February 24, 2003

Monday Mash Mun!

Take a piss. Not the time for Munday Mash Mun, but I thought it was very entertaining. Post your scores here! And also, is it just me, or does your mouse control become a bit tweaked after playing a few rounds of that game?
posted by aznblader at 11:25 PM PST - 16 comments

Veganism is for life - and for lifers!

Those crazy PETA kids, well, now they've gone and done it. They've admitted that being a vegan is punishment, by sending a letter to the NY Prison Commissioner telling him that "Feeding inmates exclusively vegan food sends a message to inmates and the public that our society isn't molly-coddling them..." Funny, funny PETA people, hoisted by their own celery stick, as it were. I'm guessing that being that anemic makes them a little short on irony.
posted by dejah420 at 10:07 PM PST - 32 comments

Gulf Bounty Is Drying Up in Southern India

Gulf Bounty Is Drying Up in Southern India For three decades, Indians have helped build and serve countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait — reflecting a world where, for many families, making ends meet means living apart. Gulf rulers, wanting to counter what they saw as a demographic overload by Indians, [have] made them less welcome. (New York Times login req)
posted by turbanhead at 9:11 PM PST - 3 comments

George Loves Tony

Ask not for whom the Bush burns: it burns for Blair. [Quicktime req; via Bifurcated Rivets.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 8:04 PM PST - 8 comments

up in smoke

Operation Pipe Dreams And Headhunter - retail smiley-face ceramic pipes are gone. The DEA, maintaining its track record of ineffectual policies, programs, methods, procedures, and purpose has successfully brought an evil crime ring to its knees. No more will you have to worry about tobacco water pipe accessory related muder or hippy headshop related gang activity. In addition to striking fear in the hearts of college freshman and sophmores everywhere, I hope this spells the beginning of the end of those who would sell incense and tapestries to our children. OUR CHILDREN.
posted by jdaura at 6:12 PM PST - 54 comments

Untested Missile System?

Bush wants to deploy a new missile system - without testing it. Seems like a relatively bad idea, considering the numerous things that can do terribly awry with such a complex situation.
posted by tatochip at 3:59 PM PST - 40 comments

A spammer has successfully been sued...

A spammer has successfully been sued, using anti-junk Fax laws in a Michigan small-claims court.
posted by o2b at 3:47 PM PST - 12 comments

Get duct or you're fuct

The great duct tape conspiracy? It seems that 46% of all duct tape is produced by the Manco Company of Avon, Ohio. The company, a division on Henkel inc, was run by Jack Kahl until just after Bush's 2000 election. It turns out Mr. Kahl donated no less than $100,000 to GOP committees in the 2000 election cycle. Has Tom Ridge become the official spokesperson of all things duct tape purely out of his concerns for our security here in the Homeland? Got duct tape? via boingboing
posted by elwoodwiles at 2:23 PM PST - 30 comments

Wallace & Gromit Through The Nose

New Wallace and Gromit movie ~ "Cracking Contraptions" from Atom Films and Shockwave... but $9.95 to download it? Oh, I don't think so! I guess I don't expect them to give it away for free, but who thought up this hair-brained scheme? I bet that dodgey lodger, the Penguin, is behind it somehow.
posted by crunchland at 2:03 PM PST - 12 comments

I'm waiting for the pancake competition

Although the haiku as meme has fallen on hard times here at MeFi, there are still some practioners lurking about in the wilderness, no doubt. If you still feel the urge to get freaky with the 5-7-5, and you think you've got what it takes, you might want to try your hand at competitive haiku over at The Guardian, where quality haikuing will score you 20 lbs worth of Penguin Books. Damn, that's a lot of paperbacks!
posted by jonson at 12:56 PM PST - 30 comments

water bears

Strange is this little animal, because of its exceptional and strange morphology and because it closely resembles a bear en miniature. -- So says one of the first men to behold "water bears" or tardigrades as they are better known. Resembling a large gummy bear, or a bear walking on its claws, but measuring in at no larger than a few 100 microns, the tardigrade occupies its own phylum in the animal kingdom. Cuteness aside, they are also known for their extraordinary abilities to survive extreme conditions: Tardigrades can survive the process of freezing or thawing, as well as changes in salinity, extreme vacuum pressure conditions, and a lack of oxygen.
posted by vacapinta at 12:40 PM PST - 17 comments

