I didn't know until this afternoon that he was responsible for the two most recognizable bars of music in the last 30 years: the theme for The Twilight Zone.
posted by realjanetkagan at 11:43 PM PST - 8 comments

Export Restrictions on a website? I had to agree to this before downloading stuff from Oracle:
I am not a citizen, national or resident of, and am not under the control of, the government of: Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, nor any other country to which the United States has prohibited export.
posted by arnab at 11:28 PM PST - 10 comments

Even Yahoo's getting into the act of remembering last year with a reasonably classy homage on their site. Spot any other tributes on the major sites?
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 11:20 PM PST - 33 comments

I'm off to a conference today to discuss the EU and Asia one year on, in the European Parliament which should be very interesting indeed. Almost every Asian and Middle East ambassador will be present . What are you going to do today?
posted by quarsan at 10:23 PM PST - 10 comments

"First you look at the cover ... probably something rather lurid and colorful that makes you smile for its ingenuity. You are immediately assaulted by the characteristic smell of rotting paper, of pulp wood paper. You pick it up, wondering what strange stories you will find within those badly yellowed and rather crumbly pages - a dastardly deed, a fantastic villain or incredible hero, a love story perhaps, or even a voyage to some distant planet!"
posted by crunchland at 10:19 PM PST - 10 comments

So much for customer servise A website chronicling one guys journey though tech support hell. I laughed my head off at what the guy had to go through and also that he would go so far to document it like he has. Not a lot of fun (but funny because it wasn't me)
posted by Coop at 10:02 PM PST - 18 comments

Yes.. we all know what today is (it's pretty much Wednesday here).. read up on the MeFi reactions, or the reactions from Fark. Hundreds of these have to be around. I'm just linking some ones off the top of my head here. Here's one timeline of last 9/11 also which seems more skeptical about all of this. Here are some events for today.

Do something good for somebody today.
posted by RobbieFal at 9:57 PM PST - 5 comments

The problem is not with your set: Last fall, Sen. Hillary Clinton was lustily booed by the crowd at the Concert for New York City benefit aired live on VH1, much to the glee of conservative commentators. On the DVD release of the concert, Clinton is greeted with rousing cheers, as revealed by ABC's John Stossel. Give Viacom a hand. VH1's parent company also contributed $32,500 to her campaign and owns Simon & Schuster, which is paying $8 million for her memoirs.
posted by rcade at 9:26 PM PST - 44 comments

Ludacris Barks Back At Pepsi... Papa Roach does pornos, Britney is sluttier than ever, but they get the thumbs up. How did this happen?
posted by filecrave at 8:06 PM PST - 27 comments

Nelson Mandela calls it like he sees it: the United States of America is a threat to world peace... Dick Cheney [and Donald] Rumsfeld...are dinosaurs, who do not want [President Bush] to belong to the modern age. His arguments are well made. But is the power of his historical perspective undermined by his forays into oversimplified racial analysis?
posted by alms at 7:44 PM PST - 56 comments

RIP: Hugo Rodriguez. More tragedy befalls America as groundbreaking web cartoonist Hugo Rodriguez died tragically on Saturday. His son Mookie says he lost his keys in Lake Erie and drowned. Can't America ever get a break? I guess that means my favorite weblog is over. Hugo was a true Patriot - always representing for the Canton, Ohio crew. At least we'll all have the day off.
posted by clango at 7:32 PM PST - 5 comments

Celestial Atlases are perhaps some of the most beautiful scientific books ever published, capturing the mystery and the grandeur of the heavens, and rife with beautiful and often intimidating interpretations of the constellations. Out Of This World has been my favorite website since the dawning of time, and one I go back to over and over again even though it never changes. The period from 1603 to 1801 produced the most beautiful star maps, and you don't have to know a thing about astronomy to appreciate how heavenly these are.
posted by iconomy at 5:31 PM PST - 9 comments

Florida just might screw it up again, with problems voting state-wide, with concentrations in the southern portion of the state. With the fame of the Reno vote, along with the controversial gay rights issue on the ballot, can they afford to screw this up? And if they do, what next? More lawsuits?
posted by benjh at 4:55 PM PST - 30 comments

Epileptic fined over $5000 for making a funny face during a seizure. (via Fark)
posted by Espoo2 at 4:47 PM PST - 25 comments

While poking around today, I found a link to Treefold, which isn't all that impressive in and of itself. The reason for my interest was that it's the first use I've come across of the Proce55ing language, which is a sort of continuation of John Maeda's teaching language, DBN(Design by Numbers). While still not ready for general release, it's grown a lot since the last time I looked at it.
posted by Su at 3:55 PM PST - 11 comments

Mark Bingham, 9/11 'hero', honoured by San Francisco. "His presumed actions to thwart the terrorists' activities on board flight 93 helped derail the plan to crash that plane into a target in Washington, D.C."
On August. 15, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission voted to name the gym at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center in the city's Castro neighborhood after Bingham, a former nationally ranked rugby player. Mind you, it's a good job he didn't want to serve his country as a lawyer for the US Army, where gay heroes are not allowed - not even in the front line of Judge Advocate General's Corps of the United States military.
In the gay community, there is some dissent about the meaning behind a 'gay hero': would you have made assumptions about him, or other 'heroes', had you not known?
posted by dash_slot- at 3:13 PM PST - 36 comments

The word is out! The current chic in geek is clean-cut. So trim those beards (unless, of course, you practice the Muslim faith), drop the microbrews and drugs, and learn how to appreciate wine. Do it for the children, lest the terrorists win.
posted by WolfDaddy at 3:03 PM PST - 51 comments

One Less Tourbus. Singer/songwriters tearing down the Oil Economy one gig at a time. Next time you're at a show and the musicians are all winded and sweaty before they even start, this is why.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 2:04 PM PST - 12 comments

Hong Kong Debt Collection Gets Ugly. "Collectors have been known to throw snakes, or a swarm of grasshoppers into an apartment to hasten debt repayment, or to hang the carcasses of dogs and cats outside." I think I'd prefer being declined for credit, wouldn't you?
posted by Miss Beth at 1:52 PM PST - 3 comments

Snoop Dogg kicks the chronic, gin and juice.

Will sobriety spoil Calvin Broadus?
posted by mikrophon at 1:50 PM PST - 32 comments

Christopher Reeve is gaining ground in his fight against paralysis. I was prepared for the article to be a typical "celebrity's struggle gets public attention" piece, until I read this:

"No one who has suffered an injury as severe as Chris', and failed to have any initial recovery, has regained the amount of motor and sensory function he has."

Hope is coming for many.
posted by o2b at 1:17 PM PST - 25 comments

"Moon opens for business"
The first commercial trip to the moon has been approved by the US government, according to the BBC. TransOrbital, Inc. received approval to launch its TrailBlazer satellite into lunar orbit in June of 2003; the satellite will not touch down, but instead will orbit the moon and "provide stunning, high-definition (HDTV) video and maps of the lunar surface (at 1 meter resolution), as well as new images of earth-rises over lunar craters." [press release] Another company, Lunacorp, is hoping to send its own satellite up soon.
posted by me3dia at 1:04 PM PST - 29 comments

Blog baiting. This content-free Salon article is pointed to by News.com and chances are it will be picked up by tech weblogs within a couple of hours. Notice the presence of popular (in blogland) underdog in the title (Mozilla). The many blog references in the article body, including a gratuitious reference to the arch-tech-weblog that presumes knowledge of said blog's moderation system. The meta implications of web media composing content so that it may be picked up by weblogs are interesting --and yes, the irony of a MeFi FPP is painfully obvious. What next?
posted by costas at 12:55 PM PST - 25 comments

Troubled Bridge over Water You s'pose this is the real reason we're currently on orange?
posted by DenOfSizer at 12:11 PM PST - 27 comments

Kittens + The White Stripes = "Punk Kittens" I know it's not Friday yet, but I thought this was too good to wait.
posted by Reggie452 at 12:09 PM PST - 22 comments

Implications of attacking Iraq A succinct side-by-side Reasons For and Reasons Against. As always, you read. You decide.
posted by Postroad at 11:55 AM PST - 48 comments

A little (much-needed) comic relief:
Man wearing cooler on his head tries to hold up store.
What's your theory as to what the hell he was thinking?
(more inside)
posted by Shane at 11:39 AM PST - 34 comments

Orlando police find crack cocaine on Gov. Bush's daughter Knowing that W struggled as an alcoholic and with cocaine, and seeing his daughters hit the headlines with their excesses, I wondered if there was a genetic pre-disposition toward addiction. Apparently, this theory is not new.
posted by stevis at 11:14 AM PST - 30 comments

Another unfortunate product naming problem (2 links). How would you like your last name to be the same as an upcoming Erectile Dysfunction drug? This family doesn't.
posted by internal at 11:07 AM PST - 15 comments

