"What is it that certain people say or do during a job interview that makes them stand out? Why do some people struggle to find work, while others land a job in no time? I wanted to know, and the only way to find out was to experience the interview from the other side of the table." 22 tips, with video, at How To Nail An Interview.
posted by ShawnStruck at 10:22 PM PST - 66 comments

Last night, Elizabeth Warren visited John Stewart's Daily Show for a lengthy interview: Interview Part One and Interview Part Two. Warren, tapped last November to head congressional oversight of TARP (she has been mentioned before on the blue here and here), is a Harvard Law Professor with a strong interest in economic history (see here and here for more).
posted by ornate insect at 9:34 PM PST - 31 comments

The Brick Testament (previously: 1, 2, 3), created in 2001 by the Reverend Brendan Powell Smith, has just reached The Book of Revelations.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:03 PM PST - 18 comments

Commodore Frank Bainimarama has engineered a coup on top of a coup in sacking the judiciary, suspending the constitution, controlling the press, quashing dissent and taking over the central bank pdf press release. With no reportage of the takeover or criticism of the junta allowed, and with local journalists arrested and foreign correspondents expelled, how is the Fiji’s story being told? Bloggers have taken to the task, but are undertaking huge risks.
posted by mattoxic at 5:35 PM PST - 27 comments

Iraq air raids hit mostly women and children. "Air strikes and artillery barrages have taken a heavy toll among the most vulnerable of the Iraqi people, with children and women forming a disproportionate number of the dead. Analysis carried out for the research group Iraq Body Count (IBC) found that 39 per cent of those killed in air raids by the US-led coalition were children and 46 per cent were women. Fatalities caused by mortars, used by American and Iraqi government forces as well as insurgents, were 42 per cent children and 44 per cent women."
posted by homunculus at 5:20 PM PST - 21 comments

Torture Memos Released

As we explained in the Section 2340A Memorandum, "pain and suffering" as used in Section 2340 is best understood as a single concept, not distinct concepts of "pain" as distinguished from "suffering"... The waterboard, which inflicts no pain or actual harm whatsoever, does not, in our view inflict "severe pain or suffering". Even if one were to parse the statute more finely to treat "suffering" as a distinct concept, the waterboard could not be said to inflict severe sufering. The waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted period of time generally given to suffering.

Ambinder breaks it down, Greenwald rants.
posted by empath at 4:49 PM PST - 172 comments

A giant robotic beetle (YT) built in Japan by a man in his garage -- and it works. [more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:38 PM PST - 20 comments

1930s dogs in clothes - (SLYT)
posted by Artw at 1:38 PM PST - 28 comments

Your business card is CRAP! (SLYT)(via).
posted by ND¢ at 1:29 PM PST - 121 comments

The Go Team might have done it first. But nobody wreaks havoc in a Pac-Man suit like the French!
posted by manosthf at 12:57 PM PST - 37 comments

Tough times call for a new kind of super-mascot. Faster than a charging bull, able to scale tall mountains without the need for oxygen tanks, or even during quiet family moments EneMan is there. Still, there are some places he shouldn't go. More lawsuits cake, anyone?
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:08 PM PST - 18 comments

London police are now deleting tourists' photos because "photographing anything to do with transport is strictly forbidden."
posted by plexi at 11:55 AM PST - 85 comments

"Hot Cougar Sex!" Since the term was first coined, "cougar" has become something of a cultural phenomenon: it's been applied to Samantha on "Sex and the City" and actress Demi Moore, and sometimes shares territory with that other recently-ubiquitous label for sexualized older women: MILFs. Some women have embraced the term as empowering, but as a new reality show debuts, others show why it's less than appealing.
posted by ocherdraco at 11:49 AM PST - 182 comments

Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory : spotless minds might be closer than we think.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:26 AM PST - 20 comments

The Tuk Tuk is coming to America.
posted by gman at 11:18 AM PST - 52 comments

Demon Denim. Feeding off a earlier column in the WSJ by Daniel Akst, who wrote, "no fabric has ever been so insidiously effective at undermining national discipline," conservative columnist George Will takes up the (denim-free) banner in the crusade to rid America of "the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche."
posted by Liver at 10:44 AM PST - 158 comments

"The Cleveland Tourism Board gave me 14 million dollars about 8 months ago to make a promotional video to bring people to Cleveland. As usual, I waited till the last minute and I ended up having to shoot and edit it in about an hour yesterday afternoon. I probably should have invested more time."
posted by dhammond at 10:43 AM PST - 50 comments

