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The bad news: SmarterChild, one of the first instant message bot applications, is dead. The good news: ActiveBuddy, the folks that created SmarterChild, will be releasing a toolset to create new bots.
posted by mathowie at 8:01 PM PST - 9 comments

Textbook Publishers Learn to Avoid Messing With Texas. "Out of Many," the work of four respected historians, is one of the biggest sellers among American history college textbooks in the United States, but it is not likely to be available to Texas high school students taking advanced placement history. Conservative groups in Texas objected to two paragraphs in the nearly 1,000-page text that explained that prostitution was rampant in cattle towns during the late 19th century, before the West was fully settled.
posted by ncurley at 2:54 PM PST - 24 comments

Doubling The Annoyance Factor: The Instantly Recyclable Column. Spot the differences between Taki's High Life column in this week's Spectator and his Le Maitre column in this week's New York Press. Obviously, all columnists recycle their stuff, specially when they've been on the job for more than 25 years like this guy, but there's generally a time-lag and a modest attempt at hiding the self-plagiarism. No such bloody luck with Taki.[ To my mind, the most objectionable, reactionary, trumpet-blowing, futile, deeply annoying (but, alas, not unreadable...)columnist in the English-speaking world.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:09 PM PST - 16 comments

Chillies. Everything you never wanted to know about the fiery stuff can be found here. Apparently they provide a natural high.
posted by Fat Buddha at 10:18 AM PST - 14 comments

interference in bolivian elections by usa (why if he is unlikely to win?) The US Ambassador to Bolivia has told the Bolivian people not to vote for the indigenous Indian candidate for the Movement for Socialism (MAS), Evo Morales Ayma. If he is elected next Sunday, the USA will suspend economic aid and will review its agreements.

why?.. he is unlikely to win, this will surely give him a boost in the polls instead
posted by trismegisto at 7:44 AM PST - 10 comments

Brazil vs. Germany. The 2002 FIFA World Cup has come to an end. History was made today.
posted by riffola at 6:00 AM PST - 48 comments

Serial prankster Karl Powers finishes his trifecta of Pranks with a hit on centre court at Wimbledon. He first joined the Manchester United team for a photograph, then donned the cricket whites and marched out onto Headingley during an Ashes Test with Australia.
posted by Burgatron at 5:33 AM PST - 12 comments

Pork chop shoes results in a lawsuit in Australia. A man who slipped on a grease trail left by pork chop shoes in a pub is awarded £23,000. I guess Nike better think twice before they release their filet mignon basketball shoes. What would be their marketing campaign?
posted by percine at 4:03 AM PST - 8 comments

"Babe Ruth and I were teammates on the Yankees—and lovers, too. It was no big deal back then. After Sunday games were over, lots of players and writers would come by our little flat in the Morrisania section of the Bronx for one of Babe's famous bean dinners. I also remember the evening when Babe, wearing his familiar pink housecoat, turned out a nice catfish stew for Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Everyone in baseball knew how it was with me and Babe. After the company had gone home and we'd done the dishes, he would lie in my arms and I'd whisper, 'You are my bambino.'"
posted by semmi at 12:06 AM PST - 9 comments

The Apple rumor mill is buzzing... Tonight marks the expiration for many of their recent promos and rebates. The Apple Store has been closed for a few hours now for "updating." Is a new "insanely great" product about to be unleashed unto the Mac faithful ... or is it just wishful thinking?
posted by Fofer at 11:32 PM PST - 14 comments

are'nt we? i'm no fan of many of the green parties tactical decisions (not tossing the green party votes to the greenest presidential candidate in history for example...) - a very effective ad, never the less - particularly cogent as temperatures reach a sweltering 90 + degrees in northern minnesota today... quicktime required via newstoday
posted by specialk420 at 11:16 PM PST - 13 comments

How creepy is this? Man poses as sportswriter for USAToday and/or SI For Kids who wants to interview female collegiate athletes. Some he only gets as far as the phone, one met up with him with her family acting as Scooby Gang. Police say he hasn't done anything to merit charges. Harmless person with mental disorder or person perfecting routine before he escalates?
posted by sillygit at 10:28 PM PST - 3 comments

John Cage's representatives try to claim copyright on silence. [Ref: 4'33"]
Okay.
posted by Su at 2:57 PM PST - 69 comments

Schools conspire against boys: educator I really don't know what to make of this. Nobody complained that schools were "anti-boy" before girls started to do better and outpace male enrollment in college. Boys were always the ones getting in trouble when I was a student too.
posted by Salmonberry at 11:04 AM PST - 44 comments

Sweet! The Flaming Lips' new album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, comes out in mid-July. But you can listen to it in its entirety right now. Battling robot goodness.
posted by RakDaddy at 10:22 AM PST - 27 comments

Political "Greatness" (?) [nyt reg req] An attempt to measure political leadership with the "cool objectivity of science", reflecting a leader's "impact on the world, not his personal virtue". Dr. Arnold M. Ludwig, emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Kentucky says: "No American president can be regarded as great unless they've been involved in war and been responsible for the death of many." Serious BS.
posted by Voyageman at 10:16 AM PST - 9 comments

For Bush Daughters, (Night) Life Isn't Fair My interest in this article is that it has been kept out of the papers I usually read daily and has not been on TV.
posted by Postroad at 9:52 AM PST - 32 comments

"Corporate sleaze carves into our trust," says Dan Gilmore of the San Jose Mercury News. Sheer greed, not CIA meddling, may indeed be the motive. NameBase investigates the social networks of these perps in Lies, Damned Lies, and Enron. "It appears that unlike the BCCI scandal, there are no major spook connections with Enron. What we have here, apparently, is an assortment of talented wheelin', dealin', cheatin' Texas oil cowboys. "
posted by sheauga at 8:35 AM PST - 4 comments

Ronaldo experienced a seizure on the day of the WC98 final. This is a good background article on the events of July 12th, 1998 in Paris, where Ronaldo was foaming at the mouth and shaking uncontrollably just hours before game time. Also note the various conspiracy theories; from Nike forcing Ronaldo to play, to organizers bribing the Brazilians to lose the game.
posted by ( .)(. ) at 7:46 AM PST - 4 comments

Want to see my content? It'll cost you your anonymity. Mandatory registration is making the rounds at major online news sites, as media companies try to peel away the Internet's cloak of anonymity and build closer relationships with their customers. But it's a tricky dance, and one that risks alienating news junkies when they bump into registration walls as they surf from site to site. Registration also throws up roadblocks for weblogs, community news sites, discussion boards and e-mail newsletters that point to news articles.
posted by srboisvert at 5:25 AM PST - 24 comments

The far right's success in setting the national agenda is provoking an identity crisis for Israel. Radical settlers are effectively in the driver's seat and are redefining Zionism in terms that threaten the future of a Jewish state. Meanwhile, demographics is a hotter issue than ever in Israel, as Israelis on the right and left struggle with the questions "Can Israel be a Jewish and democratic state? Is there any such animal?" [More inside.]
posted by Zurishaddai at 7:42 PM PST - 20 comments

A fan adding bass tracks to the White Stripes album 'White Blood Cells' (a fantastic album), and apparently supported by the duo. For those who haven't yet had the pleasure of hearing the white stripes, they are a two piece, guitar and drums. There are other various instruments throughout the album, but no bass. What do you all think of this?
_{Have mercy. this is my first post.}
posted by folktrash at 4:27 PM PST - 23 comments

The Simpsons are indubitably America's first family, and since I'm spending my unemployed Friday afternoon looking for fun instead of looking for work, I thought I'd share. Find a favorite! "See my vest...." to "Ay, Caramba!" Have they lost their zing? Is it time to end (troll) the best TV show of all time (/troll)?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:55 PM PST - 39 comments

Cartoon Couture "Nathaniel wears an off the shoulder feathered wrestling tee by Brian Lichtenberg and a mod cap by Nisa, San Francisco ... " Also featuring models called Josty, Roya and Mikey ...
posted by feelinglistless at 1:41 PM PST - 4 comments

Stranger is as stranger does Lets see, the older I get, the more eccentric I become. Boy, am I in trouble.
posted by thekorruptor at 1:36 PM PST - 12 comments

"Hunchback of Notre Dame" stage production renamed to "Bellringer." In other news, I hear they'll be reprinting Melville's Moby Dick as "Moby Richard."
posted by brownpau at 11:32 AM PST - 41 comments

Angered Bush to Give Speech on Corporate Reforms. Bush will devote his Saturday radio address to the subject of corporate responsibility and will travel to New York on July 9 to stress the need for better governing at the top level of American businesses.
posted by Ty Webb at 10:02 AM PST - 77 comments

Over the rainbow and onto the charts Creative loafing counts down the Gay Top 40. [via What Do I Know]
posted by kirkaracha at 9:56 AM PST - 45 comments

View the Wall. Recently a group of photographers took photos of every name on the Vietnam Memorial, did some magic in Quicktime VR, and now you can search the entire wall virtually. Nothing is as good as actually being there, but this is a close second.
posted by jragon at 9:50 AM PST - 13 comments

Been waiting for an end to the "Pledge Of Allegiance" controversy? Your wish has been granted. General Zod has finally stepped in to settle the whole ordeal once and for all. (hmm, I never tried doing the pledge while kneeling)
posted by kingmissile at 9:40 AM PST - 12 comments

"Substantial Doubt" over Salon's Survival (NYT Reg. Req'd) And this from its auditors. Hey, these days, if even your auditors can't cover over your poor financial situation, you know you're screwed. Seriously, though, this and a number of other articles point to the end of the Web's erstwhile leading "independent" publication, still ticking but on the decline for the past year. It should be gone by summer's end, they say. Via The Morning News.
posted by risenc at 9:38 AM PST - 14 comments

Periodical cicadas , the 13-year and 17-year varieties made up of 23 separate broods, sometimes emerge concurrently, as they did in Missouri in 1998. The result of their combined mating calls is a cacaphony. There are many different varieties of calls: those by Magicicada cassini, Magicicada septendecim and Magicicada septendecula are just a few. Brood XXIII is due this year. The prime numbers of the two cycles make it difficult for predators to evolve matching breeding cycles. More cicada links.
posted by TurkeyMustard at 9:22 AM PST - 26 comments

Hitting the trifecta. A tasteless joke and a morbid lie from the only person to actually benefit from Sep. 11. Is political advantage really worth this kind of crass lying? A toast to the restoration of honor and dignity to the White House and our appreciation that the "adults" are now in charge! I'm off to buy the new Ann Thrax book to bolster my right wing indoctrination re-education.
posted by nofundy at 8:46 AM PST - 65 comments

Kookazoid : Disturbing collage/Evil Clowns, Narcotics game./You know...standard fare.
posted by ColdChef at 7:44 AM PST - 5 comments

It is XEROX scandal time ! More or less 6B$ "accounting trouble".. they say "just 2B$" like it's monopoly money
posted by elpapacito at 7:17 AM PST - 29 comments

The Political Compass. A questionaire to assess your political leaning. Where do you stand?
posted by Pinwheel at 6:43 AM PST - 40 comments

Create your own Monopoly Game Surely the perfect customised gift? You can change the name of the game, the theme, the name of the properties/stations, and also the rules. Apparently it uses a 'What You See Is What You Get Realtime Interface', which allows users to personalise the game completely to their requirements, and then print out and proof the new design. What I find most interesting about this product offering is that the whole process is completely automated. Once you've designed and ordered your customised game, it goes straight to print/production, and is then sent out to you. No human intervention is required. This appears to me to be pretty ground breaking stuff (well in the Toy World anyway), or am I just way behind the times? (via the Ecademy discussion list)
posted by RobertLoch at 6:20 AM PST - 28 comments

Baby bomber Why? I mean really. Why?
posted by jackspot at 6:05 AM PST - 53 comments

Hot Sex Tips And Sure-Fire Techniques For The Uncompromising Sexual Predator Of Today: An irresistible Flash-requiring entertainment for men and women alike, built around the eternal quest of how to turn on the opposite sex.[As in "The Rottweiller suddenly turned on its owner and savaged both his ankles", that is.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:04 AM PST - 14 comments

Bang! The 4th of July means fireworks and here in Seattle we are blessed with two shows. I'll be on a houseboat on Lake Union watching the one with the truly awesome Japanese fireworks. Japanese hanabi shells are spheres rather than the cylinders of American manufacture. For more fireworks linkage--and there is an incredible amount of it on the web--try Terry Dimock's Pyro Page--it's so incredibly comprehensive that, apart from American Fireworks News, The Physics of Coloured Fireworks and and Thinkquest's Fireworks, I won't bore you with any more here. But do remember this--fireworks and pets do not mix.
posted by y2karl at 3:32 AM PST - 8 comments

Muslim woman to challenge ban on veil in driver's license photo Another example of how the fundamental structure of American society is built upon Christian monothestic values. Should she be accomodated and if so what does that do to the relevance of picture IDs? Further, what if it's against someone's religion to even have their picture taken at all?
posted by fooljay at 1:19 AM PST - 65 comments

A great music editor passes on. Timothy White, editor-in-chief of Billboard Magazine, died suddenly of a heart attack today. He was a fixture of music journalism. He and his bow-tie will be missed.
posted by aeiou at 9:09 PM PST - 4 comments

The prolific and inventive Philip Jose Farmer has long been one of my favorite science fiction writers, but he is rarely counted among the Lists of Greats of the 'old school' authors.(Asimov, Clarke, Niven et al). Does anyone else have a favorite SF writer who seems to get less credit than he or she deserves?
posted by GriffX at 7:44 PM PST - 65 comments

Just who is spamming you and how? Find out how they might have gotten your address using this map representing the network of spammers.
posted by srboisvert at 7:19 PM PST - 11 comments

The Yes Men, impersonators who have dissolved the WTO, among other stunts, released YesIWill! last year in response to the WTO's attempt to shut down the gatt.org web site. I was checking in on the program today, and was disappointed to see it hadn't been updated any.
Then I found out it's because it's been renamed: Reamweaver.
posted by Su at 7:10 PM PST - 3 comments

God, politics and America's most notorious coin Teddy Roosevelt described the appearance of "In God We Trust" on U.S. money as "dangerously close to sacrilege." He ordered the motto kept off new $20 gold coins designed by famous sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Congress demanded the motto restored, making the earlier coins into collector's items. The motto didn't appear on paper money until 1957, just after "In God We Trust" replaced the secular "E Pluribus Unum" as the national motto and the words "So help me God" were added to the oaths of office for federal judges. Meanwhile, religious conservatives are using the motto to put "In God We Trust" posters in every classroom in America.
posted by mediareport at 5:04 PM PST - 24 comments

Silent Evidence - Ronald Bailey insists that Rachel Carson's campaign against DDT in "Silent Spring" is filled with bad science and has resulted in millions of unnecessary deaths due to increased malaria rates. The US Government has also considered removing the ban on DDT, as has Roger Bate in the Wall Street Journal.
posted by Kevs at 4:58 PM PST - 5 comments

John Entwistle, The Who bassist, dies in Las Vegas on the verge of a U.S. tour.
posted by schmedeman at 3:31 PM PST - 42 comments

Fireproofing Faulted in Trade Center Collapse... Fireproofing failures -- rather the impact of the plane crashes -- probably caused the World Trade Center towers to quickly collapse, architects and engineers told a federal panel today.

"The insulation is going to turn out to be the root cause," said James G. Quintiere, a professor at University of Maryland's Fire Protection Engineering Department who analyzed the fireproofing in the two towers.

Also worth reading is NY Fire Chief Vincent Dunn's assessment, "Why the World Trade Center Buildings Collapsed".
posted by zerolucid at 3:21 PM PST - 16 comments

From the "life is funnier than The Onion" department... A giraffe lept off a cliff to its death Wednesday in Nairobi after learning it was a prime suspect in the killing of an American priest at a luxury hotel. Perhaps it was upset about the recent pedophilia scandal in the church? (via The Morning News -- aw, come on! We needed a good laugh around here.)
posted by me3dia at 2:36 PM PST - 13 comments

"The right man for the job will be aged between 18 and 21 and will presumably need to demonstrate an abundance of energy and the ability to withstand repeated showers of saliva, the traditional punk rock crowd's sign of respect for performers."

But who is the right man?
posted by oh posey at 2:26 PM PST - 5 comments

2002 European Online Journalism Awards Impressively broad selection of nominees to be decided by impressively diverse roster of judges on July 4.
posted by Voyageman at 12:43 PM PST - 3 comments

Court gives the go-ahead on random drug testing for non-athlete students. "Given the nationwide epidemic of drug use, and the evidence of increased drug use in Tecumseh schools, it was entirely reasonable for the school district to enact this particular drug testing policy," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the decision. Drug tests which really only target marijuana use (alcohol, cocaine, opiates leave the body shortly after use) can now be randomly given to students involved in extra-curricular activities. Is this a further step in the "my anti-drug" campaign? Is debate or drama club YOUR anti-drug? By denying student drug users the privilege of participating in activities, aren't we just marginalizing them further and making the problem worse? What will it be? Drugs or getting involved?
posted by Hammerikaner at 12:18 PM PST - 56 comments

History repeats itself? Lest we forget, constitutional qualms about the Pledge helped bring down Mike Dukakis 14 years ago ... will the Democrats, in an urge to avoid the same fate, let through Bush's slate of conservative nominees? How about a new Justice if Rehnquist retires?
posted by MattD at 11:13 AM PST - 3 comments

Gay marriage lawsuit filed in New Jersey yesterday The website of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represents the plaintiffs, contains lots of information about the case. News article here.
posted by Tin Man at 10:38 AM PST - 32 comments

Can't say the pledge? Pick a school that does! School Vouchers are okay, even when used at religious schools. Well, that is a freedom of choice, no?
posted by dwivian at 8:00 AM PST - 26 comments

Lawmakers blast pledge ruling... Yes I know this thread was started yesterday but at over 130 posts and given the recent news from lawmakers stating they would push for a constitutional amendment authorising the words "under God" if the Supreme Court did not smack down the 9th circuit courts decision I felt compelled to post again on this subject. Smack me down if you like...
posted by gloege at 6:14 AM PST - 153 comments

Five stars for BEST NEWS SOURCES SITE: FWJC - floating wreckage - jettisoned cargo. Who says design can't be simple. Looks like just another little news blog? Look again. Neat little pulldown menus conceal 26,000 links to beautifully organized lists of news and reference sources.
posted by sheauga at 4:41 AM PST - 18 comments

Get Your Bloodthirsty World Cup Vengeance Here! A cruel, violent and xenophobic little game. And not a moment too soon, either![Shockwave required.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:43 AM PST - 15 comments

Do you fear a cyber-attack by Al Qaeda? Seems that several businesses and governmental system infrastructures have had higher than normal traffic routed from the middleast snooping around protected systems. Is this more political rhetoric for stronger control over electronic transmissions?
posted by nakedjon at 11:43 PM PST - 23 comments

"No national railway of a developed country has ever run a profit. They're not supposed to. The correlative economic and social benefits they throw off -- bringing commuters to taxpaying corporations daily, for one thing -- more than offset any net loss they suffer." [via camworld]

You don't run your home's central heating, air conditioning or plumbing at a profit, so why should a country try to run its infrastructure that way, be it rail, health service, water, ...? Is it forced on us because nationalised services always seem to become fantastically inefficient and bureaucratic?
posted by southisup at 7:16 PM PST - 63 comments

Is this really a problem? Nerve.com offers informative info for those seeking internet love.
posted by Juicylicious at 4:10 PM PST - 16 comments

Glastonbury opened its gates today for the insanely keen; the music starts on Friday. A small corner of Somerset becomes transformed into a heaving, crime ridden small city, but without the sanitation. Everywhere you turn a corporate sponsor will be in your face. A ludicrously expensive fence has been erected to keep the riff raff out. I cant help but feel the thing has lost its identity over the years. Michael Eavis has said, this will be the last one if there are gatecrashers, really, who would care? Late Junction on Radio 3 commented that another festival starts this weekend too. It seems much more in tune with the spirit of the original Glastonbury and is free. Ironically it takes place in the middle of a large city, but I bet the vibe will be much more chilled.
posted by Fat Buddha at 4:09 PM PST - 12 comments

Verisign (aka Satan) is set to relinquish the management of the .org domain pool this week, after agreeing to drop both the .org and .net registries to keep the .com one until 2007. ICANN is meeting on it this week (webcast). The list of all interested parties with competing applications is here, but personally I'm pulling for Carl from media.org's proposal for a public trust. For anyone that owns a .org domain, this is one to watch.
posted by mathowie at 4:06 PM PST - 8 comments

Opportunism at its lowest. A lawsuit filed by Cantor Fitzgerald (who occupied several upper floors of the WTC and was totally devestated by 9/11) alleges that a rival firm, Garban Intercapital Management, conspired to hire away key brokers in the wake of the attack. Mmmm.... classy.
posted by mkultra at 1:12 PM PST - 6 comments

New treatment for depression in women possibly best news ever for men.
posted by rushmc at 12:50 PM PST - 44 comments

"One nation, under God, indivisible..."
posted by Reggie452 at 12:48 PM PST - 140 comments

The Bonnaroo Music Festival was held in Manchester, Tennessee this weekend. Did any MeFis go? What did you think?
This may have been mentioned in a post a long time ago.
posted by eraserhed at 11:03 AM PST - 9 comments

The trailer for Red Dragon is here. Remaking 1986's "Manhunter"? Cashing in on a successful franchise with bigger-name stars? I thought CSI's William Peterson did a fine job as FBI agent Will Graham, but can you go wrong with Hopkins, Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes and Harvey Keitel? What other movies from the last decade deserve to be given a bigger budget Hollywood recreation and decent promotion?
posted by robbie01 at 10:01 AM PST - 39 comments

As heard on NPR this morning "Every month until I die or the Internet becomes obsolete, I have set aside $400--about 12% of my gross monthly income--to help individuals meet small financial needs that they simply cannot afford on their own. "
posted by GernBlandston at 9:55 AM PST - 12 comments

People, trends, and issues that most influence technology today. What Big Business is being told in The Economist's CFO Magazine. No Metafilter ? Thankfully, blogs not mentioned.
posted by Voyageman at 8:39 AM PST - 4 comments

Brazil x Turkey - If you don't want to know who won, don't click on the link nor the thread comments...
posted by rexgregbr at 8:26 AM PST - 28 comments

Farmland for sale. $80-100 trillion. Russia's lower house of parliament on Wednesday passed a bill that would allow the sale of Russian farmland for the first time since the days of the czars, but would bar foreigners from buying it.. foreign companies could still purchase Russian land through subsidiaries that are majority Russian-owned.
posted by stbalbach at 8:12 AM PST - 3 comments

DoS attacks on P2P networks by copyright holders is a go... Well not yet, but Rep. Howard Berman (D- Calif.) has submitted a bill for review that would in effect provide the RIAA with a legal path to "hack" file sharing networks via DoS attacks.
posted by ( .)(. ) at 8:11 AM PST - 10 comments

Under pressure from the Bush Administration, the Palestinian Authority announced that it will hold presidential elections in mid-January 2003. Bush wants Arafat dumped, but polls show that Arafat is widely favored to win. Could Bush be giving Arafat an even bigger mandate? Should the US be allowed to force Arafat to sit out the elections?
posted by jennak at 8:10 AM PST - 71 comments

"Microsoft's Xbox console may not be overpopular with computer game players but it is rapidly winning fans in the hardware hacking world." Get your Xbox mod chips here.
posted by aLienated at 6:45 AM PST - 12 comments

Everyone knows the Transformers and Batman, but what about the Black Hood and King Leonardo? The Pie Face Prince of Pretzelberg? Millie the Model? Reagan's Raiders? Those characters -- and many, many more -- are profiled at Don Markstein's Toonopedia, one man's ongoing attempt to document the history of newspaper comics, comic books, and animation, from Adam Strange to Zot!.
posted by snarkout at 5:32 AM PST - 9 comments

To spank, or not to spank? Some parents - including Presidents and Princesses - seem to believe it's one's duty to administer corporal punishment of some sort, whereas others clearly wouldn't even as a last resort. Some, apparently, would leave it to the Webmaster to decide how many times to raise the paddle! If westerners are confused about child disciplinary methods, what about their kids? Or is consistency of approach more important than which side of the philosophical divide you stand on? More inside>>>
posted by dash_slot- at 4:39 AM PST - 47 comments

Dasher is a new way to input text on a Pilot or any computer without a keyboard. There's a version available for download to try out on your desktop, using your mouse. It really is quite freaky to use. The amazing thing is, it actually appears to work. After a couple of minutes experimenting, it's almost as fast as typing for a slow typist like myself.
posted by salmacis at 4:30 AM PST - 21 comments

A few rather mundane numbers have turned into international chart toppers by being blessed as the 'official song' of the FIFA World Cup^TM or being on the 'official album' and getting airplay as the theme songs for local TV broadcasts. I think this trend started during Italia '90. Neither I, nor FIFA can remember any official songs from Mexico '86 or Spain '82. While Anastacia's Boom is this year's FIFA designated 'official song;' I like Tejano singer Jennifer Peña's upbeat Vamos al Mundial, the theme song for Univision's World Cup broadcast. What's the theme song of your local World Cup broadcast? Is it any good?
posted by tamim at 11:58 PM PST - 11 comments

30 days to a more accessible website This series is entitled "30 days to a more accessible weblog", and it will answer two questions. The first question is "Why should I make my weblog more accessible?" If you do not have a weblog, this series is not for you. The second question is "How can I make my weblog more accessible?" If you are not convinced by the first answer, you will not be interested in the second.
posted by mikewas at 9:00 PM PST - 10 comments

I Told you the whole idea of “Hindu militants” was laughable. The eXile's 'war nerd' turns in another fantastically upsetting, yet dead true column. My favorite line: "Congratulations on shooting that Fortuin guy, the only interesting Dutchman in the past 200 years! Can’t have people like that running around!"
posted by GriffX at 8:49 PM PST - 6 comments

Last week was a good week for aliens and a bad week for cows.