Volume Three is finally coming out! For those of you unfamiliar with Larry Gonick, here are a few samples of this cartoonist's historical and scientific cartooning. He's done cartoon books on physics, statistics, genetics, the history of the United States, the environment, sex, communication, and, of course, the history of the universe.
posted by interrobang at 11:00 AM PST - 7 comments

The Shot Chord Heard Round the World! On the morning of Nine Eleven 2002 at 8:46am, over 160 choirs across the world will sing Mozart's "Requiem" to metaphorically stand in for the thousands of voices silenced a year ago. Among all the ideas I've heard to commemorate this occasion, this one seems the most dignified, and least cringeworthy. They mentioned it on NPR's Morning Edition (caution: Real Audio file).
posted by ZachsMind at 10:44 AM PST - 33 comments

Terrorism Status: Orange - High Condition Homeland Security has announced that the Terrorism Advisory Status is moving up to Orange. According to the HSO, Orange alerts mean that we should be "preparing to work at an alternate site or with a dispersed workforce, restricting access to essential personnel only." What is your company's policy for the Orange alert? Will you be working from home tomorrow? Better compose that email to HR now...
posted by DragonBoy at 10:34 AM PST - 45 comments

Its the end of Online anonimity as we know it. Intel announces that its next generation of CPUs will have Digital Rights Management hardwired onboard the chip. See also Microsoft's Palladium, an OS-level identity and rights management scheme. (is this Wintel's idea of how to jump start anemic computer sales?)
posted by BentPenguin at 10:15 AM PST - 28 comments

archive.org recently launched films, audio, software, and text in addition to the wayback machine. The comic goldmine and best find of the new archive has to be the public domain sex ed films from the 1950s, part of the Prelinger Archives.
posted by mathowie at 10:09 AM PST - 10 comments

If you have dignity, the terrorists have already won Ted Rall writes about the cheesification of 9/11.
posted by hmgovt at 10:02 AM PST - 40 comments

The High Line is a strip of elevated railroad on Manhattan's West Side, it runs from 34th Street and 12th Avenue to Gansevoort Street in the meatpacking district. It is a treasure now mostly because it's the structure that time forgot. Who'd thought? Discover what could become NYC's highest park.
posted by sierray at 9:46 AM PST - 17 comments

Surprise! The Pentagon's internal problems are worse than we thought... And in other news, we still find ourselves fit to order the rest of the world around. That the Pentagon's internal management is a shambles is an understatement. Frank Spinney's testimony in June of this year demonstrates not only the complete failure of the Pentagon to manage itself, but also how the political system acts as a dangerous reinforcement, and vice versa. More important for the soldiers in the field, he also demonstrates how/why some of the tools being used are wholly inadequate and inappropriate. On a related note, does anyone else find it strange that our military planners feel a $350 billion/year budget is not sufficient to handle two "medieval countries" (Afghanistan/Iraq) simultaneously? Makes me glad we never had to take on the Soviets full bore...
posted by tgrundke at 9:41 AM PST - 10 comments

9/11: The Musical will feature the "searing guitar licks of Austrian rock band Slash." Something bad wrong here.
posted by fred_ashmore at 9:36 AM PST - 4 comments

"All this costs money. It costs more than we have." One year ago today, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned of a "subtle and implacable" adversary whose "brutal consistency...stifles free thought...and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk." It wasn't freedom's obvious foes; he was referring to waste in the Pentagon. The DOD uses so many different financial systems and interfaces it won't have auditable books for another five to 10 years. It still manually enters purchases made with electronic purchase cards. It fires whistleblowers who call attention to shady missile defense deals. And every year, it completely loses track of a quarter of the world's biggest military budget.
posted by mediareport at 9:06 AM PST - 7 comments

He came, he swam, he conquered. The swimmer Martin Strel braved whirlpools, snakes, gators and tankers to become the first person to swim the length of the Mississippi River in a single attempt. He swam for 68 days before reaching the Gulf of Mexico, drinking a bottle of wine/day and losing nearly 40 lbs in the process. Crazy? Heroic? You decide.
posted by Ljubljana at 8:20 AM PST - 17 comments

Moses Fleetwood Walker. The first African-American to play in the Major Leagues preceded Jackie Robinson by 64 years.
posted by putzface_dickman at 8:07 AM PST - 7 comments

Ari Fleischer: God, Genius, Liar, or Rapper! You decide.
posted by geronimo_rex at 8:02 AM PST - 11 comments

A resistance to the disease of thought.
"On historic day, U.S. turns away from eloquence."
-- Lewis H. Lapham
"The boundaries of my language are the boundaries of my world."
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Submitted without color commentary (even though I do have an opinion.)
posted by nofundy at 7:14 AM PST - 33 comments

U.S. Stops Iraq-Al Qaeda Talk From the Washington Post. Beyond the superficial significance of administration back-tracking, in regards to intelligence there seems to be two key aspects to this story: 1) The article talks about how the CIA was unable to "validate two prominent allegations made by high-ranking administration officials," implying that Bush/Cheney/etc. have been making baseless assumptions about Iraq in their pro-war arguments, and 2) it brings into question whether we know anything at all about Iraq, anyway. What if the same can be said of Hussein's nuclear plans?
posted by risenc at 7:09 AM PST - 27 comments

Server suicide: A group of british artists have set up a webserver that also controls a crusher. The thing is, the webserver is inside the crusher and will crush itself on Thursday at 20:00 GMT. (via found)
posted by edsousa at 6:41 AM PST - 29 comments

A Day in Radio. "On September 21, 1939, WJSV, an AM radio station in Washington, D.C., recorded the entire 19 hours of its broadcast day... Along with the news coverage, the station ran the standard stream of music, soap operas, sports, and other programming." Looks like you can listen to pretty much the entire's day's broadcasts.
posted by Tin Man at 6:39 AM PST - 15 comments

Telemarketers to take tomorrow off. According to the story, telemarketing companies will instruct most of their employees to not come into work for September 11, "recognizing that many Americans won't be in the mood for getting sales calls that day." Umm... we all pretty much have the same reponse in our heads to that line, don't we?
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 6:30 AM PST - 55 comments

From Richard Wilbur: "Dear Bill, The only thing I can say right now is this. There is no excuse for the cold inhumanity of 11 September, and there is no excuse for those Americans, whether of the left or the religious right, who say that we had it coming to us. Dick"
posted by semmi at 10:59 PM PST - 23 comments

Post-Saddam Iraq? Not Our Problem. "President Bush Monday told world leaders it will be the responsibility of the whole international community, rather than the United States, to determine what kind of regime should replace Iraqi President Saddam Hussein if his government is toppled by U.S. military action, European diplomats told United Press International." How's your shining beacon of democracy doing today?
posted by owillis at 10:34 PM PST - 45 comments

Everything I Needed to Know about Life, I Learned from a Video Game ... Brad DeLong uses Sid Meier's CIVILIZATION 3 to teach his kids a valuable lesson about Democracy.
posted by crunchland at 9:22 PM PST - 22 comments

Thinking Big - A Plan for Ground Zero and Beyond - from this past Sundays NY Times Magazine. Some months ago, when the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation made public their plans, Metafilterians were, for the most part, underwhelmed. This new plan, from an impressive set of architects, goes far beyond the LMDC plans and really redevelops much of the surrounding region as well. There's certainly no lack of bold or controversial designs. I for one, think this is the best set of suggestions that I've seen so far. Delightfully bold.
posted by warhol at 9:02 PM PST - 16 comments

Relove As it describes itself, an "audio based trance induction" device to "re-experience past love". An extremely interesting and hypnotic experience in which you find and examine a memory. Unfortunately, it seems to get caught in a loop in the last stage, but what is usable is still quite intriguing. Heed the warning on the front page and use accordingly. Also, due to it's nature, not feasible for work or school. A quiet and focused few minutes is needed. [more...]
posted by sinical at 8:52 PM PST - 14 comments

The problem with America's colleges - Are schools of higher education too liberal minded?
posted by Macboy at 8:17 PM PST - 76 comments

Have you heard of Speed Stacking?
posted by djacobs at 7:51 PM PST - 36 comments

Jesus junk mail. (As an update to last year's Texas story) Every household in South Carolina will receive a videocassette of a bad film about Jesus this week. The Special 9-11 Remembrance Edition features an introduction by three members of the NY Fire Dept. Regardless of how you feel about Jesus H., isn't there a better film to send to every household in South Carolina?
posted by found missing at 6:53 PM PST - 45 comments

Philly.com: Payday lending, for the cash-poor at high rates, wants some respect
posted by todd at 6:29 PM PST - 15 comments

Should non-citizens have the same rights under the law as citizens? What about those who have naturalized? A poll given by NPR, The Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvardâ??s Kennedy School of Government finds that a majority of those taking the poll think that, if accused of terrorism, a non-citizen should have fewer rights than a citizen. You can take the poll yourself here.
posted by emmling at 5:56 PM PST - 45 comments

