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A gallery of inexplicable objects like a fridge magnet warning, a U-haul truck, a moist toilette, medicated cream, and many more. *Bonus Link* The same guy also has a review of the steaming pile of movie known as Gymkata.
posted by euphorb at 11:06 PM PST - 11 comments

Hundreds of kinds of mixed seeds, soil humus, and dry powdered red brown clay, form the solid components of seed balls.
posted by sudama at 8:48 PM PST - 6 comments

By the Fire – an artist's step-by-step sketches and commentary of the creation of an oil painting, beginning with the end. (featured here)
posted by bitpart at 8:38 PM PST - 8 comments

Its Heartwarming Friday ! Lets all hug each other and see some of the loveliest , caringest and just plain Heartwarmingest sites the web has to offer.
posted by sgt.serenity at 6:19 PM PST - 76 comments

When mobile phones attackget attacked. Articles posted on The Guardian and Reuters today are reporting that mobile phones running on the Symbian OS in Moscow are being targeted by a non-malicious virus/worm named Cabir.
Only 49 phones have been infected so far by the worm which propagates via Bluetooth. The creators are 29A labs, a "group of virus writers from the Czech Republic and Slovakia who pride themselves in creating "proof of concept malicious viruses,"
Countdown to impending doom in..5..4..3..
posted by Lizc at 5:56 PM PST - 8 comments

Packing heat at the local Starbucks

Feeling a little unsafe going to the local mall? Bring your hand gun!

In fact bring some more ammo just in case you run out! It's legal here in Veeerginia.
posted by blahblah at 5:53 PM PST - 56 comments

Danzig gets knocked out. Now, I know that most of you probably aren't big on violence, however, I find a little jolt of comfort in seeing Danzig dropped with one punch. It's like being back in high school and seeing a bully knocked out by a geek he'd been picking on. (NSFW - violence and language)
posted by fizz-ed at 5:11 PM PST - 39 comments

Is this a firsthand account of a terrorist "dry run"? Terror in the Skies, Again? On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles with my husband and our young son. Also on our flight were 14 Middle Eastern men between the ages of approximately 20 and 50 years old. What I experienced during that flight has caused me to question whether the United States of America can realistically uphold the civil liberties of every individual, even non-citizens, and protect its citizens from terrorist threats. Read the whole thing
posted by Rob1855 at 4:34 PM PST - 124 comments

The UN recently posted a list of the ten stories they wished the world knew more about. One of them is about trying to ensure proper care and equal treatment to persons with disabilities in other countries. Unrelated to the UN, but to the point, this photojournalist's images of preventable blindness in Asia connects the faces of those affected to the issue.
posted by mathowie at 3:07 PM PST - 9 comments

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Photos Pictures from Robert Pirsig's original 1968 trip, part of a gallery of photo albums inspired by the trip, including 360° panoramas. [via WikiPedia]
posted by kirkaracha at 3:00 PM PST - 13 comments

"How do we nurture the healing side of religion over the killing side? How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state? OVER THE PAST few years, as the poor got poorer, the health care crisis worsened, wealth and media became more and more concentrated, and our political system was bought out from under us, prophetic Christianity lost its voice. The Religious Right drowned everyone else out. And they hijacked Jesus. The very Jesus who stood in Nazareth and proclaimed, 'The Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor.' The very Jesus who told 5,000 hungry people that all of you will be fed, not just some of you. The very Jesus who challenged the religious orthodoxy of the day by feeding the hungry on the Sabbath, who offered kindness to the prostitute and hospitality to the outcast, who raised the status of women and treated even the tax collector like a child of God. The very Jesus who drove the money changers from the temple. This Jesus has been hijacked and turned into a guardian of privilege instead of a champion of the dispossessed. Hijacked, he was made over into a militarist, hedonist, and lobbyist, sent prowling the halls of Congress in Guccis, seeking tax breaks and loopholes for the powerful, costly new weapon systems that don't work, and punitive public policies."
Bill Moyers on democracy excruciate.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 2:03 PM PST - 91 comments

Sure it looks just like just another promotional site for a movie, but then you realize that you can send phone messages from Hillary Duff. And sure, that seems lame at first but these are personalized messages that involve names and characteristics like "braces" or "big head." It really CAN be very amusing.
posted by adrober at 2:01 PM PST - 20 comments

Iraqi women beg to be killed as American soldiers sodomize their children (link is an .rm file, the bit about mothers and children starts about 1:31), according to journalist Seymour Hersh who reports seeing unreleased footage from Abu Ghraib. The question remains unanswered as to why he'll talk about it in a speech, but not publish it in the New Yorker. It's also worth asking, if these allegations are true, who else has seen this footage and why is it not being reported?
posted by dejah420 at 1:18 PM PST - 122 comments

