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Thomas Jefferson Center Gives Annual Muzzle Awards
The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression has announced the winners of their annual Muzzle Awards, which are given out to "those who have forgotten Mr. Jefferson's warning that freedom of expression cannot be limited without being lost." The lucky winners this year include (among others) a school principal who refused to let students form a club opposed to the war in Afghanistan, an Indiana County for charging a man with flag-burning, Brown University students who stole 4,000 copies of the college paper because they didn't like an advertisement, and Donald Rumsfeld for his severe limitations on media coverage of the war in Afghanistan. Are there any other outrageous cases of censorship this year that the Muzzles should have included? Are all of the winners worthy of ridicule?
posted by waldo at 9:34 PM PST - 22 comments

The Swastika & the Crescent The peculiar bond between white nationalist groups and certain Muslim extremists derives in part from a shared set of enemies Jews, the United States, race-mixing, ethnic diversity. It is also very much a function of the shared belief that they must shield their own peoples from the corrupting influence of foreign cultures and the homogenizing juggernaut of globalization. Both sets of groups also have a penchant for far-flung conspiracy theories that caricature Jewish power.

This is not a direct link. This link takes you to a page titled "Intelligence Project." Once there, Click on "Intelligence Report." Scroll down a bit and click on "The Swastika & the Crescent."
posted by Rastafari at 8:29 PM PST - 21 comments

The Wildlife Art of Radar O'Reilly
Gary Burghoff is a star of many art forms who has expanded his multi-faceted career to include that of wildlife artist.
posted by quonsar at 7:24 PM PST - 62 comments

Queen of the hardwood A local Seattle sports radio station's grand prize is a trip for two to any sporting event in the world. In the spirit of the NCAA basketball tournament, your task is to take the field of sixty-four women and pick the winners until you wind up with the Queen of the Hardwood. Crass, perhaps, but not much more so than anything else. You still have time to enter.
posted by YohonTheLarge at 7:10 PM PST - 5 comments

Local car dealership commercials that don't suck? Okay, so, yes, every major metro region has its own crop of idiosyncratic and usually-low-budget car dealership commercials -- god bless Kramer the Magical Donkey -- but Portland, OR has this wonderful sort of Cinderella story guy named Scott Thomason. (more inside)
posted by cortex at 6:46 PM PST - 14 comments

In China, the sparrow's deadliest enemy is farmers' haphazard and extravagant use of pesticides. They're disappearing from the countryside. Sometimes they "reappear on sticks, skewered and roasted or fried." Yum-yum.
posted by phartizan at 5:53 PM PST - 1 comments

I guess it trumps dying a horrible death (but not by much) ... "A young calf has his belly shaved. Many slashes are made in the skin. A prior batch of smallpox vaccine is dropped into the slashes and allowed to fester over a period of days. During this period of time, the calf stands in a head stall so that he can’t lick his belly. The calf is led out of the stock to a table where he is strapped down. His belly scabs and pus are scraped off and ground into a powder. The powder is the next batch of smallpox vaccine." (Excerpt from Vaccines : A Second Opinion, and link swiped wholesale from Randomwalks.)
posted by crunchland at 5:13 PM PST - 34 comments

The phrase "Let's Roll" has now been trademarked by quite a few companies. We touched on this once before in the State of the Union thread, but the current list of trademark's goes far beyond what was previously discused. You can now get all manner of brickabrack emblazoned with a "Let's Roll" logo. Is it patriotism, or profiterring?
posted by emptyage at 1:53 PM PST - 18 comments

"and i enjoyed it" Finally an honest politician. Is this a new trend in politics?
posted by specialk420 at 1:51 PM PST - 15 comments

Please, Dad, Tell Me: How Do I Stop Being Complicit? I actually came across this in another thread (props to cell divide), but I think it's worth it's own discussion. As a 30-year-old American Jew, this essay completely echoes the exasperation I feel whenever I have a "discussion" (read:argument) with someone of my parents' generation about the Middle East Conflict. It's true that my generation, in America, has never seen widescale Jewish hatred in our lifetime, but has that made us blind or allowed us to gain a better perspective on Israel?
posted by mkultra at 11:06 AM PST - 56 comments

Famous Self-Injurers. "Johnny [Depp] has a series of seven or eight scars on his left forearm where he has cut himself with a knife on different occasions to commemorate various moments or rights of passage in his life ... 'It was really just whatever [times when he hurt himself]--good times, bad times, it didn't matter. There was no ceremony. It wasn't like "Okay, this just happened, I have to go hack a piece of my flesh off"' ... 'My body is a journal in a way.'" On this website are accounts self-afflicted injuries from Fiona Apple, Richey Edwards, Christina Ricci and more.
posted by moz at 10:43 AM PST - 18 comments

Anthrax and the Agency "Now that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has officially put the anthrax investigation on a back burner, it is time for Americans to think the unthinkable: that the FBI has never been keen to identify the perpetrator because that perpetrator may, in fact, be the U.S. Government itself. Evidence is mounting that the source of the anthrax was a top secret U.S. Army laboratory in Maryland and that the perpetrators involve high-level officials in the U.S. military and intelligence infrastructure." Granted, there's more than a few blips on the radar screen these days, but...whatever happened to this investigation? I'm no conspiracy theorist, but the case laid out in this piece gives me pause. Any other good theories out there?
posted by martk at 10:18 AM PST - 21 comments

