The site must be marked: What is here is dangerous(?) and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger...This place is best shunned and left uninhabited. [more inside]
posted by never used baby shoes on Jan 3, 2008 - 79 comments

...you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely. The story of stuff.
posted by allkindsoftime on Dec 5, 2007 - 61 comments

Excellent 8,000 word essay on waste disposal in the endlessly superlative LRB. Andrew O'Hagen goes bin-raiding with Freegans, talks up Zero Waste, rides with the (contraversial) Harrow binmen, meets the Community Recycling Network, tramps over the Calvert Landfill Site and pays a visit to the London Waste EcoPark Recycling and Energy Centre aka the Edmonton Incinerator. Doesn’t meet any mafia though. 8,000 words and none wasted.
posted by criticalbill on May 19, 2007 - 10 comments

Dr. Crippen. He poisoned his wife, buried her in the basement, and then escaped with his female lover disguised as man and son aboard a ship. Then there was Patrick Mahon, who chopped up his mistress and stashed her in a trunk at Waterloo Station, among other places. The connection between these two men? Aside from addressing the problem of how to dispose of a body, they inspired Rear Window.
posted by Astro Zombie on Sep 12, 2006 - 10 comments

Two ways to destroy Chemical Weapons. When UNSCOM was in Iraq they destroyed in place tons of chemical weapons: VX, Sarin. and Mustard gas were burned out in the open. The effort to destroy the United States' aged chemical arsenal includes building special incinerators costing over 1.5 Billion Dollars each. If we didn't need them in Iraq why do we need them here? What's the difference? And now that the incinerators are ready for testing why is the goverment switching from burning to neutralization with water at three sites? Billion Dollar toilet seats?
posted by Mack Twain on Sep 27, 2002 - 7 comments