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Poll: 2/3 of US left scared shitless, want to run away ? Poll of 1400+ Daily Kos members reveals annoying admixture of fear and passivity : "They are obviously so hellbent on power and money that they will stop at absolutely nothing, no matter the blood, death, destruction, misery, pain, and hell that they inflict on anyone here or abroad, to keep it and gain more. Given this, are they going to leave?"- Imagine as read aloud, in a voice gradually rising to a piteous wail at the end.
comment posted at 8:55 AM on Apr-13-06
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Condoleezza holds a watermelon just over the edge of the roof of the 300-foot Federal Building, and tosses it up with a velocity of 20 feet per second. Using the formula provided, when the watermelon will hit the ground? Bellevue Community College President Jean Floten asked the Pluralism Steering Committee to take the lead on this, and to complete their task quickly.
comment posted at 8:27 AM on Apr-13-06
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"He teaches the students to read the music from within themselves." The annual Pop Concert at Dondero High School was a beloved institution from 1971-2006. Under the direction of music instructor Rick Hartsoe, the A Capella Choir and student instrumentalists presented 20 popular songs per concert: "ten full choir pieces chosen for their harmonic and instrumental interest, and ten solos of the students' choosing." Pieces from the last ten years included such unconventional classics as Maroon 5's "This Love," System of a Down's "Chop Suey" and "Down In A Hole" by Alice In Chains. Also included were works by Stevie Wonder, Boston, Weezer, P.O.D., Norah Jones, The Doobie Brothers and many more. Every Pop Concert ended -- perhaps appropriately -- with "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" from Hair.

March 2006 saw the last Pop Concert performed at Dondero High. Mr. Hartsoe has announced his retirement. And due to consolidation with a neighboring school, Dondero High itself is closing at the end of this school year. Thankfully, eight of those Pop Concerts (from 1995 to 2005) are available as downloadable 2-CD sets from Comfortstand (previously mentioned). Yes, for free. Convinced yet? Basically, if you were blown away by the likes of The Langley Music School Project (previously mentioned), this might just be right up your musical alley.
comment posted at 8:31 AM on Apr-13-06

Mapping religion in America "Using 2000 Census information on a county-by-county basis, the maps focus on various aspects of religion." Fascinating maps from Geitner Simmons of the Omaha World-Herald. [via]
comment posted at 8:36 AM on Apr-13-06

Six Visions of the End: Fall Down Six Times, an essay by Ran Prieur, describes six possible scenarios for the near future: Worst Case ("Meanwhile computer technology keeps accelerating, leading by 2050 to an insane and nearly all-powerful artificial intelligence, which exterminates all life on Earth except a single human, who it keeps alive to torture for all eternity: you."), Ridiculous Best Case ("In 2016 Dean steps down and the new president is an anarchist who spends eight years peacefully dismantling the federal government and building local systems that make central control irrelevant and impossible."), Naive Sci-Fi Utopia ("Everyone can live forever, and have kids, and enjoy wide open spaces. No one is sure how this is possible, but it probably has something to do with the Mayan calendar or the word "quantum.""), and three others. Whether or not you agree with his vision, the exercise of imagining different futures is a useful one that might help us see a way through the multiple crises the Earth is going through. What does your apocalypse look like?
comment posted at 10:55 AM on Apr-11-06

Bill McKibben reviews Armstrong and Moulitsas's book Crashing the Gate in the New York Review of Books. More importantly, Kos gets his own David Levine caricature.
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Newsfilter: Genetically engineered dragons a possibility, China buys Google just as Google Browser announced, new work by Euclid discovered. [via] [also: 1,2,3)
comment posted at 10:58 AM on Apr-1-06

The Puppet Rapist show on Channel 102 Can a convicted puppet rapist change his ways? Only one new show, Puppet Rapist, dares to confront this new social dilemma. You should start with the first episode. (.mov link) You can talk to the show's creator on this somethingawful thread or find out more about the show's production here
comment posted at 11:00 AM on Apr-1-06

The great Caribbean coral die-off. "The 2005 die-off is bigger than all the previous 20 years combined".. magnitude never before-seen.. sea surface temps worst in the 21 years of satellite monitoring. NOAA preliminary reports with cool graphs to left.
comment posted at 11:03 AM on Apr-1-06

It's Hard Out Here for a (Ta)Hoe: The smartypants over at GM are running a contest to "make your own" commercial for the gas-guzzling Tahoe SUV. People are giving them just what they deserve. These are likely to be yanked sooooooon, so get 'em while they're hot!
comment posted at 11:05 AM on Apr-1-06

