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UpdateFilter: Microsoft bows to pressure, supports gay rights after all.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 5:40 PM PST - 39 comments

Working Title Animation of Steven Hill's 3186 movie title screens. (via Waxy via B3ta)
posted by fungible at 4:23 PM PST - 9 comments

Total chaos, no way to see the race, not even the track...nobody cares. Big lines at the outdoor betting windows, then stand back to watch winning numbers flash on the big board, like a giant bingo game.

Old blacks arguing about bets; "Hold on there, I'll handle this" (waving pint of whiskey, fistful of dollar bills); girl riding piggyback, T-shirt says, "Stolen from Fort Lauderdale Jail." Thousands of teen-agers, group singing "Let the Sun Shine In," ten soldiers guarding the American flag and a huge fat drunk wearing a blue football jersey (No. 80) reeling around with quart of beer in hand.

No booze sold out here, too dangerous...no bathrooms either. Muscle Beach...Woodstock...many cops with riot sticks, but no sign of a riot. Far across the track the clubhouse looks like a postcard from the Kentucky Derby.
posted by airguitar at 4:10 PM PST - 25 comments

How "Real ID" Act will affect you [CNET]
Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service.
posted by dand at 1:28 PM PST - 94 comments

Islamic finance --doing business according to Shari'a. ...Pious Muslims are not allowed to invest in industries that have ties to tobacco, alcohol, weapons, pornography or pork products. Since the law prohibits banks from charging or paying interest, Noriba and other Islamic Financial Institutions (ifis) instead make money by using a system based on the sharing of capital gains or losses. But even with post-Sept. 11 suspicions that Islamic banks may fund terrorist organizations, demand for the services of ifis is on the rise from the towers of Bahrain to the streets of London. Indeed, they represent one of banking's hottest sectors. ... more here
Socially-conscious investing of a different sort?
posted by amberglow at 1:07 PM PST - 15 comments

Who is the real Bob Saget? • "In comedy circles, there’s a famous Saget story about the night his first daughter was born. After a very difficult birth, during which Sherri Saget and her baby almost died, a friend showed up to find Mr. Saget looking utterly destroyed, unshaven, unrecognizable, but holding his newborn. Oh my God, Bob, she’s beautiful, the friend said. For a dollar, you can finger her, Mr. Saget replied." Saget guests in the upcoming Aristocrats documentary discussed here.
posted by dhoyt at 12:03 PM PST - 55 comments

According to the developmental spiral we are heading towards an unfathomable point in time known as singularity. Could the futurists and science fiction writers such as Vernon Vinge be right?
posted by ttopher at 11:48 AM PST - 57 comments

Aspen - The Multimedia Magazine In A Box On The Web. Produced from 1965 to 1971 as an alternative to a bound magazine, Aspen came as a box filled with booklets, phonograph recordings, posters and postcards by a stellar array of contributors.
posted by liam at 11:12 AM PST - 5 comments

Mars Polar Lander found? The Mars Polar Lander was lost while attempting to land on Mars in December 1999. An initial search for the lander was fruitless. But now Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems thinks he may have found the lander's parachute and crashed remains. Meanwhile, some scientists are worried about landers and crashed vehicles contaminating Mars; others think it's not a problem. [via Slashdot]
posted by flug at 11:11 AM PST - 4 comments

Robert Sheckley, the science fiction author, has been taken ill in a hospital in Kiev. Here is an interview, an appreciation by James Sallis of the Boston Globe and a few short stories from the SciFiction archives: The Prize of Peril, Protection, Cordle to Onion to Carrot, Bad Medicine and A Wind Is Rising.
posted by Kattullus at 11:08 AM PST - 12 comments

Call the SOBs. Having a hard time remembering the toll-free number for the US Capitol Switchboard? Forget no more...it's 877-SOB-U-SOB. Honestly.
posted by diastematic at 10:00 AM PST - 12 comments

Col. David Hackworth, who billed himself as America's most decorated living soldier (he had eight Purple Hearts and ten Silver Stars), died in Mexico this week at age 74. Hackworth saw combat in World War II (having joined the Army at 15), Korea, and Vietnam; in 1967 he and Gen. Samuel Marshall wrote the Vietnam Primer, a "lessons learned" document prepared for the Army to explain how not to fight a guerilla war. In 1971, after years in-country, Hackworth turned publically against the war, telling ABC News that it could not be won and moving to Australia, where his anti-nuclear efforts earned him a United Nations Medal for Peace. Hackworth was a distinguished war correspondent, a self-appointed advocate for the average soldier who used his website as a soapbox, a best-selling author, a critic of American tactics in the Iraq War, and possibly the only figure respected by both WorldNetDaily and Common Dreams.
posted by snarkout at 9:34 AM PST - 33 comments

From the followup department: Global dimming? It stopped. "We see the dimming is no longer there," said Dr. Martin Wild, a climatologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the lead author of one of three papers analyzing sunlight that appear in today's issue of the journal Science. "If anything, there is a brightening." As always, use bugmenot to bypass registration.
posted by darukaru at 8:54 AM PST - 9 comments

