MetaFilter

Hungry? How about a 37'2" hotdog? Vienna Beef was proud to feature this record breaker at Taste of Chicago earlier this month. More info over at MeatNews. Can't get enough hot dog action? Surely you saw Kobayashi chow down on ESPN 2. Still hungry? This ought to fill you up. (Note: Some of these links have gross pictures)
posted by shotsy at 11:22 PM PST - 7 comments

The kidnap videos in Iraq are suspicious. Some say they are fake. Some make their own... what do you think of this one? A rare bit of humor from Al-Jazeera. [.wmv]
posted by pemulis at 10:40 PM PST - 11 comments

Allmusic for Windows Clicking on some deep links into allmusic.com tonight turned up this- Notice: You are accessing allmusic.com with a browser that is not currently supported. The appearance and functionality of the site could be impacted. allmusic.com is optimized for Internet Explorer 5.5 and above for Windows.
posted by bendybendy at 9:39 PM PST - 47 comments

Midaregami: The Japan Hierarchy. The stratified hierarchy of Japanese society is mirrored onto those foreigners who choose to live in Japan. Inspired by The Geek Hierarchy.
posted by gen at 9:01 PM PST - 3 comments

"By jabbing a threatening phallus at your enemy like a wild animal, you aren't just belittling him, but also making him your sexual inferior." Apparently, George W. Bush let some boys in East Lampeter, PA know that they were sexually inferior. But Kerry too has jabbed a threatening phallus recently. [Bush link via Kottke; first link previously discussed on MeFi]
posted by limitedpie at 8:15 PM PST - 21 comments

Hell On Earth. U.S. News... now has obtained all 106 classified annexes to the report... Taguba focused mostly on the MP s assigned to guard the inmates at Abu Ghraib, but the classified files in the annex to his report show that military intelligence officers--dispatched to Abu Ghraib by the top commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez--were intimately involved in some of the interrogation techniques widely viewed as abusive. The abuses took place, the files show, in a chaotic and dangerous environment made even more so by the constant pressure from Washington to squeeze intelligence from detainees. Riots, prisoner escapes, shootings, corrupt Iraqi guards, unsanitary conditions, rampant sexual misbehavior, bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and humiliations, and almost-daily mortar shellings from Iraqi insurgents--according to the annex to General Taguba's report, that pretty much sums up life at Abu Ghraib. Some PDFs are in Shining a light in a real dark place.
See also Making Torture Legal.
posted by y2karl at 6:51 PM PST - 25 comments

Selfellatio (NSFW) [via Jane's Guide]
posted by eilatan at 5:51 PM PST - 77 comments

Yet another political flash cartoon! Anyone else getting tired of hearing the same bland crap about the upcoming election? This flash cartoon somehow manages to be funny anyway, even though its subject has been done to death. It's brilliant, and definitely worth a look.
posted by Veritron at 2:54 PM PST - 27 comments

What does blue smell like? A novel theory contends that humans smell the frequency of a molecule, rather than shape (full study, pdf). In fact, there is no evidence to support either theory, leading to the question, how do humans smell? Inspired by bonehead.
posted by grateful at 2:17 PM PST - 31 comments

Today is the 50th anniversary of the geodesic dome, designed by Buckminster Fuller. The US Postal Service launched a new stamp today, to commemorate the date and honor the creator.
posted by mathowie at 1:04 PM PST - 18 comments

Indian slum-dwellers given voice Their pride is unmistakably justified - a team drawn from the ghettos is successfully running India's first news magazine about slum-dwellers.
posted by Postroad at 11:40 AM PST - 4 comments

Mark Mothersbaugh's Beautiful Mutants, a slideshow of Rorschach-like manipulated images of faces from long ago set to his music, is currently on tour. I'm checking it out to see how his art compares with his music work in DEVO and movie soundtracks -- hopefully it comes close.
posted by mathowie at 11:11 AM PST - 14 comments

Whip It...Not So Good? Apparently the whip, beloved in movies, games, and other various pursuits, isn't actually that fantastic of a weapon -- at least from a defensive point of view. And that supersonic crack? It ain't the tip. Interesting!
posted by effugas at 10:20 AM PST - 29 comments

"DeLay is doing everything moral, legal and ethical to increase the Republican majority and advance conservative ideas," says his spokesman, Stuart Roy. Heck, we already know that Tom DeLay loves the children enough to start a charitable fund to help pay for "late-night convention parties, a luxury suite during President Bush's speech at Madison Square Garden and yacht cruises" during the 2004 GOP convention (as well as the children, of course). Now, he's connected (via an email) to Enron, asking them for extra money in order to help fund the already-notorious redistricting in Texas. When will enough be enough?
posted by almostcool at 8:33 AM PST - 50 comments

Are comic bookser...I mean Graphic Novels the new novel?
posted by Grod at 8:29 AM PST - 32 comments

l33t on wheels Guy takes 'mobile computing' to a new level. via Blue's News. Also, a wave to the TLD owner, he's a friend.
posted by WolfDaddy at 7:35 AM PST - 10 comments

Press Box Red For 50 years, Lester Rodney was a forgotten footnote in perhaps the most controversial American sports story of the 20th century: Jackie Robinson and the breaking of baseball's color barrier. Now, the 93-year-old Rodney is getting his due. In the decade before Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Rodney was the sports editor of the Daily Worker, a newspaper (the FBI files are here on .pdf) better known as the house organ of the American Communist Party. With strident editorials and feature stories about what he dubbed "The Crime of the Big Leagues," Rodney was an early, often lonely voice in the struggle to end segregation in baseball. But Rodney's contribution was never acknowledged, because of that "sickening Red tinge". Many baseball historians were staunchly anti-communist, and didn't want to acknowledge the contributions of the Communist Party. So Rodney's role (.pdf file) was left out of the official story. With the publication of his biography, Rodney's place in baseball's epochal story has introduced him to a new generation of admirers. "I wanted that ban to end because it was so unfair; I saw the tragedy of these great black ballplayers, like the catcher Josh Gibson, who didn't get a chance to play. It's unimaginable today, but look at Barry Bonds: Imagine if he had been born earlier and been unable to play." (login details for LATimes story in the main link: sparklebottom/sparklebottom)
posted by matteo at 5:11 AM PST - 35 comments

The Forbidden Library.
posted by Gyan at 3:39 AM PST - 26 comments

Making the Modern World brings you powerful stories about science and invention from the eighteenth century to today. It explains the development and the global spread of modern industrial society and its effects on all our lives. The site expands upon the permanent landmark gallery at the Science Museum, using the Web and dynamic multimedia techniques to go far beyond what a static exhibition can do. Terrific wrapping, excellent content.
posted by tcp at 2:24 AM PST - 4 comments

As the verdict of Butler Report into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq, draws near in Britain, a senior intelligence source reveals that MI6 took the "rare step" of withdrawing the intelligence assessment that underpinned the claim that Saddam had continued to produce WMD (an admission that such information was fundamentally unreliable), however Blair did not tell the public "that the evidence of WMD was crumbling beneath him". [Watch the Panorama programme in question here for 7 days from 11-7-2004] The Dossier that Lord Hutton declared was not sexed-up (leading to senior BBC resignations), Dr Brian Jones (former head of the nuclear, chemical and biological branch of the Ministry of Defence's Defence Intelligence Staff) says was sexed-up, and details exactly how.
posted by Blue Stone at 1:57 AM PST - 26 comments