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Dennis Miller Switches Teams It seems that Miller is stuping for Dubya now.
posted by turbanhead at 1:49 PM PST - 66 comments

"American Pie [the song] tells about the last decisive struggle between, Christian America and all the heathen armies of the world, who will be gathered on America's doorstep and according to the Bible, will invade America." "Could it be that "JESUS ACTUALLY FORETOLD THE ADVENT OF THE INTERNET?" [Warning: cheesy MIDI music background]
posted by kirkaracha at 1:05 PM PST - 21 comments

African Aperture. 'A website promoting the very best photographers who focus on Africa and providing a 'gateway' to current and past issues, to interesting and notable websites, to features and articles, relating to the themes as listed above.' Check out the gallery of photos of African life; then check out the links page, which leads to sites such as African Ceremonies, Nandiphotos: See Uganda through New Eyes, and Mirella Ricciardi's photos of Africa and children. Quite a collection.
posted by plep at 12:58 PM PST - 1 comment

Thank you for being a friend... (NYT req)... "Forget 'Sex and the City.' The Lifetime network has a hit on its hands with 'The Golden Girls.'" Everyone's favorite geriatric gabfest is the 3rd highest rated show on syndication. What makes those Miami bombshells so universally appealing and how fun is their website?
posted by adrober at 12:27 PM PST - 19 comments

"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did..." does this kind of talk coming from our president and the most powerful man in concern you? - or reassure you?
posted by specialk420 at 12:02 PM PST - 46 comments

No, seriously, they score by touching the opponent in the Valid Target Area. The touches are monitored electronically via wires coming out of the fencers' backs, similar to the technology used to control Dan Rather.
-from Dave Barry on Fencing in the humor section of Fencing Sucks.
posted by Shane at 11:28 AM PST - 30 comments

The Optigan: OPTIcal orGAN. Long before synthesizers, ProTools, and Cubase, Mattel released a bizarre contraption called the 'Optigan' which operated by assigning each key to a track on an optical disc on which were recorded sounds of real instruments playing every individual note. This site is one guy's obsession with the instrument that may well be dead and forgotten if not for him. Check out his mp3s of his own, reasonably successful, band based around the instrument, to see how it sounds.
posted by wackybrit at 8:58 AM PST - 18 comments

Larry Crump's Fireworks Pages. While searching for fireworks related sites, I came across this great site. I doubt you'll find a better resource for fireworks information. Mainly, I like looking at the pretty pictures. As Larry puts it, "Fireworks are an art form that use the night sky as the canvas." Sadly, Larry died exactly one year ago today. So, go check out his wonderful web site and maybe you can get some ideas for this weekend's July 4th celebration.
posted by fletchmuy at 8:49 AM PST - 7 comments

So the Dems love the latest Court ruling regarding Affirmative Action. A relatively new, but much discussed, theory called stereotype threat may have a profound affect upon newly renovated affirmative action policies within the US. Slightly more info. here.
posted by BlueTrain at 8:39 AM PST - 20 comments

Searching MSN for the phrase "Linux" yields some pretty amusing (but yes, unsurprising) results. The first site seems moderately legit - Amazon stuff related to linux. The second one - MSN has a tech section about Linux? Not exactly. It doesn't really have much linux content at first glance. The third link is most amusing - see for yourself.

Comparatively, a google search for "linux" yields much more useful results.

This makes me wonder: should ethics be taken into consideration on search engines? MS has every right to have whatever they want come up when you type in "linux" - but they are willfully contaminating search results, which makes one wonder what other search terms Microsoft might want to rig the output of, and also, which they might have overlooked...
posted by twiggy at 8:39 AM PST - 44 comments

Is Google God? "While you were sleeping after 9/11, not only has the process of technological integration continued, it has actually intensified — and this will have profound implications." "...Google, combined with Wi-Fi, is a little bit like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything. Throughout history, people connected to God without wires. Now, for many questions in the world, you ask Google, and increasingly, you can do it without wires, too." [NYTimes]
posted by jacknose at 8:07 AM PST - 22 comments

And God created Pele: Pele doesn't die. Pele will never die. Pele is going to go on for ever. But Edson is a normal person who is going to die one day, and the people forget that. Also of note: expensive photographs from eyestorm.
posted by aladfar at 7:18 AM PST - 16 comments

The Group of Seven. Arguably Canada's most important artists, the Group of Seven "popularized the concept of an art founded on the Canadian landscape, gave many Canadians a sense of national identity and enabled them to discover the beauty of their own country." Peruse an art gallery and marvel at the beauty they portrayed. (Mangled quote from the Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery) Equally important was Emily Carr. While her style was similar to that of the Group of Seven, her interest in First Nations became her trademark. Some of her paintings.
posted by ashbury at 7:18 AM PST - 9 comments

"The story really began in January 1953, when I suggested to Gordon that we might go on a cycling holiday together..." They covered 2,286 miles, slept in potting sheds, hay barns, and even a railway marshalling yard, and the whole trip cost them £24. Now, 50 years later, Roy Jenkin's daughter is planning to retrace/tread her father's path. Even if you're not into travelogues (past or present) the photos of post-WWII Europe are worth a gander.
posted by shoepal at 6:59 AM PST - 5 comments

The first anti-pr0n ad ever? Aired during Jackass, Howard Stern and similar programs oriented to a young-men demographic, it manages to upset porn and antiporn people ... as well as defenders of little people. Watch it at xxxchurch.com SFW as always ).
posted by magullo at 6:56 AM PST - 13 comments

"[T]he whole Marvel Universe is starting to occur 500 years early ...

Sir Nicholas Fury is head of the Queen's Intelligence, Dr Stephen Strange is her court physician (and magician), the Inquisition is torturing "witchbreed" ... and now a mysterious treasure -- which may be a weapon of some kind -- is being sent from Jerusalem to England by the last of the Templars. Something that may save the world, or destroy it, which has already attracted the attention of such people as Count Otto Von Doom (known as "The Handsome")... [so] Nicholas Fury sends his top agent, a blind Irish ballad singer named Matthew Murdock, off to bring it back safely."

What does it all mean? Just that Neil Gaiman is taking Marvel back to 1602.
posted by grabbingsand at 6:41 AM PST - 16 comments

Ballpoint pen from Trinidad: US$8,500. Rocket launcher to Israel: US$52. How multinational companies use absurd prices to dodge taxation, worldwide.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 5:19 AM PST - 11 comments

The CIA's problems with terrorism began way way way before to 9/11 (Happy Monday Morning!)
posted by ( .)(. ) at 4:49 AM PST - 9 comments

Are you hypocritical about God? And don't cheat.
posted by PenDevil at 3:40 AM PST - 63 comments

Why Must America Always Be The Greatest? Be it the greatest sham or show on earth; why is American nationalism and anti-nationalism always couched in hyperbole and a childish hankering for being number 1, whether in the best or the worst senses? Dinesh d'Souza's interesting list of ten reasons to celebrate why he's an anti-anti-American, although passionate and partly persuasive, ultimately fails to convince because of this constant desire to make the U.S. great by artificially and ignorantly belittling or aggrandizing supposed competitors. Perhaps it's not all a game and America is quite simply an OK country, with a standard battery of qualities and shortcomings, like most OK countries in the world?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:02 AM PST - 59 comments

Man Sells Fake Bronze, Gets Paid With Fake Cash. From the You-Can't-Trust-Anyone-Anymore Dept.: "A Vietnamese man who used cow fat and paint to pass off a lump of iron as valuable black bronze found buyers, but was paid in counterfeit bills."
posted by tpoh.org at 10:02 PM PST - 9 comments

Oasis: a writing community for queer and questioning youth. Happy biggest ever Pride Day from Toronto, everyone!
posted by stonerose at 7:30 PM PST - 12 comments

creepy marionettes
posted by crunchland at 5:03 PM PST - 8 comments

The Maxims of François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. He was on the losing side in the Fronde, and later became a luminary of the salons of 17th century France, more particularly the salon of Mme. de Sable at Port-Royal, who wrote a neat Maxim or too, herself. Also on topic are Mots Français and Four Essays on Writing and Sentences by Peter Kalkavage.
posted by y2karl at 4:32 PM PST - 7 comments

The shrunken head page describes how real ones are made and has instructions so you can make your own fake shrunken head! From Wonderfull and Wierd Science, which has links to other gems such as Kitchen Science Experiments ( make your own Tesla Coil! ), and to the creepy Nocturnal Assault Research Center.
posted by troutfishing at 4:23 PM PST - 3 comments

Katharine Hepburn dies
posted by feelinglistless at 4:19 PM PST - 48 comments

Bizarre results showing elevated levels of NON-depleted uranium in Afghan civilians who showed symptoms of uranium poisoning following Operation Enduring Freedom. "Uranium levels found in the Afghan civilians’ urine are 4-20 times higher than those of a control group and the isotopic signature is that of Non-Depleted Uranium. The only explanations of this finding are either anomalous geological and agricultural conditions (fertilizers) or the presence of uranium extracted from the front-end of the fuel or weapons production cycles. [...] There are no geological, commercial and agricultural phenomena or activities and uses in the environs of the contaminated populations that might explain the contamination." This is very odd. [via wrh; these preliminary results are unpublished but UMRC’s Gulf War Veterans’ studies are in peer-reviewed journals]
posted by Bletch at 4:14 PM PST - 13 comments

A US Constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage. Bill Frist, the Majority leader in the US Senate, is spreading the Word.
posted by four panels at 2:34 PM PST - 123 comments

In China they have re-eductaion camps, to enlighten people in the way they should regard the Chinese government and state. In America, parents can send their children somewhere to be trained to adopt a more agreeable attitude, too. The World Wide Association of Speciality Programs runs camps all over the world, including one at Tranquility Bay in Jamaica where children are held against their will and subjected to a regime of behaviour and thought modification until they adopt the behaviour and thinking that the camp's administartion approves of. I found myself reading this detailed and lengthy account of the camp's practices and growing furious with rage at the brainwashing sanctioned by ignorant parents, who seem happy with their new obedient and adoring children. See what you think. Part one. Part two.
posted by Blue Stone at 12:53 PM PST - 27 comments

Art for a Change. An archive of such things as punk portraits, the German Expressionists, Spanish Civil War posters, Paris 1968 posters; art protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Alberto Korba and his famous photo of Che Guevara; and more politically oriented art.
Related :- anarchist posters from Europe, Australia and North America; John Heartfield versus Hitler (gallery of Heartfield's anti-Nazi photo-montages); Aum Shinrikyo: Japanese Wanted poster art ('The Japanese police made art to capture members of Aum Shinrikyo. We made art to capture the essence of a surreal modern Japan, governed by fear.'); the history and meaning of the CND logo (a.k.a. the 'peace symbol'); posters of pre-1945 Japanese labour movements.
posted by plep at 12:52 PM PST - 6 comments

Scripting News is taking a break. "I'm shutting down Scripting News now, to give me some time to think, and to give you all a demo of what it would be like if it weren't here. These last few days have been really awful. You can't imagine what it's like to have so many people screaming at you. It's inhuman, especially considering that my health isn't that good. The only conclusion I can come to is that I shouldn't be doing this." That said, it looks like Dave is still making updates at http://scriptingnews.userland.com/.
posted by mrbula at 12:39 PM PST - 47 comments

Images of medieval architecture. A great site put together by Alison Stones, Professor of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. There are two large gazetteers, one for Britain, and one for France. Besides photos, there are many plans, sketches and elevation drawings, which help to give an idea of the sheer scale of gothic cathedrals such as the cathedral of Saint-Étienne at Bourges (scroll down for the human figures at the bottom).
posted by carter at 8:33 AM PST - 7 comments

Welcome to the Machine This article in the Washington Monthly describes a long term project of the Republican party to change the largely bipartisan nature of K street lobbying firms and install Republican thought leaders. In return for political benefits to the lobbyists clients, the lobbyists and their clients are expected to play nice with the Republicans on other issues. K Street has been a moderating influence against drastic change, as some constituent always objects. Under this new right-wing symbiotic relationship, individual interests are somewhat subordinated to the right-wing agenda. One of the more fascinating aspects is how it dramatically improves Republican fundraising; for instance:"For years, conservatives have been pushing to divert part of Social Security into private investment accounts. Such a move, GOP operatives argued, would provide millions of new customers and potentially trillions of dollars to the mutual fund industry that would manage the private accounts. The profits earned would, of course, be shared with the GOP in the form of campaign contributions. In other words, by sluicing the funds collected by the federal government's largest social insurance program through businesses loyal to the GOP, the party would instantly convert the crown jewels of Democratic governance into a pillar of the new Republican machine. " Of course the whole premise of this system rests upon continued Republican control. If the Democrats can wrest back control of the House and Senate, or install another strong president some of these lobbyists and their constituents will likely find themselves closed out of the process. Oh what a lovely way to govern. (via The Filibuster)
posted by caddis at 5:40 AM PST - 29 comments

Paul Anka was born in Ottawa. Guy Lombardo hailed from London, Ontario. Believe it or not, but the Auld Lang Syne that we sing at New Year's was popularized by him. Neil Young was born in Toronto and sang (sometimes) about Canada. Oscar Peterson is from Montreal. Canadiana Suite, 1964. How have these amazing Canadian musicians affected your life, if at all? Are there other Canadian musicians that the world should know about, but for some reason does not (like the Tragically Hip, or Holly Cole, say)?
posted by ashbury at 11:48 PM PST - 70 comments

Irony in a Nutshell. Not an O'Reilly publication, but you can use it to teach yourself Irony in 24 hours. For dummies. And a reference for the rest of us.
posted by weston at 9:34 PM PST - 27 comments

Just Because They're Celebrity Chefs Doesn't Mean They Aren't Damn Fine Cooks: We're all supposed to yawn when it comes to TV Chefs, but that's just as silly as ignoring a writer or an actress because they're famous. Wolfgang Puck's website, for instance, is generously full of the most enticing recipes. On another note, my favourite TV chef, Rick Stein, has online a superb list of UK suppliers. Do you know of any other cuisine auteurs on the Web who are as generous with their savvy? Which chef wouldn't you mind having as your own private cook?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:54 PM PST - 35 comments

Fun things to do with your wiener. (Totally safe for work.)
posted by Wet Spot at 6:15 PM PST - 7 comments

GLAMORLUX Cool Collections ~ vintage photos, movie posters, book covers and album covers from Hollywood's golden era.
posted by crunchland at 4:30 PM PST - 6 comments

They sold everything from Earthquake Pills (caution: not effective on Road Runners) to Trick Balls (warning: explode on contact!). They may be the world's most diverse goods & services company, with the possible exception of Wal Mart. I speak, of course, of the fine folks at ACME, whose full catalog is finally available online. Go, now, read! Don't make me use my Ultimatum Dispatcher!
posted by jonson at 3:31 PM PST - 19 comments

Gallery of Fluid Dynamics. 'One of the most attractive features of fluid mechanics is the beauty of the flows one encounters. Whether one is observing vortex streets, the potential flow around an airfoil or body, shock refraction or diffraction, or waves breaking on a beach the aesthetic appeal of fluid mechanics is impossible to deny. '
posted by plep at 12:40 PM PST - 6 comments

The Mullet - Bollywood Style!! Ah, the mullet. Absolut Films tells of the birth of this maligned sartorial trend in "Mulit", a tongue-in-cheek branded content piece with '70s Bollywood flair. Both a :60 trailer and feature, "Mulit" is a musical love story about a man, a woman and an unfinished haircut that transcends class structures, fashion trends and predilections for bad hair. Without such roots, phrases like the 'short-long', 'hockey hair' and 'work in front, party in back' would be meaningless and '80s rock would still be searching for a signature style.
posted by turbanhead at 12:06 PM PST - 9 comments

No Brainer - I've eaten a lot of Tofu in my day and was concerned about "brain-shrink". Then I found about this, and stopped worrying - Is your brain really necessary? Apparently not:

"...The student in question was academically bright, had a reported IQ of 126 and was expected to graduate. When he was examined by CAT-scan, however, Lorber discovered that he had virtually no brain at all." I'm hungry...where's that tofu?...
posted by troutfishing at 10:00 AM PST - 48 comments

“. . . just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.” Even the soon-to-be St. Theresa had moments of atheism; although this essay is too devotional for me (and doesn't even mention Hitchens's take) it does humanize the calcutta nun's experience for me. via aldaily.
posted by mdn at 7:56 AM PST - 17 comments

hearts of space: since 1983, stephen hill has been producing hearts of space, an hour long show for public radio devoted to ambient music. occasionally new agey but mostly culling brilliantly moody instrumental pieces from traditional, global and cutting edge backgrounds, hearts of space brings brian eno's idea of aural wallpaper into a world that forgets about subtlety.

unfortunately, the entire programme archive requires a subscription, but the playlists are complete and have links where appropriate. otherwise, american listeners can find a local broadcast (or via satellite radio).
posted by myopicman at 4:59 AM PST - 17 comments

Saline Slug Labyrinth
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:04 PM PST - 18 comments

Something to think about while you plan your weekend . . . Mmmmmm, Canadian beer: Sleeman - Annoying Flash site, great music. Labatt - annoying pop up ad with a fantastic idea. Molson - another annoying pop-up, but it's The Stone's! Click on Don Cherry for some fashion. And who can forget about The Rant? Then there's the mother of beer sites, Beer.com, featuring beer, sex, music, fun and free. Admit it, nothing compares to beer, especially Canadian beer.
posted by ashbury at 5:25 PM PST - 33 comments

Don Swaim has posted numerous unedited interviews recorded in the 1980's with famous authors, including Anthony Burgess (who has some troubles recalling "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"), Douglas Adams, William S. Burroughs, and many more... even Richard Nixon. (RealAudio)
posted by starkeffect at 4:05 PM PST - 6 comments

Pot doesn't cause permanent brain damage? According to this University of California at San Diego study, no it doesn't even though other illegal drugs, even alcohol, can cause brain damage.

"...marijuana has only a marginally harmful long-term effect on learning and memory."
posted by Ron at 3:41 PM PST - 32 comments

The Key Art Awards honor theatrical trailers, posters, TV commercials, Internet ads and more. Here are this year's winners.
posted by Frank Grimes at 3:17 PM PST - 2 comments

Is soy safe? As an ardent herbivore, I was pretty shocked to learn that tofu can shrink your brain. In a major ongoing study involving 3,734 elderly Japanese-American men, those who ate the most tofu during midlife had up to 2.4 times the risk of later developing Alzheimer's disease. [...] higher midlife tofu consumption was also associated with low brain weight. (a dissenting opinion)

Could it be that little ole bean, found in over half of the food on supermarket shelves, is bad for you? [more inside]
posted by mcsweetie at 2:25 PM PST - 37 comments

Must not click ... must not click ... oh hell. ".. marry the infinite porn resources of the Net to the endlessness of male sexual desire, underpin it with consumer culture, and men can end up practically frigging themselves to death." Sean Thomas in the UK Spectator 'fesses up to porn addiction. It's a real, new and hidden problem which landed him in hospital. What to do?
posted by grahamwell at 1:53 PM PST - 60 comments

headacher
posted by crunchland at 1:11 PM PST - 26 comments

Painting the Weather. Fine art about meteorological phenomena.
posted by plep at 12:37 PM PST - 4 comments

< earshot >
Live improvisation with digital audio. Play, loop and compose with multiple sound file formats, including: wav, aif, aiff, aifc, mov, au, mid, mp3, swa, mpg, mpeg, snd... Found while Googlifying for links to the currently tanked Johnny Spencer's 'vanity site' directed towards fans of Black popular music c1940's to 1970's. I have not a clue as to the what or why of it but thought the teeming geeky horde might. Provided for your consumer testing.
posted by y2karl at 12:34 PM PST - 6 comments

How Not To Be A Summer Law Clerk, Or: the guy who sent the incredibly stupid and self-incriminating e-mail to all the associates in his firm. (I find this especially amusing since I am writing this from the law firm where I am a summer clerk. Now I'll probably get busted too!)
posted by adrober at 12:14 PM PST - 19 comments

No winner in MoveOn primary... but Dean places first, with 4387%. No candidate getting over 50% means no endorsement for now. But more people voted in this virtual Democratic primary than voted in the New Hampshire, Iowa, and North Carolina Democratic primaries/caucuses in 2000.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:45 AM PST - 66 comments

Giving Credit where credit is due. For your Friday browsing pleasure, may I present the staff at NPR's CarTalk. Enjoy!
The Conclusive, Definitive, Official Dewey, Cheetham, & Howe Staff List In the good old days, we had an engineer and a rotary telephone with a couple of buttons on it. We pressed a button and--BINGO-- someone was on the air. Of course, it was usually a wrong number...but that's the price you pay for simplicity. Now look at the mess we're in! Thousands of people on the staff...all trying to do less work than us. What a revoltin' development this is. Look at all these employees! But despite our huge payroll--we're always hiring. So if you know of someone who may be worthy to join our crack(ed) staff, send his/her/its name and potential position to the Car Talk Plaza Personnel Department via e-mail to Dewey, Cheetham and Howe.
posted by nofundy at 10:38 AM PST - 10 comments

Baysian spam filter for outlook. Installation was a snap, and it works so well, it's surreal. I'd heard a lot of good things about Baysian spam filters. but this was beyond belief. The damn thing actualy detected legitimate mails that I had accidentaly thrown away!
_{more gushing inside}
posted by delmoi at 8:01 AM PST - 43 comments

A gallery of obscure patents.
Bird diapers, a motorized ice cream cone and an apparatus for simulating a "high five" are among the treasures unearthed by delphion's gallery of incredible but real US patents.
See also their gallery of historic patents, featuring, among others, the patent for the hypodermic syringe (1843).
posted by talos at 7:59 AM PST - 6 comments

Directly from the Horse Rider's Mouth... Paul Revere’s personal account of his 1775 ride through the countryside relates a tale less an individual effort than a team one. via Baseball Crank
posted by vito90 at 7:35 AM PST - 8 comments

Love sushi? Love race cars? Wish there was some way to combine the two? Supaa Sushi Races. Like Wacky Races, but with joy of driving sushi. Flash, possibly NSFW if you think a cartoon woman with her top off would be a bit much.
posted by Katemonkey at 7:27 AM PST - 7 comments

Play the Minimum Wage Game. Educational Friday Flash Fun. Well, sorta.
posted by Cerebus at 7:08 AM PST - 36 comments

Over 2000 wealthy tax payers paid no tax in 2000. Meanwhile, states are plunging into budget deficits. Perhaps the tax cuts are meant not to spur the economy, but to defund social programs?
posted by the fire you left me at 6:19 AM PST - 17 comments

IE in bug fix mode? Then fix the bugs! As was mentioned here before, MS is discontinuing the free version of IE for Mac, and offering it only as part of the MSN service instead. They also appear to be doing the same with IE for Windows. The Web Standards Project is demanding that they include standards bugs in the list they are going to fix, because MS has always advertised IE as standards-compliant.
posted by setmajer at 6:03 AM PST - 32 comments

"If people want to know about it, they should know I won the contest." On the day of the historic Supreme Court decision, New Jersey's Democratic Party embarrasses itself big time, as the Sussex County party chairman wants a candidate for State Senate to quit the race because he "entered a photo contest in New York City that featured nudity".
What the AP story says: The candidate, semi-famous for being the runner-up on 'Reality' Game Show The Mole and one of "People Magazine's 50 Most Eligible Bachelors", really is named Jim Morrison (TVTome database embarrassment)
What the AP story didn't say: (local newspaper story) Morrison is openly gay, it was a "prettiest penis contest", and it was made public more than two years ago. And the party chair's real problem with Morrison is his winning the primary as a 'write-in' (scroll down to "Legislature '03") Now what bothers me about this guy is that when he was on "Mole", his occupation was "helicopter pilot", and now he's "a partner in his parents' law firm". Now that's "family values"...
posted by wendell at 3:58 AM PST - 14 comments

No More Dinnertime Telemarketing Calls Finally, over the objections of the telemarketing industry and to the delight of every American who ever had a romantic dinner at home interrupted by some schlub with a headset, an autodialer and a terrible sales script, the National Do Not Call Registry is open for business.
posted by twsf at 3:06 AM PST - 52 comments

Greed May Not Be Good, But It Sure Comes Easy And Feels Lovely, Thank You Very Much: Just how greedy are you? Lately I've been rereading Rabelais's outrageous, politically incorrect, magnificently written Everyman's edition of Gargantua and Pantagruel, in Thomas Urquhart's and Peter Anthony Motteux's no less magnificent translation [pdf file]. Everything in this 16th Century book seems to address us and challenge us to be - how shall I put it? - up to it. It's rolicking; bawdy; irresistible. Too much is not enough, indeed. Just how valuable is excess of all sorts? Very, I'd say. And this century presents unique opportunities for overdoing it in the most delightful way, wot, wot?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:18 AM PST - 13 comments