UFOs visited sacred sites and tourist attractions in Sri Lanka, Chile declared an official UFO tourism zone, and Scotland claims to have the most reported sightings each year.
much more inside...
posted by joemaller at 8:33 PM PST - 5 comments

How many more accounting scandals to go? A recent show "Bigger than Enron" on Frontline leads me to wonder, "How MUCH bigger than Enron?" Responses from viewers on that website include a number of accountants for big firms that insist that these practices are everyday business in accounting and that we have a lot more of this coming. Are we actually in the middle of the biggest market crash since 1929? What do you think? Just how bad could it get?
posted by muppetboy at 6:30 PM PST - 34 comments

Non-religious Israeli settlers are financially trapped, argues a sympathetic Tel Aviv University professor. He slams Ha'aretz Daily for constantly urging Jewish settlers to just move out, "as if people who somehow managed to buy a cheap housing unit in a settlement could simply leave it behind and buy another house somewhere else." Seems that for a lot of settlers, financial benefits like reduced income taxes and generous loans are more important enticements than appeals to biblical righteousness. Too bad the "doubly cheated" and heavily villified settlers can't get any financial help when they decide to move back. The solution? "Jews in America and world-wide should therefore use their money to support settlers who wish to leave the occupied territories and return to Israel."
posted by mediareport at 5:59 PM PST - 11 comments

Sound to make an army flee A NEW sonic weapon being developed for the Pentagon makes use of one of the most fearsome sounds known to humans: a baby crying. The article also talks about use for crowd control. If I were a club owner, I'd buy one so that everyone clears out expiditiously. Clear them out like cockroaches when the lights come on!
posted by Modem Ovary at 5:52 PM PST - 14 comments

Captain America - Black Man. Marvel has had its share of classics and stinkers this year - but this historical look how Captain America might have come to be sounds really smart.
posted by clango at 5:47 PM PST - 5 comments

Is Univision's coverage of the World Cup, like, way better than ESPN's or what?
posted by brookish at 5:24 PM PST - 16 comments

Brazil is in some trouble. So the question must be asked, can globalization be an extension of imperialism? If so, in this case, is it? If not, how would one explain the current crisis felt in Brazil and all of Latin America?
posted by BlueTrain at 5:18 PM PST - 3 comments

Musicians are really smart. They have larger and more sensitive brains than non-musicians, and their collective IQ is much higher. They have 130% more grey matter in one area of their auditory cortexes. The question of how this explains Ozzy Osbourne nonwithstanding, I'll bet if you're really, really smart, you could be one of the new members of Men Without Hats. Must be very knowledgeable in midi, sequences, and sampling.
posted by iconomy at 4:59 PM PST - 17 comments

Karakuri trick Boxes Brought to you by one of the Karakuri craftsmen. Beautiful and intricate, you may also need some patience. RF-4 by Iwahara, for example, requires 324 moves to open (also featured at the Puzzle Museum)! Lest, you confuse these with Burr puzzles, you must know your puzzle-types.
posted by vacapinta at 3:23 PM PST - 7 comments

God Bless America Day : Let me detail for them all the ways in which this idea is just wrong. Or is it?
posted by RJ Reynolds at 2:54 PM PST - 28 comments

Intellectual Freedom Issues,
from the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Roundtable.

"Intellectual Freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored. Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and disseminate ideas."

American Library Association Code of Ethics: "We protect each library user's right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted."
posted by sheauga at 2:47 PM PST - 5 comments

Blue Springs, Missouri, is receiving federal funds for "Gothic Culture Research." "The funding for the proposed gothic program will supplement existing services already in place and allow the city to target additional 'at risk' youth in the gothic culture." Apparently, gothism is a "gateway" culture that may lead to harder stuff.
posted by me3dia at 2:17 PM PST - 15 comments

"America As It Was: A Tour Of The USA In Vintage Postcards" is a vast, amazing collection, quaintly presented by my new heroine: an Atlanta real estate agent and church volunteer called Pat Sabin who dreams of one day visiting Chicago and whose(some would say surprising) love for all things webby is an example to us all. Please don't be put off by the homey graphics and folksy language - it really is a rich, rich resource! [My favourite postcard turns out to be from James Lilek's New York collection. Go figure. All I can say is God bless the meetings of unlikely minds!)]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:05 PM PST - 5 comments

The UN Atlas of the Oceans provides information on a wide range of topics relating to the world's oceans, such as geography, economic uses and environmental issues (here's a BBC article about the atlas.) Another nice site about the oceans is the Blue Planet web companion to the gorgeous Discovery/BBC TV series of the same name. Sadly, the threat to coral reefs may soon rob the oceans of some of their more spectacular biological diversity.
posted by homunculus at 11:46 AM PST - 1 comment

Is your library unpatriotic? The FBI has now started checking library records. According to the USA Patriot Act, the FBI can research library records, all they have to do is prove a diluted form of probable cause to a secret court. Some librarians say they will resist the attempts by the FBI to view the reading histories of their patrons. If you think your local librarian is being unpatriotic or subversive, please send them hate mail, report them to the FBI.....
posted by insomnyuk at 11:22 AM PST - 71 comments

The Classic Typewriter Page. A gorgeous site to behold (and informative). Everything and anything you ever wanted to know about the classic typewriter. Before you ask, What's a typewriter?, check out this site.
posted by jacknose at 11:16 AM PST - 10 comments

The engine canna take any more, captain! So, we're going to ground the fleet. I guess our friends in the space station are just going to have to wait until NASA is done checking under the hood.
posted by dwivian at 10:48 AM PST - 6 comments

HOLY MOTHER OF BACON! French fries?!?! Cancerous!?!?
posted by jcterminal at 10:20 AM PST - 34 comments

I can have my own Gorn head? Sweet! A memorabilia company is auctioning off tons of Star Trek original props, scripts, costumes, etc. You can finally own Capt. Pike's chair (which my dentist also has, I think), memos that made jerk sci-fi authors very angry, the big seat itself and, of course, Frank Gorshin's pants.
posted by ice_cream_motor at 8:54 AM PST - 7 comments

I don't know about you, but I won't feel truly secure until the Office of Homeland Security has its own logo. The White House is still just using the presidential seal: boring. The Patent Office's entry has a nice retro feel to it, but some might find it too menacing. The USDA's is maybe a bit too subject-specific. What do you think: should we keep it simple, or go with something a little more strongly stated? What sort of design would make you feel secure?
posted by ook at 8:43 AM PST - 22 comments

Auto-organic backlinking in Blogspace
Jon Udell has an intriguing article describing the automatic backlinking used by Disenchanted and other sites. For example, if you link to a Disenchanted article, it automatically links back to you. Udell writes:

More than economy is at work here, though. Offering backlinks is a strategy that furthers the ambition of every blogger to engage other minds. It does so by enlarging the surface area and altering the shape of the posted article, which is the unit of information currency in blogspace.

What a groovin' idea. I like that the backlinking is automated, essentially creating new networks of knowledge with every post. Is anyone else doing this? It seems that if this "feature" were included in existing blogging engines, it could change the shape of the net.
--------------------
Link courtesy of Kairos News
posted by mecran01 at 6:48 AM PST - 22 comments

Is the FBI dragging it's feet in the anthrax investigation? It appears they have reason to do so. Dr. Barbara Rosenberg presents a compelling argument that the likely homegrown terrorist is known but revealing his identity could be embarrassing to the government.
posted by nofundy at 6:22 AM PST - 26 comments

Warchalking Collaboratively creating a hobo-language for free wireless networking. Here is the first draft of a warchalking symbol card. [via Boing Boing]
posted by srboisvert at 7:43 PM PST - 25 comments

Recognition time for Bonzo? When I read The Ape and The Sushi master, it shook me. And others feel the same [link 1] way[link 2]. But I was still taken aback by the language in this story.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:01 PM PST - 7 comments

The 2002 5k competition entries posted. By my count, 366 entries in this year's 5k competition, up from last year. Looks like anyone can still view and rate them like last year, but final judging has changed (list of judges here).
posted by kokogiak at 4:35 PM PST - 5 comments

Bush's speech today revealed the basis of what the current administration believes is the roadmap to peace in the Mideast. After looking at the major points of the plan, I feel it's about as good of a deal as the Palestinians are ever going to get and pretty much the only way out for the Israeli's also. What do you think?
posted by RevGreg at 4:00 PM PST - 58 comments

"Blockbuster requests that you rewind your DVD." Why? What are you going to do? Fine me? [from Dumb Warnings, via Sore Eyes]
posted by feelinglistless at 3:23 PM PST - 29 comments

Online Sperm Bank for Lesbians Launched Whether you support it or not, you gotta love the web site name...
posted by mathis23 at 1:35 PM PST - 30 comments

High Finance Run Amok [latimes free reg req] is a Kevin Phillips editorial on the "financialization" of the US economy. "As the financial sector, in short, became too important to fail, the Fed and the Treasury abandoned market economics to embrace socialization of credit risk. No other sector of the U.S. economy, save possibly defense, received such governmental assistance."
posted by electro at 12:47 PM PST - 13 comments

Mouse mats reveal you value system First it was office desks, then photos on the wall, now the PC holds the clue. "Analysing the computer screen, the images you use or simply the way you organise your icons can reveal much about your inner desires and ambitions." So much for ego, superego and id.
posted by Voyageman at 10:59 AM PST - 25 comments

UAL asks for a 2$ billion loan from the Feds. And it looks like AMTRAK will get their couple hundred million bucks as well. Transportation seems to be a losing proposition all over. So where's the bailout for the cruise lines?
posted by zoopraxiscope at 10:44 AM PST - 12 comments

you know, you're right... it really does look like my morning coffee. but wait just a minute, didn't we say it was more of a blue-green Tidy-Bowl kind of hue? now i am all confused. good thing i didn't go through with that "paint my house the color of space" idea...
posted by grabbingsand at 10:24 AM PST - 14 comments

Make your own fun. An instruction guide for cheap summer fun.
posted by chrisroberts at 9:10 AM PST - 11 comments

Cat and Girl "...are a metastatic cultural force with new adventures every monday." Read as the bespectacled Cat and bemused Girl live the examined life. And for God's sakes, it's the pepper! Take the pepper! (thanks to riotnrrd of memepool.)
posted by moz at 8:54 AM PST - 8 comments

Neighborly love Baited cat traps, regular trips to the pound to get animals euthanized, erecting signs outside a 14-year-old girl's bedroom to taunt her about her missing pet, having another girl arrested at school... Wow.
posted by NortonDC at 7:47 AM PST - 145 comments

Police fear Wurst.
posted by Spoon at 7:15 AM PST - 28 comments

Celebrate, Windows users, you too can use the world's best MP3 player, with the final release of XPod today, which gives iPod compatiblity to Windows.
And this is not the only option, ephPod does the same thing, but does require you to buy a copy of MacOpener first.
Didn't Apple say they were coming out with their own Windows drivers for iPod eventually?
posted by Mwongozi at 7:00 AM PST - 19 comments

Israeli backlash to Ted Turner's comments prompts CNN offer a series of pieces focusing on the toll Palestinian terror has taken. "Ted Turner apologized, CNN's executives were quick to disassociate themselves from him and to announce he has no influence over the content of the broadcasts, and Eason Jordan, news director for the network, hurried to fly over to Israel and offer 'compensation' - a series of reports on the victims of terrorism.". Indeed, a visit to CNN's website this morning uncovers a series of focus items reporting on Israeli casualties and victims. Is this a case of journalism caving to political and commercial interests, or is Israel effectively combating the liberal bias of Western media?
posted by astirling at 6:31 AM PST - 15 comments

Now that's more like it. Finally a design for rebuilding the WTC that captures the appropriate spirit. Far better than the other designs I've seen. No doubt some will think it too much, though. What's your opinion?
posted by rushmc at 6:27 AM PST - 84 comments

Gigantic airships to fight forest fires
An airship carrying just under one million litres (265,000 gallons) of water could release an artificial rainstorm over wildfires. It's a big project, but airships with that kind of lift capacity are already in the works.
posted by Irontom at 5:45 AM PST - 7 comments

Are they serving popcorn and Junior Mints at this wedding?
posted by grumblebee at 4:36 AM PST - 14 comments

Molly Ivins proffers the absurd notion that we give peace a chance. Even more absurd is that she has a pretty good reason to do so.
posted by crasspastor at 4:09 AM PST - 26 comments

At Virus Books(mostly German, but it doesn't matter), you can download short visual summaries of books for your PalmOS portable. Even if you don't have a handheld, there are images of the results, so you can have a look, anyway.
posted by Su at 9:23 PM PST - 2 comments

Start Me Up Or Shut Me Down: Is Music Compromised And Cheapened By Its Use In Commercials? The Doors' John Densmore, writing in The Nation about why he refuses to accept Apple's and other companies' generous offers to use his band's songs, certainly thinks so. Is this an admirable example of integrity; precious vanity or just downright jejune?[More inside]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:52 PM PST - 47 comments

Nuclear war on film The Los Angeles Times [registration required] reviews the potrayal of nuclear war in the movies.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:13 PM PST - 9 comments

When all of the good vinyl albums have been bought from the cardboard box at the local church bazaar, Nick DiFonzio buys the rest and scans the jackets. The result? Bizarre Record Covers. And because beauty, or the apparent lack thereof, is not only jacket deep, check out this trippy collection of 45 rpm labels from No Relevance, and this detailed record label discography, where you can see how record companies from the 1950s thru the 1990s kept trying to update and redefine their image by redesigning their labels.
posted by iconomy at 5:14 PM PST - 10 comments

'You will stay in Saskatoon, you will stay in Moose Jaw': Plan would force newcomers to agree to live outside biggest cities for three to five years A new idea would have immigrants forced to live in rural Canadian communities for the first 3-5 years to offset the fact that young Canadians are fleeing them for the opportunities in the big cities. I sympathize with the loss that rural Canada is facing, I just don't see this working out the way proponents expect.
posted by Salmonberry at 2:34 PM PST - 13 comments

The Inconstant Moon is dedicated to our nearest neighbor. Explore the moon with the Selenographica. Also, this Tuesday, Nova will re-broadcast To the Moon, the story of the the science and engineering behind mans trip to the moon. Its been 100 years since Melies' dream. Will the U.S. return? Or will someone else?
posted by vacapinta at 11:33 AM PST - 7 comments

The next dominant species of planet earth. Prepare yourselves, humans: your days are numbered (I for one hail our new spider-goat overlords.)
posted by Ty Webb at 11:33 AM PST - 8 comments

What the anti-globalists and the dogmatic left share above all with their newfound fellow-travellers among the Islamic fundamentalists is a loss of faith in the modern age and in Enlightenment ideas. The spirit of their protests was captured by a banner at a recent rally in Berlin: "Civilisation is genocide".
posted by semmi at 9:26 AM PST - 21 comments

Bin Ladin Alive and Promises New Attacks Al Jezeera received a new tape.
posted by bas67 at 6:09 AM PST - 12 comments

Jose "Dirty Bomber" Padilla and John Doe #2 from the OK City bombing. Separated at birth, or one and the same?
posted by swell at 1:35 PM PST - 4 comments

Origami Boulders: it's not wadded up paper, it's art.
posted by Apoch at 8:53 AM PST - 3 comments

Free The Mouse [Literally this time]
This Story from FL says Walt Disney Co. officials have until July 30 to decide whether to challenge the Genesee District Library's mascot for an alleged similarity to Mickey Mouse. Last summer, the library submitted a trademark registry request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office for "Book Mouse," a blue, large-eared rodent wearing red-rimmed glasses and a backpack. Book Mouse appears on bumper stickers and in coloring books, and even marches in local parades. Library attorney Patric Parker said "I don't think we cut into their movie profits this last year."
posted by Blake at 8:46 AM PST - 9 comments

U.S. claims Canada's greatest invention. Congress awards creation of telephone to Italian inventor living in New York. Uh oh. Canada's inferiority complex takes another blow.

"Bell was either a thief, a fraud, or extraordinarily lucky."
posted by percine at 5:19 AM PST - 14 comments

The Garden of Allah, at times, does not reflect the first images that come to mind. It is the title of an amazing 1904 Robert Smythe Hichens book that spawned not one, or two, but three movies, including a 1936 Marlene Dietrich classic; and inspired a 1918 Maxfield Parrish painting. In a seemingly unrelated coincidence a famous contemporary Hollywood hangout spot was also called The Garden of Allah; razing of which prompted Joni Mitchell to sing: "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." [Gossip] Journalist Sheilah Graham wrote a book on this Hollywood landmark where once her love interest F. Scott Fitzgerald lived. I don't think Don Henley drew from any of these two for one of the two original songs in his 1995 Actual Miles album or its controvertial video.
[ In order: I heard the Joni Mitchell song, without knowing of its inspiration, and then in the span of a few months saw the replica of the Hollywood landmark and came in contact with the original Parrish painting. I eventually read the Hichens book. I have yet to see the movies or read the Graham book.]

posted by tamim at 11:58 PM PST - 12 comments

Take the Chicken Challenge... win $10,000 by playing Tic-Tac-Toe against a live chicken at the Tropicana casino in Las Vegas. (Or join the PETA protest against it.) I think being exposed to Phyllis Diller is worse for the chicken than playing Tic-Tac-Toe, and besides, the chicken is winning.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:34 PM PST - 20 comments

Presenting the Hero Machine! Admit it, you've always wanted to be a superhero. Well, you can't be a superhero without first having a really rad costume to protect your secret civilian identity. Here's the first step on the way to becoming a shining beacon for truth and justice ... or heck, world domination. Either way, this fun little toy has kept me occupied most of this week. I just can't get the right combination of helmet and undershirt. Soon, though. (Flash required)
posted by WolfDaddy at 8:24 PM PST - 3 comments

VHS on its last legs? According to source, Circuit City is already phasing out sales of VHS tapes and players in favor of DVDs. Sure, it's an ancient format, but again, not everyone has a TiVo (yet)...
posted by betobeto at 6:45 PM PST - 16 comments

The Oscar Maier Weinermobile, an icon of American consumer culture, was pulled over for driving on a restricted road near the Pentagon today. I would have to wonder if riding inside of a faux sausage during a jihad meets Muslim dietary codes? Sigh. It's a dark day when even the Weinermobile is a suspect...
posted by RevGreg at 3:34 PM PST - 18 comments

Wal-Mart Ships PCs with Lindows Wal-Mart has stood up to MicroSoft's monopoly with its latest computer offerings, being sold sans Windows. The retailer is selling its super cheap boxes either without an OS or with the upstart LindowsOS. I guess I'll have to start shopping at WalMart to show my support!
posted by misangela at 12:50 PM PST - 19 comments

Precrime: Now that the movie is out, and given the similarity of the movie's pretext to our current situation, the phrase Minority Report is rapidly becoming a cliché. But those vividly aware of the implications of current policy seem hesitant to condemn it — Spielberg himself is "on the president's side in this instance" and Dahlia Lithwick concludes her article with the declaration that "We need a Bureau of Precrime." Are the merits of precrime more weighty than the drawbacks? Is "innocent until proven guilty" becoming an outdated concept?
posted by grrarrgh00 at 11:05 AM PST - 41 comments

Apropos of nothing, here's some art for yinz. Too many do not know Arthur Dove's work, the earliest American abstract art.
posted by engelr at 10:53 AM PST - 9 comments

INXS launches first U.S. tour after death of Michael Hutchence. Doesn't the death of a band's charismatic lead singer and frontman necessarily spell The End for the band? Can the remaining members ever really come Back (in Black)?
posted by yhbc at 10:52 AM PST - 14 comments

