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National Review's Heather McDonald responds to columnist Steven Levy's question: Does the blogosphere have a diversity problem? "Could it be that the premise of the 'diversity' crusade is wrong—that there are not in fact hordes of unknown, competitively talented non-white-male journalists held back by prejudice? Don’t even entertain the thought. Steven Levy certainly doesn’t. 'It appears that some clubbiness is involved'—that is, that white male bloggers only link to other white male bloggers." Do we need a race-based quota for web journalism? As racial identity is often anonymous, where would we start?
posted by jenleigh at 11:04 PM PST - 59 comments

SCANDAL!!! Wordpress caught with Spam and Hot Nacho! Blogosphere Cheesed! (Waxy investigates)
posted by shoepal at 10:45 PM PST - 56 comments

Phila Lawyer reads like fiction (awesome, Hunter S. Thompson -esque fiction -- Part 1, 2 ) to outsiders, but that might just be because it's so fucking good. The lawyers commiserating in the comments, at least, think it's real.
The navigation is cumbersome -- if you're not careful, you'll come into a story in the middle. For your perusal, then, I've laid a few out:
Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Part 1, 2
Part 1, 2, 3, 4
posted by Tlogmer at 9:48 PM PST - 7 comments

Christopher Eccleston, the new Doctor Who, has tendered his resignation. Geez, his first episode wasn't that bad.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 7:59 PM PST - 45 comments

People either love them or they hate them. In our spuddish history, we have fought wars and named queens. Canadians build monuments, Americans misspelle.
They entertain us, they destroy our livers, sometimes they go BOOM! In some parts of the world, they're famous.
Solanum Tuberosum forever.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 7:58 PM PST - 9 comments

The Cat is back. After a hiatus of over 20 years, Yusuf "Cat Stevens" Islam is back with his first original song (as opposed to the voice-and-drum Islamic songs he did occasionally). Previously discussed here when he was deported from the US for allegedly being on a "terrorist watchlist", Islam has had a change of heart when it comes to playing the music he shunned for so long. "Music is a lady that I still love because she gives me the air that I breathe," he quotes from one of his old songs. "We need all sorts of nourishment. And music satisfies and nourishes the hunger within ourselves for connection and harmony. It's part of God's universe." His new song Indian Ocean is now available on iTunes, with all proceeds going to victims of the tsunami disaster.
posted by laz-e-boy at 7:47 PM PST - 15 comments

There's a new DVD on GG Allin. Born Jesus Christ Allin he was a front-man of the still-touring Murder Junkies. An overdose in 1993 did him in. A profile, Hated:GG Allin and The Murder Junkies, was made just before his death and features a portion of his strange funeral. Needless to say, his lyrics and well, his life are NSFW.

"...That audience is there for me. I'm not a performance artist or any of that, I'm not out to please anyone. Just me. Rock'n'roll has to be destroyed and rebuilt in my name if it's ever gonna accomplish anything. It's not about being in some clique, it's for people who don't fit in with any thing....I believe I am the highest power, absolutely. I am in control at all times. Jesus Christ, God, and Satan all in one." -GG, in an interview
posted by john at 4:16 PM PST - 49 comments

Lenticular printing to the nth degree Urban Mapping has made a very cool multi-dimensional map for lower Manhattan with more cities to come. Depending on how you hold it, you see a different map. via Transportation Communications newsletter
posted by agatha_magatha at 3:46 PM PST - 19 comments

Tesco, the UK's biggest retailer, recently announced record full-year profits and now controls a frighteningly dominant 27% share of all grocery sales in the UK. Put another way, the retail juggernaut now accounts for one in every eight pounds spent in British shops. Such a lofty position has got many worried and Tesco is getting flak for everything from being responsible for shutting down rural post offices to becoming a fully-paid up agent of Big Brother. Now Tesco has its very own nonaffiliated bloggers. The team behind Supermarket Sweep Up - a vertically targeted blog - say their aim is to place the UK's biggest retailer under "greater public scrutiny". Now that big media can't afford to run decent investigative journalism, is a collaborative 'investigative blogging' the best way forward?
posted by MrMerlot at 3:45 PM PST - 11 comments

Anything goes. A Libyan court began hearing an appeal by five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who face the death penalty for allegedly infecting 380 children with the AIDS virus, in spite of testimony from Luc Montaignier, the French doctor who first isolated the HIV virus, and Swiss and Italian colleagues, that the epidemic was due to a lack of hygiene. Tripoli has said that in exchange for the freedom of the nurses, it wants compensation equal to that paid by Libya to relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie plane bombing carried out by its secret service in 1988. (Yahoo/AFP news)
posted by semmi at 2:23 PM PST - 18 comments

Rise of the Man-Eating Cyberloo: the latest RotM, or Rise of the Machines, another regular feature at the Register like the BOFH (the link is this week's, more here). Rise of the Machines is a ultraparanoid technophobe's view of the latest happenings in and around technology - fictionalized for your delight. Here is the ROTM take on clocky (previously). Many of the episodes refer to the various efforts of the "lizard army" (Shades of Free Your Brain?) and their eternal enemies, the NeoLuddite Resistance Army. Take a minute to read a few, it's quite a funny theme, written well and in true cheeky Reg style. Here's the archive. For a more serious (though likely sham) example of this, try the Anti-Robot Militia.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:30 PM PST - 4 comments

