Costumed patriots channel forefathers: coming to a civic center near you! Need a little pump up music?
posted by sredefer on Aug 9, 2009 - 12 comments

In 1947, Thomas Ley, a virulently sectarian, pro-hanging Australian politician, died in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he had been sent after being sentenced to death for murder. It was probably not his first.
posted by Fiasco da Gama on Jul 15, 2009 - 13 comments

Thought For The World is an alternative to the BBC's much mocked Thought For The Day. [more inside]
posted by ninebelow on Feb 12, 2009 - 4 comments

Just over sixty years ago the Reverend W. V. Awdry told his sick son a series of stories based on real life incidents with trains, which he later wrote up as the Railway Series. Now Thomas the Tank Engine and the other engines of the Isle of Sodor (somewhere between Barrow-in-Furness and the Isle of Man) are a global phenomena, with toys, books and of course the TV series - filmed using model trains on more than 70 1:32 scale 16-by-20-foot sets, and voiced by the likes of Ringo Starr and Alec Baldwin. 2008 has been a rough year for Thomas: George Carlin, who voiced the series in the US up until 1998, passed away (previously), as did David Mitton, who had written and directed over 180 episodes (and who has previously worked on the special effects for Thunderbirds). There's changes ahead for Thomas as well - this year saw the faces of the engines, which had previously been cast in silicone and attached with double sided tape, replaced by CGI faces, and from 2009 onwards Nitrogen studios in Canada will be taking over production with an entirely CGI Thomas. Meanwhile a group of British students continues the tradition of model engine-based storytelling with their YouTube based British Railway Series.
posted by Artw on Dec 21, 2008 - 74 comments

Roger Ebert called it "one of the finest, truest, most deeply felt movies in my experience". Rated X on initial release, it still has not appeared on DVD. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Dec 16, 2008 - 66 comments

Ramblin' Thomas: No Job Blues (1928), J.D. Short: Lonesome Swamp Rattlesnake (1930), Bo Carter: My Baby (1940). [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Nov 28, 2008 - 3 comments

Thomas M. Disch, the author of such New Wave classics as Camp Concentration and 334, is dead. He committed suicide on July 4th. Disch's LiveJournal.
posted by ed on Jul 7, 2008 - 72 comments

Thomas Dolby builds up his songs before your eyes layer by layer in a podcast. Leipzig is Calling. One of Our Submarines. I Live in a Suitcase. Flying North. She Blinded Me with Science. Hyperactive.
posted by wittgenstein on May 14, 2008 - 32 comments

Audio of Dylan Thomas reading his poem "A Child's Christmas in Wales". (real media and mp3)
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Dec 25, 2007 - 7 comments

It's the first Monday in October and time for Supreme Court Justices to compare liberals, unfavorably, to the Ku Klux Klan. In his new memoir, released on the first day of the Supreme Court's 2007 term, Justice Clarence Thomas writes that he grew up fearing the KKK, but now knows he had "been afraid of the wrong white people all along. My worst fears had come to pass not in Georgia but in Washington, D.C., where I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony. " No small man, he also comments on Anita Hill's bad breath. Slate's spectacular legal columnist, Dahlia Lithwick, notes that "in the few hundred pages of his new book, Thomas has managed to undo years of effort by his colleagues to depoliticize the judicial branch." As usual, only Jon Stewart can make us laugh through the tears.
posted by The Bellman on Oct 4, 2007 - 110 comments

Reclamations - Distillation - Bearings - Miniature work of Thomas Doyle.
posted by Burhanistan on Aug 16, 2007 - 11 comments

Thomas Paine is sometimes forgotten, but dealt with some modern predicaments. Quotes, letters & essays, and an assortment of his writings.
posted by Gnostic Novelist on Mar 16, 2007 - 7 comments

Fire Isiah! Sell the Knicks, Dolan!
posted by phaedon on Dec 17, 2006 - 31 comments

Thomas Kinkade, Painter of LightTM, seeks to "to touch people of all faiths, to bring peace, and joy into their lives through the images he creates." Not all of his side ventures have been considered successful. But now the Christian-themed artist is accused of ruthless business tactics and seamy personal conduct, including drunkenly heckling Siegfried & Roy and, um, wantonly marking his territory. Perhaps Kinkade hopes to follow in the footsteps of Jack the Dripper?
posted by maryh on Mar 6, 2006 - 110 comments

Thomas White may collect 100,000,000's in loans under the new energy bill. Any bets on whether those loans will get paid back or not?
posted by Mr_Zero on Jun 8, 2005 - 4 comments

So I illustrated Gravity's Rainbow -- nobody asked me to, but I did it anyway. Previous Thomas Pynchon/Gravity's Rainbow related post.
posted by arse_hat on May 1, 2005 - 30 comments

A Left-wing European human-rights activist's take on Iraq. No, not what you'd come to expect by now. Far from the pro-forma accepted perspective of the Left, Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, a German human rights activist makes a case for the war in Iraq in this insightful interview. He mentions plenty of things I haven't read about before in regards to Kurds and has quite a few strong words to say about Germany and the recent fashions of the European Left.
posted by bokononito on Oct 7, 2002 - 24 comments

Is his body even cold yet? "Wendy's will honor its late founder, Dave Thomas, by adding a reference to him in commercials next month and putting posters of him in restaurants." It seems the turnaround from colorful founder to straight-out corporate icon has been shortened to five months. I just wonder if the animated Dave will have Randy Quaid's voice.
posted by owillis on May 22, 2002 - 24 comments

THOMAS allows you to look up, and even link to, any bill that's been before any congress.

For example, I could link to H.R. 1304, the Quality Health-Care Coalition Act of 2000. I could also mention that Tom Coburn (R-OK) added Section 2h to the bill, which says Doctors have no collective bargaining rights when it comes to ensuring women have access to abortion services.
posted by alan on Jul 2, 2000 - 5 comments

"For those who are feeling this election doesn't much matter, who think it's a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the court is the reason to care," said Lois Williams, senior counsel for litigation at the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, a liberal advocacy group.

"If we get another Scalia or Thomas, we are courting disaster," said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way. "We are just one election away, and one or two new justices away, from the civil and constitutional rights we take for granted being eroded or eliminated overnight."
posted by veruca on Jun 11, 2000 - 16 comments