Friday Fun. This reminds me of the great comics of Heavy Metal magazine Just a warning you better be on a broadband connection and even then give it time to load.
posted by bitdamaged at 10:30 AM PST - 5 comments

Given the vitriolic mood in here the last couple days, I thought I would toss out the most unpolitically correct item I could find.
I present: Cat Boxing
posted by patrickje at 10:07 AM PST - 12 comments

Happy Friday. Warning: morbid Flash cartoon. Morto the Magician. Via Everlasting Blort.
posted by schlaager at 9:39 AM PST - 6 comments

Bigger than Enron. Why the largest business scandal in American history is just the tip of the iceberg--and why investors should care. PBS Frontline aired this expose of the Enron/Anderson scandal last night. Included in the report were details of how deregulatory fervor in Congress enabled these sheisters to invent profits out of thin air.
posted by Ty Webb at 9:35 AM PST - 13 comments

College Students Speak Out, and just 14% can identify the president of Pakistan, 37% would likely try to evade the draft, and 71% "do not believe American values are superior to the values of other nations." Is your local college breeding ignorant anti-Americanists?
posted by dack at 9:28 AM PST - 44 comments

Want to know more about your favorite song? Try SongFacts: sample entry: Song: "The Things That I Used To Do" by Guitar Slim Date: 1953 Songfacts: Slim claimed he was offered a song from God and a song from The Devil. He chose this one, the song from The Devil. Covered by many guitar greats, including Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Chuck Berry. Slim's innovative playing, including the use of distortion, became widely copied. A rare R&B song that was popular in the North and South. Most hits at the time were specific to a certain region. Proceeds from this allowed Slim to feed his liquor habit. He died of pneumonia at 32. Slim often played guitar with his teeth or behind his back when he performed this, theatrics that would be copied often in the years to come.
posted by lilboo at 8:27 AM PST - 15 comments

Adventures in new music discovery. [nyt reg req] Not only in taxi cabs, but playlists while you fly, playlists while you sip coffee, playlists on demand, playlists while you surf, playlists on swap . Where else can we find new music picks? Who needs commercial radio any more.
posted by Voyageman at 8:26 AM PST - 3 comments

China thrown off balance as boys outnumber girls Poor young men here complain that modern women are too picky. ''Before, it was men choosing women,'' says Liu Xicheng, 21, a migrant worker who came to Beijing from nearby Hebei Province. ''Now it is women choosing men. Some have high quality standards. It is hard to marry them.'' I checked and this isn't from the Onion.
posted by srboisvert at 8:21 AM PST - 19 comments

Arafat ready to accept Clinton's 2000 peace plan. "Clinton's plan had offered Palestinians control of most, but not all of the territory taken by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, and called for Palestinians to scale back their demand for the right of return of refugees, a move Palestinian officials said earlier this week they were willing to make."
posted by o2b at 7:57 AM PST - 21 comments

We wuz robbed. I know, it wasn't really a handball. USA loses to Germany and their amazing goalkeeper. Good run, guys.
posted by McBain at 6:25 AM PST - 30 comments

Toxic sludge is good for fish! Who says so? The EPA. It makes them flee the polluted area and escape fishermen. That is the basis for the permit issued to the Army Corps of Engineers to dump 200,000 tonnes of sludge in the Potomac. Link from WSJ's Best of the Web.
posted by Geo at 6:23 AM PST - 9 comments

Less than one hour away: It's summer!!!! What are your plans for the longest "day" of the year?
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 5:39 AM PST - 31 comments

Interviews of failed suicide bombers, by Israeli defense minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. Both Ben-Eliezer and two Palestinians, who (1) failed to and (2) opted not to detonate their bombs, talk about the motivations behind the current wave of attacks. Should prove interesting no matter which side of the Isreali-Palestinian conflict you stand on.
posted by astirling at 5:15 AM PST - 24 comments

The Underground Publishing Conference . June 22-23, Bowling Green, OH, is for Zinesters, Activists, Comic Artists, Hackers, Low Power FM Broadcasters, Librarians, Web Designers, Filmmakers, Musicians, Artists, Academics, Street Theorists, Readers and Writers. In other words, YOU! - (via Clamor Magazine and the crew at Counterpoise)
posted by sheauga at 4:23 AM PST - 4 comments

Lego fun
posted by Spoon at 4:18 AM PST - 4 comments

Kicked Out Of The World Cup? Kick The Blues Away Now! Friday fun and consolation with a kicking little game under the expert supervision of kicked-out Italian striker Roberto Baggio. Fire away, losers!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:29 AM PST - 8 comments

The Art of M. Wartella. His work has been featured on magazine covers and other indie zines. Follow the adventures of Dinky Dog (QT recommended) created by "November Jones, the poor Hungarian surplus lard salesman who invented the "Dinky Dog" character in 1914." Or "Make a hacker out of a slacker".
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 2:53 AM PST - 5 comments

Well they certainly weren't there yesterday!
At the top of the Canary Wharf escalators are three strangely decorated cows. They've been dotted around other parts of London in the past, but its the first time I've seen of them.
An interesting way to start a Friday none the less! - anyone else seen these cows or been invaded by travelling art such as the eyestorm snowballs in summer project (which was a little while ago, but still fun)
posted by monkeyJuice at 1:46 AM PST - 13 comments

England blew it. Enlgand got off to a 1-0 lead before it was tied by Brazil. Even after Brazil was a man down they managed to score a goal and hold the lead for a victory. I really thought England was going to go all the way.
posted by suprfli at 1:37 AM PST - 29 comments

Sure, we've all heard the classic old time radio dramas, but what about more recent classics, like the wonderful Jack Flanders series from ZBS Media? And what is being produced today? Bonus points if it's broadcast free online.
posted by rushmc at 1:32 AM PST - 6 comments

Do you want fries with that house? Not content with a normal McMansion, the Banner family of Potomac, Md. upgraded four years ago from a 4,500 square foot house to a 8,500 square foot house. Its six bedrooms and nine bathrooms now comfortably accomodate the house's two adults and two children. The unusually ironic NYTimes (reg req.) article does not spare us the absurdities of this arrangement, a growing trend in wealthy suburban enclaves. Interior decorators must now "supersize" furniture to fill up a cavernous "media room". Entire wings of the house sit unused for months, because the suburban rich entertain others at home no more often than their middle-class counterparts.

Suppose you had a $500k income and a completely empty 2 acre zoned lot in Potomac in which to live. What might you build there?
posted by PrinceValium at 11:33 PM PST - 52 comments

If at first you don't succeed... Venezuelan army officers tell the Christian Science Monitor they're planning another coup attempt. Other signs: Ten masked men criticized President Chavez on TV last week, protests are mounting and, oh, those 50 tanks you see over there? Don't be alarmed. They're just "rehearsing" for the July 5 Independence Day parade, which also happens to be the day Chavez may try to clean house during an annual round of military promotions. Ruh-roh. The good news: On June 10, workers at the country's largest newspaper released a statement denouncing last April's media manipulation by wealthy owners and promised to fight if it happened again. And everyone's favorite meddling Baptist has announced he's heading to the area. (More inside)
posted by mediareport at 8:06 PM PST - 22 comments

If Karl Rove is allowed to use PowerPoint, the terrorists will have won. It's amazing that this master operative is using the same cheesy graphics, poor font choices, and cliched business terms ("synergies") as your boss, but it's true--when his intern dropped a disk with this thing on it, it got into the hands of Roll Call.

Note especially slide 21 and slide 26--apparently Florida is a "Special Concern"

Via the NY Observer's Joe Conason
posted by lackutrol at 4:04 PM PST - 12 comments

The Library of Congress blew it. I watched some of the hearings about the CARP-proposed webcasting fees, and I had the impression that the people at the Library got it. I was wrong. So instead of having all their limbs chopped off, webcasters can now expect only to be cut off at the knees. The end result will be the same, though; say goodbye to Internet radio.
posted by geneablogy at 2:40 PM PST - 29 comments

more bad news on the global warming front is there any leadership whatsoever from the whitehouse on this issue? oh, thats right... theres a war on terrorism goin on...
posted by specialk420 at 2:39 PM PST - 15 comments

but does it have vibrate? A prototype tooth implant which picks up digital signals from radios and mobile phones goes on show at the Science Museum in London this week.
posted by moth at 2:34 PM PST - 14 comments

Newsguru is an "experiment in randomized photojournalism." Unfortunately, it doesn't have the bombardment value that My Left Asscheek(hee!) did, which strangely enough, they bought. Or, maybe, it just made for a great "press release" title.
posted by Su at 2:11 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

And The Winner Is....
Hurray! I can finally sleep at night, the new M&M color is Purple. The intro is a bit annoying, but the flash page they have to show voting stats by country is kinda nifty. mmmmmm...purpliscious
posted by Blake at 1:54 PM PST - 25 comments

The new money will be called NexGen™
The Treasury and Federal Reserve make it official: Starting in 2003, U.S. currency will have pretty colors. But they don't say which colors! I say we MeFis oughta lift our voices high with suggestions on what colors our $100, $50, $20 and $10 bills should be.
Is anyone else creeped out that they call the money "NexGen"? It sounds so ... Orwellian.
posted by Holden at 12:40 PM PST - 101 comments

Will electronic music ever break in the US? DJs don't speak. Most don't produce their own full-length albums. When they perform, their only motions are precise hand movements and brief shuffles to record bins that are obscured from view and confined to a 5-foot square area. There are no David Lee Roth jump kicks, synchronized boy-band dances, Michael Jackson moonwalks or Janet Jackson ass-shaking. For American consumers, this is a problem.
posted by fellorwaspushed at 11:47 AM PST - 73 comments

Gifted elementary kids in California could go straight to college. Students of any age, even kindergarten, could demand to take the state's high school proficiency examination under legislation approved recently by the Assembly. Passage of the test -- which measures reading, writing and arithmetic skills -- would qualify young students to enter community colleges as if they had obtained their high school diplomas.

Academically, these kids may be ready for college, but are they mature enough to handle being surrounded by students six to ten years their senior?
posted by DakotaPaul at 10:58 AM PST - 42 comments

If you're vegan, this link is what you need to figure out what the hell is really in your food. If you're not vegan, you might find it interesting as well. If you're a total metavore, no, we can't eat our clones yet... bummer.
posted by jcterminal at 10:34 AM PST - 65 comments

Feeling small or feeling big? 39 orders of magnitude that take you from the Milky Way to the proton in an oak leaf.
posted by Chief Typist at 10:10 AM PST - 9 comments

An asteroid the size of a football field just missed the Earth last Friday. Coming in fast out of the sun, where we ain't watching, it missed us by an astro-paltry 75,000 miles (a third the distance to the Moon). If it had hit, the impact would have been about 10 megatons -- not a planet-killer, but enough to spoil your picnic.

In related news, Attorney General Ashcroft arrested a box of moon rocks and the entire staff of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA for questioning. The director of the Office of Orbital Security was at a pro-am golf tournament in Fond du Lac, WI and unavailable for a statement.
posted by anser at 9:45 AM PST - 38 comments

"Welcome to www.villainsupply.com, your best online source for everything EVIL. If you are a supervillain, mad scientist, warlord, dictator, or despot, then this is the place for you."

Need a doomsday device? Gear for your henchmen? How about an impenetrable fortress? Save 35% on the Orbital Space Station!
posted by starvingartist at 9:19 AM PST - 12 comments

Betty Crocker makes it easy to eat well. On her website she has (among other things) a dinner planner, a page that figures out what groceries you need for a given set of recipes, and my favorite, a page where you input your ingredients, and she tells you what you can make with them! Everybody eats, and most of MeFi is just news or pop culture, so I think this is incredibly appropriate. What other uses do MeFites get out of the web, besides news, games, and their daily pr0n fix?
posted by taumeson at 9:00 AM PST - 18 comments

NPR.com is now asking that you request permission to link to content on their site. What is the rational behind this? I could see how the dallas news was concerned with losing advertising revenu when they banned deep linking, but if I'm not mistaken, NPR is non-profit, right? What gives?
posted by Hackworth at 8:34 AM PST - 30 comments

"Soccer scolds" attack! The Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last has had it with gushing soccer writers like Slate's David Thomson ("[Soccer is] something made out of muscle, speed, grace and the soul") who see American lack of enthusiasm for the sport as a deep-seated national character flaw worthy of dire-sounding pronouncements. Is he right, or, as The San Francisco Chronicle would have it, can soccer really bring world peace?
posted by transona5 at 8:21 AM PST - 28 comments

Seems that public discontent with with the state of radio is finally being heard at some major outlets. The most telling part of the story is this: Those most likely to turn off the radio: teen-agers, long among the medium's mainstays. Along with MTV, the radio practices mentioned in this article are the reason a lot of good music never gets heard. A listener said it best: He longs for the free-form format of his teen years, when you could hear anything from Elvis Presley to Elvis Costello, the Supremes to the Sex Pistols. . Are you listening Clear Channel? And more important are we? I'm still of the opinion that (pending legaliteis aside) the internet will be what saves radio, but it's not quite there yet.
posted by jonmc at 8:10 AM PST - 38 comments

Supreme Court says no to executions of mentally disturbed people. Wow.
posted by dwivian at 8:03 AM PST - 70 comments

"It's not just that you have no right to a lawyer, it's that you have no right to even have a hearing," he said. "If that is true, then there is really no limit to the President's power to label U.S. citizens as bad people and then have them held in military custody indefinitely." Okay, someone please tell me that's not as scary as it sounds.
posted by donkeyschlong at 7:42 AM PST - 36 comments

http://www.nlcnet.org/bangladesh/index.html "For the last 8 years, young women at the Shah Makdhum factory in Bangladesh have been forced to work over 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, denied maternity benefits, beaten and paid just 15 cents for every $17.99 Disney shirts they sewed." "Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney, pays himself $133 million a year, or about $63,000 and hour. It would take a worker in Bangladesh sewing Disney garments for 12 cents an hour 210 years to earn what Eisner does in an hour."
posted by headlemur at 6:54 AM PST - 55 comments

Ease of Use? IBM sends mixed message... see how complicated the instructions are to order this poster.
posted by TNLNYC at 6:01 AM PST - 15 comments

BBC presents: The Science of Superheroes! Ever wonder how Spider-Man climbs on walls? How do lie detectors such as Wonder Woman's lasso work? What was gravity like on planet Krypton? The BBC takes a scientific look at our favorite superheroes to teach the physics behind the fantasy.
posted by phatboy at 4:15 AM PST - 8 comments

Ready To Rumba? Or Samba? Will England or Brazil go through in tomorrow's crucial World Cup game? Predict at your peril. I'd love Brazil to win but, no doubt influenced by the treacherous utterances of Pele and Jairzinho[see penultimate link], say England will tragically but deservedly win 2-1.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:09 AM PST - 36 comments

Remember this? Rita Wilson's thong check in April? She was demoted, and will resume teaching students on monday... "I'm very disappointed and deeply saddened," Wilson, 47, said as she wiped away tears and hugged supporters. Talk about a school board that's out of touch, she now gets to spend even more time with children...
posted by jkaczor at 10:30 PM PST - 14 comments

But what about the terrible secret of space? Inteligent robot escapes, then gets run over by a car. The driver makes a bad joke.
posted by delmoi at 8:53 PM PST - 16 comments

Neverwinter Nights is out!!! After waiting 4 long years and wading through a fetid quagmire of let-down rumors and whatnot, I finally have a copy installed on my laptop right now! Run, don't walk to your local Software Etc. and see if they have a copy. Our local WotC didn't have a copy, and neither did our local Electronics Boutique or Best Buy.
posted by crankydoodle at 6:08 PM PST - 27 comments

Do you prefer your comics free? Joltin' John Allison is a street level bloke who thinks he is better served having more people view his work for no money than he is with readers paying for it. I'm curious how you mefi kids feel about subscription sites? (Besides our beloved porn)
posted by clango at 5:46 PM PST - 14 comments

The Mother of All Disclaimers (Via The Register) If you are an Australian, Japanese or Canadian person or are viewing this page from Australia, Canada or Japan you must exit the site by clicking on the "I disagree" button below.
posted by timeistight at 2:49 PM PST - 15 comments

Somewhere between Myst and an inventory. . Matt McClintock invites you to enter his home and checkout all his neat stuff. Want to see what is in his medicine cabinet? Go ahead. What is in the drawer? Take a look. Perfect for anyone who has ever walked down the street and wondered what the insides of their neighbors houses look like. Beautiful navigation, and oddly compelling content.
posted by thirteen at 12:53 PM PST - 15 comments

In you like f**ckedcompany... ...here's another job site with a naughty word in the title. "Job hunting daily is bad enough without having to deal with employers who want you to speak Swahili for little or no pay."
posted by sassone at 11:10 AM PST - 23 comments

“I accuse the media in the United States of treason.” - A terrorism analyst chides the U.S. media for identifying possible security vulnerabilties, to the advantage of terrorists:

"No terrorist group that I am aware of has the time and manpower to conduct this type of extensive research on a multitude of potential targets. Our news media, and certain think tankers and academicians, have done and continue to do the target vulnerability research for them."

posted by rowell at 10:55 AM PST - 35 comments

Envy of the Literary World, or another Trust-Fund Novelist? Following up on the discussion of J.T. LeRoy a few weeks ago, here's a story from the Observer about Nick McDonell, who's 18, just out of high school and about to publish a major novel (you may have read about him in the New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section). The catch is, his dad edits SI, his publisher is his godfather, and Hunter S. Thompson, who plugs the book, is a family friend. The book's not out yet, so the quality question is moot at this point. But still ... what gives with all this ridiculously young writers these days?
posted by risenc at 10:36 AM PST - 50 comments

The King Lives! Elvis is back on top of the United Kingdom Singles chart with the remix of "A Little Less Conversation". This is Elvis' 17th UK #1 moving him past the Beatles for the most ever. In other news, Disney's Lilo and Stitch features an Elvis imitating alien. All this is in advance of the 25th Anniversary of the King's Passing, which will be commemorated with an RCA album "ELV1S 30 #1 Hits", which is to include all #30 of Elvis' hits internationally. The King Truly Lives!
posted by wsfinkel at 10:22 AM PST - 17 comments

Stupid Movie Physics Tricks discusses bad physics in movies and even rates some movies (e.g., XP - physics not from this universe) based on their faithfulness to the laws of physics. Follow that up with bad astronomy and finish it off with bad science in general. (OK, so the last one is more about bad meteorology, but that sucks as a soundbite.)
posted by joaquim at 10:19 AM PST - 26 comments

Nixon's Last Secret The race is on to try to recover the missing 18 1/2 minutes of the infamous Tape 342. While it will be interesting to see what's on the tape (if it can be recovered) the big question is this: Why erase part of one tape and leave all the others intact?
posted by Irontom at 10:11 AM PST - 14 comments

Systemic problems lead to catastrophic failures. More money for the "war on terror" or more government power from the Patriot Act cannot make up for incompetence, poor policy directives and bungling. How many more of these must we see before everyone agrees that a thorough investigation leading to proper reforms is the only remedy?
posted by nofundy at 10:02 AM PST - 4 comments

Southwest Airlines to charge larger fliers extra fare. Is this a legitimate charge, discrimination, or are seats simply built too small in airplanes these days? Being a tall fellow, I can attest to never having enough legroom, but what about width-room? Remember to be nice with your discussion kids, as things got a bit ugly the last time something like this was posted...
posted by almostcool at 8:59 AM PST - 197 comments

Happy Juneteenth! On this date in 1865, slaves in Texas were notified that Lincoln had emancipated them two years earlier. It's a state holiday in Texas, and Juneteenth is observed in pockets of other states. Should it become a national holiday?
posted by Holden at 8:35 AM PST - 16 comments

Cloudmark SpamNet "Just like Napster allowed us to share our favorite music, Cloudmark SpamNet allows us to share the spam we receive. Individually this reported spam isn't very powerful, but the collective reports of millions of email users networked together blocks virtually all spam on the Internet."
will this put an end to spam? at least it looks like a pretty interesting solution, brought to us by the co-founder of napster, jordan ritter.
posted by HeikoH at 8:31 AM PST - 25 comments

Introducing Monday
"We've got your name, la la la...."
I bet there are a few red faces at a certain consultancy firm at the moment....
posted by tomcosgrave at 8:26 AM PST - 19 comments

Online collection of public domain still photographs from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Need a copyright-free picture of a whale, sunset or flower? Part of the USFWS's digital media library.
posted by piskycritter at 8:16 AM PST - 11 comments

a beautiful web site worth visiting splendid in my opinion.
posted by specialk420 at 8:15 AM PST - 36 comments

Robocup 2002 kicks off today in Japan. Are they programmed to take dives?
posted by liam at 7:58 AM PST - 2 comments

.NET integration I use MSN messenger and am notified by it of any mail arriving in my hotmail account. I just logged in to hotmail with the intention of forwarding a few emails to my POP account for download by my mail client, and was informed that my account was suspended, and all mail, folders and addresses deleted, because I hadn't logged in to hotmail for more than 30 days. I've logged in to messenger virtually every day, but I hadn't received any mail so why would I log in to hotmail?

Is this a punishment for not requesting spam, or a sign that even Microsoft doesn't "get" integration?
posted by southisup at 11:37 PM PST - 25 comments

I know that Blogathon is mentioned in the side panel, but I was interested in what MeFi'ers think of it. Did any of you participate last year? What was your experience with it? Who's in for this year?
posted by dobbs at 11:15 PM PST - 65 comments

Taming the Wild West Net. The Washington Post takes a stab at the internet and what's been going on the last year +. Also, a roundup of piracy and antitrust issues. Good series of articles, except no real conclusion on how the "Wild West Net" should be tamed. Or why it has to be.
posted by Happydaz at 10:18 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Fortune Magazine went roadtripping in search of the technological future by trying (and not succeeding) to blend in with college kids. After getting schooled themselves, they came up with a list of cool web companies with lots of sex appeal, in the categories of media, communication, biotech, and international. via Blogger.
posted by iconomy at 10:13 PM PST - 6 comments

You might think Arafat and Sharon are bitter enemies... but you're wrong. Dead wrong. They are best friends, as this gallery of (photoshopped) images prove. If only someone could send this to the Middle East...who knows - maybe it would strike up some old memories.
posted by hidely at 10:05 PM PST - 10 comments

Angering Arabs for Dummies, By Ariel Sharon. "Israel will respond to acts of terror by capturing PA territory," says Sharon. How, exactly, will this stop the bombings? Sorry for the I/P post, but this seems fairly important.
posted by fnord_prefect at 6:21 PM PST - 34 comments

World Cup Conspiracy. Here's one for the X-Files. The Azurri believe they were the victims of a conspiracy to oust them from World Cup 2002.

