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I clicked this link today while perusing this MSNBC blog (which is occasionally amusing). It seems that ArticleBot's hackles have been raised, and they are on the defensive against mainstream media (aka MSM). I'm not exactly sure what their point is, but I really hate it when people "overuse" the "quotation" marks in their "unique content". I would have totally left it alone if they had not called attention to themselves by responding in this manner. Plus the assistance they are offering reminds me a little of these MIT geniuses (previously discussed on MeFi here and here) except designed to spider search engines. I'm sure it's completely legal, but the ethics are questionable to say the least.
posted by shoppingforsanity at 11:35 PM PST - 90 comments

L I V E W R O N G : is right. The purveyors, or perpetrators, of LIVEWRONG suggest you represent what you want, when you want, how you want. Buy a bracelet. It is what it is. The creators of the LIVEWRONG armband do not oppose any person, pet, or living thing that have cancer, nor do we oppose any charity that supports a cure for cancer.
posted by RockyChrysler at 9:08 PM PST - 47 comments

Concerning crops. Pesticides are good and/or bad. Organic is good and/or bad. And what about organic pesticides? Maybe organic might not even mean what you think it means. Let's strap on our pesticide gear and grow something--or die trying! (headlice.org, what a nice resource!)
posted by gunthersghost at 8:13 PM PST - 8 comments

Rules For the Library - Satirical relief for those who suffer or have suffered under an oppressive, Orwellian library atmosphere:

1) There will be absolutely no reading of any kind in the library.
...
2) No breathing in the library.
...
3) No walking or moving in the library.
...
posted by nervestaple at 7:28 PM PST - 69 comments

Infected warthog anus boogers!Author and iconoclast; or freak? If you spent any time in downtown Toronto in the 80's you likely saw Crad Kilodney, Dead Man Talking.
posted by arse_hat at 7:20 PM PST - 12 comments

I searched and searched, but couldn't find a single post about the Guess the Google game. Even his Montage-a-Google project can't be found.
posted by absalom at 5:05 PM PST - 15 comments

Mars City. An amazing case inspired by Doom 3.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 3:22 PM PST - 39 comments

Serenity The trailer online. This makes me soooo happy. I've been watching and re-watching the DVD set far too many times to be healthy.
posted by rexruff at 2:02 PM PST - 130 comments

Political Friendster. Because before Senator James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, declared Global Warming a "hoax" he met with his friend ExxonMobil, taking $249,000 from one friend to another.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 1:11 PM PST - 12 comments

Texas House votes to ban gay unions. A layout editor for The Dallas Morning News has some fun with it. [via TheAgitator]
posted by casu marzu at 12:02 PM PST - 61 comments

Rashomon... I thought about posting a link to the distinctive art style of Sam Weber, or the 25 greatest comic book covers ever made, or avante-garde Hungarian photographer László Moholy-Nagy, or this collection of Russian and Ukrainian posters--but instead, I decided to tell you all about the site where I found every one of these links: Rashomon, a new and (thus-far) consistently interesting collection of interesting visual arts links.
posted by yankeefog at 11:55 AM PST - 15 comments

"The haggis was pronounced excellent by all that ate it, foreigners and Koreans, including the Vice-Minister." A diplomat describes opening the British embassy in Pyongyang. Direct link (rtf) here.
posted by stonerose at 9:50 AM PST - 16 comments

Fighting a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent. [Via MoFi]
posted by AlexReynolds at 9:47 AM PST - 35 comments

Society has been using leeches among other things for bloodletting in order to treat diseases for thousands of years. In fact, the word leech may derive from the olde english word for physician. Leech treatment peaked in the early 1800's and then waned. But it's become fashionable again in recent times. FDA approval was given last year allowing leeches to be raised for medicinal use. So there's no need to be scared of them anymore. You can buy them in bulk for about $7 a suck pop and have them delivered in their own leech mobile home. Consider also replacing your viagra and massage oil.
posted by peacay at 9:15 AM PST - 15 comments

How about a little deus ex machina to lighten up your Tuesday? By now, we all know that Superman is a dick. Did you also know that he was a crypto fascist who was not above a little water supply tampering?
Apparently, even for superman, being super smart does not make you super wise [via]
posted by Capn at 8:13 AM PST - 21 comments

The Medium is the Massage [mp3s]. Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian Professor of English Literature who coined phrases such as "the medium is the message" and global village in the 1960s, and who talked about coming global connectivity, saw media such as the printing-press and television as changing not only the information we received, but the ways in which we understand information and the world. His publishing style often involved the collection and juxtaposition of quotations and observations in a ways that were fast and cut-up, including collage and typographic experiment, and a sound collage lp released in 1967 which sounds as if it was recorded today.
posted by carter at 8:13 AM PST - 13 comments

Feet Me. Celebrity shoes live onstage: from assertive Beastie Boys and PJ Harvey to sporty Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Neil Young, from old skool Claudio Abbado and Nick Cave to minimalist, shoeless David Bowie.
posted by matteo at 7:50 AM PST - 17 comments