Churning out code all day is all well and good but for a feeling of a job well done nothing can take the place of making something with your own hands. Dave Gingery will show you how to build a foundry to cast parts for a lathe which you can use to make a shaper which you need to build the milling machine etc etc :) Also worth a mention is Ron Reil who knows a thing or two about propane burners for foundries (last link has a very cool pic).
posted by zeoslap at 5:55 PM PST - 10 comments

Artists, Lovers And Art Lovers or Amadeo, Anna and Olga: I was astonished to find such a thorough Modigliani gallery as this on the Web, complete with a charming piece on his love affair with the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. It's part of Olga's Gallery, an entirely amateurish affair mounted by Olga and Helen Mataev with the intention of opening their children's eyes to the wonders of the (art) world. Its innocence and guilelessness are obvious, but its enthusiasm for painting - and its anxiety to share what's unsettling and magnificent about art - did much to renew my faith in the good ship Internet and in so many who sail in her. Long live amateurishness and its real root, love! OK, so it's a bit raw around the edges... Who cares? It may be unprofessional, uncool and even awkward - but it's truly lovely.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:44 PM PST - 8 comments

"Learn (America) that we can topple you along with the other big enemies" Could the US be so easy to topple? We've been told that we're not fighting a traditional war anymore (ignoring possible actions on Iraq), but it seems like a relatively small catalyst like 9.11 could forever damage the principles of due process and judicial review. Ironically, the secret and undemocratic FISC secret court may provide hope with their criticisms of the Justice Dept's blatant abuse of power, but sadly AP lists what we've lost already. If there is a formula for toppling the US in this 'new way of war,' then it sounds like we're doing it ourselves by slowly embracing the oppression of the last failed superpower. Something to think about amongst the rah-rah patriotic cheerleading that will mark the anniversery of 9.11.
posted by skallas at 4:37 PM PST - 24 comments

It looks like Jim Caviezel will be our next savior. He joins a long list of them, such as Willem Dafoe, and Jeff Goldblum. Does it take more than just being a Catholic actor to portray Jesus on film? What qualities should a savior have?
posted by debralee at 4:02 PM PST - 24 comments

"The Septemer 11 Digital Archive uses electronic meda to collect, preserve, and present the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and the public responses to them." An extensive archiving project by the Smithsonian and other museums.
posted by frykitty at 3:50 PM PST - 2 comments

Go to Mickey D's. Watch ABC. Get happy. Go to Mickey D's. Watch ABC. Get happy. Go to Mickey D's. Watch ABC. Get... Under a deal to be announced today, McDonald's Corp. will heavily promote ABC's 8-to-9 p.m. slot, which the network has called the "Happy Hour." "The mantra of this campaign is: 'Go to Mickey D's, watch ABC, get happy,' " said Michael Benson, ABC's senior vice president for marketing, advertising and promotion, who helped assemble the deal.

Funny. I thought "happy hour" meant cheap beer and free wings.
posted by NedKoppel at 1:42 PM PST - 37 comments

Comedy and tragedy: a paper looking at "the role of humor in constructing a global response to disaster." Credit to Polo Mr. Polo for finding the above link (the original post was removed for reasons unrelated to the content of the link).
posted by KiloHeavy at 1:09 PM PST - 37 comments

The first world, or west or any other generic term, is not the cosy alliance it once was according to this author. There is a growing schism which is becoming wider, is this a problem. Whilst on a lighter note the house of Sauds' representative here in the UK maintains a war on iraq is madness, seems everything is just super.
posted by johnnyboy at 11:54 AM PST - 8 comments

The End of Empire? "You can't sustain an empire from a debtor's weakening position--sooner or later the creditors pull the plug. That humiliating lesson was learned by Great Britain early in the last century, and the United States faces a similar reckoning ahead."
posted by homunculus at 11:44 AM PST - 39 comments

Hamas is losing. Good news from the Mideast To all those who insist terror wars can't be won, some evidence you are pessimists.
posted by ParisParamus at 11:04 AM PST - 47 comments

The Mad Magazine FBI files obtained through FOIPA, contains mostly humourous letters to the FBI regarding whether or not Mad magazine is a communist publication. In other news, you too can become a next Mad magazine artist. A prerequisite? "No intelligence required."
posted by jasonspaceman at 9:05 AM PST - 10 comments

The Fuhrer stays in the picture. Max, a movie about Hitler's early years and his rise to power, premieres Monday at the Toronto Film Festival. The controversial project depicts the future dictator as an "emotionally poisoned man, but nonetheless human" rather than a simple caricature of evil, and owes its existence to the determination of star John Cusak (Noah Taylor of Shine plays Hitler) as well as its writer/director and producer. Many have already condemned the film, including Maureen Dowd (NYT link) and the Jewish Defense League. (Spielberg liked the script but bowed out early.) Is it possible, much less necessary, to portray the legendarily wicked as human beings without excusing their crimes?
posted by gottabefunky at 8:29 AM PST - 70 comments

Is Miranda warning enugh?? An amitted child molester may walk because he wasn't allowed to contact his consulate, why isnt this added to miranda?
posted by hoopyfrood at 8:26 AM PST - 17 comments

The Yeti lives! WORLD-renowned hair expert is on the verge of proving the existence of a yeti-like creature on an Indonesian island
posted by JonnyX at 8:20 AM PST - 19 comments

Music Industry releases new piracy-proof format! But not to worry there is already a crack out for the format.
posted by Dr_Octavius at 7:06 AM PST - 25 comments

22 years ago, 13 hours of television changed my life. I was just 11 years old when I saw Cosmos for the first time. Carl Sagan's explanation of the "Billions and Billions" of stars in our universe was often heckled, but I always related to the wonder of the magnitude that he was trying to relate. Vangelis was responsible for the soundtrack (the same folks behind the music from Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner), and listening to it today, I feel the stirrings of emotion that brought me running to Science at an early age.

If you're looking for a gift for a child in your life this holiday season, I suggest the DVD Compilation. Make sure to buy it from the carlsagan.com site, as 10% of the proceeds go to the Carl Sagan Foundation.
posted by thanotopsis at 6:53 AM PST - 44 comments

"It's a terrible thing, but it's time to embrace Big Brother" A high school in Santee California has implemented "security procedures" that would do Mr. Orwell proud. Wireless cameras the face and license plate of every driver and car entering the parking lot. If you go to the bathroom, your picture gets logged. Hall monitors will soon carry wireless computers that can pull up a student's school picture and class schedule. And they are considering implementing face recognition software. Installed over the summer, a few parents complained to the school system - NOT that it was being done, but that they hadn't been notified. (LA Times Link - metafilter99/metafilter99)
posted by Irontom at 6:23 AM PST - 39 comments

Just what you've been waiting for... or maybe not! "Due to overwhelming public demand, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have decided to use the site of the World Trade Center for America's number one theme park, Twin Towers over Ground Zeroâ?¢!" Since long before Jonathan Swift, writers (and others) have used absurdity to spur discussion and spark protest. Sick of all the 9/11 glurge and tacky commercialism (1, 2, 3), a local resident continues the tradition.
posted by Modgoddess at 4:56 AM PST - 14 comments

Evil Pupil. A game? A work of art? Something entirely different? Welcome to the weirdly beautiful world of Quebecois Interweb designer Yohan Gingras. You can click and drag various elements on nearly all of his pages (I recommend "Evil Pupil / V.2" as a starting point) to discover, well, new things to click and drag. Just don't ask him what you are supposed to do or he will call you a dumbass.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:58 AM PST - 14 comments

Yes, no, yes, no.... Ok, it isn't Friday anymore, but we all have to head back into rush hour tomorrow. (apologies if this has been posted before, I couldn't find it.)
posted by kayjay at 9:51 PM PST - 18 comments

"Absence is the most natural of phenomena, in that every presence begets an absence. It's just the way things work. Yet absence is at the root of all of the hardest things we have to face deaths, breakups, any kind of separation."
posted by semmi at 9:19 PM PST - 5 comments

An Aussie defends Big Things. I love the idea of the Big Things. It all started in 1963 with an American immigrant so in love with his own banana plantation that he wanted everyone driving through to stop in and see it. So he built a gigantic banana. Soon there were lots of other imitators, like the Big Pineapple in Nambour, the Big Prawn at Ballina, and the Big Bull at Wauchope. (Bill Bryson writes in Down Under that the Big Bull has testicles that actually sway in the breeze.) There are now more than 80 Big Things dotted all over the country. Some people think they're tacky. Personally, I want to visit 'em all.
posted by web-goddess at 7:19 PM PST - 27 comments

So it's come to this. I don't know about you, but in the midst of various orgies (911, West Nile and kindernappings, to name but a few), I've never hated our media more.
posted by donkeyschlong at 5:33 PM PST - 51 comments

US Neo-Nazi Groups to CELEBRATE 911 Is it cool to be angry? Do I care? I'm VERY angry about this. [...] And so on, and so forth.
posted by artifex at 2:58 PM PST - 42 comments

NPR's Lost & Found Sound brought together radio producers, artists, historians, archivists, and the public broadcasting community came together to collect and preserve audio traces of the World Trade Center, its neighborhood and the events of 9/11.