CNN reports that Strom Thurmond died about an ago, this time for real. The South Carolina senator first served as state senator in 1933, went on to become governor in 1947, and won his Senate seat in 1954. In the last years of his term, the recently-retired Senator was barely functional, unable to so much as wield a gavel. Thurmond will likely be remembered for leading the opposition to civil rights for blacks in the mid-20th century. Strom Thurmond was 100 years old.
posted by waldo at 7:52 PM PST - 96 comments

The Box Office Oracle You pick the writer, director, genre, actrons, budget, rating and month of release. You get projected box office receipts, chance of winning an Oscar and critics most likely to praise and pan your movie. There's even a BOO Hall of Fame. [via All Movie Guide reviewer Matthew Tobey]
posted by mediareport at 6:19 PM PST - 24 comments

The "Goodie Box" at Amazon is $9.99. It has a $10.00 rebate. No word on what's in it or when to expect it. Order it find out I guess, then send in your rebate and get your money back. Any guesses? A Mystery box for $4 shipping cost is intriguing enough for me to try it. I have mine on order, anyone else?
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 5:29 PM PST - 41 comments

The Windshield Killer: Chante Mallard's Timeline of Shame details what this woman did on the evening leading up to her high speed hit and attempted run when she was on drugs, had been drinking and hit a 37 year old homeless man named Gregory Biggs on the highway. After he lodged in her windshield, she tried to pull him out but couldn't. Instead she drove home, parked the car in the garage and let him bleed to death over the next two hours. Why didn't she call the police or a doctor? She was too scared (read that, too wasted). Instead she had her boyfriend and cousin come and dump the body in a nearby park. Today she was found guilty in 50 minutes by the jury.
posted by fenriq at 4:45 PM PST - 47 comments

I am STUNNED by this story, highlighting recent comments by a former Japanese cabinet member. In a discussion about the declining number of children in Japan, Seiichi Ota of the Liberal Democratic Party said that gang-rape is a sign of virility, and that its perpetrators are "close to normal."
posted by hammurderer at 4:22 PM PST - 87 comments

Rumsfeld accuses Saddam of being a camper. "...he's probably wallhacking too". More funny stuff from bbspot. And via Dor-Lomin
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:23 PM PST - 15 comments

Hey everybody, it's Appropriate Michael Savage's name for your own purposes day! With contributions from Haypenny, über, Neal Pollack himself, and much, much, more, all in response to these threats.
posted by kickingtheground at 1:55 PM PST - 19 comments

The Rideau Canal is 202 kilometers long, goes from Ottawa to Kingston, Ontario, has 45 locks at 24 lock stations, and you can skate on it during Winterlude. More facts, a photo gallery. If I had the chance (and the money), I'd be renting me a boat and heading to eastern Ontario.
posted by ashbury at 1:30 PM PST - 14 comments

Doc Savage Pulp Covers, 1933-1949.
posted by crunchland at 1:09 PM PST - 18 comments

Would you prefer this to being patted down? A scanner the government is testing for airport screening reveals much more than meets the eye to be comfortable for most passengers. The agency hopes to modify the machines with an electronic fig leaf - programming that fuzzes out sensitive body parts or distorts the body so it does not appear so, well, graphic.
posted by orange swan at 12:29 PM PST - 38 comments

Ever had the urge to don a pair of tight pants, oil yourself up and grapple another man? Then you should head on over to the Kirkpinar Greased Wrestling Festival in Edirne, held each year at the end of June. But beware; the moves can be highly dirty and involve battering your opponent around the head, pulling their ears and even pushing your hand into your opponents shorts and squeezing their testicles. This sure isn't your father's wrasslin'!
posted by debralee at 11:35 AM PST - 8 comments

The 2003 Folk Life Festival, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution, is underway on the Mall. As in most recent years, The Commonwealth of Israel is there, too. Who are they? What do they want? And, most importantly, how do they get permission to set up their tents on the Mall?
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:33 AM PST - 6 comments

Back when beer was good. "The stubby beer bottle was used by the Canadian breweries between 1961 and 1986, replacing the old long neck beer bottle. The stubby was a very sturdy bottle and could be refilled numerous times. In 1983 Carling O'Keefe Breweries began bottling Miller in a US style private mould bottle and soon after the other breweries also switched over to their own private mould bottles. Most of these bottles were then discontinued after a few years because of the cost and replaced with a common long neck beer bottle, but the stubby was abandoned."
posted by monkeymike at 11:08 AM PST - 41 comments

Nananana, nananana, hey hey hey, goodbye. AmeriCorps, thanks for the memories.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 11:07 AM PST - 17 comments

You too can discover the wonders of Scientology. Please take with you this educational material straight from the 70's. [via Daypop]
posted by Dr_Octavius at 10:37 AM PST - 27 comments

Want to serve your country, but you're not exactly up for being a marine? If you know an instrument well, then not to worry...join "The President's Own", the official USMC band! Unlike other USMC bands that are put together from Marine Corps regulars, musicians in the President's Own are enlisted specifically for playing in the band (MOS 9811). You have all the rank, privileges, pay, and snappy uniforms as a Staff Sergeant upon entry, and you can even work yourself up to colonel! You get all the benefits, like seeing the world and free haircuts, provided you meet height and weight requirements, and can meet certain physical criteria (try marching for 10 hours a day)....and NO BOOT CAMP...that's right...they're the only unit in the Armed Forces that doesn't require any military training before joining. And of course, one the coolest things about the Marine Corps band, is that you follow in the footsteps of John Philip Sousa, who enlisted when he was friggin 13.
posted by taumeson at 8:20 AM PST - 19 comments

Supreme Court wisely rules that you can't legislate morality and that privacy between consenting adults is a-ok as the Texas sodomy law (that applies to homosexuals only) is struck down. Ruling invalidates other remaining sodomy laws on the books. Dancing in the streets ensues. And as usual, Scalia gets to add his wisecracks in the dissent. [via SCOTUSblog]
posted by mathowie at 8:00 AM PST - 140 comments

Are you familiar with the Stirling engine? The Stirling engine creates a rotational force from the expansion and contraction of air heated by an external heat source. Due to the external, controlled nature of combustion they have potential application in eco-friendly power or where silent operation is desirable. Best of all, Stirling engines are simple to construct and can be pieced together from common household goods. If you're looking for something a bit more attractive, there are plenty of kits and preassembled units available. Thanks, Reverend Stirling!
posted by jammer at 7:31 AM PST - 19 comments

Ethics cost money - The Los Angeles Times discusses the effect of Levi Strauss's ethical standards on their place in a competitive marketplace. Can a company succeed when they place their morals ahead of their money?
posted by Argyle at 7:25 AM PST - 9 comments

Lawrence Northey's portfolio of robot sculptures. Meet the charming Teen Tokyo, the elegant Robot Queen and her entourage, and others in a delightful cast of characters. The artist creates some very cool rayguns too! Northey's works are in the spirit of Clayton Bailey, the robot artist extraodinaire. (via La Petite Claudine)
posted by madamjujujive at 5:50 AM PST - 4 comments

In 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... 1... 1... 1... "In this footage obtained exclusively by The Memory Hole, watch as the President of the United States sits and does nothing after learning that his country is under attack." Andrew Card whispers about plane #2, POTUS remains engrossed in book. (Warning: Quicktime, little kids reading slowly in unison for five long minutes.)
posted by emelenjr at 4:49 AM PST - 141 comments

Digital Collections at the Ewell Sale Stewart Library: including A Delight for the Eye and the Mind, 'books on molluscs and their shells'; The Remarkable Nature of Edward Lear (Natural History illustrations by the famous 'nonsense poet'); Nature's Great Masterpiece: The Elephant; Foul and Loathsome Creatures (‘Illustrated Herpetological Books’); and Drawn from the Deep (‘The Fish in Science, Art and the Imagination’).
posted by misteraitch at 4:30 AM PST - 2 comments

The Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. "I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth,--you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."

Black Elk speaks.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 3:50 AM PST - 8 comments

The Fun Folks at Fox are giving the C&D Smackdown to "Faux News" and "O'Reilly Youth" t-shirts. The same people who taunted anti-war protesters with their news marquee are showing a shortfall of sense of humor. But always remember "there's no such thing as bad publicity", so the attacked site's web traffic is up. Anybody know a good intellectual property lawyer who'd work for t-shirts?
posted by wendell at 2:29 AM PST - 16 comments

Go On, Give Us A Song, One From The 21st Century! Mine is Comforting Sounds from the Danish quartet Mew, whose wonderful website I thoroughly recommend. [Windows Media involved.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:34 AM PST - 6 comments

The Albuquerque Bosque is on fire. Bosque is spanish for woods that grow along a river bank and these woods are within feet of homes of Albuquerque, New Mexico residents. The bosque is along the Rio Grande river that runs through the state's largest city and includes a nature center and towering cottonwood trees that are over 100's of years old. Yesterday and tonight over 1000 acres are going up like a match. The Rio Grande bosque is a state treasure (with a national wild refuge ). We now have seven fires in New Mexico. Albuquerque is losing a natural treasure tonight... very sad to hear this may be arson.
posted by jabo at 10:46 PM PST - 13 comments

Man exercises personal liberty to ride nearly naked. Within 2 months of the story he dies, likely falling off a cliff, after having been arrested for earlier for a lack of clothes. A tragedy. Who is willing to take his place? [Links from Jester69/#mefi]
posted by shepd at 9:09 PM PST - 8 comments

Google Toolbar 2.0 I can't live without my Google toolbar for IE on the PC (Safari's built-in Google-search, while less functional, takes care of me on the Mac). This new version of the Google toolbar features popup blocking, autofill, and a "blog this" button. What other browser toolbars/gizmos make life easier for Joe Websurfer?
posted by jdroth at 8:45 PM PST - 30 comments

Nuke components found in Baghdad back yard. U.S. officials say it is no smoking gun but investigators point out that there is no way they would ever have found these components buried in a barrel in a back yard under a rose garden for 12 years unless someone such as this Iraqi scientist came forward.
posted by Ron at 8:33 PM PST - 43 comments

Spent my lunch hour today in the company of Tate Liverpool and more particularly the Janet Cardiff installation Forty Part Motet: "Using (a) piece of secular music as a starting point and working with four male voices (bass, baritone, alto and tenor) and child sopranos, Cardiff has replaced each voice with an audio speaker. The speakers are set at an average head height and spaced in such a way that viewers can listen to different voices and experience different combinations and harmonies as they progress through the work." It's an example of art as experience, the viewer (or in this case listener's) perception of the work as important as the thing itself. [more]
posted by feelinglistless at 3:06 PM PST - 6 comments

RIAA: Stop, or we will sue fresh from its victory against Verizon, the RIAA gears up to go head to head with individual users of P2P. Run and hide!
posted by FearTormento at 2:51 PM PST - 17 comments

Scariest mug shot ever. So says the Smoking Gun. And hell, they should know.
posted by CunningLinguist at 2:06 PM PST - 78 comments

German propaganda. "Who is Adolf Hitler? The man from the people, for the people! The German front soldier who risked his life in 48 battles for Germany! What does Adolf Hitler want? Freedom and food for every decent working German! The gallows for profiteers, black marketeers and exploiters, regardless of religious faith or race! Why is Adolf Hitler not allowed to speak? Because he is ruthless in uncovering the rulers of the German economy, the international bank Jews their lackeys, the Democrats, Marxists, Jesuits and Free Masons! Because he wants to free the workers from the domination of race! Working Germans! Demand the lifting of the illegal ban on his speaking!"
posted by the fire you left me at 1:57 PM PST - 24 comments

Today marks one hundred years since the birth of George Orwell. He may have died in 1950, just after finishing his master work, but he has remained culturally relevant ever since, and never more so than during the past two years.
posted by Silune at 1:39 PM PST - 6 comments

Victorian Visions of the Year 2000.
posted by crunchland at 12:34 PM PST - 20 comments

Railway hotels. To go with yesterday's post, today I bring you the hotel's that were built alongside the railway. Some of the gradients were so acute that when the train ascended or descended, the table settings and food flew in all directions. The weight of the cars added to the problem, as they were too much for the locomotives of the day, and the cars had to be left at the beginning of the railway's path up the mountain passes. Obviously passengers needed to be fed so a solution had to be found as soon as possible. Have you been to any of these hotels, and if so, what was your impression? Do you have any favorite hotels?
posted by ashbury at 11:03 AM PST - 7 comments

Sheer Nuttiness... According to the Washington Post, the RIAA is following up on the successful suit to force Verizon to identify four file traders, with a series of mass-lawsuits targeting potentially hundreds of file traders. With 57 million active file traders in the P2P networks alone, this is the beginning of an ugly new future.
posted by jonson at 10:50 AM PST - 68 comments

Saranda's Story. 'My name is Saranda and I am 13 years old. I moved to Liverpool from Kosovo three years ago ... '
posted by plep at 10:47 AM PST - 5 comments

We're all gonna die! But how? Wired breaks down the likelihood of ten (and a half) options.
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:59 AM PST - 18 comments

Dancing dog, schmancing dog. Walking dogs is where it's at (you'll see). A dog tale deserving of a 'standing' ovation. I still say, dogs rule! [video link under the last image on the left]
posted by Witty at 9:38 AM PST - 10 comments

New Zealand legalises prostitution ...which means frustrated Kiwi's can now pay a woman for sex, as opposed to chasing sheep....(j/k)
posted by tomcosgrave at 9:28 AM PST - 27 comments

It's Summer Camp Time!
Looking at summer camps to send your brats beloved children to for a week personal sanity at home? Look no further! Here it is!
Students will discover the deception of evolution, the importance of purity and morals in a free society, and the pagan connection to the radical environmental movement. Your teen will learn the importance of prayer and action. Most importantly, students will learn that in order to restore America, we must return America to Christ.
Now get out of here and go sign your little tykes up today! It's the patriotic and Christian thing to do. And don't forget the camp needs volunteers.
posted by nofundy at 7:40 AM PST - 54 comments

The tiny Picture Book Of Foods is an invaluable resource for true foodies everywhere. Learn where many of your favorite foods really come from. There are also growing secrets, educational cross-sections, and recipe tips. And pancakes.
posted by iconomy at 7:39 AM PST - 9 comments

Vatican Art is now viewable online at the Vatican website. View the Sistine Chapel and Raphael's Rooms in all their glory (sort of).
posted by nthdegx at 5:48 AM PST - 5 comments

Wallace Cartwright, a lobster fisherman from Cape Breton Island, describes his recent encounter with a sea serpent: "It had a head on it like a sea turtle, and it had a body like a snake...about as big around as a five-gallon bucket." Perhaps Nessie has relatives abroad? The more likely explanation, however, is that Wallace had a rare glimpse of one of these strange creatures of the deep.
posted by debralee at 4:54 AM PST - 15 comments

They're not just puppets, they're gay puppets! Orbitz.com, the travel site that is the #2 pop-under advertiser on the Web recently launched a series of TV commercials obviously inspired by the marionettes on "Thunderbirds", complete with a related 'microsite' warning: flash animation and characters whose eyes follow your mouse. Now, in order to promote their "gay travel" sub-site, they've slightly altered one of their ads to change who's eye-ing the "eye candy". Enough of a shock to make me reverse my Tivo, but a welcome change from the "gay panic" themes of recent spots for alcoholic beverages, like Bailey's Irish Cream and Smirnoff Triple Black Ice ("The Brad" ad is particularly weird to me, since among us old skool bloggers, The Brad was pointing out "gay panic" in TV ads back in August 2000.
posted by wendell at 1:59 AM PST - 19 comments

Getting The Hell Out Of Africa: An excellent article by R.W. Johnson describes the forces now driving out many African whites and quietly despairs. Post-colonial blues are sad and riddled with guilt and lost hopes. How far does collective guilt impinge on the individual? What if there is no guilt at all? What is the white man and woman's place in 21st Century Africa? I wonder whether it isn't still too early to think clearly about the many delicate issues involved. But then an all-black Africa wouldn't be Africa. Would it?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:27 AM PST - 18 comments

'Superweeds' signal setback for genetically modified crops.
posted by thedailygrowl at 12:08 AM PST - 21 comments

Sesame Seventies is an informational website about the three disco-related Muppets/Sesame Street records released in the 1970s. It makes for a good argument in favor of file-sharing, it reveals some of the stranger children's music of the past twenty or so years, and it's cute. (warning, some flash)
posted by pxe2000 at 11:41 PM PST - 19 comments

Beware of the Homo Handshake! Will "Gaydar" finally meet its demise?
posted by LexRockhard at 9:04 PM PST - 14 comments

a little hint of things to come in 2004 from the bush team. slate link with popups
apparently they are still working on content for few areas, specifically: the environment and "more hispanic photos"
posted by specialk420 at 7:47 PM PST - 10 comments

"Taryn Simon: The Innocents" Is an exhibition at MOMA's P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center, of large color photographs of innocent men jailed for crimes they did not commit, exonerated by DNA evidence. For most of the photographs Ms. Simon posed each man at the scene of the arrest, the scene of the crime, the scene of misidentification or the scene of the alibi.
posted by jdaura at 5:56 PM PST - 6 comments

This interview with a "pro-choice" suicide site owner is an interesting read. The website she runs was linked to a few suicides earlier this year, but she contends the site helps people cope and prevents more than it enables. [via k diggity]
posted by mathowie at 3:11 PM PST - 59 comments

Oddmusic is for anyone interested in unique, unusual, ethnic, or experimental music and instruments, according to the site. The gallery is full of strange instruments - some are beautiful, some are whimsical, and some are just silly. Many have samples to listen to, including the noisy-but-impressive Lego Harpsichord.
posted by ukamikanasi at 2:57 PM PST - 9 comments

The War Profiteers Card Deck. Not only is Saddam still running free, but so is Sam Nunn.
posted by zedzebedia at 1:56 PM PST - 11 comments

This was originally posted over three years ago, but has been significantly updated since that time with the addition of many new Flame Warriors. I thought it was worth another look-see. I hope it's new to most of you, because it's a good laugh.
posted by vito90 at 1:41 PM PST - 9 comments

Katinka Matson's scanned flower art : technology lets the flowers speak. "...imagine a painter who could, like Vermeer, capture the quality of light that a camera can, but with the color of paints. That is what a scanner gives you.... In her flowers one can see every microscopic dew drop, leaf vein, and particle of pollen—in satisfying rich pigmented color....." (scroll down for images)
posted by troutfishing at 1:31 PM PST - 16 comments

Enslaved by free trade. The founding myth of the dominant nations is that they achieved their industrial and technological superiority through free trade. Nations that are poor today are told that if they want to follow our path to riches they must open their economies to foreign competition. They are being conned.
posted by badstone at 12:59 PM PST - 30 comments

Fist or famine? President Bush accused European nations of contributing to famine in Africa because of their reluctance to accept GM foods. But one of Bush's many EU critics says "even serious experts on GM will concede that there is no evidence that GM can make any greater contribution to feeding the world than existing agricultural science." There may be, however, a risk of cancer, according to a Scottish expert, among other profound misgivings. Plus, it looks like some GM crops aren't even doing their genetically-modified job. So uh, how are they gonna stop world hunger, again?
posted by soyjoy at 12:55 PM PST - 23 comments

So you’ve just received a junk email encouraging you to visit a website for some irresistible pornography or to consolidate your debts! Well, it’s time to oblige the people who fill your mailbox with spam. Let FriedSPAM visit their sites for you -- about a million times! After all, you are only doing what the spammers are asking you to do. (via Pop Culture Junk Mail)
posted by gottabefunky at 12:42 PM PST - 25 comments

Blog Parody Ben and Mena.
We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute. We are cute.

Adam Curry.
Celeblogging. I used to be a MTV VJ, you know, big hair, that whole thing? Yeah, I was cool. MTV sucks now though. I am cool. I am Beautiful People.

Cory Doctorow.
y0 toTaL 0wnz0red. y0 LiKeZ kRaD!!1!!1! DRM is EVIL! Magic Sci-Fi Future Net-Inspired Utopia Whuffie Waffle dust. Post-death, post-work, net-in-your-head future. BounceBounce. BoingBoing. SmoingeSmoinge.
posted by nyxxxx at 12:34 PM PST - 32 comments

Google calls in the 'language police': "Google is now a verb, meaning to search. It sounds like the ultimate compliment to the company, so why do its lawyers want to keep the word out of our dictionaries?"
posted by eclectica at 12:14 PM PST - 19 comments

Mitch Kapor reckons that by 2029 no computer - or "machine intelligence" - will have passed the Turing Test. If he's right, the EFF wins $20,000 on a bet.

In the well designed and conceptualised Long Bets website , other participants in the Predictions game: Dave Winer, Esther Dyson, Vint Cerf and Ted Danson!
All predictions here; All bets here - discussions so far here.
Any Mefites willing to stake their rep on cherished beliefs? What do you want to publicly predict will - or will not - happen, and by when?
posted by dash_slot- at 12:02 PM PST - 17 comments

Art of the First Cities. An excellent online gallery courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art focusing on the beginnings of urbanization that have led to the city as a heart of the Western world. More on the brick-and-mortar exhibit here and, as a special bonus, another great online exhibit of artifacts of the Greek world from the Penn Museum (available in Greek too!)
posted by The Michael The at 11:26 AM PST - 5 comments

Aqueduct Magazine has a feature highlighting the finest examples of public artworks that celebrate water. These range from grand to kind of freaky and they even offer a screensaver tribute to same.
posted by BigPicnic at 11:04 AM PST - 6 comments

The National Library of Scotland and its interesting collection of online exhibits : the Murthly Hours, an illuminated book of hours (folios here); 16th century maps of Scotland; playbills from Edinburgh's Theatre Royal; 16th century Scottish books; the albums of the Edinburgh Calotype Club; R.L. Stevenson; Robert Burns; World War I stories; more.
posted by plep at 10:44 AM PST - 2 comments

Israel calls it a Separation Fence. Others refer to it as the Apartheid Wall. Whatever one calls it, and however one justifies it, there is no doubt that this barrier swoops many kilometers into the West Bank, claiming valuable water sources and arable land for Israeli settlers, destroying Palestinian homes and communities in the process.
posted by Ty Webb at 10:03 AM PST - 18 comments

You're the one that I want! Okay, I've seen trained dogs before, but this is ridiculous. A highly choreographed routine between the trainer and perhaps the world's furriest John Travolta impersonator (warning WMV link).
posted by jonson at 9:58 AM PST - 23 comments

radiolovers ~ listen to OLD TIME RADIO shows for free, online.
posted by crunchland at 9:52 AM PST - 6 comments

The Canadian Pacific Railway was not just a railway, it was a way of life, as the many posters featuring ships, hotels and vacation land posters can attest. Travel along the rails to a different time . . .
posted by ashbury at 9:01 AM PST - 10 comments

George Monbiot, environmentalist and anti-globalisationist has seen the light - he no longer wishes to demolish the WTO. And what's more, it was US President, George W. Bush, who made him see the error of his ways.
posted by Blue Stone at 8:53 AM PST - 3 comments

Girls dress up, boys don't. Boys need to help girls cross the street. Girls work, boys play. Subtle gender messages (and really silly hairstyles) as observed by Monsieur Jean after collecting images from different countries of children on street signs for his salon.
posted by iconomy at 7:11 AM PST - 18 comments

Failed dot-coms. Screenshots of farewell messages of 316 failed dot-coms.
posted by riffola at 7:10 AM PST - 15 comments

GangRule - the history of organized crime in New York City. A growing database of photos, biographies, newspaper clippings and family trees from 1890 on. And for the godfather trackers among us, there's also Boston Mafia, which includes the history of a notorious contemporary fugitive, lately in the news via testimony from his brother, Billy Bulger.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:29 AM PST - 8 comments

I am John's brain. Amusingly written, yet astutely raising an important point. What exactly are we to do about consciousness? Although clearly different theories abound, one must still ponder whether or not the problem is even solvable in the first place. Where then can we turn to for our solution? Why, bicamerality, of course.
posted by cohappy at 11:14 PM PST - 24 comments

Candidate Kucinich gets a blog. Dennis Kucinich has jumped into the weblog arena, making his own posts and accepting comments. He even has an RSS feed. Kucinich's campaign is drawing the largest crowds of any candidate and is expected to perform well in the MoveOn Primary. Kucinich faces tough opposition from Dean, but his support for military budget cuts and tougher accounting practices set him apart from the other candidates. Studs Terkel says "Kucinich Is the One", and Ralph Nader not only encouraged Kucinich to run, but invited him to speak on the Democracy Rising tour. Will Nader endorse the Kucinich campaign? Can Dennis move the Democratic Party to the left and bring the Greens back into the fold?
posted by insomnia_lj at 10:29 PM PST - 30 comments

After 'The Bell Jar,' Life Went On. Sylvia Plath immortalized the guest editor program at Mademoiselle Magazine in her famed book, "The Bell Jar." A photo of the 20 young guest editors was taken back in 1953, and they were all lined up in a star -- with Plath, unsurprisingly, at the top. Plath killed herself in 1971, but the other women in her program reunited recently, to discuss their experiences, how they've changed, and their famous classmate. A fascinating read for anyone who's read "The Bell Jar." (NY Times reg required)
posted by GaelFC at 5:48 PM PST - 23 comments