Lakota Winter Counts. Lakota and other plains tribes counted time by winters. An appointed recorder would choose one major event to mark the year, depicting that event by name and symbol. Early records dating back to the 10th century were often painted on buffalo skins; more recent winter counts were recorded as text journals. These fascinating records offer insight into natural and historic events for our land that precede accounts of European settlers. - more -
posted by madamjujujive at 7:47 AM PST - 12 comments

You goin’ to the COUNTY FAIR? Don’t miss the Tractor Pull!!
posted by dfowler at 7:46 AM PST - 26 comments

An insightful piece of poetry criticism by Adam Kirsch encapsulates the work of Charles Bukowski, popular poet with MeFi's and others. Camile Paglia has a go at poetry crit in her latest, Break, Blow, Burn. I read the Kirsch piece because I have a passing familiarity with Bukowski, and if I saw someone reading a volume, I'd have some snap insight into what their interests may be. Though I often judge a reader by their book's cover, I could do this with very few poetry books, and I can't remember seeing anyone with a poetry book, or telling me about a poetry book in a long time. While some of us read for pleasure, we probably aren't reading poetry. The slam poetry movement of a few years ago seems to have lost its media fire. The death of poetry is periodically announced, and others disagree. My casual observation is that many poetry lovers actually write poetry, and are not students of the genre. Poems are short, it's easy to call something a poem, and it may make the writer feel better to write one out. Rarely are they good, and rarer still will they find an audience outside of web communities of other poetry writers. Can vigorous and accessible poetry criticism revive poetry readership? Does anyone who does not write poems read poetry, especially unfamiliar poetry? Will anyone cop to writing it but not reading it? And should we care?
posted by rainbaby at 7:40 AM PST - 39 comments

The winning design for the National AIDS Memorial Design Competition has been announced. Janette Kim and Chloe Town's "Living Memorial" references forest fires, and will be located in the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Walter Hood, a juror, called the design a “gutsy anti-landscape element that reflects anger, death—and eventual healing and renewal.”
posted by R. Mutt at 6:48 AM PST - 13 comments

Looks like MSN upped their search count results for items that return more than about 2million hits, a lot of entries have grown more than 500% in the last few days. unfortunately this site (which graphs the number of results in the engines at any time for different search phrases) was down the last couple of days. Sounds like MSN are inflating their results, why this happened is yet unclear
posted by leighm at 6:27 AM PST - 11 comments

MyGastricBypass.com "This doctor feels that I have 25 to 30 lbs of excess flesh to come off. All the dieting the world won't remove that, so now I have some major decisions to make....Never did I think that this would be happening to me....Granted, it's better than weighing 500 lbs, but it's pretty nasty looking....The frightening thing is what happens to this skin when I get in the pool. OMG! It floats!!" - A long and actually heroic saga of self-disclosure, somehow Zen too, of one woman's successful attempt to remake her body and so her life - this rises at times to sublime heights : "I believe in a force called the Cosmic Shoe....Moorings are loosened and our boat feels adrift. When that doesn't get us moving, the Cosmic Shoe finally KICKS our ass into the direction he was trying to nudge us in the first place."
posted by troutfishing at 6:26 AM PST - 96 comments

CITEL, an entity of the Organization of American States, is the main forum in the hemisphere in which the governments and the private sector meet to coordinate regional efforts to develop the Global Information Society according to the mandates of the General Assembly of the Organization and the mandates entrusted to it by Heads of State and Government at the Summits of the Americas.

No Democrats allowed.
posted by bashos_frog at 6:14 AM PST - 45 comments

Dude falling.
posted by BirdD0g at 6:04 AM PST - 38 comments

Dear Mother, Just a wee note. I am “going over the parapet”, and the chances of a “sub” getting back alive are abut nix.

A letter home written by Canadian soldier Hart Leech in 1916.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 5:49 AM PST - 21 comments

Got Conscience? His company did $22 million in business last year, moving American manufacturing plants offshore. "It's not right," Hosea says. "But if I don't do it, someone else is gonna do it." Interesting, if it’s true, is that he tells his potential clients that what they’re about to do is wrong.
posted by tizzie at 5:26 AM PST - 21 comments

Alan Macfarlane is a historian cum anthropologist. You can find some of his writings and videos on witchcraft, on the family and on English individualism on the site. There is also a collection of video-interviews with anthropologists such as Frith, Geerz, and Richards. In fact, there is so much to read and hear that you won't miss your television.
posted by TimothyMason at 5:20 AM PST - 5 comments

Monty Python meets Magic the Gathering.
posted by seanyboy at 4:45 AM PST - 9 comments

What is on your bumper? Are bumper stickers a relic of the past? Are they more/less prevalent by region/country?
posted by robbyrobs at 4:40 AM PST - 75 comments

Woman stoned to death for adultery ...... in Afghanistan.
posted by magullo at 3:02 AM PST - 64 comments

Great Salon interview with Marjane Satrapi (author of Persepolis). via
posted by Tlogmer at 2:13 AM PST - 6 comments