Alessandro Del Piero broke his usual cool exterior as anger seeped through. "In ten years of my career I have never complained," said the Juventus star, "but in four games too many strange things have happened."
posted by percine at 5:52 PM PST - 19 comments

A Person Paper on Purity in Language. An old William Satire (aka Douglas Hofstadter) piece that's well worth reading. "One of the more hilarious suggestions made by the squawkers for this point of view is to abandon the natural distinction along racial lines, and to replace it with a highly unnatural one along sexual lines. One such suggestion-emanating, no doubt, from the mind of a madwhite-would have us say 'he' for male whites (and blacks) and 'she' for female whites (and blacks). Can you imagine the outrage with which sensible folk of either sex would greet this 'modest proposal'?"
posted by jacobm at 3:34 PM PST - 21 comments

So Queer as Folk now has a comic book attached to it, sort of. It's called Rage. It's set in Gayopolis. Gag me with a set of pride rings. I think it's time to ask this question again.
As much as I despise the show, I'm curious where they go with this.
posted by Su at 3:19 PM PST - 31 comments

So where are Mr. Congeniality (Ari Fleischer) and his bride-to-be registered for their upcoming wedding? Let's see. . .Macy's, Crate & Barrel, and. . .Target?
posted by arco at 1:56 PM PST - 42 comments

We are all snobs "I do look down on certain selected people--preferably, it's true, from a distance and until now unbeknownst to them. Yet look down I do, usually with an uncomplicated feeling of satisfaction.....Why did I need to assert my superiority, even to myself, when no one was contesting it ?" We are all snobs in one way or another.
posted by Voyageman at 1:52 PM PST - 15 comments

Nickelodeon is airing a special tonight on families that have same-sex parents. The concern of some is that this show: "proves that this network has been co-opted by homosexual activists who are targeting children. Sodomy is not a family value. Nickelodeon has now lost the trust of parents."

My issue with it is that it appears that they are not publicizing the fact that they are showing this to the parents to allow them to decide if their children should watch it or not... I couldn't find anything on their website, except the listing in the schedule for "Nick News Special Edition" (MORE INSIDE)
posted by darian at 1:50 PM PST - 67 comments

Is scientific illiteracy a problem in America? Take the quiz, how do you measure up? Sample question asked (with response)
Q: "Where would you find chlorophyll?"
A: "Probably in your toilet."
posted by patrickje at 1:32 PM PST - 60 comments

It's the plot, stupid. USA Today runs their usual insightful commentary about the upcoming release of Lilo and Stitch. It obsesses over the absence of CGI graphics pointing to Atlantis as evidence for the failure of traditional animation to draw box office. Funny me, I thought that Atlantis bombed because of a plot better left in 50s serial format, a cast of sterotypes rather than characters, and no sense of humor beyind dirty French jokes repeated over and over again. And is huge success of Pixar due to their pioneering animation, or their brilliant comic talent? What causes FX myopia anyway? Granted I can understand why fanboys obsess over the wrong things in a movie. Do the studios set it up by trying to hype each new summer release as the next big technical development (while the artistic development gets trumped by Waking Life and Insomnia?)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:31 PM PST - 7 comments

The Icelandic company Decode Genetics may have the lead in creating a catalog of the deviant genes that cause most diseases. Led by Dr. Kari Stefansson, the project uses a novel combination of genotyping living Icelanders and comparing the results to Iceland's unique genealogical database that extends back 1100 years. With Iceland's other project to completely switch from fossil feuls to hydrogen power, my admiration for that island of Vikings keeps growing stronger. (2nd and 3rd links are nytimes, free registration required).
posted by homunculus at 11:39 AM PST - 6 comments

The New York Social Diary: "Cruelty to me has never been funny and it is getting unfunnier by the day, if for no other reason, than 9/11," says your man on the Upper East Side and Hampton's circuits. All your gossip needs are met with all the latest on Martha Stewart, the ladies of leisure, the state of homosexuals, and of course Liza! "His reports on the gyrations of the Rich and Climbing are not to be missed," squeals Liz Smith.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 11:19 AM PST - 7 comments

Kuro5hin launches a fund-raising drive and moves toward non-profit status. (Via Blogroots.) Could this be a model for MetaFilter?
posted by timeistight at 10:36 AM PST - 40 comments

U.S. Supreme Court rules on searches of passengers on public transportation. In a decision that could aid the government's anti-terrorism efforts, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that police can question passengers on buses and trains and search for evidence without informing them that they can refuse.
posted by Ty Webb at 10:00 AM PST - 43 comments

Korea 2-1 Italy. A classic World Cup in the making? First it was Senegal dumping out the French, and then the Argies and the Portuguese were left biting the dust. Spain and Ireland fought out a nail-biting penalty shoot-out, Saudi Arabia got hit for eight, and now South Korea continue their miraculous journey by sending Italy home. Next on the cards: let's hope for another classic when England take on Brazil!
posted by arrowhead at 9:42 AM PST - 39 comments

Stolen: Hundreds of Flash Games. Shareware game developer CleverMedia is pissed; the French website flash-game.net has stolen many of their games and is passing them off as their own, along with hundreds of others. Developers like Sega, Shockwave.com, Octopi.com, FlashArcade.com...all ripped off. flash-game.net has simply ignored the e-mails demanding that the games be removed. Do you see any of your games on their site?
posted by waldo at 9:41 AM PST - 8 comments

MN Governor Jesse Ventura announced he will not run for re-election -- Ventura said, "You've got to have your heart and soul into these types of jobs. You've got to want to do it. * * * I feel that it's time to go back into the private sector." (He also said that his decision was "partly tied" to allegations by former employees that his 22-year-old son had thrown parties in the governor's residence.)
posted by subgenius at 9:39 AM PST - 15 comments

Supreme Court OKs IRS to estimate tips. The IRS can now use estimates of employees' tips in its calculations of what businesses owe in payroll taxes (the dreaded FICA), the Supreme Court said yesterday. The estimates of cash tips -- which are nearly impossible to track directly -- can be based on recorded credit card tips. The IRS said they don't plan to audit servers themselves -- but the effect on restaurants could be chilling. "Seven out of 10 restaurants are small businesses, many of which operate with slim margins. Quite frankly, this decision could mean the difference between a restaurant staying in business or closing its doors," said Peter Kilgore, general counsel and senior vice president of operations for the National Restaurant Association in Washington.
posted by me3dia at 9:29 AM PST - 27 comments

British papers seem to be the only place we can find out what goes on in the US these days. Probably has to do with the liberal media, wouldn't you say?
posted by nofundy at 8:44 AM PST - 36 comments

They Might Be Giants have a new album for kids and I can't wait to foist it on mine.
posted by engelr at 7:59 AM PST - 33 comments

Billy Jean's not my lover. Should non-fathers pay child support to someone else's children? More states are saying "no."
posted by kablam at 7:47 AM PST - 29 comments

Pac-Man fever, tis driving me crazy. It was 1981 or so, I was in 6th grade. I had a mom cool enough to take me out of school for a day, give me a few rolls of quarters and send me to this local bar, where I played Pac-Man all day. I made it to the fourth intermission a few times (which was a damn repeat!), how far did you get?
posted by jeremias at 7:47 AM PST - 26 comments

Greens target Senator Wellstone. "What could possibly explain this idiocy? Natural selection? Ever since Wellstone built the most vibrant left-leaning organization in the nation, any Minnesota progressive with the intellect to tie his shoes has been a Democrat -- leaving the Greens with the sandaled, the shoeless, and the slow. This could just be some Minnesota exceptionalism. But it's not."
posted by boltman at 7:44 AM PST - 15 comments

Bad Photoshoppery. When graphic artists go bad. VERY bad. Way stinky bad.
posted by rushmc at 6:39 AM PST - 22 comments

"Relax, this is your captain speaking." (Chicago Tribune link, use metafilter/metafilter to view) A United Airlines captain made a refreshingly honest, down to earth statement, in the cabin rather than the cockpit, at the beginning of Chicago - DC flight recently. A Chicago Trib reporter transcribed the pilot's remarks, and they seem to be just the kind of no-nonsense reassurance that the flying public could use more of right about now. Would you like to hear something like this the next time you have to fly?
posted by Dreama at 1:22 AM PST - 46 comments

Marvin Kalb on PBS about the state of the media, Middle East, Bush, etc.. "If somebody says something to you and you have a requirement to go on the air live, you are apt to say what that person just said to you before you've had a chance to check on what the person said. All of these things now create a rushed tumult, which is very noisy and which sort of goes for news today, but in my judgment, isn't news, it's noise.
posted by semmi at 11:42 PM PST - 1 comment

eu seeks closer ties to iran This approach has got to be better than calling states 'evil'. This is the same as the US keeping links with China, a less than perfect regime, and one that could be called a sponsor of terrorism. " Mr Patten told the BBC: "It can't seriously be anybody's idea of a good way of promoting stability in the region to think that we should isolate and cut Iran off for ever." He said there should be recognition of the strength of the reform movement and be aware that there were other elements which were far less friendly to the West. "If you don't talk to the reasonable people, you fetch up with fewer reasonable people to talk to." it's been over a decade since i was in Iran (1992) and the reformers/moderates ahve gained very significant ground since then. The Axis of Evil speech did tremendous harm for moderate Iranians, as it seemed to justify the hardliners stance on the west. your thoughts.....
posted by quarsan at 10:51 PM PST - 13 comments

Play with the Osbournes I did a few searches for this nifty app and turned up nothing, which is kind of hard to believe, what with all the hype behind this popular MTV show. I'm not sure about you, but I love the Osbournes... not so much for the well-rounded parenting advice I can garner from it, but for the sheer entertainment value.
posted by crankydoodle at 10:24 PM PST - 3 comments

Teleportation finally? Not quite "beam me up scotty" yet, but a definite surge forward. The mechanics of it aren't quite sophisticated enough yet to handle humans, but this does make quantum computers close to reality.
posted by Espoo2 at 6:21 PM PST - 12 comments

The Gay Right. Richard Goldstein argues (accurately, I think) that the Right has come to dominate gay and lesbian politics. Even when I don't agree with them, I've always enjoyed reading Andrew Sullivan and Norah Vincent -- but where are their progressive counterparts?
posted by MikeB at 6:19 PM PST - 21 comments

With teeny tiny xGB hard drives like the Archos line available, why do PDAs/handhelds have such small memory capacity? The gorgeous new Sony Clie has a mere 16 MB to its name, and most PocketPCs top out around 64MB. When do you think we'll see handheld devices that really parallel the capabilities of a desktop computer?
posted by Zettai at 5:16 PM PST - 26 comments

Tired of Fantasy Baseball/Football/Basketball? Then it's time you tried Fantasy Fugitive Recovery!

"Fantasy Fugitive Recovery (FFR) is an internet game similar to other sports. You pick a roster and are awarded points based on your players performance. In FFR, the aim of the game is to pick five escaped convicts from the master list and gain points based on if your escapees are captured."

Anyone want to start a league (ehh, prison system?) with me?
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 4:49 PM PST - 3 comments

The audiogalaxy/RIAA suit has been settled, with the result being that all content on the audiogalaxy system is now "opt-in" by the original artist/copyright holders only with the rest filtered out (earlier story of the initial filing).
posted by mathowie at 4:25 PM PST - 24 comments

Ever dream of owning a Bookstore? Essay Contest! $250 and 250 words could win this thriving Used Bookstore in Roseburg, Oregon. A very cool, very busy store with a customer base of well over 10,000 people. Someone is going to win and it might as well be one of us.
posted by Mack Twain at 4:09 PM PST - 18 comments

Ottawa Citizen publisher fired for criticizing Chrétien.
CanWest Global keeps it real for the little guy once again by continuing to silence dissident voices. The Citizen's own coverage of the sacking is, unsurprisingly, scant on details.
posted by poorhaus at 2:11 PM PST - 11 comments

Matt Taibbi, co-founder of the eXile, Moscow's most caustic and painfully funny newspaper, has relocated to Buffalo, NY (?) to work his journalistic mojo there. That is, if he's not arrested over this editorial.
posted by GriffX at 1:54 PM PST - 10 comments

2nd Degree Murder Verdict Thrown Out in SF Dog Mauling Case. Though Superior Court Judge James Warren said Knoller and Noel are "the most despised couple in this city," he said the evidence did not support a murder conviction because Knoller had no way of knowing her dogs would kill someone when she left her apartment that day.
posted by Danf at 1:47 PM PST - 11 comments

APOD turns seven. The Astronomy Picture of the Day hit the seven-year mark on Sunday (full archive list here). Simple and consistent in design, (possibly a record-holder for longest consistent design of an updated site) it's still maintained by astronomers Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell.
posted by kokogiak at 1:12 PM PST - 10 comments

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense From Scientific American..."Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up. Besieged teachers and others may increasingly find themselves on the spot to defend evolution and refute creationism. The arguments that creationists use are typically specious and based on misunderstandings of (or outright lies about) evolution, but the number and diversity of the objections can put even well-informed people at a disadvantage. To help with answering them, the following list rebuts some of the most common "scientific" arguments raised against evolution. It also directs readers to further sources for information and explains why creation science has no place in the classroom." Creation "science?"
posted by martk at 12:57 PM PST - 88 comments

Fire at Internet Cafe 'forces' Chinese government to close all 2400 Beijing cafes. This one has to rank up there with the line from the Good Old Days in which missing Soviet leaders were often described as 'having a cold.' I can't wait for the 2008 Happy Fun Olympics.
posted by mathis23 at 12:36 PM PST - 7 comments

Starbuckling A writer from the NY Post calls Starbucks HQ and says a reader told them that the company's "collapse into cool" ad campaign was too close a reference to Sept. 11 (the campaign posters featured a dragonfly; perhaps the reader misconstrued it as an airplane). As a result, Starbucks pulls the ad, and just to cover its ass said it "had intended no link between the image of the beverages and the terror attacks." Is the company just making a cautious PR move, or is this going too far?
posted by risenc at 12:26 PM PST - 27 comments

In 1997, Scott Shuger created for Slate.com what would quickly become the wildly popular column "Today's Papers." The column was innovative in its brief and snarky discussions about that day's headlines on all the major news dailies. The differences between each paper's choice of stories covered, and the variances from paper to paper in their coverage of those same stories was illustrative in a fashion we now take for granted around here on MeFi. Shuger died suddenly over the weekend in a scuba mishap and is remembered here by his colleagues at slate.com.
posted by BentPenguin at 11:19 AM PST - 8 comments

The Umbrella Sail at Last a Reality! Technofetishists will love this fabulous collection of Popular Mechanics covers going back to 1902. Who'd have thought a weaving machine could be so beautiful? Futuristic cityscapes, bizarre weapons, new-fangled sports and surprisingly delicate and artful scenes are just a few of the pleasures in the year-by-year archive. The mag's male-dominated world can get kind of, um, gay, but it's hard to imagine a better display of the joys and fears (especially the fears) of our monkey fascination with technology.
posted by mediareport at 11:17 AM PST - 40 comments

A Generous Brazilian Helping Of Cartier-Bresson's Photographs: His work is so vital it's unusually monitor-friendly. This 1999 Brazilian website includes many hard-to-find photographs, interestingly divided by location(Europe, America, India). There's also a nice selection of his classic images on Photology.com's commercial site and an avaricious but compelling set of portraits of writers here, courtesy of a Eastman Kodak-sponsored exhibition. [As far as I can tell, they're all copyright-cleared. Bring your old Leicas out...and despair!].
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:09 AM PST - 14 comments

"Suicide by Cop" Not a Crime?
"A gunman unleashed a furious swirl of violence on an East Village street early yesterday, shooting three people and holding patrons of a crowded wine bar hostage" - New York Times

"I wouldn't characterize this as a crime" - Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

No? OK, Chief, what is it then?
posted by nobody_knose at 9:08 AM PST - 21 comments

"There he was, right in the middle of my Throat-searching radar" John Dean unmasks Deep Throat, sort of, in his Salon e-book. Who do you think it is?
posted by kirkaracha at 9:06 AM PST - 17 comments

All about Tati.
posted by Spoon at 8:30 AM PST - 16 comments

Is Israel rebuilding a Berlin wall ? Some people remember the moment of happiness when the Berlin wall was finally destroyed. Is this new wall a symbol of a new cold war era ?
posted by elpapacito at 7:31 AM PST - 22 comments

Most Valuable Object in the World The Supreme Purple Star - as it is being called - is a deep purple diamond, turning to crimson when rotated in the light. Diamonds come in a rainbow of colors and are called "fancies" in the trade. Some are beautiful, others less so. This one is the only one of it's kind, and has been pronounced "priceless". The speculation, of course, is that the owner is looking to sell it.
posted by Irontom at 7:01 AM PST - 20 comments

Ebert gushes: After seeing Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report," my mind was churning with amazement and curiosity. Talking to Spielberg and his star, Tom Cruise, I found myself not an interviewer but simply a moviegoer, talking the way you do when you walk out of a movie that blindsides you with its brilliance.
posted by kliuless at 6:12 AM PST - 38 comments

Now I've seen it all: The Islamic-Christian alliance (with wholehearted Bush support) "We look at them as allies, not necessarily as friends," said Austin Ruse, founder and president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a New York-based organization that promotes conservative values at U.N. social conferences. "We have realized that without countries like Sudan [Iraq, Iran and Libya], abortion would have been recognized as a universal human right in a U.N. document."

Liberal Western activists and governments, added Mokhtar Lamani, a Moroccan diplomat who represents the 53-nation Organization of Islamic Conferences at the United Nations, had offended the religious and cultural sensitivities of Islamic countries by proposing that a final conference declaration include explicit references to the need to protect prostitutes, intravenous drug users and "men who have sex with men" from contracting AIDS.

The Bush administration led the coalition in blocking an effort by European and Latin American countries at the U.N. children's meeting last month to include a reference in the final declaration to "reproductive health care services," a term the conservatives believed could be used to promote abortion.

"This alliance shows the depths of perversity of the [U.S.] position," said Adrienne Germaine, president of the International Women's Health Coalition. "On the one hand we're presumably blaming these countries for unspeakable acts of terrorism, and at the same time we are allying ourselves with them in the oppression of women."
posted by magullo at 6:08 AM PST - 17 comments

U.S. Soccer needs you now. The US soccer team has not been this far in the World Cup since 1930. Where is the sea of red, white and blue? Watching mundane sports...like baseball. (match results in link. from sts)
posted by lostbyanecho at 5:37 AM PST - 47 comments

Home Depot stops doing business with federal government. Home Depot Inc., the nation's largest hardware and home-improvement chain, has told its 1,400 stores not to do business with the U.S. government or its representatives. [snip] Most of Home Depot's managers interviewed by the Post-Dispatch shared the confusion. All the managers contacted declined to be quoted, but most said they didn't know what was behind the company's refusal to sell to the federal government.
posted by percine at 3:14 AM PST - 7 comments

One of the teams in the Mexico vs. USA World Cup game made history. As of before the game, the USA has never won a knockout game of the World Cup - Mexico had never won a knockout game of the World Cup when not in Mexico. Click the article to see which team made history - or if you don't want it spoiled, don't click at all!
posted by twiggy at 1:33 AM PST - 28 comments

I feel so frickin' sorry for them... I had to deal with it too... So how many other inspired amateurs and auteurs out there had to suck it down with all the flooding this weekend? One of the people I was yelling at at Interland said they had had 500 complaints in 24 hours (one (or more) of the attackers was coming from their netblock).
posted by Samizdata at 11:12 PM PST - 7 comments

Proof that someone, somewhere will make an action figure out of anything: Porn star action figures (complete with dancer pole!), eminem action figures (complete with chainsaw?), and Jeffrey Dahmer. eek.
posted by mathowie at 9:59 PM PST - 22 comments

Punks vs. Yuppies in San Francisco I don't know how I feel about trying to get yuppies and punks to reconcile but I do like the idea of a yuppies vs. punks Olympics. It'd be funny if they had one here in NYC (I'd nominate Willimasburg as the location).
posted by zinegurl at 6:40 PM PST - 26 comments

Burning letter started Colorado fire. Isn't there a better way to destroy a letter from somebody you hate? Say, shredding? What would you recommend to such dummies, to prevent them from creating statewide destruction?
posted by meep at 5:48 PM PST - 11 comments

Trygve Lode ,a Usenet veteran, has one of the funniest sites out there. Check out his Unnatural Enquirer. My favorites are The Philosophy of Kissing, Evil on a Budget, and the minimalist Spycam vs. Spycam. Who is this guy?
posted by vacapinta at 1:17 PM PST - 8 comments

Congressional Leak. Can't wait? Do as a congressman does. It even was considered a security issue because of where he took a leak. Now that's paranoia....
posted by hockeyman at 12:38 PM PST - 8 comments

DiscT@2: This revolutionary Laser Labeling System allows graphics and text to be burnt onto CD-R disc, eliminating the need for labels. Customers can put graphics, such as signatures, logos, memorandums, and photo images onto CD-R's unused area after data writing.
posted by Fofer at 10:30 AM PST - 11 comments

Why , why, why? Bush vs. Saddam. Prequel to Desert Storm II.
posted by password at 9:14 AM PST - 60 comments

Got Silk. ''Oh, it's not that weird,'' Nexia's president and C.E.O., Jeffrey D. Turner, says as we walk around the pens, being nibbled constantly by aroused goats. ''What we're doing here is ingeniously simple,'' he says. ''We take a single gene from a golden orb-weaving spider and put it into a goat egg. The idea is to make the goat secrete spider silk into its milk.''
posted by srboisvert at 8:38 AM PST - 18 comments

i can't believe country leaders keep doing very stupid things what do you think of the attitude of silvio berlusconi, italy's ultra right prime minister? i don't give a damn about his decision, but he (and also other silly country leaders: bush, fox, blair, etc.) should try to prevent this going public! there's also an incredible fact about poverty… and you thought aids was a problem?!

also… are really so desperate the communists (a.k.a. left wing)? it's a shame they did this!
posted by trismegisto at 6:46 AM PST - 26 comments

Yet another African dream. After Cameroon's heroics of Italia '90, Senegal follow up with a quarter-final achievement themselves.
posted by arrowhead at 2:22 AM PST - 10 comments

name our yacht
On a sunny afternoon in June of 2002 Peter James Zielinski and Brett Presson, on an eternal quest to live the lives of rock stars, acquired a contest about acquiring a brand new yacht. As such, they were left with the daunting task of giving a name to said yacht. After much debate, they ultimately came up with the perfect name for said yacht but consequently, they forgot the name of said yacht shortly after said yacht was acquired in a contest about acquiring said yacht. Thus, they'll need your help.
posted by bwg at 10:55 PM PST - 37 comments