No Tax Relief for Married Poor. Because they, presumably, are not American.
posted by the fire you left me at 2:43 PM PST - 26 comments

George Washington made his own whiskey, and at its peak his distillery produced 11,000 gallons a year. America's first president was also a successful entrepreneur. Now some scholars want to reconstruct the distillery and start making whiskey again. The reconstruction might be done by 2006. If they chose to sample their handiwork, I hope they remember the 98th and 99th rules of decent behavior.
posted by homunculus at 2:14 PM PST - 7 comments

The Children's Internet Protection Act is hunky dory, according to the Supreme Court. This means that public libraries are required by law to have web filters on public terminals. While it's great that children will now be forever protected from the evils on online pornography, the drawback is that most filters are so unreliable that just me mentioning the word "sex" in this post could get Metafilter blocked by a web filter.
posted by zedzebedia at 1:45 PM PST - 36 comments

Ionospheric luminescence. Tonight. US East-coast skywatchers, look out for high, glowing clouds tonight between 9:30pm and 5:30am, as NASA fires rockets carrying combustible chemicals into the sky to study our planet's ionosphere. (Thank you, Spaceweather.) This reminds me, just a bit, of Projects Argus and Starfish.
posted by brownpau at 12:04 PM PST - 10 comments

Whichbook: a neat little flash app that permits you to select on a sliding scale up to four different features of a novel and then recommends a list of prospective reading to you. (Plain-text available here). (via sixdifferentways).
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:56 AM PST - 21 comments

As Penis enlarger with new credit line will clean your septic system *
--a recent piece of spam which I received--puts it:
OH MY GOD. No, really - this is one of the coolest websites of ALL TIME. You know I love you lots for sending me this url, and I am sworn to secrecy. Who the hell is this guy? And how did you find the site? I'm going to look at every single page and download every single one of these mp3s. Before you post this to mf, that is ;) - iconomy
Ladies, Gentlemen, Neuters and quonsar, I give you ...
Johnny Spencer's 'vanity site' directed towards fans of Black popular music c1940's to 1970's. Music from both Jamaica and America!
You have scans of various 45s, Johnny's beautiful dust jacket artwork, his interesting system of nomenclature defining Jamaican popular music, detailed notation and... music!!
(caveat & details within)
posted by y2karl at 10:55 AM PST - 25 comments

Sketches at the Eyepiece. Drawings of the Moon, the Sun, planets and other astronomical objects.
Also The Face of the Moon: Galileo to Apollo. A catalogue of rare books and maps, with images.
posted by plep at 10:39 AM PST - 8 comments

Enlighten me, please.
posted by lysdexic at 10:25 AM PST - 10 comments

Recalls for Dummies When, back on the 12th, scarabic posted a FPP on the Gray Davis recall, as a right coaster I couldn't work up any enthusiasm to follow the eight different links. It just wasn't my dance. But the Sacramento Bee took the transcript of their editorial board's internal discussion of the issue, expanded and cleaned it up, then posted it on-line. One stop shopping, with the minimum of tendentiousness allowable by law. Now I've got a much better understanding of what's at stake, including why it could be a blessing in disguise for the Democrats.
posted by mojohand at 8:56 AM PST - 11 comments

A split decision from SCOTUS on Affirmative Action -- in cases specifically involving the University of Michigan, the court rules that the law school's AA standard is legal while the undergraduate standard is not. The University president is spinning this as a full out victory because the court has now "given a roadmap" for how Affirmative Action programs can be designed for higher education nationwide. While polls show that Americans want diversity in education but are unsure about Affirmative Action, it doesn't look like it's going away any time soon. And the fundamental question remains: when it comes to education, is being a racial minority four times more important than having held a position of national leadership? Twenty times more important than writing an outstanding admissions essay?
posted by Dreama at 8:12 AM PST - 59 comments

Dressed as pieces of bologna, ham and cheese, Maryland 3rd graders sing corporate jingle and dance in Oscar Meyer contest...for school equipment money - $10,000 corporate checks for scarce school equipment, Dunkin' Doughnuts free doughnut coupons for students in exchange for homework...."Oakdale Principal Judy Sherman sees no problem with the Oscar Mayer and Dunkin' Donuts contests. No parents complained.... "It's great for the school as well as for kids who have to use their creative-writing and performing-arts skills, not to mention all those good social skills," Sherman said."

Oh my.
posted by troutfishing at 8:08 AM PST - 87 comments

The Godless Celebrity: As a list, it seems no better or worse than the God-fearing crowd. But the world needs atheists, if only for keeping - or trying to keep - the believers from ripping each other's heads off in the name of the various exclusivist true faiths. As Woody Allen said, it's scary that there are so many groups who are convinced they have a direct line to God. I wonder how many religious people respect and believe in the usefulness, political and intellectual, of the atheist. [Via Bifurcated Rivets]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:09 AM PST - 169 comments

why americans will believe almost anything.
keys to effective spin control / public relations : "dehumanize the attacked party by labeling and name calling... speak in glittering generalities using emotionally positive words... when covering something up, don't use plain English; stall for time; distract... get endorsements from celebrities, churches, sports figures, street people - anyone who has no expertise in the subject at hand the 'plain folks' ruse: us billionaires are just like you... when minimizing outrage, don't say anything memorable... when minimizing outrage, point out the benefits of what just happened... when minimizing outrage, avoid moral issues."
posted by crunchland at 6:54 AM PST - 42 comments

The Incas had binary! Archaeologists have long known that khipu strings were used by the incas to store arithmetic records. Now, it's believed that they used a 7-bit binary code to store all kinds of "written" information. Well? Who's going to be the first to translate Harry Potter onto a khipu string?
posted by unreason at 6:40 AM PST - 7 comments

Salam moblogs. (More moblogging replacing/enhancing journalism)
posted by MintSauce at 4:44 AM PST - 6 comments

"When I'm president, we'll have executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day," said Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri. (ABC News link)

Shouldn't there be some sort of SAT test on the Constitution for Presidential candidates? Or...or something?
posted by alumshubby at 4:21 AM PST - 39 comments

The FBI has not been here. Librarians, who can be required by the FBI to submit library records of private citizens under the PATRIOT Act--and who are prohibited from making these requests public--have invented some clever, legal strategies to fight back. (via japanesejoint.com)
posted by Espoo2 at 11:45 PM PST - 13 comments

Can Optimus Prime be far behind? Xerox PARC's experimental, modular robots look like nothing so much as a pile of random MECCANO--until you see them in action. Watch one robot transform from a loop, to a snake, to a spider configuration! Or play with the Java simulator. [via Boing Boing]
posted by arto at 11:07 PM PST - 15 comments

Theme Park Accidents "Four-year-old Brandon Zucker was injured, and ultimately left with brain damage, when he flew out of the ride vehicle and was pinned beneath it. A state investigation blamed Disneyland personnel for loading the Zuckers into the vehicle incorrectly, and cites additional ride design flaws. As a result, Roger Rabbit became the first attraction ordered closed for repairs under California's new theme park regulation law."
posted by schlaager at 10:19 PM PST - 14 comments

To survive in New York, you need to be a bit street savvy. Over here in London, we simply request that you don't spread your legs. I wonder what Emily Post would make of it? I rather suspect she would have been mortified to know that girls no longer go to dances, chaperoned by their maids. Neil Young has a different perspective!
posted by apocalypse miaow at 3:58 PM PST - 23 comments

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a monument in progress in the Black Hills of South Dakota (where Mount Rushmore is too.) Dedicated to Crazy Horse, the Oglala Lakota Sioux warrior famous for his role at Little Bighorn, it will be 641 feet long by 563 feet high when completed. There will be a night blast on June 26, weather permitting.
posted by homunculus at 10:24 AM PST - 19 comments

Iraq Now: 20 Questions An attempt to answer the many questions about the Iraq war--how many troops are now there? Shia "revolt?" How many civilians killed? What is happening to the Kurds? etc etc
posted by Postroad at 8:28 AM PST - 7 comments

While there are a number of sites devoted to the history of computer and information technologies, their invention, design and manufacture is also a human story. So I'm glad that there are sites devoted to computing history and culture that also look at the lives of those involved. The Charles Babbage Institute and Center for the History of Information Technology, includes oral histories of engineers and 500 photographs of the Burroughs Corporation form the 1890s on. The Smithsonian Museum Division of Information Technology and Society is a gateway to a large number of 'real life' and online Smithsonian exhibitions related to the history of science and technology, including more oral histories and PDFs of the original DoD press releases for ENIAC. The Oxford University Virtual Museum of Computing includes tributes to information science pioneers, as well as much other stuff. Finally, the Silicon Valley Cultures Project is using anthropology to document the lives of many of those in the Valley.
posted by carter at 8:26 AM PST - 6 comments

Become an eCaptain! "As an eCaptain, you'll create your personal ePrecinct: a list of online friends, family members, neighbors..." can I be a general or a dictator?... And can I be cruel and despotic (Just a little bit)? Please?
posted by troutfishing at 7:35 AM PST - 8 comments

The Canadian Museum of Civilization's online presence is a huge archive of arts, histories and cultures from Canada and beyond: Native Canadian toys, clothing and musical instruments; dolls in Canada; the Palaeo-Eskimos, who lived in the Arctic before the Inuit; Nova Scotian quilts; Central African artifacts; the 1897 Canadian Historical Dinner Service; landscape kimonos; Canadian war artists; Aba Bayefsky and his art based on the liberation of Belsen; French Canadian painted furniture; outdoor folk art; the Haida; a Tibetan Sand Mandala; puppets; the history of nurses' caps; the Canadian Postal Museum; the Nunavut voyages of Martin Frobisher; more.
posted by plep at 3:17 AM PST - 7 comments

The Gord is the Basil Fawlty-like proprietor of a video game store in Canada. He appears to be a real-life Comic Book Guy. More inside ...
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:14 AM PST - 25 comments

You Like The Decoration? Thank The Goddam Dog. To what extent is the organization and decoration of your home dictated and orchestrated by your pet? And would you have it any other way, no matter how repressed you might be at the moment?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:05 AM PST - 14 comments

Sure, Scarlett O'Hara Barbie is lovely, and yeah, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz Barbie is cute, but for my money, it's hard to beat Marge Simpson Barbie, Medusa Barbie, or Dominatrix Barbie. The full collection, located here, clearly owes a debt to Todd Haynes, and the Barbie Liberation Army, but is still worth a chuckle.
posted by jonson at 1:01 PM PST - 7 comments

Jumping over babies - on June 22 in Burgos, Spain, parents will dress newborn babies in finery and lay them in the street so that a man dressed as the devil can leap over them. It's an age-old ritual. Many cultures have colorful ceremonial rites of passage marked by festivals - have you come upon any in your travels?
posted by madamjujujive at 5:38 AM PST - 20 comments

The war of the succession has really begun. Check out the best or right wing conspiratorial humor - if that isn't an oxymoron.
posted by donfactor at 4:08 AM PST - 18 comments

A real man would stay. But of course you're merely an inadequate simulation. Yes, its robot improv! Who needs a human brain to be funny? Certainly not these rascally robots! Titter to the sample scripts! Chortle at the architecture overview! Nod your head sagely and pretend you understand the paper, "Robot Improv: Using Drama to Create Believable Agents" (MSWord doc)!
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:03 PM PST - 2 comments

The biggest losers in the Blogosphere. Metafilter does not do the discussion of weight very well. However, I'd like to introduce you to a group of online folk who have found a way to help each other in losing weight. Meet mtpolitics. He had a moment of body based angst. Da Goddess had an idea. And so a project was born. (Have a care for the pipe, 'cause it ain't real big.) The blogs of the people involved in this contest might offer a unique diversion as well.
posted by Wulfgar! at 4:44 PM PST - 27 comments

Robert Meeropol, the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, writes about his parents. I'm suprised nobody else posted about this yesterday--June 19th was the 50th anniversary of their execution for espionage.
The executions at Sing Sing on June 19, 1953, ended a sensational Cold War case that still symbolizes the years when McCarthyism held sway and the government's word was accepted more readily than today. It was the first execution of civilians for espionage in U.S. history and it reverberated into the issues of dissent, anti-Semitism and capital punishment.
Pete Seeger and others comment here; the Guardian here. The Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Trial (which features representations of the couple by Picasso, among others) notes that:
In August of 1993, members of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation re-enacted the 1951 trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. A moot trial was conducted with expertise and meticulous concern for accuracy. The unanimous verdict of the twelve jurors was "Not Guilty." This "trial" and its dramatic outcome was widely reported by the media - for one day only.
posted by jokeefe at 4:04 PM PST - 20 comments

BornDigital, anyone? Actually, try the Site Map. And the
links are... interesting enough--for instance, Tiny Pinnochio,
the world's smallest dog. Aww...
posted by y2karl at 3:09 PM PST - 3 comments

The U.K.'s answer to Rube Goldberg. Cartoonist W. Heath Robinson, 1872-1944.
posted by crunchland at 2:50 PM PST - 1 comment

Deflation Nation "This legacy of accumulated excesses lies across the American economy like a heavy wet blanket"
posted by thedailygrowl at 12:35 PM PST - 5 comments

Is It Art Or Is It Just Ewww? Four centuries after the first stirrings of body art and four decades after Piero Manzini's Merda d'Artista and his egg-eating sessions there is Chrissy Caviar by Chrissie Conant, complete with website and Quicktime video. A can of Manzoni's shit was recently bought for over $30000 by the Egg-sponsored Tate Gallery. For that money you could buy ten whole kilos of Royal Beluga from Petrossian costs ten times less. Difficult call.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:58 AM PST - 15 comments

The Historical Museum of Southern Florida. A good set of exhibits and collections : the Afro-Cuban Orisha religion and associated arts; the Miami Centennial Quilt; South American music in Miami; illustrating Cuba's flora and fauna; vintage Cuban postcards; selections from Audubon's 'Birds of America'; Pan Am memorabilia; and more.
posted by plep at 9:59 AM PST - 9 comments

Jane Roe of Roe vs. Wade wants veredict of Roe vs. Wade overturned
CNN's legal expert says it will not happen. Findlaw.com has a summary of the case for your perusal pleasure. Also worth remembering are the ambiguous opinions of the current administration on the issue.
posted by magullo at 9:19 AM PST - 50 comments

Good to see that 50 years of basic research in fulid dynamics, numerical methods, and finite element analysis has finally found a practical application.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:53 AM PST - 19 comments

Welcome to Orion!
Since 1982, Orion has worked to reconnect human culture with the natural world, blending scientific thinking with the arts, engaging the heart and mind, and striving to make clear what we all have in common.
There are rants from the Curmudgeon for those who enjoy the active venting of anger and Discourse and Dissent for those who prefer a more civil discussion of today's issues.
There's even a "quote of the week" that is impressively done. The magazine is also available by subscription and they accept no advertising. I'm thinking this will make a nice additon to my Harper's subscription! I hope you all enjoy this site as much as I have.
posted by nofundy at 7:33 AM PST - 9 comments

Whiteness Studies Liberals are going the extra mile to validate economic insanity by Conservatives. Do some people have an economic advantage? Do majorities have something in common that minorities don't share? I went to Japan this year, and sure, being a minority sucks. Does that mean that there is whiteness or blackness or asianness, or the new and exciting hispanicness? No. There's no such thing. Stop the madness: Race and Gender are just more games for people who need hobbies. Insanity inside.
posted by ewkpates at 5:14 AM PST - 83 comments

Length of the New Harry Potter got you down? Try these. Maybe you'd like to try tell a complete story in exactly 55 words?
posted by drezdn at 12:10 AM PST - 11 comments

Ever since I became a TiVo addict, I've found myself wanting to use its features in real life, wishing I could rewind & replay moments of random comedy & chaos, usually involving my pugs. Soon, thanks the good folks at Deja View, I will be able to, with the help of a head mounted micro video camera unit that is always on, recording a 30 second buffer of real time, and up to four hours of manually recordable space for once you activate the record button. The scourge of ephemera will be wiped out in our lifetime.
posted by jonson at 10:39 PM PST - 13 comments

You Can Patent That? (including Wrigley Chews Over Idea of Viagra Gum)
more: Online Newspapers; Online Auctions; Method of Exercising a Cat; 2 PCs in one; GIF is dead.
posted by MzB at 9:50 PM PST - 3 comments

Apple spills its own beans: 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz, or Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 processors described in desktops found in the store tonight (since removed).
posted by mathowie at 9:37 PM PST - 69 comments

Garfield turns 25 this week. 25 years of comic strips, none of which were even remotely funny. Why do the great comics, like this or this or even this, disappear from our newspapers, while drivel like Garfield thrives? Some people even love Garfield. The rest of us just want to see him burn.
posted by hipnerd at 9:13 PM PST - 87 comments

Who wants a fish that glows in the dark? Coming soon to the US, fluorescent fish! I can finally get rid of my night light.
posted by Ron at 9:11 PM PST - 11 comments

Monetary Policy in a Zero-Interest-Rate Economy [pdf] This report written by the Dallas Fed is amazing. Amongst other things, it outlines a plan to tax your savings as a way to continue to stimulate consumption should rates fall to zero. While opinions of the 'fed range from worship to outrage, their actions raise some serious questions. Why does this unelected group wield so much power? At what point are their actions (taxing savings) a violation of our property rights? If our economy is built on capitalism, why can we not be capitalists and embrace the opportunity presented by both boom and bust? At what point are we a command economy?
posted by H. Roark at 8:58 PM PST - 16 comments

Orrin Hatch's website. So after Senator Hatch favors trashing the computers of fileswappers, it turns out his own website contained unlicensed code. To top it off, one of the links on his website leads here (NSFW). [more inside]
posted by trondant at 8:03 PM PST - 19 comments

US Olympic track and field athelete Gabe Jennings set out for Brazil from Arizona in order to learn the martial art of Capoeira to train for the 2004 Olympics. Riding on a ten speed bike older than himself through Central and South America, Jennings was robbed nine times, got hit by a truck, was attacked by monkeys, and contracted hepatitis from eating off of the streets. Read this journal of his travels and marvel at the 3600 mile trip taken by a man who hadn't ridden more than 50 miles previously.
posted by zsazsa at 8:00 PM PST - 4 comments

Making Fiends is the latest series by my favorite Flash-animator, Amy Winfrey. Her older series include Big Bunny and Muffin Films. Amy also sells these fun stickers.
posted by grumblebee at 7:34 PM PST - 5 comments

“Six men can carry you or 12 men can judge you. You decide!” "...Fugitive cosmetics heir Andrew Luster returned to California from Mexico Thursday to begin serving a 124-year prison sentence for raping three women. His return came more than five months after he fled the United States during trial." His capture involved one of the United State's most respected bounty hunters, Duane "Dog" Chapman. This is his website, this is his story. This is also, unfortunately, his mullet.
posted by jdaura at 6:22 PM PST - 43 comments

The First Casualty. The New Republic is one of the few left-leaning political journals who supported the war on Iraq. Now it seems like they've come to their senses and have written a very exhaustive story on how exactly Team Bush manipulated evidence to support the war on Iraq: "Rather, interviews with current and former intelligence officials and other experts reveal that the Bush administration culled from U.S. intelligence those assessments that supported its position and omitted those that did not. The administration ignored, and even suppressed, disagreement within the intelligence agencies and pressured the CIA to reaffirm its preferred version of the Iraqi threat. Similarly, it stonewalled, and sought to discredit, international weapons inspectors when their findings threatened to undermine the case for war."
posted by owillis at 5:34 PM PST - 11 comments

Media Hybrid: Prank Phone Calls meet Right-Wing Talk Radio as Miami Spanish-language DJ's Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero make an on-air call to their least favorite world leader and (allegedly) get through to him. Hilarity and Profanity Ensue. Prank or hoax? Political statement or political vandalism? Get me Bush on the phone!
Also: Overview of radio paranking including statement of disapproval from veteran radio hoaxter Phil Hendrie.
posted by wendell at 5:12 PM PST - 5 comments

Odd Advertising ...Pizza Schmizza paid me to put this link on Metafilter.
posted by angry modem at 5:05 PM PST - 14 comments

Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing An "immensely popular" medieval Islamic natural history text (with simurghs, yew trees, constellations and much more). Found at the Islamic Medical Manuscripts collection, which has more great visuals in the Medical Monographs section.
posted by mediareport at 3:55 PM PST - 12 comments

Nestle, the makers of Poland Spring water are being sued for selling their bottled water as "naturally purified" or "spring water" when in fact it does not meet the scientific criteria for spring water, is worse than some area tap water, and is sourced near "asphalt parking lots or other areas of dangerous contamination".
posted by omidius at 1:33 PM PST - 34 comments

"Unexplained, but not Inexplicable" photograph collection
posted by crunchland at 1:18 PM PST - 13 comments

50 ½ hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes? Will the belt come back to the USA this July 4th? Is The Fridge our best shot for the world title to come back? But with Kobayashi returning to defend his title, is William Perry just a 100 to 1 longshot? And in the excitement about the Hot Dog race, let's not forget the other great competitions! Who could ever forget Zhornitskiy's immortal achievement of 74 chicken wings in 12 minutes?

Welcome to the wide world of competitive eating! The runup to the grand 4th of July contest in Brooklyn may be winding its way to a city near you!

At 131 pounds, people didn't take him seriously - last year, some even thought that he should have been disqualified. But you gotta admit it - someone who can eat over 17 pounds of cow brains in 15 minutes is...well, awesome is one word....
posted by jasper411 at 11:37 AM PST - 37 comments

Do we need nature? What are the difficult choices that need to be made in politics, economics, society and public policy? And who is right…? Those whose actions (or inactions) seek to increase man's control over nature, or those who seek to reduce man's control? Those who seek to bypass nature, or those who hope to work with it? Those who put a higher value on human development, or those who value the preservation, even the reconstitution of nature?

Wanna answer and win US$20,000? Then enter the Shell Economist international writing competition to encourage future thinking! (warning: bad web design ahead).

I just wonder when we were separated from nature so that we can even think of living without it... oh my! those flat earth economists are unnerving!
posted by samelborp at 11:31 AM PST - 20 comments

Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos meet "Ginger": a fly-on-the-wall account (via White Noise).
posted by timeistight at 11:11 AM PST - 29 comments

More environmental data goes down the memory hole... Another EPA report gets "edited" by the White House to minimize warnings about climate change and the contributing factors of industrial and automotive emissions. Data from a 2001 report on climate by the National Research Council commissioned by by White House is omitted in favor of research data funded by the American Petroleum Institute. Behold the best government money can buy...
posted by crookdimwit at 10:53 AM PST - 19 comments

Michiko Kukatani goes whacky! (NYT Reg Required) Maybe all the craziness at the NYT is taking its toll, but everyone's favorite high-brow book bully reviews Candace Bushnell's (Sex and The City chick's) new book as a letter from...Elle Woods?!
posted by adrober at 10:38 AM PST - 12 comments

Yad Vashem: Online Exhibitions. 'Yad Vashem's task is to perpetuate the legacy of the Holocaust to future generations so that the world never forgets the horrors and cruelty of the Holocaust. Its principal missions are commemoration and documentation of the events of the Holocaust, collection, examination, and publication of testimonies to the Holocaust, the collection and memorialization of the names of Holocaust victims, and research and education.' No Child's Play; Private Tolkatchev; Photos from the Warsaw Ghetto; and much more.
posted by plep at 9:53 AM PST - 7 comments

Virgin Mary lurks in Boston hospital. Or something.
posted by xmutex at 9:51 AM PST - 24 comments

Roll Fold your own giant paper robots! Many delightful designs, including the Whale-Copter(?), the Kanga-Bot, and a suprisingly familiar little guy. Hours of fun, at least until you pass out from blood loss following massive paper cuts. (Link courtesy Pixelsurgeon by way of Veer.)
posted by 40 Watt at 9:37 AM PST - 8 comments

For the Lefties out there (or devious righties) - MoveOn the left wing PAC group with a LARGE financial endowment is looking at sharing their love with a Democratic candidate but can't quite decide which one. Their solution, let the people decide! Register now and vote Tuesday for who you think should get the big cash prize! [More Inside]
posted by Pollomacho at 8:51 AM PST - 45 comments

Tom Cruise is lobbying politicians for money. Will the story ofXenu be taught in schools? Will our govenrment fund it? Will the Thetans ever recover their god-like powers?