Lucas: Powerful reteller of myth - or galactic gasbag? Salon has a scathing review of Lucas' claim that the basis of the Star Wars saga is in "man's oldest stories" and that he was guided by Joseph Campbell.
"With 'Star Wars' I consciously set about to re-create myths and the classic mythological motifs," Lucas says. "I wanted to use those motifs to deal with issues that exist today."
Hogwash, says author Steven Hart. Star Wars is based not on "The Odyssey" or the "Upanishads", but on Asimov, Heinlen, Herbert and other 20th century S.F.
posted by rshah21 at 10:06 AM PST - 32 comments

'Oooga Chaka' indeed. David Hasselhoff as you've never seen him before. (or ever want to see again)
[ link, to video, via threeoh ]
posted by MintSauce at 9:58 AM PST - 36 comments

Can't sleep at night, I can't eat a bite / When you were mine, I didn't treat you right
o< A little treat for everyone on their lunch break.
posted by Settle at 9:49 AM PST - 14 comments

A little bit country, a little bit rock ’n’ roll: Dolly Parton’s upcoming Halos and Horns CD features her version of “Stairway to Heaven” (and, from the other end of the rock spectrum, Bread’s wimp-rock classic “If”). Ironically, country singer Irene Kelley was kicked out of a high school Led Zeppelin cover band for suggesting they do a Dolly Parton song.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:48 AM PST - 18 comments

Overwhelming nausea. Reality is simply disregarded. The evolution of human mind is merely an elaboration of masks, and lies about primal hatred, cruelty, and violence.
posted by semmi at 9:14 AM PST - 37 comments

Are you infringing this patent? Please make sure that you (or your 10-year-old nephew) aren't.
posted by lawtalkinguy at 8:39 AM PST - 26 comments

Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge won't testify before Congress (NYTimes link) but will testify before Lou Dobbs Moneyline?
posted by precipice at 8:12 AM PST - 6 comments

The Standardized Should I Stalk William Shatner Test
1. When I think of William Shatner, I:
a. Think of Captain Kirk
b. Think of the original "Star Trek"
c. Push my tummy out as far as I can and say, "But, Ssssss… pock!
d. Hold all the muscles in my face totally still so no one can tell what I’m thinking. This is private to me, do you understand? I won’t have you blabbing to him and ruining my chances of becoming his best friend. (Via About.com)
posted by Perigee at 7:41 AM PST - 24 comments

Why We Fight. In case you'd forgotten, William Bennett is here to remind you.
posted by Ty Webb at 7:22 AM PST - 42 comments

today is the day of silence, which was originally a project to raise awareness about hate crimes towards gays, but has been modified by many organizations (including my college) as a blanket protest against hate crimes. is "deliberate silence" an effective way to "end the silence"? if you've ever participated in the day of silence, was it harder than you expected to keep quiet all day?
posted by rabi at 7:20 AM PST - 17 comments

An Unusual Scooby Snack A police dog named Scooby severed a suspected criminal's penis after biting the suspect in the crotch during an arrest. What would Shaggy think?
posted by Lanternjmk at 6:19 AM PST - 34 comments

It seems that america bashing is on the increase in russia. The high water mark acheived post-perestroika seems like a distant memory.
posted by johnnyboy at 6:17 AM PST - 17 comments

Strategic Competitor. "the truth browser." interesting because it's in flash and actually has content. gives links to news articles located elsewhere along with small excerpts. interface is kinda unweildy, but he tries to pack a lot into a relatively small space.
posted by juv3nal at 3:45 AM PST - 6 comments

Time Warner/AOL to charge more for cable bandwidth hogs. No idea exactly what the bandwidth limits will be, but, according to this article, a tiered pricing structure is in the works. Grrr...
posted by shecky57 at 2:02 AM PST - 33 comments

A Few Words About Jack Vance. Gersen entered a hall with a floor of immaculate white glass tiles. On one hand was the display wall, characteristic of middle-class European homes; here hung a panel intricately inlaid with wood, bone and shell: Lenka workmanship from Nowhere, one of the Concourse planets; a set of perfume points from Pamfile; a rectangle of polished and perforated obsidian; and one of the so-called "supplication slabs"* from Lupus 23II.

* The nonhuman natives of Peninsula 4A, Lupus 23II, devote the greater part of their lives to the working of these slabs, which apparently have a religious significance. Twice each year, at the solstices, two hundred and twenty-four microscopically exact slabs are placed aboard a ceremonial barge, which is then allowed to drift out upon the ocean. The Lupus Salvage Company maintains a ship just over the horizon from peninsula 4A. As soon as the raft has drifted out of sight of land, it is recovered, the slabs are removed, exported and sold as objets d'art.

(Not for season ticket holders to The Short Attention Span Theater -More within)
posted by y2karl at 1:42 AM PST - 39 comments