Camouflaged and Walking octopuses Octopus marginatus and Octopus (Abdopus) aculeatus, that walk along the seafloor using two alternating arms and apparently use the remaining six arms for camouflage.
posted by dov3 at 12:06 PM PST - 23 comments

Sarah Sze is an incredible artist (link is to a large image). Things fall apart (jeep cherokee), slow growth sets in and paint peels off the walls. Objects stretch out toward each other. Detail persists on a large and small scale. Here's a resume. Here are a few more images and a review. Here's another short article.
posted by nobody at 10:48 AM PST - 25 comments

Canada's seal hunt started yesterday and though I wondered if the numbers on the Protect Seals site were accurate, this somewhat gory and disturbing slideshow at Yahoo/AP news seems to support the high numbers of slaughter. There doesn't seem to be much you can do to stop seal clubbing in 2005, just boycotting Canadian seafood and calling congressfolks. Shame to see up to 300k seals killed for some fur coats -- seems so last century.
posted by mathowie at 9:47 AM PST - 210 comments

Planes check in but they don’t check out. At boneyards across the country, derelict airliners await cannibalization, destruction, or possible restoration.
posted by breezeway at 9:19 AM PST - 26 comments

Robert Creeley, one of the most exquisite and influential poets of our era, died this morning at age 78. I'd link to a story, but it's not in the news yet. This is a note from one of Robert's friends: "American poet Robert Creeley passed away this morning at 6:15 am in Odessa, Texas, where he was fulfilling a Residency at the Lannan Foundation. (Mr. Creeley was a recipient of the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.) His wife of twenty-eight years, Penelope, and son Will and daughter Hannah were at his side. The cause of death was complications from respiratory disease." Though a comrade and muse for Beat Generation writers like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, Creeley was much less well-known, and had a style rather unlike theirs, distinguished by extreme economy of words and an understated approach toward emotion. Creeley was often cited as a pioneer by the so-called language poets, and his most creatively generative friendship was with another poet's poet, the late Charles Olson. Creeley's subtlety and balance will be missed.
posted by digaman at 9:17 AM PST - 38 comments

A look at arranged marriages for Indian-Americans.
posted by daksya at 8:43 AM PST - 26 comments

The Aurora   (mostly pictures, slightly more info here). One car, two men, three decades of rust. Guy buys truly hideous 1957 prototype car from junkyard, restores it to gleaming unsightliness. Conne_ticut?
posted by planetkyoto at 8:19 AM PST - 28 comments

The Many Sides of Pat Sajak: In case knowing about his over 20 years on the Wheel is not enough, you can learn about his minor league baseball investment, his record label, and his deep politcal thoughts. (Via this via that.)
posted by hackly_fracture at 8:09 AM PST - 32 comments

Dark Energy, envisioned as “the major component of the universe,” is believed to accelerate the expansion of the universe, though some physicists disagree.
posted by dfowler at 8:08 AM PST - 4 comments

Conscientious Objector Policy Act would allow Michigander doctors and health care providers to refuse treatment on moral, ethical or religious grounds. Yet another OMG MORALZ OMG sort of bill. But wait, what are morals? And does Nicole Kidman figure into this somehow?
posted by taursir at 8:06 AM PST - 59 comments

Four high school students -- gold chains, fake diamond rings, patchy, adolescent mustaches and sharp brains -- take on MIT and others in a robot competition. They're undocumented Mexican Americans living in trailers and shabby houses in Arizona. They raise only $800 from the community to fund their project, while the MIT team raises $11,000 from corporate donors. They have to scrounge for the "most best tampons" at the last moment to fix a leak in their robot. The other teams snicker at their garishly painted robot when it's unveiled poolside. You know how this is going to end. You know. But it's very satisfying to read nonetheless. (via Amygdala)
posted by maudlin at 6:59 AM PST - 86 comments

WebWaste.net • "WebWaste is an Internet rubbish dump; a collective yet anonymous dustbin, open to all Internet users. By going onto WebWaste you can browse through the rubbish and inspect what Internet users before you have thrown away. This might include images, texts, sounds and movie clips. WebWaste collects trash from your own computer's Recycle Bin and uploads it to the waste dump through the downloadable Dustman-application. This process too is anonymous so no one can know who threw what away."
posted by dhoyt at 6:11 AM PST - 15 comments

Sanchez Perjury Proof ? That depends on the meaning of "never" Mainstream media once again caught with pants down as blogger citizen-journalist notes apparent perjury by Gen. Sanchez during testimony before the US Congress concerning whether he authorized torture or not. The Globe and Mail noticed the ACLU release of a FOIA-obtained memo showing that Sanchez did in fact authorize torture, but the implication of perjury seems to have escaped MSM notice, to be pointed out by a blogger Metafilter's own citizen journalist Mark Kraft, who declares : "Sanchez is clearly guilty of perjury, and should face the wrath of Congress... and the Senate should determine the guilt of his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, while they're at it."

The case all hinges on the meaning of the word "never" which - rumor holds - is much more flexible in Sanchez' native "Never-never Land" where - as with the rumored numerous Eskimo terms for different kinds of snow - denizens of that realm have many different meanings for "never", some of which in fact mean "sometimes" or "occasionally" !
posted by troutfishing at 5:53 AM PST - 62 comments

Two-thirds of world's resources 'used up' according to a preliminary report(PDF) from the royal society due out later today from the millennium ecosystem assessment project started by Kofi Annan of the united nations.
posted by cytherea at 2:05 AM PST - 56 comments