Harry Potter released unprotected. In a move that makes me say both "Wha?" and "Kickass!", Warner Bros chose to release the Harry Potter DVD and VHS home versions sans the Macrovision copy protection. It could stand to be quite an experiment, or quite a blunder on their part.
posted by mathowie at 8:32 PM PST - 14 comments

Arranging a meetup? This new tool may be just the thing for helping to organize it. With involvement from some familiar names, it's looking pretty good. This might be helpful to set up your next Metafilter Gathering...[via waxy.org]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:08 PM PST - 28 comments

Spare the rod and spoil the (1st grade) child... U.S. school violence gets really outta hand! Twenty first-grade students went to a hospital yesterday after their substitute teacher went berserk in their Washington Heights classroom, smacking them with a broomstick, pulling their hair and twisting their ears, police said. To paraphrase David Letterman, "what was he thinking of??"
posted by dash_slot- at 6:00 PM PST - 12 comments

The Queen as Mickey Mouse? A look at Britain's Royal Family as a tourist attraction with the Queen as its figurehead akin to Mickey Mouse and Disneyland in the US.
posted by percine at 5:17 PM PST - 3 comments

Goodness Gracious! What A Lot Of Ways Of Not Saying "God"! Jeez may be MetaFilter's genteel exclamation of choice, but crusty and trusty old William Safire of the New York Times[registration required]has the gracious goods on other ways of not(quite)invoking the name of the Lord in vain; whilst proving en route that Donald Rumsfeld isn't, after all, the wilting sissy or pseudo-Southern belle we all thought him to be...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:10 PM PST - 20 comments

Apparently it is OK for illegal aliens to perform castrations but not OK for an illegal alien attend Mosque with somebody who might maybe be planning to plant a bomb. Maybe.
posted by ilsa at 1:30 PM PST - 11 comments

Andersen verdict: guilty
Judge instructs jury: "It's OK if you each think a different person wsa the corrupt one."
How do you say "We are guilty of obstructing justice" in Andersen-speak?
Sorry for posting a CNN link, but they are always first to get a story online.
posted by planetkyoto at 9:46 AM PST - 17 comments

UAL reported an industry record $2.1 billion net loss in 2001 and a net loss of $510 million ... Come on, $15 billion to 'bail out' the airlines? I know this subject has been hashed over before, but it seems every other week I read stories about how hard the airlines are struggling for business after 9/11. I fly on business every week - every flight is full, every airport is packed. I'm starting to think we're all being suckered...
posted by matty at 8:07 AM PST - 20 comments

Uvula Piercing. Say "ah".
posted by srboisvert at 7:38 AM PST - 75 comments

Is our legal system asleep at the wheel? A Michigan auto dealership that failed to complete the title transfer on a car involved in a fatal accident has been hit with a $12 million jury verdict.
posted by Fofer at 7:02 AM PST - 12 comments

Close to home? Worried about transport of nuclear waste? Find out how close to your home it'll pass with this handy map. In my case, it'll be transported on train tracks that I can see and hear from my bedroom...
posted by delmoi at 2:35 AM PST - 24 comments

The brouhaha that erupted in Britain last month when it was learned that the prestigious Booker Prize might be opened to American writers by 2004, displays a British inferiority complex and underscores the remarkable persistence of preconceptions that Britain and the United States hold about each other. But it's about ideas and styles and even language being swapped and appropriated across the globe. It's about artists picking from a smorgasbord of techniques and influences to try to get a handle on an increasingly fragmented and cacophonous reality, and in doing so creating a new wave of writing that is richer for its multicultural mingling of styles and voices, its voracious mixing of the high and low, the cerebral and street-smart, the old and the new. Just like in MeFi.
posted by semmi at 9:16 PM PST - 17 comments

Royalties proposed for booming used market as new-CD sales stagnate. (Via Slashdot). First sale doctrine, anyone? Section 109 of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 109, permits the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under title 17 to sell or otherwise dispose of possession of that copy or phonorecord without the authority of the copyright owner, notwithstanding the copyright owner's exclusive right of distribution under 17 U.S.C. 106(3). Commonly referred to as the ``first sale doctrine,'' this provision permits such activities as the sale of used books. The first sale doctrine is subject to limitations that permit a copyright owner to prevent the unauthorized commercial rental of computer programs and sound recordings.
posted by Bezuhin at 7:12 PM PST - 23 comments

Pimps and Gangs Subtracted From Math Test
"Rufus is a pimp for three girls. If the price is $65 per trick, how many tricks per day must each girl turn to support Rufus' $800 per day crack habit?" So reads a math test from a now suspended Canadian teacher, apparently modeled after this joke.
posted by bloggboy at 6:54 PM PST - 13 comments

John Dean's Watergate Expose , due to be published Monday, will not be as illuminating as he earlier claimed. Meanwhile, two time Pulitzer Prize winner William Gaines's journalism class at the University of Illinois names Pat Buchanan as Deep Throat on NBC's Dateline.
posted by ljromanoff at 6:48 PM PST - 11 comments

Cheer for Bush, or face arrest, OSU grads informed. A first person account of how Bush's speech at the Ohio State Graduation today resembled nothing so much as a fascist rally - as graduates who had planned to protest by simply turning their backs to Bush during his speech were informed that if they did so they would be arrested and expelled (no diploma). Inside the stadium, crowds of Bush suppporters had been bussed in from miles away. And everyone was instructed to cheer loudly for the president.
posted by dnash at 6:03 PM PST - 44 comments

What do grass, sashimi, wine corks and the pope have in common? Art cars!
posted by modge at 2:08 PM PST - 13 comments

"Stupid Barbados. You must be stopped!" It's official: Greenpeace now opposes everything.
posted by nobody_knose at 1:47 PM PST - 17 comments

Some organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area are dedicated to setting up public wireless access points, avaliable free of charge, which people can connect to with either their exisiting 802.11 NICs in close proximity or with modified wi-fi cards with external antenna connections over distances up to 5 miles away. While these ideas are all fun and exciting, I was reading the SF Bay Guradian's recent article about these networks, I was struck by Tim Pozar's notion of creating these networks without internet connections, just for community lans. I had almost the same idea about a month ago, concerning a kind of mainstream internet alternative with personally run severs and access points, completely off of big ISP pipes, and have been thinking quite a bit about it lately. Now that I've found all this information on it, my only question is: How do we get started and who's up for it?
posted by Hackworth at 12:49 PM PST - 16 comments

Airport Security Tightens: Al Gore stopped twice for extra screening
posted by magullo at 11:43 AM PST - 33 comments

Solar System Akin to Earth's Is Discovered Any minute now, I imagine somebody at a listening station on a smaller, bluer planet a few in from this one making a minute adjustment to their equipment and promptly spraying warm stimulant-laced beverage over their console...
posted by hob at 11:16 AM PST - 13 comments

Would you sign your name to this statement? Why doesn't it appear in an American media outlet?
posted by nofundy at 11:12 AM PST - 70 comments

A whole new spin on "Home Schooling". Child-endangerment charges follow apparent sharing of Ecstasy with his kids on HBO show. I can think of a number of documentaries I've seen where illegal activity was taking place but never heard of the participant/s being arrested. Dangerous precedence? (via Obscure Store)
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:05 AM PST - 10 comments

"Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives..."
The Rev. Jerry Vines slams Islam while speaking to delegates at the Southern Baptist Convention this week. The group's newly-elected president, the Rev. Jack Graham, refused to denounce the comments since "his statement is actually a statement that can be confirmed." Hmmm... since when is 'demon-possessed' an emperical statement?

Anyone want to guess what the reaction would be if a Muslim leader denounced Jesus with this much venom?
posted by Dirjy at 10:50 AM PST - 47 comments

First JPEG virus discovered... "The W32/Perrun virus, as it is now being called, extracts data from JPEG files and then injects picture files with infected digital images. A fair warning to those individuals who are fond of sending multimedia files to friends and families." Is everyone's porn stash threatened now?
posted by darian at 10:08 AM PST - 28 comments

Lots of Robots is the site of Andy Murdock. Andy creates gorgeous animated films. Really stunning.
posted by gwint at 9:32 AM PST - 9 comments

The eight worst TV dads, according to EW. Just in time for Father's Day. Tony Soprano is #1, Ozzy #2. Aw, Ozzy is a bit mad, but at least he wants to do right by his kids. I make no excuse for Tony Soprano. He'll buy Meadow whatever she wants, but then again, he offed her boyfriend. Any bad (or good) TV dads to discuss?
posted by GaelFC at 9:30 AM PST - 26 comments

Harmik… a name synonymous with the legendary singer Tom Jones. Internationally recognized and praised as the #1 Tom Jones look and sound alike in the world. When Harmik met Tom in 1998, Tom amazed at the resemblance said to Harmik "you look more like me than I do."
posted by kirkaracha at 9:15 AM PST - 9 comments

HP Lovecraft is often seen as the first modern horror writer, and maybe the best. His stories tend to follow a certain formula: a protagonist investigates strange events and is drawn into ancient horrors and madness. Lovecraft himself seems to have been deeply freaked out by the ocean, and evil from the deeps is another common theme.

Anyone who has seen The Deep episode of the BBC's Blue Planet is well on their way to feeling as Lovecraft did. And recently, strange artifacts and strange sounds have arisen from the deeps.
Are you Afraid? Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagh'nagl fhtagn!
posted by malphigian at 8:49 AM PST - 18 comments

"I could hella be a gigolo." Have you ever eavesdropped on a conversation and heard one part that was so bizarre that you had to share it with others? Welcome to "In Passing", a daily chronicle of overheard snippets of conversations.
posted by ColdChef at 8:32 AM PST - 44 comments

U.S. Consulate attacked in Karachi, Pakistan. No one has claimed responsibility for the car bombing that has left 8 dead and another 40+ injured.
posted by catatonic at 6:39 AM PST - 21 comments

How much is inside?
posted by Spoon at 6:21 AM PST - 19 comments

Spider-Man "too violent for kids" The British Board of Film Classification has given the Spider-Man film (which opens here in the UK today) a '12' certificate because of its violence, meaning no one under that age can see it. Some local authorities have exercised their power to reclassify it as a 'PG' to open it up to younger viewers.
The BBFC's argument runs that "The violence is set in a modern urban setting with a clear message that the use of violence is the normal and appropriate response when challenged." In fact, I'd say, the film suggests that an appropriate response when challenged is to put on an armoured exo-skeleton and fly around on a jey-powered glider. How can the BBFC not get the concept that this is a fantasy?
posted by jonpollard at 3:05 AM PST - 45 comments

Plutocracy and Politics. Paul Krugman's musings upon reading Kevin Phillip's Wealth and Democracy: How Great Fortunes and Government Created America's Aristocracy, reviewed here by Bruce Reed of the Washington Monthly. Also, Three Questions For Kevin Phillips.
posted by y2karl at 1:46 AM PST - 8 comments

Food summit 'waste of time' and a shame for many first world countries. Berlusconi and Spain’s prime minister Aznar were the only leaders of wealthy countries present during the summit. And Silvio Berlusconi made the summit end two hours early in order to watch his country's crucial World Cup game with México. I wish the War Against Hunger woukd receive the same attention than the War Against Terror…
posted by samelborp at 11:31 PM PST - 7 comments

/CSS/ - a guide for the unglued
With site design hitting the front page of the BBC, WaSP's Dreamweaver MX input, Daypop heaving with section 508 references, and articles like this Eric Meyer interview, is the web about to become a considerably more accessible place?
posted by southisup at 11:29 PM PST - 4 comments

Where do products go when they die? The thrill of walking down the aisle at the odds-and-ends store to find the weirdest items. The best one? Edible Worms.
posted by drezdn at 11:07 PM PST - 13 comments

Flag Day everyone
As if we Americans didn't have enough reason to show off our patriotism, today (6.14) is Flag Day.
posted by shackbar at 11:02 PM PST - 27 comments

In the long line of "take a picture of things" collaborative sites, we now have Snap Your Desk, which takes a few design *cough*hints*cough* from The Mirror Project.
So show us your crap-covered geek pit.
posted by Su at 10:06 PM PST - 3 comments

Know-Nothings, Bible Riots and the Catholic Church Take a break from priest abuse news with this detailed history of anti-Catholic bias in the United States. In 1834, an angry Boston mob burned down a convent after Harriet Beecher Stowe's father preached that Catholic immigrants were a threat to democracy. In Philadelphia, the 1844 Bible Riots lasted for days, destroying Irish-Catholic churches and neighborhoods. In 1855, Louisville Know-Nothings went on a "Bloody Monday" rampage that left dozens of Catholics dead. Even telegraph inventor Samuel Morse got into the act with a series of anonymous anti-Catholic letters. Fascinating stuff, but oops, break's over. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.
posted by mediareport at 9:38 PM PST - 24 comments

mysterio sympatico is the latest collaboration between jazz guitarist bill frisell and cartoonist jim woodring, who designed a few covers for frisell's records. in honor of flash friday, whimgrinder is online for your amusement (though sadly without frisell's score). what are some animation/music combos you'd like to see?
posted by pxe2000 at 7:50 PM PST - 6 comments

Homophobia is not a phobia, researchers conclude. Well, DUH! However, it's really going to be difficult to march down the street chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, high negative affect scorers on the Index of Attitudes Toward Homosexuality have got to go!"
posted by WolfDaddy at 7:09 PM PST - 34 comments

Bloop! Scientists have revealed a mysterious recording that they say could be the sound of a giant beast lurking in the depths of the ocean. Researchers have nicknamed the strange unidentified sound picked up by undersea microphones "Bloop."
Is it Cthulu? Communist robot sea monsters [pdf]?
posted by badstone at 5:04 PM PST - 24 comments

An article in the New Republic promoting the notion why the Perl video, an advertisment by the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistan Sovereignty, should be seen despite FBI demands to remove it, with link to it.
posted by semmi at 4:43 PM PST - 6 comments

Catholics, Jews, Muslims - all three feel suddenly embattled and isolated [nyt reg req] "This is a rare moment in history, like a planetary alignment: three world religions simultaneously racked by crisis....this confluence is highly unusual but not without precedent... — from 800 to 200 B.C., a period of tremendous violence and upheaval on many continents.... We could use this suffering to create wonderful new religious systems, as the Buddha did, or we could retreat into the spiritual barbarism of hatred ." Perhaps Karl Marx was right that religion, like opium, results only in illusion and false hope.
posted by Voyageman at 4:08 PM PST - 13 comments

When will?? Asia-pacific surpass the US in Internet users? 2005 according to the good folks at BT Internet and their BTExact technology timeline
posted by bitdamaged at 3:26 PM PST - 4 comments

"If Hillary ran, I'd have to run against her," proclaims Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Interviewed for the new print publication of the right-fringe Newsmax.Com, Schlessinger describes Hillary (and Bill) as "perverse, disturbed and destructive … and immoral." and says that if Clinton throws her hat into the ring for a 2004 presidential bid, she will feel it necessary to follow suit. There aren't really words...
posted by Dreama at 3:01 PM PST - 45 comments

No more Mr. Nice Guy. Nice guys have believed a myth, this myth is the essence of what I call the Nice Guy Syndrome. The Nice Guy Syndrome represents a belief that if Nice Guys are good, they will be loved, get their needs met, and live a problem-free life.
Are you a nice guy? Take the test, if you are, better hurry, there are still therapy groups available!
posted by patrickje at 2:20 PM PST - 35 comments

Orphan Orca captured in Puget Sound this afternoon near Vashon Island. The young female orca, A73, nicknamed Springer, will likely be returned to her pod in Canada after medical tests are completed. live stream.
posted by yonderboy at 2:11 PM PST - 5 comments

Show called "Harassment" results in, well, harassment! MTV and their co-conspirator, the Hard Rock Hotel, are being sued for "invasion of privacy, infliction of emotional distress and fraud, among other things."
posted by ilsa at 2:04 PM PST - 30 comments

Are national governments about to take over the Internet? Has ICANN done such a terrible job that they should be permitted to?
posted by rushmc at 1:49 PM PST - 3 comments

Bloggus Caesari: the weblog of Julius Caesar. This was mentioned in the historical blogs thread in MT the other day by ljromanoff, but those of you who didn't read it shouldn't miss out. Does your favorite historical or fictional character have a weblog?
posted by darukaru at 1:11 PM PST - 16 comments

Mr. Clean Action Figure More proof that you can buy anything online. Better hurry, only 100,000 numbered Mr. Clean Action Figures are available. o_0
posted by lheiskell at 1:05 PM PST - 5 comments

Bookies taking bets on the location of the next suicide attack against Israel. "Betting on Eilat, a Red Sea resort that has not seen any violence during the past 21 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, is a long shot at 17-1, while often-hit Jerusalem was given odds of 1.5-1."
posted by Why at 12:59 PM PST - 4 comments

Kitschy Kitschy Kootch: Remember Whatshername? Iconophile is a locker-room gallery of B-movie and TV starlets who most people have forgotten about or never heard of. It defines itself, quite accurately, as "an angry web geek's multimedia reliquary of the lesser, harder-to-find goddesses and saints of the celebrity pantheon". For connoisseurs, there's real pathos to be found. Not to mention some truly lovely women hidden amidst the inevitable tat and trivia. [For the record, my ever-present has-been of choice could only be Mathilda May.].
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:01 PM PST - 9 comments

Holland part of Axis of Evil? The Dutch parliament was shocked by a US legislative proposal giving an official green light to a US invasion of the Netherlands should it be deemed necessary to free US citizens from the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Pretty please, leave us alone, Jesse Helms.
posted by magullo at 11:22 AM PST - 46 comments

Winer finally makes sense Thanks to Greg Knauss's dissociative translator, Scripting News is more informative and vastly more entertaining. MetaFiter also gets the disassociator once-over.
posted by mikeg at 10:14 AM PST - 5 comments

This saturday is the 2002 National Day of Action
Online communities have done a good job of covering stories about big corporations abusing their powers online to squelch the efforts of programmers, researchers, designers, music enthusiasts, etc. But what about their offline agenda? Masquerading beneath the guise of the Adventure Pass program is an attempt to extend corporate control to our public lands.

From the press release: "Among others, primary sponsors of the fee demo and Adventure Pass are Walt Disney Corp., KOA Campgrounds, and Coleman Co. If the fee demo becomes law, the legislation will allow these companies and other to develop commercial enterprises on public forest lands in partnerships with the Forest Service."
posted by johnjreeve at 9:51 AM PST - 1 comment

Georgian Rep. Bob Barr is a fragile and delicate man. So fragile, in fact, that he has filed a lawsuit against President Bill Clinton, James Carville and Larry Flynt for "loss of reputation and emotional distress" and "injury in his person and property." He's seeking damages in excess of $30 million. This from the man who called for the impeachment of Bill Clinton before the whole Monica thing. James Carville said, "To call this suit 'frivolous' would be to elevate the status of 'frivolous.'"
posted by crunchland at 9:12 AM PST - 16 comments

Country singer Toby Keith claims he won't be playing his hot country single Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American) on an ABC July 4th special because Peter Jennings doesn't like the song. "I find it interesting that he's not from the U.S.," Keith says of Jennings, who is Canadian. "I bet Dan Rather'd let me do it on his special." (via cursor)
posted by dack at 8:53 AM PST - 58 comments

Why the tobacco industry feared The Patriot Act. Rep. Michael Oxley removed a provision involving money laundering from the bill at the behest of the White House and GOP whip Tom DeLay, under pressure from Big Tobacco.
posted by o2b at 8:39 AM PST - 6 comments

The Business Software Alliance is now running new radio ads in the Chicago Area (on 101.1 FM and other channels) saying, "Is your boss riding you hard all day? Want to get your boss back? Call the BSA and tell us your boss is pirating software!" Is this extortion or a necessary wake-up call?
posted by Maxor at 8:35 AM PST - 17 comments

Diggers of the Underground Planet We've had similar links posted before, but this one about the subterranean geography of Moscow really caught my attention. Discoveries include a 3,000 seat bunker under a cathedral, deserted chemical warfare labs, ancient stashes of the skulls, a second ring of metro stations that were never used and possibly a mass grave from the Stalin era.
posted by Irontom at 8:09 AM PST - 18 comments

Broken Saints is a beautifully done flash animation. A little anime in feel with some strange sonic diversions every once in a while. The pacing is a little slow for my highly Americanized tastes, but it's gorgeous all the same.
posted by willnot at 11:52 PM PST - 11 comments

Sam Sloan is well known as an oddball character in the insular world of U.S. tournament chess. But he deserves wider recognition as one of the greatest Internet cranks of all time.

TURN OFF YOUR SOUND before entering Sloan's site or clicking on any of the links below - he seems to embed a MIDI file on every single solitary page.

Sloan, whether driving his New York taxicab, winning his case before the Supreme court, accusing Virginia authorities of kidnapping his daughter, indulging his creepy obsession with young girls, or just playing 1. g4, never fails to surprise and entertain on his incredibly long, scrollable home page.
posted by crunchburger at 10:52 PM PST - 14 comments

Student fails, and parents threaten to sue. Teacher stands firm. Alas, the School Board caves in and the underachieving brat gets to graduate. This is: (A) a sad sign of our times, (B) a ridiculous travesty, (C) a terrible precedent for teachers and students alike, or (D) all of the above. Discuss.
posted by Fofer at 10:47 PM PST - 77 comments

What did Gray know and when did he know it?
"Just after the deal was signed, an Oracle lobbyist handed a $25,000 campaign donation to an aide to Davis who was involved in negotiating the pact."
posted by nobody_knose at 8:49 PM PST - 11 comments

BBC's Newsnight reports on a massive security oversight that makes unencrypted NATO video surveillance available on the Internet "Nato surveillance flights in the Balkans are beaming their pictures over an insecure satellite link - and anyone can tune in and watch their operations live," reports Mark Urban of BBC2's late-night news analysis show. Near-realtime footage of NATO surveillance operations in the Balkans is routinely gathered by spy planes and returned to base as an encrypted signal and then forwarded to intelligence facilities in the US. However, when they are beamed back to Europe for analysis at NATO headquarters, no encryption is used. It is possible to tune into and watch these live video feeds (complete with map references and information about the type of aircraft in use) and so, in theory, an unfriendly agency could use the pictures to see what troops are up to and who they are watching. How long before this loophole is acknowledged and closed? Or should all surveillance data be made ever more available to whoever wants it?
posted by hmgovt at 4:24 PM PST - 13 comments

The BBC tonight debated the viability of The Monarchy over the next fifty years. In a viewers vote, the mood seemed to be that yes, it isn't perfect, but it's preferable to having an elected President as your head of state ... America, discuss.
posted by feelinglistless at 2:51 PM PST - 30 comments

A harrowing three part series about the recovery of a severely burned Phoenix police officer. While not for the squeamish, I haven't read anything as poignant in weeks.

