Nightclub fire injures scores at the Station nightclub in West Warwick, RI at a Great White concert on Thursday night. WHJY-FM reports that 150 people have been taken to area hospitals and 10-20 bodies have been recovered from the scene so far; blood is needed in the Providence area and a press conference is imminent. A Kent County official reports 40-50 unconfirmed casualties, and an unnamed West Warwick fire official has been quoted as saying that bodies "are stacked in there like cordwood [Providence Journal; requires registration]."
posted by dayan at 11:37 PM PST - 78 comments

Konfabulator For Mac users (OSX), desktop widgets of a cute and useful nature. Create your own if you're so inclined; they'll add it to the gallery. Keep track of weather, the latest Homeland Security Department alert level, sports scores, your iTunes status--all in a tiny little application.
posted by padraigin at 10:12 PM PST - 16 comments

Miss Germany wants to disarm Saddam - uhm - the old fashioned way. Would you give it up for peace? Would you lay down (for) the ... ultimate sacrifice? Miss Germany seems to say "Ja!" ... from India via Pakistan (if that isn't a sign that peace is possible, I don't know what is ...)
posted by Jos Bleau at 9:20 PM PST - 23 comments

Caring for Your Introvert An amusingly succinct essay about the "habits and needs of a little-understood group"
posted by stefanie at 6:39 PM PST - 69 comments

anyone been to safer america to stock up on tin foil hats or mustard gas spit shields? is it strange to capitalize on paranoia like this, or to open flag shops after sept. 11th? joking aside, any reports from the store from new yawkers?
posted by asparagus_berlin at 6:18 PM PST - 13 comments

Giving lip. Put your words in the mouths of talking heads. Or dogs, with Scottish accents. Brought to you by the good folks at Bud. Weis. Er. Excellent pronunciation!
posted by steef at 5:01 PM PST - 24 comments

Shooting Holes in Wounding Theories. A long, technical, in-depth essay on how bullets injure and kill living creatures. The political part of the essay seems to be clearly labled, and is largely confined to a discussion on the infighting that goes on in the field of firearms ballistics. It is not a light read, but might be of interest to the morbidly curious.
posted by moonbiter at 3:27 PM PST - 6 comments

Open Source Content Management Systems Great resource for software (typically free) that allows you to start and maintain websites. The owners have gone so far as to install each one of them and give users admin access to try them out before downloading them.
posted by oissubke at 2:51 PM PST - 27 comments

Lost Disney Memo Found. McSweeney's posts a posthumously uncovered memo from the Disney board to Walt regarding his initial plans for a radically different "Disney-Land."
posted by jonson at 1:40 PM PST - 22 comments

The bird flu is back. Despite denials by the Hong Kong government, the World Health Organization announced yesterday that two people were killed by the same virulent species-jumpingstrain of influenza that caused the 1997 panic. It's certainly less gruesome than the ebola outbreak going on in Congo right now, but, unlike ebola, the flu is highly contagious. [more inside]
posted by ptermit at 1:05 PM PST - 14 comments

For all those who spent hours in the darkness of Introduction to Western Art I staring at slides out of context perhaps you should take a look at African art. In the West, to a large degree, art hangs on walls or resides only in museums, but most "traditional" African art needs to be understood in context. Among my favorites are the linguist staffs of the Ashanti people of the Akan. These staffs are used to tell parables, but they also create a nexus between culture, politics and beauty.
posted by Bag Man at 12:56 PM PST - 8 comments

Reality Bites? A reality show featuring Mike Tyson could be announced in the coming weeks, according to a Hollywood TV show producer who says he's been having substantive negotiations with a major television network. Schreiberg wouldn't give specifics about the format to the show, only to say it would be "Rocky-esque, with good dramatic story telling of characters over many weeks that eventually builds to a live event." Doubt it will happen since none of the networks seem to admitting interest... but if it does, could this be the lowest low for reality TV?
posted by orange swan at 12:37 PM PST - 15 comments

Self Portrait with My Grandmother. A rather beautiful way of meeting the ancestors at Modern Ruins
posted by gravelshoes at 12:26 PM PST - 9 comments

If Saddam Hussein were to use chemical/biological weapons in an Iraq conflict, how safe would soldiers in the field be? The Department of the Defense says "no problem", but some of the men on the ground seem to believe otherwise. The gear the soldiers will use to protect themselves and their water supply appears to be old, prone to failure while the training received in the usage of these tools looks inadequate. It could be the return of "Gulf War Syndrome" (PDF).
posted by owillis at 11:19 AM PST - 19 comments

The Skyline Terrorist Survival Kit. Tom Ridge's suggested kit may not be enough. How can you be prepared for a terrorist attack without a martini glass, a can of Ranch Style Beans and a copy of Red Dawn?
posted by sixfoot6 at 11:11 AM PST - 15 comments