Prayer as placebo. Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found. And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perhaps because of the expectations the prayers created, the researchers suggested.
comment posted at 11:08 AM on Apr-1-06

Shadow War : The Battle For The Mainline Churches Are you politically informed ? Well, you may have missed this. Here's the background to the UCC's recent ( network-TV blacklisted ) ad series [ covered 3/29 on Metafilter ] : a 20 year campaign, run almost like a CIA 3rd world destabilization program and funded by the Scaife, Olin, Bradley, Castle Rock ( Coors affiliated ) and other far right foundations. The objective : to take over and politically neutralize the religious denominations comprising the National Council of Churches which "include remarkably high numbers of leaders in politics, business, and culture.... these churches are some of the largest landowners in the U.S., with hundreds of billions of dollars collectively in assets, including real estate and pension funds. A hostile takeover of these churches would represent a massive shift in American culture, power and wealth for a relatively small investment.” It's more than about $ : the Christian Social Justice tradition is in the crosshairs. Veteran observer of the Christian right movement Frederick Clarkson lays out the skinny on the "Shadow War" in the Spring '06 edition of "Public Eye", a quarterly publication of Political Research Associates [ more inside ]
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Who speaks for Jesus? Why are liberal churches ignored by the American media? Why is the religious right given so much play? Media Matters gives credence to the claim that the religious right is overrepresented in the American media, and liberal religious leaders are excluded. I can't remember the last time I saw a liberal religious leader on American TV who wasn't Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.
comment posted at 2:42 PM on Mar-29-06

Stanislaw Lem: 1921-2006. Polish science-fiction giant Stanislaw Lem died this morning. He was 84. Though Lem was not as well known as Asimov or Heinlein or the other "Masters", he was just as important to the genre. Lem was not a fan of traditonal science-fiction, and in his work tried to approach futuristic themes from a more humanistic, almost psychological, perspective. (And his books are funny!) His best-known work, Solaris, was twice made into a film, most recently in 2002. [Woefully out-of-date official site.]
comment posted at 10:49 AM on Mar-27-06

"Marriage is for white people."
comment posted at 12:04 AM on Mar-27-06

New York Times to release Bush/Blair memo tomorrow. The memo, which was mentioned previously, but never publically disclosed, confirms that George W. Bush and Tony Blair were determined to invade Iraq, regardless of UN approval, and despite what both leaders told their citizens. More troubling, the memo also indicates that Bush may have conspired to assassinate Saddam Hussein, which appears to violate Sec. 5g of Executive Order 11905, which states that "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." This executive order was considered the law of the land even after 9/11, when Bob Barr proposed legislation H.R. 19, which was never enacted into law.
comment posted at 12:00 AM on Mar-27-06

US Army acknowledges "Peak Oil" - Jay Hanson has been beating the Peak Oil drum for years now. Well, "dieoff" scenarios aside, the US Army has now joined in : “The days of inexpensive, convenient, abundant energy sources are quickly drawing to a close". Indeed. "Mexico's giant Cantarell oilfield, which has financed government spending and held down U.S. gasoline prices for 20 years, is facing a production decline, a prospect that could heighten U.S. dependence on Middle East oil.". There's even a community discussion site on "Peak Oil"

Well, HELLO reality.
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Charlie Sheen does a radio interview with fringe journalist Alex Jones questioning the official story of 9/11, whether the US Government was involved in the attacks. Interesting.

Apparently, A.J. Hammer, host of CNN's Showbiz Tonight shares an interest in the "9/11 truth" phenomenon, at least enough so to cover the Sheen story (transcript)

Mirrored videos of the segment are here (windows media), here (windows media), here, (rm) and here. (mov) This is where it gets even more interesting... CNN is running a poll asking the question: "Do you agree with Charlie Sheen that the U.S. government covered up the real events of the 9/11 attacks?" Out of the 43,000 or so to respond so far, 84% say yes...
comment posted at 10:04 PM on Mar-25-06

NASA researchers can hear what you're saying, even when you don't make a sound. When we speak in our minds, we send weak electrical signals to our larynx and tounge. Tricksy new technology is able to interpret these micromovements into the words we were thinking.
comment posted at 9:16 PM on Mar-25-06

George Bush is exempt from the parts of the much reviled Patriot Act that he doesn't like -- by decree of George Bush. He signed the bill with pomp and circumstance. But after the reporters and guests went home, he issued a "signing statement" that he can withhold information from Congress in violation of the law.
comment posted at 9:18 PM on Mar-25-06