What does The Church of Scientology need money from the Government for? Is the most expensive religion in the world running out of money from Suing and Harrassing everyone who speaks out against Scientology?
posted by da5id at 8:27 AM PST - 29 comments

A monstery mystery. A tale of confused monks, hoarded books, secret passageways, hidden cupboards and, ummm, CCTV.
posted by humuhumu at 7:54 AM PST - 11 comments

WeenAmp...peer-to-peer software? After signing with Sanctuary (now label-mates with Morrissey), releasing a pair of on-line only live CDs, cheesing off a pizza chain, and getting its back catalog from Elektra; Ween is developing software with InQuest Technologies that will tie together the band's official web site, the 24/7 Ween Radio broadcast, a message board, chat rooms and the ability to trade live concert mp3s without being confused with The Gourds (just try searching for "Gin & Juice" on your favourite peer-to-peer program). The band hopes to have the program bundled with it's new release quebec (yes, with a small q) on August 5th.
posted by boost ventilator at 7:30 AM PST - 10 comments

Is he the world's unluckiest man or the luckiest? Either way, Croatia's Frane Selak, who had already gained attention for escaping death seven times, has just hit the jackpot with his first lottery ticket in forty years. How can we normal mortals compete?
posted by rory at 7:00 AM PST - 13 comments

Long Live The Underdog! One of the few things my father taught me - and followed to his dying day - was to "always support the underdogs. They may not be right, but they have the same right to be wrong as we do." Or more, as John Stuart Mill would argue and a certain Walthamstow group of anarchists would agree. Underdog Online - the outsider's in site - celebrates the underdog and the outsider in a healthily frivolous and assertive way - from gay men and the Internet and The Smiths's cover art to the suggestion of a beer dinner for June 21 and a quirky report on how lawyers experience murder trials. Long live the underdog, indeed!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:23 AM PST - 10 comments

The stamps of Michael Hernandez de Luna and Michael Thompson have been called provocative, tongue-in-cheek, mischievous, beautiful, and/or tasteless. All have made their way through the US postal system. Work alert: I see naked people.
posted by iconomy at 5:29 AM PST - 14 comments

Greek Temple Architecture: They were houses--houses for cult statues, storehouses of treasures given to the gods--they were not churches. Worship consisted, by and large, of sacrificial ritual--animal sacrifice: killing animals and eating them, for the most part--and, hence, it was done out of doors. The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook's Accounts of Hellenic Religious Beliefs and Accounts of Personal Religion give additional flavor and context. Greek religious architecture evolved from wooden structures and was tradition bound--they built in stone as they had in wood according to variations on a traditional canon called the orders, first and foremost, the Doric Order , the Ionic Order and the Corinthian Order. Here are some restorations. I love restorations, on paper or models rather than at the actual sites. The first in a series.
posted by y2karl at 5:05 AM PST - 15 comments

I'm getting better at volleyball, too.
Parents looking to add a little excitement to their kids summer routine have a new option in Florida and Arizona (and soon in Texas)... Nudist Summer Camp for Teens. According to this NYT article kids at the nudist camp really don't see what the big deal is. The camps are organized by the American Association for Nude Recreation (Link NSFCWP) who seem to be on the ball in terms of safety and providing a good environment for the kids. The article also introduces a new TLA; COG - for Creepy Old Guy. If you're interested in sending the youngsters to a camp they'll remember for years to come - this page sheds light on what they can expect.

So, would you send your kids to the camp? Have you been to a nudist resort yourself? How's your vollyball game?
posted by DragonBoy at 9:03 PM PST - 66 comments

Friendly fire pilots cleared. Even though a joint US-Canada investigation found that there was sufficient evidence to proceed with court-martial proceedings against the two pilots, no military charges will be filed.

Now, while charging these two pilots will not bring the dead Canadians back, I don't think that it's too much to ask that these two hotshots be required to face the consequences of their lethal actions.

Frankly, a court-martial is not too much to expect, in the face of the fact that these officers disobeyed a direct order.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 7:22 PM PST - 16 comments

Chocolate, Blue 'Funky Fries' pulled from shelves The notorious freedom french fries with the flavors of chocolate, cinnamon and blue-colored variety have been pulled by Heinz due to poor sales and overall revulsion by consumers around the nation (especially here at MeFi). Can you think of other such horrific failed foods that were disgusting from the start?
posted by Down10 at 6:48 PM PST - 71 comments

600 pounds of thrift store clothing becomes 510 pairs of unique shoes. Puma's Top Winner Thrift project.
posted by modofo at 5:56 PM PST - 7 comments

WebExhibits is like buttah. Parts of WebExhibits have been linked to before. But the place itself is about much more than time and art, with an incredible library of high quality links that one can get pleasurably lost in for quite a while.
posted by dchase at 5:44 PM PST - 5 comments

John Kerry joins the Forest Service: In an effort to more effectively manage the increase in the volume of e-mails received by my office and to respond as quickly and thoroughly as possible, I am using a new web based system that you can access through my web site at kerry.senate.gov. The e-mail address john_kerry@kerry.senate.gov will no longer be active. Thus we see that the economies of power, access, and influence quickly respond to unmanageable distortions caused by new technology. Will the new equilibrium be any different from the old, or is technology ultimately irrelevant?
posted by alms at 4:15 PM PST - 15 comments

Blair Hornstine makes Newsweek magazine. Just not in the way she would have liked, I'm sure. An impartial look at the situation, the day before her class graduation ceremonies proceed without her. Oh, and by the way, the salutatorian will speak, and the students are trying to stay positive and don't want the subject to come up tomorrow, thank you very much. So enjoy your day, kids.
posted by pmurray63 at 2:55 PM PST - 62 comments

Last night I dreamt it was the best and worst of times again. The cannibal was back in Manderley. The cannibal was me. Submissions for the best beginning to an imaginary novel.
posted by mookieproof at 1:19 PM PST - 27 comments

Remember acid rain? It’s still a huge problem. It's killing the fish in our rivers and lakes, and killing the trees in our forests, not to mention irrevocably damaging our historical landmarks. Numerous Clean Air Acts (1955, 1963, 1970, and 1990) have mandated some changes that were supposed to help, and in fact, some power plants have had some success in reducing emissions. Others have ignored the law until forced to comply. Want more information? Here's the EPA's most recent report on acid rain, from 1999.
posted by acridrabbit at 1:16 PM PST - 7 comments

Clare, Goddess of wigs. Here you can find the answer to all your false-hair needs. She's got everything from the conservative to the absolutely fabulous, and quite a few things in between. Those long years of dealing methamphetamines driven you to baldness? Fear not! Needless to say, she has DISCREET shipping, an eminently sensible decision, as many of her customers might desire to keep their gender bending hobby to themselves and close friends. Lastly, don't forget the wig revitalizing mist and maybe a gift certificate for a friend: "give the gift of fabulous hair!"
posted by kavasa at 1:09 PM PST - 8 comments

The Right to Party. "This time, for real, I’m calling for the establishment of a Party Party, or, at the very least, for a Party Party attitude. I’m issuing a call to arms for those of us always in need of, as the great Jeff Spicoli once said, tasty waves and a cool buzz." Hedonists and libertines, unite!
posted by homunculus at 12:57 PM PST - 14 comments

Investigative reporter, Greg Palast is reporting on Alternet about now ex-congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney. “McKinney implied that the [Bush] Administration knew in advance about September 11 and deliberately held back the information,” said the media. The New York Times said, “Ms. McKinney suggest[ed] that President Bush might have known about the September 11 attacks but did nothing so his supporters could make money in a war.” She was beaten to death, politically, by the fabricated quote in the 2002 Democratic Primary. But Greg Palast did some investigation, and despite his best efforts, can find no evidence that she said these things. The closest he comes up with is a quote from her saying, “George Bush had no prior knowledge of the plan to attack the World Trade Center on September 11.” Of course Cynthia McKinney kicked up a bit of a fuss about a few things embarassing to the Bush administration. Read on for the dirt and history.
posted by Blue Stone at 12:33 PM PST - 32 comments

Are you Happy?? I'm so Happy!! LOVE&PEACE Happy Together...! Tune in for 10 hours of high-res streaming Happy Store to get your fix with hosts Tomoe Shinohara and Eriko Sato. Just one program you can catch live on So-Net Visual Paradise TV.
posted by son_of_minya at 12:29 PM PST - 9 comments

A pinhole photography buff documents his second cancer experience. The straightforward narrative is very striking, and the photos, while sometimes off the strict topic, build a picture of a real person.
via Harrumph
posted by o2b at 12:26 PM PST - 6 comments

"Army recruiting civilians as potential Green Berets" is the story I was thinking about when I wrote this post. Sounds like Rumsfeld wasn't kidding around. I wonder if, as discussed yesterday, there's a manpower shortage anticipated?
posted by alumshubby at 12:12 PM PST - 15 comments

Remembering Laci (sans taste) This link leads to a tribute song, in quicktime, to the late Laci Petersen. Sorry to bring things down to a tabloid-filter level, but the sheer hilarity of this song, as well as this leads me to wonder whether these were done (tastelessly) in earnest, or (tastelessly) in mockery.
posted by ghastlyfop at 11:54 AM PST - 22 comments

explore flemish art from the 15th century
posted by crunchland at 11:51 AM PST - 4 comments

Are you John Green? And if you aren't, why not become him?
posted by prolific at 11:43 AM PST - 4 comments

A change-of-pace from Bush-Bashing: The Center for Public Integrity (considered a reliable source by some 'round here), tells us "Where Are They Now? The New Jobs of the Top 100 Clinton Administration Officials". Good to refer to if a Demo actually beats Bush in '04 and wants to recycle some talent... From a radio interview with Center founder Charles Lewis who commented that the report 'got lost' during the Iraq War. No kidding.
posted by wendell at 11:37 AM PST - 3 comments

The Museum of Anti-Alcohol Posters from Russia's 80's anti-alcohol campaign
posted by mathowie at 11:28 AM PST - 16 comments

There's a new elite force protecting the wilderness in Canada; a duo whose love of the bush has become more than a vocation, it has become a calling. This is the story of some rangers who, unlike Mounties, aren't interested in getting their man. Meet the Lesbian Park Rangers.
posted by debralee at 11:19 AM PST - 7 comments

Gay Marriage - Go Canada Canada is only the third country, after Netherlands and Belgium, to legalize gay marriages. This surprised me because I figured we were playing catch up to most 1st world countries. Not so surprisingly my home province of Alberta is promising to block same sex marriages and will refuse to issue licenses to same sex couples. Which must be putting smiles on faces at Tourism BC. Interestingly this may cause big waves in the USA as they have traditionally recognized Canadian marriages as valid under US law and Canada has no residency requirement for marriage licenses. How surprised would you be if your local authority followed Canada’s example?
posted by Mitheral at 10:45 AM PST - 39 comments

It's not exactly the same as being in heaven surrounded by virgins.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 9:28 AM PST - 31 comments

Coalition of the willing (if they know what's good for them). A decent little collection of articles about one of the most shameful events in Australian political history: the Whitlam dismissal. From an article that begins with a quote from former CIA agent Victor Marchetti: "Australia is going to be increasingly important to the United States, and so long as Australians keep electing the right people then there'll be a stable relationship between the two countries." to an interview with Christopher Boyce, whose experiences and actions were recounted in the book The Falcon and the Snowman and in the later John Schlesinger film of the same name. Attach some platitude about the virtues of friendship.
posted by chrisgregory at 9:26 AM PST - 2 comments

The Japanese Manhole Art Museum. More art of streets and cities at Ruavista, from Fifties Buenos Aires to Belfast to reverse painted glass signs in Paris, 1900.
More at the Typographic Signage Project; Vancouver's Neon Heritage; Early American Tavern and Inn Signs; and the Emergence of Advertising in America.
posted by plep at 9:07 AM PST - 3 comments

When humans faced extinction: A new study suggests that around 70,000 years ago there may have been as few as 2,000 individual humans, meaning that we could have been wiped out before we even got started. Related article here.
posted by 40 Watt at 8:07 AM PST - 33 comments

On-line recordings of lectures delivered at Columbia University's architecture school. Speakers included Alvaro Siza, Bernard Tschumi, Marshall Berman, and a number of other important architects and urbanists. [A bit more inside.]
posted by slipperywhenwet at 8:04 AM PST - 3 comments

Roots Music Canada (warnings: music, mucho flash) gives you access to independent Canadian folk/country/world/etc music for free. It's fairly new, so there's not a ton of stuff there yet, but Canadians are free to submit their music (it's run by the CBC). A good application of publicly-owned media, no? (Eh, and for the more electronically-minded, there's also a New Music Canada.)
posted by transient at 7:58 AM PST - 5 comments

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
Fifty years ago, Dylan Thomas - one of the greatest poets of our time - drank himself to death in New York's Hotel Chelsea at the age of 39. Swansea, his Welsh hometown, will be commemorating his life all year, culminating in a festival in the fall. [more]
posted by madamjujujive at 4:49 AM PST - 58 comments

Short Supply of Natural Gas Raises Economic Worries (NYT link) and Canada Cannot Solve Our Natural Gas Problem. More to come at the forthcoming Natural Gas Summit on June 26. At least I live in a country which is among the firsts in the line to the Algerian natural gas.... which buys me some tranquility, although depletion and the peak of oil and natural gas will hit us, sooner or later, globally. (via the energyresources list)
posted by samelborp at 4:45 AM PST - 24 comments

The Love Rug. Most wired hipsters have heard of smart mobs by now. A group of social pranksters have embraced this idea, and set off a couple of "inexplicable smart mob" gatherings in Manhattan. This looks like a lot of fun to me. Or maybe I just need to get out more. Hmmm....
posted by majcher at 2:22 AM PST - 13 comments

What is happening in America? This recent article written by Eliot Weinberger originally appeared in Vorworts the magazine German Social Democratic Party. I believe Mr. Weinberger is this same author of the eloquent September 11th anniversary essay entitled New York: One Year After
posted by thedailygrowl at 2:07 AM PST - 36 comments

Homemade ice cream, in 30 seconds. All you need is cream, sugar, eggs, flavorings (strawberries, vanilla, kittens, whatever your preference) and access to liquid nitrogen. And there the plan goes south, at least for me. Where can the average joe score this crucial timesaving ingredient? Seriously. Also, I want to try the cool "shatter a flower" trick that they reference.
posted by jonson at 11:42 PM PST - 23 comments

So... Microsoft sue some spammers. Isn't this an unique case of the nut trying to hit back at the sledgehammer?
posted by apocalypse miaow at 10:48 PM PST - 10 comments

DirecTV Suing Consumers Directly Everyone identified in those records was sent a letter by DirecTV promising that the company would forgo litigation if they would surrender their illegal access devices, promise never to buy them again, and pay damages of approximately $3,500, Mercer said. Many people complied. Article here. So far, 8,700 consumers who balked have been hit with federal civil suits alleging violations of the Federal Communications Act and federal wiretap statutes. That includes approximately 5,000 lawsuits filed nationwide in May, Mercer said. Newspapers in Richmond, Va., and Allentown, Pa., recently have reported the filing of numerous federal signal theft suits in those states by DirecTV.
posted by Niahmas at 7:22 PM PST - 49 comments

Cool Food For The Hot Summer Ahead: Bruce Cole's Sauté Wednesday has some enticing summery tips, as well as a superb collection of links to yummy articles on food and drink. Here in Portugal, we know Summer has begun when the first fresh sardines, start arriving, fat and silvery from the deep blue sea and straight onto the open-air barbecue, to be scoffed with buttery, yellow potatoes and great big salads overflowing with grilled green peppers, cucumbers, the first ripe tomatoes, sweet new onions and crunchy lettuce leaves.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:53 PM PST - 9 comments

Power Genitalia? If only we could harness that power...
posted by kirkaracha at 4:57 PM PST - 28 comments

Senator Orrin Hatch [R-Utah] , chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, favors legislation allowing copyright holders to remotely destroy the computers of illegal file traders. Hatch, an accompished songwriter in his own right, is quoted as saying that damaging someone's computer "...may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights." Apparently the good Senator is forgetting that our legal system is based on the presumption of innocence.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:43 PM PST - 31 comments

Special forces 'prepare for Iran attack' British and American intelligence and special forces have been put on alert for a conflict with Iran within the next 12 months, as fears grow that Tehran is building a nuclear weapons programme.
posted by kablam at 4:32 PM PST - 74 comments

Smudge Report
posted by magullo at 3:26 PM PST - 16 comments

Usability Bazaar sounds like a crazy idea: getting together a group of people that will create usability guidelines for open source projects. Do you think that can work? Do OSS projects actually have usability problems? And can this actually work? Generally, usability people don't seem to get involved in open source. Why? (via webword.com)
posted by Adman at 2:59 PM PST - 24 comments

Helen Keller: A Living Lie? A fascinating New Yorker piece by Cynthia Ozick that explores Helen Keller's writing career and all the questions of authenticity it raises. She was charged with being a "fraud, a puppet, a plagiarist" and she was defended by the likes of Mark Twain and Alexander Graham Bell. Ozick ultimately asks the question: "Do we know only what we see, or do we see what we somehow already know?"
posted by adrober at 1:58 PM PST - 14 comments

Freedom from annoyance vs. freedom of religious expression A municipal bylaw restricting when Jehovah's Witnesses can go door-to-door protects residents' right to privacy and does not violate the group's right to religious freedom and expression, a lawyer argued Tuesday. The City of Blainville, which believes many of its residents don't want Jehovah's Witnesses at their door on weekends and in the evening, is appealing a lower-court ruling that declared its bylaw unconstitutional. But the three justices cautioned Mr. Paquin that it's dangerous to distinguish between someone's right to religious freedom and their right to express their religious beliefs.
posted by orange swan at 1:41 PM PST - 56 comments

An Iranian student's account of the recent protests in Tehran and the retaliation by pro-government vigilantes with an attack on a dormitory: "They got shields from the police and entered the dormitory. There were about 600-700 of them — armed with swords, sticks, daggers, iron chains, and tear-gas guns — to 700 of us students, mostly in pajamas. We had run out of stones to resist any longer…". For more first hand accounts see Buzzmachine's list of Iranian bloggers.
posted by Quinn at 10:48 AM PST - 46 comments

Self destruct files to secure DVDs and CDs. Songs and movies will expire after a single play, unless you pay up.
posted by Ron at 10:20 AM PST - 37 comments

Avocado Memories. It's more than a photo collection and group of essays about his parents' failures with interior decoration; it's a nostalgic website brought about by Wes Clark's impulse to let his children know what it was like growing up during a more innocent age.
posted by debralee at 10:15 AM PST - 9 comments

Hulking out. I don't know what is more overwhelming, the sheer number of products tied in with the new Hulk movie, or the amount of detail kokogiak collected on the subject. I'm trying to remember another movie that had this variety of marketing tie ins (Slim Jim? Shot glasses? Jello?)
posted by jonah at 9:24 AM PST - 48 comments

Potter anyone? Harry Potter fever has started.... Some individual or group of individuals managed to walk off with 7680 copies of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" Reuters has an article here mentioned that the books are worth about 130500 pounds. MSNBC is behind the times with their stolen article and are reporting ~$1.68 Million.
posted by meanie at 9:22 AM PST - 22 comments

Gothic Gardening. The sinister side of a seemingly harmless hobby.
posted by plep at 8:52 AM PST - 6 comments

Bitch Slap (noun), buggeration (noun), and trash-talking (noun) are now in the OED. The latest quarterly update of the Oxford English Dictionary is now available. (Scroll to the bottom of the list for the most shocking and transgressive new words).
posted by mfoight at 5:30 AM PST - 21 comments

a collection of clever flash experiments
posted by crunchland at 12:13 AM PST - 9 comments

Bush Blasts 'Revisionist Historians' on Iraq

President Bush countered those questioning his justification for the invasion of Iraq on Monday, dismissing "revisionist historians" and saying Washington acted to counter an imminent a persistent threat. "Now there are some who would like to rewrite history; revisionist historians is what I like to call them," Bush said in a speech to New Jersey business leaders.

posted by onegoodmove at 12:01 AM PST - 91 comments

Ask not what the public domain can do for you... (...ask what you can do for the public domain.) The Eldred vs. Ashcroft folks are circulating a petition proposing a federal law requiring $1 copyright renewal after 50 years, or the work hits the public domain. The name-rank-serial# form has an interesting question: List something you have created using the public domain. Some of the answers: Audiotexts of Aesop's Fables, annotation of Descartes' Discours, Digital Historia Numorum: A Manual of Greek Numismatics, choral sheet-music library, Mercury Theatre on the Air, a pop opera based on Cyrano, NASA images jigsaw puzzle, French proverbs from 1611, blind audio tactile mapping system, Alexandre Dumas père website, Light and Matter physics text, Voice of Hibakusha: Eyewitness accounts of Hiroshima, Distributed RNA Secondary Structure Prediction, least-squares fitting library, collection of chess problem books, Philately of the Princely States of India, Oremus Hymnal, Allen Parker slave narrative site, Samuel Johnson's Ramblers, 18th-century Chester Co. PA tax liststranslation of Jose Zorrilla's Don Juan (1844) , Digital South-Asia Language Archive, Vedic etexts, Gary Indiana U.S. Steel Works Photograph Collection, et al. The above list was so diverse...led me to wonder, what works have Mefites created using public domain materials?
posted by jengod at 11:53 PM PST - 20 comments

You must choose. No images but NSFW I guess. Surreal, oddly thought-provoking, 100% embarrassing dilemmas. via cat@log
posted by 111 at 11:48 PM PST - 13 comments

Red, White and Jew --an examination of 6 issues facing the American Jews of today and tomorrow, religious and non, from the holocaust as history to Israel fatigue to Jewish conservatives.
...We can finally be Jewish and American, but somewhere along the line nobody bothered to figure out entirely what that meant. So it falls to us, the next Jewish generation, to balance the scales. Will we be more Jewish, more American, or a fusion of the two? More importantly, how will we do it?
posted by amberglow at 9:23 PM PST - 23 comments

European right of reply. The Council of Europe is drafting a proposal, "... that Internet news organizations, individual Web sites, moderated mailing lists and even Web logs (or 'blogs'), must offer a 'right of reply' to those who have been criticized by a person or organization." Considering that someone will have to pay for the storage and bandwidth required to host rebuttals, this seem the very antithesis of "free" speech and could get quite expensive.
posted by cedar at 5:30 PM PST - 38 comments

What's eating Tony Soprano? The emerging field of ecopsychology thinks it may have an answer.
posted by elwoodwiles at 5:07 PM PST - 3 comments

Composing with GeoMaestro To play with time, first get rid of time.
posted by andrew cooke at 4:22 PM PST - 26 comments

The New Yorker Book Of Martini Cartoons, as such, doesn't exist. Nor Does The New Yorker Book of Internet Cartoons. But since nobody knows you're a dog, much less an editor, on the Internet, it very well could. Here are a few of my favourite Martini cartoons to start you off.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:51 PM PST - 6 comments

LATimes.com Article Reports and Links to Alleged Cyber-Harassment (thru Yahoo News, no reg, but will evaporate soon)
The story begins: " In hindsight, John Henningham wishes he had never visited http://www.johnhenningham.com ", complete with the direct link to the site in question. Later, the article has a link to another one of the numerous websites that Bill White has registered, using another person's name to accuse him of wrongdoing (he even uses the "Hi, I'm [name], and I'm a scumbag" format), but while mentioning a response site set up by Henningham, the article does NOT include a link (but I do). Is this bad site management (automatically generating links) or bad editing (including the links) or just bad journalism? [more]
posted by wendell at 2:47 PM PST - 11 comments

Did you miss Paddy Dignam's wake? Ah well, there's still time to celebrate Bloomsday -- if you're in Dublin, you can (among many other delights) take a stroll across the newly-opened James Joyce Bridge. Or, if you have a spare $60,000, you could even buy your very own Ulysses first edition. As for me, I'll be hoisting a crystal cup full of the foaming ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. (And as for Paddy? -- Dead! says Alf. He's no more dead than you are. -- Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this morning anyhow.)
posted by scody at 12:31 PM PST - 34 comments

Why was this changed to this? In an switch that's reminiscent of Fox News (remember how "DIA Had No Evidence of Chemical Weapons in Iraq Last September" became "DIA: Intelligence Report Supports WMD Claims"?) The New York Times removes the lede from their story, rewrites the headline, and walks away whistling quietly. (Via This Modern World and Different Strings.) [More Inside]
posted by soyjoy at 12:11 PM PST - 27 comments

The criminalisation of language?.
A judge rules that chanting "Paki" at a football match is a criminal offence. "Lord Justice Auld ruled...that the word 'Paki' was 'a slang expression which is racially offensive.'" Personally I come from a culture that finds it acceptable to say things like "I'm just going to the Paki shop, do you want anything?"[Pakistani owned corner shop] and "Anyone fancy a chinki?" [Chinese food.]I've used the terms and I think racism is silly; now I'm a racist criminal I guess.
posted by Blue Stone at 9:25 AM PST - 177 comments

the administration is "underestimating the enemy." It has failed to address the root causes of terror, he said. "The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged and generally underfunded." Would we prefer to have this man providing intelligence information to our president more than a woman who has an oil tanker named after her?
posted by specialk420 at 9:05 AM PST - 33 comments

Electric 6 is the new rock sensation in Europe... Their first video, 'Danger' (High Voltage) was tastless but undeniably funny... But with their new one, 'Gay bar', nobody will dare to say Rock music isn't political anymore... After George Michael's Shoot the dog video (which has been discussed here if memory serves me right), this one is just another way to admit that yes, political "leaders" do inspire artists...
posted by Sijeka at 8:42 AM PST - 30 comments

"A sniff of the fumes from the local factory, it is said, is all it takes for the sap to rise. Young and old men alike have taken on a new lease of life: such is their sexual prowess that there is barely a vacant bed in the local maternity hospital and the midwife is run ragged as loyal husbands have turned into lotharios." Book your flight to Ringaskiddy now before it goes all Hollywood!
posted by debralee at 8:36 AM PST - 6 comments

Matrix: Reloaded Abridged Script.. Something to brighten up the Mondays of those a little dissapointed with The Matrix: Reloaded. The Editing Room is also host to other humorous abridged "scripts" by Rod Hilton.
posted by shadow45 at 8:28 AM PST - 29 comments

Africaserver. Contemporary African art and culture - San art from Botswana, Arms into Art from Mozambique, Dar es Salaam in Delft Blue - a cross-cultural comparison of favourite objects, Marthe Nso Abomo from Cameroon, a Rwanda Genocide Monument, and more.
Related :- Meshu, an artist and political activist from Lesotho who may have been southern Africa's first streaker.
posted by plep at 8:20 AM PST - 2 comments

Proximity Politics. One kind of proximity politics refers to new-found adjacency resulting from globalization which forces new dilemmas before citizens. Another kind of proximity politics refers to the coat-tail riding of aspiring politicians who try to trade on the fame, glory or popularity of others. Still another kind of proximity politics are practiced in attack ads, in which politicans seek to attach their oppenents' names to negatives without explicit accusations, relying instead upon a series of words or short phrases without the grammatical glue which might permit proper parsing or analysis. And the final kind of proximity politics—probably the most positive—are those practiced by WatchBlog, which calls paid to the inward-looking, self-reinforcing echo chambers of one-view political forums. Instead, the two main American parties and their myriad third-party siblings are posting to the same arena. It's the answer to the question, "How can people's minds be changed if they only seek out what they already agree with?" If the opposite camp is in the text column next door, maybe you can't help but to take a dose of what's turning out to be strong commentary largely free of carbon-copy rhetoric, cardboard cut-outs, and cookie-cutter opinions.
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:28 AM PST - 9 comments

The Post-It Gallery. Sketches and drawings on a favorite 3M media.
posted by the fire you left me at 6:53 AM PST - 3 comments

What the world thinks of America... are we about to find out for sure? A special live global forum will be broadcast in a dozen countries later this week, hosted in London, and bringing in the opinions of media representatives of Israel, France, Australia, Brazil, Jordan and more. The forum also features the likes of Benazir Bhutto and Joe Klein. Whatever your opinion of the part the United States plays in our world, it's undeniable that it will be a dominating force in the near future.
posted by Jimbob at 6:15 AM PST - 39 comments

How does a genius think? Forty-seven of Linus Pauling's research notebooks, spanning seven decades and topics from AIDS to zunyite, have been scanned, indexed, and posted by Oregon State University. The random musings and labroom jottings of a Nobel laureate and one of the towering figures of science of the twentieth century just fascinate me, even if I can't follow most of the chemistry; in less high-minded moments, I can contemplate how bad his handwriting was.
posted by snarkout at 6:13 AM PST - 17 comments

Bonding with your robot vacuum
posted by Tlogmer at 5:16 AM PST - 6 comments

Sandman READ poster Anyone passing through libraries will have seen the series of READ posters, starring any number of actors, sports stars, musicians, and other celebrities. Everyone from Alex Baldwin to WWF wresllers to Yoda have been so honored.

