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Photos of Christchurch NZ. Walk the High Street, stop at the corner chemist, or catch the Gaieties. Contains more than a thousand historic pictures, some of startling clarity.
posted by arse_hat at 9:22 PM PST - 21 comments

The 23rd -Beargrease sled dog race- running of the dogs. In just about three weeks 36+ teams will either run the near 390 full distance race, or short 145.6 mid distance race. Check out the legend behind John Beargrease through the left hand links on the spash page. Last year there was a young blind dog sledder Rachel Scdoris, who has caused some minor controversy in past . There was also a musher from... Florida, (who also ran in 2003) Dee Morris, her dogs had never run on snow before that 2003 race (didn't finish either 1/2 race). Should be fun.
posted by edgeways at 8:05 PM PST - 10 comments

Documents: U.S. condoned Iraq oil smuggling Documents obtained by CNN reveal the United States knew about, and even condoned, embargo-breaking oil sales by Saddam Hussein's regime, and did so to shore up alliances with Iraq's neighbors. The oil trade with countries such as Turkey and Jordan appears to have been an open secret inside the U.S. government and the United Nations for years.
posted by Postroad at 6:26 PM PST - 28 comments

Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate Papers are now available online at the University of Texas web site (press release/about the collection) Deep Throat is still not uncovered (as discussed previously at MetaFilter, including the sale of this collection). [cross-posted from MonkeyFilter]
posted by kirkaracha at 5:54 PM PST - 14 comments

Jack London was a prolific writer best known for White Fang, The Call of the Wild and The Sea Wolf. However, he also wrote about his experiences as a hobo, a socialist and a journalist. While most biographies portray his life as vibrant and engaged, his legacy and arguable suicide has some troublesome baggage.
posted by sciurus at 5:53 PM PST - 46 comments

Nature Photographers - an online resource dedicated to the art and technique of nature, wildlife and landscape photography.
posted by Gyan at 5:42 PM PST - 4 comments

The State of the Union Parsing Tool is an interactive transcript and visualization of the last five State of the Union addresses, and a special address given to Congress on Sept. 20, 2001. Noteworthy features are a great interface and the ability to highlight the use of arbitrary and specific phrases. For instance: Iraq vs. Afghanistan, liberty vs. freedom, health care vs. social security, and the lone appearance of 'axis of evil.'
posted by fatllama at 4:47 PM PST - 10 comments

"Conversation will improve, language barriers will fall, artificial intelligence will begin to emerge, and, hopefully, people will be more honest about what they want and who they want to have sex with." If you could meta-tag a tag itself, would the resulting "tagweb" mirror how we collectively organize thoughts in our [collective] brain? (via del.icio.us)
posted by acid freaking on the kitty at 4:31 PM PST - 17 comments

Japanese people in suits who are asleep in non-bed places.
posted by Kleptophoria! at 4:12 PM PST - 28 comments

Evolution is so last two billion years... I just love this guy's beautiful mind.
posted by Finder at 2:53 PM PST - 40 comments

For you or someone you know! Death can be costly, but $924.99 for the "Lady of Guadalupe" is a bargain.
posted by dum2007 at 2:49 PM PST - 20 comments

She's dead sleeping, Jim. With UPN's cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise (nee just Enterprise), the Trek franchise is, for the first time in 18 years, without a weekly broadcast show. While many might agree that Star Trek needs a rest, others continue to hope, while producer/right hand of Satan (depending on which Trekkie you talk to) Rick Berman says the series (which is a billion dollar baby for Paramount/Viacom) is going to be off the airwaves for at least three years. Here's to hoping the rest is what's needed for a phenomenon that's fueled a lot of geeks for a lot of years.
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:14 PM PST - 143 comments

Community Supported Agriculture : Are you a city-dweller and tired of the wilted lettuce leaves your local grocery store considers a produce department? Looking for a way to support your local farmers while benefiting from great, fresh, often organic, in-season fruits and vegetables? Now is the time to find a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. You buy a share (costing anywhere from $100 $600 early in the year), and every week throughout the growing season, your share pays you dividends. Here's a list of what you'd have gotten from one near me had you subscribed last year.
posted by crunchland at 1:16 PM PST - 35 comments

Therapy, pharmacy, and commerce in early-modern Europe Drug Trade is an exhibition of 16C-18C drug jars at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford. "Marrysh mallowe, soden in wyne or mede, or brused and laid on by it selfe, is good for woundes, for hard kynelles, swellynges, and wennes, for the burnyng and swelling behynd the eares ... & it will ease the payne of ye tethe."
posted by carter at 1:08 PM PST - 9 comments

