Be forewarned, the sound quality isn't the best. But for a dose of pure surreality strong enough to turn your socks into melted Dada timepieces, try mixing "Weird Al" Yankovic on accordion with the Presidents of the United States, performing a (non-parody) cover of Boston's "More Than a Feeling" (SLYT). (via Dave Dederer's Reddit interview)
posted by WCityMike on Oct 22, 2009 - 29 comments

Sometimes music really is a weapon. Big surprise, United Airlines messed up some luggage and refused to do anything about it. But I have to give props to this guy for taking a bad situation and making something positive out of it. Bonus points for the song being pretty catchy. I wonder what would happen if that song was so popular that the record label wanted it on the in flight music station...
posted by theichibun on Jul 7, 2009 - 70 comments

In Our Own Backyard: Resisting Nazi Propaganda In Southern California 1933 - 1945, a digital exhibition from the Oviatt Library at Cal State Northridge. "The Nazi Propaganda period, 1933 to 1945, chronicles a crucial twelve years in American history. This exhibit's story about the local threat to American ideals demonstrates how European events reached across the ocean and affected people in Southern California -- in our own backyard." Magazines, pamphlets, newspapers, stickers and more. [more inside]
posted by dersins on Apr 10, 2009 - 33 comments

14 large color photos from the Farm Security Administration. [more inside]
posted by Happy Dave on Mar 13, 2009 - 32 comments

Death and Life: Madison New Life Band bid farewell to Bishop Daddy Madison in Washington, D.C. Stooges Brass Band plays in New Orleans [second line].
posted by ferdydurke on Dec 29, 2008 - 2 comments

Sixty years ago on December 10, fifty eight nations created the UN Declaration of Human Rights. [more inside]
posted by Fiasco da Gama on Dec 9, 2008 - 20 comments

Two Washingtons: Washington, DC is defined by its income inequality. [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk on Sep 6, 2008 - 34 comments

Yes, it's an advertisement, but this commercial for United Airlines is really extraordinary. (Link goes directly to a .mov file. If you don't want to open it directly, go here and click on "New Work", then "TV".) [more inside]
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese on Aug 11, 2008 - 99 comments

Texas executes Mexican national who was denied consul visit. [more inside]
posted by mrducts on Aug 6, 2008 - 121 comments

The NHS at 60. The National Health Service is 60 on July 5th. Take a look at documents, audio and video related to the birth and growth of this "radical plan."
posted by fire&wings on Jun 28, 2008 - 5 comments

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip ends tonight, and Aaron Sorkin will be leaving television production for a while. His current project is Charlie Wilson's War, a movie starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman, based on the late George Crile's excellent, funny nonfic book of the same name. The movie will trace "party animal" Congressman Charles "Good Time Charlie" Wilson's (D, TX) rise from a scandal (he was caught in "a hot tub tryst with two cocaine-sniffing showgirls in Las Vegas",) to his role in the 1980's covertly funding Afghanistan guerrillas so they could expand their war with the Soviet Union. Wilson's actions would eventually help collapse the Afghan PDPA government, a power vacuum which would be filled by the Taliban. Who would have thought ending the Cold War would be so easy?
posted by zarq on Jun 28, 2007 - 60 comments

"I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft." A United Airlines mechanic and other witnesses see a disc-shaped object over Concourse C at O'Hare Airport for nearly 20 minutes in afternoon daylight. At least one purported photo of the object has surfaced. NPR interviews the Chicago Tribune reporter who first wrote about the object. The FAA (which claimed to have no information on the incident before a FOIA request forced them to acknowlege it) theorizes the object was a "weather phenomenon" and is conducting no further investigation.
posted by Hat Maui on Feb 10, 2007 - 67 comments

A television report tracks Muslim extremism in the United Kingdom. See also, part 2 and part 3. (YouTube) (via Digg)
posted by yevge on Jan 17, 2007 - 29 comments

Twenty-one years ago today a plane crashed in Gander, Newfoundland. The flight carried American soldiers heading home for the holidays, returning from a mission in the Sinai. Called the worst aviation disaster on Canadian soil, the crash killed the 248 soldiers and 8 crew members aboard. On December 16th, mere days after the crash, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, to comfort the victims' families. As time passed, however, some of the families demanded answers from the US Government regarding the circumstances of the crash. In 1989, Robin Tallon, member of congress from South Carolina, assisted the families' by bringing the matter before Congress - and also sending a letter to then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (scroll down page). In 1992, a Time Magazine article addressed forensic evidence which supported the idea of an on-board explosion prior to impact, as well as the flight's connections to Iran Contra and the terrorist group Islamic Jihad. This article also discusses the book written on the crash by Les Filotas, a dissenting member of the air safety board. The question was brought forth again in 1993, with a bill introduced requesting that a commission be formed to further investigate the circumstances of the crash. As with any disaster with unanswered questions, conspiracy theories abound. To this day, many of the questions surrounding Flight 1285 remain unanswered. While the crash may never be fully explained, one certainty remains - for the families whose loved ones never came home for Christmas, the twelfth day of the twelfth month will never be forgotten.
posted by SassHat on Dec 12, 2006 - 22 comments

Slavoj Zizek United 93, WTC movies and 9/11 with some perspective no conspiracy theories here just a bit of philosophising.
posted by hard rain on Sep 11, 2006 - 18 comments

Is the Bush administration really serious about NATO and UN protection to stop the Darfur genocide? "Is it only weak and incompetent, or is it two-faced?"

