MetaFilter

Why I'm Alone: "People ask me why I'm still alone, and why I don't seek to date much, eight years after my husband died. I thought about it the other day, and came up with a few of the reasons."
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Mar-28-09

Friday Flash Fun*: Конструктор: Engineer of the People, in which you are an engineer working in a top-secret semiconductor facility called H3, designing top-secret integrated circuits based on specifications provided to you. *For certain values of 'fun'
comment posted at 2:07 PM on Mar-27-09
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"Sexting": a disturbing new teenage trend.
comment posted at 1:35 PM on Mar-26-09

It's official: Circumcision should be routinely considered as a way to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections.
comment posted at 11:52 AM on Mar-26-09
comment posted at 11:54 AM on Mar-26-09

The recent workplace murders in Alabama may be another example of "a uniquely-Reaganomics-inspired crime" started by Joe Wesbecker. But workplace killings are not the only signs of desperation. There have been one or two articles on this topic but mostly the media have been concentrating on scapegoats like Bernie Madoff which may or may not successfully drain away some of the emotion.
comment posted at 6:52 PM on Mar-24-09
comment posted at 7:01 PM on Mar-24-09

A Quiet Revolution Grows in the Muslim World "In many of the scores of countries that are predominantly Muslim, the latest generation of activists is redefining society in novel ways. This new soft revolution is distinct from three earlier waves of change--the Islamic revival of the 1970s, the rise of extremism in the 1980s and the growth of Muslim political parties in the 1990s. Today's revolution is more vibrantly Islamic than ever. Yet it is also decidedly antijihadist and ambivalent about Islamist political parties. Culturally, it is deeply conservative, but its goal is to adapt to the 21st century. Politically, it rejects secularism and Westernization but craves changes compatible with modern global trends. The soft revolution is more about groping for identity and direction than expressing piety. The new revolutionaries are synthesizing Koranic values with the ways of life spawned by the Internet, satellite television and Facebook. For them, Islam, you might say, is the path to change rather than the goal itself."
comment posted at 2:34 PM on Mar-24-09

"Infandous street corner Cromwell" George Galloway MP banned from entering Canada. Justified on 'National Security' grounds, specifically Section 34(1) of the Immigration Act. George Galloway reacts to Canadian Immigraton Spokesman Alykhan Velshi on Channel 4. Velshi suggests this is 'not a freedom of speech issue' but in this day and age of technology is the notion of banning individuals crossing geographical borders due to opinions held absurd. It would seem the Canadian Government think not. Intellectual Protectionism rears its head and the marmite of international politics basks in the publicity. Domestic navel gazing ensues.
comment posted at 8:17 AM on Mar-23-09
comment posted at 9:01 AM on Mar-23-09

Bus tours of the houses of AIG executives, who are mostly not home or hiding behind security.
comment posted at 2:28 PM on Mar-22-09

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comment posted at 11:43 PM on Mar-19-09

IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism, and lax rules of engagement. "During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive." Can Israel dismiss its own troops' stories from Gaza? [Via]
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Mar-19-09
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No conflict of interest there, no sir. Organic food fans and small farmers alike are saying if HR 875 is passed, it will mean the end of organic farming in the United States. An overstatement? Perhaps, but HR 875 has serious flaws. The bill, introduced by Rosa DeLauro last month (who happens to be married to Stanley Greenburg of Monsanto, the world's largest producer of herbicides, chemical fertilizers and genetically engineered seeds), is here.
comment posted at 1:54 PM on Mar-18-09

In 1996, sixteen children and one adult died in Dublane, Scotland after Thomas Hamilton walked into a school armed with four handguns. In 2009, journalist Paula Murray tracked down and befriended several of the survivors on Facebook, waited until they turned eighteen, and then wrote this article for the Sunday Express.
comment posted at 8:47 AM on Mar-18-09

Sixteen states already have laws [PDF] related to abortion ultrasounds . Eleven more states have recently introduced bills that demand that a woman who wants an abortion be forced to look at the ultrasound, while a doctor describes what she is seeing. All of these bills are because the legislators believe that adoption is the only choice a woman should make. This essay, On Living Pro-Lifer's Choice for Women, explores the difficulties faced by birth mothers who choose that path.
comment posted at 11:42 PM on Mar-17-09
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Chas Freeman says goodbye. While not a direct appointee of President Obama or in a position to make policy, Chas Freeman found himself the middle of a firestorm over being selected as chairman of the NIC.
comment posted at 12:40 PM on Mar-16-09

British academics Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett believe they've discovered the underlying cause of all modern society's ills: inequality. In their book, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, they explain how health and social problems follow a strikingly similar pattern, being closely correlated with income distribution (pdf). To spread the word, they've founded The Equality Trust
comment posted at 12:57 PM on Mar-15-09

The Saddest Cat in the World by Maria Konstantinov
comment posted at 12:06 PM on Mar-15-09

Washington Post reports that the American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year. The payments to A.I.G.’s financial products unit are in addition to $121 million in previously scheduled bonuses.
comment posted at 11:11 PM on Mar-14-09

A new California proposition attempts to neutralize Prop 8 by substituting "domestic partnership" for "marriage" in state laws, thus leaving marriage to the Mormons and other interested parties. Getting the government out of marriage entirely has been proposed countless times before. (Previously: 1, 2, 3, 4)
comment posted at 5:11 PM on Mar-14-09
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comment posted at 7:23 AM on Mar-15-09

The Czech Republic offers surgical castration as a "voluntary" option to sex offenders, whose rate of recidivism in some studies then drops precipitously. Officials at the Council of Europe are outraged, calling the punishment "invasive, irreversible and mutilating." Atul Gawande noted 10 years ago that, despite his reservations, castration works - at least against a subclass of offenders: the pedophiles and sadists.
comment posted at 1:17 PM on Mar-14-09
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"The debaptism certificate started out as a kind of satirical comment on the idea that you could be enrolled in a church before you could talk, but it seems to have taken off from there. People are beginning to take it seriously."
comment posted at 10:24 AM on Mar-14-09
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Will the US become more progressive in the future or will advances in neuroscience cause the abandonment of the "equality premise"?
comment posted at 5:14 PM on Mar-13-09
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In the spirit of Friday being game day, I give you Broken Picture Telephone; a pictoral version of the classic game of telephone (also known as Chinese Whispers.) Previously on MeFi.
comment posted at 3:49 PM on Mar-13-09

Palin’s daughter Bristol splits from fiancé. After attempting to "cash in" on the Palin family name, new parents Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin decide to call it quits.
comment posted at 3:46 PM on Mar-12-09

What Does $1 Trillion Look Like?
comment posted at 3:21 PM on Mar-12-09

A Handy Guide to What the Hell Just Happened in Darfur.
comment posted at 12:47 PM on Mar-12-09

Iraqi shoe-thrower sentenced to three years in jail. Can an internet campaign for his release be far behind?
comment posted at 11:35 AM on Mar-12-09

Jordan Mechner's way-ahead-of-its-time PC game "The Last Express," revered for its animation and innovative storytelling, has been recut into a single 75-minute animated narrative playthrough. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
comment posted at 3:13 PM on Mar-11-09

"Serious problems" found at nation's airport security checkpoints. Local TV station KSTP found that airport employees, including cleaning staff, are often allowed to enter secured areas of airports at night without anyone checking their identification badge or the bags and other belongings they bring into the so-called sterile areas.
comment posted at 9:51 AM on Mar-10-09

The Saddest Bear of All. A children's book about a young girl's friendship with a morose bear. [via mefi projects]
comment posted at 5:40 PM on Mar-4-09