MetaFilter

Pink Floyd keyboardist and founding member Rick Wright joins Syd Barret at the Great Gig in the Sky.
comment posted at 11:41 AM on Sep-15-08

NewsFilter: At least 20 are dead in multiple shootings at Virginia Tech. Just last week, Virginia Tech closed part of its campus as it was the target of multiple bomb threats.
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comment posted at 11:53 AM on Apr-16-07

Kurt Vonnegut, Writer of Classics of the American Counterculture, Dies at 84 "His death was reported by Morgan Entrekin, a longtime family friend, who said Mr. Vonnegut suffered brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago. Mr. Vonnegut wrote plays, essays and short fiction. But it was his novels that became classics of the American counterculture, making him a literary idol, particularly to students in the 1960s and ’70s. Dog-eared paperback copies of his books could be found in the back pockets of blue jeans and in dorm rooms on campuses throughout the United States." .
comment posted at 9:31 AM on Apr-12-07

A judge has thrown out a 201-year-old North Carolina law making it illegal for unmarried couples to live together. The case was previously discussed here.
comment posted at 10:28 AM on Jul-21-06
comment posted at 10:49 AM on Jul-21-06

New Friend Request
comment posted at 10:31 AM on Jul-21-06

Pro-life blogger just doesn't get it. (via)
comment posted at 5:30 AM on Jul-11-06

United States collapses as Ghana is "sick with happiness." World Cup, we hardly knew you.
comment posted at 11:39 AM on Jun-22-06

100 Awesome Music Videos Note: not THE 100 MOST Awesome, just 100 awesome music videos. Some you'll know, some you may not, many you'll disagree with, just keep in mind, no one claimed this was a definitive list.
comment posted at 11:23 AM on Jun-21-06

Ghost in a car advert? This is a car advertisement from Great Britain. When they finished filming the ad, the film editor noticed something moving along the side of the car, like a ghostly white mist. They found out that a person had been killed a year earlier in that exact same spot. The ad was never put on TV because of the unexplained ghostly phenomenon. Watch the front end of the car as it clears the trees in the middle of the screen and you'll see the white mist crossing in front of the car then following it along the road....Spooky! Is it a ghost, or is it simply mist? You decide. If you listen to the ad, you'll even hear the cameraman whispering in the background about it near the end of the commercial. A little creepy but pretty cool! Turn volume up to hear the whisper.
comment posted at 6:40 AM on Jun-19-06

"I'm John, and I used to play with my partner Paul." "I'm Paul, and I used to play with my partner Art." Yes, it's youtube, and it prominently features a couple of musicians from the sixties who have been discussed on the blue before with varying degrees of admiration/scorn. I still found this fascinating - compared to today's awards ceremonies, it looks downright ancient. But I love the spontaneity and the humor. Finally, as if that weren't enough - despite some stiff competition, the winner is...
comment posted at 6:44 AM on Jun-19-06

The return of astronauts to the moon by 2020? Yeah! Hurricane predictions, long-term monitoring of weather and climate change? Not so much. (related here and here)
comment posted at 3:47 AM on Jun-16-06

Word. Eighth-grader Katharine Close has finally won the Scripps National Spelling Bee on her fifth attempt. She beat out 274 other competitors and won with the word ursprache, sounding it out live on national television. If spelling out rarely used historical-linguistic jargon seems tough, try weltschmerz on for size. That's the word runner-up Finola Mei Hwa Hackett stumbled on. While your at it, why not take a look at the entire word list and see how many you can get, or even just recognize. Prior escapades in spelling documented here, here [YouTube], and if you want to head out to theaters, here.
comment posted at 10:19 AM on Jun-2-06
comment posted at 10:20 AM on Jun-2-06

Seamless images. Two distinct images in one transitioning without a definite border. [via MoFi]
comment posted at 8:40 AM on Jun-2-06
comment posted at 8:44 AM on Jun-2-06

Mr. Rogers before the Senate in 1969. [video; YouTube]
comment posted at 10:53 AM on May-25-06

Hurricane headlines differ. (warning: Newsfilter)
comment posted at 11:43 AM on May-22-06
comment posted at 11:51 AM on May-22-06

Radiating Places. Twenty years after the Chernobyl disaster, seven artists from Moscow, Minsk, and Berlin travelled to the desolate, restricted area to commemorate the catastrophe.
comment posted at 9:39 AM on May-22-06
comment posted at 10:13 AM on May-22-06

