Four Canadian soldiers killed, 8 injured in friendly fire accident. The first Canadian soldiers killed in a combat zone since the Korean War 50 years ago were hit by laser guided bombs from a U.S. national guard F-16 fighter-bomber. Damn it...
posted by Mack Twain at 11:34 PM PST - 25 comments

A hell of a way to thank someone... "Teachers would keep more money in their pocket each payday and send less of it to the IRS...Hard-earned money always goes further in a household than in a rat hole."

Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA) wants to attract teachers and keep them...by decreasing or removing their income tax liability. As an aspiring teacher, I like the idea...but does it actually have legs, or does the legislation have the proverbial snowball's chance of survival? Has any politician ever tried to introduce a bill that would give a tax cut to a particular profession? How did it fare? Discuss amongst yourselves.
posted by Spinderella56 at 11:00 PM PST - 20 comments

google ad word abuse. who sits at home thinking up these "creative" ways of getting more hits to their sites?
posted by Kafei at 10:37 PM PST - 20 comments

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The CBC discusses the history briefly here; more importantly, how has the Charter affected Canadians? Are we better off for waiting 115 years? Or will it have any lasting, practical effect after all?
posted by Nyx at 8:43 PM PST - 4 comments

Damon Knight, teacher [1922-2002]. You made us all write to the very best we could and then you made us try for better. Damon, thank you, and we'll do our best to pass it on.
posted by realjanetkagan at 8:29 PM PST - 11 comments

Yahoo! Tracking Users Across Partner Sites By now, I think most people have probably heard about Yahoo!'s decision to opt everybody into their marketing options [relevant MeFi Thread], but this is the first I'd heard of Yahoo! using "web beacons" to aggregate user information across sites outside the Yahoo! network Doublclick style. [via: MacInTouch]
posted by willnot at 8:09 PM PST - 11 comments

Which Jerkcity Character are you? The personality test to end all others. PLUS: although it only has a few entries so far, rands' blog is looking really great. In case you didn't know, Jerkcity is a daily comic strip enjoyed by all the cool people on the internet, similar to the weekly Hotendotey or Sanscomic, (a comic strip by Ecco the cat, who "does anal") but with more mechanical production, more Perl/TCL jokes, and more references to hlauaghaghgah. Please note that you cannot be 1337 if you like RedMeat. This post is dedicated to Quonsar The Magnificent and all other truly 1337 mefiers willing to stand up for what is right. Remember: argument's are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
posted by Settle at 8:02 PM PST - 13 comments

Will the Swedes save Rock 'n' Roll? This New Yorker article takes a look at the recent popularity of rock acts like the Strokes (boo!) and the White Stripes (yay!), and ponders whether the return of true rock is at hand. The author seems ultimately to decide that rock's redeemers will be the Hives, a fun bunch from Sweden. (Link remorselessly lifted from Overstated.net)
posted by MonkeyMeat at 8:01 PM PST - 37 comments

Suprise. Another gaping hole in Internet Explorer. This one's pretty alarming. Mozilla, anyone?
posted by dr_emory at 6:47 PM PST - 48 comments

Jiro Changey Kikaida! Words instantly recognizable to any Hawaii kid in the 70s. Think Power Rangers, but adusted for a low yen exchange rate. The local Japanese TV station is rebroadcasting the show on Sundays. We used to worship this kind and powerful robotronic guy. Trailers, masks and lyrics, it's all here, just as I remembered it.
posted by Tacodog at 6:35 PM PST - 2 comments

John McCain: Switching teams, or a look into the future of the Republican Party?
posted by BlueTrain at 5:03 PM PST - 22 comments

The wall seperating analysts and traders appears to have completely broken down in Merril Lynch. Yesterday, NYT reported that SEC is joining the investigation. The accounting scandal in QWest is now one of many in the telecommunication world. There is also the well documented travails of Anderson Consulting.... This year there has been a crop of accounting scandals. Does the financial world needs stricter regulatory mechanism or is it simply a matter of lax supervision? (more inside)
posted by justlooking at 4:33 PM PST - 12 comments

You too can be a ninja!
posted by neilkod at 2:57 PM PST - 28 comments

In one of the worst cases of child abuse in Canadian history, Tony and Marcia Dooley stand trial for the second-degree murder of Tony's son Randall, who was 6 at the time that he was killed.

The autopsy found that he had 14 broken ribs, a lacerated liver and multiple head wounds. The coroner has said that the wounds inflicted are consistent with being stomped on by an adult.

