Ah, the town-hall debate. Where Joe Sixpack and Jane Chardonnay can have their chance to ask a presidential candidate just about anything. Of course, such an open format can sometimes lead to uncomfortable moments for a candidate (although tonight might not have such fireworks).
posted to MetaFilter by shiu mai baby at 7:10 AM on October 7, 2008 (496 comments)

Yes we can (hold babies)!
posted to MetaFilter by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:25 PM on October 6, 2008 (68 comments)

This American Life gives you Another Frightening Show About the Economy.. The guys who brought us The Giant Pool of Money (previously) explain the credit crunch and why it's so scary. And not in the Halloween fun-to-be-scared sense.
posted to MetaFilter by justkevin at 9:04 PM on October 5, 2008 (163 comments)

Obviously we all love Metafilter or we wouldn't be here posting and reading day after day... But, if there was one thing you could change/modify about your Metafilter experience, what would it be?
posted to MetaTalk by amyms at 11:16 PM on October 4, 2008 (257 comments)

A Brief History of English, with Chronology by Suzanne Kemmer is one of many articles at Words in English, a website designed as "a resource for those who want to learn more about this fascinating language – its history as a language, the origins of its words, and its current modern characteristics."
posted to MetaFilter by blue_beetle at 4:36 PM on October 4, 2008 (38 comments)

The 32nd podcast features recaps from the month of September on all the mefi sites and a very special comment reading from TryTheTilapia. It runs about an hour long.

direct link
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 1:14 PM on October 3, 2008 (21 comments)

I Am Capable of More Than I Think I Am - Gregg Rogers discusses his introduction to being a parent of a child with Down syndrome for a segment of NPR's This I Believe.
posted to MetaFilter by plinth at 7:07 AM on October 2, 2008 (28 comments)

What's the hardest dining reservation to score? French Laundry? Nope. El Bulli? Non. D.C.'s minibar? Not even close.
posted to MetaFilter by shiu mai baby at 7:10 PM on October 1, 2008 (54 comments)

David Carr is a New York Times columnist and Oscar blogger. He also just published his memoir, The Night of the Gun, about his time as a crack addicted fat thug who beat up women and sold bad coke, using his journalistic skills to investigate events he barely remembers. Reviews have placed it head and shoulders above the recent spate of other junkie redemption narratives, with one reviewer stating his confusion as to "whether you’ve just seen the memoir redeemed or irrevocably dismantled."

He has some sort of potato fixation, too.
posted to MetaFilter by Panjandrum at 4:56 AM on October 2, 2008 (41 comments)

Concert promoter LiveDaily has an acoustic live sessions program (video starts playing). It's been running since March of this year and so far 33 artists have performed: Priscilla Ahn, The Raveonettes, Black Lips, Paddy Casey, Dawn Landes, Lykke Li, The Duke Spirit, Frightened Rabbit, Foreign Born, The Dodos, The Virgins, Radar Bros., Langhorne Slim, Shwayze, Joseph Arthur, Missy Higgins, Wild Sweet Orange, Le Switch, Deadly Syndrome, Steve Poltz, Weather Underground, Imaad Wasif, Rogue Wave, David Ford, Takka Takka, Black Ghosts, The Airborne Toxic Event, Tally Hall, Lionel Loueke, Calico Horse, Rademacher, Judith Owen and Carrie Rodriguez
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:02 AM on September 30, 2008 (10 comments)

McCain calls time! John McCain has asked that the first presidential debate be postponed and he will suspend his campaign so he can focus on the economy. No response from Obama yet. But it may be due to his approval rating, The latest FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll shows Obama has taken a 45-39 percent lead.
posted to MetaFilter by parmanparman at 12:25 PM on September 24, 2008 (1592 comments)

Man For Young Girl To Become My Wife is the Time Cube of romance
posted to MetaFilter by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 4:04 PM on September 19, 2008 (145 comments)

Sarah Palin's email gets hacked by Anonymous (right, that Anonymous). And given the legal controversy surrounding her email, one wonders if the fact that her yahoo email accounts are now deleted constitutes destruction of evidence or violations of public-records laws. Its hit Wikileaks too, but, I'm not sure they have more then what's already released (rapidshare).
posted to MetaFilter by yeoz at 11:05 AM on September 17, 2008 (413 comments)

