105 MetaFilter comments by Goedel (displaying 1 through 50)

Why Paris Is Burning Officially, the French state doesn't recognize minorities, only citizens of France, all of them equal under the law. But that republican ideal has seemed especially hollow over the past week as the children of impoverished, largely Muslim immigrants from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa fought running battles with police throughout the banlieues, or suburbs, to the east and north of the French capital...
comment posted at 11:42 AM on Nov-5-05
comment posted at 12:10 PM on Nov-5-05
comment posted at 12:14 PM on Nov-5-05

Would you pay $9000 for speaker cables? No? Ok, how about $11,700? These are just a few of the seemingly overpriced audio components listed on this page.
comment posted at 8:09 AM on Nov-1-05
comment posted at 1:26 PM on Nov-1-05
comment posted at 2:06 AM on Nov-2-05
comment posted at 3:03 AM on Nov-2-05

"Romantic"...or "Neo-National-Socialist" Realism? If the following representations can whatsoever be called 'realist', then wherefore the campy ideological vulgarity of their subject matter, which make Leroy Neiman's works - yes, you may remember him accurately from the notorious Burger King collection of the late 1970's - seem as profound as Salvador Dali (156 MB - and "obscene" - MPEG file)? To wit: "Romantic Realism, the movement which renews the high esthetic standards and techniques of pre-20th century ateliers, brings a rebirth of comprehensibility, beauty, romanticism and stylization to contemporary subject matter." Linked from Instapundit. (Do political posts rendered as purely aesthetic questions merit "newsfilter" warnings? Consult the zeitgeist! And apologies for the question sounding like the title of a Paul Zindel play.) Qu'est-ce que c'est, le 'degenerate art', vraiment?
comment posted at 1:46 AM on Oct-12-05

The 2005 Nobel Prize for economics goes to Robert J. Aumann and Thomas C. Schelling. Marginal Revolution has a wonderful set of posts that link to various related resources, like a summary of Aumann's work or Schelling's views on global warming.
comment posted at 12:01 PM on Oct-10-05

Recent research claims that even smoking a few cigarettes a day is dangerous according to Tobacco Control . This is bad news for millions of smokers who have cut-back their daily consumption of cigarettes. It is also contrary to previous research which claimed that light smoking had little impact on health.
comment posted at 11:10 AM on Sep-22-05

Jets meet-up suggest that George Bush really does not like black people. A post over at Grabthar's Hammer analyses a recent photo-op of the President with the New York Jets, and figures out that the probability of the black players having been kept out of the immediate vicinity of Dubya (as you can see is the case in the photos supplied on the post) was 0.4%.
comment posted at 3:19 AM on Sep-19-05

The Emperor's Bunker. "The Japanese, with sadness and irony, stressed that Hirohito couldn't even speak properly. This was partly to do with the fact that he didn't have to speak - people spoke in his name and he was isolated from real life". "The Sun", the third part in Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov's 'Men of Power' tetralogy after the gloom of Moloch (1999), about Hitler and Eva Braun, and the despairing tones of "Taurus" (2001), focused on the wheelchair-bound Lenin in his death throes, "The Sun" seems almost upbeat. This, after all, is a film about reconciliation. More inside.
comment posted at 10:23 AM on Sep-13-05
comment posted at 2:33 PM on Sep-13-05
comment posted at 2:39 PM on Sep-13-05


Paying for Katrina: Republican congressman Zach Wamp of Tennessee suggested today that the costs associated with Katrina were 'good reason to at least delay' expanding the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Should the elderly and poor be expected to bear this burden?
comment posted at 6:21 AM on Sep-10-05

Dyslexia - Myth?
comment posted at 4:18 PM on Sep-6-05

How To Win An Argument. Plus, if you scroll down, you'll find an argument about "How To Win An Argument." (Which may remind you of a Monty Python skit.) What do you think of this guy's strategy? Compassionate or passive-aggressive?
comment posted at 7:08 AM on Sep-6-05

The Inequality Taboo - Charles Murray defends his ideas, published in the controversial book The Bell Curve.
comment posted at 6:08 AM on Sep-5-05
comment posted at 9:46 AM on Sep-5-05
comment posted at 11:38 AM on Sep-5-05

The Ministry of Reshelving
This week, we launched the Ministry of Reshelving project. My partners in crime as founding members of the ministry: George, Kiyash, and Monica. This weekend we relocated 19 copies of George Orwell's 1984 in four different bookstores in Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Berkeley. It was high stealth adventure. You are invited to join our efforts.
Sounds like mischievous fun. Which books would you reshelve?
comment posted at 12:46 PM on Aug-18-05
comment posted at 4:11 PM on Aug-18-05
comment posted at 2:38 AM on Aug-19-05

"It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh": 100 to 300 simultaneous explosions took place throughout almost every Bangladeshi district today, with credit taken by Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, an extremist group banned by the government earlier this year.
comment posted at 9:39 AM on Aug-17-05

Japanese Propaganda from WWII I've seen & been fascinated by a fair amount of Allied propaganda from the second World War, including an exhibit at the Smithsonian a decade back, but this is the first bit of "enemy" propaganda I can remember running across. It's a pamphlet detailing Japan's plans for a better future. Another piece, "Farewell American Soldiers" piece which was leafleted to the troops is in English and is particularly chilling.
comment posted at 2:51 AM on Aug-16-05