I don't understand how people like this can be allowed to have children in their custody. The case both saddens and sickens me, and (without starting a huge debate on the merits on capital punishment - that's old hat) sometimes makes me wish we were a little harder on our criminals up here in Canada.
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 2:36 PM PST - 38 comments

Nigerian Boy Raised by Chimps. I swear I'm not making this up. A disabled two-year-old Fulani boy was abandoned by his nomadic family because he was mentally and physically disabled, and was raised by a chimpanzee family in Nigeria's Falgore forest for a year and a half. He was found by hunters several years ago, and now lives in a children's home, where he walks and vocalizes like a chimpanzee, unable to communicate with humans normally. So the obvious question: Is it better to have taken this child away from his chimp family to live in an orphanage, or should they have let him continue to live in the forest?
posted by waldo at 2:13 PM PST - 32 comments

New York's Natural History Museum Pioneers Use of Internet2 "Sebastien Lepine, a post-doctoral fellow at the museum, had figured that it would take him a year, using the commercial Internet, to finish downloading two 360-degree digital sky surveys for his study of fast-moving stars. But that was before the museum connected to Abilene." This indication of how the "commmercial Internet" has become so clogged with crap annoys me intensely. Particularly when the article points out just a few of the research projects that need high bandwidth.
posted by elgoose at 11:32 AM PST - 13 comments

Oregon assisted suicide law upheld. After declaring his intent to use the Federal Controlled Substances Act to go after doctors who prescribe lethal doses of medication to patients, the AG is faced with a court ruling that "does not prohibit practitioners from prescribing and dispensing controlled substances in compliance with a carefully worded state legislative act." The plot thickens.
posted by shagoth at 10:59 AM PST - 22 comments

FullAudio and ClearChannel Radio form alliance to bring subscription music services to consumers. Another lame attempt to understand music consumers.The truth is buried in a faq section. Can I listen to tracks on my MP3 player? No. Can I convert my tracks to MP3 format? No. What's the point of this service?
posted by chainring at 10:50 AM PST - 13 comments

Has Axl Rose Gone to Far? MeFi favorites, the Replacements' Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson are said to have worked on Westerberg's new album, much to the chagrin of Axl Rose, Stinson's new boss. Did Rose stop a potential Replacement's Reunion? Does anyone care that the Sex Pistols are going to tour again?
posted by drezdn at 10:34 AM PST - 28 comments

Is the environment the next victim of post 9/11 America? Disputes between the military and environmentalists are nothing new. But the Navy sonar controversy is approaching a climax in what both proponents and opponents say is a new atmosphere created by the Sept. 11 attacks. The military has been for some time increasingly concerned about environmental "encroachments" of all kinds -- conservation-based restrictions on how training camps and bombing ranges can be used, and now on deploying new technology. Military leaders say the time has arrived to address these concerns, and Congress appears increasingly sympathetic to this viewpoint.
posted by skallas at 9:24 AM PST - 11 comments

Spenser: Retired Robert Urich 1946-2002 :(
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:23 AM PST - 20 comments

Now for something completely different. Virtual Nose Hair Plucking. Ever get the urge to pluck someone else's nose hair? Me either but just in case you do...
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 8:43 AM PST - 21 comments

Three Big Game winners will soon be splitting a $325 million dollar pot. Those poor people. Some studies indicate that if history is any guide, one of them will eventually go bankrupt. Still wish your numbers had come up?
posted by yhbc at 8:34 AM PST - 44 comments

The Wagon Queen Family Truckster. "You think you hate it now, but wait till you drive it." Yes, indeed, it is a long way down that Holiday Road, but I know I am not the only one with fond kid memories of rambling around with the family in the back of one of these beauties. Nothing says sensible 70s American automobilia quite like a big V6 or V8 engine and wood panelling.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:47 AM PST - 7 comments

Refugees denied human face. 'Taking photographs that could "humanise or personalise" asylum seekers was banned by former defence minister Peter Reith's office, the Senate inquiry into children-overboard claims was told yesterday.'
posted by kv at 7:35 AM PST - 27 comments

Mother of teen suicide pilot sues drug company for $70M. Mom claims that the acne drug her son was taking caused his depression and subsequent suicide flight. Do you buy it?
posted by goto11 at 7:22 AM PST - 33 comments

Bionic Man? "Australian scientists say they have created a "thinking cap" that will stimulate creative powers. It is based on the idea that we all have the sorts of extraordinary abilities usually associated with savants."

The device is said to improve drawing skills within 15 minutes.
posted by MintSauce at 6:20 AM PST - 24 comments

VW introduces a car that gets around 235 miles per gallon (1 liter per 100km).
When should we expect Ford to release a commercial in which the newest heir to the auto dynasty relates how his father shot bears with Einstein and was told by him, in confidence, that he thought small cars were for whiny little babies?
posted by internetgeniuses at 6:18 AM PST - 48 comments

The origin of "It's not a bug -- it's a feature."
Blame the Intellivision.
posted by NortonDC at 6:11 AM PST - 15 comments

"Human speech has two disctinctive yet complementary functions and modes. The Overt mode is spoken forwards and is primarily under conscious control. The Covert mode is spoken backward and is not under conscious control. In the dynamics of interpersonal communication, both modes of speech combined communicate the total psyche of the person, conscious as well as unconscious. " Can this show us new insights into the human mind, or is it merely tihsllub?
posted by cashmein at 5:41 AM PST - 23 comments

French culture in crisis ? After the Vivendi Universal french CEO Jean-Marie Messier fired Canal+ chairman Pierre Lescure yesterday, many questions arise in France. Will Vivendi, through Canal+, continue to help French cinema the way Canal+ did in the past ? Is this the last straw in a long series of acts and declarations from Vivendi's CEO against "Franco-French cultural exception" ? Has The Man finally won in France ? What's to happen in all the other countries were Vivendi (or any of the BigCo) basically owns the culture through local companies ?
posted by XiBe at 2:31 AM PST - 10 comments