Still, the doctor knew if there was a way to save him, this was it. He worked on, though his misgivings would not go away. "We're removing this guy's complete identity," he thought. "We're going to subject him to surviving this." Each doctor was thinking the same thing: If it were himself on the table, he'd rather die.
posted by machaus at 2:16 PM PST - 10 comments

"Dirty Bomber" also John Doe 2? "Here's a discovery to unsettle the average American and elate the average conspiracy theorist: Take a look at these two pictures. Notice any resemblence? The picture on the right is Abdullah al-Muhajir, aka Jose Padilla, whom the U.S. government claims is an al Qaeda operative recently arrested on suspicion of planning a "dirty bomb" radioactive attack on the U.S. And the picture at left? Why, that's John Doe No. 2, the still-unaccounted-for co-conspirator from the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995! What, you say, what? You mean the FBI somehow failed to notice this? Or did they?" (found on rotten.com)
posted by stifford at 2:14 PM PST - 26 comments

Not your average law firm website. Powers Phillips, P.C., is a small law firm located in downtown Denver, Colorado within convenient walking distance of over fifty bars and a couple of doughnut shops. Powers Phillips is somewhat peculiar in that six of its lawyers are, to put it most politely, uppity women, who through various shenanigans and underhanded schemes control the firm. Found on Overlawyered.
posted by internal at 2:04 PM PST - 9 comments

oh my god. what's worse... retouching photos of 38 week stillborns for a living, or the fact that there's some sort of demand for it?
posted by jcterminal at 1:36 PM PST - 28 comments

Artbots 2002: The Robot Talent Show Technology is not interesting. People doing things with technology, particularly when they're doing things that maybe no one really expected them to do, are the interesting part. Motors, sensors, circuitry and other technological raw materials have few inherent biases; it takes human intuition, creativity, and action to turn a pile of parts into a complex, functioning object. This show features the work of a group of humans who spend their time turning piles of parts into art.
posted by srboisvert at 12:52 PM PST - 2 comments

Threat of 'dirty bomb' softened Attorney General John Ashcroft on Monday overstated the potential threat posed by "dirty bomb" suspect Abdullah Al Muhajir, Bush administration and law enforcement officials said Tuesday. Ashcroft's remarks annoyed the White House and led the administration to soften the government's descriptions of the alleged plot. "I don't think there was actually a plot beyond some fairly loose talk and (Al Muhajir's) coming in here obviously to plan further deeds," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told CBS on Tuesday. So, does this mean he'll actually get treated like an American citizen and get to see a lawyer?
posted by dejah420 at 11:47 AM PST - 29 comments

How about some Mark Leyner to brighten your day? So, how do you mistreat your Grandmother?
posted by lilboo at 11:16 AM PST - 9 comments

Music industry makes first mature move in years!
Universal and Sony will respond to piracy by selling CDs at $9.99 - and singles at .99. How easy was that? (Link requires free registration but well worth it, IMO)
posted by magullo at 11:14 AM PST - 51 comments

Oooh, Martha's in trouble... Looks like her ex-boyfriend may have tipped her off to some insider information (and subsequently got popped). News of the incident has caused Martha Stewart Omnimedia stock to drop. Not a Good Thing.
posted by shecky57 at 10:39 AM PST - 13 comments

Fairly well-reasoned WSJ Op-Ed piece concerning the Boston Phoenix decision to link the unedited Daniel Pearl video. Apparently the Phoenix's editor claims he would have wanted it shown.
posted by Su at 10:26 AM PST - 18 comments

Chickflicks? The American Film Institute's list of top 100 U.S. screen romances. But the list lacks my three favorite romantic movies: Braveheart, True Romance, and Bull Durham.

I figured out a long time ago if I wanted a guy to take me to a tearjerker I would need to combine romance with machismo like sports, violence, and medieval weaponary. If you like to see tough guys wind up with trembling lips these three movies always get the job done.

Right guys?
posted by oh posey at 9:54 AM PST - 65 comments

God's Justice and Ours. Justice Antonin Scalia writes on capital punishment in First Things: "In my view, the major impetus behind modern aversion to the death penalty is the equation of private morality with governmental morality. This is a predictable (though I believe erroneous and regrettable) reaction to modern, democratic self–government."
posted by Ty Webb at 9:49 AM PST - 28 comments

UMass Researcher Finds Most People Lie In Everyday Conversation UMass Researcher Finds Most People Lie In Everyday Conversation "Most people lie in everyday conversation when they are trying to appear likable and competent, according to a study conducted by University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert S. Feldman and published in the most recent Journal of Basic and Applied Social Psychology…The study also found that lies told by men and women differ in content, though not in quantity. Feldman said the results showed that men do not lie more than women or vice versa, but that men and women lie in different ways. "Women were more likely to lie to make the person they were talking to feel good, while men lied most often to make themselves look better," Feldman said." Are you a liar? C’mon now, tell the truth.
posted by martk at 9:29 AM PST - 34 comments

The Internet Pinball Database has shots of backglasses, playing tables, and promotional flyers for just about every pinball machine ever created. I loved pinball. Now, it seems impossible to find a machine to play on. Back when I worked at a local pizza shop, we had a rotation of some great machines. I really enjoyed the Addams Family, Star Wars, Lethal Weapon 3 (which i remember as being really easy), and especially the Twilight Zone game, with the special white power ball. A walk down memory lane that served me well. Find a place near you to play some pinball here. Or, you could just go pro.
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:58 AM PST - 34 comments

"We eat the sweets while the monkeys roam the streets" It is my humble belief that with all of the existing India-Pakistan tension, it would only take the musical talents of two men -- MC Vikram and Luda Krishna -- to bring peace throughout the land and into the hearts of everyone who appreciates down home Indian rap. [QuickTime required for music, but text lyrics are also provided]
posted by aaronchristy at 8:52 AM PST - 5 comments

Who bombed Judi Bari? We'll likely never know because of FBI bungling. Pursue and blame the victim to stifle activist speech. So is this a running theme at the FBI?
posted by fleener at 6:16 AM PST - 6 comments

"SuperHeroes would use Hostess Cupcakes, Twinkies, or Fruit Pies to foil criminal plots, stop potential riots or capture escaping felons. No matter how nefarious the villain or potentially dangerous the situation, there was nothing the taste of fudgy icing or creamy filling couldn’t stop".

An ad man recalls the silly plotlines and stringent guidelines writing comic book advertisements for Hostess Cupcakes. A great collection of the Hostess ads here, and more here.
posted by iconomy at 6:08 AM PST - 17 comments

Homemade Gauss Rifle and other fun science toys for kids. Don't forget to check out the amazing catalog of cool stuff you can buy to build these things. There's nothing more fun than a 4-pack of (rare earth element) Neodymium / Iron / Boron magnets!
posted by Irontom at 5:22 AM PST - 7 comments

Don't click this link! A woman in Athens, Greece went to the doctor complaining of headaches. Upon examination, the doctor discovered a SPIDER LIVING IN HER EAR. Good night, folks, pleasant dreams. (via Fark)
posted by RylandDotNet at 3:00 AM PST - 32 comments

Argentina are out of the World Cup in round one for the first time in forty years. England and Sweden go through to round the second. w00t!
posted by stuporJIX at 1:26 AM PST - 45 comments

Relatives of some of the Sept. 11 victims held a rally in Washington D.C. today, seeking the creation of an independent commission to investigate the terrorist attacks. Though supported by some lawmakers, the commission is opposed by President Bush. I thought the rally received surprisingly little attention from the media, having been overshadowed by the 'dirty bomber' story. The two questions on my mind are, would an independent commission really jeopardize national security as some charge? And, more cynically, was the timing of yesterday's announcement intended to obscure today's rally?
posted by homunculus at 10:32 PM PST - 9 comments

Homeland security loophole discovered in 1999: "In the Appalachians of West Virginia, the sun was going down and I was stuck for a place to stay.   I knocked on the door of a private farm house.  Three college-age girls were in the middle of an LSD trip.  They recognized me as Art Garfunkel.  I learned that they were three of thousands (millions?) who are "invisible" - pay no taxes, avoid the census taker; they are not on America's books."
posted by subpixel at 10:09 PM PST - 35 comments

Speaking frankly about drugs, the Economist all but concludes the war against some drugs' success a failure in the UK, saying that: "These figures confirm that the increasing resources employed to disrupt the illegal drugs trade are having little impact." Considering the present path is not working and broad swaths of the public (from across the political spectrum!—excepting the tobacco, alcohol, cotton and drug dealer lobby of course :) aren't against decriminalization, then why can't I have my Bay Golds? Besides, the pharmaceutical industry has a stellar record of raising prices :) Who knows, they may want in!
posted by kliuless at 6:40 PM PST - 4 comments

A cup of joe a day might be funding the next suicide bomber. Caribou coffee is owned in majority by an Islamic bank. A bit of every sip goes to opposing "the illegal occupation of Palestine".
posted by clevershark at 5:17 PM PST - 50 comments

911 has had a tremendous impact on us all, and especially on Dolpho, a drug sniffing dog that can also apparently tell the difference between Blacks and Whites. So now a Pennsylvania councilwoman has moved to put the German shepherd to sleep for his racial profiling tactics while on the job. WOW, almost seems like an Onion piece, although I guess foxnews isn't far from it :)
posted by Why at 5:04 PM PST - 19 comments

This was too good to let sit around till Friday. Appealing in a strange sort of way. My personal fave? Rise of the Bootay! But wait. There's more. Seems the Dance Man is being taken to task for stealing this idea. Ah, the intrique.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 2:24 PM PST - 16 comments

$9,324 The GAO concludes that some 'vandalism' took place in the Clinton to Bush White House transition. The total repair cost was $9,324. I wonder how much we spent on the GAO investigation and it's 220 page report. I bet it was more than $9,324. (via Drudge)
posted by Argyle at 1:46 PM PST - 46 comments

Election 2000 Enchantment: A love, crime story... From the author's geocities site: "Election 2000 Enchantment," by Elaine North, is a fun-filled adventure of two young women, who are ballot hand recounters during the Florida election crisis. The young women encounter intrigue, romance, passion, crime, danger and deception as they meet some of the many people from across the country that converge upon Florida due to the derailed presidential election. Exploitation or creativity? You decide.
posted by krewson at 1:19 PM PST - 6 comments

Swimming the Columbia River - lengthwise. What have you been up to for the past week? How about the next 6 months? If you're Christopher Swain, the answer is "swimming - and lots of it". Swain plans swim the 1,243 miles of the Columbia River from headwaters to the Pacific over about 180 days. The further downriver he goes, the riskier it gets - aside from the rapids and ocean freighters that await him, he'll be in waters contaminated by atomic waste, PCBs and other toxins - which is the point of the swim, to raise awareness and support for river protection. "I learned that tasting every mile of a river is a great way to build the credibility to speak on its behalf"
posted by kokogiak at 1:02 PM PST - 15 comments

ClearChannelSucks.org has launched with the goal of being the "premier source for information about Clear Channel, its corporate mentality, and its practices, on the Internet." Site owern Clint Sharp alleges that Clear Channel strategically uses its monopolistic position as the largest owner of radio stations, the largest concert promoter, and largest outdoorsignage company to stifle competition and set their own tangible price tag on what it takes to have any success as an artist in the music industry.
posted by tomorama at 12:16 PM PST - 39 comments

The hoopla gets deeper. Upon learning that "Sarah Hubert" was a non-person, registrar AITDomains simply canceled the registration to hoopla.com, releasing it into the wild, where it was picked up by someone from Taiwan. They gave no notice to Leslie or anyone else that I can tell, so that she had no opportunity to grab the name back for herself.
posted by mikewas at 11:30 AM PST - 7 comments

A can of soup defeated a club sandwich in a cage, is what I witnessed Friday Night. Was anyone else at the Kaiju Big Battel, at Warsaw in Greenpoint, Brooklyn? A very funny mix of Japananese monster movie, plus WWF.
posted by ParisParamus at 11:02 AM PST - 12 comments

Hipsters, flipsters, and finger-poppin' daddies,
Knock me your lobes,
I came to lay Ceasar out,
Not to hip you to him.
So says Lord Richard Buckley, a hipster among hipsters , who fused swing jive and beat-era hepcat slang to create some hip and dazzling monologues. The self-proclaimed "Lord" Buckley was "a comic philosopher, a bop monologuist whose vocalese fused the rhythms and patois of the street with the arch sophistication of the British upper-crust to create verbal symphonies unparalleled in their intricacy and dexterity"
posted by vacapinta at 11:02 AM PST - 11 comments

Um, you might find this intersting Uh, or maybe not I mean like you know, Oh, and there's no mention of what 'feh' means.
posted by srboisvert at 10:58 AM PST - 7 comments

"I just can't believe that I'm having a baby." The yearbook at Pinellas Park High School this year included a 12 page spread about teen pregnancy and highlights some students and their experiences with staying in school while pregnant. Some see it a step in educating students about the issue, others see it as a glorification of teen pregnancy. Having had an older sister almost not finish high school because of a pregnancy, I'm all for education, but is the yearbook the appropriate place?
posted by turacma at 10:54 AM PST - 37 comments

Special Agent Crowley Speaks Up (NYTimes link , normal rules apply) Ladies like this are the real heroes in our country and she has something to say before Congress about the new Bush agency. Ms. Dowd agrees and said, "The shape of the government is not as important as the policy of the government."
posted by nofundy at 10:30 AM PST - 8 comments

"British Liberty, RIP"
A leader article on the danger represented by the British Government's new Statutory Order and the need for Parliamentarians to step in and resist. (The Order will allow a wide range of organisations access to phone and internet records - The Guardian's own story with details is here.)
Ben Franklin has been quoted here many times before, but I have no hesitation quoting him again: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
posted by jonpollard at 10:05 AM PST - 10 comments

Salon spends time with Ted Nugent - love him or hate him, you gotta admit he gives an entertaining interview. Also, the man has apparently yet to meet the word that he couldn't spell more interestingly.
posted by GriffX at 9:13 AM PST - 23 comments

The Web Standards Project is back, now in easy-to-swallow blog form. Stand up straight! Close that HTML tag! And wipe that silly browser off your hard drive, mister! And the other one.
posted by gazingus at 9:04 AM PST - 17 comments

Post-War Jazz: An Arbitrary Road Map In this two-part Village Voice piece, Gary Giddins presents a personal road map to post-war jazz, introducing 57 of his most cherished tracks from 1945 to 2001. Any glaring ommissions? I'd add Witchitai-To by Jim Pepper. In addition to being one of the first jazz-rock fusion proponents, Pepper, a Native American, also blended the music of his people into his compositions.
posted by martk at 8:44 AM PST - 12 comments

One Defining Jazz Track Per Year, From 1945 To 2001? An Impossible Task! Well, not for Gary Giddins, arguably our greatest contemporary jazz critic. He's just spent five months going through his record collection to come up with a terrific and deliciously debatable list for The Village Voice. Yeah, how could he leave out...*insert your particular obsession here*...?[Here's a 74-page 1996 interview with him(in pdf format) that's practically a mini-history of jazz.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:41 AM PST - 14 comments

Poll: majority of Palestinians want Israel eliminated What does this tell us about the chances of a peace accord?
posted by Postroad at 8:06 AM PST - 13 comments

The wicked witch of the net is five years old today. "That's like 236 in Web years. Ancient. The Methuselah of browsers, kept alive on an IV drip of tag soup". (via scottandrew)
posted by aaronshaf at 7:56 AM PST - 14 comments

Le Roi Est Mort, declared the newspapers upon his death. A king without a country, Joshua A. Norton declared himself Emperor Norton I of these United States in 1859. Was he a charlatan? A genius? Royalty? Or maybe all three? We may never know. Visit his archives to find out more.
posted by charlesv at 7:42 AM PST - 11 comments

Are you a "true" Metalhead? Well according to the latest update on this site, you're not one unless you have "The Power Viking Spatula From Hell" and "King Sven's Royal Devil Horns Shower Cap". Take a look at some of the crazy "how to be a metalhead" pics too.
posted by kingmissile at 7:36 AM PST - 12 comments

Beautiful eclipse yesterday. The shadows were amazing too. p.s. - some audio CDs can be used as an eclipse filter.
posted by xowie at 7:09 AM PST - 17 comments

StreetMattress.com - Much like "found art", this site chronicles the phenomenon of abandoned mattresses, and finally gives the public a forum on which to comment on them. Some if my favorites are here, here, and here.
posted by emptybowl at 5:58 AM PST - 10 comments

City as Loser? Iron City was ranked last out of 40 cities in this year's "Best Cities for Singles" in Forbes magazine. Not that Forbes is the ultimate arbiter of the single life (don't they specialize in male readers over 35 with money?), but your best defense of Pittsburgh or your own medium- or small-sized town would be appreciated.
posted by engelr at 5:48 AM PST - 26 comments

Bon voyage, mes amis... France now holds the dubious honor of being the first World Cup champs to drop out in the first round of the subsequent Cup tournament (i.e. Champs in '98/Goats in '02) since Brazil '66. Somebody, strike up Sergio Mendez for me...
posted by Bixby23 at 1:37 AM PST - 35 comments

I dig hotdogboy. He likes to amuse people.
posted by the biscuit man at 11:44 PM PST - 10 comments

I'm curious whether other mefi bloggers have the same luck with the opposite sex (or same sex, if that's your thing) as this man. Is it just me, or is Dobbs the luckiest blogger on the block?
posted by Badmichelle at 11:38 PM PST - 16 comments

What would SpongeBob do?
posted by SuzySmith at 11:13 PM PST - 10 comments

Firearms exempted from Consumer Product Safety Commission. Why? Erik Zenger lost consciousness for only a few minutes when his black powder gun misfired on a Utah County shooting range, burying a 3-inch steel spring bolt in his cheekbone. . . There is no national agency or organization either man could have consulted to find out if a rifle or handgun had been recalled. Firearms are specifically exempted from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said agency spokesman Ken Jiles, and no other federal agency is empowered to gather information on safety hazards of weapons. Neither the National Rifle Association nor the National Sports Shooting Foundation tracks such information or has lists of gun recalls. Consumers must rely on retail stores and manufacturers to determine if weapons have malfunctioned or injured anyone.
posted by onegoodmove at 10:31 PM PST - 43 comments

Brother Can You Spare a Prewar 7-Room Apt?
Will NYC ever be rid of a system that favors a select few, drives up housing costs for all, unfairly subsidizes vacation homes for the middle class and in general just doesn't work?
posted by nobody_knose at 9:47 PM PST - 31 comments

chilling...
posted by BentPenguin at 8:31 PM PST - 42 comments

A handheld device that translates simple spoken phrases. "American troops in Afghanistan are using a revolutionary device that instantly translates soldiers' voices into native languages. . . . The soldier speaks into the machine, which recognizes the words and translates them into another language." Simple phrases only — and a long way from a Star Trek universal translator — but kindling for the science-fiction-addled imagination nonetheless.
posted by mcwetboy at 7:30 PM PST - 11 comments

More pedestrians died in traffic accidents in the US in the year 2000 than all of the people who died in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. 10 times the number of people killed in 9/11 attacks died due to motor vehicle attacks that same year. And yet some say the US government is on a course that will take away many of our civil rights in order to protect us from the boogie-monster terrorists. OF COURSE, the terrorist attacks were a horrible nightmare, and of course we want our police forces to prevent even worse attacks in the future, but before we start thinking about creating a Brave New Police State, maybe now is a good time to have a little perspective.
posted by crunchland at 5:54 PM PST - 66 comments

2002 British Design and Art Direction Awards dunno when they came out, but there's some pretty cool stuff on there! definately check out the music videos :)
posted by kliuless at 5:49 PM PST - 4 comments

Are heart disease, cancer and schizophrenia caused by pathogens? The logic basically goes that a genetic disease cannot have a very high rate of occurrence as natural selection would prevent that gene from surviving (leaving the few occurrences of the disease that are caused by random mutation). Also: how to make diseases more benign by altering the parameters to their natural selection.
posted by fvw at 5:45 PM PST - 19 comments

After the 9-11 massacre, most of us, eager to hear someone in a position of authority make reassuring noises, gave George B. Jr. some props. Even those of us who had our doubts before were, in that state of anxiety and fear, ready to applaud his actually quite banal statements. Then came the "axis of evil" speech. Die hard conservatives and Bush-lovers said "that's okay, he's just using colorful language - and, after all, those folks are evil." The rest of us groaned a bit. And now, his trip to Europe during which something very funny happened that reaffirms his 'through the looking glass', profoundly deep ignorance of the world.
posted by Modem Ovary at 4:34 PM PST - 62 comments

They Have Ways of Making Al-Qaida Talk Interrogations must be pretty damn crucial these days. Given advances in science during the past twenty years, how much more sophisticated can CIA methods have become since the 80's?
posted by Voyageman at 3:54 PM PST - 3 comments

The Stanley Cup finals -- a perfect time to reflect on what we know about the extortion of former Eastern bloc players in the NHL by Russian organized crime groups. A 1999 Frontline/Fifth Estate joint investigation lays it out nicely, including an eye-opening interview with a U.S. sports marketer who was run out of the Russian hockey world by mob greed. Also check the story of investigative reporter Robert I. Friedman, author of the alarming (some say alarmist) book Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America, the subject of a detailed eXile review here.
posted by mediareport at 2:21 PM PST - 3 comments

Animal burglary a new form of crime? Imagine waking up to see a chimpanzee nicking your cellphone...
posted by zia at 1:46 PM PST - 11 comments

"... as cheap as throwing a dinner party and only serving things that are covered in melted cheese". What's sexy? If you scroll down to "A boob-flash in the pan is worth two in the bush", Heather Havrilesky (queen of the casually tossed off Pixies quote) explains just what it would take to make Ari Fleischer look sexy. Safe for work, but you may have Britney/Ari flashbacks that last all day. (Bonus link, text safe for work, but linked images aren't: Eric S. Raymond on bad porn. "Like any good scientist, I proceeded to do some research ...")
posted by maudlin at 12:17 PM PST - 13 comments

John Gotti, the former head of New York's Gambino crime family, died in a prison hospital today at age 61. He was serving a life sentence after 1992 convictions for racketeering and six killings. "Sammy Bull" Gravano must be breathing easier today.
posted by tranquileye at 12:11 PM PST - 12 comments

Yahoo!'s new front page went into beta today.
I know the story was posted, but I thought the actual page deserved a link that wasn't buried in day-old comments...
posted by kfury at 11:35 AM PST - 32 comments

What's not on the net? Here's an example. On Saturday night the town center of Capitola was shut down because of the discovery of a number of devices believed to be pipe bombs. Locally, this was a huge story but it didn't get much play in our local paper even though Capitola is only six miles south of Santa Cruz. On Sunday, police figured out the the devices were not bombs. The San Jose Mercury (35 miles and a mountain range away from Capitola) published a story but so far nothing from our local newspaper. The story was never big enough for national new sources like cnn, moreover and local usenet groups are flooded with offensive drivel. Where do you go on the web for reliable, timely local news?
posted by rdr at 8:34 AM PST - 6 comments

Jaw-drop-inducing link of the day The federal government spent $62 million on a building to store and treat low-level radioactive waste at a California nuclear weapons laboratory, then decided the structure wasn't secure enough. So where is the waste kept now?