What they came up with is sonicmemorial.org. [more inside]
posted by lampshade at 12:48 PM PST - 5 comments

Is it OK to deface currency to "defend the First Amendment"? Putting aside for the moment your opinions on their agenda, do you feel that their approach is appropriate? Is placing slogans on U.S. Bills ever an acceptable act of civil disobedience? In what hypothetical situation would you be supportive of this unorthodox protest method?
posted by EmoChild at 12:45 PM PST - 78 comments

MOD Selects The Carlyle Group as Preferred Bidder for QinetiQ. In a move that seems to be going ahead with very little coverage, Britain's military research agency is being sold off to a foreign company. Given the important role Qinetiq plays in Britain's Defense, and the type of business The Carlyle Group is, this is perhaps surprising...
posted by chill at 12:05 PM PST - 12 comments

Folk Art Environments What do you get when you combine Folk Art and an entire house or area to play with? You get obsession on display and a fascinating, created world. You may have heard of the Watts towers or the Bottle Village, but have you seen Le Palais Ideal de le Facteur Cheval (in France) or Nek Chand (in India) or the Whirligig Ranch or the Forevertron or the Ave Maria Grotto? If you share Jane's Addiction you may want to consult her directory next time you travel.
posted by vacapinta at 11:43 AM PST - 13 comments

When somebody is energetic, enthusiastic and uninhibited, their lover might say that person is an animal in bed. When it comes to sex, what type of animal are you?
posted by debralee at 11:36 AM PST - 27 comments

Do not instant anything. Don't multitask. Don't think about tomorrow. Matt Richtel, in a somewhat op-ed piece about technology, thinks we should disconnect ourselves. Just for a day, mind you. I love being connected, and will miss my email greatly, but I'm thinking about doing it. Take a step back, interact with people fully. "That person sitting across from you at lunch deserves all your attention. Pretend that he or she is a New York firefighter. Do not once say: "Hold on. That's the other line." " Anyone wanna try it with me?
posted by gramcracker at 10:04 AM PST - 30 comments

For a relatively low price, given the time and commitment, Richard Reames will grow a beautiful piece of sculpture, furniture, or even a whole room for you. Yes, I said grow.
posted by Su at 8:11 AM PST - 8 comments

9/11 a poem by Robert Pinsky. See also: a "guided anthology" to poetry and Sept. 11.
posted by xowie at 8:01 AM PST - 21 comments

A Scranton, PA man is auctioning 250,000 pieces of software mostly games from the 80s and early 90s composed of around 20,000 unique titles (2MB Excel Spreadsheet) for $250,000. He says its the worlds biggest collection and many games are rare and in demand. You will need trucks and warehouse. If anyone can afford to sit on these for a few decades untill the 80s generation gets old and nostalgic it could be the Schoyen of early computer gameing software.
posted by stbalbach at 7:09 AM PST - 16 comments

"Thank goodness they got those buildings. I've always hated them! They're so ugly." This article goes to show it's not just extremists who have (or initially had) inappropriate feelings about 9/11.
posted by etc at 6:16 AM PST - 55 comments

London Muslims to CELEBRATE 911 Is it cool to be angry? Do I care? I'm VERY angry about this. Maybe someone will celebrate 911 by flying an aircraft into Finsbury Park Mosque. There must be a limit to the progressive tolerance of other cultures and religious nuts. I think Londoners might reach it very soon. We seem to have our own Taliban. The time might be right for a radical secularism. What do you think?
posted by terrymiles at 3:39 AM PST - 146 comments

White House: Bush misstated report on Iraq A senior White House official acknowledged Saturday night that the 1998 report did not say what Bush claimed. 'What happened was, we formed our own conclusions based on the report ,' The photograph in question was not U.N. intelligence imaging but simply a picture from a commercial satellite imaging company Did he think no one would notice?
posted by bas67 at 10:21 PM PST - 32 comments

Hell Bank Notes are a chinese funeral custom of burning paper money in specialized cemetary ovens for use in the afterlife (Some even feature US Presidents JFK and LBJ). I have heard of instances where entire paper houses or cars are burned in tribute. Find out more about contemporary chinese funeral practices, such as funerary music like Mei Hua Ts'ao (Plum Blossoms) [3 meg mp3] and personal insightful interviews. What unique funeral practices have you witnessed or participated in?
posted by Stan Chin at 8:57 PM PST - 33 comments

This week, two boys in Florida were tried for the bludgeoning-murder of their father. With accusations raised of the actual killing to have been done by another, adult male with alleged sexual ties to the two boys, the boys were found guilty only of a lesser second-degree murder charge, claiming the adult must have done the actual deed... yet the jury was unaware the adult accused and being tried for that very idea was acquitted of all charges the previous week. The issue? Both trials were handled by the same prosecutor who presented completely different theories to each jury... in other words, not settling on a confident belief of who actually performed the killing, the prosecution tried to get both the adult and the pair of boys convicted for it. Isn't that risky? Or, if you like a different flavor of debate, isn't that completely unethical?
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 3:32 PM PST - 40 comments

Stop Street Spam! Roadsides and telephone poles are full of the crap. Matt's link (and the double post) reminded me of something happening in the Austin area. Someone is spray painting "SPAM" over the herbalife and other signs [or painting over or cutting off the phone numbers]. Austin is also recruiting citizens [pdf]to root up these signs. Does your neighborhood have too many of these signs? I'm getting some spray paint and becoming a sign shark..
posted by birdherder at 12:19 PM PST - 31 comments

Top 10 NFL games to watch. Time magazine pick this season's 10 "can't miss" games. ESPN's First...and 10 goes to 11. Sports Illustrated's "must-see" list picks the top game each week. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 11:27 AM PST - 21 comments

First Vote. In May, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jane Eisner invented an interesting new concept: First Vote. It's not an organization, it's not a corporation, it's not a club -- First Vote is a concept. Eisner attributes low turnount in part to a societal lack of recognition and congratuations on the occasion of an 18-year-old's first vote. Syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne picked up the idea and ran with it, offering a refined proposal for change in an August column. Is First Vote on the right track to improving youth voting? What will you do to support First Vote this November?
posted by waldo at 11:05 AM PST - 37 comments

This is the history of the WTC I've been waiting to read. The Height of Ambition, from tomorrows NYT Magazine, collects all the strings that I haven't been able to tie together myself.
posted by djacobs at 9:49 AM PST - 17 comments

A Tale of Two Cities: Chicago and New York This exhibition of more than 150 black-and-white photographs represents a cross-section of the thousands of significant buildings that are protected by local landmark designation in Chicago and New York City. The story of how this came to pass is both as similar and as different as the cities themselves.
posted by vacapinta at 9:41 AM PST - 3 comments

Drug War Roundup IV. An athlete who refused a drug test was stripped of her awards. She plays bridge. American Indians who honed their skills tracking drug smugglers recently trained Baltic border guards in the hopes of preventing nuclear weapon proliferation. Another chapter was written in the ongoing "is ecstasy all that dangerous?" debate. Salvatore Gravano is on his way back to prison for running an ecstasy ring. Nevada is edging closer to legalizing up to three ounces of marijuana, to the disdain of Bush's Drug Policy director and Nevada's biggest police group. A Canadian right wing party and cops came out against their government's recent pro-legalization report. I see a pattern, but maybe it's just the pudding.
posted by raaka at 5:31 AM PST - 30 comments

Television celebrates its 75th anniversary today. Invented by a 14 year-old boy in Utah by the name of Philo T. Farnsworth, the first TV images as we know them were transmitted 75 years ago today. Hard to believe that our most pervasive modern media is still really in its infancy. What changes will our personal video delivery infrastructure undergo over the next 75 years, I wonder?
posted by johnnyace at 4:25 AM PST - 30 comments

Farscape Cancelled! One of the best sci-fi shows on TV is going to be cancelled. There's a petition up to save it.
posted by nyxxxx at 2:46 AM PST - 47 comments

I like this list of ideas how men can take sexism on as their own struggle. [via full bleed]
posted by sudama at 10:11 PM PST - 90 comments

The Houston KMart mass arrest saga continues. The arrest of 278 people, many seemingly innocent, for trespass in a KMart parking lot was hotly discussed here as was the Chief's suspension of the Captain in charge of the raid. The Chief later suspended an additional twelve officers. Apparently, the captain and the chief have a running feud from well before this raid, which has now led to the chief being indicted for perjury and stepping down until his trial is over.
posted by caddis at 9:28 PM PST - 10 comments

Rogue Statesman Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s absolutely crazy, quite possibly illegal back-channel chats with the villains of Sept. 11 This is quite a story.
posted by bas67 at 8:24 PM PST - 22 comments

