May 22, 2011

The Elephant In The Green Room

How Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes Failed At Setting Up A Strong Republican Candidate for 2012: The circus Roger Ailes created at Fox News made his network $900 million last year. But it may have lost him something more important: the next election. A lengthy (7 page) New York Magazine article. Single page link.
posted by hippybear at 9:37 PM PST - 130 comments

RIP Bob Gould

The Sydney bookseller and Labor left-wing activist Bob Gould has died at the age of 74. His massive bookstore, Gould's Books, is a Sydney landmark. A massive archive of his political writings can be found online.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 7:45 PM PST - 35 comments

Songs to Ignite the Spirit

Nuns + Cock
posted by puny human at 7:45 PM PST - 27 comments

Perverse Incentives

Obstetricians and gynecologists are meeting the increased demand for cosmetic vaginal surgery (NSFW)
posted by reenum at 5:27 PM PST - 147 comments

Jesus came back, sort of.

Holy Turtle!
posted by Bag Man at 5:11 PM PST - 40 comments

Dance is beautiful.

Ethan Law Roue Cyr performs a solo dance with a hula hoop. This is beautiful, a little astonishing, and more than a little moving. I didn't look away once. [more inside]
posted by Rory Marinich at 4:45 PM PST - 37 comments

High School Ranking Never Ends

Today the Washington Post released its annual High School Challenge Index, which ranks DC-area public high schools. But in a twist this year, they have also expanded their rankings nationally to more than 1900 public high schools. [more inside]
posted by Ike_Arumba at 3:14 PM PST - 70 comments

The latest in medical sperm collection

Further proof that China is indeed the up and coming (sorry, I couldn't resist the childish pun) new global economic force. Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that this may turn up at one of my local adult toy stores?
posted by janetplanet at 3:11 PM PST - 45 comments

“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” says Stocker.

Parents Kathy Witterick and David Stocker welcomed their third baby into the world this year, but they won't tell anyone whether Storm is a boy or a girl. “We thought that if we delayed sharing that information, in this case hopefully, we might knock off a couple million of those messages by the time that Storm decides Storm would like to share,” says Witterick Storm's brothers, Jazz and Kio are also encouraged to wear their hair however they wish, and pick out clothing they like. [more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 2:55 PM PST - 334 comments

Beat the Devil

"Beat the Devil" went straight from box office flop to cult classic and has been called the first camp movie, although Bogart, who sank his own money into it, said, "Only phonies like it." It's a movie that was made up on the spot; Huston tore up the original screenplay on the first day of filming, flew the young Truman Capote to Ravallo, Italy, to crank out new scenes against a daily deadline and allowed his supporting stars, especially Robert Morley and Peter Lorre, to create dialogue for their own characters. (Capote spoke daily by telephone with his pet raven, and one day when the raven refused to answer he flew to Rome to console it, further delaying the production.) - Roger Ebert's Great Movies
posted by Trurl at 1:51 PM PST - 21 comments

the benefits of work sharing

Work Sharing - "Work-sharing schemes, in many different forms, are becoming the norm in Holland and Denmark, and have made inroads in France and Germany. The key element in any such approach is to separate work from income. [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 1:49 PM PST - 25 comments

Preservation of a Dream

The last hand-written newspaper in the world - A brief film about The Musalman, which has been penned in Urdu calligraphy every day since 1927. via CreativeRoots [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive at 1:11 PM PST - 15 comments

Vegeta answers back with stack after stack!!

wow, high level play from both players here, really close. the cookie chains were knit tight, like yarn in a yoshi sweater. on the sweater, yoshi is eating a cookie. absent-mindedness or perhaps careful alteration of the "Yoshi Eats Cookie Sweater" pattern makes yoshi take on a more pensive expression, looking at the viewer with a pensiveness that reflects the lives of the men lost in gycl06, like a puddle of water in a battlefield, opaque with blood and mud, its glory hours long passed. A video, with commentary, of the Yoshi Cookie Eastern Conference Finals. SLYT.
posted by codacorolla at 11:08 AM PST - 41 comments

She was a woman, so we asked her if she could handle it, because it was big, Mrs. Donovan said

They might not teach you how to be an alligator trapper who works barefoot in Florida, but The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Becoming an Outdoors Woman program is patterned after a similar one that began in Wisconsin, and Becoming an Outdoors Woman programs are available across the U.S. and Canada. [more inside]
posted by cashman at 10:44 AM PST - 11 comments

Successful Alcoholics

After making the rounds on the film festival circuit, the short comedy "Successful Alcoholics," starring T.J. Miller ("Cloverfield," "Yogi Bear") and Lizzy Caplan ("Party Down," "True Blood") is available to watch in full on Funny or Die.
posted by amro at 10:16 AM PST - 43 comments

Literary Blurb Translation Guide

"Trenchant satire" = poop jokes. J. Robert Lennon at Ward Six presents the Literary Blurb Translation Guide.
posted by escabeche at 8:51 AM PST - 55 comments

Dimming soon to a theater near you.

While theaters with weak and incorrect bulbs have long been the bane of movie fans, the rise of 3D projectors have added a new wrinkle. Many chain theaters (at least in the Boston area) are leaving on the 3D lenses for 2D movies, which can make it "as much as 85 percent darker than a properly projected film".
posted by FreezBoy at 8:38 AM PST - 73 comments

You are under arrest for breaching the Hot Gossip Act

Twitter and unnamed Twitterers sued by anonymous man. These are the six tweets referred to.
Some are fighting for the right to gossip as Judges and MPs clash on gagging orders and a showdown between the law and common sense is brewing.
Its not all about sports personalities with way too much cash.
As Imogen Thomas says: Yet again my name and reputation have been trashed while the man I had a relationship with is able to hide.
List of known gagging orders. ( google spreadsheet and Previously 1; 2 ).
posted by adamvasco at 4:35 AM PST - 97 comments

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