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Current TV --Al Gore's new news channel, just launched. What began as an effort to challenge Rupert Murdoch and the right-wing domination of the corporate media has transformed into a business proposition to lure a youth audience with lofty rhetoric, new technology and pop-culture content, says The Nation. So, CNN for MTV viewers? or a real alternative voice? the status bar onscreen is just ridiculous, i already find.
comment posted at 6:11 AM on Aug-1-05

Professor of the Blues "Shouting Thomas" and his late wife Myrna are Wild About That Thing![Flash]
comment posted at 3:32 PM on Jul-31-05

Don't like the results of legitimate scientific research? Make up your own! Conservatives (including GW) love to quote Paul Cameron of the Family Research Council on the effects of gay parenting. This Boston Globe articles tells what everyone should know about the man and his methodology.
comment posted at 9:04 AM on Jul-31-05
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comment posted at 10:06 AM on Jul-31-05

Ethnic profiling by dummies. A group of Sikh tourists visiting New York were "identified" as "foreign looking (read muslims). They were then handcuffed with their arms behind their backs and ordered to kneel on the pavement. Maybe this Sikh man has the right idea.
comment posted at 7:46 AM on Jul-31-05
comment posted at 9:01 AM on Jul-31-05

Nothing fancy — except, perhaps, the multidimensional sacred geometry.
comment posted at 6:26 AM on Jul-31-05

"The explosion of suggestive images [in Chinese media and art] is partly a reflection of changes in Chinese society -- many sociologists say China is in the midst of a sweeping sexual revolution -- and partly due to market reforms...The government has not given the press free rein to publish material with sexual themes, but the way censorship is carried out means that some media outlets can get away with quite a lot. Rather than issue top-down decrees, Beijing's censors primarily react to existing material, so websites, whose content is easily removable, and publications far from Beijing, which are less likely to attract censors' attention, can take more chances. Still, articles on topics such as 'China's Janet Jackson,' a TV star who has twice revealed a breast in public, and the incidence of erectile dysfunction among China's urban men are now common in the national media."
comment posted at 6:35 AM on Jul-31-05

Coso Rock Art: "The Coso Rock Art District, a National Historic Landmark deep in the U.S. Navy's testing station at China Lake, contains one of America's most impressive petroglyphic and archeological complexes . . . . Coso rock art has become famous for its stylized representational symbolic system, a system that has intrigued—and baffled—archeologists and lay observers for decades." A guide to the rock art types here. See also A Guided Tour of Coso Rock Art and the Coso Gallery.
comment posted at 8:29 AM on Jul-30-05

The Sky At Night Every episode of the BBC science series made since the end of 2001 viewable online. Anything I know about the universe I learnt from Patrick Moore.
comment posted at 5:39 AM on Jul-30-05
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Umbert The Unborn, the world's most lovable unborn baby & The wacky adventures of a fetus. Order now for Christmas
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comment posted at 8:46 AM on Jul-30-05

Mathematical proof Mathematical proof that it is impossible to find a girlfriend. "Without going into the specifics of precisely which traits I admire, I will say that for a girl to be considered really beautiful to me, she should fall at least two standard deviations above the norm." -pdf here- via
comment posted at 9:36 AM on Jul-30-05

Stackopolis Some better-late-than-never Friday Flash. Addictive and challenging (translation: fun and frustrating).
comment posted at 9:01 PM on Jul-29-05

Bad news. Richard Posner on the News Media (NYT)
comment posted at 8:01 PM on Jul-29-05
comment posted at 9:40 PM on Jul-29-05

What Would You Ask Supreme Court Nominee Judge John Roberts?
comment posted at 7:39 PM on Jul-29-05
comment posted at 9:00 PM on Jul-29-05

In the pantheon of American popular music, Pennsylvanian Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) is a muse to all followers. He penned: "Oh, Susanna"; "My Old Kentucky Home"; "Old Folks at Home" ('Way Down Upon the Swanee River') and "Camptown Races" among a legacy of over 200 songs. Foster contributed greatly to the rise in popularity of the minstrel shows, displaying a humanitarian attitude towards blacks in his 'plantation songs', despite only visiting the south once briefly on his honeymoon. Copyright being what it was in those days, he made not much more than $9000 in his lifetime from publishing royalties. He died a pauper in New York following a head injury and was found with just 38c and a scrap of paper in his pocket book that read: "Dear friends and gentle hearts". His sketch book of songs was recently digitized and is hosted by the University of Pittsburgh. via
comment posted at 7:47 PM on Jul-29-05

Hope and Memory, 1801 - 2004. "This is an archive of 163 US interventions, a multi-faceted catalogue of coups, humanitarian incursions, covert actions, proxy armies, freedom fighters/terrorists and multilateral offensives. Out of this legacy, a complex picture emerges." [Via wood s lot.]
comment posted at 7:50 PM on Jul-29-05

Mysteriously knocked up? Does your coffee taste funny? You may be infested with fairies. Let go of your skepticism and realize you have only two choices: beat ‘em or join ‘em.
comment posted at 11:53 AM on Jul-29-05

