End of the Year Review, 2026. Looking Back on the First Quarter of the Twenty-First Century.
posted by homunculus at 7:09 PM PST - 55 comments

Wayward country son Jimmy Dale Gilmore's essay via NPR A little post-feast reflection. Real/WMP audio and text.
posted by crowman at 6:55 PM PST - 10 comments

Jan 1st, Texas to increase tax on cigarettes by $1. Texas will increase the sales tax on cigarettes from 41 cents to $1.41 on Jan 1st. Hoping to fund schools and fight the 1.5 billion dollar health care bill from smoking related illnesses.
posted by IronWolve at 11:44 AM PST - 128 comments

Armor for cats and rats. Well, really it's cats and mice, but that doesn't rhyme as well.Token Samurai Cat Jeff de Boer, the artist (bio here) all links have been coralized to protect the webhost
posted by filmgeek at 10:22 AM PST - 27 comments

2007 Calendar: It contextualizes every hour, even on a year’s time scale: if someone marks the calendar, then looks back in even as little as an hour, they will be able to see time’s inexorable march. ...a sort of graph paper for personal life.
posted by signal at 9:13 AM PST - 13 comments

Best wishes for a Christmas of peace and joy and a New Year of triumph over terrorism! from the U.S. Citizens Committee to Keep and Bear Arms, a.k.a. "the Common Sense Gun Lobby".

"If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in His name, He'd never stop throwing up." -- Woody Allen (Hannah And Her Sisters, 1986)
posted by Quiplash at 8:57 AM PST - 45 comments

Ethiopia Hits Somali Targets, Declaring War (The New York Times). the Ethiopian government has declared war on Somalia's ruling Islamic Courts Union. The Islamic Courts Union, which had gained control over much of Somalia, had been engaged in a civil war against the Ethiopian backed Transitional Federal Government. Back in October of 2006 the BBC reported that the Islamic Courts Union had declared a 'holy war' against Ethiopia due to their support of the Transitional Federal Government. What many may not be aware of is that Ethiopia is a recipient of American economic and military aid. More links from The New York Times on the lead up of events: 12/22, 12/23, 12/24.
posted by j-urb at 7:14 AM PST - 43 comments

Christmas reading from Apollo 8. This is what they saw.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:59 AM PST - 30 comments

For all the rest of us...
posted by localhuman at 6:20 AM PST - 9 comments

James Brown ...just died
posted by hortense at 12:11 AM PST - 284 comments