Illinois issues its first ever winter dirty-air alert today. For the first time ever in the winter, health officials are issuing a dirty-air alert for the midwest. "Even healthy adults and children are cautioned against heavy physical activity outdoors." This is something the Clean Air Act sought to prevent in 1990. Despite real world warnings like this - there still seems to be constant debate about how much we should really care about environmental issues such as global warming and a host of other environmental issues. Will the new Clear Skies Act be enough to help?
posted by twiggy at 12:51 PM PST - 23 comments

Mapping Sitting explores the uses and traditions of photographic portraiture over the past century in the Middle East.
posted by scody at 12:38 PM PST - 5 comments

Elections on the US model? Now that the voting is done, questions are starting to arise . . . Sunni Moslems in Kirkuk had an exemption from the boycott of the vote. But of 38 designated polling centres in the Hawija district, only 19 actually opened, and the electoral commission had only sent 50,000 ballots to the district, even though more than 100,000 voters were on the rolls. Of course, things like that happen often in places new to voting, like Ohio. But wait, there's more! Kurdish Christians were not able to vote when balloting materials arrived inexplicably late, and Iraq's interim president said a shortage of ballots at some polling places may have kept tens of thousands from voting. There's been a lot of news about suspicious elections all over the world during the last few years. How can we restore our faith in the democratic process?
posted by kyrademon at 11:25 AM PST - 81 comments

The Museum of Nerd Watches have some completely awesome watches. Take for example This watch with a built-in space-invaders type game. How about one that generates lotto numbers? What's the boiling point of that liquid? Check it with your directional temperature gauge watch!
posted by bigtimes at 10:22 AM PST - 21 comments

Paper Doll Heaven is an online celebrity dress up game for armchair fashionistas of all ages. It's Patrick Nagel meets starstruck Flash. Create a celebrity makeover. Be a stylist to the stars. From Johnny Dep to Dame Edna to Bjork to Audrey Tatou, you can dress and undress (insert prudish gasp here) your favorite and not-so favorite celebrities. Sure this has no redeeming social value, but it's therapeutic and fun to make the "beautiful people" look like fashion train wrecks. (SFW-except for cartoonish celebs in their knickers.)
posted by VelvetHellvis at 10:05 AM PST - 12 comments

Dress as though your life depends on it, the works of Leigh Bowery.
posted by drezdn at 9:27 AM PST - 18 comments

"His voice was otherworldly — you couldn't believe the sound". Everyone who ever heard Klaus Nomi's voice had the same comment: "It can't be real." You hear that response throughout "The Nomi Song," the documentary about the obscure German-born artist who was a fixture on the New York music scene in the late '70s-early '80s, and a legitimate pop star in Europe. He was also a mystery, even to those who knew him. The film primarily covers the years between his 1978 New York club debut - which was captured on film - and his AIDS-related death in 1983 at age 39. Nomi never had an album officially released in the U.S. but was wildly popular among New York clubgoers as well as in France and his native Germany. More inside.
posted by matteo at 9:21 AM PST - 59 comments

It is no longer legal to publish current photographs of the Eiffel Tower at night without permission. This copyright crap is getting out of hand. <via Kottke>
posted by spock at 9:06 AM PST - 51 comments

Ivan Noble has died. In a follow-up to this thread, Ivan Noble has died of a brain tumour, aged just 37.
posted by salmacis at 8:47 AM PST - 13 comments

Inkjet sushi - Some argue the kind of molecular gastronomy created by chefs like Moto's Homaro Cantu sucks the soul out of gourmet dining. Others turn it into better cooking for the unwashed masses, while still others turn it into a science project for the kids.
posted by AlexReynolds at 7:52 AM PST - 26 comments

The Center for Tactical Magic: a fusion force summoned from the ways of the artist, the magician, the ninja, and the private investigator.
posted by moonbird at 7:42 AM PST - 8 comments

Listen Up! It's a 'Synthesizor' masterclass. And after this, if you still think you know about music, then take the pop quiz and be amazed.
posted by Chunky at 5:49 AM PST - 20 comments

George W Bush certainly makes more sense when you can write his speeches for him. Now only if we could make all of his other decisions...
posted by mule at 5:33 AM PST - 13 comments

Unembedded reporters in Iraq: Fadel al-Badrani, Dahr Jamail, Nir Rosen, Christopher Allbritton. Where they go, what they see, and what they report on gives words to the photographs at Crisis Pictures (warning: some photographs may upset you, and the site has an obtrusive agenda) .
posted by iffley at 1:29 AM PST - 6 comments