Regarding this post and this MeTa thread, a few facts for you.
posted to MetaTalk by plinth at 7:19 PM on September 16, 2008 (151 comments)

Have the wheels come off the straight talk express? At least one sleeping giant woke up today: the NYT finally gives Sarah Palin a thorough vetting and the results aren't pretty. The McCain campaign's aggressive - and many say dishonest - tactics in promoting Palin may have sparked the beginnings of a media backlash. Camp McCain's reaction: We don't care and intend to stay on offense. And about that offense, they will soon have some help: Group With Swift Boat Alumni Readies Ads Attacking Obama. How low will things go? At this week's Values Voters Summit, 'Obama Waffles' with racial stereotypes were all the rage.
posted to MetaFilter by madamjujujive at 5:32 AM on September 14, 2008 (1774 comments)

In the United States, what legal rights are there for dead people? Does the constitution have stipulations for the rights of dead Americans and non-Americans who die in America? Also, how long - hypothetically - does a person need to be dead until their body becomes public property and, in the case of those who die leaving kin, are dead bodies 'owned', and for how long?
posted to Ask Metafilter by parmanparman at 7:52 PM on September 11, 2008 (15 comments)

Spore is out and I'd love to add MeFi creatures to my universe. Please post your Spore username here.
posted to MetaTalk by jragon at 6:59 AM on September 8, 2008 (78 comments)

Dear Askme, "Hi, my boyfriend set up a secret website and recruited all of my friends to participate in it without my knowledge. Should I seriously DTMFA for that?" Shit, I hope not! Oh! and Happy Birthday, Jessamyn!
posted to MetaTalk by not_on_display at 9:02 PM on September 4, 2008 (117 comments)

This is a long-awaited update to the previous Palin thread. A LOT has happened since then, which I think deserves additional discussion. The last time Palin's Travels was linked to was 2004 and his most recent book that you could view on the site was Sahara. But now you can read the full texts of two more books in Michael Palin's wonderful travel/adventure series: Himalaya and New Europe. There are also loads of pictures, video (Quicktime req.) and audio clips.
posted to MetaFilter by ND¢ at 1:34 PM on September 4, 2008 (79 comments)

Need to find an alternative to MyHQ.com. MyHQ is a web-based homepage that is simply lists of links that you can add to, customize, and organize into categories. You set it as your homepage, and voila!, every place you regularly visit on the internet is right in front of you. Their site is currently down, which has happened before, but this time I fear its for reals. I am literally lost without it (not to mention the 100+ organized links that I no longer have access to).
posted to Ask Metafilter by iamkimiam at 10:30 PM on September 3, 2008 (19 comments)

What online shopping experiences have left you absolutely delighted? As in "I laughed with delight when I opened the box?" I want to start building a list of *great* places to buy gifts for my friends/family, and I'm sure some of you know some great places. My inspiration for this question.
posted to Ask Metafilter by pjern at 9:11 PM on August 31, 2008 (25 comments)

Fox, the BBC and CNN have all revealed that Republican US presidential candidate John McCain has picked Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate on his 72nd birthday on the eve of the start of Republican National Convention. Despite being wildly popular in Alaska, Palin has recently been involved in an investigation over whether she dismissed a public safety commissioner because he refused to dismiss her former brother-in-law.
posted to MetaFilter by HaloMan at 7:52 AM on August 29, 2008 (5604 comments)

Amy Goodman Arrested! Amy Goodman, award-winning journalist and host of Democracy Now!, has been arrested after she tried to figure out why two of her producers had been arrested. Already people are responding.
posted to MetaFilter by history is a weapon at 6:27 PM on September 1, 2008 (298 comments)

Mythbusters has been gagged about doing a new episode on the ease of hacking the new rfid enabled credit cards.
posted to MetaFilter by DJWeezy at 11:55 PM on August 30, 2008 (122 comments)

Up for serious discussion: What are the ethics of writing under a pseudonym?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Toto_tot at 10:55 AM on August 28, 2008 (16 comments)

How do people who communicate in languages without capital letters yell at each other online?
posted to Ask Metafilter by millipede at 12:01 PM on August 28, 2008 (10 comments)

