I'm too lazy to read the above posts. For "qualifications" I'll say I spent 5 years running an art/foreign video store, spent 4 years in film school and between 1993 and 2004 I saw at least one film every single day, on average. Here are the films I most lend out or recommend to my friends, in no particular order:

Carnal Knowledge
Five Easy Pieces
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Clean,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by dobbs at 9:08 PM on January 27, 2008

Obama's response to the suggestion of the cancellation of the debate.

Whoever recorded it was apparently so impressed by one of Obama's comments that they rewound it as Obama was still speaking, so there's a little hiccup.
posted to MetaFilter by Astro Zombie at 4:54 PM on September 24, 2008

Look eight comments above yours!

Here's the Couric-Palin Foreign Policy madness on youtube for anybody who has problems getting those cbs videos to play. Palin makes Jack Handey sound like Einstein. She's terrible.
posted to MetaFilter by cashman at 12:58 PM on September 25, 2008

Craig Ferguson:

It's the democratic process! We didn't suspend it for 9/11, we didn't suspend it for Pearl Harbor, we didn't suspend it for the Nazis, we didn't suspend it for the damn British! We don't do that in America! We don't! There's no suspending the campaign!
posted by EarBucket

It was Sarah Palin that made Craig Ferguson an honorary citizen of Alaska.
posted to MetaFilter by Sailormom at 9:40 PM on September 25, 2008

Barack Obama's senior aides believe he is on course for a landslide election victory over John McCain and will comfortably exceed most current predictions in the race for the White House.

Their optimism, which is said to be shared by the Democratic candidate himself, is based on information from private polling and on faith in the powerful political organisation he has built in the key swing states.

Insiders say that Mr Obama's apparent calm... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by EarBucket at 7:42 AM on September 29, 2008

So, how many favorites do we think DaShiv picks up in the next three months? I'm going with 2500. Seriously. Twenty five hundred favorites between now and and, say, two weeks after the election.
posted to MetaFilter by Kwine at 5:40 PM on August 29, 2008

I hope Obama starts talking about how the US economy is a disaster and it's all the greedy ass Republicans fault.

Obama's Unusual New Ad

"Unusual" in that its 120 seconds of the candidate talking directly to the camera, describing his thoughts on the economy in detail. I hope Obama does more of this. I've thought for a long time that a good 60 or 90 second edit of the NH Primary Speech ("Yes We Can") run... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by anastasiav at 10:29 AM on September 18, 2008

So, here, at the melancholy twilight of greatness, let's tally the collective Palinyakk of Mefi, one month later:

MEFI
5,504 Sarah Palin as McCain's running-mate, Aug 29
37 Palin's Daughter is pregnant, Sep 1
2 Bristol Palin pregnant, Sep 1
7 How is babby faked?, Sep 1
0 Evaluation of Palin, Sep 7
71 Books Palin wanted banned, Sep 8
16 Any more dirt in this Palin?, Sep 10
37... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dgaicun at 12:51 AM on September 29, 2008

I'm going to miss this thread.

Over all it's long, so so long, it's all over.
posted to MetaFilter by Faint of Butt at 7:46 AM on September 29, 2008

As to this guy, the reason he was captured was because they had good reason to believe he was cooperating with al Qaeda.

Cite, please.

Or is your argument: They captured him, so he must be guilty?

Yeah, and they held him for seven years without trial. Because they had so much evidence. And then, because he was a dangerous enemy combatant, they...let him go.

Tens of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rtha at 3:58 PM on September 27, 2008

Here,
at the bottom of the bottle,
through a magnifying tumour of malformed bottleglass,
a nightmare cartoon stares out from the Mezcal's preservative embrace;
a tiny, puckered gusano de maguey,
long-drowned,
gently swaying,
to the brownian lullaby of distilled blue agave,
pressing its head close against the bottle's bottom edge,
it advertises itself,
like a puppy in a window,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Opus Dark at 5:48 AM on August 19, 2004

Never mind that textiles enabled CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT.

