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Great article about the decline of obituary writing in American journalism. Notable obits it names include Hunter Thompson's unflattering rendition of Nixon and H.L. Mencken's scathing posthumous indictment of William Jennings Bryan.

Should we go back to obits like these? Damn right we should, says suck.com.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 11:51 PM PST - 10 comments

The Lion of Kabul has died. He survived mistreatment at the hands of the Taliban and even lived through a grenande attack, but it was finally old age that put him in his grave. I'm hoping he's symbolic of the Afgan people -- that they will see their troubled times through to the end.
posted by Wildcat3 at 10:46 PM PST - 7 comments

Did Bungie Software release their April Fool's joke ahead of schedule and under budget?
posted by machaus at 9:47 PM PST - 11 comments

Group Calls for Day with No Internet. Bah humbug.
posted by adampsyche at 7:36 PM PST - 37 comments

A little beyond shredding documents... According to Human Rights Watch, the irrepressible Enron paid local police to beat, harass, and intimidate farmers and fishermen in India who opposed the building of their new power plant in their backyards. Does this, after Exxon-Mobil was taken to court for building torture centers in Indonesia, call into question the power of small states vis a vis humongous multinational corporations?
posted by skoosh at 4:43 PM PST - 27 comments

The Brand Called You: Amazon lists the author of Cascading Style Sheets 2.0 Programmer's Reference as “Eric A. Cascading Style Sheets Meyer”
posted by kirkaracha at 3:08 PM PST - 10 comments

Yahoo adds "premium" search features using technology from Northern Light (now divine). [more inside]
posted by dhartung at 2:42 PM PST - 13 comments

Public Survey for Input to the Planetary Decadal Survey. The Planetary Society is seeking input from the public for NASA's planetary research priorities for the next 10 years. The deadline for taking the survey is January 31st.
posted by homunculus at 2:05 PM PST - 4 comments

A Rose Is A Rose Is A Not A Good Name For Your Daughter: What's in a name? A lot, apparently. Find out at the hilarious Institute for Naming Children Humanely. Still not convinced? Check out the hidden meaning of your name, nickname and cybername at the wacky Kabalarian web site. [First link via utterly linkalicious pelp]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:43 PM PST - 61 comments

28th Amendment to the US constitution? The "Alliance for Marriage" seeks to amend the United States consitution to define Marriage as between a man and a woman only, which would make it a first constitutional amendment to abrogate rather than protect individual freedoms. Bottom of the page has a link to fax your congressperson if you so choose.
posted by mikojava at 12:22 PM PST - 50 comments

A really cool idea. This is how new technology is born
posted by delmoi at 12:01 PM PST - 34 comments

Link from NYTimes front page: as though any party or politician is "Taint" free. Sort of like saying every MF post is thotful, entelligent, and well spelt. [this post notwithstanding]
posted by greyscale at 11:53 AM PST - 5 comments

And speaking of unnecessary design groups, the Queer Design Alliance proposes to educate the masses and show that "gay art" does not equate to erotic art, and that "we are your neighbors, babysitters..." etc. So?
[more inside]
posted by Su at 11:00 AM PST - 20 comments

Batman vs. Superman. Tonight we find out who wins at the end of the seven hour marathon which started a few minutes back on Cartoon Network. All week long the fans have been voting for their favourites, and from the last two hours of this marathon will be dedicated to the winner. [It's on Cartoon Network in the US.]
posted by riffola at 10:14 AM PST - 21 comments

Justice Department Coverup Attorney General John Ashcroft was fed up with having his picture taken during events in the Great Hall in front of semi-nude statues. So he has ordered massive draperies to conceal the offending figures (cost: 8,000 bucks)
posted by matteo at 9:57 AM PST - 40 comments

A victim of it's own popularity, or just a control freak who lost control? Not sure how much overlap there is between MeFi and Hissyfit, but the SysOp over there, WingChun (a notoriously strict moderator), decided that she was just too overwealmed by the whole thing, and for a variety of reasons, pulled the plug. What are the implications for other online communities?
posted by crunchland at 8:01 AM PST - 18 comments

The psychology of weblogs. Interesting story about weblogs and why we continue, daily, hourly, to read them. What makes a weblog great? Is it popularity or the quality of the site that draws the punters in? For me its the characters and the links. (mefi shoutout)
posted by spinifex at 7:50 AM PST - 13 comments

Wot, no black holes? Those wacky boffins in science land have already had a pop at the Higg's boson, but now they're moving on to everybody's favourite theoretical singularity, with a new theory about what happens when a star kicks the astral bucket.
posted by stuporJIX at 3:36 AM PST - 6 comments

Booby Trap is a fabulous Flash video set to a Chemical Brothers song. I was blown away (altho I may be easily impressed). Another wonderful use for Flash is the Control Group's web site. Never heard of 'em? Try an MP3. Check out the video.
Link via Off On a Tangent.
posted by ashbury at 2:28 AM PST - 15 comments

James Bond vs. Austin Powers...and now for something completely trivial: MGM and Danjaq, the British company that controls the Bond film license, have obtained a cease-and-desist order against New Line Cinema that prohibits New Line from calling the latest installment of Mike Myers' shagadelic spy series Austin Powers in Goldmember. Apparently, the 007 folks weren't too keen on the double entendre of Goldmember--a takeoff on the 1964 Bond classic, Goldfinger--and released the legal hounds to force the name change. That's not very sporting of them, is it?
posted by verdezza at 2:27 AM PST - 25 comments

Mideast vs West. From a conservative-libertarian point of view, what's wrong in the Muslim world, what caused 9-11, and how to fix it. Even if you don't agree with the author's conclusions (maybe especially if you don't agree with the author's conclusions) the piece is worth reading, as an exceptionally clear and forceful articulation of these ideas. Link found on Arts & Letters Daily.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 1:12 AM PST - 19 comments