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Adam Steele was not a loved or lovable guy in his hometown of Bemidji, Minnesota. But is lovableness a requirement for journalists? Part 2 here.
comment posted at 10:21 AM on Apr-3-05

The invention of the Hindu : "Hinduism is largely a fiction, formulated in the 18th and 19th centuries out of a multiplicity of sub-continental religions, and enthusiastically endorsed by Indian modernisers."
comment posted at 10:46 AM on Apr-3-05

Interview with Scott Ritter on Iran June Invasion What do you think the world's reaction will be if the U.S. invades Iran in June and fails, inciting an invasion of Iraq with well-equipped and trained Iranian troops and equipment, retaliation from Iran with missile attacks against the oil fields in the mid-east and Israel as well as southern Europe and Turkey. How will life in this country change?
comment posted at 12:20 AM on Apr-3-05

there have been grass roots campaigns. there have been various petitions. some even tried reverse psychology to try and convince fox to renew arrested development for a third season. now, 15 episodes into the shortened 18-episode season, fox got around to starting its own "save a.d." website. is it too little too late?
comment posted at 7:57 AM on Apr-2-05

Ipso Floral is some Friday Flash Fun (SFW). Probably the most amazing, hypnotic, computer generated animation I've ever seen. It's the best thing since Electric Sheep.
comment posted at 4:59 PM on Apr-1-05

Pope John Paul II has had a heart attack. Soon, the College of Cardinals will assemble to choose his successor. Even in death, however, this pontiff will exert extraordinary control over the process, having elevated an unprecedented number of clerics to this body.

The choice of Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, archbishop of Havana, would continue John Paul II's legacy of opposition to communism and totalitarianism. Another frontrunner is the socially conservative Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze. Arinze would continue John Paul II's cultural legacy while recognizing the demographic reality of modern global Catholicism. Also mentioned as a frontrunner is Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, a strong proponent of third world debt relief. Progressives would welcome the elevation of German Cardinal Walter Kasper, an advocate for religious tolerance and pluralism, or the moderate Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, a frequent stand-in during the Holy Week ceremonies. Conservatives favor Columbian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos. Hoyos shares the Pope's traditionalist vision of a church at odds with modernity. But the smart money, is on Dionigi Tettamanzi.
comment posted at 5:08 PM on Apr-1-05
comment posted at 5:56 PM on Apr-1-05

The Underground History of American Education
You aren't compelled to loan your car to anyone who wants it, but you are compelled to surrender your school-age child to strangers who process children for a livelihood.... If I demanded you give up your television to an anonymous, itinerant repairman who needed work you'd think I was crazy; if I came with a policeman who forced you to pay that repairman even after he broke your set, you would be outraged. Why are you so docile when you give up your child to a government agent called a schoolteacher?
comment posted at 5:46 PM on Apr-1-05

The 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers. What, no Kottke?
comment posted at 7:05 PM on Mar-31-05

Tesco, the UK's biggest retailer, recently announced record full-year profits and now controls a frighteningly dominant 27% share of all grocery sales in the UK. Put another way, the retail juggernaut now accounts for one in every eight pounds spent in British shops. Such a lofty position has got many worried and Tesco is getting flak for everything from being responsible for shutting down rural post offices to becoming a fully-paid up agent of Big Brother. Now Tesco has its very own nonaffiliated bloggers. The team behind Supermarket Sweep Up - a vertically targeted blog - say their aim is to place the UK's biggest retailer under "greater public scrutiny". Now that big media can't afford to run decent investigative journalism, is a collaborative 'investigative blogging' the best way forward?
comment posted at 7:39 PM on Mar-30-05

Camouflaged and Walking octopuses Octopus marginatus and Octopus (Abdopus) aculeatus, that walk along the seafloor using two alternating arms and apparently use the remaining six arms for camouflage.
comment posted at 2:23 PM on Mar-30-05

So the story as I understand it is that this guy (.mp3) is a manager for a Jack in the Box restaurant. He was on his way to a meeting, was running a little late and called in to leave a voicemail message. While he was leaving the message, he witnessed an auto accident and basically gives us play-by-play of the events. It's pretty entertaining, but I'm not sure if I completely believe it. Apparently it was quite the talk within the Jack in the Box family.
comment posted at 9:36 PM on Mar-29-05

