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...lights, sounds, rhythms, pulsating your bones, moving your body, we all know this language, we can all sing and dance...
posted by loquacious at 11:42 PM PST - 5 comments

John "Paia" Simonton died late last week. His company, PAiA is one of the grandfathers of the DIY synth scene. I have one of his modular synths half-constructed in my garage. He helped create an American buzz for electronic music and DIY music gear in the 70s, and was highly influential till his passing away.
posted by blackvectrex at 9:16 PM PST - 10 comments

Tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood. At its core, the case is about the constitutionality of New Hampshire's abortion notification law. In reality, the two questions before the Court are a bit more complex. This may be one of the most significant abortion-related cases in years, and a ruling in favor of New Hampshire may put a serious dent in in the pro-choice movement. As a result, the Court has taken the rare step of allowing C-Span to air audio of the arguments soon after they conclude. (more inside)
posted by schoolgirl report at 8:58 PM PST - 27 comments

Niger Val Dub King of Scotland. One of 100 Great Black Britons. There were some surprises here for me. I didn't expect to find St. George the patron saint of England or Queen Victoria's grandmother here.
posted by tellurian at 7:50 PM PST - 39 comments

Yesterday, Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times Op-Ed columnist, wrote a compelling article on the dire situation in Darfur and ways Americans can respond to this tragedy. Yeah, that's thoughtful and all but we already talked about that here, and here, and here, and oh yeah, here and even more here! So, what do the last two years teach me about 400,000 dead? That I still couldn't tell you exactly where it is in Africa..but I know that Paris dated a guy named Paris. Happy sleeping America, and now where's my Soma.
posted by Mr Bluesky at 6:44 PM PST - 30 comments

Electro-funk is a often overlooked genre of dance music that is very influential for many genres of dance music that came around it and after it, including Hip-Hop, Dance, Disco, Electric Boogie, Freestyle, Techno and Drum and Bass.
One of the most prominent Electro-Funk DJs was Greg Wilson, who has set up electrofunkroots.co.uk to document the history and influence of Electro-Funk. Wilson interviews Quentin Leo Cook, (a.k.a. Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim) on Cook's impressions of Electro-Funk and how it has influenced him as a music producer and DJ.
Wilson has also provided a personal history and retrospective mix of top Electro-Funk songs to A Guy Called Gerald for Samurai.fm.
posted by gen at 6:41 PM PST - 27 comments

A Russian lawyer wants “The Simpsons” banned from his country for promoting "drugs, violence and homosexuality."
posted by super_not at 6:37 PM PST - 18 comments

For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.

Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War
Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University, is author of "Transformation of War" (Free Press, 1991). He is the only non-American author on the U.S. Army's required reading list for officers.
An interview with Martin Van Creveld. See also Nowhere To Run
posted by y2karl at 5:44 PM PST - 73 comments

"Furutani Shun-ichi and his family have some cats. This wiki site is provided their cat's photos."

More here.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:40 PM PST - 27 comments

Slow Mosaic is a mosaic generator powered by the Web. Feed it a word and watch it create related mosaics in front of your very eyes. Requires Flash. [MI]
posted by sjvilla79 at 4:45 PM PST - 20 comments

At dawn on Friday Singapore time, young Australian Nguyen Tuong Van will be hanged by the State executioner, Darshan Singh. His sentencing has raised an extensive debate in Australia on the death penalty, on our regional relationships and the compassion of our fearless Rodent. Like virtually all advanced nations, Australia has generally held a principled stance against the death penalty, though filtered by realpolitik. Yet again, New Zealand is a bit more principled than us, of course. We would of course never protest to the US about its extensive use of the ultimate State sanction.
posted by wilful at 4:28 PM PST - 100 comments

Picture Palaces in Peril! and a few hardy survivors from the golden age of Scottish film going. One of the most beautiful of all, The Cameo, apparently a favourite of Quentin Tarantino, is under threat from its new overlords - who've grabbed the majority stake in Britain's main independent cinema company. Can our heroine be rescued from the railroad tracks of venture capitalism at the 11th hour? Save The Cameo are trying.
posted by Flitcraft at 4:10 PM PST - 5 comments

