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Cartoon and classic painting mash-ups. The beginners' entries.
posted by nickyskye at 10:43 PM PST - 24 comments

How to blow up the Earth (with a coffee can), and why we should, along with some discussion of how it is done in fiction. Blowing up the moon (and how the US nearly did in 1958, with the help of Carl Sagan), and lots of reasons why, including one in song [YouTube]. How to blow up a star. How we might accidentally blow up the universe in November. [prev. discussion of Earth destruction]
posted by blahblahblah at 10:41 PM PST - 32 comments

17 Dots is a new blog by employees of emusic. Not much there yet but for MeFites who use the service, this looks like it could prove handy for keeping on top of what's worth checking out.
posted by dobbs at 9:47 PM PST - 9 comments

Skyfish have been well documented on the interweb. Want to capture your own as a pet? Lure them into your home by replicating their natural environment. Warning: three Youtube links and only the third is really cool, but at least they're all pretty short. Related.
posted by Area Control at 7:48 PM PST - 24 comments

A modern eyewitness account of secretive ritualized duelling known as "academic fencing". Its stylized format has changed little since Mark Twain observed it. Despite dubious legality it is alive and well in German universities. The raison d'être of this swordplay is the creation of a schmiss or duelling scar. These scars are considered by the bearers as a mark of courage and nobility, and by outsiders as an indication of semi-latent Nazi tendencies. In March a medical conference is beng held for the first time in Freiburg, for doctors who tend to duelling injuries.
posted by roofus at 3:37 PM PST - 73 comments

The three-decade decline in teenage and young-adult rape accompanies huge drops in all crimes -- murder, assault, drug abuse and property -- committed by youth... Women's rapidly rising status and economic independence in the larger society fostered new attitudes and laws that rejected violence against women. That younger people growing up in this environment of greater gender equality should show the biggest decreases in rape, while older generations lag behind, is consistent with this explanation... Over the last 30 years, rape arrest rates have fallen by 80% among Californians under age 15, much larger than the 25% drop among residents age 40 and older.

The decline of rape
So, kids today are different.
posted by y2karl at 2:36 PM PST - 93 comments

The Iraq Effect: The War in Iraq and its Impact on the War on Terrorism. "The war has inspired a wave of terrorism around the world. Excluding Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of jihadist attacks has jumped 35 percent in the past four years. A Mother Jones exclusive study by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank."
posted by homunculus at 1:49 PM PST - 31 comments

Chimpanzees have Learned to Hunt with Spears. While it may not quite be on the level of Dolphins Evolve Opposable Thumbs, it's probably at least a half-step on the "we-are-so-screwed" ladder.
posted by yhbc at 1:31 PM PST - 66 comments

“We’re selling magazines to earn points in a contest to win a trip abroad,” begins the standard spiel. At any given moment there are roughly 2,500 of these fresh-faced teens travelling across the USA hawking subscriptions for periodicals door to door. Welcome to the violent exploitative world of the Magazine Crews. via
posted by maryh at 1:23 PM PST - 98 comments

Mo Rocca: Mo Rocca, former Daily Show correspondent and wandering funnyman, has begun blogging and vlogging for AOL News.
posted by untitledalex at 12:04 PM PST - 30 comments

Everything you know about Pythagoras is wrong (except the bit about the beans). Less the golden-thighed Einstein of the Ancient World and more the L. Ron Hubbard of Magna Graecia. [Last link has some rude words]
posted by Kattullus at 9:40 AM PST - 41 comments

The cover of 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' symbolises the way anti-Iranian propaganda in the U.S. works:

The original picture from which this cover is excised is lifted off a news report during the parliamentary election of February 2000 in Iran. In the original picture, the two young women are in fact reading the leading reformist newspaper Mosharekat. Azar Nafisi and her publisher may have thought that the world is not looking, and that they can distort the history of a people any way they wish. But the original picture from which this cover steals its idea speaks to the fact of this falsehood.