What can U.S. citizens do to help end this genocide? For starters, take to the streets: you can register for an April 30th demonstration on the Golden Gate Bridge & at the Presidio, or in Washington, DC. You can also ask your Rep. to sponsor House Resolution 723, a measure that urges the President to help deploy a NATO bridging force to the Darfur region.
posted by n_s_1 on Apr 26, 2006 - 56 comments

Yesterday United Flight 735 from Chicago to Sacramento made an emergency landing in Denver when an unruly passenger tried to open the cabin door. (bugmenot/bugmenot) A member of the Flyertalk forum was on the flight, and provided a first hand account of the emergency.
posted by nathan_teske on Apr 22, 2006 - 49 comments

Who owns the internets? The 2005 World Summit on the Information Information Societies seems to have left a number of nations with a bad taste in their mouth. ICANN emerged the apparent winner. Of course, you can always blame Bush. (first phase of wsis previously discussed here)
posted by es_de_bah on Dec 3, 2005 - 25 comments

George Best dies at 59. Footballer George Best has died today from an infection after a protracted iillness due to ill health following his battles with alcoholism. A great talent he was famous for his good looks, ability and love of the ladies.

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars - the rest I just squandered."

Rest in peace Besty.
posted by ClanvidHorse on Nov 25, 2005 - 70 comments

The Bush administration is backing a US Senate resolution to stop the UN in its plans to try and move some control of the Internet away from the US -- A new resolution introduced in the U.S. Senate offers political backing to the Bush administration by slamming a United Nations effort to exert more influence over the Internet. Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, said his nonbinding resolution would protect the Internet from a takeover by the United Nations that's scheduled to be discussed at a summit in Tunisia next month.
posted by zouhair on Oct 20, 2005 - 102 comments

UN Hits Back at US in Report Saying Parts of America are as Poor as Third World Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality.
posted by zouhair on Oct 15, 2005 - 95 comments

Riotous Littleport. The deportation of an English village to Australia. BBC article with links to other interesting articles on immigration and emigration on the page.
posted by plep on Jun 20, 2004 - 5 comments

On the A46 motorway heading towards Bath, Richard Box has "planted" a field of flourescent tubes powered entirely by the electric field surrounding some overhead power lines. A very cool piece of art, but with a serious background: some people believe that the electromagnetic fields around power lines can cause cancer, while others aren't so sure.
posted by bwerdmuller on Feb 23, 2004 - 27 comments

Were from the UN and we're here to help! Question: If you're a UN Weapons Inspector and a man jumps into your vehicle screaming "Save me! Save me!" clutching notebooks to his chest what do you do? The answer is simple, you turn him over to the Iraqi authorities who now claim to have "no information on the incident." This ought to foster more cooperation from Iraqi scientists...good work Blix and Co.
posted by RevGreg on Jan 25, 2003 - 54 comments

It's the ten-year anniversary of NAFTA this week. Has it been a success? [more inside].
posted by acridrabbit on Dec 12, 2002 - 31 comments

U.S. helped Iraq start bioweapons program

"I don't think it would be accurate to say the United States government deliberately provided seed stocks to the Iraqis' biological weapons programs,'' said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. biological weapons inspector. "But they did deliver samples that Iraq said had a legitimate public health purpose, which I think was naive to believe, even at the time."

" -isn't iraq just another case of blowback and is anyone asking what the next round of "blowback" will be if we go in again?
posted by specialk420 on Sep 30, 2002 - 35 comments

Americans against World Empire. This Conservative/Libertarian coalition presents analysis, articles, links, opinions and rants from every corner of the political spectrum. ""Perpetual war serves a number of purposes.....It is under wartime conditions that the U.S. state will, at least initially, face the least resistance as it finishes the......process of gutting the Bill of Rights and voiding inconvenient parts of the U.S. Constitution......It is under wartime conditons that all opponents of U.S. policies anywhere in the world, including within the U.S. itself, can be most easily labled 'terrorist.'" This statement would have come from a conservative in 1940. Today it is from the Left. (Alternative Press Review, spring 2002).
posted by Mack Twain on Jul 14, 2002 - 6 comments

As the violence in the Middle East escalates, and Arab anger grows over American support of Israel (especially among the masses), is another oil embargo possible? Oil may be the Arab world's daily bread, but it's also its only weapon — if, say, Arafat is killed or Israel goes too far in its incursions into Palestinian territories, popular sentiment in the already-shaky local regimes could force Arab governments to put up a show of defiance to calm their constituencies.
posted by Rastafari on Apr 4, 2002 - 13 comments

English amnesiac may be porn star. "Philip Staufen" tried to convince Canadian authorities that he was an English citizen who suffered from amnesia as a result of a beating. As it turns out, he may be George Lecheit, a French gay porn star. Authorities aren't ready to close the case yet, but even his lawyer doubts the amnesia theory. In a previous MeFi thread, a few people took the Canadian government to task for not helping Staufen return to the UK. In light of recent developments, did Ottawa make the right decision?
posted by likorish on Jan 21, 2002 - 8 comments

50 Muslim nations demand UN probe Afghan 'massacre' Should Saudi Arabia name a special prosecutor?
posted by Postroad on Jan 12, 2002 - 0 comments

Has The Entire American Media Been Bought and Gone To Sleep? United has decided to call off merging with US Air for fears of Antitrust (competition) objections (from the USDOJ; perhaps the EU as well?). This sort of obvious realization came after months and months of, presumedly, attempting to work around the problem. What I want to know is, when the proposed deal was first announced, where were the objections from commentators and consumer advocates? It's sort of pathetic that United is the first one to speak up on the issue, no?
posted by ParisParamus on Jul 2, 2001 - 12 comments