Mini Nukes - Major Treaty Threats. "A leaked Pentagon document has confirmed that the US is considering the introduction of a new breed of smaller nuclear weapons designed for use in conventional warfare. Such a move would mean abandoning global arms treaties." The document was made available by The Los Alamos Study Group, which comments "It is impossible to overstate the challenge these plans pose to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the existing nuclear test moratorium, and US compliance with Article VI of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which is binding law in the US....These plans deserve outrage – first in the United States, and throughout the world. It may or may not be obvious that if allowed to proceed further -- especially in the present jingoistic atmosphere now prevailing in Washington -- the process outlined here will be quite hard to stop. "
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 10:32 AM PST - 26 comments

David Pogue in today's NYTDirect/CIRCUITS: "Wouldn't it be great if you could look up a person and read the real scoop about what he or she is really like? Think how many weeks of dating you'd be able to avoid if you had capsule summaries available: "Comes across great on a first date, but beware — runs out of stories by Day 2." Or, "A bit unkempt, but you'll never meet a more loving, loyal mate." Or, "Sharp dresser, warped mind." "Of course, a Web site where you could review friends and coworkers probably wouldn't work. I'm kind of kidding about this whole thing." (Rate-A-Mate.biz still available.)
posted by azul at 10:20 AM PST - 11 comments

"Humility cannot be a majority decision." In these times of tension and trouble, the randomly generated wisdom of Zentances comes as a whiff of precious fresh air. Lest you forget, "Beauty can make everything beautiful".
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 10:16 AM PST - 9 comments

If it happened here. A lengthy, reality-based scenario of a bioterrorism attack on Los Angeles (and its aftermath). Like a horror movie.
posted by xowie at 9:00 AM PST - 39 comments

Jihad in textbooks: yesterday and today.
posted by troybob at 8:13 AM PST - 4 comments

At some point in 2001 one of my favorite bands got it's own website and I didn't notice until just now. I mention this not because it's particularly mefi worthy just because I like it, but because I have four of their albums and they never fail to cheer me up when nothing else will. It's the steel drums I'm sure. Alas, doesn't look they will be playing near me anytime soon, but there are still many other steel drum bands out there and if this one isn't coming your way either you can probably find one that is.
posted by wobh at 7:58 AM PST - 6 comments

"I'm your only friend, I'm not your only friend, but I'm a little glowing friend, but really I'm not actually your friend but I am." or "Everything I needed to know I learned by listening to [insert band name here]."
posted by poopy at 7:39 AM PST - 112 comments

Takes the phrase "Get a Life" to a new level. Those masterminds of marketing, those night rocking, day partying satanic minions, KISS, have achieved the ultimate score in product merchandising. That's right, it's your very own KISS coffin, and while you might think "What's the point?", keep in mind that before you shuffle off this mortal coil, it doubles as a beer cooler.
posted by jeremias at 6:37 AM PST - 36 comments

Did you know what's behind that "new car smell"?
These apparently.
"What's that Stuff" explores the chemistry of everyday stuff.
posted by talos at 6:19 AM PST - 12 comments

Shift given shaft - After over 10 years, it looks like Shift Magazine (founded by Evan Solomon and Andrew Heintzman and published by Multi-Vision Publishing Inc.) is going away...again. The last issue will hit newsstands the first week of March.
posted by boost ventilator at 6:15 AM PST - 13 comments

Bunraku is Japan's professional puppet theater. Developed primarily in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is one of the four forms of Japanese classical theater, the others being kabuki, noh and kyogen.[more]
posted by hama7 at 5:31 AM PST - 17 comments

"In the midst of this conference, Senator Dole called Mack on his cell phone." The Jesica Santillan piece that didn't make CNN. Hehe...I thought that hospital was a bit too eager to accept responsibility for its actions...cheers to Mrs. Dole for stepping in; lets hope Jesica pulls through!
posted by effugas at 4:56 AM PST - 18 comments

EXTRY! EXTRY! Read All About It! New York Times commits Freudian-Slippish Typo in title of AltaVista story! (link ironically via Google News)
But seriously, with CMGI selling AV for about 6% of what it paid to buy it, and Overture's stock price dropping 20% the day the deal was announced, does this mean AltaVista is D.O.A.? If so, where will we go for a dopey translation/Douglas Adams tribute?
In other Search Engine News, those Norwegians at FAST (aka alltheweb.com) are gettin' a Dell, dude. And the guy who started all this by selling out to Google is real quiet.
posted by wendell at 3:15 AM PST - 10 comments

Museum of Soviet synthesizers.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 1:21 AM PST - 16 comments

Lets go fly a kite, up to the... Oh... it's paper planes, but it's still addictive in a stupid kind of a way... And it's a day early. Sue me.
posted by twine42 at 1:04 AM PST - 15 comments