The cover of Reading Lolita in Tehran is an iconic burglary from the press, distorted and staged in a frame for an entirely different purpose than when it was taken. In its distorted form and framing, the picture is cropped so we no longer see the newspaper that the two young female students are holding in their hands, thus creating the illusion that they are "Reading Lolita"--with the scarves of the two teenagers doing the task of "in Tehran." In the original picture the two young students are obviously on a college campus, reading a newspaper that is reporting the latest results of a major parliamentary election in their country. Cropping the newspaper, their classmates behind them, and a perfectly visible photograph of President Khatami--the iconic representation of the reformist movement--out of the picture and suggesting that the two young women are reading "Lolita" strips them of their moral intelligence and their participation in the democratic aspirations of their homeland, ushering them into a colonial harem.

Read Hamid Dabashi's full essay 'Native informers and the making of the American empire.'
posted by hoder at 9:38 AM PST - 67 comments

Krazy... Katheists? We see plenty of stories about religion in schools crossing the line. For good reason -- it's pretty topical. This time, though, it's an atheist teacher who crosses the line.
posted by gurple at 9:17 AM PST - 191 comments

Wake County, NC: Solomon Kamil invited to speak at a public school in Raleigh tells the students to shun Muslims "You may be excited that you found the 'tall, dark, and handsome man' you have been looking for. His sweet words and attention may blind you regarding the power, importance, and influence of his culture and Islamic faith."
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:28 AM PST - 79 comments

I'd like you to meet Africa. It's a continent. You probably don't hear about it a lot in the news. That's because there's only like a billion people who live there. Global Voices has some further background on one news organization's quest to inform the masses about this little-known land.
posted by panoptican at 8:03 AM PST - 45 comments

Late Night with Conan O'Brien Bumper Art Site, mostly from HD TV screencaps. [Personal faves: 1, 2, 3.]
posted by myopicman at 7:42 AM PST - 36 comments

The making of the Korean Actress "Song Hye Kyo" by Max Edwin Wahyudi. Computer graphics have come a hell of a long way.
posted by chunking express at 7:33 AM PST - 38 comments

A set of ideal conditions earlier this week -- cold weather, little wind and snow -- created a large skating rink. On Lake Superior. Beautifully clear (YouTube - minor swearing if you're at work). Ever skate for a mile? Cracks on the ice. With sound (YouTube). And of course, hockey (YouTube). Or maybe just some skating and kite flying (YouTube). Duluth News Tribune's story. (With annoying registration but nice photo gallery)
posted by starman at 7:29 AM PST - 24 comments

The break up on Valentine's Day, with a crowd of hundreds and an a capella Dixie Chicks song thrown in for good measure.
A University of North Carolina student, in front of an invited audience, splits up with his girlfriend (who goes to NC State) in the "pit". All of this recorded and YouTubed for your entertainment.
Bonus feature: View a different angle and an interview with the breaker upper.
News item found via the London Metro of all places.
posted by Webbster at 7:27 AM PST - 55 comments

Why is this man screaming? Maybe because it's a Mad World.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:10 AM PST - 8 comments

Yanka (Янка) Dyagileva (1966-1991) was one of the foremost members of the former USSR's magnitizdat circuit. Albeit overshadowed in time by the likes of Vysotsky, she (along with longtime collaborators Grazhdanskaya Oborona [Civil Defence]) played a mixture of folk and punk: raw, unrelenting and angry. Sadly, the greatest memorial to her on the web is entirely in Russian, but offers interest to even those that do not speak the language: her complete discography is available for download, a bevy of photographs providing an inside look into the late 80's underground music scene in the USSR (...and the penalties for participating in it), and some tablatures if you ever just want to play along. She's even got a Myspace profile.
posted by griphus at 2:45 AM PST - 23 comments

Scientists claim that cosmic rays from outer space play a far greater role in changing the Earth's climate than global warming experts previously thought. For a demonstration of how cosmic rays affect cloud formation, you can build a Cloud Chamber.
posted by augustweed at 12:19 AM PST - 54 comments