Clonus (AKA Parts: the Clonus Horror) was released on DVD today. This ultracheap 1979 sci-fi thriller is about a compound where clones are raised, unaware that their purpose in life is to provide harvested organs (more detail here). MST3K sent it up, the Onion sneers at it, but this NY Times review (reg. reqd., scroll down) is respectful. You can rent it now, or you can wait until July for the megabudget, Michael Bay-directed version of the same damn story.
comment posted at 11:12 AM on Mar-29-05
comment posted at 9:48 PM on Mar-29-05

skydiving photos skydiving or skydriving (via)
comment posted at 11:02 PM on Mar-27-05

Putting his money where his mouth is regarding the recent Symantec (Norton Utilities, Anti-Virus etc.) Mac OS X virus claims...? Seems not to be, but the fellow who was sponsoring the $25,000 reward has a, shall we say, checkered past. Mac users are still waiting for the first real attack. I could live without it, but this particular religious war (however insane and inane it can get) does liven up our computing experience. If the pop-unders at MacDailyNews get around your browser's pop-up blocker, go here.
comment posted at 5:22 PM on Mar-26-05

Average accessories for your laptop computer. But I suppose Proporta has been expanding its target demographic lately with this device.
comment posted at 4:58 PM on Mar-25-05

Nicaragua and El Salvador, Tres Santos, Honduras, Peru , that Geoff Watts guy can write about coffee.
comment posted at 1:07 PM on Mar-26-05

"In the end, it's the audience that counts." Imax theater chains take imaginary sides in the pretend controversy over evolution.
comment posted at 2:32 PM on Mar-25-05

Happy Birthday Steve McQueen! He would have been 75 today. Sadly, his particular brand of cool died in 1980. He created some of the most memorable screen characters of all time. His breakthrough role was in the TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive, which will be released on DVD this summer. Want a poster? He was a man of action, a troublemaker, a race car driver, and, most importantly, a paragon of cool. He's been immortalized in dozens of songs and at least one album. And even though he's dead, he's still driving that Mustang.
comment posted at 6:08 PM on Mar-24-05

"The purpose of the Fellowship Baptist Creation Science Fair is to get kids excited about Creation and motivate them to discover the truth of our Lord on their own."
Winning exhibits this year include "My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)", "Women Were Designed For Homemaking", and "Using Prayer To Microevolve Latent Antibiotic Resistance In Bacteria".
Via
comment posted at 12:57 PM on Mar-24-05

Witness "I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated." -James Nachtwey- (First post, I don't know if this is a re-post, if so--sorry!)
comment posted at 12:27 PM on Mar-24-05

Physicians and scientists around the world even go as far as to state that smoking leads to premature death. Don’t we all know someone who smokes constantly, even heavily, yet is still living — or has lived — to the mature age of eighty, ninety, and older? Furthermore, the MDs and PhDs state that smoking causes cancer and emphysema. If this diagnosis were definitive, wouldn’t these afflictions affect all smokers equally, rather than the small percentage that it actually does affect?
comment posted at 12:26 AM on Mar-24-05

texas city timewarp... ... and my friend charley lou rattled in her bayou vista home 5 short miles away.
comment posted at 12:32 AM on Mar-24-05
comment posted at 12:00 PM on Mar-24-05
comment posted at 12:05 PM on Mar-24-05

Gregorio Allegri's Miserere Mei [MP3, Coral cache] has been performed in the Sistine Chapel every Holy Week since 1638, but the haunting a cappella piece had a long, strange trip to get to the outside world.
comment posted at 11:26 AM on Mar-23-05

Berliner? Or broadsheet. Or tab? Your newspaper may be changing, its looks, its ownership and how it markets itself. Do you value or even need your local paper? Or can you and your neighbors do it yourself? (Scroll down to "backfence" link.)
comment posted at 11:46 AM on Mar-23-05

Jeff Weise's livejournal. The rumors over at livejournal are that Jeff Weise, the shooter in the Red Lake school shooting was a member.
comment posted at 11:54 AM on Mar-23-05

Pop Quiz Hotshot: You're in the middle of an arena. You're being attacked by 5 year olds who will stop at nothing to kill you. How many can you take on before they overcome you? (from twobytwo forums)
comment posted at 10:20 PM on Mar-22-05

Do I need a jacket? The next best thing to looking out the window.
comment posted at 12:34 AM on Mar-21-05

Sony-Ericsson officially endorses upskirt photography. (Flash, SFW)