Honest With Me: Musical Stories on Bob Dylan "KEXP [Seattle] presents a series of stories on the musical life of Bob Dylan. Told by Dylan’s friends, scholars and fans, 'Honest With Me' features firsthand accounts from Joan Baez, Al Kooper, Izzy Young and the Band’s Robbie Robertson." And they're all pretty great, even if you've heard some of the stories a hundred times.
posted by ericost at 8:45 AM PST - 8 comments

$11.5 Trillion Lost In Bermuda Triangle In case you've ever wondered just how much money the mega rich keep nice and tax free in off shore shelters, it's $11.5 trillion.
posted by expriest at 8:36 AM PST - 46 comments

I was looking around for some information on Lord Berners and came across this. Interesting and good. The root of the URL piqued my curiosity. Who could resist? Certainly not I. What can one say? I mean to say, what can one say? Words fail me so much with this, that, well, what can I say? What would you say?
posted by IndigoJones at 7:02 AM PST - 9 comments

Highlight of the election coverage: George Galloway is the leader of Respect and won a historic and unexpected victory against the Blairite Oona King, on an anti-war ticket. He was then interviewed by Jeremy Paxman, an increasingly controversial interviewer well known for asking questions absurd numbers of times until they get answered - a technique which arguably backfires here. You might want to watch Galloway's acceptance speech first. [Windows Media. My two cents: Paxman is an egregious cock, more interested in getting his eternally righteous indignation across than any issues.]
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:18 AM PST - 75 comments

Everything's Coming up Rosie Just further proof that Ms. O'Donnell is one of the finest actresses of this generation, nay, of this millennium.
posted by rokabiri at 6:10 AM PST - 38 comments

You'll love the chubby babies and thrill to the Heroes and Villains. You'll like the heroines as well. The rest of Stefan Landsberg's Chinese Propaganda Poster site is fairly nifty as well. There are more here, and here. The Taschen volume is always on the table chez nous. (Note : I posted the site link the day before yesterday on the inside, and someone suggested that it should go on the front page, so here it is).
posted by TimothyMason at 5:37 AM PST - 12 comments

Michael Hutchings' rope trick and Dylan Thurston's two-handed knot-drawing sk1llz. Did you need to kill some time practicing pointless skills today?
posted by Wolfdog at 5:18 AM PST - 12 comments

42. I had always wondered why Jim Henson did The Muppet Show in England, after years of successful collaboration with The Children's Television Network in NYC. As a then 9-year old, I felt a kind of betrayal that I couldn't exactly put my finger on. As some little punk kid, what did I know about the financing of entertainment?

This analysis of The Jim Henson Co. as a globe-trotting band of gypsies goes a long way to explain the oddness of The Muppet Show and the change in tone that resulted when the puppets moved from Sesame Street to Lew Grade's London soundstages.
posted by vhsiv at 4:20 AM PST - 26 comments

The International Children's Digital Library has over 600 illustrated children's books entirely viewable online. Included are the amazing 1900 illustrated edition of "A is for Apple", and the 1885 color illustrated "Baseball ABC". Also online are the 1905 and 1916 editions of the illustrated "Alice in Wonderland". Searchable, with books representing 28 languages, including English, Japanese, Farsi, Niuean, Yiddish, Khmer, Tongan, German, Arabic .... (though most contemporary, copyrighted western books are, of course, not here).
posted by R. Mutt at 4:18 AM PST - 12 comments

Prosecutors say they are confident of Corby guilt. But they've got to be joking right? Prosecutors are claiming that because Corby was caught 'red handed' this warrants jailing her for life. Isn't this just a little barbaric though? I mean this poor woman has already been through a totally life changing ordeal that will probably leave her mentally scarred for life (I've refrained from saying f__ked up but that's what I mean). The latest news reports state that she has even found God over the past week or so and recently was baptised to proclaim her faith. I find this behaviour very interesting. Is it a clear indication she is reaching out because she feels totally helpless? Most likely. But good for her anyway. Hey, perhaps a belief in a higher power might have helped the guy who testified at her trial a few weeks ago about Corby being a victim of an Australian drug smuggling ring. Of course being a rat (especially while still in jail) can be hazardous to your health, though. So in conclusion, stupid Mr Rat and poor Miss Corby. She still shouldn't go to prison, though. Related: The 'Bali nine'.
posted by sjvilla79 at 3:58 AM PST - 24 comments

The Khronos Projector interactive art installation allows users to send parts of a filmed projection forwards or backwards in time. Neat temporal waving follows.
posted by peacay at 3:50 AM PST - 6 comments

Google Globetrotting. Play armchair traveler or spot-the-anomaly with thousands of Google Maps satellite photos!
posted by Lush at 3:11 AM PST - 9 comments

A Polite Winter is an eye-catching 'conversation' in 34 images, between the graphic artists James Jean and Kenichi Hoshine. (via)
posted by misteraitch at 1:18 AM PST - 3 comments