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Wonder Woman has had many costumes over the years, but starting today her outfit will be a little more ... practical.
posted by thecjm at 9:40 PM PST - 181 comments

Louis CK is a pretty funny guy. While the Boston comic hasn't fared well in scripted formats -- projects like The Dana Carvey Show, Pootie Tang, and Lucky Louie were all commercial flops -- his stand-up is quite popular, and his new series Louie (premiering tonight on FX) looks like a winner -- and just in time, too. But that's something you'd need a TV to know about. Luckily, the guy's a big hit on YouTube, and has even added some of his own homemade content to the mix. Click inside for a collection of some of his best (and most NSFW) routines. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi at 9:40 PM PST - 86 comments

The King Is NOT Dead, he's just retiring from his nightly show you didn't realize was still on in order to spend more time with his family and less with Hannity and Maddow. The NYT's David Carr wins the prize for perfectly-timed speculation. So what will happen to Kevin Pollak's "Larry King Game" now?!? [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:19 PM PST - 33 comments

Convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff was released from prison this month and quickly found himself a new job as the head of marketing for a Baltimore kosher pizza shop. [more inside]
posted by youcancallmeal at 7:57 PM PST - 42 comments

Why Some Countries Drive on the Right and Some Countries Drive on the Left. Primarily throughout history people used the “keep-left” rule. It has only been very recently that the world has predominately switched to the “keep-right” rule.
posted by Obscure Reference at 6:40 PM PST - 78 comments

The days of the legendary late-night FM DJ are pretty much behind us...with one notable exception. Vin Scelsa, whose radio career spans 43 years on six different New York City FM stations, has developed a uniquely passionate following through his free-form show Idiot's Delight, which blends an idiosyncratic array of music new and old, commentary, and book recommendations. For decades, Vin has used his on-air time to read entire chapters of books, wax philosophical, and add to his remarkable roster of guests. Faithful fans chronicle every aspect of the show, archive past playlists and articles, and even create works like this very homemade but very informative and worthwhile Unofficial Documentary: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. [more inside]
posted by Miko at 6:22 PM PST - 11 comments

ACLU launches "Spyfiles" to track domestic surveillance. "The American Civil Liberties Union launched a new website Tuesday to track incidents of domestic political surveillance by the government along with a report (PDF) claiming such incidents have increased steadily since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. According to the report there have been 111 incidents of illegal domestic political surveillance since 9/11 in 33 states and the District of Columbia. The website, Spyfiles, will serve as the ACLU's online home for all news and reports of domestic spying."
posted by homunculus at 6:02 PM PST - 12 comments

Mark Bittman's 101 Fast Recipes for Grilling. [more inside]
posted by Anonymous at 5:49 PM PST - 38 comments

Let's say that you're Lenny Kravitz and you're relaxing on a balcony in New Orleans when you hear someone singing one of your songs. What do you do? Well, you could always join in. (SLYT)
posted by ColdChef at 3:44 PM PST - 95 comments

How do you survey a billion people? Since April 1, India has been conducting its 15th decennial census. Unlike in some countries, in India, the data for the census is still entirely collected by enumerators—2.7 million of them—who visit every residence in the country to count the people living there. [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco at 3:42 PM PST - 19 comments

How top officials at Arlington National Cemetery violated Army guidelines -- and may have broken the law.^{Via. Salon.com} Officials at Arlington National Cemetery have been quietly reserving particularly desirable parts of the burial grounds for VIPs. This violates Army regulations and federal law, which bar special burial arrangements for the powerful and well-connected and require that service members be buried in the next available plot at Arlington, regardless of rank or other factors.
posted by Fizz at 2:06 PM PST - 52 comments

The Karzai government is crumbling before our eyes, and if we delude ourselves that this is not the case, we could yet face a replay of 1842. Why the Taliban is winning in Afghanistan - William Dalrymple. (1)
A long in- depth article with historical overtones, which leads to the question: Why Are We in Afghanistan? (2006);(2008); (2010)
posted by adamvasco at 1:52 PM PST - 87 comments