I'm looking for unusual/exotic/foreign breakfast ideas - I've become tired of the usual cereal option, and would like something new. Doesn't matter if it needs cooking, because I have plenty of time, and should preferably be relatively healthy.
posted to Ask Metafilter by PTCHFRKR at 2:56 AM on August 28, 2008 (39 comments)

What are the reasons for and against constitutionally requiring a specific national language?
posted to Ask Metafilter by netbros at 7:36 AM on August 28, 2008 (77 comments)

Are there any good swimming holes in the San Francisco Bay Area or nearby? (Let's say, within a three hour drive.) I'd love to find some fresh water to swim in -- lakes, rivers, streams, something like that. Thanks for any suggestions! (And feel free to Mefi-mail me if you don't want to tell everyone your secret spot.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by salvia at 3:01 PM on August 26, 2008 (18 comments)

After 30 years, a new collaboration between Brian Eno and David Byrne. Stream it all there or download the free MP3.
posted to MetaFilter by twoleftfeet at 12:53 AM on August 26, 2008 (53 comments)

Who said structuralism was dead? John Curran posts Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Theory - an illustrated assortment of sociology's greatest hits, arranged neatly for your viewing pleasure.
posted to MetaFilter by puckish at 1:39 PM on August 21, 2008 (16 comments)

A People's History for the Classroom [pdf] is a high school history lesson plan/workbook based on Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. The entire 124-page workbook available for free as a downloadable PDF, as part of the Zinn Education Project, supported by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change. You must enter an email and agree to take a later survey to download.
posted to MetaFilter by Miko at 12:28 PM on August 20, 2008 (61 comments)

September 11, 2001. It's 10:15 am and the South Tower just went down. Millions of French people are watching the live coverage of the events on TF1, France's major TV channel, with star anchorman Poivre d'Arvor doing a running commentary. Then, for a split second, a character from a famous movie happily tells us (in French subtitles) that he "did it" (18 s in the video) (Dailymotion video).
posted to MetaFilter by elgilito at 5:53 AM on January 9, 2008 (84 comments)

Instead of not being able to get up in the mornings, I have a problem with waking up TOO early. Typically I go to sleep around midnight-1:00 am (it's when I start getting tired) but for the last 2 months or so I've been waking up anywhere between 5:00 am to 7ish, and my alarm doesn't go off until 8:15.
posted to Ask Metafilter by dithmer at 9:12 PM on August 14, 2008 (19 comments)

What pumpkin farms are there in the Bay Area that let you carve pumpkins on the vine right now, then pick your pumpkin up in October with your words/image healed over like this?
posted to Ask Metafilter by lulu103 at 10:56 AM on August 14, 2008 (7 comments)

David Brooks, Social Psychologist, Mark Liberman at Language Log looks at the science behind David Brook's latest column in which he claims there is a fundamental differences between the thought processes of individuals in Asian "collectivist" societies and Western "individualist" ones. (via)
posted to MetaFilter by afu at 7:57 AM on August 14, 2008 (68 comments)

I am looking for documentaries dealing with online culture, the Internet, video games and the like.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Quartermass at 10:29 AM on March 8, 2008 (19 comments)

Cross another item off of President Bush's to-do list before he leaves the White House: hobbling the Endangered Species Act and allowing federal agencies to gauge the environmental impact of their projects for themselves. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said the changes were needed to ensure that the ESA would not be used as a "back door" to regulate greenhouse gases.
posted to MetaFilter by digaman at 8:43 PM on August 11, 2008 (50 comments)

No More Perfect 10s. The new Olympic scoring has rendered the Perfect 10 obsolete. Let's remember what it looked like: Nadia Comaneci - Balance Beam & Uneven Bars - 1976. Balance Beam - 1980. Mary Lou Retton - Vault 1984. Lavinia Milosovici -Floor Exercise 1992.
posted to MetaFilter by grapefruitmoon at 9:48 PM on August 11, 2008 (85 comments)

Camping, surfing and hiking in the Oregon Coast?
posted to Ask Metafilter by PercussivePaul at 9:54 PM on August 11, 2008 (12 comments)