"In tribute to the victims of the 9/11 attacks, Blue Man Group has created an eloquent video. The usually explosive performance artists do not appear in it; there are no blue-painted heads in sight. Instead, pieces of white paper drift down in front of a pure black background as percussive music plays. All these papers were found in Brooklyn, where they floated across the river from the World Trade Center." (Quoting The New York Times.)
posted by Soliloquy at 7:52 PM PST - 30 comments

Central Park Rape Case Convictions in Question. Does the blogging community care? With daypop having technical difficulties, its hard to tell. Although, one voice expressed his opinion back in June before these current revelations. (question pondered at uppity negro)
posted by negroplease at 6:09 PM PST - 20 comments

Buddy, we hardly knew ye. Vincent A. Cianci, Jr., mayor of Providence, R.I., heads off to jail on conspiracy charges, thus ending one of the most colorful relationships between a mayor and his city since Daley's Chicago. Whether revered for his astounding reconstruction of an embattled downtown, chastised for a career of shady dealings with shady people (and one unfortunate incident involving a fireplace, a lit cigarette, and his wife's lover), or turned into a cult figure by artsy college students, one thing is certain: Providence is a more interesting place because Buddy was a part of it.
posted by PrinceValium at 5:17 PM PST - 11 comments

Ok. Ok. The origin of broomsticks I've gotten many requests from Metafilter readers (you know who you are) about my comment in a thread (you know which one). You can always do your own research you know . . .
posted by jeremias at 4:51 PM PST - 7 comments

Don't steal people's bandwidth for your auctions, lest ye be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions.
posted by Arvid at 2:42 PM PST - 24 comments

Dwagenheim through the Americas. Dwagenheim is an Alaska marine fisheries biologist riding his bike from Prudoe Bay, AK to Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina. Great stories and beautiful pictures.
posted by rotifer at 2:41 PM PST - 3 comments

The Rec.Sports.Soccer Statistics Foundation is heaven for all football buffs (attention: proper football). For example, what is the worst football team in the world? Or when did the most ridiculous penalty shootout happen?
posted by edsousa at 2:04 PM PST - 14 comments

Doh! Despite Homer Simpson's worst fears, the Albuquerque Isotopes will take the field next year. However, the team is not originally from Springfield, but from Calgary. The city's AAA baseball team will move to New Mexico next year.
posted by xmutex at 1:50 PM PST - 21 comments

A hot rod hamster caused quite a stir when he was caught racing along the promenade – in his dragster car. More Friday Funny.
posted by Grod at 1:39 PM PST - 21 comments

The Iraq Daily - News from the Iraqi Ministry of Information. Sure, it might be information light and propaganda heavy, but since Iraq has been in the news lately, why not check out how they are represented online? I found their art links to be especially interesting (apparently, Kelsey Grammar's recent "Macbeth" production was of interest to the Iraqi press). The Iraqi News Agency provides a bit more information. Headlines include "Stupid American Sanctions". You can also read a series of open letter to the people of the United States from President Hussein himself.
_{Egads, I hope I am not going to be monitored by the Feds because I visited these sites.}
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:07 PM PST - 22 comments

Pakistan government may replace pirated Windows-based systems with Linux "The Microsoft Corporation has already offered over 90 per cent discount to the government but we want to press for more cuts in prices." Is the Linux announcement a bargaining strategy or a serious sign? This June O'Reilly story provides some context, noting a sudden spiking popularity of open source software within the U.S. government, which "actually lags behind other major governments" who are "gravitating toward open source software for a variety of reasons."
posted by mediareport at 12:46 PM PST - 10 comments

Help Jack Welch buy a newspaper Papers filed in the divorce of former General Electric chief Jack Welch contend that GE agreed to provide the executive enormous perks for life: access to corporate aircraft, use of a Manhattan apartment, Knicks floor-level seats, satellite TV at his four homes...plus costs... from wine and food to laundry, toiletries and newspapers, certain dining bills at the restaurant Jean Georges. Good for him: but hasn't executive compensation reached a bizarre detachment from actual performance? (sorry, AFL-CIO link)?Unless of course you're a woman (Businessweek.com link, conservative-safe)
posted by matteo at 11:37 AM PST - 4 comments

The World Summit on Sustainable Development has come to a close and some say it was not very effective. It has becoming clear we need to act as an international community. But, what is an international community? (And can it work as well as our web community?:)
posted by Dr_Octavius at 11:11 AM PST - 3 comments

one: a space odyssey here's a wonderful little film that manages to do kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey in exactly a minute with lego. it's only flaw is it brevity, but it does cover all the major plot points cleanly. enjoy it on this lazy friday.
posted by boogah at 10:47 AM PST - 16 comments

The frequency of chocolate cake compared to my freakin' laptop computer? Kirlian Photography? God! So much hype! The Q-Link! That stupid "arm test!" The more I think about it, the more bogus it seems!

A true believer discusses the flim flam behind a Tony Robbins seminar in James Randi's online newsletter Swift.
posted by mikrophon at 9:52 AM PST - 50 comments

The Associated Press has written a summary of the Bush Administration's curtailment of civil liberties. This appears to an unbiased and factual catalog of the changes 9/11 has wrought on our justice system. It would appear that the Law and Order wing of the GOP has spanked the Libertarian wing but good. Let the Eagle Soar!
posted by pejamo at 9:52 AM PST - 54 comments

From the jawdropping-stupidity-in-advertising dept: Target recently pulled its "eight eight" line of clothing upon learning of its neo-Nazi undertones. At the same time, British sneaker pimp Umbro got spanked for naming a new line of kicks "Zyklons" — which may seem like a meaningless Decepticon-esque fake word unless you happen to remember that the Nazis used Zyklon B (hydrocyanic acid) in their death chambers. But, OK, still, some marketing twerp that doesn't know his world history, working for Umbro — fine. Pull the sneakers, no harm, no foul.

But Umbro is not the only manufacturer trying to get some play out of the Zyklon name. Turns out that Siemens — a German manufacturer — wanted to have a new, Zyklon-branded line of appliances. Among the to-be-branded Zyklon products?

Gas ovens.
posted by blueshammer at 9:43 AM PST - 34 comments

Canada's long term viability in question amongst canadians "only 30 per cent of Canadians are certain we will have an independent country 25 years from now". Sure it's a link about canada, but I'm sure it has plenty of North American and Global relevance, doesn't it?
posted by canucklehead at 9:33 AM PST - 28 comments

Aviation inventor and innovator Paul MacCready's son, Tyler, invented the Walkalong Glider, which is a glider that flies from the air that your body (hands, head, etc.) pushes up as you walk behind it, to give the glider lift. WowWee, a division of Hasbro, has bought the rights to Tyler's invention and is mass producing and marketing them as the Air Surfer, coming to a toy store near you soon! Check out the commercial (5.4Mb) to see it in action, or check out the training movies.
I have got to get me one!
posted by Sal Amander at 9:32 AM PST - 9 comments

Check out this Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 -- it vibrates! Friday Flash: MashiMaro! He's a disgruntled rabbit that looks like a marshmallow, and he's a hit with the Hello Kitty crowd looking for some potty humor.
For those of you without Flash, I offer Kogepan, a burnt red bean bun with a negative attitude. To quote the designers, "If a round & expressionless character says 'wanna try?' ... it's unexpectedly funny! Kogepan was born from this idea!"
posted by me3dia at 9:30 AM PST - 8 comments

Friday Flash! A new take on an old song, chock full o' irony -- Flash animation to Slim Whitman's There's a Rainbow in Every Teardrop You're Cryin'.
posted by sparky at 7:44 AM PST - 2 comments

Journey to Planet Prostate is an online (Shockwave) game created by the UK's Prostate Cancer Charity to help raise awareness and educate people about the importance of the prostate in men's sex lives, by way of a "pre-ejaculatory biological tour." It's also just the thing for a Friday morning. Are you one of the seven in eight who doesn't know what the prostate does?
posted by nickmark at 6:58 AM PST - 28 comments

99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete An excerpt from an upcoming book by Mr. Zeldman in which he continues to argue the practice of standards compliance - "Held up as a Holy Grail of professional development practice, backward compatibility sounds good in theory. But the cost is too high and the practice has always been based on a lie." I enjoy his writing but he seems to be repeating himself as usual. Still, it is a good argument: where do we focus our priorities for future development - pure standards compliant CSS models, backwards compatibility, or somewhere in between? I know this has been discussed before but thought it postworthy due to the new book and all.
posted by poopy at 6:51 AM PST - 110 comments

Netflix may be driving me crazy with popup ads but I love their service. Where else can you rent L'Avventura, The Seventh Seal, Run Lola Run and Rashomon?

