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AOL to buy Red Hat? It seems like the Odd Couple of computing: the aggressively user-friendly behemoth marrying the most popular Linux distribution, united in their common hatred of Microsoft. Is Unix ready for the computer-illiterate masses? Will AOL be embraced by the geek community? The world's largest media company seems to think so. Hey, maybe they'll buy Lindows while they're at it. (See the Slashdot thread for more comments.)
posted by waxpancake at 10:09 PM PST - 48 comments

Musharraf says Bin Laden is dead. I feel this a ploy to get US troops off the ground in Pakistan, after the situation seems to have turned regarding US opinion in J&K, and his internal troubles. Here is and interesting take on US policy towards India's stand. When the Americans say they will help in Kashmir if they are requested by both parties, they are aware that they will never get that invitation from Delhi. It is precisely that confidence which makes them comfortable in making such statements Add to this the comment's India's defence minister made on CNN today...more inside
posted by bittennails at 8:09 PM PST - 24 comments

Satan Doesn't Wear Sweaty Socks. Matthew Parris of The Times weighs in on the War on Terrorism, painting the U.S. as the 900-lb. gorilla of world affairs and offering the observation that maybe Al-Qaeda isn't as scary as the Bush and Blair administrations say it is.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:38 PM PST - 26 comments

An "enthusiastic amateur astrologer" lays out the case for teaching astrology, a "hard science", in the public schools. Judging from the article, he doesn't quite understand the difference between "astronomy" and "astrology".
posted by tiny pea at 5:55 PM PST - 11 comments

Women's Labor Bureau Offices Won't Be Closed. The proposal by the Office of Management and Budget to close all of the Bureau's local offices has been shelved. Follow-up to this thread.
posted by dan_of_brainlog at 4:36 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

I know he's not a popular man on here, but I'm going to say it: What's happened to Kimble? Ignoring the 'I don't care, it's only Kimble' path, is his present rant justifiable - is Germany's enterpreneurial policy 'destructive'?
posted by wibbler at 3:33 PM PST - 16 comments

Talk Magazine finished. After months of speculation the Miramax-affiliated magazine, run by Tina Brown (former editor of the New Yorker), has finally been axed. Talk joins Mirabella, Brill's Content, and many other big-budget mags to have been killed in the last year. If even a magazine backed by a movie house can't pay its bills, who's next?
posted by arielmeadow at 3:20 PM PST - 23 comments

Revolutionary new transport system ---looks good to me. Got to hand it to the Brits...
posted by scotty at 3:03 PM PST - 13 comments

Looks like the Saudis may kick the US out. The US presence in Saudi Arabia has been blamed for a lot of discontent in that country. Sounds as if once the campaign in Afghanistan is considered finished, the US may no longer be the guest of the Saudi royals.
posted by Salmonberry at 3:00 PM PST - 28 comments

For Ali's 60th, The Guardian reprints Alistair Cooke's original account of the Clay-Liston title bout in 1964. "...quicksilver against concrete. Mercury v the Dragon, a live contemptuous picador planting the flags at will in the neck of a tottering old bull." Was the era that this fight ushered in the last hurrah for the sweet science?
posted by coudal at 2:29 PM PST - 2 comments

Kava exporters in Pacific react to Western Kava bans
    Pacific countries who export kava called for an international review of its alleged health risks. They are reacting to a recent spate of warnings on its use and, in some cases, bans on its sale (1).
    Growing concern over a link between kava use and liver toxicity has prompted Germany, Switzerland and France to ban the sale of kava-derived herbal medicine (1, 2, 3). The US, Canada, and NZ are advising against its use, pending their own reviews (1, 2, 3, 4).
    Kava is cultivated and brewed to produce an narcotic ceremonial drink in much of the Pacific. Recently it has become a cash crop for an herbal-enthused Western market (1, 2), as well as part of a growing drug-abuse problem (1) in Pacific countries.
posted by rschram at 2:15 PM PST - 13 comments

Kazaa halts downloading at least until a court decision. Does this really matter, as you're only blocking distribution of the client from the kazaa site. The "servers" still run, and people can still download the client from any other site.
posted by milnak at 1:32 PM PST - 18 comments

