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Dive bars. Every town must have one. This is an interesting story about the bar that I imbibe at most often. I'm sure there are more like this. Please share.
posted by TurkishGolds at 11:14 PM PST - 42 comments

Coffee, our nan? Is this "Would you like some more coffee, Grandmother?" or Kofi Annan? Oh and mathowie - are you sure the Irish Haughey is pronounced Howie? [Check out Charles Haughey for the proper way.] Thank you, Voice of America, for teaching us how to pronounce those pesky foreigners' names. And shame on you, BBC Pronouncing Unit, for not being online! [This last link requires Real Audio but is really worth listening to if you have anything against stuck-up English twits.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 6:44 PM PST - 16 comments

Fleshlight. I paid over $60,000 to GET RID OF a woman that didn't feel 1/2 as good. The interactive model. Don't miss the testimonials, either. NSFW
posted by angry modem at 6:03 PM PST - 46 comments

A dissappearing history. The National Museum of Iraq recorded a history of civilizations that began to flourish in the fertile plains of Mesopotamia more than 7,000 years ago. But once American troops entered Baghdad in sufficient force to topple Saddam Hussein's government this week, it took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 170,000 artifacts carried away by looters.
posted by the fire you left me at 5:26 PM PST - 58 comments

Maggot art! Ah, maggots - some folk find them gross (warning, gross), some find them tasty, some think they're pretty bad-ass, and name their hardcore band or rugby team after them. But truly, their greatest talent must be as artists.
posted by jearbear at 5:25 PM PST - 7 comments

The Anglosphere: This has been floating vaguely in the memesphere for a year or so, and is ready to pop. Seems we Anglophones are not nations separated by a common language anymore, but "a distinct civilization in [our] own right."

Western in origin but no longer entirely Western in composition and nature, this civilization is marked by a particularly strong civil society, which is the source of its long record of successful constitutional government and economic prosperity. ... [its] continuous leadership of the Scientific-Technological Revolution from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first century stems from these characteristics and is thus likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

It is not, however, a return of " the racialist Anglo-Saxonism dating from the era around 1900" ... he says. The author was profiled in Industry Standard in August 2001. His company provides "sovereignty services" — i.e., moving wealth offshore.
posted by hairyeyeball at 4:58 PM PST - 9 comments

The Feudal States of America? Timely article from Thom Hartmann called The Real War - On American Democracy. "Those of us who still believe in republican democracy would have "We, The People" make the decisions through representatives we've elected without the feudal influence of corporate money. We realize that "big government" is, indeed, a menace when it's no longer responsive to its own people, as happened in Germany and Russia in the last century - and is happening today in America under the neoconservatives."
posted by thedailygrowl at 1:26 PM PST - 32 comments

Donald Rumsfeld is a man of many talents. Earlier in the month we found out he is a poet. Well, not only is he well versed in defense policy, but sex advise as well. Watch out Dan Savage!
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 1:19 PM PST - 9 comments

Visceral beauty Long-standing Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell offers some thoughts on covering the war One of the real advantages of being able to draw in this awful context is that it affords the chance to manipulate a little of this flood of imagery and turn it back on itself; since I'm certain the vast bulk of these mega-pictures constitute a campaign of deliberate obfuscation.
posted by skellum at 12:55 PM PST - 7 comments

SADDAM AIDE SURRENDERS Saddam Hussein's chief weapons adviser has surrendered to the US military. US officials had described Lieutenant General Amir al-Saadi as the person they most wanted to speak to about Iraq's weapons programmes. Now we will know about WMD or the integrity and effectiveness of the give-inspections-a -chance folks. Any bets to be placed?
posted by Postroad at 10:21 AM PST - 42 comments

The Parlor is worth watching again once you figure out what is going on [Some language nsfw]. From the 2002 Chrysler Film Fest, reg. required for the full versions of the 2003 films but you can see clips here.
posted by dogwalker at 8:58 AM PST - 6 comments

Amusing Bass Guitars - a fun 62 page collection of unusual bass guitars from Bunny Bass where "basses are bunnier." Also, don't miss the gallery of bass & guitar girls and the lusciouslyy-crafted instruments from custom design builders. Seen any good basses you would add to this collection?
posted by madamjujujive at 6:28 AM PST - 16 comments

The Ethnographic Lens: Images from the Realm of a Rain Queen. Between 1936 and 1938 social anthropologists Eileen and Jack Krige undertook intensive fieldwork in the north-eastern regions of South Africa among the Lobedu people whose chief Modjadji was widely acclaimed as a rainmaker.'
'In 1943 their book 'The Realm of a Rain Queen' was published and has remained in print ever since. Some of the photographs taken by the Kriges were used as illustrations in the book but many remained unpublished and little known ...' Via this collection of archaeological and anthropological resources from the South African Museum.
Princess Makobo Modjadji of the Bolobedu has just been crowned as the new Rain Queen, Modjadji VI. A light drizzle greeted the inauguration, which may be a good sign.
The Rain Queen was the inspiration for H. Rider Haggard's 'She Who Must Be Obeyed'.
More on the world of the Rain Queen - including biographical details on the last Rain Queen, and her relationships with politicians such as Nelson Mandela in a changine South Africa - here.
posted by plep at 3:36 AM PST - 5 comments

$400 Dollars (yes, that's four hundred) is the price per gallon of gas for our military. The cost of moving fuel to a war theater can boost its price to about $10 dollars per gallon. And if it has to be airlifted in, that price tag can reach $400 dollars a gallon or more. This story is the opening piece on this week's edition of Living on Earth on NPR. Read the transcript here, or listen via MP3 or Real Player.
posted by bluedaniel at 3:34 AM PST - 13 comments

Let The Iraqi Looters Loot: there's pleasure and there's payback in looting! [A little more inside]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:13 AM PST - 45 comments