Before I clicked on that link I knew it was going to be for Elizabeth Barber's book. She was my first linguistics teacher and is largely responsible for there being a languagehat at all (not to mention for my wasting years of my life in grad school, but that's a rant for another day).
posted to MetaFilter by languagehat at 7:46 AM on September 23, 2008

... A few years ago, I was privileged to teach a group of splendid students at the University of California at Santa Barbara. In order to do so, I had to fly in and out of that coastal paradise on a weekly basis, and, as pleasant as my class was and as beautiful as the setting is, I found the community of Santa Barbara troubling in its perfect contentment and uncanny coherence. Contentment is always annoying, of course, but the coherence was confusing in the extreme, since the community itself,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by koeselitz at 10:19 AM on September 23, 2008

It is naive to think that the hopes and desires of an entire nation can be summed up in a single short sentence.
posted to MetaFilter by DevilsAdvocate at 1:44 PM on September 19, 2008

Naomi Wolff scares the crap out of me with this column.

Naomi Wolff can bite my shiny metal ass. Many others on the left and right have weighed her theories and found her wanting. That article of hers was just a rehash of her hyperbole without much consideration of whether Obama's economic team isn't influenced by the Chicago School themselves... considering many of them teach at U Chicago.

Seriously. And combine... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dw at 8:00 AM on September 23, 2008

Only once: I did a piece constructed out of some public domain material plus my own additions, and shared it with a few friends. Then at a party I met someone, and upon hearing my name (which is not particularly uncommon) they said "oh, are you the guy that did [the song]?" and I'll be damned if he didn't pull out his iPod and show me he had it, and said he'd been listening to it and loved it. Turned out he knew someone that I had given the song to, but I hadn't known that at the time,... [more]
posted to MeFi Music by davejay at 2:01 AM on September 23, 2008

Really the only thing I'm proud of ever doing on the internet. My own long sad cat story. Sorry to keep linking to it so often, but I really am proud of it.
posted to MetaTalk by yhbc at 5:53 PM on September 22, 2008

Somehow the hedgefunders getting into the art market seems surreal in the worst way.

Art as an investment class for the rich is nothing new. A few years ago I remember reading an article about how the Russians were coming to Sotheby's/Christie's in sloppy suits and shoes that would belay their more proletarian beginnings (the horrors). In the 80s I believe there were art fund setup to cash in on this. Even 60 Minutes this week had an article on how... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by geoff. at 9:16 AM on September 22, 2008

Danton -- sadly not on DVD here in the states. (Anyone who messes around with torrents and DVDs and whatnot and wants to make an eternal friend, let me know.) Depardieu perfectly cast as the lusty and earthy Danton, an early leader in the French revolution; check out the dinner scene, maybe halfway through the movie, he explodes off the screen, it's incredible, he's an elemental force, one of my favorite scenes ever, any movie.
posted to Ask Metafilter by dancestoblue at 8:43 PM on September 20, 2008

Things I learned today:

1. James Brown likes the hotpants.
2. This little guy can jump and jump.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 7:24 PM on March 13, 2008

I really hate it when ancient religious texts are watered down to make them more "accessible". They're not accessible. They're not easy to understand.

Really good point. For me one of the most frustrating things is the idea that I will probably never understand the culture in which the texts were produced -- I get frequent glances that convince me I don't really understand the U.S. culture 60 years ago that produced my parents, and I have a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by weston at 6:03 PM on September 18, 2008

Bill Brown's "Thing Theory," Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art..." and especially Georges Perec's novella "Things" all get at something a little deeper than "wow maybe lots of stuff is bad." Each explores the way people interact with things, which is crucial to any kind of thinking about consumerism. Perhaps a bit long, but not outside the scope of a college course (that's where I was introduced to them). IMHO, Perec focuses most directly on consumerism,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by ecmendenhall at 2:32 PM on September 16, 2008

Wow. This gave me so much insight into what my family used to do on their farm before they came up from southern Ohio to the northeast, near Cleveland. I grew up helping my great-grandma cook and can vegetables, I've helped make lye soap... but this was really, really great to read. Let me join the wants-a-podcast chorus!

I truly wish I'd recorded my great-grandma's amazing (and hilarious) stories while she was still here. But the all-time best grandma put-down ever? My... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by bitter-girl.com at 8:42 AM on May 5, 2007

Don't knock "Starship Troopers" out of hand. It's a deliberately bad movie poking fun at facism and going to war with faceless enemies.
posted to MetaTalk by Burhanistan at 4:09 PM on April 11, 2007

I think I set a new world record in posting while insanely drunk.