In case of emergency, nuke Iran. From the folks who brought you Operation Iraqi Freedom and the "last throes" of the insurgency, the latest strategy for enhancing homeland security and US global standing is to launch a nuclear first-strike against Iran in the event of another 9/11-style attack -- whether Iran has ties to the attackers or not. As Juan Cole points out, turning a Shiite Muslim nation into the next Hiroshima could have disagreeable consequences. (First reported by the American Conservative, not your typical liberal rag, and via DailyKos.)
comment posted at 6:16 AM on Jul-31-05

Internets: Serious Business! These last few months have seen an increase in the attacks on the participatory culture of the web. The mainstream establishments, both political and corporate, have been looking with a cautious eye towards this new developing place. So far we've established that blogs can get you fired, keep you from getting a job, give pedophiles a place to ruminate on snatching your children, threaten journalistic integrity *snicker*, endanger the marketing , product planning, and product life cycles for automobile manufacturers, can infect your computer with virii, and have all sorts of negative consequences. The internets (both of them) can cause your children to be charmed, seduced, and addicted by readily available porn, and can also provide access to extremist radical and fundamentalist groups, prompting Congress to discuss more restrictive legislation (NSFW), but only for the porn. It has even been claimed that the web has given "Al Qaeda wings". P2P is blamed as causing record loses by the music industry, despite their investments in local station marketing payola. The FEC has held public hearings attended by both hemispheres of the blogosphere (amazingly in near-agreement) discussing the regulation of political speech online. The figureheads of a certain political party fear that their affiliated slice of the blogosphere may be too far-left. Newspapers and TV are leading the charge, with the internet standing in for pharmaceutical scares, yo-yo diets, and missing white women. The question is, how will the libertarian-minded digerati respond to this very real attack on the essence of web culture?
comment posted at 10:50 AM on Jul-29-05

"Can Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North save America from an Orwellian nightmare of ultra-leftist oppression?" In the first term of President Chelsea Clinton and Vice-President Michael Moore, Usama bin Laden, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United Nations, is hatching a nefarious plot. Only three men are brave enough to stand up to bin Laden and his liberal cronies. Silenced in mainstream discourse by the "Coulter Laws" of 2007, these radio hosts, through their pirate broadcasts, are telling America the truth about liberals. This comic (synopsis, preview pages) will undoubtedly be the most awesomest thing ever. (Via Tom Tomorrow)
comment posted at 8:19 AM on Jul-29-05

The Washington Nationals were one of the biggest surprises of the first half of the 2005 baseball season. On July 3, the team formerly known as the Expos had a 50-31 record. Everybody in DC was feeling good, especially the Republicans. Not only did Washington have a baseball team for the first time in decades, but that surprisingly good baseball team also featured a home uniform that had a red cap with a "w" on the front. As a result, some Republicans eagerly adopted the cap as a symbol of their party and their president. The second half of the Nationals' season has mirrored Bush's second term, however. Just like Bush has made missteps on Social Security and lost the battle to make his judicial nominees filibuster-proof, the second half of the Nationals season has been filled with miscues, too. After this afternoon's loss to the Braves, the Nationals have a 5-16 record over the past three weeks. Does this spell bad news for John Roberts?
comment posted at 5:11 AM on Jul-29-05

A nonist public service pamphlet. Here you will find a 6 page pamphlet meant as a public service to help educate bloggers about the growing problem of blog depression. ;)
comment posted at 5:22 AM on Jul-29-05

What if we can't afford to save the world? An interesting debate between Sierra Club’s Carl Pope and the outspoken Bjørn Lomborg. (The “saving the world” bit might seem like hyperbole, but the really interesting question this debate sparks for me is this: Hypothetically, if it really came down to it, would anyone be willing to save the world for free? And if not, what does that imply about our values system and personal priorities? What does it say about the practical utility and limitations of monetary-based economic systems?
comment posted at 5:29 AM on Jul-29-05
comment posted at 11:40 AM on Jul-29-05

The war in Iraq is now joining the South African War (1899-1902) and the Suez crisis in 1956 as ill-considered ventures that have done Britain more harm than good. It has demonstrably strengthened al-Qaeda by providing it with a large pool of activists and sympathisers across the Muslim world it did not possess before the invasion of 2003. The war that started out as a demonstration of US strength as the world's only superpower has turned into a demonstration of weakness. Its 135 000-strong army does not control much of Iraq. The suicide bombing campaign in Iraq is unique. Never before have so many fanatical young Muslims been willing to kill themselves trying to destroy those they see as their enemies. On a single day in Baghdad this month 12 bombers blew themselves up. There have been more than 500 suicide attacks in Iraq during the past year. It is this campaign that has now spread to Britain and Egypt...
Iraq has descended into chaos way beyond West's worst-case scenario
comment posted at 5:39 AM on Jul-29-05

David Corn is claiming that Newsweek is going to nail Karl Rove tomorrow. Not that anyone's surprised, I'm sure, but nevertheless -- where's that popcorn? (via tpm)
comment posted at 5:05 AM on Jul-29-05