... Right outside the new building, under tents.

posted by magullo at 8:30 AM PST - 10 comments

Switch. Apple launches its first major ad campaign since "Think Different". Rather than preaching to the converted, it's gunning for the other 90% -- the unhappy Windows users. Can Apple double its marketshare to 10% as Steve Jobs is hoping? Does this represent a less smug, more aggressive Apple? Are you considering switching, or have you switched already?
posted by jragon at 8:15 AM PST - 132 comments

A look into the new "creative class". A new study says cities must attract the new "creative class" with hip neighborhoods, an arts scene and a gay-friendly atmosphere -- or they'll go the way of Detroit.
posted by BlueTrain at 8:13 AM PST - 14 comments

Yet another company name change. This one's a snip at £73.5 million. I have a loathing for Mondays myself..
posted by Mossy at 8:12 AM PST - 26 comments

The Peculiar Duplicity of Ari Fleischer "But what Fleischer does, for the most part, is not really spin. It's a system of disinformation--blunter, more aggressive, and, in its own way, more impressive than spin. Much of the time Fleischer does not engage with the logic of a question at all. He simply denies its premises--or refuses to answer it on the grounds that it conflicts with a Byzantine set of rules governing what questions he deems appropriate. Fleischer has broken new ground in the dark art of flackdom: Rather than respond tendentiously to questions, he negates them altogether."
posted by owillis at 8:04 AM PST - 6 comments

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced Monday the capture of a "known terrorist" with connections to al Qaeda who allegedly planned to build and explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States.
posted by LinusMines at 8:00 AM PST - 84 comments

Etherlinx, plans to offer high-speed wireless access to the Internet at inexpensive prices. (NYT) Without venture capital backing, in a garage just six blocks from the garage where Steven P. Jobs and Stephen Wozniak launched Apple Computer 26 years ago, Mr. Holt is making his clever and inexpensive radio repeater by modifying inexpensive Wi-Fi cards, the circuitry that sends and receives the signals. Their ambitious target: the cable and phone companies that currently hold a near-monopoly on high-speed access for the "last mile" between the Internet and the home.
posted by semmi at 7:52 AM PST - 2 comments

Revamping Yahoo's Homepage "The redesign is being fueled partly by advertisers, which are increasingly demanding more real estate on highly visible spots such as Yahoo's home page. Advertisers are irked that they can only buy minimal exposure on the main page of a site that draws a massive audience."
posted by Irontom at 7:42 AM PST - 20 comments

Essays added to SATs? I'm glad I don't have to take any more SATs! Among other proposed changes (such as a gradual inclusion of more advanced algebra & trig), the College Board hopes that including an essay portion will force students to spend more time writing. Thoughts?
posted by LuxFX at 6:46 AM PST - 22 comments

Nuclear War, India and Pakistan - a Tutorial. Blogging at its best! Fallout patterns, strategy, and more. Additional bonus: 4GW (Fourth Generation Warfare).
posted by sheauga at 6:32 AM PST - 4 comments

Nineteen die after drinking cologne in Saudi Arabia. Apparently this is seen as a alcohol substitute. Geez, if you want it that bad, there's plenty of booze in Bahrain, just next door...
posted by laz-e-boy at 12:17 AM PST - 23 comments

Best. Transformers. Video. Ever. CGI render of a new VW Beetle transforming into a transformer with live background [1.5 meg mpg video]. Makes me wonder if a live-action Transformers TV show would work, with real actors and CGI rendered robots. I'd certainly watch it.
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 11:50 PM PST - 27 comments

"A Rift Among Bloggers" is the name of the article in Monday's New York Times on the state of the blogger these days. A must read if you've ever heard the term "warblogger." Its a mostly unbiased and refreshingly accurate piece written by David Gallagher of LightningField.com fame.
posted by nyukid at 11:02 PM PST - 41 comments

Subversive Music Pirates Subverted by Fakes from Subversive Label. Are the fake MP3s popping up on file-sharing networks part of the recording industry's war on piracy, or just the latest in music marketing? Also our host Matt gets some ink on page 2 for comments on Evolution Controlled Creations 's spoofing and for his running of this web discourse 'hotbed'.
posted by srboisvert at 9:26 PM PST - 10 comments

This is not a medieval woodcut! Though it appears everywhere, this particular woodcut has been repeatedly mis-identified and used most often to support the idea that the medieval world thought the earth was flat, an idea whose inception can be traced to this man, a fiction writer who not only wrote this but also this.
posted by vacapinta at 9:17 PM PST - 8 comments

The ugly side of football: man dies in Moscow riots. The World Cup has been great so far, but it was only a matter of time before things got out of control.
posted by claire at 8:24 PM PST - 25 comments

Kashmir...Palestine...Sudetenland?? If you've been suspecting that old territorial squabbles never go away, you're probably right.
posted by gimonca at 6:52 PM PST - 4 comments

An Urgent Call to end The Growing Nuclear Peril. "A DECADE after the end of the cold war, the peril of nuclear destruction is mounting. The great powers have refused to give up nuclear arms, other countries are producing them and terrorist groups are trying to acquire them. THE DRIFT TOWARD catastrophe must be reversed. Safety from nuclear destruction must be our goal. We can reach it only by reducing and then eliminating nuclear arms under binding agreements." Includes articles, lists of protests and rallies and links to disarmament groups.
posted by homunculus at 5:27 PM PST - 10 comments

Fields Of Gold , a new drama just aired on BBC1. It centres on the links between Government, big business, science and the farming community, and hints at surveillance and conspiracy. Co-written by The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, is this bad science and posturing, or an early warning of plagues to come? What's your take on so-called Frankenstein foods, and how goes the research in your part of the world?
posted by dash_slot- at 3:52 PM PST - 5 comments

Typewriter Dependency (common disorder resulting from metaphysical thinking about punctuation) [nyt reg req] "A recent survey of the top 1,000 living English-language authors finds that more than 80 percent own manual typewriters averaging 43 years in age and three broken functions, with a per-unit resale value of $4.75 and slipping. Yet in a questionnaire about their response if brigands should invade their homes and demand either their beat-up old manual typewriters or their spouses on pain of death, a whopping 96 percent wrote ''Spouse.''
posted by Voyageman at 1:43 PM PST - 23 comments

Neighbors of nuclear plant north of NYC line up for precautionary pills. "Hundreds of suburbanites living near a nuclear plant north of New York City were given pills Saturday that could protect them from thyroid cancer in the event of a nuclear catastrophe." Would you feel safer if you had the potassium iodide pills?
posted by Kevin Sanders at 10:30 AM PST - 7 comments

Bush / Giuliani in 2004? Is this the team the Democrats will have to beat in 2004?Rudy Giuliani is still riding on the wave of popularity from his post 9/11 actions. Apparently he's got his eye on the White House, even if it breaks Dick Cheney's heart.
posted by crunchland at 10:20 AM PST - 33 comments

Sir Mick - "Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger is to be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to music, newspapers reported on Sunday." What's the point in knighting old rock stars? What's the point in being a knighted rock star? It probably wasn't even on Her Britannic Majesty's request, but just the result of some silly committee deal.
posted by pracowity at 10:09 AM PST - 17 comments

Lewis knocks out Tyson: "The ultimate dismantling of Mike Tyson was satisfying in only the way watching a man get what is coming to him can be."
posted by tranquileye at 4:46 AM PST - 50 comments

MI6 warned US of Al-Qaeda attacks MI6 warned the American intelligence services about a plot to hijack aircraft and crash them into buildings two years before the September 11 attacks.... I do not subsribe but this is summary of article and may prove very "annoying" to the agencies and people involved. The Sunday Times is too reputable to be readily dismissed as off the wall.
posted by Postroad at 4:00 AM PST - 37 comments

The SF Chron's big Sunday story is a very timely and huge package about a Republican Governor who went on to become president cooperating with overzealous intelligence agencies to quash dissent. Revelations: Reagan plotted with the FBI against the President of UC-Berkeley, he wanted to mount "psychological warfare campaign" and the old rumor about Reagan getting some fellow Hollywood artists blacklisted turns out to be true. Synposis.
posted by raaka at 2:20 AM PST - 36 comments

Harvard may ignore early decision and attempt to enroll students who have agreed to matriculate elsewhere. Is this the beginning of the end of early decision?
posted by oaf at 9:36 PM PST - 7 comments

Recollections based on the album Doolittle, by the Pixies. Most of the most memorable times in my life, at least the ones during and after adolescence, are linked inextricably with the music I was listening to at the time. Hearing Bowie's 'Modern Love' can set me off to reminiscing for hours about freshman teen angst, and Bob Mould's 'Hanging Tree' can still damn near make me cry with the memories it triggers. Doolittle is one of those albums that takes me right back. You?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:22 PM PST - 91 comments

Metaphysical significance of punctuation marks (a) Periods . and commas , are lovely because they are simple... Semicolons ; are pretentious and overactive...Italics rarely fail to insult the reader's intelligence..."Quotation marks" create the spurious impression of an aristocracy of sensibility...The exclamation point ! is obviously too emphatic, too childish, for our sophisticated ways...Questions ? and exclamations ! betray a sense of inquisitiveness and wonder that is distinctly unmodern....(parentheses) and - dashes - betoken stylistic laziness, a failure of discipline....(a) content footnotes are symbols of failure.
posted by Voyageman at 12:54 PM PST - 36 comments

Punk Rock Aerobics. "Punk Rock Aerobics: The work out that rocks out. No more sucky classes full of braindead bimbos in spandex thongs. PRA is for fun people with discerning taste. An hour and a half of cardio and strengthening class that will have you pogoing and skanking your butt off!" Brought to you by Maura and Hilken (the latter of the band fuzzy). As they say on the mission page: "Free your mind and your ass will follow."
posted by moz at 12:23 PM PST - 12 comments

Meet Cyc. This endeavor to produce AI has been going on since 1984. In ’86 it asked if it were human; it later asked “if any other computers were engaged in such a project”. It’s strength lies in a database of assumptions and generalities, in the hopes that it will eventually “generalize as much as possible until further generalization would be false”. Is this going to be the breakthrough, or does it just seem really cool? (yes, via Slashdot)
posted by sherman at 12:17 PM PST - 9 comments

We're in the midst of the Rose Festival here. I'm watching the Grand Floral Parade on tv now, since I didn't camp out last night on the sidewalk space I taped out last weekend. Yes, that really happens. From the site: The Grand Floral Parade is the second largest all-floral parade in North America and the largest, single-day spectator event in Oregon. Pasadena's Parade is the top one. They expect half a million spectators in person, and even more on TV. Are you watching this with me? What festivals and spectacles do you have in your area?
posted by verso at 10:26 AM PST - 7 comments

In Israeli Hospital, Bomber Tells of Trying to Kill Israelis (NYT) In a conversation that lasted more than two hours, the bomber gave a rare glimpse into the blend of religion, desperation, low technology and cruelty that can produce suicide bombers. He said he was "pushed" to make his attack not by Israeli action or a terrorist group, but by "the love of martyrdom." He added: "I didn't want revenge for anything. I just wanted to be a martyr." "I know Israel," he said, recalling his six years as a peddler here. "I know that the individual Israeli citizen is innocent like us. Unfortunately, we are victims of our leaders, sitting on their chairs."
posted by semmi at 9:25 AM PST - 16 comments

what would you be able to do to reach an orgasm? a man in thailand did something very weird to achieve orgasm. it even got him a job!
posted by trismegisto at 7:42 AM PST - 15 comments

"we're good at growing hogs, and we ought to be selling our hogs all across the world." Bush stumps at Pork Party about nixing the Estate Tax.
posted by crasspastor at 2:57 AM PST - 33 comments

Electronic Arts censors Taiwan from their FIFA 2002 PC game. What's up with that?
posted by darukaru at 7:48 PM PST - 25 comments

Increasingly, teens have begun to view oral sex as a way to avoid HIV, despite public health experts' warnings to the contrary. Turns out, the kids may be right.
posted by nathanstack at 7:38 PM PST - 25 comments

Don't be stupid! Not in the sense of poor cognitive capacity, or low IQ, but more in the sense of lack of wisdom and foresight. Why do smart people make foolish decisions?
posted by aeschenkarnos at 6:16 PM PST - 12 comments

Some Driving Lessons. More Friday Flash Fun™. Hope you haven't seen it before...
posted by internal at 6:09 PM PST - 7 comments

What do big city women want.. men with money
posted by stbalbach at 5:46 PM PST - 21 comments

We all deserve a data sabbath. A weekly shunning of modern technology, shopping, and work. Do you observe one?
posted by sheauga at 4:43 PM PST - 24 comments

Atomic blast licence plates are rejected by state.
"Any reference on a license plate to weapons of mass destruction is inappropriate and would likely offend our citizens."
posted by Mwongozi at 3:36 PM PST - 12 comments

Clubs and fraternal organizations to join today: Kiwanis, Scottish Rite, Rotary, and maybe Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.
posted by charlesv at 3:33 PM PST - 5 comments

FindLaw Forum: Could terrorism result in a constitutional dictator? Rather odd that so early into the "game" this sort of speculation by professionals is being considered. Heading for a change in the way we govern or are governed, or just a bump in the road that need not jar us?
posted by Postroad at 2:55 PM PST - 19 comments

Airborne Laser 21st Century, here we come! According to the always serious folks at Janes, a new kind of weapon that has a strong smell of fifties sci-fi will soon become really real. An airborne basket-ball sized laser beam should soon be able to destroy missiles before they reach their target. Why doesn't this news makes more confident in the future of this world?
posted by Baud at 1:30 PM PST - 32 comments

Gold cobblestones. Cracked ice. Cave art. Just a few of the amazing shapes, textures and patterns in the Lichen Portrait Gallery. Check the descriptions of the "fungi that have discovered agriculture" for info about how Native Americans used them for food, poison and pillows. And don't forget the surprising feminist connection.
posted by mediareport at 1:13 PM PST - 6 comments

Way of the Stick. Come on people, it's Flash Friday...where are the games we all need to play after a long week of ::ahem:: work?
posted by BlueTrain at 12:21 PM PST - 10 comments

Ahhh...the power of suggestion... The Japanese have proven once again that even the best marketing campaigns are weak compared to a good fad--no matter how ludicrous the claim. But instead of Pokemon and Aibo's, all the Japanese are after now are everyday electrons...or are they?
posted by LuxFX at 12:20 PM PST - 10 comments

You can spray anti-military graffiti as you frag in Counterstrike. This really appeals to the peace- and fun-loving multiplayer FPS fan in me. Sometimes you need to remind yourself as you play these military-themed games that's it's all just a game. For most of us, anyway.
posted by mjane at 11:31 AM PST - 6 comments

Font sizing comparisons The Noodle Incident has screenshots comparing different font sizing methods on various browsers and platforms.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:12 AM PST - 27 comments

MTV Movie Awards Winners are Already Posted Arrr matey, spoilage ahead!
posted by Captain Ligntning at 9:56 AM PST - 26 comments

Next move - nationalizing the internet infrastructure in Europe ? 300 staff and union officials have blockaded themselves at the network operations centre in Belgium following Dutch telecoms company KPNQwest bankruptcy filing. Stocked up on provisions, taking shifts unpaid to keep the centre fully operational. "If we leave, then in three to five days there will be the largest internet slowdown in European history." From the article - KPNQwest's infrastructure covers 60 cities around Europe, estimated between one third and one half of all European internet traffic.
posted by Voyageman at 9:12 AM PST - 10 comments

Ancient OS may be the best weapon against hackers. I thought this was great, aging Operating Systems such as Solaris and older versions of Mac Os are becoming valuable tools against electronic attacks, simply because they *are* older. (Anyone got the full set of floppies for System 7?) Link from RobotWisdom
posted by jeremias at 6:46 AM PST - 26 comments

Subtleties of American Satire Lost on the Chinese. Bejing's most popular newspaper runs an article from The Onion as fact.
posted by crunchland at 6:38 AM PST - 56 comments

Film88 Dear Valuable Users, Our site is READY now, but we got to wait for few hours for our new lines to take place. However, you can enter from HERE. Please take note that the lines are extremely SLOW. We feel sorry for our contractor whose proxy/caching was blocked because of somebody's reaction. (Without Court Order AGAIN!!) Seems like the Terrorist is identified!! Regards, Film88 More Backround
posted by Niahmas at 5:08 AM PST - 3 comments

The Real Biothreat Currently the United States is experiencing shortages of eight of the eleven vaccines required by law for children. In response, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have revised their immunization schedule from "optimal" to "some protection," which means that, depending on the vaccine, kids may get the first shot and not the boosters that solidify immunity, or they may not get the first shot at all until several months past the recommended age...
posted by Irontom at 3:33 AM PST - 10 comments

The Periodic Table Table now has its own, newly updated website. This had made the rounds on various websites when it was a mere set of construction photos on a bandwidth -constrained site. This is now much better.
posted by vacapinta at 10:44 PM PST - 11 comments

They are the silent sentinels of America's roads. If you travel at all (or if you read Zippy), you have seen them. They may wear giant hats, or look like Alfred E. Neuman, but they are everywhere. But what you may not know is that one guy made them all.
posted by yhbc at 9:09 PM PST - 27 comments

The Pitch Drop Experiment. Everyone should know by now that 'glass is a supercooled liquid' is an urban legend. But there are true liquids that appear solid at room temperature. Pitch, a petroleum derivative, is one of them. The Blair Pitch Pro Pitch Drop Experiment, begun in 1927, drips pitch out of a funnel, at roughly one drop every ten years. It has a webcam [RealPlayer req.], with a short canned loop of audio explaining the experiment's origins. I tell you, I'm on the edge of my seat watching this thing!
Swiped from The Cellar.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 8:52 PM PST - 22 comments

A Boob in the Hall of Justice
Poet Claire Braz-Valentine's hilarious reading of her open letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft. (Text here for the QuickTime impaired.)
posted by quonsar at 8:00 PM PST - 27 comments

Lest we forget! D-Day June 6, 1944. NY Times (free) subscription required.
posted by Oxydude at 7:54 PM PST - 13 comments

God exists! He also happens to have a livejournal. Well... he *used* too...
posted by jcterminal at 7:13 PM PST - 6 comments

A dazzling solar eclipse... will be on display across a broad swath of the western United States, Mexico, Canada and Asia on Monday, with as much as 99 percent of the sun obscured by the moon. The eclipse will begin at 5:13 p.m. PDT, with best viewing time around 6:20.
posted by GatorDavid at 4:13 PM PST - 8 comments

The Accidental Video Game Porn Archive.
I don't really need to say anything else, do I? Didn't think so.
posted by Su at 3:14 PM PST - 6 comments

How far should the commercialisation of fine art go? The British Museum has licensed an on-line company atelier 350 to sell reproductions of some of the drawings in their collection. This article argues that the sales description is misleading and if replicated on a wider scale could harm the general public's perception of access to the collections in the long run. I agree that museums have to raise funds somehow and I'm not against the selling of some of the more popular images, however, surely their first responsibility must be to educate not to distort or hide the truth in the way which is shown here.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:09 PM PST - 9 comments

Wonder Twin powers, activate! Form of...an upcoming live-action Wonder Twins movie. Shape of...my disbelief. Does no one get that even "SuperFriends" fans hate these space losers, and their little Gleek, too?
posted by GaelFC at 2:53 PM PST - 43 comments

The 14th annual World Pork Expo starts today in Des Moines. 50,000 visitors and people from 50 countries are expected to be in attendance this weekend. Also in attendance will be George W. Bush.
posted by Kevin Sanders at 1:42 PM PST - 15 comments

Comet Cursor not Spyware claim founders. Just Crapware! "The information we were logging was completely useless, except for charging sites for cursor impressions," said Rosen, who pointed out in Lavasoft's forums that Comet Systems is a company of programmers, not marketeers. "You may believe that our software is buggy, in which case you may conclude we're lame, but we're not running a direct marketing business like some of the other malware/adware/spyware companies on your list," Rosen wrote.
posted by srboisvert at 1:03 PM PST - 4 comments

While generally not a fan of news links, this story about entertainers speaking on Capitol Hill was too good to resist. Hmmm...The Backstreet Boys as lobbyists. That's even scarier that what we have now. Although entertainers have long championed political causes, it seems as though the legitimacy of this practice is growing. Is this part of the ongoing merger between politics and entertainment?
posted by anathema at 11:27 AM PST - 6 comments

Gourd Speakers. While listening to my new favorite album, Verve//Remixed, I noticed that the CD jacket features these silly yet remarkably futuristic looking gourd speakers. At $1200 a pair, cuteness has its price, but these are quite possibly the world's most adorable examples of vegetable hi-fi equipment.
posted by arielmeadow at 10:55 AM PST - 19 comments

Cheap chic: Duct tape fashions for the innovative trendsetter who likes to shop at the local hardware store. And what to do with the leftover duct tape.
posted by iconomy at 10:04 AM PST - 11 comments

Immersive Online Content. The first in a series on digital storytelling techniques, from the Poynter Institute. Examples include stories on baggage inspection, water conservation, the Florida 2000 election and touch screen voting.
posted by sheauga at 8:55 AM PST - 7 comments

This ad was banned in the UK. Did anyone see it? Sounds cool to me. In a time when advertisers are struggling to capture people's attention and dull advertising reigns supreme, why haven't we gotten over this fear of offending those with 'delicate' sensibilities?
posted by eas98 at 8:04 AM PST - 53 comments

Bush to announce new domestic intelligence agency. Just what we need, more spooks.
posted by hob at 8:02 AM PST - 42 comments

So what's the difference between the latest suicide bombing and the incursion in Jenin? Both targeted off-duty combatants (13 of the 17 killed on the bus were armed soldiers, the majority killed in Jenin were armed combatants) and both had "collateral damage" of civilians. If one argues that Jenin was a military operation that pursued combatants and unfortunately civilians were caught in between, couldn't one argue the same about this bus bombing? Disclaimer: I oppose both as immoral.
posted by laz-e-boy at 11:47 PM PST - 19 comments

For all those Asian fetishists out there.. Want to learn to pick up Asian women? Understand us better? Then take our class! Just when you thought you saw it all...
posted by zinegurl at 5:13 PM PST - 94 comments