You should read the set up to this comment at a minimum before taking that honor.
posted to MetaTalk by stet at 5:03 PM on September 10, 2008

Eideteker is not lying.... about that anyhow.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 8:21 PM on September 10, 2008

I Heart Carl Sagan.

1970's Highschool education was a wasteland. If it were not for PBS and Cosmos I would have zero science education. Cosmos lead to Nova. Nova lead to Connections. Connections lead to The Day The Universe Changed.

Plus the story of how he proposed to his wife, Ann Druyan, always gets me a bit weepy.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tkchrist at 10:41 AM on December 20, 2006

Well, I hate to harsh my own mellow and it is strange because I love Led Zeppelin, most specifically Robert Plant, like it were 1975, when the man couldn't leave the house without women falling on him like curvy hail. I won't mince words: he brings me to my knees. It takes a special genius to be able to make one feel like a beautiful lady feeding a unicorn in a tapestry and then contemplate what exactly a back door man is, and how can you find one as soon as possible.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by melissa may at 12:10 PM on March 10, 2007

I feel the need to answer this since I was the one who said I hated music. I shouldn't have said it, but I did. Not that I don't feel that I hate music sometimes, and especially lately. I do. It's more a factor of the culture I was a part of--stoic and all that. Anyway, I listen to it all the time, it comes into my head at all hours of the day and has since I was 11, and I force myself to stay in bed most nights when an idea comes to me just before I drift off. I write about it... [more]
posted to MeFi Music by sleepy pete at 11:32 PM on September 3, 2008

I'm very curious about this, so I checked back in -- I did read everything - every answer too. I had a slow day and dinner in the crockpot and needed something to focus on in between email responses. You won! I completely and thoroughly understand that you have time - as evidenced by your previous questions too. You're not getting it - despite all the good answers to the other questions you asked and the good answers to this one. It has a lot to do with time. It's not one bit about having money.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by peagood at 3:48 PM on September 9, 2008

Shame orchestras don't take risks alienating their core audience (and some of their own musicians!) like that more often.

Many of the orchestras (and other classical-type ensembles) in the U.S. would looove to be much more progressive in the music they play (say, post-1910, maybe?), the ways they present it, etc., but can't: they're too dependent upon big donors, who typically are rich people with very conservative tastes. Before I left to come back... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by LooseFilter at 9:58 AM on September 9, 2008

Well, it'll take about 10-15 years or more to re-balance the Afghani environment (irrigation, soil cultivation, agrarian logistics, etc - they used to have great fruit trees) so people can make a living off of something other than opium.

I don't believe anyone (that is - the U.S.) has really started doing that in earnest.

Special Ops have been running around in Pakistan for some time. It's a big backyard. Mostly recon obviously.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman at 8:59 PM on September 6, 2008

"You know, John McCain likes to say he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell — but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives."
posted to MetaFilter by Poolio at 3:50 AM on September 6, 2008

WCityMike, you're the sweetest. And you can always count on me to help when you need a warm fuzzy.
posted to MetaTalk by heyho at 2:06 PM on September 5, 2008

Mr. Palmcorder's tastes in everything, from visual art to books to music, are pretty different from mine. It's awesome. I love trying to view culture through his eyes, and attempting to pick out things he'll think are wonderful. (Successes: Robert Delaunay, The Breakfast Club, Alias Grace. Failures: Charles Simic, T.S. Eliot, and all critical theory.) Also, when we find something that we both unabashedly adore (like Bruce Sterling's Lechy Starlitz stories) it's kind of magical.
posted to MetaFilter by palmcorder_yajna at 3:42 PM on September 1, 2008

I did not hotlink my period. I am a bad typesetter.

If it is not the whole sentence that you are enclosing in formatting, I feel that it's better not to include terminal punctuation in the bounds of the formatting.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 10:49 PM on August 28, 2008

Someday I'll tell my niece "I saw the President at the 2004 convention." And yes, the wonderchicken is right and yes, he's just a politician, and yes, he's bound to disappoint us, but right now if anyone's feeling up the fresh green breast of the new world, it's Barack Obama. My dad still talks about seeing RFK. Last night I thought, "So this is what he saw."
posted to MetaFilter by octobersurprise at 8:55 PM on July 28, 2004

Oh, can anyone tell I am addicted to this thread?

