May 31, 2014

Bread riots were as rare as the prized Semper Augustus tulip

The Austerity Kitchen (previously) on the Dutch abundance of the 17th Century
posted by The Whelk at 9:51 PM PST - 7 comments

Ezekiel saw the wheel. This is the wheel he said he saw.

Years before the X-Files appeared on TV, there was Project U.F.O., produced by Jack Webb, famous for creating Dragnet and many other popular television series. The show features two U.S. Air Force investigators with the Foreign Technology Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, charged with investigating UFO sightings. The first season starred William Jordan as Maj. Jake Gatlin alongside Caskey Swaim as Staff Sgt. Harry Fitz. Jordan was a rather nondescript leading man, while Swaim, who had never had any significant acting experience before landing the role, added diversity as a Southerner with a pronounced accent. In season two, Jordan was replaced by Edward Winter as Capt. Ben Ryan. Many of the episodes were loosely based on case files from the Air Force's Project Blue Book, which ran from 1952-1970. Project U.F.O. only ran for two seasons, from 1978-1979, and was never re-aired in the USA, nor was it released on video. [more inside]
posted by smoothvirus at 8:49 PM PST - 63 comments

"You've never seen anything like it!"

Bill and Coo Plot: The feathered residents of Chirpendale are terrorized by an evil black crow by the name of "The Black Menace". But to the citizen's rescue comes a brave young taxi puller named Bill! [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:14 PM PST - 7 comments

No man left behind

Bowe Bergdahl, American Soldier, Freed by Taliban in Prisoner Trade (NYT) [more inside]
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:17 PM PST - 128 comments

Rap Shirts for White People

"DISCLAIMER: Rap Shirts for White People can be worn by people of all colors, but in some cases, it may not be appropriate to wear them at all. Use your best judgment." [NSFTwerk]
posted by Rykey at 4:05 PM PST - 102 comments

Funnilingus

A charmingly illustrated guide on how to engage in oral sex with a woman.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:47 PM PST - 64 comments

they speak of themselves as leading a “conservative reform project”

Are Reform Conservatives Serious?
A crop of young thinkers trying to steer the right toward the future needs to both vanquish the Tea Party and show it has more than just a marketing campaign.
posted by davidstandaford at 11:55 AM PST - 40 comments

Flew On The Pitch And We're 'Aving A Laugh

Yesterday, during the pre-World Cup friendly between England and Peru being played at Wembley Stadium, there were three goals scored, but the moment that captured the most attention has been this unbelievable, incredible paper airplane toss.
posted by BeerFilter at 11:30 AM PST - 24 comments

"That just seems to be the wrong incentive structure"

"I have seen the killer's face every day since that happened - multiple times - but I have not seen any of the victims..."
Sociologist Zeynep Tufekci has four suggestions for removing the social incentives for copycat killers, in the wake of the recent murders in California. She wrote about this in The Atlantic a couple of years ago, and she talks about her ideas in a more recent interview on CBC's Day 6.
posted by sneebler at 10:38 AM PST - 23 comments

She Looks Like An Old Bald Headed Man

Someone posted an ad on Craigslist seeking women who for one reason or another had never seen their own vagina and then set them up with a mirror in the Vagina Booth to film their reaction.
posted by gman at 10:14 AM PST - 27 comments

You're right; I didn't eat that

I am not especially bothered by men who desire thin women. They are just as susceptible to messages that these are the women that they should find most attractive as women are to messages that they should look like them. The more troubling kind of man has a caveat about a woman’s thinness. She must not be “obsessed” or “overly concerned” with it. Or at least not visibly so. She mustn’t always order salads or freak out when she doesn’t make it to the gym. Watching her eat a cheeseburger—or better yet, a steak—even oddly enthralls him.
Reflections on thinness, staying thin and making it look natural by Alana Massey.
posted by MartinWisse at 9:42 AM PST - 218 comments

Where is Laverne Cox? On the cover of Time.

After the controversial decision last month (previously) to leave actress and activist Laverne Cox out of their "Time 100" issue, Cox has become the first transgender person to grace the cover of Time magazine.
posted by The Gooch at 9:07 AM PST - 42 comments

"The strange, preachy, profitable saga of Billy Jack"

"It’s most logical to conceive of Billy Jack as a dream-movie accidentally created by a spiritually confused, LSD-addled 19-year-old who fell asleep in the early 1970s while watching a weird, humorless movie about a half-Native American/half-Caucasian warrior who does not want to fight, because he’s too good—both in the sense of being a singularly skilled one-man killing machine, and in subscribing to a higher moral and ideological cause than his bloodthirsty brothers-in-arms And yet he’s pushed by circumstances into dramatically kicking ass, over and over." Nathan Rabin takes a long look at the bizarre pair of blockbusters Billy Jack and The Trial of Billy Jack. [more inside]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:48 AM PST - 67 comments

I have the photo, but I don't remember being there...

Maybe it's time to put down that camera/smart phone. A short NPR article (including a link to the audio, an interview with Maryanne Garry, a psychology professor at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand) discussing why it's important to be thoughtful about the amount of time you spend experiencing life through a viewfinder and how the digital age has impacted on our parental role as archivist of our own and our children's lives.
posted by HuronBob at 4:20 AM PST - 46 comments

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