Steve Jobs wants to tear down his home. But there's a problem. It's a George Washington Smith-designed 1926 Spanish Colonial Revival house (mansion?) in Woodside, California, and preservationists feel it has historical significance. Jobs replies that he'll build something that will eventually become "more historically interesting" than the present property. (Given his penchant for the steel and glass of I.M. Pei, that seems questionable.) But should he not have the right to do what he wants with his property? Tear it down, paint it purple, or fill it to the roof with Jell-O; whose business is it other than the homeowner? note: first link leads to NYT, registration required
posted by emptyage at 1:01 PM PST - 35 comments

Al-Jazeera, best known in the West for reporting on the Taliban and US-Iraq war, has, today, been approved to broadcast in Canada, amidst complaints from Jewish groups, such as the B'nai Brith, who are worried the content may be anti-semetic. What makes this interesting? Al-Jazeera will be one of the few news stations in Canada specifically warned by the Canadian government that it must censor itself for content.
posted by shepd at 12:49 PM PST - 38 comments

Low-carb jumps the shark? More than half of all Americans who've tried low-carb diets have given up, a new survey found. Is this the latest indication that the Atkins fad has peaked? Two years ago this month, Gary Taubes kicked it off with a NYT Magazine cover story arguing that emerging science proved Atkins right and the nurtition establishment wrong. A couple small, short-term studies released shortly thereafter seemed to show he was on to something. But there were problems with the "Big Fat Lie" piece: CNN found that three of the researchers Taubes cited completely disagreed with his main premise. Worse, it turned out Taubes had claimed low-fat diets don't work while ignoring the vast body of peer-reviewed evidence to the contrary, and more of his sources came forward to say things like "I was greatly offended by how Gary Taubes tricked us all into coming across as supporters of the Atkins diet. I think he’s a dangerous man. I’m sorry I ever talked to him." [More Inside]
posted by soyjoy at 11:17 AM PST - 47 comments

Human Development Report 2004 Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World
posted by mr.marx at 10:50 AM PST - 1 comments

blinkx is a new contextual search agent that seems to be causing some excitement. Unfortunately, it is not available for Macintosh or Mozilla at present.
posted by davehat at 9:02 AM PST - 13 comments

Words: Woe & Wonder The CBC explains and debates usage from a Canadian-journalism standpoint - for example, why the Iraqi ex-leader is referred to by his first name and whether to capitalize this place.
posted by casarkos at 8:43 AM PST - 8 comments

Superman lookalikes or, more accurately, Jimmy Corrigan lookalikes at the Metropolis, IL Superman Celebration.
posted by malphigian at 8:36 AM PST - 9 comments

Drag Race Ride through the streets of Manhattan with some of the fastest urban bicyclists in existence as they race in the wintertime. Thrilling and unbelievable. The mpg is from a head mounted camera worn by one of the racers. More here. Also don't miss the cameraman riding on top of a Jersey barrier here. And here I was thinking that Times Square to Park Slope in 25 minutes was pretty quick. Thanks to nervous.net.
posted by n9 at 8:35 AM PST - 33 comments

The Sakai Project, an open-source course-management software program for educational institutions is being publicly released today. Backed by the University of Michigan, Indiana University at Bloomington, MIT, and Stanford, Sakai hopes to free Universities from commercial products, which have reportedly become increasingly expensive. Here's a nice little write-up from the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:22 AM PST - 8 comments

Choose your own adventure! "The following imaginary scenario attempts to picture what would happen if the IMF did not exist. It tells the story of a businessperson in a fictional developing country that is suffering from a shortage of foreign exchange. In the scenario, there is no IMF to turn to in order to resolve the currency crisis. You will soon come to realize the difficulties of carrying on international trade in that imaginary world without the IMF."
posted by livii at 7:25 AM PST - 21 comments

The Shape of Song from Turbulence.
posted by hama7 at 5:40 AM PST - 7 comments

Sequoyah's Cherokee Syllabary
The history of a man who single-handedly invented a new and unique writing system which made the literacy rate of his nation shoot from 0% to 90% in just a few years.

Original source
posted by magullo at 5:07 AM PST - 4 comments

Space 1999 models. War of the Worlds, Flash Gordon, Alien and more. Welcome to the art of Martin Bower.
posted by srboisvert at 4:50 AM PST - 13 comments

The Arcade Flyer Archive. A to Z.
posted by nthdegx at 3:08 AM PST - 3 comments

Sustainable oil? Over the past few years there's been a growing theory that oil is not created from the decaying remains of ancient biological life but is in fact a product of the Earth's geological processes and that the current estimated oil reserves may be off by a factor of 100. This theory was made popular by Thomas Gold at Cornell way back in 1992 and has led to much more recent research (warning: heavy scientific conent) which supports the theory.
posted by PenDevil at 2:29 AM PST - 31 comments

Any of you old enough to be worried about the price of drugs? It goes on and on.
posted by donfactor at 2:16 AM PST - 4 comments