It encourages me to explore more movies, which has led me to several "greatest movies ever" lists. I'm thoroughly hooked and my film snob rating is slowly rising. Is this a good thing? I can't even stand to watch drivel like Signs anymore, and my family is tired of subtitles and refuses to watch No Man's Land with me. Anyone else in this predicament? By the way... has anyone seen a good book about the greatest directors?
posted by kevin123 at 4:39 AM PST - 57 comments

Looks like it's already started, American and British aircraft make an unusually large strike against Iraqi air defences near the jordainian border. Is this the precurser to Bush and Blairs looming Gulf war?
posted by JonnyX at 3:28 AM PST - 62 comments

Who Killed Tupac Shakur? More importantly, does the L.A. Times run the risk of re-igniting an east-coast/west-coast rap "war" by implicating a certain notorious indivdual in a feud that was virtually nonexistent until the media hyped it up the first time around?
posted by aflores at 2:25 AM PST - 34 comments

105 unconscious children temporarily buried alive in the name of religion. In a horrible ritual witnessed by an Indian government official, who quit his position shortly afterward, children were worked until exhausted, wrapped in cloth, and then buried for one entire minute. Sometimes it feels like that we will never shake off the need for ancient tradition, myth, and groundless faith, but there is a bright side. There are more non-religious people now than ever. As the information age expands, education becomes more accessible and may be the most important factor in determining how religious one is. Unsurprisingly, a follow-up article on the mass-burial quotes, "Inquiries also revealed that no educational programme had been introduced anywhere near Perayur in the last six years."
posted by skallas at 1:07 AM PST - 93 comments

Looking for a gift for that special child? A battery of reviewers at Amazon are just humming over the Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom. Harry Potter toys aren't usually worth the buzz they generate, but the users of this one seem positively stimulated about the good vibes.
posted by swell at 11:42 PM PST - 109 comments

It's amazing how good religion is at mobilizing people to do awful, murderous things. There is this dark side to it, and anyone who loves religious experience, including me, better begin to own there - a profound admission - in very well produced piece about 9/11 -
posted by specialk420 at 11:40 PM PST - 3 comments

Get on the love train and ride the singles car: "Thousands of New Yorkers are now forwarding an anonymous e-mail to each other informing them that from now on, every first subway car has been declared 'the singles car.'" Any New York Mefites want to claim responsibility for this?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:54 PM PST - 24 comments

Interesting commentary on a Yahoo News photo of the former World Trade Center site. I wonder if this is some subtle hack or if it's just someone at Yahoo screwing around. The URL seems to be legitimate, but I can't find that photo with the same caption in Yahoo's regular photo rotation.
posted by mrbula at 6:43 PM PST - 34 comments

Putting the 'fun' back in fundamentalism, and the 'beastly avatars of Satan' back in... cat? (via memepool).
posted by oflinkey at 5:02 PM PST - 23 comments

Could We Become What We Abhor and compromise the very ideals that we hold dear. Here, Jimmy Carter traces some of the fundamental changes that are taking place in the historical policies of the United States with regard to human rights, our role in the community of nations and the Middle East peace process -- largely without definitive debates.
posted by karlcleveland at 4:31 PM PST - 48 comments

The solemn, the dignified, the high-profile marketing. On September 11th, the national anthem will be sung on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. By the recent winner of Fox's American Idol. Days before the release of her new album. Two weeks before the winner's next, though obviously equally significant, "American Idol in Las Vegas" show. You will also note that this was reported before last night's finale. Meaning, this important symbolic event was arranged without even knowing who the winner was. In other words, Kelly Clarkson is not signing the National Anthem on September 11. "The Winner of Fox's American Idol" is.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 4:11 PM PST - 36 comments

If you missed the very powerful Frontline "Faith and Doubt" on the spiritual implications of 9/11, check out the PBS site with the full script and interviews with priests, rabbis, an Islamic scholar, a professor of Middle East studies, an English professor, a British novelist, a psychoanalyst, and the photographer who documented Ground Zero for the City of New York..
posted by semmi at 4:10 PM PST - 10 comments

Couple evicted from treehouse in San Mateo County. Despite the new law signed by California's Gov. Davis requiring a 60-day notice for evictions, Thelma and Besh are being given the old heave-ho. Actually, San Mateo County has had an eye on them for quite a while, but didn't make a move until they were sure that the couple's treehouse fell within county parks jurisdiction, rather than state jurisdiction.
posted by Lynsey at 3:54 PM PST - 14 comments

The Wishing Fish Clock a wonderful piece of functional art in the Regent Arcade in Cheltenham. I've always love Kit Williams' work and this is a perfect reason why. He consistently captures wonder.
posted by plinth at 3:34 PM PST - 3 comments

What is the AniMatrix? A direct-to-video release of 9 animated shorts (comic book style, pure CGI, etc) by 7 directors looks at possible visions of the world pre-Matrix. Looks like it could be an interesting collection.
posted by mathowie at 2:25 PM PST - 27 comments

What happened in the final days of the Gulf War? "The Battle of Rumaila was closely reviewed at the war's end by an analyst for the C.I.A., who confirmed that the Iraqi losses were great. The toll included at least a hundred tanks from the Hammurabi division. "It's like eating an artichoke," one colonel had said of combat.... 'Once you start, you can't stop.' One of the destroyed vehicles was a bus, which had been hit by a rocket. The precise number of its occupants who were injured or killed is not known, but they included civilians and children. One of the first Americans at the scene was Lieutenant Charles W. Gameros, Jr., a Scout platoon leader, who called in a Medevac team for the victims. At the time, he was "frustrated" by what he saw as needless deaths, Gameros recalled in an interview. 'Now I look at it sadly,' he said. Unresisting Iraqis had been slain all morning, but the deaths of the children troubled many soldiers."

What's happening in "the final days" of the war in Afghanistan? What will be happening in the upcoming war in Iraq?
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 1:35 PM PST - 100 comments

The 'demoscene': Have you got the latest UltraforceTitanium10000-equipped desktop computer? The latest PDA? The latest Java Virtual Machine and the latest browser? Or have you got an 18 year old ZX Spectrum? Or a Commodore Amiga? Don't worry, there's always some way to show how powerful you machine of choice is. Demos have been around since the dawn of home computing and the best of them might someday be mistaken for video art.
posted by edsousa at 1:32 PM PST - 12 comments

It's not a slur, but it sounds too much like one, therefore it's not an appropriate word to be taught in school. The job of Stephanie Bell, a veteran fourth grade teacher at Williams Elementary School in Wilmington, North Carolina, has been placed in jeopardy. Why? Because she taught a new vocabulary word to her class, and one student's mother became so outraged by the word that she's now on a crusade to have the teacher fired for introducing it to her students, in context, with a definition and discussion of its proper use. The word? The oft-maligned but wholly useful niggardly. (more inside)
posted by Dreama at 1:27 PM PST - 118 comments

Let the market decide where Dan Bern will play next. Bern and his band are auctioning off a private concert at the auction winner's house. You can apparently make his appearance as large or intimate as you want. Would a dutch auction like this be enough to build a U.S. tour on?
posted by Dirjy at 1:27 PM PST - 3 comments

Hidden Controversy Over Abortion and Female Genital Mutilation at UN Summit At the United Nations Earth Summit, delegates from the United States opposed a Canadian proposal to require countries to provide health care "in conformity with all human rights and fundamental freedoms," because American pro-life activists feared the wording would expand abortion rights. In addition, the Bush Administration does not want a confrontation with its ally, Saudi Arabia, over the issue of female genital mutilation.
posted by jonp72 at 12:39 PM PST - 6 comments

A Turkish couple living in Germany who want to call their child "Osama bin Laden" have been refused permission by German officials. A couple in German can only name their child if it fulfills a set of criteria. The child's name must identify its' gender and not make fun of the child. Also names like Hitler are banned.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 12:35 PM PST - 35 comments

Patriot Day. Apparently, "congress approved a joint resolution December 18 authorizing the president to designate September 11 of each year as Patriot Day." I have a difficult time believing that this name will replace the simple "9-11" in the public's mind. On the other hand, Armistice Day eventually became Veterans Day...
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:58 AM PST - 78 comments

In 1958, Robert Heinlein took out a full-page ad in the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph titled "Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry?" (quotes from which are readable here), a hawkish appeal for increased nuclear testing. Alexei Panshin, a former fan, read it and responded with his wonderful novel "Rite of Passage". Panshin wrote a book of Heinlein criticism, and talks about his issues with Heinlein in this essay, which is a fascinating look at one great science-fiction author responding to another.
posted by interrobang at 11:55 AM PST - 15 comments

CNN Refuses to Run Connie Chung's Skull & Bones Broadcast - well, at least according to that article. I haven't found anything else about it, but the implications are clear. IS THERE something afoot here?
posted by eas98 at 10:48 AM PST - 26 comments

Another Big Lie. "The great mass of people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one." Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German dictator. Mein Kampf, vol. 1, ch. 10 (1925)" There are Big Lies all around us. We seem to prefer to turn away from them, to dismiss the believers as harmless deluded fools. But doesn't that just make it worse?
posted by Cerebus at 10:31 AM PST - 28 comments

What's happened to advertising? Ads used to be straightforward. You could look at an ad and know just what they wanted you to buy and why . Have we become so cynical that being told the product and its benefits is no longer sufficient? Ads now range from the surreal to perplexing. Is the future of advertising a series of short films that have little to nothing to do with the product?
posted by Kellydamnit at 9:50 AM PST - 42 comments

One man's struggle. Samuel Stern journals his struggle with penury, addiction and depression to achieve his dream. His dream: to become a pornographer.
posted by patrickje at 9:46 AM PST - 9 comments

Slate presents its "Real War on Terrorism." Robert Wright's "The Earthling" column for Slate is taking a thoughtful look on how to deal with terrorism, and for foreign policy laymen like myself, it's pretty interesting. He's writing a piece a day for two weeks, outlining his propositions and prescriptions one by one and asking for the Fray folk (Slate's message board) to try to dismantle the logic of his arguments.

