MetaFilter posts tagged with slate

Forgetting Equatorial Guinea

dead_ — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:38:35 -0800

Equatorial Guinea is more than your average headline-making, human rights-eschewing African nation. Likening the country’s uneasy street-silence to that of Pyongyang, deported journalist Peter Maass reveals an unparalleled culture of fear blanketed by an international media blackout. But for the Whitehouse, ExxonMobil and Teodoro Obiang—Equatorial Guinea’s torturous leader—the poverty, abuse and dead-quiet are business as usual.

Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound Was Mostly Bears

rooftop secrets — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:59:20 -0800

The short films (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) of Scott Blaszak.

The Nutcracker Suite

jonson — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:46:23 -0800

Michael Lewis gets a vasectomy.

Free online games, courtesy of Slate

cerebus19 — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:29:04 -0800

Just in time for Flash Friday, Slate lists the best free online games. The first one they mention, The Tall Stump, has been on MeFi previously, but there's more—even an Infocom-style text-based game.

Made to be Broken: laws you can ignore

ND¢ — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 07:19:22 -0800

American Lawbreaking. "This series explores the black spots in American law: areas in which our laws are routinely and regularly broken and where the law enforcement response is … nothing. These are the areas where, for one reason or another, we've decided to tolerate lawbreaking and let a law—duly enacted and still on the books—lay fallow or near dead." The first two entries are prescription drug abuse and internet pornography.

Can't we just go Dutch?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:25:38 -0800

If European and North American societies are morally responsible (print-friendly) for safeguarding free speech, should we also take financial responsibility for its proponents' safety (pf)? Hitchens seems to think so.

Today's moral dilemma is brought to you, of course, by the West's favourite Voltairian nightmare: prominent Islam critic, former Dutch MP, and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Team Mitt to America: Create Our New Official Campaign Ad!

ericb — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:51:39 -0800

Taking a cue from Doritos (Frito Lay) which sponsored a contest for a user-submitted video ad to be aired during Super Bowl XKL, Mitt Romney’s campaign decided to follow suit, challenging “…you to make his campaign’s new official TV advertisement...using images and materials supplied on the campaign website.” “An online vote will help determine the winner.” Folks create ads. Folks vote for their favorite ad. “Way! He'll Set America Straight” [video] (produced by Bruce Reed) garners more votes than the other top nine finalists combined. “[T]he campaign promised 10 finalists, but today it posted only nine...” Guess which one is missing? Another entry from Slate, “Five Brothers” [video] didn’t make the finals, either.

“Our fearless leader promised us online democracy, not a Soviet-style election run by totalitarian Mittistas.”^*

Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography

PostIronyIsNotaMyth — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:09:27 -0800

Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography From the writers of Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography. [via]

Ingmar Bergman's Soap Commercials

Kattullus — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 13:47:24 -0800

The 9 soap commercials Ingmar Bergman made are a little known part of his oeuvre. Slate's Dana Stevens explains how they came about.

Im in ur congress, monitoring changes to ur legislation

grobstein — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 07:22:13 -0800

Slashdot poster has brilliant legislative reform idea: "Source Control for Bills in Congress." What if sneaky changes to pending legislation showed up as soon as they were made instead of in ominously worded media reports months later?