Now you can add a comic character to that list. Neil Gaiman's creation of Morpheus, the Sandman, is now available as a poster. The artwork is by P Craig Russell, who was the artist for an issue of Sandman.
posted by dragonmage at 9:56 PM PST - 18 comments

My Contemporaries Are Cooler Than Yours: Actually, it can become quite depressing to find out exactly who belongs to your generation. I mean, Howie Mandell, Bill Gates, Sandra Bernhard, Margot Hemingway, Kevin Costner and Joe Jackson? Give me a break. Which, thankfully, WhoWhatWhen, an interactive timeline generator, does quite nicely. Perfect for paranoids who like beginning sentences with "Surely it's no coincidence that in that very same year..." [Via LinkFilter.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:52 PM PST - 46 comments

Meet Gopal Godse, last surviving conspirator in the 1948 assassination of Mohandas Gandhi. Still proud of what he, his brother, and the other co-conspirators did, and still looking forward to "the day when India's Muslims convert to Hinduism."
Or die.
"He speaks almost gleefully about religious riots last year in the western state of Gujarat that killed about 1,000 people, most of them Muslims. 'If (Muslims) get the reaction like they did in Gujarat, they will get to know that Muslims are not supreme,' he said." The greatest tragedy of our age is that a civilized monster like him remains hopeful.
posted by wendell at 1:08 PM PST - 14 comments

Turning the tanks on the reporters The Observer's Phillip Knightley writes that Iraq will go down as the war when journalists seemed to become a target. Predicted here, discussed "in progress" here. The BBC, Al-Jazeera, and the US Committee to Protect Journalists thought it prudent to find out from the Pentagon what steps they could take to protect their correspondents if war came to Iraq... All three organisations concluded that the Pentagon was determined to deter western correspondents from reporting any war from the 'enemy' side; would view such journalism in Iraq as activity of 'military significance', and might well bomb the area.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:01 AM PST - 25 comments

The Key to My Father Author (and high school pal) Harlan Coben writes a terrific remembrance (NYTRR) of his late father. Hat tip to all the good paters out there! [More inside]
posted by billsaysthis at 10:55 AM PST - 4 comments

Where can one find the world's largest loon? The world's largest smoking pipe (fully smokeable, no less?) The world's largest pierogi? These and much more oversized fiberglass statuary can be found at the World's Largest Roadside Attractions site and the related site Big Things: The Monuments of Canada. Inspired by this thread.
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:15 AM PST - 19 comments

konspire2b allows anyone to be their own broadcast channel, beaming out multimedia across a p2p network to the masses. Could this be the next leap for blogging?
posted by owillis at 8:14 AM PST - 13 comments

The Moonlit Road. A fine collection of ghost stories from the American South.
People who like this may also be interesting in How to Fake a Ghost Photo, or Haunted Mobile Homes.
posted by plep at 7:18 AM PST - 2 comments

Who will heal the rift between France and America? Woody Allen will give it a go. Yet another Hollywood bigwig makes a stab at world affairs/international diplomacy.
posted by lunadust at 3:45 AM PST - 8 comments

One fine morning in December 2001, Petr and his son took their bicycles and embarked on a photo tour of psychic Rotterdam. The tally? Six tree spirits, two invisible entities, one grinning skull, one 'evil square', one sinister game of basketball, and a UFO.
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:47 AM PST - 8 comments

NYCRoads.com is an exhaustive history of the expressways, parkways, and river crossings that shaped metro New York over the last century and a half.
posted by PrinceValium at 1:30 AM PST - 4 comments

The Reverend Bunny's Secret Henna Diary. Sssh! Don't tell anyone, but this is a fascinating site featuring tips and tricks, and a nice gallery of images annotated by background information, image sources, history, and interesting anecdotes.

You can also find free patterns here, both traditional and non-traditional.
posted by taz at 12:59 AM PST - 7 comments

Did You Hear the One About the Suicide Bomber?
After Sept. 11, Shazia Mirza became famous by telling a single (some think abominable) joke. It's a funny thing, being a devout Muslim female comic.
posted by y2karl at 9:06 PM PST - 33 comments

Mary, Queen of Scots (warning: music) is one of British royalty's most adored and most reviled figures, putting her in the select company of arch-rival Elizabeth I (sigh: music again) and Charles I. (The latter is an Anglican saint, although not everybody is quite so enthused.) Wince at the description of her execution, read some poems about her--or, indeed, some of her own poems--or visit her grave in Westminster Abbey.
posted by thomas j wise at 4:21 PM PST - 3 comments

Nigerian email scam dudes. Possibly the first visual evidence of the rapscallions behind the scam that just keeps on sucking in new 'investors'.
posted by apocalypse miaow at 3:40 PM PST - 12 comments

With the wee hubbub that's going on at the moment in our government, it might be nice to take a step back and look at what this means for us Internet users (and more specifically, bloggers). When I pondered this for a moment, my mind drifted to that briefly bearded granola and silicon presidential hopeful of times long forgotten. Well, Al Gore may have invented the Internet (or, as he put it, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet"), but it is this man who has truly embraced the medium.

The greatest difference between this man and the cowboy currently shootin' from the hip in the Oval Office isn't about taxes. It's not about health care. And, yes, I contend it's not even about women's rights. The greatest difference between the Son of Bush and the Dean isn't about left or right or conservative or liberal. It's all about the flow of information. [More inside]
posted by Hammerikaner at 1:31 PM PST - 9 comments

SFGate is running an article on an internet assisted suicide that's worth reading. Not because of the minutiae, or any implied morality/immorality regarding suicide, but simply because it's a well-researched, well-written story of the culture of those who are about to die.
posted by Jairus at 1:26 PM PST - 21 comments

Whether you like your news right or your news left, there are watchers watching those who report. Anyone have more examples of those who keep an eye on journalists? Does it change anyone's thinking when they discover that the story they read was, for example, written by Jayson Blair, or has the damage already been done?
posted by swerdloff at 1:11 PM PST - 4 comments

Joshka Fischer Said What? That The U.S. Needs Another Boston Tea Party? Hidden in the depths of this very interesting article by Timothy Garton-Ash, on Europe's misplaced anti-Americanism, is a very interesting revelation from Germany's Green Party-carrying Foreign Minister. To what extent are relations between the pro-American and the anti-American Europe and the United States - the so-called "Old and New Europe" - based on misperceptions? Is Europe, like the Middle East and, well, the whole wide world, too complex for the current U.S. administration to understand? Is it really possible for American foreign to swerve round France and Germany? [Fwiw, my two centimes is that it is.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:06 PM PST - 8 comments

Dangerous Road Signs. Okay, so, I'm posting a link to a photoshop contest: I'm lame, that's a long established fact. That said, some of these really did amuse me - take a gander if you're up for a laugh.
posted by jonson at 12:26 PM PST - 16 comments

The one-eyed demon. In 1999 Bhutan, one of the most isolated countries in the world (Bhutan seems to have been the model för Shangri-la in James Hilton's "Lost Horizon"), became the last country in the world to adopt television. The king of Bhutan wasn't much interested in gross national product, but in his own concept "gross national happiness" and he believed that TV would increase his nation's happiness. Since then, Bhutan has experienced a crime wave unlike anything the country has previously known. This article tells the story and claims that TV breeds crime. But the questions raised by this story are wider than that: what is it that makes our Western TV-Coke-advertisement-culture totally irresistible? Why do people instantly feel they want it when they see it? Why hasn't any nation looked at the junk we have to offer, laughed at us and walked away?
posted by Termite at 12:06 PM PST - 30 comments

Blue collar whimsy : art crime. After viewing abstract sculptures by John Chamberlain crafted with materials such as crushed automobile parts, a group of electricians created their own work and placed it alongside Chamberlain's. Is this mad for real? Class warfare? "This was something that wasn't mistaken as a work of art by anyone other than the electricians."
posted by the fire you left me at 9:47 AM PST - 11 comments

Women are sexually aroused by women regardless of which gender they have sex with. "Researchers measured the psychological and physiological sexual arousal in homosexual and heterosexual men and women as they watched erotic films. There were three types of erotic films: those featuring only men, those featuring only women and those featuring male and female couples. As with previous research, the researchers found that men responded consistent with their sexual orientations. In contrast, both homosexual and heterosexual women showed a bisexual pattern of psychological as well as genital arousal. That is, heterosexual women were just as sexually aroused by watching female stimuli as by watching male stimuli, even though they prefer having sex with men rather than women."
posted by NortonDC at 8:49 AM PST - 94 comments

What am I? Clearly the most pressing question facing the human race today. Every individual human brain contains around 10^12 (1 trillion) neurons and 10^15 (1 quadrillion) synapses, capable of changing in milliseconds, and there are 6x10^9 (6 billion) people on this planet, all potentially capable of interacting and influencing one another. Last year alone 1.6x10^11 (160 billion) minutes of international telephone calls were made between people talking at a rate of 120 to 150 words per minute. A collection of articles at newscientist.com.
posted by mokey at 7:57 AM PST - 12 comments

"Twenty-two years ago, late in the evening one night in March of 1981, to be specific, my mother was killed in an auto accident on Foothill Boulevard in a town called Claremont." Talking Points Memo author Joshua Marshall, one of the best-known political webloggers, takes an unexpected personal detour.
posted by rcade at 7:56 AM PST - 4 comments

The Internet is better than MTV!
posted by son_of_minya at 7:38 AM PST - 11 comments

The Woodblock Prints of Ando Hiroshige. Images and essays - a treat for ukiyo-e fans.
Also good for ukiyo-e admirers :- Universes in Collision: Men and Women in 19th Century Japanese Prints; and Hiroshige: A Shoal of Fishes.
posted by plep at 4:07 AM PST - 4 comments

Large-scale marijuana cultivation in National Parks and forests. "[Growers] are killing wildlife, diverting streams, introducing nonnative plants, creating fire and pollution hazards, and bringing the specter of violence. For the moment, we are failing both parts of our mission, and that is tragic." This is not a new problem. "The reasons are obvious: the land is fertile, remote and free.  There's no risk of forfeiture, plantations are difficult to trace, and growers have land agents outmanned, outspent and outgunned."
posted by letitrain at 12:49 AM PST - 18 comments

10 Great Gay Cars For 2003. I'm into leather...interior.
posted by adrober at 12:27 AM PST - 19 comments

The Armarium. Online Historical Fencing Manuals & Texts at the Association for the Renaissance Martial Arts (ARMA).
posted by misteraitch at 12:14 AM PST - 2 comments

Airport Security Confiscates Food TV Star's Omelet Pan! Another example of our slippery slide into Fascism, or just another whiny Celebrity who needs to shut up? Or just a well-written anecdote that those of us who grew up as 'bully fodder' can relate to? Hey, give the man some respect; his book just won the James Beard Award. And who else would have a kitchenware version of the Periodic Table on his site? One celebrity blogger I wish would post more often, via Medley, via Fusion Reaction.
posted by wendell at 11:58 PM PST - 24 comments

The real reason we invaded Iraq! The Von Doniken explanation for Iraq Ataq. This is wierd stuff, folks. But it does raise an interesting question: should Earthly politics reflect galactic defense and solar interests? (heehee) (this link via y2karl over at WarFilter, cause he kinda begged for it, and I'm a simpleton who complies ..)
posted by Wulfgar! at 9:41 PM PST - 9 comments

Is it me, or does Mac Mentor sound like the name of a comic book super-villian? (Say it slow.)
posted by sudama at 9:40 PM PST - 5 comments

Something's wrong with the Segway if even the leader of the Free World and his noble father can't dominate it. Or could it be vice-versa?
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 5:37 PM PST - 39 comments

From the Sun to Pluto. And beyond lurks the Lobster Nebula...

Aroostook County in Northern Maine has created North America's largest scale model of the Solar System, to be officially unveiled tomorrow (Saturday - June 14, 2003). The model runs along 40 miles of highway with a scale of 1 mile to 1 AU. The project took four years to complete and did not have a budget.
posted by ursus_comiter at 3:11 PM PST - 10 comments

The RAPTOR Mark III - "The RAPTOR Mark III is the fastest and most versatile security vehicle in the world. It mounts a devastating choice of firepower as well as a comprehensive assortment of non-lethal weapons, all interchangeable and deployed through a retractable top."

You in the Hummer 2! Hold on a second... via William Gibson's blog
posted by GriffX at 2:39 PM PST - 24 comments

Curing male pattern baldness is more important then savings somebodies life, because there is no money in saving a person's life. So says a doctor who was cured from a fatal illness by a new drug.
posted by tljenson at 12:58 PM PST - 41 comments

Microsoft to discontinue development of IE for the Mac... Surprisingly this apparently isn't being done because of the low market share for Macintosh, but rather as a side effect of the increasing integration (whether real or alleged) between IE and the Operating System, which on the Mac is closed, so MS can cease development as support for their claims of mandatory integration between browser & OS. I await the next step, mandatory integration between email & OS? IM? Media tools? Net access?
posted by jonson at 12:15 PM PST - 67 comments

Filthy secrets of medieval toilets: Featuring the Royal Water Closet of French King John the Fearless. "Lesser mortals of course had less sophisticated apparatus... Some were no more than holes built into the wall, others were primitive outhouses perched with wooden supports onto an upper story. A series of mediaeval illuminations at the exhibition shows that accidents in these contraptions were common." Mon dieu!
posted by eyebeam at 12:13 PM PST - 9 comments

RAVE Act Passes Congress and Senate. Sensible control or a new reefer madness? Previously discussed here and here .
posted by squirrel at 11:21 AM PST - 30 comments

Pull! Meow! Bang! Splat! Clay kitten shooting - Flash.
posted by carter at 10:43 AM PST - 13 comments

Sperm Wars: Extreme sporting's next generation may well be Exo-biotic. What could be first manifestation in this new realm of sport? Taking into account such factors as: simplicity of contest design, ease of sample collection, lots of visible action, and abundant human male competitiveness, the most logical and economic choice would be a sperm competition.

Any volunteers? What do you think the next "extreme" sport will be?
posted by bedhead at 9:49 AM PST - 17 comments

Tibetan Buddhism in the West: Is it Working?
posted by mediareport at 9:36 AM PST - 14 comments

Amnesty International's 2003 Report on US isn't pretty - 2002 was not a good year for the United States. How do we, as a nation, deal with this situation?
posted by FormlessOne at 8:18 AM PST - 47 comments

The history of the salt mine under the city of Detroit. Mined until 1983.
posted by NortonDC at 8:15 AM PST - 18 comments

Seeing The Matrix yesterday (and just before it, the preview for the third Terminator movie) reminded me of this old David Foster Wallace essay"F/X Porn", in which he points out how Hollywood blockbusters have become the equivalent of your average "2 for $10.99!!" XXX rentals. [Google cached version here.]
posted by slipperywhenwet at 7:51 AM PST - 36 comments

Lego Astrobots Blog From Mars Rovers - The Planetary Society has teamed with NASA to "man" it's two Mars Exploration Rover spacecraft with Lego "Astrobots." The bots, Biff Starling and Sandy Moondust, are blogging their adventure "to allow kids to vicariously experience life in space, from launch, through the six-month space cruise, to landing and roving on the Martian surface."
posted by tpl1212 at 7:30 AM PST - 4 comments

Where do you turn when the springy gizmo breaks off of the filter basket on your 5-year-old coffee maker? Culinary Parts Unlimited, evidently. (Via the guy at the coffee store.)
posted by staggernation at 5:48 AM PST - 7 comments

Maps of Liberia , 1830-1879. The American Colonization Society was founded in 1817 to resettle free black Americans in West Africa. Here's a brief history of the American Colonization Society, with images of places, currency, letters etc.
The Yekepa Memory Project includes materials about Yekepa, Liberia, such as postcards and stamps.
Related :- Liberia, June 1999 photoessay.
Also of interest :- a collection of photos of neighbouring Guinea, 1905.
posted by plep at 1:40 AM PST - 4 comments

Video Gaming: it's a Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Dumb Industry.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 1:34 AM PST - 12 comments

Liquorice might help fight SARS the glycyrrhizin is perhaps the key. Will turkish peber finally be embraced by liquorice hating people?
posted by dabitch at 1:29 AM PST - 18 comments

The Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the infamous religious police of Saudi Arabia, have their own website. (It was these "mutawaeen" who caused the deaths of 15 schoolgirls last year.) The site displays forbidden items and has a handy web form for informing on immoral behavior. [Via Silflay Hraka, who provides a translation and directions for using the form.]
posted by homunculus at 9:44 PM PST - 21 comments

Paghat The Ratgirl (google cache) is one of the more interesting people that I have encountered on the Internet. A frequent poster to the newsgroup rec.gardens, her gardening site is an interesting mix of plant history and folklore, lovely images and a darn good place to get ideas on what to add to the yard next. She frequently posts to many other newsgroups as well and a quick google search or two turns up thousands of messages by paghat, her detractors and her fans. She even has a gift shop.
posted by bargle at 9:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Abbie the Cat Abbie the Cat has a posse. One of the few cat-related, non-saccharine weblogs out there. I'm pretty my cat thinks many of these things.
posted by Spezzatura at 8:28 PM PST - 6 comments

Death in the snow - a body is found in the frozen North Dakota woods. The cops say the dead Japanese woman was looking for the $1m she saw buried in the film Fargo. But the story didn't end there.
An interesting read via Follow Me Here.
posted by madamjujujive at 7:34 PM PST - 50 comments

Like most Nigerians, you're probably finding that it's increasingly difficult to earn a decent living from email. That's why you need to attend the 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference.
posted by Wet Spot at 7:12 PM PST - 6 comments

Cranespotting (Geocities) ... is the compulsion, upon seeing a long crane boom reaching skyward in the distance, to drive over and see what's holding it up. The crane capital of the world is Germany, where Demag, Gottwald, Krupp, Liebherr and others make some cranes with eye-opening numbers: more than 60 feet long, with 10 axles, and able to lift 1,000 tons. Now sometimes cranes tip over, touch power lines and so on; and there's a website for that too.
posted by kurumi at 5:44 PM PST - 7 comments

Revealing Statements about Peak Oil and Natural Gas Depletion.
posted by thedailygrowl at 5:09 PM PST - 13 comments

Will the Governor of California be recalled? Just 7 months after the election, the drive to recall California's Governor Davis is really building up steam. Helped in no small way by conservative Republican lawmaker Darryl Issa's contributions to the cause and his website about it. It will cost $25 million and be decided in 1 off-season election if enough signatures are gathered. Will it happen? Is it a waste of money? Will it result in chaos and a "free-for-all" or will it be the sign of a healthy Democracy in action?
posted by aacheson at 3:43 PM PST - 22 comments

Packing it in Now remember, just because an idiot tells you it's night doesn't mean the sun has risen. But Ann Coulter has busted the New York media. Seems a David Packer is their go-to guy any time they want a man on the street. It turns out David Packer's a real guy with apparently a lot of time on his hands. Mickey Kaus asks the Next Question "...why the NYT would write about this semi-professional line-stander and quote machine as if he were a typical man on the street. You'd think he'd be notorious by now. ... " They do have Nexis at the Times, don't they? [via KausFiles]
posted by mojohand at 1:09 PM PST - 19 comments

Actor Gregory Peck, whose role as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) won him the Academy Award for Best Actor--and ranking earlier this month as "the greatest hero in 100 years of film history" by the American Film Institute--passed away at age 87.
posted by LinusMines at 12:26 PM PST - 25 comments

Giant Gambian Pouched Rats! Curious about these two-foot-long African rodents that have inadvertently gifted our nation's prairie dogs, children, and medical workers with monkeypox? Mary Ann Isaksen writes for the Rat & Mouse Gazette about keeping one of these cute li'l critters as a house pet.
posted by eyebeam at 11:50 AM PST - 17 comments

David Brinkley dead at 82. He was one third of the 'holy trinity' of network news in my youth, along with Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor. His career covered the White House from FDR to Bill Clinton. This Week With David Brinkley was one of my favorite things to watch on a Sunday. He'll be missed, and I reminisce on how much journalism, and not just on television, has changed since I was a child.
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:47 AM PST - 8 comments

Drowning the government in a bathtub - "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Thus spoke Grover Norquist, of Americans for Tax Reform. "The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum", quipped the conservative UK Financial Times. Hardly, says Paul Krugman. The strategy?: "Instead of challenging popular liberal programs directly, the Republicans are creating fiscal conditions that make those programs unsustainable." [lead post, Am. Prospect]. In other words, the 400 billion dollar deficit, coupled with the Bush tax cuts, is designed to shift the obligations of the Fed onto the States and, later, to cause a fiscal train wreck after Bush is out of office.
posted by troutfishing at 10:59 AM PST - 58 comments

The New Sculpture in Fardus Square: "The last thing artists think about is politics. Politicians get paid to talk, that's the opposite of what artists do."
posted by angry modem at 10:39 AM PST - 5 comments

He can tell you a woman's bra size from 10 feet away. "When I first came into the business, cup sizes came in A, B, C and D." These days he stocks up to J, and says he could use a K.
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:16 AM PST - 50 comments

Fish Pr0n (Safe For Work.)
'Scientists at Fribourg university in Switzerland have discovered that sticklebacks ejaculate more sperm if first stimulated by a "soft porn" film showing flirting fish.' Further links (to the good stuff) enclosed. }++++>
posted by Blue Stone at 8:54 AM PST - 13 comments

From the better late than never dept: Now you can send instant messages between AIM/AOL and ICQ. AOL finally added interactivity support for their two IM protocols. Best new feature...
IM with yourself
Once you have the latest ICQ beta software, you'll be able to IM with the AIM and/or AOL on your own computer!
posted by riffola at 8:26 AM PST - 27 comments

