Something to make the inner geek that is inside your inner geek do the boogie-woogie: "Weird Al" Yankovic announces that thanks to digital distribution, he will begin releasing songs as he records them, while the parodied song is still fresh in the public's mind, instead of waiting for an album release every three to four years. The first one will come out on October 7. iTunes will have first dibs on the new singles for the first 14 days, after which they'll go to other online music retailers. (via /.)
posted by WCityMike on Oct 3, 2008 - 73 comments

You've seen the original White and Nerdy Video. Now watch two and a half minutes of pure, unadulterated awesome.
posted by Lord_Pall on Jan 27, 2008 - 59 comments

Book Excerpt: The Assault on Reason Time Magazine publishes an excerpt to further whet appetites. Releases on the 22nd.
posted by allkindsoftime on May 18, 2007 - 93 comments

Word is that the DGSE - the French secret intelligence service - knew in January 2001 that al Queda was planning to hijack a US aircraft and may have given warning. (The original article that appeared in Le Monde 2 days ago)
posted by pwedza on Apr 18, 2007 - 49 comments

Draft Gore. He has participated in a lampoon of his defeat, has at least one web forum devoted to what might have been and may yet be, has his own web site, his own Wiki page, is an Academy Award winner, is encouraged to run by at least one major newspaper , and has numerous web sites devoted to encouraging him to run. His competion? Jeb Bush, (if there is any justice in this world, please let it be the Jeb miester), Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain.

I predict a landslide of unprecedented proportions. Metafilter before .
posted by altman on Mar 6, 2007 - 88 comments

Al Gore trains 1,000 people from around the world to share the message he presented in "An Inconvenient Truth". "The goal had been to train 1,000 "presenters" to show slides of melting glaciers and charts of climbing temperatures, but many more have wanted in. Those selected to gather at the Hilton Nashville Downtown last week included teachers, doctors, a meteorologist, ministers, Wal-Mart employees, actress Cameron Diaz, architects, retirees, veterans and financiers."
posted by PreteFunkEra on Jan 8, 2007 - 63 comments

Before Al Franken started calling Rush Limbaugh a big fat idiot, he did a big fat Mick Jagger impression. Enjoy.
posted by punkfloyd on Nov 3, 2006 - 29 comments

Osama bin Dead for a month? PARIS (Reuters) - A French regional newspaper quoted a French secret service report on Saturday as saying that Saudi Arabia is convinced that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.
posted by gregschoen on Sep 23, 2006 - 105 comments

Polkarama
posted by triv on Sep 21, 2006 - 14 comments

"Don't Download This Song." A free, and rather hilarious, download from "Weird Al" Yankovic done in the 'charity gospel' "We are the World" style, including a few gems in the lyrics like "even Lars Ulrich knows it's wrong." Direct MP3 link. Music video evidently coming shortly.
posted by WCityMike on Aug 22, 2006 - 35 comments

How an Al-Qaeda Cell Planned a Poison-gas Attack on the N.Y. Subway Al-Qaeda terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the New York subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps. They were stopped not by any intelligence breakthrough, but by an order from Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri. And the U.S. learned of the plot from a CIA mole inside al-Qaeda. These are some of the more startling revelations by author Ron Susskind, whose new book The One Percent Doctrine is excerpted in the forthcoming issue of TIME. It will appear on Time.com early Sunday morning.
posted by Postroad on Jun 17, 2006 - 73 comments

New Republican backed ads say our troops should be used as flypaper
and attempt to advance the iraq/al queda link. More on the Progress for America Voter Fund and their links to the swift boaters here. Are they airing these to counter the Bush administrations own admissions that the things are actually worse on most fronts in Iraq than before the war?
posted by specialk420 on Feb 10, 2006 - 35 comments

USA Today and others are reporting that Doubleday will be publishing "[t]he original thoughts of Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders" in a book to be sold in the U.S. (and presumably abroad). From the CNN article, Doubleday plans on donating proceeds from the sale to charity, and openly describes plans to flaunt U.S. law by NOT paying royalties for the use of source materials.

What are the ramifications for a publishing company (which relies on royalty payments and preservation of copyright for self-survival) to ignore their own rules (and U.S. law) when it suits them? Should we expect anyone in the U.S. to care about the royalty payments to these two individuals? Furthermore, could Doubleday's stance affect any of the other copyright infringement actions currently being taken by U.S. organizations?
posted by aberrant on Jan 22, 2005 - 32 comments

[Your message here] Teehee! There can be no better spokesman for your particular passion or beef than Al Sahaf, the brave, beloved ex-Minister of Information of Iraq. It detects what country you're posting from and presents its own commercials first, but it's worth browsing about (the Top for All Countries is the best place to start). [Feels like a double post, smells like a double post, but apparently not. Flash req. Via Bifurcated Rivets.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo on May 9, 2003 - 9 comments