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January 15, 2002
How willing are you to whore yourself? City buses have been doing it for years. Now an ad company is willing to give you a free car for two years if you're willing to drive a mobile billboard for them. Ideal candidates live in busy urban and suburban areas, park on the street, and get stuck in traffic all the time. You pay for insurance and gas, and they take care of the rest (including maintenance). Or have your current car wrapped with advertisements and get up to $400 a month. The company will also entice you with free concert tickets if you'll drive the vehicle to the show.
Through a long application process, they try to match ideal candidates with advertisers. They even let you suggest 5 companies you'd be willing to whore yourself for. But if you do decide to sign up, be aware: Not only are there 70,000 + applications ahead of you, and no guarantee that you'll be selected, according to the
privacy policy, the ad company will use your detailed profile to sell more stuff to you.
posted by crunchland at 10:16 PM PST - 32 comments
Jello Biafra calls bait-and-switch on his old bandmates. Jello Biafra states, "In my opinion, this is the real great rock and roll swindle. They have a right to play cover versions of Dead Kennedys songs. Everyone does. But I feel really badly for all the people paying ticket prices, reported to be as high as $25, thinking it's the real Dead Kennedys, and wind up getting stuck with the world's greediest karaoke band."
posted by skallas at 8:41 PM PST - 19 comments
Arthur Anderson checking up on the FBI! "The consulting firm Arthur Andersen LLP is currently conducting a review of the FBI’s management practices, including recordkeeping, technology and human resources issues."
Their checking on the FBI, the FBI is checking on them, whew....
posted by bas67 at 7:38 PM PST - 3 comments
Genetic engineering leaves mice impervious to pain. By removing a protein called "DREAM", scientists were able to create rodents that didn't mind extreme heat, pressure and inflammation. This could provide hope for those suffering, or a strange removal from the experience of living, and classic human traits like bravery, strength, volition, and empathy, depending on your view.
posted by mdn at 7:18 PM PST - 23 comments
Carlyle's way: the Red Herring digs into the X-Files-esque Carlyle Group, that connects the Bushes, bin Ladens, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and on and on. How serious is the conflict of interest? And does this investigation by a business magazine make the
conspiracy nuts seem any less nutty?
posted by D at 4:08 PM PST - 6 comments
Stephen Downing , aged 17, was arrested and interrogated for 8 hours by the police without caution and without legal counsel. Despite having the reading age of an 11 year old, he was allowed to sign a confession to the brutal slaughter of typist Wendy Sewell. 27 years later at the UK Court of Appeal, he
became today the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice in the Britain's history.
posted by dlewis at 2:57 PM PST - 7 comments
"Tooonight, we're going to have A TERRRRIBLE time! Boo ha ha ha ha," Sammy Terry used to say, and he was usually right, because he'd then show a movie like "The Monolith Monsters" or "The Tingler." Unless you grew up in Southern Indiana, you probably never heard of Sammy Terry. He was the local host of all B-horror movies, like Elvira only cornier (if that's possible!). His "cohost" was a rubber spider, dangling on a string. And his costume included dishwasher gloves (look closely at the picture). Of course, this being the Internet, someone has a created a Sammy Terry fan site:
here. Did anyone else grow up with wacky local shows? I'm not even gonna talk about "Cowboy Bob" and "Janie."
posted by grumblebee at 1:42 PM PST - 33 comments
How long before all animal rights groups go from extremist, to being classified as Terrorist groups? Are they acting on behalf of animals, or just acting like animals? And how long before their methods and actions become downright un-American?
One of
PeTA's favourite punching bags,
Ringling Bros., has started hitting back. Coming after a win in the
recent court case involving trainer Mark Gebel, Kenneth Feld, Chairman and Producer of Ringling Bros., issues an
open letter to animal rights groups in an attempt to appeal to them to stop attacking what he says are responsible animal care providers. In it, he alledges some of PeTA's own cruelty, as well as making the connection to the
Animal Liberation Front, which is classifed as a domestic terrorist threat by the FBI (see opening link).