His propositions so far: Al-Qaida and radical Islam are not the problem. For the foreseeable future, smaller and smaller groups of intensely motivated people will have the ability to kill larger and larger numbers of people. The number of intensely aggrieved groups will almost certainly grow in the coming decades of rapid technological, and hence social, change. The amount of discontent in the world is becoming a highly significant national-security variable. His prescriptions: Take your bitter medicine early. The substance of policies should be subjected to a new kind of appraisal, one that explicitly accounts for the discontent and hatred the policies arouse. The ultimate target is memes; killing or arresting people is useful only to the extent that it leads to a net reduction in terrorism memes. In a war on terrorism, applying force inconspicuously makes sense more often than in regular wars.

(I know, I know, what could be more Plasticky than a Slate link, but it's good reading and good discussion fodder.)
posted by blueshammer at 9:39 AM PST - 20 comments

Howard Stern says Opie & Anthony got what they deserved.
posted by trioperative at 9:31 AM PST - 27 comments

Amaizeing! This was mentioned once before a year ago but I missed out on the fun of the thread. It's that time of year again. This year there's over one hundred and thirty locations. Since farming alone doesn't bring enough money in for many, I guess tourism & entertainment is a nice sideline for some farmers. Gee whiz! It looks like fun! Any Texan MeFites interested in a road trip?
posted by ZachsMind at 9:26 AM PST - 15 comments

Terrorism takes the world stage
30 years ago today, armed terrorists took 11 Israeli athletes hostage at the Munich Olympics. Did anyone see this past weekend's ABC News documentary on it? The Academy Award winning film? This is an utterly fascinating story, in my opinion. Even today, people are puzzling over just how much went wrong.
posted by Gilbert at 9:10 AM PST - 8 comments

End of Summer got you down? Live in the Baltimore-DC area? The Bengies Drive-In (as seen in Cecil B. DeMented) is still open for another month or so. For a list of Drive-Ins in your area see (of course) Drive-Ins.com.
posted by JoanArkham at 8:45 AM PST - 10 comments

Stalin, Hitler, Guilt, Finger-Pointing And Friendship: Timothy Garton-Ash reviews, a trifle superciliously but fairly, a very lively and soul-searching polemic between two consummate, consuming and irresistible writers, Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens - who also happen to be old friends. Funnily enough, I'd suggest reading Hitchens's review in the Atlantic Monthly first; then the three [1] extracts from [2] Amis's book [3] and, finally, Hitchens's reply to them. All in all, it's that rare thing: a long, juicy, well-written and passionately argued polemic with plenty of insights into how generations come to terms with the honest indiscretions and oversights of their youth. Oh and there's a lot about communism, nazism, totalitarianism and the Sixties too...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:27 AM PST - 15 comments

Shift Magazine Turns 10 They've got a fine commemorative Collector's Issue out, which fittingly includes various Top 10 lists. Among them: Reasons Weblogs Exist, Sites Wil Wheaton Quite Enjoys, and Top Heavyweights On The Web (which lists our beloved Matt Haughey at No. 8, two places above the ubiquitous Evan Williams). A damn good read.
posted by susanlucci at 8:14 AM PST - 13 comments

'How can you exert pressure on someone by saying to them: Even if you accede to our demands, we will destroy you?...That made things difficult for others.' As the attack on Iraq seems to grow more imminent, world opposition mounts to America's free-for-all "we'll do what we please attitude".
posted by Espoo2 at 8:02 AM PST - 13 comments

Mo Mowlam (former UK Government cabinet member) says the real goal of an Iraq war "is the seizure of Saudi oil". The much-loved Northern Ireland peace process go-between writes that the threat of Saddam Hussein is already well-contained and that "Bush wants war to keep US control of the region". Hers is a view espoused fairly regularly of late. Would it really damage the American position to admit that this more about oil than about terrorism?
posted by skylar at 7:46 AM PST - 12 comments

Dear Ann Coulter: You're fired.
posted by NedKoppel at 7:27 AM PST - 41 comments

Car Bomb Rocks Central Kabul, Many Dead: "Two explosions rocked Kabul today, killing at least 15 people, sending panicked citizens running and causing serious structural damage in the Afghan capital, authorities and witnesses told CNN. Many were wounded [in the blasts], which took place near the Ministry of Information and Culture, but it is not clear if the ministry was the target."
posted by tranquileye at 6:31 AM PST - 12 comments

Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11 "CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq — even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." Rumsfeld: "Go massive ... Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
posted by owillis at 6:07 AM PST - 61 comments

The US defeated in basketball World Championships by a dominant Argentina team. This breaks the record 58 non-stop winning series since the US allowed NBA players in 1992. I love this, just as I loved all the upsets at the FIFA world cup.
posted by ugly_n_sticky at 4:38 AM PST - 16 comments

Teens, sex, and power of parents How did you "discover" sex? from mom? school? Or the pals down the block?
posted by Postroad at 4:35 AM PST - 29 comments

Israeli Police Find Huge Car Bomb. Certainly car bombings in the Mideast are nothing new but what I found interesting was this paragraph: Police found a cellular telephone attached to the bomb, apparently to set off the charge by remote control. The second vehicle was apparently to have served as a getaway car Does that piece of information strike anyone else as significant? I wonder how many previous "suicide" bombings were not.
posted by ElvisJesus at 3:36 AM PST - 26 comments

crashbonsai No passengers have been injured in CrashBonsai accidents, although some drivers have reported a brief, even euphoric loss of consciousness.
posted by ginz at 3:03 AM PST - 14 comments

All this week the Chicago Tribune has been running a special in-depth series about the Enron/Anderson debacle. There's lots of interesting reading here, most of which leaves one shocked at seeing how some American businesses are run. A good starter is Ties to Enron Blinded Anderson, which shows how the greed of both companies mixed with the old boy's club mantra of 'scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' led to collusion and fraud on level never before known in modern business. Reg: cpunks/cpunks
posted by skallas at 10:48 PM PST - 16 comments

David Gonterman is "the Ed Wood of internet cartooning", according to some. He is a frustrated but relentless artist whose "passion far exceeds his aptitude", and who seems destined for mediocrity and ridicule everywhere but in the panels of his own comics, where he treads the earth like a living god -- a misogynistic, racist, and ultimately unintelligible god, yes, but man, he sure can dance.
posted by Hildago at 10:26 PM PST - 10 comments

Are you a night person? Like blood? Member of the European nobility? If so, you might be interested in becoming the next count Dracula. Yes, it seems that after vampire cloning didn't pan out, the Count decided to pick an heir. Seem weird? It's okay, there's precedent.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 10:15 PM PST - 7 comments

Miniature cross stitched album covers.
posted by riffola at 9:15 PM PST - 11 comments

Meanwhile in Small town news, the city of Independence, Missouri is holding a battle on adding fluoride to the water. Don't say you didn't expect odd quotes from people: "We have the best water in the area as far as solids and softness go, I myself have been drinking this water for over 30 years, and I have every tooth in my mouth that God gave me, except the four the Marine Corps took away from me years ago.", I, myself, trust one authority on this, Jack D. Ripper. ;)

So... Fluoride: good, bad or neither?
posted by RobbieFal at 8:25 PM PST - 40 comments

Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion "This is a reproduction of the award-winning Dark Alliance website, which first appeared Aug. 18, 1996, as part of a series I wrote for the San Jose Mercury News. This innovative website was seen by millions worldwide and acclaimed as the first Internet-based expose in journalism history. In the wake of a furious controversy, the site vanished from the Web in 1998. It has been reproduced here for historical purposes and is in no way affiliated with the San Jose Mercury News. -- Gary Webb" (via disinfo)
posted by kliuless at 7:06 PM PST - 6 comments

Molly Ivins wraps it up nicely and ties a bow on top. When Dick Cheney was CEO of the oilfield supply firm Halliburton, the company did $23.8 million in business with Saddam Hussein, the evildoer "prepared to share his weapons of mass destruction with terrorists."
posted by pejamo at 6:51 PM PST - 22 comments