No-sword and others interested in Burmese Buddhism, you may like to read this wonderful work - once only available through a junto-owned press, now available free in pdf - Snow in the Summer.
posted to MetaFilter by Kerasia at 4:26 AM on August 21, 2008

me: In the absence of Divine Law, which possibility I do not discount, the only basis for a rational morality, a natural right, is common good.

Ms. Saint: Well... You're ignoring the possibility of morality being derivable from purely rational principles, as well as the possibility that morality is the product of evolution/adaptation/whatever. Aren't you?

LobsterMitten: Quibble: As Ms Saint said,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by koeselitz at 11:26 AM on January 11, 2008

I'd like to see "related posts" on the blue - having gotten used to it in AskMe, I keep scrolling down past the post box expecting to see what else has been posted in the past on whatever topic.
posted to MetaTalk by yarrow at 12:08 PM on August 21, 2008

My cat likes to snuggle my neck when I am resting but she knows that it takes about 20 - 30 minutes of tossing and turning for me to fall asleep. So she waits patiently for me to stop squirming. Once, she thought I had dropped off to sleep, but in reality I had one eye open, and I watched her carefully, inch by inch, move from my feet to my face. It took about 60 seconds, pausing between each movement to make sure she didn't wake me. Cutest thing i have ever seen.
posted to Ask Metafilter by vronsky at 3:57 PM on January 7, 2007

We haven't had that spirit here since 1969.

Metafilter: You can sign up, but you can never leave.

Welcome to the Hotel Gonna Scorn Ya.
posted to MetaTalk by flapjax at midnite at 11:48 PM on August 19, 2008

Damn you, flapjax, see what you made me go and do?

Welcome To The Hotel Gonna Scorn Ya

In a dark Metatalk thread, trolls posting for lolz
Complaints 'bout deletions, arguments 'bout the polls
Down below in the textbox, I typed a clever insight
My mouse grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
cortex deleted my post
I heard jessamyn yell
And I... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:41 AM on August 20, 2008

Hey! What happened to my gold star?
posted to MetaTalk by Stan Chin at 7:20 PM on August 19, 2008

Somewhat related: 10 Reasons No One Cares About Wonder Woman
posted to MetaFilter by Ian A.T. at 7:20 PM on August 14, 2008

Find me one person whose political views have been CHANGED by the Daily Show and I'll have a lot more respect for what Stewart does.

Meet my parents. Who will be voting Democratic in this election and voted that way in the Primaries after a lifetime of voting Republican.

Did Jon Stewart bring this about directly? I don't know. I DO know that we have never been able to discuss politics (my parents and I) without my dad... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jeanmari at 7:17 PM on August 16, 2008

Congrats, that's great news!

Any other winners/nominees lurking round here?

Well, I copyedited the Best Related Book, Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher (Oxford University Press), and by ghod, that's good enough for me!
posted to MetaTalk by languagehat at 6:35 AM on August 11, 2008

Well, I copyedited the Best Related Book, Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher (Oxford University Press), and by ghod, that's good enough for me!

Ahhh - I was sure I'd seen some sort of MeFi related reference to that book somewhere, but couldn't remember where. I will now refer to you as "the tangentially Hugo-award-winning languagehat".

Can I suggest that the text underneath the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by flashboy at 8:04 AM on August 11, 2008

I just wanted to say a few things.

1. I am actually kind of upset by how many stupid jokes are in here. I've been hurt by these same sort of dismissive jokes when they are let loose in past sexism threads here, and exactly these sorts of jokes and attitudes have caused female members of the site to leave before (e.g., Danila). In a way I actually think the behavior in this thread has been sexist, because the attitude here seems to be "man up,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by onlyconnect at 9:06 AM on August 6, 2008

Cortex, Matt - how much would it cost me to get the 'note' on the bottom of this preview window changed to

note: Everyone needs a punch in the dick.

for a day?
posted to MetaTalk by ikkyu2 at 10:18 PM on August 5, 2008