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"Indian country begins where the serene prairie of Custer county gives way to the formidable rock spires marking out South Dakota's rugged Badlands. The road runs straight until the indistinguishable, clapboard American homesteads fade from view and the path climbs into a landscape sharpened by an eternity of wind and water. At this time of year, the temperature slides to tens of degrees below freezing and a relentless gale sets the snow dancing on the road, a whirligig of white blotting out the black of the asphalt."

A sobering look at one Native American community and their hopes during the Obama years, by The Guardian's Chris McGreal.
posted by saturnine at 10:01 PM PST - 18 comments

Consumer products and especially those marketed for children continue to be the subject of massive recalls even after what was called a '100-year flood' level of health and safety problems in 2007-2008. The list of recent recall issues include: burn and fire hazards in game console battery chargers, gas grill hoses, dehumidifiers and notebook computers; lead in toy military figures, certain cloth books and trucks; as well as various safety risks in baby play yards, cribs and car seats.  Even the decades-old issue of strangulation in drape cords continues to be a problem. [more inside]
posted by Hardcore Poser at 9:24 PM PST - 36 comments

Malaysian Catholic newspaper Herald was recently involved in a major lawsuit against the Malaysian government, stating that their constitutional rights were violated when they were stripped of their license to publish in East Malaysian indigenous language Kadazandusun. The ruling was overturned, amidst support by state ministers and protests by the Government, the Islamic Opposition party, and Muslim activists - some of whom have spent the past week attacking churches and convents through firebombs, Molotov cocktails, paint, and bricks thrown at glass. [more inside]
posted by divabat at 9:20 PM PST - 25 comments

Conceived at the 2007 Flugsaurier pterosaur research meeting in Munich, pterosaur.net is devoted to the titular prehistoric reptiles. [more inside]
posted by brundlefly at 7:24 PM PST - 6 comments

Death Metal Rooster (SLYT)
posted by e.e. coli at 7:08 PM PST - 25 comments

The threat of a mild punishment imposed reliably and immediately has a much greater deterrent effect than the threat of a severe punishment that is delayed and uncertain. A state trial judge in Hawaii, was frustrated with the cases on his docket. Nearly half of the people appearing before him were convicted offenders with drug problems who had been sentenced to probation rather than prison and then repeatedly violated the terms of that probation by missing appointments or testing positive for drugs. Whether out of neglect or leniency, probation officers would tend to overlook a probationer’s first 5 or 10 violations, giving the offender the impression that he could ignore the rules. But eventually, the officers would get fed up and recommend that Alm revoke probation and send the offender to jail to serve out his sentence. That struck Alm as too harsh, but the alternative — winking at probation violations — struck him as too soft. “I thought, This is crazy, this is a crazy way to change people’s behavior,” he told me recently. So Alm decided to try something different. [more inside]
posted by caddis at 6:54 PM PST - 34 comments

If, like me, you found Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video strangely addictive, you'll appreciate her fans' Badder Romance. Which is exactly the same, only... badder.
posted by justkevin at 6:13 PM PST - 56 comments

In the vein of Gwen Verdon's "Walk It Out", please consider the heat of Ann Miller's "Womanizer". [more inside]
posted by hermitosis at 4:39 PM PST - 9 comments

This is Kermit the Frog of Sesame Street News, with another fast breaking news story. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:19 PM PST - 39 comments

A colorful vintage geological survey of the moon, from the U.S. Department of the Interior. This image has a key to the colors.
posted by jjray at 3:36 PM PST - 17 comments

Randy Moller is the radio announcer for the Florida Panthers. In the tradition of Jack Brickhouse's "Hey Hey", and Harry Caray's "Holy Cow", Moller, tends to get exuberant. [more inside]
posted by timsteil at 3:16 PM PST - 18 comments

The New Economics Foundation, also responsible for the Happy Planet Index and Jubilee 2000 campaign, has released a study (full text here) about the values and costs of different professions to society.
posted by emjaybee at 3:08 PM PST - 16 comments

In a story broken by the New York Times, unsold clothes were found in trash bags outside of H&M and Wal-Mart, apparently cut up so as to be unwearable, in a city with 16,000 homeless people currently in the midst of a recession and a very cold winter. [more inside]
posted by emilyd22222 at 3:00 PM PST - 286 comments

Try not to notice the other pantsless people, unless someone points them out to you. If asked, pretend you have no idea why everyone else has no pants.
posted by ohyouknow at 2:47 PM PST - 51 comments

Fighter jets escorted a plane after a passenger allegedly made threats and refused to stash his carry-on bag. Lesson learned? Don't mention Gilligan's Island on your comment card. The passenger now faces Federal charges. [more inside]
posted by misha at 1:34 PM PST - 155 comments

Literature And Evil
posted by vronsky at 1:12 PM PST - 33 comments

China's Not a Superpower, and won't be anytime soon. Or is it closer to that status than ever, having just overtaken Germany as the world's number one exporter? [more inside]
posted by VikingSword at 12:19 PM PST - 36 comments

Is there anything Al Gore doesn't do? Enjoy the charming tale of a font and a Nobel Prize winner.
posted by ivey at 11:30 AM PST - 40 comments

The New Age Cavemen and the City: "The caveman lifestyle in New York was once a solitary pursuit. But Mr. Durant, who looks like a cheerful Jim Morrison, with shoulder-length curly hair, has emerged over the last year as a chieftain of sorts among 10 or so other cavemen." - Joseph Goldstein, writing in The New York Times. [more inside]
posted by fourcheesemac at 9:41 AM PST - 127 comments

NYTimes Editorial about the need for financial regulation, and the current lack of productive outrage at Wall Street. Huffington Post attempts to create a "social media" movement to move money out of the big banks.
posted by ®@ at 9:19 AM PST - 34 comments

Edge.org's 2010 Question: how is the Internet changing the way you think?
posted by grumblebee at 8:47 AM PST - 53 comments

Italians cheer as police move African immigrants out of a small town in Calabria, following clashes in which immigrant farmworkers were shot at, severely beaten and run over. Rosarno is said to be a hotbed of the 'Ndrangheta, which controls the labour market of illegalized seasonal day labourers living in inhuman and desperate conditions. While the Pope urges Italy to respect migrants, leftist newspaper 'il manifesto' put this on the front page.
posted by ts;dr at 6:54 AM PST - 51 comments

Here are those KISS video clips you requested: KISS and Tom Snyder (part 1 part 2), KISS and Casey Kasem, KISS and Mike Douglas. [more inside]
posted by Meatbomb at 5:52 AM PST - 26 comments

Howdy, Flash game developers! Remember flixel? Well, a new raster-based ActionScript 3 library has just been released: FlashPunk by Chevy Ray Johnston, creator of Skullpogo and Beacon. [more inside]
posted by archagon at 12:32 AM PST - 21 comments