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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 - 22 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 - 23 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 - 29 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 - 26 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 - 46 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