Clancy Martin is the chair of the philosophy department at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He's also an unabashed liar, a recovering alcoholic, and was once suicidal. He's surprisingly honest, and has written extensively about all three of these things. Prior to becoming a professor, he dropped out of grad school, made a small fortune in the murky world of luxury jewelry sales, and nearly became the world's leading dealer of counterfeit Fabergé eggs along the way. He occasionally writes an advice column about lying, and even wrote a few books about it. [more inside]
posted by schmod on Jan 4, 2011 - 29 comments

How to value and sell your gold. Probably a waste of time though, those real people who sold their gold on TV seem happy enough.
posted by alan on Aug 28, 2009 - 20 comments

Item Not As Described: A website that explores the differences between items for sale on craigslist and the photos provided. ( via Miko via metachat )
posted by The Whelk on Jun 23, 2009 - 27 comments

Stephen J. Cannell has created/co-created over 40 TV shows, written over 450 TV scripts for shows like The Rockford Files and The A Team , and 12 mystery novels. What's the catch? He is dyslexic..
posted by CameraObscura on Jan 17, 2007 - 40 comments

What What: I came across this and offer it to the MeFi community, mostly in the hopes you guys can explain it all to me.
posted by ancientgower on May 12, 2006 - 12 comments

Leave My Child Alone! --a new group teaching parents how to stop the very intrusive recruitment tactics of the military, including getting their kids off the Pentagon's list of 30 million potential recruits,: (...a joint effort of the Defense Department and a private contractor, disclosed last week, to build a database of 30 million 16- to 25-year-olds, complete with Social Security numbers, racial and ethnic identification codes, grade point averages and phone numbers. The database is to be scoured for youngsters that the Pentagon believes can be persuaded to join the military...), and getting your kids off the School district records lists (School districts are required under Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act to release student records to military recruiters or risk losing funding, but they are also required to inform families of their Opt Out rights. Notification varies wildly across districts, and it's a bit of a crapshoot whether families know or not.)
More on this from Bob Herbert here: The Army's Hard Sell
posted by amberglow on Jun 29, 2005 - 68 comments

They have ways of making you spend A guided tour of the tricks stores use to make you spend more.
posted by Mwongozi on Jan 4, 2005 - 19 comments