Blogger moxie.nu acuses another blogger of identity theft . The other blogger, moxiepop.com, fires back, saying she got harassed by moxie.nu's readers and that she had never seen moxie.nu's site before. Another blogger goes on the offensive and accuses moxiepop of imitating moxie.nu. Comments start flying on moxie.nu and are ultimately closed by the host. Some other blogs step in, supporting moxiepop (1, 2, 3) and supporting moxie.nu (1, 2, 3). Tim Blair chimes in, Andrea Harris has a few words, Jim Treacher calls for some Moxie Boxing, and Kevin Parrott adds Rockem Sockem Moxies. A delightful train wreck for all to see.
posted by jonah at 8:21 AM PST - 45 comments

Chicago Tribune's Top 50 Magazines (might require registration, sorry) Not sure if I agree with anyone in the top 50. I mean People? Let's be serious; if you're going to put People in a "Top 50 List" then TV Guide should be right after People. What I do agree with is the list of "Mags Gone Bad:" Newsweek - So unnewsworthy. Playboy - Gone are the days of great journalism. Now it's like looking through a catalog written by crumb ass writers. Premiere - Was it really ever that good, aside from a David Foster Wallace article here and there? Rolling Stone - Again, if it wasn't for the half-cocked rambling os Hunster S. Thompson this magazine would be total tripe. Spin - See Premiere but without the David Foster Wallace articles. Vanity Fair - Maybe a nice cover or two, but not much else to celebrate.
posted by bivouac at 8:17 AM PST - 29 comments

Sometimes WIPO get it right... One of the latest UDRP decisions says that Aberzombie.com is 'an obvious parody' and shouldn't be transferred to Abercrombie and Fitch. What's most interesting here is that the Aberzombie site is trading on its similarity - selling 'Aberzombie' shirts amongst other things. That's usually enough for WIPO to snatch the domain straight back - but no: Although "zombie" preceded by "aber" might call to mind the Complainants’ marks, especially in the context of the Respondent’s business of selling t-shirts, the Panel finds that the public would not confuse the Respondent for the Complainants, and thus Abercrombie and Aberzombie are not confusingly similar. How refreshingly sensible! Also interesting: WIPO have now notched up 5,000 UDRP domain name disputes. (via BNA's Internet Law News email)
posted by humuhumu at 8:07 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Dress me up! Please! Meow! - Cat costume play packages .....
posted by MintSauce at 8:01 AM PST - 10 comments

Lessig and the RIAA's Matt Oppenheim This great Q&A between two very well spoken opponents in the copyright wars answers (very clearly) many of the questions that have stemmed from the ongoing erosion of the public domain by copyright law and the degradation of the music industry by file swappers. I was struck by how straight many of the answers were... a fascinating read
posted by dirtylittlemonkey at 7:29 AM PST - 29 comments

Morbid Outlook is a polished, eclectic Goth magazine with a killer design and content to die for. With hundreds of articles and images in the categories of Art, Music, Fashion, Lifestyle, Fiction and Nonfiction, this is one of the very best online zines I've seen yet. Go to any feature, and you will find a list of related-interest articles accompanying the story, and, usually, a listing of online resources or suggestions for reading as well.
posted by taz at 7:19 AM PST - 31 comments

Bridges and Tunnels of Allegheny County. They hold bridge conventions here in Pittsburgh because there are around 2000 bridges in and around the city. Take the tours to see some of them. My favorites: Westinghouse, Smithfield St., East St., Panther Hollow.
posted by tss at 6:42 AM PST - 14 comments

Hanif Kureishi's official website doesn't seem to have been updated for a while (so much so that some of the unpublished material has been published for a few years), but it's role as a venue for Kureishi to present original work before it is published means there's some great writing here.
posted by monkey closet at 5:27 AM PST - 3 comments

Built St. Louis. The historic architecture of St. Louis, Missouri, its ruins, and its wondrous anachronisms.
posted by plep at 1:36 AM PST - 17 comments

A Company By Any Other Name Would Smell Just As Foul: A pool-cleaning company called Poolife; an Internet terminal firm called NetPecker. With all the stupid rebranding now going on, it's a pity more attention isn't paid to companies in the politically incorrect but delightful funny names game. [Poolife and NetPecker courtesy of Bifurcated Rivets.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:18 PM PST - 28 comments

Mobs move into 'Sims Online' power vacuum: "An underground group known as the Sims Shadow Government has taken over the fantasy world that is 'The Sims Online,' meting out mob justice." I don't play the Sims Online, but I'm curious: Has anyone on Mefi run into this phenomenon while playing the game?
posted by eclectica at 10:05 PM PST - 28 comments

Video of Nasa's Delta II rocket launch (RealVideo) The camera was mounted on the rocket facing down towards earth and the resulting footage is amazing. There's a Windows Media version at MSNBC.
posted by stevengarrity at 7:41 PM PST - 21 comments

The official String Theory website. Fo' all your supa string needs.
posted by slipperywhenwet at 7:16 PM PST - 11 comments

Oh my. Is this performance art? A political statement? An in your face variation on cosplay? Meet the very not-safe-for-work Rati. Is this a contemporary nod to tradition? Does it rise to the same level as another popular theme in art? Weigh in on Rati!
posted by madamjujujive at 6:22 PM PST - 12 comments

America today - a nation overrun by Ethiopian immigrants. Can nothing stop them?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:58 PM PST - 11 comments

polylog: Forum for Intercultural Philosophy. "polylog seeks... an intercultural dialogue among philosophers as well as other interested scholars and members of society – in a philosophical polylogue. The project pursues this aim by providing a virtual platform for the world-wide discussion of topics in intercultural philosophy. Intercultural philosophy is not thereby intended as a new theory, discipline, or school to be established. Rather, the diversity of intentions and approaches should be met with the greatest possible openness as well as academic seriousness – as much as possible in the appropriate form and manner." There are a lot of great articles on this site. [Via wood s lot, which linked to Toward a Buddhist Vision of Social Justice, a comparison of Buddhism and the philosophy of John Rawls.]
posted by homunculus at 4:10 PM PST - 3 comments

In the aisle by the chill cabinets, no-one can hear you scream.
posted by dg at 3:59 PM PST - 9 comments

At first, it appeared that the effort to begin a public probe into the manipulation of intelligence that formed the foundation of the case for the Iraq war was shaking out as bipartisan, with John Warner, and eventually John McCain on board. Each day we would hear of another Senator or Representative pushing harder for an open review of exactly who pulled which string. It only took a few minutes this morning for all of that momentum to cease to exist. ...
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 3:11 PM PST - 28 comments

The Coral Calcium scam. Coral Calcium products are on fire right now, with infomercials and brochures claiming that the miracle supplements can cure everything from fatigue to cancer. Of course there is no scientific evidence supporting any of these claims and one of the two men featured in the infomercials is a convicted felon named Kevin Trudeau. New FTC actions are ongoing and The Mayo Clinic has just sent out a letter to patients warning that the broad range of benefits claimed by those marketing some Coral Calcium products are simply too good to be true and that if the calcium indeed comes form the Okinawa area as claimed, it could be contaminated with lead.
posted by bargle at 2:02 PM PST - 15 comments

The life of an Israeli paramedic. "The worst thing in the terror attacks, in my point of view, is to see young babies, who have done no harm," he said. "If they are alive, shouting, burns all over their body. They are experiencing pain, very big pain. There is no stronger pain than having burns."
posted by darren at 1:22 PM PST - 74 comments

Hilary Clinton is a liar. "'Living History' is a 562-page book. A work of that length would take an average writer perhaps four years to produce; a highly proficient writer might finish in two years, if working on nothing else. Clinton signed the contract to 'write' the book about two years ago. About the same time, she also was sworn in as a member of the United States Senate. ... So in the last two years Clinton has either been neglecting her duties as a United States Senator -- that is, violating her oath -- or she is claiming authorship of someone else's work." Such is the wisdom of Gregg Easterbrook, ESPN Page 2's Tuesday Morning Quarterback. The columns, during football season, combine incisive pigskin analysis with haiku, political commentary and -- ahem -- cheesecake photos.
posted by krewson at 12:00 PM PST - 66 comments

For the lazy troll in your life: Curses, Flames, Shakespearian Insults and more. Ready to copy/paste into your flamefest of choice.
posted by fjom at 10:53 AM PST - 9 comments

Jerry Springer is running for Senate. It looks like all our campaigns will now be powered by blogging.
posted by owillis at 10:31 AM PST - 22 comments

"Our nation can no more survive as half democracy and half oligarchy than it could survive 'half slave and half free'" (alternative non-PDF link). "Understanding the real interests and deep opinions of the American people is the first thing. And what are those? That a Social Security card is not a private portfolio statement but a membership ticket in a society where we all contribute to a common treasury so that none need face the indignities of poverty in old age without that help. That tax evasion is not a form of conserving investment capital but a brazen abandonment of responsibility to the country. That income inequality is not a sign of freedom-of-opportunity at work, because if it persists and grows, then unless you believe that some people are naturally born to ride and some to wear saddles, it's a sign that opportunity is less than equal. That self-interest is a great motivator for production and progress, but is amoral unless contained within the framework of community. That the rich have the right to buy more cars than anyone else, more homes, vacations, gadgets and gizmos, but they do not have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else."
Bill Moyers "tends the flame of democracy."
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 10:21 AM PST - 75 comments

BlairHornstineFilter: everyone's favorite teen litigant strikes again. After winning solo valedictorian status in court, Blair will be skipping the graduation ceremony to avoid the "backlash" against her. Dang. (via ObscureStore)
posted by serafinapekkala at 10:04 AM PST - 43 comments

Unbrand America
In the coming months a black spot will pop up everywhere...on store windows and newspaper boxes, on gas pumps and supermarket shelves. Open a magazine or newspaper - it's there. It's on TV. It stains the logos and smears the nerve centers of the world's biggest corporations.
posted by mapalm at 9:37 AM PST - 114 comments

Hilary Rodham Clinton Lets It All In: I couldn’t speak. I could hardly breathe. I was gulping for air. I couldn’t take it any more. There was only one thing left to do. I took it out of my mouth and bundled it back in his pants. A parody by Craig Brown, the man who dared follow in Auberon Waugh's steps, from Private Eye.
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 8:10 AM PST - 17 comments

Michael Savage claims that his listeners can't tell the difference between michaelsavage.com (the link didn't work? oops!) and savagestupidity.com, apparently not aware that in these days of cybersquatting, it pays to NOT pick you AKA from the dictionary.

And while on the subject, let it be known that he who now calls homosexual "perverts" was once on "dear" terms with Allen Ginsberg
posted by magullo at 7:58 AM PST - 21 comments

Everything you ever wanted to know about telephones. Really. I went to the list of History of the Telephone links first.
posted by carter at 6:08 AM PST - 4 comments

Take one flag. Add black marker pen. Instant Harmony! Does multicultural Britain need a flag makeover? Does this set a multi-colour precedent? Rainbow's taken isn't it? Is it maybe a plot by smaller flag makers to undermine market leaders? And what about Wales?
posted by klaatu at 5:24 AM PST - 30 comments

Turner Worldwide. The Tate's new online Turner project brings together works from over 100 collections, including about 500 previously 'lost' pieces.
posted by monkey closet at 4:46 AM PST - 5 comments

Models come alive, games programmer Will Wright gets deep on game design in his PC Forum talk. His slides are here ("This is like CANDY for NERDS!") . [Via Corante.com]
posted by jamespake at 10:02 PM PST - 9 comments

Got a same-sex partner? Live in Ontario? Well, you can get married, says the province's highest court. In fact, if you live in Toronto, you can get married right now.
posted by stonerose at 9:16 PM PST - 41 comments

Northvegr: The Northern Way is a site devoted to the practice, promotion and development of the Northern spiritual faith, which we call Hindrvitni or the Northern Way, aka the Norse ancestral faith, though the authors are careful to distinguish this from neopaganism, particularly Odinism and Asatru. Once you're on board, be sure to Buy Heathen!. [more inside]
posted by dhartung at 5:58 PM PST - 17 comments

Best song of the last quarter century? Ok, I liked the song when it came out,(Nirvana Smells Like Teen Spirit) and can still listen to it today. But, VH1 is saying it is the best song for the last quarter century. That, I have a problem with. It is going to take me some time to reflect on this and come up with some alternates. I thought you folks may have your own opinions as well. So, lets hear it, what do you think is the best song of the last quarter century?
posted by a3matrix at 5:30 PM PST - 102 comments

Why Are The Six Best Restaurants in New York All French? Because William Grimes from the New York Times is a massive, provincial, toadying snob, that's why says so. [NYT reg. req.] With his haughty tone, architectural blatherings and whiney voice [Real Video link] he's undoubtedly my pet hate among restaurant critics, even though he obviously knows his stuff, not to mention a thing or two about cocktails [here is his take on the Martini]. My favourite critics are GQ's Alan Richman and the Anti-Grimes himself, a man who truly knows his food, Robert Sietsema of The Village Voice. What critics get your goat or vote? Which ones are worth reading and following? More importantly, which ones - or anonymous restaurant guides, like Zagat's, can you trust, if any?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:31 PM PST - 36 comments

How Dodgy Are You? I'm in the clear. No years in prison and no fine. Safe and boring. Let's see the Mefi criminal element emerge shall we? [Imagary may now be work safe and the quiz is based on UK law ...]
posted by feelinglistless at 2:04 PM PST - 49 comments

Imagine drifting off to dreamy anaesthesia -induced sleep for some such surgery and having some medical student cram a digit up one of your holes. Apparently, it happens all the time in the name of "learning".
posted by vito90 at 2:01 PM PST - 27 comments

Step one: record an embarrassing video of yourself (RealPlayer link). Step two: Let the video fall into the hands of the internet masses, and become the hero you've dreamed of (also RealPlayer).
posted by ewagoner at 1:33 PM PST - 22 comments

Images of Afghanistan, 1976-78. A good range.
posted by plep at 12:05 PM PST - 12 comments

Calls for a ban on Halal and Kosher slaughtered meat in the UK are being called an attack on religion or necessary to improve the welfare of farm animals... Where to start thinking about this? Take 1: Is there a vast right-wing, um, wait, left-wing, um wait, err, something-wing conspiracy against Muslims right now? Take 2: Is this a case of "colliding waves of political correctness"? Take 3: As a vegetarian (works for me, ain't gonna preach) the notion of killing animals nicer is kind of funny. Why couldn't we just survey the animals as they enter the slaughterhouse? "Slash to throat? Bolt to head? Electrocution? Thank you, drive through." Whichever way you look at the story, it just goes to show you, the world's a complicated place and you can't please anyone.
posted by lazywhinerkid at 9:55 AM PST - 82 comments

Backpack Nation has an interesting idea about helping out the third world.

The basic mission and strategy of Backpack Nation is to transform the world's dire political situation by sending individual travelers from the developed countries to serve as roving ambassadors to the world's less-wealthy countries.

posted by Karmakaze at 9:21 AM PST - 50 comments

PhotoVoyage is treasure trove of more than 50 photo essays from the Washington Post on wide-ranging themes. I am partial to the global features, such as the Dogon People of Mali, the Nunavut Journal, an essay on Sherpas or the bike tour of Australia, but there are other in-depth topics like The Business of Bananas and Recycling that are fascinating too. Apparently, photography is not an afterthought on the Post site - this series is part of a larger section called Camera Works - also well worth checking out!
posted by madamjujujive at 6:55 AM PST - 6 comments

The World Heritage Tour is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating a documentary image bank with panoramic pictures for all of the UNESCO World Heritage sites [warning: frames]. Examples include the tomb of Sety I, discovered in 1817 and permanently closed to the public in 1991 and the baroque churches of the Phillipines. [more inside]
posted by Irontom at 6:06 AM PST - 11 comments

"And mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long.  Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge.  And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall." This is Senator Byrd, just a light at the end of a very dark and probably very long tunnel.
posted by acrobat at 5:15 AM PST - 91 comments

...we are all mortal Forty years ago today, the US President tentatively outlined the idea of coexistence with an intractable enemy. The famous, resonant lines about breathing the same air and cherishing our children's future feel oddly buried in the speech, between a "secondly" and a "thirdly". Cuba was still some months in the future when Kennedy gave this speech. Audio here.
posted by gdav at 2:25 AM PST - 26 comments

Crank Dot Net is devoted to presenting Web sites by and about cranks, crankism, crankishness, and crankosity. All cranks, all the time. Divided into over 100 sections, this is a great place to educate yourself on everything from the Theory of Elephanticity to How to Shrink Your Husband's Crotch.
posted by Ljubljana at 1:55 AM PST - 11 comments

Crap Towns. 'We continue to be ... surprised at the dreadful quality of British life' writes The Idler magazine, in their on-going quest to disover 'the crappest town in Britain'. How many here have escaped from truly crap places to live, or are still trapped in them? (more inside)
posted by misteraitch at 1:30 AM PST - 65 comments

Rep. Henry Waxman has written an (extensively footntoed and juicy) open letter to President Bush demanding answers about "misrepresenting evidence" against Iraq. Waxman is unique among an ever-growing numer of pitchfork-wielders as a Congressman who had supported the war. He wrote of the use of forged evidence about alleged nuclear transactions between Niger and Iraq:
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 12:36 AM PST - 51 comments

The work of Russian miniaturist Nikolai Syadristy is amazing - sculptures, watercolors, engravings, all mere millimeters in size. It's a shame, however, that the best online galleries for displaying his works are so limited. This Flash based virtual museum and this horrendous gallery were the most extensive collections available online. Still, his work is worth suffering through the bad user interface & limited English translation to enjoy, for those who wish to know just how many angeles truly can fit on the head of a pin.
posted by jonson at 9:11 PM PST - 4 comments

So you decide to get Dad a toolbox for Father's day. Should it have electricity? A fuel tank? A computer? A built-in vacuum cleaner? A radio? No, he needs a manly toolbox, one he can use to cook steaks.
posted by Wet Spot at 7:16 PM PST - 3 comments

Laugh as much as you like: I still think there's a certain intensely dramatic and lyrical redneck technique behind these country music song titles. I like a song title that says everything upfront. It's not as easy as you think, either. [Via Bifurcated Rivets]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 6:42 PM PST - 12 comments

Truth, Justice, and the Soviet Way What if baby Kal-El's spaceship had crashed on Earth 12 hours earlier, in the Ukraine instead of middle America? The new 3-issue comic book series Superman: Red Son envisions the Man of Steel as a good-hearted citizen of the USSR, helping to spread communism across the world. Wonder Woman is his girlfriend; Batman is an anti-Soviet terrorist; Lex Luthor becomes U.S. president. This alternate-universe jaunt is not just for fun: writer Mark Millar says it's a timely exploration of what happens when one all-powerful country anoints itself leader of the world.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:25 PM PST - 25 comments

A hip hop geek's wet dream... I don't know about you, but to find this site made my day. Dozens and dozens of full length songs that your favorite hip hop producers have sampled. If you can convert streaming audio to mp3, the songs are yours!
posted by Slimemonster at 2:04 PM PST - 22 comments

Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected and rightful leader of Burma (Myanmar,) and the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was arrested by Burma's military government 9 days ago after a premeditated attack on her motorcade. The U.N. representative visiting Burma has not been allowed to see her. There has been a crackdown on the democracy movement, and Suu Kyi's arrest may signal a split within the military government. [More inside.]
posted by homunculus at 12:47 PM PST - 30 comments

Lianhuanhua Picture Stories from China - Chinese cartoons; and Ling Lung Women's Magazine, Shanghai 1931-37.
posted by plep at 12:01 PM PST - 2 comments

The Simplified Spelling Society. Finally, a cause I can really get behind. More.
posted by srboisvert at 10:04 AM PST - 63 comments

Eyesore of the Month is a monthly look at architectural monstrosities. Sample critique: "A total lack of skill meets a total rejection of history. The result: all the charm of a packing crate and none of the structural integrity." [via Good Experience]
posted by kirkaracha at 10:04 AM PST - 30 comments

2fast, 2furious, 2...something. This gallery of tricked-out Japanese big rigs defies description.
posted by mathowie at 9:37 AM PST - 39 comments

A Blast From The Past: Ass Chaps Man A piece of classic American Webiana, still hilarious after all these years. Does anyone know of other classic Web pieces that somehow missed the MeFi front page, probably because they were so well known at the time? [ With thanks to quonsar. Safe for work, I'd say, but a close call.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:45 AM PST - 23 comments

The Pale Horse Percentage. The demise of civilization has been predicted since it began, but the odds of keeping Planet Earth alive and well are getting worse amid a breakneck pace of scientific advances, according to Martin Rees, Britain's honorary astronomer royal. Rees calculates that the odds of an apocalyptic disaster striking Earth have risen to about 50 percent from 20 percent a hundred years ago.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 7:29 AM PST - 21 comments

The rantacular Francis E Dec : "Gangster Computer God Worldwide Secret Containment policy made possible solely by Worldwide Computer God Frankenstein Controls. Especially lifelong constant threshold brainwash radio. Quiet and motionless, I can slightly hear it. Repeatedly this has saved my life on the streets. Four billion wordwide population, all living, have a Computer God Containment Policy brain bank brain, a real brain in the brain bank cities on the far side of the moon we never see. Primarily, based on your lifelong Frankenstein Radio Controls, especially your Eyesight TV, sight and sound recorded by your brain, your moon brain of the Computer God activates your Frankenstein threshold brainwash radio lifelong, inculcating conformist propaganda, even frightening you and mixing you up and the usual, "Don't worry about it." For your setbacks, mistakes, even when you receive deadly injuries. This is the Worldwide Computer God Secret Containment Policy." Ubuweb has many sounds. Sounds are good.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:59 AM PST - 10 comments

4D rubiks Cube. There's a small (416k) download, but then it's probably the hardest puzzle in the world. It should keep you busy for a few hours.
posted by Spoon at 3:28 AM PST - 18 comments

Early humans lost hair to beat parasites? (New Scientist) - Human nakedness, a species anomaly among mammals, draws comparisons to the blind, naked mole rat. Meanwhile, seven thousand humans (Italians) recently gathered naked, for unclear purposes.
posted by troutfishing at 2:02 AM PST - 17 comments

Drainspotting. Also, the beautiful norwegian manhole covers. via memepool
posted by spazzm at 12:04 AM PST - 11 comments

John Gilmore , co-founder of the EFF , is suing a couple of airlines, the FAA, the FBI, the TSA, the DHS, and a Mr. John Ashcroft. Why? May I see your papers, please?
posted by majcher at 11:41 PM PST - 36 comments

Martha Stewart's got a new project on her hands: redecorating her jail cell. With a little lace, some scented contraband and a lot of time, cell ML-122 will be fit for the matriarch of homemaking in no time. Check out this gallery of the latest Spring jail cell designs, courtesy of the photoshop pholks at Worth1000.
posted by hidely at 11:25 PM PST - 10 comments

Do you know the muffin man? If so, you've probably got a kid (or two) or were one once. That said, you'll probably dig the music of Ralph Covert, aka Ralph's World. My favorite is his first (self-titled) record, mostly for Freddy Bear the Teddy Bear and Drivin' in My Car. Give him a listen. (All of his albums are available from emusic.)
posted by dobbs at 5:18 PM PST - 8 comments

The first 50 years of Fiat advertising images. Fiat has been a pioneer in the development and management of its corporate image through advertising. Famous artists as Dudovich, Codognato, Casorati and De Chirico have created beautiful posters and designs for this Italian giant of which 100 from the 1899 to 1950 period have been selected for their online historial archive. The oldest being this fantastic “Fabbrica Italiana Di Automobili” poster from 1899.
posted by riffola at 4:07 PM PST - 7 comments

Biniki is a butt bra(tm)! (Possibly NSFW)
posted by qDot at 4:04 PM PST - 12 comments

Gollum's acceptance video for winning Best Virtual Performance at the MTV Movie Awards. [Via /.]
posted by homunculus at 12:38 PM PST - 24 comments

The Nuba of Sudan : - politics, culture, photographs and wrestlers.
Related :- Survival International; the photographs of George Rodger, who travelled among the Nuba after World War II; the Nuba People; the Dinka and the Nuer, neighbours of the Nuba.
posted by plep at 11:39 AM PST - 1 comment

"Live Large, Live Free!" Freedom Paradise is a new Mexican resort catering to large-size visiters. "There are a lot of people who put off vacations, saying, 'I'll buy that bikini when I lose 15 pounds.' We say, why wait to lose weight, when you can enjoy life now?"
posted by ferociouskitty at 10:55 AM PST - 16 comments

When she sees the SIZE of your bank balance, she'll be digging YOUR "gold" in no time! Today's Independent on Sunday newspaper carried the story of these fake ATM receipts showing a balance of $314,159.26.

"After you write your number on this receipt (conveniently folded in your wallet), hand it to the member of opposite sex and watch how fast they call you!"