Ok, it's an advert but it's a 'directed by Chris Cunningham' advert... [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:04 AM PST - 32 comments

Honeybees are very important players in our web-o-life; 80% of modern crop pollination depends on them. For the last 4 or 5 years, however, they have been dying off in huge numbers from an affliction known as Colony Collapse Disorder. After much fretting and hard work, scientists may have found a cure.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 9:39 AM PST - 52 comments

"Everything begins with complex cladograms I scribble down on large sheets of paper. Before any pictures, these family trees serve as the 'backbone' of the project; allowing me to develop the relationships among different animals and derive ideas from one another." Welcome to the beautiful nonexistent world of Snaiad. Inhabitants include Titanoformes, Cardiocetes, Sprogophidians, and Blumbomeniforms. There are also maps and a timeline. Fantastic speculative zoology from Nemo Ramjet.
posted by HumanComplex at 8:50 AM PST - 22 comments

The Changing Racial Dynamics of the War on Drugs. The Sentencing Project has just released a report (pdf) finding that, for the first time in 20 years, the number of Black Americans in state prison for drug offenses has fallen. Between 1999 and 2005, the number of White drug offenders in state prisons rose about 43 percent, while the number of Black offenders declined by 22 percent. One cause may be a rise in the use of drug courts, which are locally administered programs that divert offenders into treatment rather than incarceration. The Sentencing Project has a recent report (pdf) on this issue as well.
posted by lunit at 8:11 AM PST - 32 comments

Long before there was Adult Swim, there was Cartoon Planet, an odd little show that showed Turner-owned cartoons with surreal vignettes featuring Space Ghost, Zorak and Brak in-between. Soon the old cartoons were dropped in favor of more strangeness from SG and his crew, ostensibly in the form of an afterschool special with regular features like mailbag, story time and educational bits like Learning to Talk Italian. Over time, the sketches got odder and odder. [more inside]
posted by jbickers at 7:58 AM PST - 72 comments

[MLYT] Peter Schiff gives a talk to the Western Regional Mortgage Bankers Association, describing exactly the ongoing economic meltdown. (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). The catch? The talk was given in 2006. Listening to his bullish counterpart in parts 6-8 is a real scream. [more inside]
posted by valkyryn at 7:48 AM PST - 23 comments

Blago to face "fun and comedic challenges" in a reluctant celeb reality show Thank God for Rod Blagojevich. The Energizer buny of political buffoonery. This must have been what he was referring to when he quoted Tennyson in that press conference. Cuz it surely didn't make sense then.
posted by njbradburn at 7:03 AM PST - 28 comments

I can build DNA / I can be a big star (previously) (via the filter)
posted by shadytrees at 6:55 AM PST - 5 comments

Is it "a momentary blip on the inevitable decline of a dying format" or "the onset of an extended revival that will see the record outlive its arch-nemesis the CD?" Last year more people bought vinyl LPs than in any year since Nielsen started keeping track in 1991, nearly doubling sales from the year before. Turntable sales rebounded sharply in 2006. This Saturday, coordinated with the 2nd international Record Store Day, dozens of artists and labels are releasing exclusive vinyl versions of unreleased tracks, rare 7" reissues, remasters and new songs, solely to participating stores. Here's the full list (most with cover art here). [more inside]
posted by mediareport at 6:31 AM PST - 89 comments

Brad Elterman's gallery of (mostly) celebrity photos from the 1970s, including Robert Plant, Matt Dillon, and the tale of Jackie O and the tape. Some shots may be NSFW. [via]
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 6:28 AM PST - 20 comments

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: -

"They Tortured" "Maybe I should have Resigned".

It is not certain whether this interview will be aired in the US because cable and satellite providers have declined to work with Al Jazeera English.
The interview was conducted by Avi Lewis for his program "Fault Lines".
posted by adamvasco at 3:56 AM PST - 73 comments

Are times of recession good or bad for the contemporary art market and artists? "Affordable" is becoming a leitmotif: there are events, international fairs, as well as various galleries. Some collectors and artists are sharing survival tips and tricks; and there are plenty of special offers to be had: Josh Poehlein - screenshot collages, free ; Shepard Fairey - "Obey Eye" screen print, 18 x 24 inches, signed and numbered, at a random time on April 21st: $45.00 ; Michel Gondry - your portrait, signed: $19.95 (allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery); 'Damien Hirst' - "For the love of Paris" postcard, 10.5 x 14.8 cm, signed and sent: € 1,80 ; Banksy - original, freely usable, high-quality jpg files: free.
posted by progosk at 3:29 AM PST - 31 comments