William Wegman, most widely known for his photographs including his Weimaraners, has a body of past works that includes work for Sesame Street. If you're looking for muppets, you will be disappointed. But if you want people with dog heads and human hands, you're in luck! The clips include a haircut and styling for dogs, Rub-a-dub dub, Ten O'Clock Scholar, dogs making the letter A, L and K as in King, dogs demonstrate 2 and 3, a performance of "Jack Sprat" and dogs baking bread (inspired by a post on MetaChat by Obscure Reference). [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 1:46 PM PST - 27 comments

Popular internet streaming service, Hulu has announced its long-anticipated premium offering, which will allow users to stream shows to their TVs and iOS devices. The catch? You still have to watch the ads.
posted by schmod at 12:58 PM PST - 102 comments

For the past year and a half, Daily Kos has been running weekly polls from the respected polling firm, Research 2000. Earlier this month, former Daily Kos diarist Nate Silver of Five Thirty Eight published a rating of pollsters that placed R2k near the bottom, leading Markos to fire R2K. Today, Markos alleges that R2K committed fraud, publishing a study of their results by independent statisticians. He promises to sue.
posted by empath at 12:03 PM PST - 91 comments

In the months preceding the release of The Empire Strikes Back, a telephone hotline was set up to allow callers to dial in and hear teasers for the movie. In the years since the Bantha Tracks story, fans savvy to the existence of the "Empire Hotline" have sought out recordings of the messages, performed exclusively for the hotline by actors Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), and James Earl Jones (voice of Darth Vader). Thanks to Craig Miller, Lucasfilm's first director of fan relations, these long-lost recordings can now be heard and enjoyed for the first time in 30 years. [more inside]
posted by albrecht at 11:17 AM PST - 55 comments

"For many riders, a Ninja 250 is the bottom rung of a sport bike ladder, a necessary first step in pursuit of high horsepower race replicas. I can’t begin to recount the myriad times I’ve been asked about getting a bigger bike, generally with the suggestion, express or implied, that I’m ready for a 600cc super sport. With over 17,000 miles behind the bars of my mighty 250, I’ve no apprehensions about moving up." - A blog documenting and occasionally rhapsodizing about day to day living with a bike that is usually looked down on as a underpowered, beginner's bike.
posted by 1f2frfbf at 9:58 AM PST - 95 comments

Say you're a Chinese company wishing to appear more global and well-to-do without all the messy hubbub of hiring a foreigner. What do you do? Drop $44 and rent a white guy.
posted by griphus at 8:59 AM PST - 90 comments

Paul, an octopus in Germany, has made international headlines with his perfect record predicting the outcome of Germany's World Cup matches. On Tuesday, the cephalopod chose the national squad to defeat Argentina on Saturday. But it could be a tight game.
posted by orrnyereg at 8:49 AM PST - 55 comments

Imagine this: 'This evening we are going to hear the 2nd Symphony by Claude Debussy, the Austrian première of Insect Life by the Finnish opera composer Kalevi Aho, and the 2nd Symphony by Bela Bartók.’ What is a symphony? What does the concept mean nowadays? And what does it mean, to compose symphonically?
posted by Wolfdog at 5:58 AM PST - 45 comments

Historypin uses Google Maps and Street View technology and hopes to become the largest user-generated archive of the world's historical images and stories. Historypin lets you layer old images onto modern Street View scenes, giving a series of peaks into the past. Upload and pin your own old photos, as well as the stories behind them, onto the map.
posted by dobbs at 5:46 AM PST - 20 comments

Country hip hop dancing (SLYT)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:41 AM PST - 56 comments

Excercise a little abstract for you? Unable to see the point of going to the gym? Try ZombieFit and get in shape for the end of the world.
posted by The Whelk at 4:19 AM PST - 53 comments

Window to Dell Decline: The "Dell Model" became synonymous with efficiency, outsourcing and tight inventories, and was taught at the Harvard Business School and other top-notch management schools as a paragon of business smarts and outthinking the competition. For the last seven years, the company has been plagued by serious problems, including misreading the desires of its customers, poor customer service, suspect product quality and improper accounting. Documents recently unsealed in a three-year-old lawsuit And Reported In The NYTimes show Dell employees went out of their way to conceal serious hardware problems. "They were fixing bad computers with bad computers and were misleading customers at the same time..."
posted by Blake at 4:17 AM PST - 268 comments