The wait is over : Firefox 1.5 is out, to be found on the brand spanking new mozilla.com.
posted by XiBe at 3:51 PM PST - 88 comments

That'll teach 'em. Two 10-year old girls arrested in Florida and suspended from school for possession of... well uhm, parsely, actually.
posted by digaman at 3:43 PM PST - 55 comments

Concert of the century: 50 Cent, Tom Petty, Aerosmith and others rock a bat mitzvah.
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 3:20 PM PST - 35 comments

Exercise your music muscle Someone marked a Day in Green ink. Then I eyed a Queen holding Sex Pistols. There are 71 other bands hidden in this street scene: you can download a higher-res version at Virgin's Web site. (Via Bifurcated Rivets). By the way, this is a contest (you can win a new computer and a year's worth of free music), but the site's interface is obnoxious and ad-strewn, so I moved the contest linkage down here.
posted by Lord Kinbote at 3:01 PM PST - 62 comments

Breaking Up The Band [via mefi projects]
posted by Captaintripps at 2:51 PM PST - 11 comments

What kind of an idiot would call for an attack on our ally Qatar? Frank Gaffney Jr. did. He served as Reagan's former Undersecretary for Defense, is the President of the influential neocon Center for Security Policy, was a fellow member of the Project for the New American Century (along with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, etc.), and apparently serves an advisor to the Pentagon. He called for al-Jazeera to "be taken off the air, one way or another" six months before Bush's meeting with Blair, and clearly had the connections needed to put policy into action within the Bush administration.
posted by insomnia_lj at 2:23 PM PST - 47 comments

Saddam Hussein's clothes: $5000
posted by spinoza at 2:13 PM PST - 11 comments

Please do not alarm the llama, people. via mimi smartipants
posted by onlyconnect at 1:19 PM PST - 40 comments

Gaming Indian Wars. The Left Coaster has a good roundup of the conclusions drawn from the recent war games between the American and Indian air forces. The Indian fighter jocks were more than competitive, even responding to instructions from AWACS planes faster than their American counter parts. Are the Mirage 2000 and the SU-30 better planes than the F-15 or was the real reason that the Americans “lost” the war games because they were handicapped, and is this now being used as an excuse to get more money for the F-22 program?
posted by afu at 1:05 PM PST - 13 comments

(NSFW-but not porn) Never GIS "little mermaid," large size images, and click the second image from the left out of curiosity. If you do, don't look at the other galleries at the site, hypnotized and horrified. Furthermore, follow any of the links at your own peril. If you manage to make it to the Renderosity pages, you are expressly forbidden from looking at every single page of art by these three artists. Under no circumstances look at these unabashed masterpieces: "Damnedly Wanted," "Nooo, you ARE hansome," "9/11 Remembrance," "Cure for cancer," and god knows how many more. If you follow these instructions carefully, you will have successfully avoided the fairy(faerie, fae), poser, chibi, furry, and koshini scenes for the day.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:21 PM PST - 55 comments

Come On! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance! Just in time for the holidays! Three EPs of Christmas Songs as performed by one Sufjan Stevens. They are Bad Rad, I promise.
posted by hughbot at 12:16 PM PST - 12 comments

Is discrimination OK when it's against males in general? Apparently Qantas and Air New Zealand think it is OK to treat all males as potential pedophile. The NZ Children's Commission thinks it is a great move to not seat unaccompanied minors next to males, while the Human Rights Commission tends to disagree. Joe Public can't seem to decide either way.
posted by pivotal at 12:00 PM PST - 159 comments

The longlisted passages for the Bad Sex in Fiction award are available from the BBC. Founded by the Literary Review of London in 1993, the award "honors" the worst (published) sex writing (by popular authors). Will it be John Updike? Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Salman Rushdie?
posted by mrgrimm at 10:49 AM PST - 30 comments

“Time is on the side of open disclosure that there are ethical Extraterrestrial civilizations visiting Earth. Our Canadian government needs to openly address these important issues of the possible deployment of weapons in outer war plans against ethical ET societies.”
via
posted by airguitar at 10:27 AM PST - 15 comments

Chomsky v. Dershowitz - It's on. via counterpunch
posted by minkll at 10:15 AM PST - 52 comments