Cheney tried to collect $60 million for Enron on a recent trip to India...
posted by snakey at 11:53 AM PST - 26 comments

Can internet savvy skew a poll? When the stakes are high, is it fair for someone to bring an email plea to friends and relatives outside of the target area to influence the results? Here, the band at the school with the most votes gets to do a warm-up with the famous Blast! ensemble. The numbers are interesting (and yes, I probably do have inside info on this). As long as the same opportunities are available for others, is it still 'cheating'?
posted by rich at 11:21 AM PST - 20 comments

The 5th Annual Edge.org Question is: What is your question? Read answers from Brian Greene, Brian Eno, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Howard Gardner, Daniel Dennett, and, yes, Alan Alda (and many others).
posted by mattpfeff at 10:34 AM PST - 13 comments

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!! A bit of a repeat, but absolutely justified
posted by magullo at 9:11 AM PST - 19 comments

Why libertarians can't get dates "So what if someone you hit it off with has different politics? You want that. "You can be like Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting," he notes encouragingly. The tension only makes things more charged." "I couldn't help wondering: Would women in my arty downtown Toronto social circle start warning each other? "Stay away from that one. You get to the restaurant and he harangues you about agricultural subsidies."" None of my female friends date Republicans OR Libertarians of any stripe, for reasons that are pretty obvious to us. And yes, we are all cute. Any thoughts on this?
posted by jfwlucy at 9:10 AM PST - 80 comments

No place for political correctness in film. By Roger Ebert.
posted by adrober at 9:08 AM PST - 23 comments

The future seems to be rushing in at an alarming rate.
(links via Fark.com)
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 9:02 AM PST - 19 comments

Anyone see the new offering from Ann Coulter? Remember the picture of the firemen raising the flag, sometimes called "The New Iwo Jima"? New York has commissioned a statue of that picture, but they want to change two of the firemen to be a black man and a Hispanic man. Ann tells exactly what she thinks of this, in her... er... own particular idiom.
posted by starvingartist at 8:55 AM PST - 66 comments

Feeding the leaping lizards of Oz Seems like the fellow from Delaware had nothing else to feed his flesh eating 6 ft. long monitor lizard. And what did you serve your pets today?
posted by marc-hamilton at 8:22 AM PST - 14 comments

My favorite living philosopher of late has been Daniel Dennett. His Consciousness Explained offers an ambitiously complete theory of consciousness, and miraculously manages to synthesize philosophy with neuropsychology without sacrificing the benefits of phenomenological inquiry -- a feat which manifests itself in his Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, the website of which offers a dizzying array of online articles. (An especially interesting sample: "Did HAL Commit Murder?") Finally, he was the founding author of The Philosophical Lexicon, a compendium of in-jokes obscure enough to please the nerdiest philosophy major.
posted by tweebiscuit at 7:56 AM PST - 33 comments

FDNY backs down on plans to build a multi-ethnic representation of the WTC flag raising. They "will consider new options."
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:16 AM PST - 18 comments

An estimated 300,000 people have fled across the Congolese/Rwandan border to escape lava flow from the recently erupted Mt Nyiragongo volcano. Many are thought to have died, but this mass movement has prompted fears that a much larger humanitarian disaster may be imminent.
More photographs here, map of the region here.
posted by davehat at 6:49 AM PST - 4 comments

Luxo Redux. It was only a matter of time. (1.7 MB)
posted by warhol at 6:48 AM PST - 12 comments

Al Qaeda as death cult. From The Monde Diplomatique: "Al-Qaida has been thought of as a global or national political movement, or representative of an entire religion. It isn't. It's just another of the many death-obsessed sectarian movements to emerge in the past 20 years."

posted by talos at 4:11 AM PST - 3 comments

Woomera detainees sew lips together At least 58 asylum seekers have sewn their lips together during a hunger strike at the Woomera detention centre. I don't know what to think, I know we have to take precautions against letting terrorists in, but this is just awful.
posted by Tarrama at 3:07 AM PST - 39 comments

Viewing begets more viewing: A Scientific American article exploring television addiction, its effects on the mind, and its similarity to other addictions. It raises the interesting question: Do people turn to TV because of boredom and loneliness, or does TV viewing make people more susceptible to boredom and loneliness?
posted by Doug at 12:39 AM PST - 24 comments