Banned in D.C., not to mention the rest of the U. S. A. --British-Sri Lankan rapper M. I. A. (myspace page, with music), aka Maya Arulpragasam, has apparently been denied entry into the United States to record her next album, a follow-up to the surprise success of her first major release, "Arular." Could it have been this album that pricked the ears of immigration officials? Or maybe these lyrics ("Sunshowers," available at myspace)?
comment posted at 9:44 AM on May-22-06

NewsFilter: Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the chapel, teh gay menace strikes again. The GOP-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee backs the Constitutional amendment to prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages. In a fractious hearing, Republican chairman Arlen Specter shouted "Good riddance!" when Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) walked out. Laura Bush recently advised her party's candidates not to campaign on this issue and to handle it with "great sensitivity." Maybe next time.
comment posted at 9:37 AM on May-18-06

Freetar Hero - Create and play any song on your PC. In development.
comment posted at 9:56 AM on May-17-06

A one-size-fits-all solution to global warming... from the good folks at Halliburton.
comment posted at 10:03 AM on May-15-06

The funniest or the dumbest thing I have read in a very long time
comment posted at 9:12 AM on May-10-06

Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. is a liberal arts college and graduate school for the deaf (there's also a high school and primary school). In 1988, Gallaudet students protested when a hearing person was chosen as university president, and until today, I. King Jordan has served. Recently, a new president was chosen--Dr. Jane K. Fernandes, the school's Provost, who was born deaf but grew up speaking thanks to new therapies and technologies. A varied, vibrant student body never afraid to make their "voices" heard has spoken (with photos). Last night, so did a majority of the faculty, but Dr. Fernandes says she will stay.
comment posted at 10:32 AM on May-9-06
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comment posted at 11:46 AM on May-9-06

Newsfilter: 8.0 Quake Hits Tonga Lets hope this isn't a repeat of the Indonesian disaster, because 8.0 is huge.
comment posted at 9:36 AM on May-3-06
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comment posted at 10:30 AM on May-3-06

Somos Americanos Part of the current immigration discussion is a lot of arguing about the proper lyrics to an old English drinking song [mp3] U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) introduced a resolution saying the national anthem should be sung in English. President Bush was for singing the anthem in Spanish; now he's against it. The US Bureau of Education commissioned a Spanish-language version in 1919 and the State Department has otras versiones en español on its web site. "The Star-Spangled Banner" became the US national anthem in 1931.
comment posted at 11:42 AM on May-2-06

Jesus with Erection. In its March edition, the Insurgent (link down), an "alternative" student paper on the Eugene, Ore., campus printed 12 hand-drawn cartoons of Jesus as a response to rival paper the Commentator having published the controversial cartoons of Muhammad originally published in Europe that sparked Muslim riots worldwide. William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, called it "one of the most obscene assaults on Christianity I have ever seen." Hey now!
comment posted at 5:08 AM on Apr-27-06
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comment posted at 5:37 AM on Apr-27-06

Is the Bush administration really serious about NATO and UN protection to stop the Darfur genocide? "Is it only weak and incompetent, or is it two-faced?"

What can U.S. citizens do to help end this genocide? For starters, take to the streets: you can register for an April 30th demonstration on the Golden Gate Bridge & at the Presidio, or in Washington, DC. You can also ask your Rep. to sponsor House Resolution 723, a measure that urges the President to help deploy a NATO bridging force to the Darfur region.
comment posted at 5:23 AM on Apr-27-06

Hey Metafilter, check out my breasts! (NSFW)
comment posted at 10:31 AM on Apr-26-06
comment posted at 10:45 AM on Apr-26-06
comment posted at 11:47 AM on Apr-26-06

The Ninth Circuit (maligned by many as a hotbed of extreme liberal judicial activism, but defended by others PDF) issued its opinion in the case of Harper v. Poway Unified School District last week. Judge Stephen Reinhardt - who, to some people, embodies the alleged evils of the Ninth Circuit - issued the majority opinion, and Judge Alex Kozinski filed a strong dissent. The majority opinion held that a high school principal who ordered a student to remove his T-shirt that said "Homosexuality is Shameful" did not violate the student's First Amendment rights, reasoning that "limitations on speech" are permissible in cases where speech is "derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students' minority status such as race religion and sexual orientation," and the limitation is "narrow, and applied with sensitivity and for reasons that are consistent with the fundamental First Amendment mandate." [more inside]
comment posted at 7:33 AM on Apr-26-06