Couch potato lifestyle is worse for your health than smoking Poor diet and lack of exercise cause more illness than smoking, new figures show. The lifestyle of couch potatoes has overtaken smoking as the major cause of ill-health in EU countries for the first time, the World Health Organisation says. Great, now reading Metafilter is bad for me.
posted by Coop at 6:38 PM PST - 12 comments

Chinese checkmate ? "Those who love to quote Sun Tzu might consider his nationality', says James Webb, as he offers still more cogent reasons why a 30 year "MacArthurian regency in Baghdad" is probably not in America's national interest. Why are the military men the ones who have to keep pointing out the unwisdom of an invasion of Iraq? Quoth Secretary Webb: "The issue before us is not simply whether the United States should end the regime of Saddam Hussein, but whether we as a nation are prepared to physically occupy territory in the Middle East for the next 30 to 50 years."
posted by rdone at 6:00 PM PST - 18 comments

Showbiz Pizza Place. (aka. Chuck E. Cheese) is every American child's right of passage. I, personally, am still haunted by nightmares of the animatronic terror that was The Rockafire Explosion. I can still hear their soulless robotic chanting. No mention however in the employee handbook about having to clean the 'accidents' in the ball-pit. (I only did it once after a large soda.)
posted by Stan Chin at 5:09 PM PST - 25 comments

Conservation Communities are a recent development in subdivision design. Rather than dividing the land up into equal portions, houses are clustered together and the residents share a common green space. Though they're becoming more common, there is only one that has its own record label.
posted by ewagoner at 5:05 PM PST - 10 comments

Christie Blatchford 's 9/11 road trip: From Montana to New York on a first anniversary odyssey "to audit America."
posted by timeistight at 4:15 PM PST - 12 comments

Constructive Debate on World Poverty ? It's depressing that certain groups seem to think that the only way to get their message across is to jeer and heckle Colin Powell at the World Summit.
posted by daveg at 2:37 PM PST - 40 comments

Sunday, Bloody Sunday... On the night of 30 January 1972, Murray Sayle was sent by the Sunday Times to Londonderry to report on the fatal shooting of 14 unarmed civil rights marchers by British Army Paratroopers. The article he wrote diverged from the official line; it was never printed. Twenty-six years later, his lost copy was unearthed by the new Inquiry. In what follows, he returns to Derry to give evidence. His original article is reproduced in full, along with a map marking the locations of the dead and wounded, and a memo Sayle wrote to the editor of the Sunday Times when the article failed to appear.
posted by dejah420 at 1:26 PM PST - 17 comments

Confucius is making a comeback at the Shengtao Experimental School north of Beijing, where the children of China's elite are once again studying the teachings of Confucius. It will be interesting to see what impact studying the classics has on the next generation of China's leaders.
posted by homunculus at 1:12 PM PST - 8 comments

They're athletes not rocket scientists:

Reporter: "President Bush has been holding town meetings across the country about Title IX. He's considering changing this important legislation that's helped women get involved in sports. If you could say something to President Bush, what would you say?"

Capriati: "I have no idea what Title IX is. Sorry."

Single-mindedness is quickly becoming a pre-requisite for reaching elite status in almost any pursuit or occupation. Are we forsaking ourselves and our children by continuing to reward such single-mindedness with fame and fortune?
posted by ajr at 1:00 PM PST - 37 comments

John Otway is a true maverick of the British music industry and is a legend in some sad quarters. His last hit was 25 years ago and now that he is coming up to 50 his fans have promised him another hit for his birthday. I see this as a fight for authenticity and against bubblegum. John must have that hit. It's a miracle he has survived, he deserves it.
posted by Fat Buddha at 12:56 PM PST - 9 comments

As if verbal and physical threats in the schoolyard aren't enough. Give a bully a mobile phone and voila, another way of torturing another kid. But which is worse? Being picked on to your face or being bombarded with nasty text messages? It seems that kids have a pretty rough go of it nowadays. It makes me glad I'm almost a grown up.
posted by quietfish at 12:09 PM PST - 33 comments

''Am I proud to have served my country? Hardly. On September 11, I will awaken at dawn. I will retrieve all my variously colored medals from their little box in my dresser drawer. I'll put my robe on, go into my daughter's room and tell her I love her. I will unlock the deadbolt (my homeland security), and proceed out the front door, remove the lid to the trashcan, and throw my medals in the garbage, where they belong." (via yellowtimes.org)

Napoleon once said he could make men fight and die for brass, and bits of colored ribbon. There will be no more fitting memorial for September 11 than destroying the symbols of a way that contributed so mightily to the terrible events of that day....an American Waterloo.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 12:02 PM PST - 87 comments

The writing isn't the only great thing about Roald Dahl's books. There's also his fantastic illustrator, the perfectly-matched Quentin Blake. He's best known for illustrating such Dahl books as Matilda, The BFG, and The Witches. A comprehensive bibliography can be found here, his books in print can be ordered here, and, if you can afford it, buy some prints.
posted by interrobang at 11:54 AM PST - 30 comments

No laptops??? How am I going to watch my DVDs? Or, for that matter, get my ego stroked by people ogling my TiBook?
posted by fpatrick at 11:02 AM PST - 35 comments

Elephants are people, too. A new book by Steven M. Wise, Drawing the Line, marshalls the latest research on animal cognition in arguing for legal rights for some animals, especially gorillas, chimps, elephants, and gray parrots. The author's previous book, Rattling the Cage, forcused on primates, as many researchers and animal rights activists do. After all, we share at least 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Other researchers are expanding our knowledge of animal cognition in the octopus, dolphins, even dogs. See also: Next of Kin and When Elephants Weep.
posted by acridrabbit at 10:47 AM PST - 40 comments

"So we just created everything out of nothing. No knowledge of how it's done or anything." And with that, Steve Wozniak invented the future.
posted by joemaller at 9:26 AM PST - 7 comments

French film on September 11 to debut in Toronto on, well, Sept. 11. -- I came across this link in the Guardian describing a series of 11 short films strung together by a French filmmaker. What doesn't bother me is that the film is labeled as "Anti-U.S." People have their own opinions and that's just fine. What DOES bother me is the debut of this film at the Toronto Film Festival is slated for Sept. 11 2002. Has anyone seen this film? Should the festival organizers been more respectful of the deceased and debuted the film on another date? Does it matter that there were more nationalities than just American that lost citizens that day? Please be respectful. I'm trying to open a dialogue on the film and it's contents, not a flamewar on US Foreign policy.
posted by absquatulate at 9:18 AM PST - 47 comments

It's official, Napster is dead as the company folds, reading to go Chapter 7. On the upside, this is possibly the best goodbye dotcom message ever.
posted by mathowie at 9:14 AM PST - 40 comments

Girl to get tracker implant to ease parents' fears... The parents of an 11-year-old British girl are having her fitted with a microchip so that her movements can be traced if she is abducted. The doctor involved believes we "should consider implants for all children"
posted by Irontom at 9:09 AM PST - 54 comments

Recommendations from a Canadian Special Senate Committee that cannabis should be from here on in legal and of restricted use. Legal pot in Canada, about time.
posted by Leonard at 9:06 AM PST - 24 comments

The Politics of Flu Vaccination. When the next deadly Flu pandemic sweeps the world, will you be able to get a vaccination? Are you an infant, elderly, or a nuclear power plant worker? Due to economics, the yearly flu vaccinations are unreliable.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:02 AM PST - 17 comments

There's Something About Mary. Miracles fascinate me, especially stories of apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Fatima, Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe and Medjugorje--the list is extensive and ever-growing. Skeptics scoff, agnostics ponder and various scientific theories are propounded.
posted by y2karl at 7:53 AM PST - 19 comments

Do Judge A Magazine By Its Cover: I'm ashamed to say I only recognized one name (Covarrubias) from the list of illustrators featured in Condé Nast's sparkling collection of cover art, dating from the 1910s to the 1950s. It's also searchable by magazine. So now I count myself a fan of Rene Bouet-Willaumez, A.H. Fish, Henry Stahlhut, Carl Erickson and a few others too. All in all, it's good, clean fun - even though the site's commercial and one's fingers often ache to open the damn things and actually read the bastards!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:17 AM PST - 6 comments

Britney turned on by lesbian porn. Seems pop princess Britney Spears has been hanging recently with adult film star Jenna Jameson. Reportedly there is "an attraction between them," and Jenna would love to perform with Britney in a movie. I can't make this stuff up.
posted by johnnyace at 2:23 AM PST - 43 comments

"A format designed for Unabombers." Andrew Sullivan blasts Weblogs (odd, ain't it?) in a conversation with Kurt Anderson at Slate. Both Sullivan and Anderson rip on our own Rebecca Blood. I find it especially ironic that Sullivan refers to blogs' "supercilious tone." He also can't stand the idea that drives Metafilter, apparently: "Worse, [Blood] can write earnestly about a Weblog 'community.' Aaagghh. " *more inside*
posted by Vidiot at 12:42 AM PST - 49 comments