A private foundation is investing $14m to purchase greenhouses in Gaza. Israeli settlers had originally planned to demolish their greenhouses instead of seeing them handed over to Palestinian farmers. Under a deal brokered by former World Bank President James Wolfensohn 80% of Gaza's greenhouses will be preserved and turned over to Palestinian management. It is, of course, a trap for the Palestinian Authority. The greenhouses are simply the most visible part of a supply chain that the Palestinians cannot possibly manage. Without agricultural knowledge, market expertise, water management skills, good roads, and all the other infrastructure of a modern state, the greenhouses will fail spectacularly. The Palestinian Authority will be exposed as incompetent and unable to run even a simple enterprise. This will cast doubt amongst Palestinians about the practicality of an independent Palestine.
comment posted at 3:44 AM on Aug-15-05

Know less than nothing!? What could negative knowledge possibly mean? In short, after I tell you negative information, you will know less... "In this week's issue of Nature, however, Michal Horodecki and colleagues present a fresh approach to understanding quantum phenomena that cannot be grasped simply by considering their classical counterparts." [via slashdot :]
comment posted at 6:47 AM on Aug-9-05

It has now been 60 years since the awesome terror of nuclear weapons was revealed to the world. Whether the decision to use such a fearsome weapon was right or wrong is still being debated. Much of that debate now centers around the intercepts of Japanese communications under the Ultra [British code name] or Magic [US code name] program and whether Japan was ready to surrender under acceptable terms. Some of these intercepts can be read here and here.
comment posted at 4:36 AM on Aug-6-05
comment posted at 7:44 AM on Aug-6-05
comment posted at 8:45 AM on Aug-6-05
comment posted at 3:38 PM on Aug-6-05
comment posted at 4:24 PM on Aug-6-05

"A Souter in Roberts clothing" was the accusation made by Ann Coulter in one of her recent screeds. Maybe so. In 1995, Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. worked behind the scenes for gay rights activists. His legal expertise helped them persuade the Supreme Court to issue a landmark 1996 ruling protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation. A ruling Lamda called the "single most important positive ruling in the history of the gay rights movement." In the blistering dissent, Scalia, joined by Rehnquist and Thomas, said "Coloradans are entitled to be hostile toward homosexual conduct." Thanks to John G. Roberts, the U.S. Supreme court decided that no, Coloradans are not so entitled. The National Legal Foundation (supporting the Biblical foundations of America's Laws) called it "the worst decision in the history of the court." Will Robert's nomination now be opposed by the Christian Right? In any case, watching the GOP cat fight will be fun!
comment posted at 5:28 AM on Aug-5-05

They dance and eat as they steal. Yomango, a counter-but-consumerist-culture of shoplifting, surfaced July 2002 in Spain. It's shoplifting as a movement—taught in workshops, choreographed, organized as missions, and executed with prankish gusto on three continents. Why? One, it's civil disobedience that believes stealing to stay alive should be permitted. Two, it takes back what once belonged to everyone. Three, there's humor in it, even with the communistic undertones and its little red book. Discussion: Dark Matter, Las Agencias, and the Aesthetics of Tactical Embarrassment. A Poliedric Debate On Collabora Art. ¿Lo quieres?¿Lo tienes? (Spanish). More about Yomango: Ten Style Tips for a Yomango Life. A gallery of promos, news, and event photos. Yomango fashion show. Yomango tango. Yomango dinner.
comment posted at 9:18 AM on Aug-1-05
comment posted at 12:35 PM on Aug-18-05


We Introverts make up 40% of the population. So we make up a large portion of the market. We learn differently than extroverts (NSFW). We appear calm, but that may be an illusion. In fact, we need special care and attention. We like to read, write, and test software, but we're afraid of networking. We have spiritual needs (scroll down). If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you smile at us, we may surprise you. Some of us read Metafilter.
comment posted at 10:09 AM on Jul-22-05

Do Not Remove This Condom Under Penalty Of Law A New Zealand man who removed a condom during sex with a prostitute has been fined for putting her life at risk.
comment posted at 7:08 PM on Jul-16-05
comment posted at 7:12 PM on Jul-16-05
comment posted at 5:32 AM on Jul-17-05
comment posted at 5:42 AM on Jul-17-05

'The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.'  The Logic of Suicide Terrorism The American Conservative interviews Robert Pape, author of Dying To Win: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism:
comment posted at 12:27 PM on Jul-12-05

The French experience of counter-terrorism (PDF): from the "sanctuary doctrine" to active prevention, a detailed history of how France learned counter-terrorism the hard way. Since [the French revolution] France has been on the bleeding edge of terrorism, confronting terrorism in all its guises, from bomb-throwing anarchists to transnational networks. In the last 20 years, France suffered repeated waves of terrorism of both domestic and foreign origin, each which spawned a variety of reforms to an already complex system for combating terrorism. As a result, France has developed, largely by costly trial and error, a fairly effective, although controversial system for fighting terrorism at home.
comment posted at 3:35 PM on Jul-9-05

I'm so glad we got that circumcision debate over with since there is no evidence of a benefit from circumcision, except maybe that 70% reduction in the risk of HIV infection....
comment posted at 12:38 PM on Jul-6-05

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