Tragically, they look nothing like UK ATM receipts, but it had me wondering - what's the lowest-down dirtiest line/ trick you (sorry: I mean, a friend of yours) ever pulled in an attempt to impress a member of the desired sex?
posted by Pericles at 10:11 AM PST - 45 comments

What could you do with $27? - Microcredit or microfinance provides working capital through small loans to the working poor. Read some of the wonderful accounts of people who built thriving businesses and new lives with from a jumpstart of as little as a $100 loan. Read the remarkable story of the Grameen Bank, and learn about Village Banking, and other inspiring efforts to bring dignity and help to the more than 1.2 billion people who live on less than one dollar a day. - more -
posted by madamjujujive at 10:01 AM PST - 10 comments

"We have an outbreak" (James Hughes, director of the CDC). At least 19 people in three Midwestern states have contracted a disease related to smallpox marking the first outbreak of the life-threatening illness in the United States. The disease is known as monkeypox.
posted by stbalbach at 8:25 AM PST - 15 comments

new baghdad blogger Salim Pax's friend G. now has his own blog. The writing isn't nearly as tight, but the one entry so far is intresting
posted by delmoi at 6:54 AM PST - 4 comments

Ontario land of beautiful parks, vibrant nightlife, and as of June 6th, smoking pot is completely legal. What's striking is the silent acceptance of this by the Canadian public, who overwhelmingly sees the current laws as archaic. Previous discussion.
posted by CrazyJub at 6:48 AM PST - 34 comments

Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
posted by thedailygrowl at 11:33 PM PST - 48 comments

Why Does This News Make Me Uneasy? As a Jew whose sister is married to a German and who has happily visited Germany four or five times, the news that Jews are flocking back to Germany should leave me in the best of moods. But it doesn't. Antisemitism is flourishing almost everywhere in Middle Europe - specially in France, Germany and even Britain - often under the guise of Anti-Zionism. Even my synagogue in peaceful Lisbon is today protected by stringent security measures. Is this just an unwillingness to depart from old stereotypes or does it find an echo in other cautious Jews? Specially with Germans. I feel simultaneously ashamed and wary. Someone tell me - and a lot of others - I am wrong. Please. History may not repeat itself - but it sure as hell seems to inspires itself sometimes. And we're all better off, I think, if we confront our demons. If they are demons, that is.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:46 PM PST - 56 comments

Chief Wiggles -- Straight from Iraq. Lost amid the writings of Salam Pax and Lt. Smash, a small voice, an author with a depth of feeling quietly leaves his words on the web for family and friends to read. His prose evoke feelings and draw you into his world of flies, heat and sand. A worthwhile read for all. (via Brain graze.)
posted by Baesen at 6:39 PM PST - 21 comments

Are You Spy Enough? Put your skills to the test. [Via Bifurcated Rivets. Flash required.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 6:15 PM PST - 11 comments

As reported by Don O'Briant of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Phineas J. Monkey, local celebrity and co-star of Uncle Grampa's Hoo-Dilly Stew, was assaulted by Burt Reynolds at a gala for the IMAGE Film and Video Center earlier this week. Mr. Reynolds appears to have been enraged by the puppet's biting wit, so much so that he was compelled to latch violently onto the charming emcee's throat with both hands. I'd like to say this sort of thing is surprising, but alas, it is not. Irrational behavior seems to have become a part of Mr. Reynolds's operating system, a point well illustrated by his dismissal of an agent for landing him his only decent role in 1997 (par 14). To be fair, Boogie Nights was no Meet Wally Sparks.
posted by cachilders at 6:02 PM PST - 9 comments

hair tips for men... " Psst... if you have a receding hairline, this is a good style to pick! Try shaving at the sides too! Or maybe tying up your hair! Experiment!"

Tonight's google search was for an 80s hairstyle utilizing square permanent rods - i still haven't found what i was looking for, but this was a nice momentary diversion...
posted by cadence at 4:40 PM PST - 9 comments

Joshua Allen has had to live in a motel while he looks for somewhere to live to accompany his new job. He seems to have found all of the minor irritations: "The toilet seat won’t stay up. I have a smallish heart attack when it slaps down while I’m in mid-stream, not paying attention. I feel obligated to clean up after myself since I’ll be running into the maids all month. I desperately want them to like me, to confide in me about the other guests, the things they find in the rooms." He doesn't include the one I encountered in Paris, "The way the maid leaves your room unlocked all day while you're out after making your bed..." Luckily I had all my valuables with me...
posted by feelinglistless at 2:27 PM PST - 7 comments

Name that beard
Hurrah for stupid flash games.
posted by Mwongozi at 12:41 PM PST - 9 comments

The Hellenic Ministry of Culture The Hellenic Ministry of Culture and its many guides and maps for hundreds of Greek archaeological sites, monuments and museums. Here's one of Herakleion, in Crete.
posted by plep at 11:20 AM PST - 7 comments

The Atari 2600 redux This time Jakks TV Games has put 10 old Atari games into the old Atari joystick form factor fo $20US. That's $2 a game. Sure, they're not all terrific games, but hey it's easier than trying to do this yourself. Don't like the 2600? It's OK, they also make Activision and Namco versions.
posted by plinth at 10:39 AM PST - 21 comments

Sing, Wing! This is so good: "Hi, I am Wing! I immigrated to New Zealand with my family about ten years ago from Hong Kong. I have been learning singing in New Zealand and I do performances in Rest Homes and Hospitals. Don't miss her, eh, "treatment" of the Carpenters, and Summertime.
posted by sparky at 9:04 AM PST - 20 comments

Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense? A study in law regarding the current political situation in US politics warmongering.
posted by the fire you left me at 6:53 AM PST - 62 comments

Rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated. Well, not greatly, exactly...

My hometown paper blows it out their collective nether aperture. (News media keep obits of the famous ready to use; here's one that detonated prematurely.) From the Smoking Gun via Drudge. And I cringe, yet again, that I live in this lousy town with its crummy newspaper.)
posted by alumshubby at 10:43 PM PST - 14 comments

The best way to describe the taste is flat Sprite with globs of snot floating in it. [more inside]
posted by jonson at 9:42 PM PST - 34 comments

Degener Fine Prints: Japanese prints, and much more.
posted by hama7 at 8:53 PM PST - 6 comments

The Turbo10.com search engine beta is back online. Here's why it will make Google its bitch.
posted by Space Coyote at 8:46 PM PST - 32 comments

VW Beetle days coming to end. I had a '68 as my college car in the 70's. Girls loved it. Got me where I wanted to go (most of the time). The cute car of the 50's and 60's. Have one? Had one?
posted by hockeyman at 8:06 PM PST - 25 comments

Nice Logo, Dude, But Not On My T-Shirt, Thank You Very Much: 250 of those we hated, got sick of, been utterly indifferent to...and still love. Many missing. Which one(s) would you wear for free? [Via geisha asobi and oink.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:41 PM PST - 37 comments

Muslim woman sues over driver's license photo A muslim woman is suing the state of Florida because she doesn't want to take off her veil to take the photo. If everyone were allowed to take covered face photos, what would be the point of having a photo? "Whaddya mean that's not me? Look at the eyes!" More links: http://www.naplesnews.com/03/06/florida/d896205a.htm http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/01/30/muslim-fla-suit.htm (old)
posted by filecrave at 2:48 PM PST - 38 comments

BBC "Fresh doubts over Iraq's arsenal". CNN "Pentagon: WMD report consistent with U.S. case" Google News lists many other sources on this topic, with varying titles depending on who you read.
posted by CrazyJub at 1:49 PM PST - 29 comments

What do you do for a living? Yet another dreaded weekend approaches, bringing with it invitations to parties. Inevitably, I will attempt to strike up a conversation with someone new, and the question will be asked. As a web developer, I usually get a response about someone's personal problems with their own computer, much like doctors usually get a response about a person's xxxx not feeling right. What do you do and what are the responses you get back? Are you ever tempted to lie about what you do?
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:25 PM PST - 101 comments

Rudy Van Gelder was probably present for more moments of musical genius than any other human in history. He began working with Blue Note records in 1953, and went on to engineer thousands of sessions with some of the greatest jazz players of all time. Not bad for an optometrist who started off by building a studio in his parents' living room.
posted by Ty Webb at 12:14 PM PST - 3 comments

Obituaries of those who died in Iraq.
posted by agregoli at 11:07 AM PST - 19 comments

The Winners of This Year's Webby Awards.
posted by Blue Stone at 9:51 AM PST - 17 comments

I guess we all suspected it, but those one-armed bandits were fixed all along. The fruit machines we gamble on in our local pubs follow pre-determined sequences to get you hooked; there is nothing random in their behaviour. How do we know? This U.K. campaign group has built PC emulators to run the actual programme code from the gaming machines's ROM chips. They claim they are not only fixed but illegal (via NTK).
posted by rolo at 9:33 AM PST - 53 comments

The Museum of the History of Science , Oxford, has an impressive collection of online exhibits - from medieval scientific instruments and the history of cameras to images of Tycho Brahe and 'the geometry of war' - mathematics and the early modern European battlefield.
posted by plep at 9:08 AM PST - 6 comments

ArtFilter: Imaginative, innovative takes on the landscape theme. Flatscape, "a [paper] publication about the Panorama," was to be published in Europe late last year (*see inside) . The submissions for the first issue are still online here.
posted by Shane at 8:48 AM PST - 3 comments

Read this interesting article in Saturday's Globe and Mail about how non-native species are being introduced into the Great Lakes and throwing off the delicate balance of the lakes' ecosystem. Sea lampreys, zebra mussels, and the New Zealand mudsnail now thrive in the Great Lakes, after arriving via shipping in the Seaway. Both Canada and the US governments are undertaking measures to curb these alien animals. This got me to thinking; is it necessary to eradicate these newly-arrived critters, or are these invasions just another part of that dizzyingly complex web we call Nature?
posted by Jughead at 8:41 AM PST - 21 comments

Bush "will reveal the truth". But what truth is that? Where he says freedom, he means curtailing press freedoms. When he talks about restoring the dignity of a great nation, he means handpicking Iraq's new government. When he mentions WMD, he could be referring to two trailers lacking any biological agent inside and show no signs that they had been used to produce biological weapons, or alternatively, a swimming pool, a drinks distillery and a factory making car license plates. Curiously enough, it's not him but his pals who find themselves in awkward positions. Then again, maybe it is them who are bringing it onto themselves.
posted by magullo at 8:25 AM PST - 47 comments

Play the instruments of Harry Partch online! (Some assembly required.) My favorite: the chromelodeon -- 43 tones per octave! For more background, see this prior Partch post.
posted by UlfMagnet at 8:13 AM PST - 6 comments

U.S. Dep't of "Justice" Blocks Gay Pride Event ostensibly because Bush has refused to issue a proclamation for Gay Pride month. (Clinton's Pride Month proclamation is here. A list of Bush's proclamations can be found here). How inclusive is your employer? Do you have a corporate pride event?
posted by stonerose at 7:58 AM PST - 43 comments

"Fo shizzle ma nizzle" versus Her Majesty's Justice.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 3:08 AM PST - 15 comments

In this corner Fox's Bill O'Reilly in the other corner Al "Stuart Smalley" Franken. Away from the safe confines of Fox News studio no microphone switch could be found for O'Reilly to shut Franken up as he was conveniently able to do earlier this year to anti-war protester Jeremy Glick
posted by thedailygrowl at 12:21 AM PST - 79 comments

5 More Minutes is one of the latest Neurotically Yours animated 'toons from Ill Will Press. Check out the whole twisted series of squirrelly tales, many are quite fun. (work alert: flash, squirrel profanity, and scantily-clad cartoon goth girl!)
posted by madamjujujive at 11:09 PM PST - 13 comments

"We are going to present every known form of electro-acoustic and computer music." Dartmouth College's Electro-Acoustic Music Program will be hosting the Electric Rainbow Coalition this August 22-23. Upload your own electronic music via mp3 (one submission per composer, deadline June 30.) More inside...
posted by gen at 10:14 PM PST - 8 comments

"Did You See Anything?" You heard gunshots. You heard sirens. Now you’re standing in front of the police tape and you’re hearing a lot of gossip. At any given crime scene, in any given city, the people giving commentary and asking questions aren't the cops - they're the neighbors. The Washington CityPaper reports.
posted by GriffX at 9:53 PM PST - 4 comments

New Zealand: The New Threat A New Zealand handyman with a passion for jet engines says he is building a cruise missile in his backyard using parts and technology freely available over the Internet. The 'handyman' is a part-time new economy pundit and his methodology isn't documented yet, but he does have a rather interesting page about the idea up.
posted by tankboy at 8:00 PM PST - 8 comments

OK girls, what have you done to earn a merit badge? Learned about underarm hair or menstrual cramps? Made it through a preganancy test? And boys, what have you done to earn your merit badges?
posted by alms at 7:42 PM PST - 14 comments

This mildly salacious Mini commercial showed up halfway through the Canadian broadcast of The Amazing Race tonight. But the French version seems to work even better with the subtle use of captions and slightly louder gasping. Cheap production trick for the bilingual Canadian market or Gallic subtlety? (Quicktime required)
posted by maudlin at 5:52 PM PST - 11 comments

Are Women More Jealous Than Men? No, apparently not. Human beings are. Tragically so. Period. Male or female? Oh, never mind. Just how jealous are you? [Warning: It's a long test - over 60 questions - but seems reliable and produces interesting results.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:31 PM PST - 73 comments

Boy Meets... Boy?!!?

NBC-owned Bravo will court viewers this summer with American television's first primetime gay-themed reality dating series. But in a twist worthy of the bogus baron on Fox's "Joe Millionaire," some of the suitors are actually heterosexual men who were paid by the program to pretend to be gay -- unbeknownst to the eligible bachelor.
I'm not sure whether this will be an example of a leading broadcaster leading the sociological agenda, or of another chance to humiliate folk on TV for entertainment, but with a heterosexist flavour:

FOUND VIA SAFERSEX.ORG (THX, filchyboy)
posted by dash_slot- at 3:50 PM PST - 35 comments

How much would you pay for a ghost? At the time of posting, the bidding for this "Ghost in a Jar" had reached over $750,000. Given the seller's stated experience with the ghost, would you buy this?
posted by darsh at 2:59 PM PST - 33 comments

Hot modders is a term I propose to apply to those people who pump up and modify their computers until they're no longer recognizable as a drab metal box and drab monitor, similar to hot rodders and their cars. Here's a guy who's turned a gutted 17 inch monitor case into a fully functional PC and has provided a pretty good description of how he did it, with lots of pictures. I'd buy one. Plus, for no reason, there's kitties! (via my friend Hurin at Dor-Lomin via Blue's News)
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:25 PM PST - 27 comments

Department of Justice finds "significant problems" in the detainment of aliens after Sept. 11. Among the findings in the report by Glenn Fine, DoJ Inspector General: The FBI failed to distinguish between aliens arrested on suspicion of terrorist activities and those with no connection to terrorism. Some detainees did not receive notice of why they were being detained for more than a month. Many detainees were held for weeks and months without the FBI taking any action on their cases. Detainees were frequently subject to harsh conditions of confinement and many were not allowed adequate legal consultation. (Full report available here - link via Tom Tomorrow.)
posted by UKnowForKids at 10:50 AM PST - 16 comments

mmm, cold beer How to keep your beer nice and cold on a hot summer day.
posted by H. Roark at 10:19 AM PST - 26 comments

Life Support is an online help desk for everyday life. It operates like a tech support web site (with tickets, responses, etc.), but the issues are about religion, love, and politics instead of printers and device drivers. I got some interesting and/or entertaining responses to the issues I posted.
posted by oissubke at 9:37 AM PST - 15 comments

Fat Lazy Unsafe Smokers=FLUS CDC Official says obesity is closing in on tobacco as leading cause of death in U.S. "We just recalculated the actual causes of death in the U.S. and we did see that obesity moved up very close to tobacco, and is almost the number one health threat," Julie Gerberding said. Her work in an emergency unit revealed many tobacco-related cases along with some involving failure to wear seat belts and helmets. There were no cases linked to bioterrorism. Hmmm, you mean I should just keep brushing my teeth, eat right, exercise, buckle up, etc. How boring.
posted by newlydead at 9:16 AM PST - 20 comments

"Any baseball game in America," says Bush, "including the one in your backyard, Timmy. Mwahahahahahah!"

Flying to Qatar from Jordan yesterday, President Bush showed off to the press some of the high-tech gadgetry installed on Air Force One after September 11.

Was that arrogance or was it just a slow news day on Air Force One?
posted by emelenjr at 8:46 AM PST - 17 comments

Clocks have been posted before. Here's a new fun one called blokklok.
posted by ginz at 8:17 AM PST - 8 comments

Another victim of the blogs? Did the steady drumbeat of criticism kill Howell Raines? Discuss amongst yourselves.
posted by baltimore at 8:08 AM PST - 25 comments

Unseen America. First person photographs by low income people. Via Bread and Roses, a cultural resource for the labour movement in the New York area.
posted by plep at 7:48 AM PST - 5 comments

Remember Blair Hornstine? Her $2.5 million lawsuit against her high school for not naming her valedictorian resulted in an injunction and the sole possession of the title. Now it gets worse: she has a Jayson Blair problem. Several of her contributions to local papers were lifted from presidential speeches, Supreme Court opinions, and editorials.
posted by PrinceValium at 7:25 AM PST - 63 comments

Interview with an executioner. “It doesn’t matter to me: Two, four, 10 — As long as I’m doing God’s will, it doesn’t matter how many people I execute,”
posted by Frasermoo at 7:08 AM PST - 8 comments

Martha Talks and she proclaims her innocence. Martha Stewart has a new web site, independent of her company that she resigned from, that will detail her battles with the government, putting everything out in the open.
posted by benjh at 6:54 AM PST - 31 comments

Here's a fine way to start a Thursday: pour a cup of joe, settle into your ergonomic chair, and enjoy 80s Ending, a funny little film by Douglas Jordan. Six minutes long, well worth the watch.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 6:47 AM PST - 24 comments

Ban flag burning, but encourage the burning of these shirts! There is something here to offend anyone. We all thought irony and cynicism were dead after 9/11, but here we find disrespect and horror of all kinds with themes like GONE FISTING, MAY THE HORSE BE WITH YOU, ALL I WANT IS PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST (and a blowjob), and SCHOOL SHOOTINGS TOUR 1996-2002. Burb, baby, burn!
posted by johnnydark at 6:18 AM PST - 21 comments

The Incredibles is what you get when you give Iron Giant director Brad Bird the keys to the Pixar machine.
posted by coudal at 5:43 AM PST - 25 comments

Field Day The Field Day festival, intended to be a two-day outdoor show in Calverton, NY, (Eastern Long Island) has now been reduced to a single day, and will be held at Giants Stadium in NJ. Tickets will be automatically refunded -- you must purchase new tickets to the NJ show.
posted by metrocake at 5:10 AM PST - 20 comments

The delicate art of topiary, or "cutting trees into weird shapes". The people. The history. The outstanding. The bizarre, and the phallic (completely SFW). I grew up with a similar tree to the last one on my street, although ours had...uhugm... a knob on top; I believe the gardener responsible was too short to trim above a certain level...
posted by Jimbob at 2:43 AM PST - 10 comments

Fitness experts say that you need to work out and eat right in order to have a shapely, firm, and impressive derriere. But who has time for that? Just get buttocks implants instead!
posted by Stumpy McGee at 12:57 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

DNA used to ascertain race of unidentified serial killer. Florida company DNAPrint Genomics claims their test can identify the race (ie, African, Caucasian, East Asian or American Indian) of a person from their DNA. CEO Tony Frudakis says that "of over 2,200 blind samples tested, the test is yet to get one wrong."
posted by shoos at 12:30 AM PST - 12 comments

Not as easy to understand as those self-install satellite dishes The video the army remembered to forget? Just like he Treasury Department's amnesia regarding Hemp for Victory.
posted by KidnapCounty at 11:13 PM PST - 15 comments

Short of finding your spouse from Jailbabes, the "mail order bride" has to be the worst notion in the proud tradition of horrible spousal selection. But for too long now, the lonely women of the world have been shut out from this marketplace of love. Not anymore, thanks to MailOrderHusbands. Order now, going fast!
posted by jonson at 9:54 PM PST - 8 comments

Play MASH. Relive the game that made you completely ignore most of your elementary education. Warning: Not safe for getting work done any time soon.
posted by qDot at 8:18 PM PST - 11 comments

Penguins. Evil ones. Mr. Flibble. Feathers McGraw. The Linux penguin. They're coming to get you. They will do bad things. Review the evidence for yourself and then get protection. Dun dun duuuuuuuun! It's the Penguin Conspiracy.
posted by VelvetHellvis at 5:36 PM PST - 15 comments

The story of Mister, uh, Big
Initially I was going to post about this with a tongue-in-cheek tone. But when I got to the end of the piece, I was disturbed to find that an act of child abuse - an act of what I see as an act of pedophilia - has been reported matter-of-factly by Rolling Stone, without so much as the blink of an eye. It's not the central part of the story, not the reason for telling it, but still. Why? is it because perhaps the perpetrator is a woman and it's not seen as a crime? Or is it her age? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

Warning - might not be safe for work, especially if the link offsite at the bottom of the page is working...
posted by tomcosgrave at 5:08 PM PST - 72 comments

All the economy needs is love. "Japan is suffering from deflation and I think there are a lot of people who want to be helped," said one businessman, who had already been hugged twice. Excuse me, fuller has to go camp out in the Sailor Mercury hug line now.
posted by jfuller at 4:27 PM PST - 14 comments

New user agreement means customers lose copyright. CafePress has long been the independent's way of printing up a few pithy slogans, or customizing small orders of apparel. But the new TOS now assigns exclusive, royalty-free rights to publish, display and gain trademark registration for the customers items. (Oh, they also now charge a 5% fee out of your commission and are "withholding fees for taxes" and oh, did I mention the new $25.00 a month "administrative fee"?) Have they just shot their business model in the foot?
posted by dejah420 at 3:40 PM PST - 27 comments

Bountiful American Leather Babes On The Rampage: I was looking for umbrellas, traditional British umbrellas, to shade me from the Portuguese summer sun, when, all of a sudden, I came across a cornucopia of beautiful, classic American briefcases. I still use the capacious, weather-worn Schlesinger case my father gave me when I was twelve. Well waaah! Now I want a new one. The British cases are desirable too. In fact the whole damn shop is one big leather dream. I mean moleskines, fountain pens, books and bottles are all very nice - but real men, like real women, need truly big leather bags to carry their whole life with them. Along with a good umbrella, of course. One of those Malaccas with a hidden flask for whisky, perhaps.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:05 PM PST - 16 comments

Unprecedented victories for Republican foreign policy. A new survey from Pew Global shows that in the past 2 years the Muslim world has been further alienated from the US, Europe wants to be more independent of the US, and the UN's reputation has been dramatically weakened. The Cliff notes. A wide variety of other interesting results are in the complete report.
posted by badstone at 10:47 AM PST - 38 comments

First Birds with teeth in 70 million years . Vicious toothed, flying microraptors once darkened the Jurassic skies. Now, scientists have learned to activate the dormant, vestigal avian "tooth gene" and so coaxed chicken embryos into growing teeth. From the grave, Alfred Hitchcock enviously quips - "a messy thing indeed when toothed birds kill a man". Meanwhile the French are appalled: “quand les poules auront des dents”, which translates to “when hens have teeth”, is analogous to the English “pigs might fly”. Coming soon: flying pigs. But there might be a baldness cure in this new research. I'll remember that as the flocks of mutant raptor-fowl move in for the kill.
posted by troutfishing at 10:42 AM PST - 18 comments

Arizona may ignore the next Homeland Security Orange Alert "It creates incredible problems: overtime, financial, functional," said Frank Navarrete, the state's homeland security director. "It's not quite to the point where it creates havoc, but it's quite disruptive."
posted by thedailygrowl at 10:18 AM PST - 21 comments

Howard Dean is closing in on the lead in New Hampshire, with 16% to Kerry's 17%. Dean is appealing to voters by being outspoken in an environment in which many of his fellow democrats are submissive to Bush's approval rating, and due to anticipation of his universal health care plan, which he is soon to unveil. Already established as the most net-savvy candidate, Dean has hundreds of real-life meetups planned for today.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:00 AM PST - 36 comments

Zacarias Moussaoui's legal brief to the Fourth Circuit regarding his right to question witnesses and the United States' reply. [warning: PDF]
posted by mhaw at 10:00 AM PST - 4 comments

With today's news of peace between Israel and Palestine my opinion of Bush just shot up several notches, but will the compromises stick and finally acheive peace? In the past, Clinton brokered a similar peace deal, Bush I tried it in 1991, Reagan tried, and even Carter did his best. Even with all the previous work, we're still where we are today, which is less than satisfactory for everyone involved. Will today's announcement finally bring peace to the region or is that too much of a pipe dream?
posted by mathowie at 9:45 AM PST - 42 comments

Flag-burning amendment passes the House? Yeah it's highly unlikley this will pass the Senate which is good. I can't say the same for are friends the French who's government just passed a law to jail or fine anyone who insults the flag let alone burn it.
posted by ZupanGOD at 9:34 AM PST - 35 comments

wolfowitz spills the beans "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil." - is telling the truth a new policy of the current administration?
posted by specialk420 at 9:31 AM PST - 40 comments

Have a concern and a fiver? Great news, you can e-mail a prayer to the Pope (or the Vatican). Fortunately, we're assured that any response from the Pope (or the Vatican) will be sent directly to you!
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:44 AM PST - 8 comments

When Vincent Gallo's "Brown Bunny" debuted at Cannes the fuvor over the sex scenes gave way to outright boos. In fact, the filmmaker later apologized for making the film. Or did he? Now, Gallo says the apology never happened and that Roger Ebert made it up. Ebert says he'll respond on-air on his next show.
posted by bclark at 8:14 AM PST - 33 comments

Aztecs at the Royal Academy. The exhibition may be over but the website can still be enjoyed.
posted by plep at 7:32 AM PST - 3 comments

HERCUBUSH! Long ago in ancient greece lived the Bush who began it all: HERCUBUSH! Half God, half mortal, half Texan, HERCUBUSH roamed the seven seas with one mission: To Destroy EVIL! "They're like Hitler, only more so!
We'll rub their oil on our torso!"
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 7:31 AM PST - 6 comments

Justin Frankel resigns from Nullsoft.
posted by Mwongozi at 7:31 AM PST - 30 comments

You've seen Pomo tarot, you've let the wisdom of spock guide you using the Star Trek Tarot, and in an act of desperation, you even tried getting down with the Vampire deck. Still haven't found the deck that's right for you?