PeTA isn't backing down and has just launched their
latest campaign against Ringling Bros. which cites cruelties no more recent than 1999.
I was also surprised to hear about companies finding it easier to
buy off activists by donating money, which just continues to allow them to flourish. Is it time to start ignoring the good intentions of these groups and really scrutinizing their actions? Should animal rights groups which engage in and support extremist/terrorist activities be shut down and broken up by governments? How far is too far when it comes to activism?
posted by mikhail at 1:28 PM PST - 45 comments
Phew! It's okay to drive stoned in Idaho now. Assuming you can pass a field sobriety test, that is. To quote the attorney, "just having smoked marijuana doesn't give somebody cause to arrest you for that when driving." This seems to be a technicality, and you have to assume it's going to be overturned. If not, anyone up for a road trip to Boise?
posted by emptyage at 12:25 PM PST - 10 comments
BROZAC Another new drug? Not really. It's all fun and games. This commercial spoof shows us that one day there may be a drug for just about everything.
posted by chokersandwich at 11:29 AM PST - 10 comments
Oil pipeline? What oil pipeline? It appears we have been snookered. We fought this war for Unocal, and now they don't want the place! (Or perhaps the motivations for current events are more complex than convenient slogans -- or less complex than elaborate conspiracy theories.)
posted by dhartung at 8:53 AM PST - 28 comments
Thank God there are still mad Geniuses Out There Aqua Team Hunger Force and Sealab 2021 always make me cry with laughter. Makes me a little less afraid of the TV. I think the kicker is their stuff is funnier than I could ever be.
Want the
songs? Never a problem. Fan site that has the scoops and skinny? That
too can be arranged.
posted by Dagobert at 8:46 AM PST - 13 comments
Wen Ho Lee - his own country versus him. On the Today show on NBC, Wen Ho Lee made his first public appearence along with the release of his new book
My Country vs. Me. It was such a sad and disturbing moment in seeing how a person's life can be shattered in such a brief moment. On the show, he remarks how "your freedom can be so capricious. It can be taken away at any moment" (not an exact quote). My heart really sank to see how the government, the media, and the general US public quickly jumped the gun in villifying this one person, who by the way, was originally from Taiwan, NOT China. What's sad is that Wen Ho Lee's coworkers, who were mostly Caucasian, would also download files to take home and as for the one Asian in the lab, he goes home with FBI on his trail.
Here's one more kicker, even the federal judge, James Parker, apologizes for the erroneous witchhunt...
posted by dkhong at 8:36 AM PST - 26 comments
So lots of people hate links to news sites. How about an olds(?) site?
Wrote reports the news of the past, and I don't mean last year.
posted by Su at 8:33 AM PST - 2 comments
"Observing" other dimensions. The existence of tiny black holes, produced by cosmic rays in the Earth's atmosphere, if confirmed by the
Auger cosmic ray observatory, might provide evidence for other dimensions beyond Space and Time.
Amazing how theories considered untestable by experiment a few years ago are turning into "real" science.
posted by talos at 8:32 AM PST - 11 comments
So lots of people hate links to news sites. How about an olds(?) site?
Wrote reports the news of the past, and I don't mean last year.
posted by Su at 8:31 AM PST - 8 comments
"Today's heroes don't have to do anything; they just need to be noble victims" The people who lost their lives on September 11 -- office workers, firefighters, airline pilots -- have almost unanimously been labeled "hereos." Were they really, or were they "just" victims who tragically died while "doing their jobs"? According to this article, we should be hesitant to loosen the requirements for heroism:
"Heroes often end up as role models, a task not well suited for victims. Moreover, by lowering the bar for heroism, we cheapen the word and, in some ways, the exploits of people who have earned the right to be called that in the past. " (via
a & l daily).
posted by pardonyou? at 6:18 AM PST - 58 comments