Writer's Rooms, portraits of the spaces where authors create: Martin Amis. Simon Armitage. Diana Athill. Jane Austen. Berly Bainbridge. JG Ballard. John Banville. Nicola Barker. Ronan Bennett. Alain de Botton. William Boyd. Raymond Briggs. Charlotte Bronte. Carmen Callil. Jung Chang. Roald Dahl. Charles Darwin. Margaret Drabble. Geoff Dyer. Anne Enright. Joshua Ferris. Jonathan Safran Foer. Margaret Forster. Antonia Fraser. Michael Frayn. Esther Freud. Simon Gray. Mark Haddon. David Hare. David Harsent. Seamus Heaney. Russell Hoban. Eric Hobsbawm. Michael Holroyd. Siri Hustvedt. AL Kennedy. Judith Kerr. Rudyard Kipling. Hanif Kureishi. Penelope Lively. David Lodge. Michael Longley. Hilary Mantel. Eamonn McCabe. Charlotte Mendelson. John Mortimer. Kate Mosse. Andrew Motion. Julie Myerson. Edna O'Brien. Andrew O'Hagan. Adam Phillips. Caryl Phillips. Craig Raine. Ian Rankin. John Richardson. Michael Rosen. Will Self. George Bernard Shaw. Alan Sillitow. Posy Simmonds. Helen Simpson. Ahdaf Soueif. Graham Swift. Adam Thirlwell. Colm Toibin. Claire Tomalin. Sue Townsend. Barbara Trapido. Rose Tremain. Sarah Waters. Jacqueline Wilson. Virginia Woolf. (Step into the reading room for a wee bit more...)
posted to MetaFilter by NotMyselfRightNow at 8:16 AM on August 8, 2008 (28 comments)

Possibly moving to the Silicon Valley region... any suggestions on a place to live that meets the following criteria?
posted to Ask Metafilter by the_bone at 11:42 PM on July 22, 2008 (23 comments)

Apology.
posted to MetaTalk by Afroblanco at 6:50 PM on August 6, 2008 (125 comments)

I recently read something that has made me start to wonder about the credit given for inventions in the past. I was unaware that in France, Brazil, and other places the Wright brothers are not listed as the first in flight. I am wondering what other things I may be missing out on due to my American midwest public school teachings.
posted to Ask Metafilter by hexxed at 2:34 PM on August 6, 2008 (28 comments)

How magicians control your mind. "Magic isn't just a bag of tricks - it's a finely-tuned technology for shaping what we see. Now researchers are extracting its lessons (PDF)." [Via BB and MH]
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus at 9:20 PM on August 5, 2008 (34 comments)

In his new book, 'The Way of the World' "Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind claims that, after the Iraq war began, the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein, in an attempt to tie Hussein to the 9/11 attacks."^* Suskind writes: "'It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq' and that Iraq bought yellowcake uranium from Niger with the help of al Qaeda. Suskind also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official "that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion." After the fake letter was released in late 2003, press outlets reported it as evidence of a Saddam/al Qaeda link. "Now, if this is true, that blows the lid off al Qaeda—Saddam," said Bill O’Reilly at the time.
posted to MetaFilter by ericb at 8:04 AM on August 5, 2008 (129 comments)

A previously unknown population of 125,000 lowland gorillas have been discovered in the swamps of the Congo Republic. Enjoy them while they last.
posted to MetaFilter by Daddy-O at 8:03 AM on August 5, 2008 (53 comments)

What resources will help me move from a proficient to a (one day, hopefully) great cook?
posted to Ask Metafilter by ecab at 9:04 AM on August 2, 2008 (20 comments)

Frederick...made linguistic experiments on the vile bodies of hapless infants, "bidding foster-mothers and nurses to suckle and bathe and wash the children, but in no wise to prattle or speak with them; for he would have learnt whether they would speak the Hebrew language (which had been the first), or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perchance the tongue of their parents of whom they had been born. But he laboured in vain, for the children could not live without clappings of the hands, and gestures, and gladness of countenance, and blandishments."
posted to MetaFilter by voltairemodern at 8:23 AM on August 4, 2008 (27 comments)

Mark Foo rewrote the rules of big-wave surfing and turned it into a high-stakes, high-profile thrill show. So when the biggest, baddest new surf break -- Mavericks -- started to churn out 40-foot waves in December 1994, it was inevitable that he'd be there. This tune celebrates his last ride. Previous tunes here and here.
posted to MeFi Music by unSane at 7:20 AM on July 6, 2006 (8 comments)