Democratic presidential candidate rails against US imperialism. "The platform . . . condemns the experiment in imperialism as an inexcusable blunder, which has involved us in enormous expense, brought us weakness instead of strength, and laid our nation open to the charge of abandoning the fundamental principles of a republic."
A prominent American author who initially supported the conflict, changed his mind, calling it "a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater.” The US is “the kind of World Power . . . that a prairie-dog village is . . . it is the duty of our Government to stand sentinel, with solemn mien, and lifted nose, and curved paws, on top of our little World-Power mound.”
comment posted at 9:36 PM on Mar-20-06

[Newsfilter] Australia's far north has been hit by a tropical cyclone, named Larry, likened by some to have been powerful as Hurricane Katrina, and considered worse than Cyclone Tracy, which virtually wiped Darwin off the face of the map just over 30 years ago.

The ABC has captured some stunning footage which shows the worst affected town of Innisfail both during the storm, and in its aftermath. [Win Broadband, Real Broadband]. [more inside]
comment posted at 9:44 PM on Mar-20-06

The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll New York Magazine's Mark Jacobson has an excellent write up on the 9-11 theories and the conspiracy theorists out for the truth. From the March 27 issue. I recommend passing it on to your friends because it raises real questions while not sounding batshit insane at all. It all boils down to whether you believe in LIHOP or MIHOP. One page link here.
comment posted at 10:03 PM on Mar-20-06

Three new ways of thinking about David Cronenberg (director of Videodrome, Dead Ringers, etc.). A documentary filmmaker, an avant-garde filmmaker, or maybe just a guy who looks at couples and probably wonders what they look like having sex. Kind of par for the course.
comment posted at 10:11 PM on Mar-20-06

Oney Judge slipped away from the household where she was kept as a slave in 1796. Neighbors were probably involved in the escape. Although a fugitive, she managed to live out the rest of her life in safety in New Hampshire. The owners she was escaping from? You may have heard of them.
comment posted at 9:06 PM on Mar-17-06

That big .45 jumped in Big Milam's hand. The youth turned to catch that big, expanding bullet at his right ear. He dropped. In Money, Mississippi on August 24, 1955, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant abducted 14-year-old Emmet "Bobo" Till, tortured him, shot him in the head, and dumped his body in the river for whistling at a white woman. Emmett's mother insisted on an open-casket funeral so people could see what had happened to her son. On September 15, 1955, Jet magazine published photos [NSFW] of Emmett's corpse, which brought the case national attention and helped ignite the civil rights movement. On September 23, 1955, an all-white jury acquitted Bryant and Milam after deliberating for about an hour. Milam and Bryant confessed in a January 24 , 1966, Look magazine article. Milam died in 1980 and Bryant died in 1990. After reopening the case in 2004 based on new evidence that more people may have been involved, the Justice Department closed the case today without filing any new charges. [more inside]
comment posted at 9:15 PM on Mar-17-06

Metafilter posts its 50,000th post today. Congrats Metafilter! Here is to 50,000 more!
comment posted at 5:17 PM on Mar-13-06

The bird flu is coming, and Secretary of Health and Human Services wants us to be ready. How? By storing canned tuna and powdered milk under our beds.
comment posted at 5:22 PM on Mar-13-06

"To dream of eating pancakes, denotes that you will have excellent success in all enterprises undertaken at this time." "To dream of lard, signifies a rise in fortune will soon gratify you." "Dairy is a good dream both to the married and unmarried." "To dream of seeing your thigh smooth and white, denotes unusual good luck and pleasure." "To dream of noodles, denotes an abnormal appetite and desires. There is little good in this dream." "To dream of seeing a marmot, denotes that sly enemies are approaching you in the shape of fair women." -- What's in a Dream? A Scientific and Practical Interpretation of Dreams by Gustavus Hindman Miller, published in 1901.
comment posted at 10:40 PM on Mar-11-06

Miguel Tinker Salas is the Arango Professor in Latin American History at Pomona College, a political historian and sometime commentator on U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. On Tuesday, an FBI/LA County Sherrifs Office Joint Terrorism Task Force came calling during Tinker Salas's office hours. "After identifying themselves, they proceeded to ask about my relation to Venezuela, the government, the community, my scholarship, my politics...After they departed, the three or four students who were outside my office informed me that these individuals had asked them about my background, my classes, what I taught, my politics and they even wrote down the cartoons that are on my door."
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Democratic Party leaders become relavent, take couragous position on war, civil liberties, and other issues vitally important to country's future.
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