Left and to the Back is a blog exploring the dark and dusty world of flop singles and albums, the kind you may find lingering near the stock room of your local second hand record store (if you still have one), or perhaps going for extortionate sums on ebay. [Found whilst trying to answer this AskMe]. - 2 comments

The New Inquiry launched a new web-based magazine this weekend with a host of smart bloggers and cultural critique. Work on the site is released under a creative commons license. Subscriptions are gently requested though not required. - 4 comments

According to this substantial study recently published in Psychological Science, "lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology.". As the Daily Mail summarises, right-wingers are less intelligent than left wingers. - 76 comments

"I say, Philip, let's order a pizza and watch a movie with the corgis!" Queen Elizabeth celebrates 60 years on the throne. - 37 comments

The End of Wall Street As They Knew It
After surprisingly successful financial reform, public vilification, and politics that have turned against them, the Masters of the Universe are masters no longer. - 49 comments

Meet Mayawati, India's multi-millionaire lower-caste power broker and politician (and don't miss the slide show). - 5 comments

Clint Eastwood: "'This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again, and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.' The [Super Bowl] commercial, 'Halftime in America,' didn’t reveal its sponsor until the final seconds, when Chrysler logos appeared briefly, but it has already become a classic, and perhaps inevitably in this election year, a political football.* - 146 comments

How would the country react if the best quarterback in the league was a Satanist? - 22 comments

The new weblog Collecting Candy hits it out of the park with their first post Big League Chew – Retrospective of an American Original. - 35 comments

Israeli New Wave? Yes! May I introduce The Clique. Here is their song Incubator. Here is another song called Don't Light A Candle For Me. Here are the lyrics to the second song in Hebrew and English. - 6 comments

Los Angeles County jails don't post lists to bail bondsmen. You cannot make collect calls to cell phones. Many people don't even have land lines. That combination kept one man in jail for five days. via the hairpin. - 130 comments

A fascinating collection of over 150 shrines, mostly made by teenagers. Readers and staffers of Rookie contributed these photos of mostly homemade shrines, featuring subjects as diverse as Frida Kahlo, Britney Spears, Japan, nail polish, and Grandma. - 27 comments

"I said before the film has historical importance (and it does), but it's relevance was more recognized in 1978 than the present day. The YouTube generation will be unable to comprehend what purpose the film served thirty years ago, and thus it's difficult to ignore how hopelessly dated Faces Of Death really is." It's relevance may have faded, but the intrigue remains. Deadspin recently interviewed the writer and producer of four compilations of death and gore, John Alan Schwartz. And of course, they discuss the fake gore in the monkey scene (interview clip with special make-up effects creators Allan Apone and Douglas White, with the memorable scene). And what is Schwarts up to today? He and his wife post videos of their movie reviews on YouTube (Tumblr, YouTube profile page, their website). - 47 comments

It's pretty darn cold in Europe this winter, with over 300 dead as a result sadly. - 108 comments

Samuel Youd, who wrote under the name John Christopher, has passed away. - 50 comments

OneSwarm is a privacy preserving BitTorrent client that offers  permissions for restricting access to shared content  and  sharing without attribution, with the anonymity being provided by fellow OneSwarm peers routing transfers. - 12 comments

Artistic decline through Alzheimer's - William Utermohlen was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 1995 yet he continued drawing. His last self portraits painted between 1995 and 2001 tell a unique tale of an implacable disease encroaching on to his mind and senses. - 36 comments

Some video game aficionados are now trying to beat violent games without killing any other characters in the process. - 148 comments

The Virgin Father 'Trent Arsenault is 36 years old and has never had sex, but he’s the father of fifteen children — and counting.' - 85 comments

Will Self on the 2012 London Olympics . - 53 comments

“He believed in not too much federal government,” said Siegfried Smith, a classmate. “And this was a time when we didn’t have a lot.” - 138 comments

Oíche Mhaith (Good Night) is a game by IGF Festival Finalists Stephen (increpare) Lavelle and Terry Cavanaugh about families, bereavement and resurrection. With some potentially NSFW language and content, the game represents a collaboration between two well-known players in the field of micro and art games. Lavelle has more than 100 games on his website. Cavanagh is less prolific, although he has just released the first of five planned "small games", ChatChat, a simple graphical MUD/chatroom in which the players are all cats (previously). - 15 comments

GloZell does the Cinnamon Challenge. "What's the Cinnamon Challenge?" This. (Can the Cinnamon Challenge kill you?? Unlikely.) - 76 comments

The Super Bowl 2012 Half Time show, in which the lich queen Madonna declares supreme victory over all who fall before her. There were also some adverts and a sporting event of some kind. - 297 comments

Best known for the (exaggerated) tales of her miserliness, Hetty Green was arguably the greatest female investor in history. During the 1907 Bankers' Panic, her loan of $1.1 million helped keep New York City solvent. Her estate - greater than that of J.P. Morgan's - was valued at more than $2 billion in today's money. - 17 comments