Maybe it's time you tried the 80s tarot deck. (And before you ruin the surprise, try to guess which Major Arcana they pegged Morrisey for...)
posted by Pinwheel at 6:46 AM PST - 13 comments

No longer just the stuff of fantasy, scientists are making amazing breakthroughs when it comes to bionics. We've already read about the bionic eye, and now it seems that we have the bionic leg. [Watch the video.]
posted by debralee at 5:15 AM PST - 7 comments

fotolog Protest pics are flooding fotolog.net. is this the "titanic struggle" gothamist was talking about? or a simple tax revolt ?
posted by azul at 7:56 PM PST - 16 comments

Art or Crap? A quiz.
posted by dydecker at 7:55 PM PST - 25 comments

serial killer art I was doing some research on the Rockefeller Laws when I came across this little pet project. Disturbing?
posted by cadence at 7:53 PM PST - 8 comments

SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMONDS "Treating Mentally Ill Musicians Without Removing Their Muse."
posted by konolia at 7:00 PM PST - 28 comments

A Good Day for Video Games. Turns out that video games are protected by the First Amendment, at least according to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which today overturned a St. Louis ruling that video games do not constitue protected speech. A good quote from the opinion: "If the first amendment is versatile enough to 'shield [the] painting of Jackson Pollock, music of Arnold Schoenberg, or Jabberwocky verse of Lewis Carroll,' we see no reason why the pictures, graphic design, concept art, sounds, music, stories, and narrative present in video games are not entitled to a similar protection. The mere fact that they appear in a novel medium is of no legal consequence."
posted by jscalzi at 5:37 PM PST - 7 comments

The Big Ten Media Corporations and Clear Channel Communications control most of the major media already. This includes print media, film archives, movie and television production, and the largest Internet Service and News Provider. Right now is the argument is to prevent further consolidation. But should it instead be to break up these mega-corporations instead? Should anti-trust law cover horizontal as well as vertical market ( and employee) domination?
posted by kablam at 5:15 PM PST - 12 comments

Walt Disney World's recent designation as a no-fly zone has had an additional consequence: Christian extremists can no longer harass gay tourists from above.
posted by donkeyschlong at 4:49 PM PST - 28 comments

Pondering pens + mulling over Moleskines = scouring a sketchbook.
posted by pedantic at 2:41 PM PST - 20 comments

Gay Pride events are taking place worldwide this month, and PlanetOut has got a number of interesting features to mark them: most fascinating to me are a series of coming out stories from other, mostly third world, countries. The first a tale of someone growing up gay in Bosnia, and today from someone in the Phillipines, with more to follow each day this week. There's also an article commemorating the 25th anniversary of the rainbow flag (which is getting back in the pink). Good, if not terribly in-depth, stuff. Be careful when following the links, you might run into some gay/lesbian/non-vanilla NSFW stuff.
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:48 PM PST - 10 comments

Pants Are Evil -- at least for the ladies; so says the King of Swaziland. The absolute monarch of this small African nation says the Bible prohibits women from wearing pants, and also that individual human rights are an "abomination." Before you laugh in disbelief (like I did), learn more on Swazi political and religious beliefs inside... (via kottke).
posted by serafinapekkala at 12:33 PM PST - 33 comments

The Leading Light In Not Only Doughnuts: Canada! I don't know if any of you have noticed but Canada is becoming fiercely fashionable in the rest of the world, perhaps as a model of an American-European fusion that everyone else can live with. Paul Robinson's list of Canada's virtues is impressive and difficult to dispute. Perhaps the lil' ol' U.S. are lagging dangerously behind in the general rush to jump on the Canadian bandwagon? And yet... And yet... What is it about Canada or, more to the point, about the dismissive attitude of that great country's neighbours?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:17 AM PST - 127 comments

Yoga Kitty videos show you how to raise your cat's electromagnetic frequency, clear past karmas, and engage in self-identification meditation, but unfortunately provides no tips on how to administer the first-aid you're going to require for bites and scratches (requires Quicktime or Windows Media Player).
posted by MrBaliHai at 10:33 AM PST - 3 comments

Paul Krugman writes that the Bush administration will fight a "khaki election" next year, taking advantage of the general good feeling after the Iraq war. The original khaki election was the British election of 1900, contested during the Boer War. Our armed forces don't really wear khaki so much anymore and I think we need a new term. I suggest calling 2004 the "Camo Election." Any better suggestions?
posted by Mekon at 10:15 AM PST - 26 comments

The Top 25 Arts Destinations. AmericanStyle magazine asked its readers to "list their top choices for arts travel destinations" in the United States. The winner was not New York. Sacrilege? Or not? A list of the best galleries is included for each of the top ten. (via ArtsJournal)
posted by Ljubljana at 9:56 AM PST - 14 comments

Radiohead fan sites have been asked to remove their lyrics and tabs archives. Yesterday, two popular Radiohead fan sites, Green Plastic and At Ease, were sent this email by a legal representative of Warner Bros. Publications and Warner/Chappell Music asking them to take down any lyrics and tabs from their site. The letter claimed "their distribution constitutes an infringement of our rights under U.S. Copyright Law. More than that, the availability of these files have a direct impact on our ability to market and sell our musical arrangements and songbooks, and that adversely affects the royalties that we are able to generate and pay to the band." Those opposed have started a petition online. Who's right on this one?
posted by josephtate at 9:39 AM PST - 47 comments

"It could be a sitcom or something completely different" What is it? A new show on Fox, based on the Sims video game by EA's Maxis studio. Will Wright, the creator of the Sim line of games, has signed on to help create the show, which is being described as "blending puppetry with animation" and "set in feudal Japan but dealing with modern-day suburban situations". If that's not "orignial", then I don't what is.
posted by Hackworth at 9:32 AM PST - 6 comments

The Credit Card Prank is a project to see how far one could go with their signature on credit card purchases. The experiment goes pretty far and barely runs into any snags. The verdict? People don't seem to care what you sign on a receipt.
posted by mathowie at 9:15 AM PST - 72 comments

Bob Graham, Florida senator and Democratic presidential aspirant, burned 246 calories on his exercise bike on Feb. 7, 1999. Good thing, because he weighed in that morning at 187, up one pound from the previous day. How do we know this? Because over the past 26 years, Graham has filled box after box with journals capturing an incredible, some say obsessive, level of detail about his daily life. Quirky, sure; parody friendly, no doubt; but will the GOP be successful in using it to paint him as crazy? (Salon daypass req. for last link)
posted by luser at 8:16 AM PST - 17 comments

"Trailers of Mass destruction" : By Wolfowitz Productions, starring Kris Kristofferson and Ali MacGraw. A red hot tale of sex, intrigue and death. (scroll to bottom of page). Amidst the controversy over Wolfowitz's admissions in a Vanity Fair interview about the use of Iraq's alleged WMD threat as a pretext for war, Hollywood comes to the rescue!
posted by troutfishing at 8:13 AM PST - 20 comments

Striking, unconventional portraits of American presidents and their wives by Tina Mion.
posted by mikrophon at 8:00 AM PST - 9 comments

"I don't think I'd be disclosing any trade secrets if I told you that in order to sneak into something you have to have both momentum and an alibi. Momentum because stationery objects such as paintings and people are looked at; an alibi because you may get caught. I don't like to get caught because it forces you to use the alibi. I don't like to use alibis much because they are a variant of begging."
posted by Slagman at 7:33 AM PST - 13 comments

Manufacturing cars doesn't have to be a dirty business
Hats off to Toyota, which along with Honda, has a no-bullshit commitment to the environment.
posted by magullo at 7:13 AM PST - 7 comments

"Visitors can imagine children sleeping in shacks infested with scorpions or snakes."

Come on down to scenic Americus, Georgia, and take in an eyeful of filth and despair! I've always been a big supporter of Habitat for Humanity, but is a poverty theme park really a good idea?
posted by grabbingsand at 6:42 AM PST - 10 comments

Sifting through the Archinect discussions, I came across EZB8, House4Sex. Some guy in Athens is supposedly offering free room & board to girls provided that they be "the landlord's lover for a night." Genius in every man's eyes dick.
posted by hobbes at 10:44 PM PST - 16 comments

Make your own The Matrix-style desktop wallpaper Bored? Got Photoshop? Follow the instructions in this tutorial and cross your fingers that the Wachowski brothers don't sue your ass. Whoever can think of the craziest parody wins, I dunno, a gift-wrapped spoon, or something.
posted by tapeguy at 8:59 PM PST - 9 comments

The Million-Dollar Nose. Fascinating profile of wine critic Robert Parker (publisher of The Wine Advocate) by William Langewiesche of Atlantic Magazine.
posted by Wet Spot at 7:35 PM PST - 9 comments

The French Laundry serves dinner seven days a week, with reservations available between the hours of 5:30 pm and 9:30 pm. For the rest of us, there's finally their website, available 24/7.
posted by dchase at 7:10 PM PST - 20 comments

Don't ring 638-234-5837 whatever you do: it's MetaFilter's phone number. Mine, I'm leasing to slippery old KY Jelly: 004-GEL-1-FUN. All this because - so I'm told by a French friend - you backward Americans actually still have letters on your telephones, along with the rotary lever to crank it up. [From LinkFilter.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 6:30 PM PST - 17 comments

Senators seek to reverse FCC ruling A bipartisan coalition of Senators intends to overturn the FCC's latest decree ordering greater corporate media consolidation. "I'm convinced, just noodling around, that we can get a majority vote and report that out (of committee) and get some action on the floor of the Senate," Hollings told reporters. Anyone else surprised?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 5:07 PM PST - 44 comments

History, Present, and Future of the Congo CBC has created a great multimedia site that tells the story of the Congo. Sad, maddening, but offers a ray of hope.
posted by Coop at 5:02 PM PST - 5 comments

This page uses a 'Dukes of Hazzard' metaphor to explain that big ol' SCO vs. Linux kerfuffle.
posted by GriffX at 4:13 PM PST - 3 comments

TiVo to Sell User Viewing Data TiVo executives said they will be gathering information only in aggregate, such as by ZIP code and that the habits of individual users will remain anonymous. However, not everyone agrees that TiVo can't/isn't tracking individual viewing habits. And now advertisers will be able to see exactly how many commercials we're all zipping past.
posted by stevis at 3:22 PM PST - 17 comments

There's more than one Ronald McDonald. Gasp!
posted by jamespake at 2:58 PM PST - 12 comments

Heraldic Bookplates While everybody knows about book collecting, bookplate (ex libris) collecting has a somewhat lower profile. But those seemingly utilitarian bookplates can be a source of endless fascination, whether for the aesthetics or the owner association. For images, see Early American Fiction (U. of Virginia), Estonian Bookplates, the Murray Collection (U. of British Columbia), and the Bookplate Directory (Notre Dame). Joseph Manzano has proposed ex Webis (some female nudes, possibly NSFW). For more information, visit the American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers, which among other things links to a site devoted to Beethoven bookplates (warning: prepare to hear the Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major). Or go ahead and read some articles.
posted by thomas j wise at 2:16 PM PST - 3 comments

Churchill's war plan: super-ice. "What was bobbing about in Churchill’s bathtub was no ordinary ice: it was pykrete." A well-researched story of a kooky inventor, a secret government plan, and some mad science.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 1:13 PM PST - 25 comments

The European Space Agency's Mars Express blasted off from Russia's Baikonur base today carrying the British-built Beagle 2 space probe atop a modified version of Russia's Soyuz rocket (a modified ICBM) tasked with finding water and life on Mars. Will it overcome the curse of Mars? Of 30 missions to Mars, 8 have gone as planed, a %74 Martian mission failure rate.
posted by stbalbach at 1:12 PM PST - 13 comments

Unused Audio Commentary By Dinesh D'Souza and Ann Coulter, Recorded Spring 2003, for Aliens Special Red-State Edition DVD, Part One and Part Two.
posted by homunculus at 10:34 AM PST - 16 comments

Which OS are you? I am Slackware Linux. This would make sense, if not for the fact that I use Win2K.
posted by PeteyStock at 10:14 AM PST - 43 comments

The first annual World Stupidity Awards are going to be handed out on June 6th. I wonder if Babs is getting one?
posted by debralee at 10:04 AM PST - 8 comments

Newly Digital is an electronic anthology of sorts. Due to the technological advancement of these things we call "computers", it's a subject ripe for nostalgia. As seen here by bloggers writing about their first . . .
posted by jeremias at 10:04 AM PST - 1 comment

is eric rudolph a christian terrorist? via atrios and who are these christian identity people?: "We declare and will wage total war on the ungodly communist regime in New York and your legaslative bureaucratic lackey's in Washington. It is you who are responsible and preside over the murder of children and issue the policy of ungodly preversion thats destroying our people," - sound familiar?
posted by specialk420 at 9:30 AM PST - 35 comments

Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not is the latest creation from the performers who gave us Strangers With Candy. Meet the cast of characters now before the Bulkwaller Dam is destroyed and washes the town away. [WARNING - Some of the language is NSFW]
posted by herc at 9:19 AM PST - 8 comments

Is the USA "an empire in denial?"
"The United States is a 'danger to the world' because of its denial that it is a military and economic empire, according to Niall Ferguson, historian and new-found darling of the American right."
posted by Blue Stone at 9:05 AM PST - 21 comments

Are you an urban acheiver? If so, you may want to go to the 2nd annual Big Lewboski What-Have-You Fest. The weekend of July 19th at a bowling alley in Louisville, KY. There will even be a Lebowski-mobile complete, we're assured by the FAQ, with some Creedence in the car. Want to see pics from last year? No problem. Now that I've shared the good news, who's going to send me a bowling Nixon poster?
posted by Ufez Jones at 7:16 AM PST - 35 comments

Here's an interesting story for people who like to write and post stuff on the internet Judge Diana Lewis of Circuit Court in West Palm Beach issued an order that forbids Mr. Max to write about Ms. Johnson. That prohibition is not limited to his website. She ruled on May 6, before Mr. Max was notified of the suit and without holding a hearing. She told Mr. Max that he could not use "Katy" on his site. Nor could he use Ms. Johnson's last name, full name or the words "Miss Vermont." The judge also prohibited Mr. Max from "disclosing any stories, facts or information, notwithstanding its truth, about any intimate or sexual acts engaged in by" Ms. Johnson. Finally, Judge Lewis ordered Mr. Max to sever the virtual remains of his relationship with Ms. Johnson. He is no longer allowed to link to her Web site. ... All this as a result of a lawsuit in which Ms. Johnson maintained that Mr. Max had invaded her privacy by publishing accurate information about her.
posted by magullo at 6:17 AM PST - 39 comments

Are seatbelt violation tickets a good use of police resources? This guy didn't think so. So he walked up to the police officers on the detail and politely told them so. The cops were thrilled to hear from this citizen. So thrilled, in fact, that they gave him a tour of the local booking facility.
posted by baltimore at 5:55 AM PST - 24 comments

When travelling in New Orleans, perhaps you've seen a billboard or a bumper sticker with the phrase "You can't beat Wagner's Meat". Wagner's Meat, a small convenience chain with its most prominent gas station/meat market on South Claiborne and MLK, isn't just known for their bumperstickers, but also for their Chicken Box fast food joints (Tastes like Mama's!) and their "inspirational" marquee boards in front of every store. Unfortunately, the link to have the quotes emailed to you on a regular basis is broken, but if you go to the front page of Wagner's Meat, there's a new one on the bottom of the page each time...
posted by Katemonkey at 4:55 AM PST - 9 comments

For Inquisitive Pussies And Riot Grrrls Everywhere: Help is at hand if you're essentially a coward but curious about the world anyway. You know, the kind of person that longs to explore all those interesting countries the U.S. State Department and the British Foreign Office strongly advises you not to visit. Even if you suspect, as I do, that some of those travel reports are wildly exaggerated. Go to all those no-go areas already! Imagine the nightclubbin' opportunities! Just watch out for competitive bidding from Phil Spector.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:23 AM PST - 5 comments

Photos of the Great War is a collection of nearly 2,000 photos from World War One, ranging from the tragic to the peaceful to the unexpected. It also contains war albums by ordinary soldiers (such as this German machinegunner or U.S. sergeant) and a section devoted entirely to animals, featuring things like this gas-mask-wearing dog.
posted by Ljubljana at 1:41 AM PST - 4 comments

BBC Interview (needs RealPlayer) with Lou Reed.
posted by walrus at 12:58 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

As media concentration grows, (and grows) today is the big day the FCC announces their changes in regulations. You can hear it live, via realaudio, at http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio/, starting at 9:30AM EST, 6:30AM west coast time.
posted by mathowie at 12:13 AM PST - 27 comments

Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. Harry Knowles reviews a shot-for-shot remake of Speilberg's classic movie done, over the span of seven years, by 10-11-12 year olds. Speilberg, upon seeing it, was "astonished" at its "ingenuity and imagination." There's even a preview.
posted by adrober at 11:19 PM PST - 43 comments

"Then we realized that somehow an insane god had taken control of our world and was out to kill us all." Subscribers of the multiplayer online game "Shadowbane" were in for a shock Tuesday evening when they realized the game system had been hacked, and the rules fundamentally altered, and not in a good way (unless you happen to like mayhem). While this ended up being a "no harm, no foul" scenario, as everything was eventually set right, it was breaking new ground in terms of the uses of hacking. In a world where characters in these games are sold via EBay, and nearly half a million people subscribe to Everquest, how long before legitimate (non "fun and games") version of what just happened occurs?
posted by jonson at 10:28 PM PST - 17 comments

The Insect Company: "Over 6,000 listings with more than 1,600 life-size reference photographs."
posted by hama7 at 7:24 PM PST - 6 comments

Second study finds gaps in Bush tax cut. A new study has found that 8 million mostly low-income taxpayers will not receive any benefit from the tax law that Republicans have said for weeks was designed to benefit all those who pay income taxes. This in addition to the child tax credit already absent within the law.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 4:52 PM PST - 36 comments

13-year-old Gregory Robert Smith graduates from Randolph-Macon College this month. He has yet to find the vaccine for the brutal Atomic Wedgie.
posted by LexRockhard at 3:46 PM PST - 35 comments

Nims winter story is a beautiful, if unseasonal, Swedish animation. May not be too clever on dial up.
posted by Fat Buddha at 2:33 PM PST - 9 comments

Pixar's newest kid flick good enough for adults, Finding Nemo was proceeded by a "classic" Pixar short, KnickKnack. The weird thing is that they felt compelled to change 2 characters (the "bathing beauty" and the mermaid) from a ridiculously geometric, cartoony bosomy shape to flat chested. What gives here? This reminds me of the changes Spielberg made in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and of course, the regrettable Greedo shooting incident in Lucas' Star Wars: A New Hope. My question is: When is it right to change an existing work, for whatever reason?
posted by jpburns at 2:33 PM PST - 29 comments

Remember the Coastal Records Project? When I first heard about this, I applauded, then wasted a couple of hours looking at the nice pics. But I couldn't help wondering when they'd run into some compound of a celebrity who'd put up a stink (okay, I was hoping it would be Ah-nold, and there'd be a scene reminiscent of his movies, stinger missile launched from his patio at the helicopter...) alas, it's only Barbara. Still, does this only make me wonder if our celebrities are helping push through laws to establish themselves in a higher class than us peons? Please note that the irony of rich people suing each other isn't lost on me, and I'm not trying to put forward that it could be any one of us touring in a helicopter doing this. But I mean, the guy's taking picture's of the whole coast, not just some star-map, coastline version. Until this lawsuit, I'd wager, only the most dedicated stalker would've known this was her place. But now...
posted by Busithoth at 2:28 PM PST - 12 comments

Sunday art stroll - visit the portfolios of some contemporary illustrators and artists ranging from the sweet, the sophisticated, and the sexy to the satiric and the strange. (flash warning and some illustrated nudity)
posted by madamjujujive at 12:00 PM PST - 9 comments

If you're a fan of Neil Gaiman then maybe you liked The Sandman. If you were a big fan of The Sandman then perhaps you stumbled upon The Sandman annotations, a comprehensive resource covering the historical, folkloric and religious/mythological references - page by page, panel by panel - found within the storyline. From Chaucer to Dante to the Eumenides, Gaiman created a fabulous story that inspired young and old alike to dream again (one of my personal favorites is A Dream of a Thousand Cats).some mefi sandman-related artifacts can be found here and here.
posted by poopy at 11:53 AM PST - 7 comments

Kodak gives more reason to convert to digital photography. Eastman Kodak's "Kodak Park facility" in Rochester, is #1 in New York for releases of suspected toxicants and neurotoxins to endocrine, gastrointestinal, liver, cardiovascular, kidney, respiratory, and reproductive health. Remember dioxin? The stuff of Agent Orange, used in the Vietnam war that caused so much grief to war vets and Vietnamese, well Kodak released more dioxin into New York's environment in 2000 than any other source. In 1996 they were dumping methylene chloride concentrations as high as 3,600,000 parts per billion into area rivers, when the legal level is five parts per billion. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found Kodak guilty of illegal disposal of hazardous wastes, illegal use of incinerators and waste piles, failing to notify the EPA of groundwater contaminations, making undocumented shipments of hazardous wastes, and for 20 years having leaky underground pipes, among other violations.
posted by giantkicks at 11:50 AM PST - 29 comments

The origins of the Star-Spangled Banner may come as a surprise to many Americans. The tune was originally that of an old English drinking song about a gentlemen's club, the Anacreontic Society. Of course, the words may have changed, but the song remains the same. Thanks to Adbusters for the spark.
posted by majcher at 11:44 AM PST - 12 comments

The Imam who cursed the Pope and Kofi Annan. "It's hard to summarize a story as complicated as this in a few lines: Fatwas, Mormons, ufologists, secret services, the Supreme Solomonic Order of the Princes of Shekal, coups in Somalia, nuns, a mysterious murder, an African dictator and a "God intoxicated" Communist dictator."
A gem of nefarious weirdness, so bizarre it has to be real. Very annoying pop-ups but still worth it IMHO.
posted by talos at 9:57 AM PST - 2 comments

Anatolia, the Asiatic portion of contemporary Turkey extending from the Bosphorous and Aegean coast eastward, is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions in the world with an unbroken lineage dating back to the early Stone (Paleolithic) Age. Now an Italian scientist believes he has found the cradle of civilization at the Aslantepe Mound in the Province of Malatya in eastern Turkey, including the oldest known Palace and metal swords dating from 3350BC, civilization older than Mesopotamia.
posted by stbalbach at 9:47 AM PST - 11 comments

Jpeg Baby. I remember when I first came and downloaded you. [flash song & video]
posted by srboisvert at 7:19 AM PST - 8 comments

Are you a reluctant slob? Are your resolutions firm but your follow-thoughs flagging? If the hallway to your personal housekeeping hell is strewn with good intentions, consider KISSing your bad habits goodbye. Cat Conner's (MeFi's frykitty) new blog-style KISS Living site is great for us fleeting-attention-span types, providing tips based on her "Keep It Short and Simple" technique. I may not know what day it is, or whether Martha spells her name "Stuart" or "Stewart", but even I can focus my energy for 10 minutes at a time.
posted by taz at 3:21 AM PST - 18 comments

The Digital Journalist: Features. The Digital Journalist: Features. Photojournalism features on a spread of human life, from Afghan child labour, the Dalai Lama and the Soviet Union to Marilyn Monroe, jazz and Smalltown USA. (Warning - adverts).
posted by plep at 2:14 AM PST - 3 comments