Ralph Nader's at it again. The Nation's Top Consumer Watchdog apparently is a Kings fan. He's taking the NBA to task for the phantom fouls and blatant non-calls in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals. Can't say as I blame him though. That was some pretty crappy officiating. But doesn't he have better things to do?
posted by shecky57 at 4:22 PM PST - 33 comments

The Queen's Golden Jubilee in the UK - did anyone see it? If you were in the UK, it's likely you would have seen at least some of the amazing celebrations of the Royal Family - four days of partying, including a huge pop/rock concert with loads of famous names, a classical concert, pomp and pagentry in a 4 ton gold chariot and a huge carnival drew 14 million TV viewers a night, and millions more went to see the royal knees-up, knocking the royal critics for six. Even Ozzy Osbourne sang a number, bless him. The final royal flypast rounded off the most amazing scenes I've ever seen. Brits - does this show of affection make your bosom swell with pride? Others - are you jealous, or thankful you weren't there?
posted by wibbler at 2:58 PM PST - 54 comments

Cracked Magazine is back. I used to read this back in the day, but I hadn't seen it in ages. I always thought it was inferior to Mad, but I liked it anyway. Supposedly it's on shelves now. Has anyone seen a new copy?
posted by SisterHavana at 1:54 PM PST - 11 comments

Poll of Palestinians by PCPO May 24 - 30, 2002 We can get conflicting Israeli views in their diverse news sources and polls. Here is a Palestinian poll, recently done It it does not deal with the Israel conflict but rather with the present government. This may provide some useful insights.
posted by Postroad at 12:34 PM PST - 12 comments

Create your approximate South Park (not to be confused with South Park) facsimile.
posted by twiggy at 12:29 PM PST - 30 comments

the things people will do for a gig nowadays... sad times. sad times. :)
posted by notoriousbhc at 11:35 AM PST - 24 comments

I must admit, I've always had my doubts about some of you... Corporations hire viral marketing firms to spread misinformation and bogus votes of support for their products on internet message boards. With all the front page entries about new movies, new records and new colored cola drinks, are we all being manipulated and duped by the marketing weasels even here on Metafilter?
posted by crunchland at 11:29 AM PST - 81 comments

Mozilla 1.0 released. Four years after Netscape open-sourced the code to its web browser in February 1998, the Mozilla browser is finally out of beta and ready for download. To celebrate, there's a big party next Wednesday at San Francisco's DNA Lounge and satellite parties around the world. Take a bow, everyone.
posted by waxpancake at 11:22 AM PST - 71 comments

Pat Buchanan the voice of reason? in times of insane government decree's of "with us or against us" and "shoot first ask questions later." Its amusing that wackos like Buchanan's viewpoints start making sense. So what is the price of the american empire?
posted by vincentmeanie at 11:16 AM PST - 35 comments

McDonald's to donate $10 mil over fry mislabeling ...to vegetarian and Hindu groups over the fact that the "natural ingredients" in the supposedly vegetarian fries included some beef. They have also posted an apology on the corporate website, and created a Vegetarian Advisory Panel. Can the McVeggie going national be far behind?
posted by ClydeCrashcup at 11:06 AM PST - 28 comments

Coming soon to a theater near you: Occupation 101.
posted by gazingus at 10:28 AM PST - 20 comments

Try Saying Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Tea And Mint Julep Without Smiling: it can't be done. Coz June is busting out all over in Bourbon country and the mint is as high as an elephant's eye. For this we all rejoice. But - wait - did you know that, for that most perfect Summer drink, the thirst-quenching nec plus ultra they call the Julep, "the most important ingredient is a T-shirt for the mint juice extraction"? Oh yes! The time has come. Here comes the sun. Mmmm...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:26 AM PST - 23 comments

Want to read Marvel comics without paying for them? Sign up for dotComics, a flash based comic download manager/viewer. You can read Spider-Man, X-Men, Elektra, Incredible Hulk and even issues of the new Wolverine Origin series all without the racking guilt of media "piracy". Ahoy, matey!
posted by will at 10:17 AM PST - 4 comments

Along the lines of the guy photographing every door handle he comes across, Aimee Sealfon is chronicling 365 people(One a Day), each different, she encounters through the year, with a short note about each.
posted by Su at 9:48 AM PST - 5 comments

USAF pilots flying combat missions on amphetamines prescribed by USAF doctors, including part time members who are also commercial airline pilots. A war on drugs indeed!
posted by magullo at 8:22 AM PST - 43 comments

Thinking Around the Corners , a new but very different creative magazine, launched this morning. The purpose of TAtC to to inspire designers, painters, etc. from the examples of other creatives like writers and poets -- following Duchamp's thought, "I felt that as a painter I was much better off to be influenced by a writer than by another painter." This issue features an interview with Jeffrey Zeldman on what inspires him and how he gets through the creative process.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 7:08 AM PST - 6 comments

Notice something missing from today's Washington Post? In a creative protest of management's latest contract offer, Post union members withhold bylines from news stories and columns in the June 5 edition. Most articles are written "By A Washington Post Staff Writer" and pictures are taken "By A Washington Post Staff Photographer." What other unique forms of labor protest have you seen where the union gets its point across without striking or compromising the quality of the product?
posted by PrinceValium at 6:54 AM PST - 18 comments

How two perfect moments in time brought such tremendous joy and pride to a nation. To me, this truly is the world's most beautiful game, if just for moments like these. I wish everyone could feel this kind of passion for something, whether it be football or not. Sadly, we may never experience this kind of a reaction to anything here in the US.
posted by dopamine at 9:15 PM PST - 120 comments

Like taking sand to the beach? Quite a rags to riches story Though no mention of the "generous" remuneration pere et fils have voted themselves recently. (Economist.com)
posted by johnny7 at 7:29 PM PST - 4 comments

In light of the highly anticipated Tron 2.0 - Tron Killer App next year, (has its own google directory :) here're some v.cool production illustrations from the original visionary Tron! Includes sketches of Yori's apartment from the infamous deleted love scene :) [also see moebius!]
posted by kliuless at 7:00 PM PST - 11 comments

Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails: "dedicated to the Gin Fizz, the Widow's Kiss, and the Singapore Sling, the drinks our mothers and grandmothers drank, and the drinks we strive to save from extinction as a small measure of remembering those great women and their great cocktail parties."
posted by tranquileye at 6:49 PM PST - 16 comments

SPAM company sues a complainent Not another spam story! But this one is a bit twisted. An Australian man, sick of receiving junk email, posted the details of the marketing company responsible on a website. SPEWS discovered the information, blocked their server, and now the spammers are suing the man for lost profits.
posted by Jimbob at 6:35 PM PST - 8 comments

Supplies of oil may be inexhaustible. (via Plastic)
posted by BlueTrain at 6:16 PM PST - 23 comments

Aversion to Nudity Impedes the War on Terrorism.
Would you "bare all" for the sake of Homeland Defense ?
posted by sheauga at 2:58 PM PST - 17 comments

These People are not actors - they are actual people waiting to see a movie.
posted by GernBlandston at 12:54 PM PST - 28 comments

J.T. LeRoy: The Next Lit-Crit It Boy? A report from the trendy and bespectacled world of hipster-lit book-readings and its newest star, the mercurial J.T. LeRoy. From the article: "LeRoy is the mirror image of the New York hipster’s aspiration: the lost soul done good, when so many in the audience, in pricey vintage t-shirts, seemed to want nothing more than to shed the trappings of middle-class life. More than a few in the audience spoke of him with a sort of rapt awe usually accorded NBA stars and minor deities." For more info on LeRoy, check out the author's official website.
posted by cell divide at 12:50 PM PST - 31 comments

U.S. had agents inside al-Qaeda U.S. intelligence overheard al-Qaeda operatives discussing a major pending terrorist attack in the weeks prior to Sept. 11 and had agents inside the terror group, but the intercepts and field reports didn't specify where or when a strike might occur, according to U.S. officials. ... But later in the article it says: Electronic intercepts as late as Sept. 10 of al-Qaeda members speaking cryptically of a major attack. Two U.S. intelligence officials, paraphrasing highly classified intercepts, say they include such remarks as, "Good things are coming," "Watch the news" and "Tomorrow will be a great day for us." Yeah, that whole "tomorrow" thing...that's a little tricky.
posted by dejah420 at 12:02 PM PST - 40 comments

Tired of the intrusiveness of the Federal Government? Hate the United Nations? Grant County welcomes you! About the size of Connecticut with a population of 7,500, this rural Oregon County recently passed ballot measures banning the UN and allowing people to cut trees on federal land, with or without the U.S. Forest Service approval. Government agencies are engaged in something called "Rural Cleansing" according to WSJ reporter Kimberley A. Strassel, and the people are having some success standing up to the government. Are these people kooks? Is Civil disobedience wrong? Are you in, out, or straddling the fence? Ready to move?
posted by Mack Twain at 11:54 AM PST - 20 comments

Thanks for the cattle! As a follow up to This Thread, This site was inspired by the New York Times article about the Masai village in southern Kenya who donated 14 head of cattle to the US in sorrow over the 9/11 attacks. This is a place where you can say "thanks" to the villagers who made the donation. "There are three cherished things that a Masai can offer as a gift -- a child, a plot of land and a cow, which is far more than a source of meat and milk to a Masai." Source.
posted by Blake at 10:51 AM PST - 17 comments

Turin Brakes are back in the studio. And though I am still digging the last album, some folks must be getting impatient. Their response? "[W]hat can we say but it takes time to write and record something that has to last forever... please hold on it will be worth the wait." Cool.
posted by grabbingsand at 9:52 AM PST - 12 comments

What do a 17th-century Swedish warship, an opulent Chicago theater and a Kansas City hotel "skyway" have in common? All met catastrophic ends—and they have important lessons to teach today's innovators.
posted by Irontom at 9:17 AM PST - 24 comments

The New Frontier- Preparing the law for settling on Mars. "Like the abandoned launch fields [at Cape Canveral], the Outer Space Treaty [of 1967] needs to have its valuable parts salvaged, and the dangerous ones demolished."
posted by Ty Webb at 9:14 AM PST - 12 comments

Watch out, British swimmers: horny dolphin in the water! If there are any parties interested in reciprocal advances, it's strongly advised that you read this important Dolphin Mating info first. (some explicit content) Hmmm, wasn't this an episode of King of the Hill?)
posted by brownpau at 8:57 AM PST - 8 comments

Florida announces close to a thousand children missing... After the Rilya Wilson tragedy, Florida desperately tries to meet and account for all children within the social services child welfare office and comes up with 972 unaccounted for and a lot of ifs, ands, buts, and maybe's...
posted by gloege at 5:54 AM PST - 17 comments

Return of the Shadow... Josh Davis shows he hasn't lost his muse in the six years since Endtroducing... changed the shape of things to come. Ten minute preview is available before you go out and get your own mint condition special edition (plus one copy to hock on eBay).
posted by birddog at 4:06 AM PST - 22 comments

Fingertip found in a Japanese Rice Ball. In other news, the feds are thinking about investigating rumors about dead bodies being stored inside the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota.
posted by kingmissile at 12:21 AM PST - 15 comments

Blogging for credit.... We've had some interesting posts about weblogs on MeFi today - is there room for one more? This one is about a credit course offered at UC Berkeley (of course) on weblogs and weblogging.
posted by Lynsey at 10:32 PM PST - 1 comment

Pirate attacks are increasing, especially near Asia and Africa. As of May 29, 2002, there were 137 reported acts of piracy, with four people killed and twelve injured in the latest reported incident.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:56 PM PST - 21 comments

What would you do to live to 150? (more inside)
posted by daver at 9:09 PM PST - 112 comments

SweatX. An interesting find, from MarketPlace (NPR).
posted by BlueTrain at 3:52 PM PST - 16 comments

"From a couple of miles up, all trace of humanity has vanished." "Air travel requires an escape from gravity, an escape from distance, and ultimately an escape from our bodies." Courtesy of loudpaper.
posted by protocool at 3:49 PM PST - 2 comments

A man and his Church A fascinating case history of a big dot com company and the Scientology Church. What does it tell us?
posted by Postroad at 3:14 PM PST - 6 comments

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, pt. II. Jakob cosies up to Flash, Flash cosies up to Jakob.
posted by jfuller at 2:23 PM PST - 24 comments

A blog from the set (coming soon at least) of Joss Whedon's (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) new tv show.
posted by bryanzera at 1:40 PM PST - 13 comments

Your quote of the day: "She said harm should not be presumed just because the lawyer 'intermittently dozed and actually fell asleep.'" Because, y'know, the inmate's only on Death Row in Texas.
posted by solistrato at 1:35 PM PST - 24 comments

The fried twinkie. Hardest. Arteries. Ever.
posted by tankboy at 12:32 PM PST - 37 comments

This column (NYT/reg. req) gets my vote for Stupidest Theory of the Day. Basically, he says that movies are more memorable and stay with us longer than TV shows. Huh?! He's kidding, right? (more inside).
posted by sassone at 12:12 PM PST - 22 comments

Bursting water balloons in a low-gravity environment. This is really cool.
posted by homunculus at 11:58 AM PST - 5 comments

Coming to a newsstand near you...it's Gene Simmons' Tongue! Yes, folks, I just caught this on the newsstand at the 59th and Lex "6" train. It's not a hoax... And, to continue the media onslaught, Gene's even got his own Osbourne's wannabe show... Where will the madness end?!
posted by metrocake at 11:30 AM PST - 14 comments

The pain! The pain!
posted by swift at 11:06 AM PST - 9 comments

How to Flirt. "Flirting is much more than just a bit of fun: it is a universal and essential aspect of human interaction." What social science can tell you about flirting and how to do it.
posted by sheauga at 10:24 AM PST - 32 comments

If they're not chasing terrorists, just what are they doing? Eavesdropping on a New Orleans cathouse, apparently.
posted by gimonca at 9:58 AM PST - 15 comments

MSNBC.com Launches Weblogs
Sign of the times? Sign of the apocalypse? Or both? Move over Kottke, here comes Chris Matthews...
posted by wendell at 9:50 AM PST - 22 comments

We will strike first announced President Bush at the West Point graduation ceremony. I was camping this weekend, so I just saw this. I am surprised that it hasn't generated more commentary. The actual text of the speech can be found here.
posted by Irontom at 7:48 AM PST - 124 comments

The president and his aides often described climate change as a "serious issue," but rarely as a serious problem. - new york times this statement reminds me of: "depends on what the meaning of is, is?" at least, admitting you have a problem is usually the first step. username: metafi19 password: metafi
posted by specialk420 at 7:37 AM PST - 27 comments

Is this a preview of things to come once the virtual reality of futuristic novels and cinema becomes commonplace? At what point should addiction be treated and is there even any sort of facility that can handle this type of addiction? On a side note, does this make anyone think any different of MetaFilter?
posted by the biscuit man at 7:24 AM PST - 30 comments

Napster files for bankruptcy - The pioneer finally gives up the ghost. *sob*
posted by wibbler at 6:44 AM PST - 6 comments

Maasai Present Cattle to US Ambassador
To mark September 11, people of Enoosean, a Maasai (Rift Valley Province, Kenya) village, have presented 15 heads of cattle to a visiting US ambassador, William Brencick. The presentation was organized by a Maasai medical student who was visiting New York on September 11.
    Brencick said the embassy would find it difficult to ship the cattle to the United States and had decided to sell the animals to raise funds to buy beadwork made in the village for display at a September 11 memorial in New York. (1)
posted by rschram at 2:58 AM PST - 18 comments

The secretive Bilderberg group is holding its annual meeting this weekend in a luxury hotel outside Washington, D.C. Is it OK for the top-100 of most influential people (politics and industry) to discuss 'the New World Order' behind closed doors ? Should we care ? Some people obviously do. I haven't made my mind up.
posted by swordfishtrombones at 1:28 AM PST - 36 comments

The Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies: Ready to do some 9/11 conspiracy debunking? Read this and lets get some old time MeFi discussion going. It's all there, from the (s)election of Bush as president to the "pre-planning" of the American Patriot Act. As Weiner describes the culprits as:

. . .the HardRight began serious planning for a 2000 electoral victory -- and then implementation of a HardRight agenda, and the destruction of a liberal opposition -- a year or two after Clinton's 1996 victory. (The impeachment of Clinton was a key ingredient to sully Democrat opposition.) The GOP HardRight leaders decided early to select George W. Bush, a none-too-bright and easily malleable young man with the right name and pedigree. They ran into a speed-bump when John McCain began to take off in the public imagination, and so with dirty tricks they wrecked his campaign in the South and elsewhere, and continued on their merry course.
posted by crasspastor at 10:44 PM PST - 21 comments

Study Shows Building Prisons Did Not Prevent Repeat Crimes
(New York Times link--you know the drill)
The rate at which inmates released from state prisons commit new crimes rose from 1983 to 1994, a time when the number of people behind bars doubled, according to a Justice Department study released yesterday.
The report found that 67 percent of inmates released from state prisons in 1994 committed at least one serious new crime within three years. That is 5 percent higher than among inmates released in 1983.
Criminologists generally agree that the prison-building binge of the last 25 years, in which the number of Americans incarcerated quadrupled to almost two million, has helped reduce the crime rate simply by keeping criminals off the streets. There has been more debate about whether longer sentences and the increase in the number of prisoners have also helped to deter people from committing crimes. The new report, some crime experts say, suggests that the answer is no. (More inside)
posted by y2karl at 10:28 PM PST - 22 comments

The money making game was Grandpa's favorite game. My Grandpa wasn't nearly this interesting.
posted by hadashi at 6:43 PM PST - 4 comments

Toothpaste for Dinner Everybody's favorite crackpot Drew is making new drawings and paintings. This site's a lot easier on the eyes, less of those pesky sentences which hurt brains.
posted by clango at 6:13 PM PST - 5 comments

Bad Rapper. Don't spank your monkey!
posted by kingmissile at 2:03 PM PST - 9 comments

This is the auction for you, if you've totally forgotten what crystal pepsi tasted like, and you want to relive the glory.
posted by jcterminal at 12:42 PM PST - 47 comments

UK Kids to Get £40 a Week to Stay in School. Schoolchildren are to be paid £40 a week to stay on at school as part of a multi-billion-pound revolution in secondary schools in England and Wales.
posted by ncurley at 11:15 AM PST - 37 comments

Sensitivity or Censorship? A fascinating article in the NY Times reveals that the the New York Board of Education is editing literary passages used on its high school exit exam to remove passages that might "make a student feel ill at ease" while taking the test. Deletions include all references, no matter how innocuous, to drugs, alcohol, homosexuality, God, race, Congress, unpaid U.N. dues, nudity, sex, violence, and much more. Some of the quoted authors, including Annie Dillard and Frank Conroy, are pretty upset with the state, especially since the passages don't indicate that they have been "revised." On the other hand, standardized tests are often criticized as being culturally biased so maybe this is a justifiable attempt to make students from different backgrounds feel equally at ease in taking the test. What do you think?
posted by boltman at 10:18 AM PST - 30 comments

The Glossarist is "a searchable directory of glossaries and topical dictionaries." Obvious enough. Topic areas are arranged in a Yahoo-like structure.
Now, go find out what all those obscure technical terms you've been wondering about mean.
posted by Su at 9:49 AM PST - 5 comments

Nuclear Issues in India and Pakistan. - Selected Internet Resources, from UC Berkeley.
INDYMEDIA INDIA: "We want Peace"
"The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) is deeply concerned at the campaign unleashed in India for a 'full-scale war' with Pakistan and the attempts at projecting a 'national consensus' in favour of such a war. While condemning strongly the latest terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir the CNDP appeals to all political leaders, policy-makers and legislators of India and Pakistan to ensure immediate pull-back of troops from their common border and to launch a dialogue to resolve all outstanding issues."
The Kashmir quandary I | The Kashmir quandary II | Peace, war and Hinduism | Kashmiris reject war in favour of democratic means: Survey
posted by sheauga at 8:35 AM PST - 21 comments

Back in the day . . . Remembering a time when the BBS was king.
posted by dogmatic at 9:58 PM PST - 60 comments

Steven Lightfoot believes that author Stephen King murdered John Lennon, with the blessings of Ronald Reagan. Mark David Chapman was just an innocent pawn in their evil game. Witness the lengths Steven Lightfoot goes to to prove his theories. Here's the story that the media doesn't want you to read.
posted by iconomy at 9:34 PM PST - 30 comments

The odd phenomenon of tribute bands. Heartfelt homage and harmless fun? Creepy obsession and pale imitation? Whatever you see it as, their numbers are swelling. Some that you'd expect, a few that'll surprise you, at least one that vaguely frightens me and one to which I say 'it's about time!'. Sincerest form of flattery or mild insanity? Your call.
posted by jonmc at 7:53 PM PST - 28 comments

Gullible Bum - "The Official Unofficial The The Site." A great web site with a brilliant interface for an incredible band. "Abandon your preconceptions about site navigation."
posted by dgeiser13 at 7:46 PM PST - 4 comments

The Typing Explosion. "These poets are good, sometimes even great, proving that musicians, dancers and actors aren't the only ones who can improvise their way into art." Ingenious, or simply deviceful recreation??
posted by protocool at 7:40 PM PST - 7 comments

Russian boy pulls 4 tonne jet fighter 1.5 metres with his hair. No wonder Bruce Khlebnikov is the world's strongest kid.
posted by Why at 5:07 PM PST - 10 comments

Syria takes over Security Council rotating presidency Now at long last we can get some good moral leadership. This is the same international organization of Truth, Peace, Justice that does not allow Israel a chance to join the rotating chair. Go ahead, flail me with posts, but kind of an organization is this?
posted by Postroad at 3:30 PM PST - 11 comments

Check out this soccer/baseball stadium. You can fold the baseball field and roll in the soccer one. Animation here. Amazing.
posted by sikander at 9:30 AM PST - 17 comments

Entire EU signs on to Kyoto Enviro Pact All 15 European Union nations ratified the Kyoto Protocol against global warming yesterday and goaded Washington, which has turned its back on the treaty, to do its part. The pact would have required the United States, which accounted for 36 percent of the industrialized world's greenhouse gas emissions in 1990, to trim emissions by 7 percent from 1990 levels.
posted by planetkyoto at 8:58 AM PST - 37 comments

China does great propaganda. From the Great Leap Forward to the 2008 Olympics, the posters tell the story and this guy collects 'em. My favorite so far is this one.
posted by hob at 7:37 AM PST - 7 comments

Summers of discontent ! "This article talks about how the children nowadays utilise their time 'constructively' and as a result, enroll in all kinds of classes and 'summer camps'. Although I consider these activities good, I wonder what happened to the summer holidays where all one used to do was play cricket, visit grandparents / relatives in villages / towns, make some innocuous prank and idle away the time without a thought about school and studies in mind ..."
posted by sheauga at 7:08 AM PST - 42 comments