50 lashes per week for 15 weeks seems a bit harsh to me. even for witchcraft.
posted by atticus at 9:53 AM PST - 23 comments

The Banana Cell Phone Cover - Just in time for Christmas! Hey, it looks like he's talking into a banana.
posted by nitsuj at 9:22 AM PST - 32 comments

I've labored long and hard for bread,
For honor and for riches
But on my corns too long you've tread,
You fine-haired sons-of-bitches.
Black Bart, the P o 8.
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:18 AM PST - 14 comments

$110 gets you last 100 calls made by any cellphone. Apparently it is legal.
posted by riffola at 8:48 AM PST - 26 comments

Bouguereau who? In 1900, his contemporaries Degas and Monet reportedly named him as most likely to be remembered as the greatest 19th century French painter by the year 2000. After about 1920 though, Bouguereau and the academic tradition fell into disrepute. His name was not mentioned in encyclopedias for decades. (You probably haven't heard of him unless you read this here.) Conspiracy? Or systematic suppression by the 20th century art establishment? (warning - some art NSFW - the 'him' and 'his' links)
posted by Smedleyman at 8:45 AM PST - 26 comments

The Problem With Emily Dickenson "On August 25, six students, along with their school, Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, California and the Association of Christian Schools International filed a federal lawsuit against the University of California where, according to the LA Times (August 27), admissions officials have been accused of discriminating against high schools that teach creationism and other conservative Christian viewpoints." One of the textbooks used to teach literature has this to say about Mark Twain: "Twain's outlook was both self-centered and ultimately hopeless. Denying that he was created in the image of God, Twain was able to rid himself of feeling any responsibility to his Creator. "
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 8:43 AM PST - 90 comments

Rabbit's animated journey through the history of (mostly American) cinema is a wonderful cartoon and, unfortunately, an ad for Motorola. Link goes to embedded quicktime, very slow loading.
posted by jonson at 8:25 AM PST - 7 comments

Teenager Repellant. Teenager Repellant. Kids loitering outside of your store? A Welsh inventor has created a device that emits a noise particularly irritating to those under 20 years of age (and no, it's not classical music.)
posted by fet at 8:00 AM PST - 65 comments

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers...is the foundation of totalitarianism" Perhaps Tony Blair and George W. Bush regard Winston Churchill as a bleeding heart lefty. But what Churchill's view represents is an old, very basic principle of Anglo-American warfare and justice: fight war with ferocity, but never lose your democratic soul.
posted by tommyc at 7:49 AM PST - 83 comments

Froghat Studios The illustration, animation, and design of Chris Appelhans. Don't miss his comic, Frank and Frank, or the Superman animated short.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 7:47 AM PST - 10 comments

Looks like a raccoon, acts like a raccoon, tastes like a dog? Technically a member of the canid family and considered to be a species of dog, the raccoon dog, or tanuki, is hunted in Japan to the tune of 70,000 animals killed annually for use in the production of calligraphic brushes, stuffed animals, and, apparently, ramen flavoring. The really interesting thing about the tanuki is its place in Japanese myth. The mythical tanuki are full of mischief, masters of shapeshifting, and possessors of unusually large testicles. Comic depictions of tanuki often show them with their testicles thrown over their backs or using them as drums. Does the existence of the tanuki shed any light on an often posted (and otherwise inexplicable) photo?
posted by gokart4xmas at 7:25 AM PST - 33 comments

New York City rage.
posted by Tlogmer at 7:17 AM PST - 26 comments

Ever wondered what to do if you end up in a spot of bother far from home? Fair trials abroad is an organisation campaigning for the fair treatment of Europeans arrested abroad. They deal with campaigns like the Free Craig Alden campaign. Unlike the famous bloke there's no history of child abuse and no real evidence of an offense, but there is a history of standing up to authority and evidence of legal incompentence. If you're from the US, you have to rely upon these people instead.
posted by handee at 6:28 AM PST - 13 comments

Ever spent your precious morning minutes in bed turning your pillow over repeatedly, seeking in vain for the coveted cool spot? Search no more.
posted by allkindsoftime at 6:21 AM PST - 27 comments