Korean pop group has

Korean pop group has "Seoul". Covered in greasepaint and sticking their lips out in exaggerated fashion, Korean girl group, the Bubble Sisters, sing and dance to teenybopper pop in blackface. In homogenous countries, racism seems to play out differently than in diverse countries such as the United States. In Asia, putting on blackface may be seen as a way to pay homage to artists of African ethnicity, but in the U.S. it makes most people cringe and recoil in horror much like hearing someone say the "N" word. The Bubble Sisters profess a love for black music and seek to emulate it, but in their “Bubble Song” video, the group wears blackface while lamenting they are ugly and praying to be pretty for their true loves. Is this an earnest homage to African-American musicians, blatantly offensive Sambo-esque imagery or a cultural misinterpretation of flattery?
posted by VelvetHellvis at 12:00 PM PST - 53 comments

Scam Spam Kills

The Nigerian Scam Email also known as the 419 scam, claims a death. People get scammed all the time, hopefully with less dire consequences. The FTC has a list of the 12 most common scams. Has anybody here been scammed lately (it happens to the best of us and most likely all of us, at one time or another)?
posted by ashbury at 11:51 AM PST - 17 comments

The Roman Army

Modeling the Roman Army. The author of this site uses CAD software to examine the mechanics and problems of manuevering large masses of men in ancient warfare. Good stuff for people interested in the subject.
posted by moonbiter at 10:48 AM PST - 9 comments

It's an

"With VinylVideo™, you can now transform your old record player and your TV set into a brand-new home movie medium - quickly, conveniently, and without complicated instruction manuals. With the revolutionary VinylVideo™ Picture Disks, for which numerous top-name artists have already produced exclusive works, you can now design your own TV viewing program featuring picture quality that is truly extraordinary." Hey hey that sounds useful! Maybe their next big idea is replacing DVDs with Viewmaster reels. Check out the real audio informercial if you have the chacne.
posted by Stan Chin at 9:17 AM PST - 8 comments

Potential Stomp Ass Thread

What's with that tacky ass name? A coffee shop which opened in a rather prominent area of the city in which I reside has started a little controversy here. Turns out the shop's name has created a fair amount of controversy elsewhere. How long until the f-word shows up in prominent signage across America? Meantime, what's the wildest or tackiest name for a business you've ever heard? Any ideas for potential businesses with "cuss" word-oriented names? Is there a possible trend in there somewhere?
posted by raysmj at 8:03 AM PST - 90 comments

ReviewSites

The Human Nature Daily Review, SciTech Daily Review, Arts & Letters Daily, Business Daily Review. The busier I get the more I value these sites that separate news signal from noise and present the results in a simple and almost standardized fashion. Are there other great newsfilters out there?
posted by srboisvert at 8:00 AM PST - 11 comments

Sick?

She never asked for anything. Everything I ever did was voluntary. Mother tricks community (and her daughter) into believing that her daughter has leukaemia. I suppose scams like this are so successful because you just don't make stuff like this up, right? The article doesn't mention it but is this what they call Munchausen's by Proxy?
posted by jontyjago at 7:39 AM PST - 17 comments

Bush Cited Non-Existent eport

Bush Cited Non-Existent eport There was only one problem with President George W. Bush's claim Thursday that the nation's top economists forecast substantial economic growth if Congress passed the president's tax cut: The forecast with that conclusion doesn't exist.
posted by orange swan at 7:19 AM PST - 82 comments

Living in poverty and fear of abandonment, the barely functioning state that trusted its saviours

"If the Americans think this is success, then outright failure must be pretty horrible to behold." something for US, British and world citizens to think about as we bang the drums for war on Iraq.
posted by specialk420 at 7:17 AM PST - 31 comments

Accelerated sense of closure dept.

The innocence of the accused should not necessarily prevent an execution (NYT link) "The word 'innocent' has been tortured beyond recognition", say U.S. prosecutors. Question is, by who?
posted by magullo at 3:30 AM PST - 57 comments

Fire and Ice

Mark Dornblaster's photographs are deliciously cool and stunningly beautiful. Check them out. Enjoy. I did.
posted by essexjan at 3:00 AM PST - 7 comments

Tim Berners-Lee answers FAQs

Are you happy with what the World Wide Web has turned out so far? Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web answers that question and others like it.
posted by riffola at 12:03 AM PST - 13 comments

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