"If you see some bright lights at about the height of your ankle, you'd better watch out."
comment posted at 4:41 PM on Mar-20-05

The dirty bomb hoax. One of the biggest threats from terrorism was the supposed dirty bomb plot by Jose Padilla which eventually turned up nothing. Even if there was a plot, the threat of a dirty bomb has been over-exaggerated. The U.S. military had already tested the possibilities of a dirty bomb and discovered that "any immediate deaths or serious injuries would likely result from the explosion itself, rather than from radiation exposure." The radiation could be cleaned up with a geiger counter and a vacuum cleaner. But don't forget to buy your nuke pills! (via the Power of Nightmares)
comment posted at 6:33 PM on Mar-20-05

3 year old Savanna's body has been found. Her mother confessed to planning to bury the body.
comment posted at 5:08 PM on Mar-19-05
comment posted at 12:57 AM on Mar-20-05

I say a E-A-S with a T-E-R and an EGG with a double G! Flash, Shockwave, 10 days early, not Friday, \/\/hateva
comment posted at 10:37 AM on Mar-17-05

Ramadi Madness. Unfiltered video of the Bush war in Iraq, shot by a soldier with a digital minicam.
comment posted at 4:21 PM on Mar-15-05

Best Job safety video ever! It seems that Sam Raimi is doing work safety videos now. FYI you don't need to know german.
comment posted at 8:16 PM on Mar-14-05

Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage... California joins New York in a lower-court decision for marriage equality, with the judge stating, "The idea that marriage-like rights without marriage is adequate smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts — separate but equal," ... And in DC, Ken Mehlman, (closeted) head of the RNC, in an interview with the AP, backslides on his party's trumpeting of anti-gay sentiment: - It's not his job as head of the party to tell states whether they should allow same-sex couples to wed or form civil unions. "Certainly our platform states that the party is committed to ensuring that there is traditional marriage," he said, but he didn't think the party should take a position on state initiatives. More on today's court decision here.
comment posted at 8:44 PM on Mar-14-05

It is impossible to read this sexuality material from the University of Missouri and not conclude that Michael Jackson is a pedophile. But then you read about the inconsistencies in the current case and wonder if he has ever actually acted on his pedophilic urges; the overwhelming majority never fulfill their fantasies.
comment posted at 11:11 AM on Mar-11-05
comment posted at 11:59 AM on Mar-11-05

Indeed, all over the world, millions of born-again Christians have vanished into the mystical ether--leaving behind their clothing, their eyeglasses, even their dentures--along with every child under the age of twelve. Airplanes are crashing, automobiles are veering driverless and out of control, and fetuses are disappearing from their mothers' wombs, as the born-again and the unborn alike are abruptly "raptured" to heaven. Harper's Magazine reviewer Gene Lyons discusses apocalyptic entertainment.
comment posted at 11:51 AM on Mar-11-05

Ever wonder who gets the spin money from the government to sell us everything from wars to reforms to reconnect the Army with the American people. A rundown on the seven biggest PR firms doing business with the government, and their refusal to come clean about what it is they're doing with our tax money. PRWatch has much, much more, including exposing the funding and associations pushing Social Security "reform"
comment posted at 8:43 PM on Mar-10-05
comment posted at 8:44 PM on Mar-10-05

Naked portafilter photos!!1! (SFW) Naked is hot (about 200 degrees F)
comment posted at 7:37 PM on Mar-9-05

How will civilization end? With a bang, a crunch(last link is PDF), a splash? Are we no longer more likely to kill ourselves than being killed by "Mother Nature"? (more inside)
comment posted at 8:16 PM on Mar-9-05

KA-BOOM! I know Duke was based on him, but i was expecting...oh i dont know...a little nicer?
comment posted at 1:01 PM on Mar-8-05

What Bush got Right.
Recent events: Syrian withdrawl. Palestinian reform. Egyptian Elections. Libyan disarmament. Iraqi elections. The Domino Theory in action.
comment posted at 8:31 PM on Mar-7-05

Horseballs! (SFW) (Quicktime)
comment posted at 11:28 AM on Mar-7-05

This disturbingly realistic video gives us a peek at the not-too-distant future when we will be able to send robots to fight our wars in third world countries. Remember, we already have unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicles that patrol skies and can attack target targets with Hellfire missiles.
comment posted at 11:44 AM on Mar-7-05