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A campaign for land reform in Britain. 'A few rich people, many of them aristocrats, own 69 per cent of the land in Britain. As a result, house prices are so high, millions can't afford to buy a home.' (New Statesman) Related :- freedom to roam (from the Ramblers' Association site), the 'independent' Isle of Eigg, the Mass Trespass of Kinder Scout in 1932 (and a news report from the era).
posted by plep at 11:24 PM PST - 23 comments

Terror warnings boost Bush's approval ratings. Cornell sociologist Robb Willard has used a time-series regression analysis to show that a terror alert by the US government predicts an increase in Bush's approval ratings, even on topics unrelated to security. It's often been claimed that the Bush administration manipulates terror alerts for political gain — does this finding make those claims more plausible?
posted by myeviltwin at 10:19 PM PST - 9 comments

Fahrenhype 911. We're going to destroy ourselves aren't we? A movie with appearances by Ann Coulter and Zell Miller takes aim at Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. It's slick, it's punchy and techno-contemporary. Is this a harbinger of not only the loss of America's middle class, but also our common ground?
posted by crasspastor at 9:45 PM PST - 62 comments

The eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment.
posted by semmi at 8:45 PM PST - 5 comments

Yet another political post! Only this one is in the style of Time Crisis. [Flash]
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:27 PM PST - 1 comments

Politics in the 'New Normal' America. By Joan Didion.
posted by josh at 7:23 PM PST - 7 comments

Focus Concern on Schools in Six States I had recenbtly read that when alerts are issued, Bush support moves up. Now we have this alert based on info from a captured terrorist in Iraq. Our govt, we are told, downloaded building plans for a number of public schools. Alas: the material according to the article was found in the Summer--School begins around Labor Day...and now the alert is made?
posted by Postroad at 6:37 PM PST - 19 comments

Terrorists strike tourists in Egypt...again. At least 30 people have been killed, 114 injured today when a truck bomb blew up the Hilton hotel in Taba, Egypt, a resort town in the Sinai. A concurrent explosion occurred nearby in Nuweiba, Egypt, and early casualty reports there are 4 dead, 40 wounded. The apparent target? The many Israeli families who were vacationing in the area, celebrating Simchas Torah. The less-apparent target? The $4 billion/year 7 million people/year Egyptian tourism industry, a crucial part of that country's economy. While this is not the first time that tourists from Israel have been singled out worldwide, it's also part of a decade-long pattern of mass-casualty terrorist attacks against tourists from multiple countries within Egypt. Keeping in mind that one of the most devastating economic after-effects of 9/11 was the blow it dealt to air travel and tourism worldwide, not to mention close calls and tragic events at famed tourist destinations, is tourism-terrorism going to become the wave of the future?
posted by Asparagirl at 5:58 PM PST - 27 comments

FBI Seizes IMC Servers in the UK. Thursday morning, US authorities issued a federal order to Rackspace ordering them to hand over Indymedia web servers to the requesting agency. Rackspace, which provides hosting services for more that 20 Indymedia sites at its London facility, complied and turned over the requested servers, effectively removing those sites from the internet...The list of affected local media collectives includes Ambazonia, Uruguay, Andorra, Poland, Western Massachusetts, Nice, Nantes, Lilles, Marseille (all France), Euskal Herria (Basque Country), Liege, East and West Vlaanderen, Antwerpen (all Belgium), Belgrade, Portugal, Prague, Galiza, Italy, Brazil, UK, part of the Germany site, and the global Indymedia Radio site.
posted by kablam at 4:51 PM PST - 44 comments

Google SMS. Phone listings, definitions and more through SMS from Google. (via /. )
posted by eyeballkid at 4:49 PM PST - 9 comments

these tombstones looked really neat. Moocow's photos show what life is like on the ground in Iraq as a US liberator in the air force. It's always great to see an insider's view, but I must admit some of the captions come off as a bit weird/disrespectful. Otherwise, interesting stuff you don't see everyday.
posted by mathowie at 4:28 PM PST - 33 comments

No need to actually vote, folks: the Election result has already been written by the AP: At this hour, President Bush has won re-election as president by a 47 percent to 43 percent margin in the popular vote nationwide. Ralph Nader has 1 percent of the vote nationwide. That's with 51 percent of the precincts reporting. (they say it's a test article, but who ever heard of an election results article being pre-written?)
posted by amberglow at 4:07 PM PST - 32 comments

Debating for Ratings [yet another flash movie] Do-good media reform group answers the questions no one asked: What if the media set the rules of the debates? What if campaign coverage took the same form as Big Media's favorite low-cost, high-profit programming — reality TV?
posted by drywall at 2:53 PM PST - 1 comments

Times Reporter Is Held in Contempt in Leak Inquiry

I'm no fan of Judith Miller, but can someone please explain to me why she is on trial (and Robert Novak isn't?)
posted by lilboo at 2:07 PM PST - 37 comments

Making a movie? Throwing a party or an event? Take it up a notch and schedule Frank "Bikerfox" DeLarzelere. Outfits and poses for all occasions.
posted by dobbs at 12:46 PM PST - 13 comments

Get Off The Internet And Vote
1. Take a picture of yourself at the polls on November 2, 2004.
2. Take a picture of your voter registration paperwork
3. Send both pictures to the address contest-AT-getofftheinternetandvote-DOT-com
4. All valid entrants will win a small prize, shipped to them for free, merely for entering. One entrant will win the grand prize.
brought to you by drew and natalie
posted by bob sarabia at 12:24 PM PST - 22 comments

The summer of Republican discontent. The sudden decline and eventual fall of the GOP.
posted by four panels at 12:22 PM PST - 11 comments

The weapons the U.S. is sending to Pakistan are targeted against India, not the Taliban. At Pakistan's biggest arms show, a former favorite of A.Q. Khan, it was announced that the U.S. will be selling F-16s to Pakistan, possibly equipped with air-to-air missiles. It looks like Pakistan got its end of the deal for the July surprise.
posted by homunculus at 12:06 PM PST - 10 comments

Appropriate response when the town of Luxembourg doesn't let you open up a store in the middle of town? [kinda nsfw, and rather disturbing]
posted by adampsyche at 12:03 PM PST - 32 comments

Is John Kerry Mentally ILL?
"To put our concerns to rest, we send an anonymous profile of John Kerry to a panel of leading Psychologists and Psychiatrists, both Democrat and Republican, Left and Right, without letting them know they were evaluating a Presidential candidate. The results will SHOCK YOU, regardless of your political beliefs, just like it shocked us."
posted by quonsar at 10:56 AM PST - 61 comments

Vice President Cheney declares the no-wmd report justifies war. So what exactly were they going to do to us that was dangerous, think about the act? In related news, widespread genocide is a potential thought of an african government, let's get em?
posted by omidius at 10:08 AM PST - 98 comments

The Money Shot... at least according to Tom DeLay's photo album.
posted by ph00dz at 8:28 AM PST - 31 comments

Musk oxen have no musk glands and are not oxen. Musk Ox have a bone armor plated skull that protects their forehead. Eight times warmer than wool and extraordinarily lightweight, Qiviut is one of the finest natural fibers known to man. Color your own, make them from paper, or hunt them with caribou.
posted by pieoverdone at 6:01 AM PST - 17 comments

More than rhetoric... As the campaign gets more divisive and time grows short incidents of violence are breaking out more and more often. Shots have been fired on more than one occasion, swastikas burned, intimidation and just plain kicking. Hopefully it gets better from here, but somehow I don't think so.
posted by soulhuntre at 5:38 AM PST - 73 comments

Mohammed is home safe.
posted by johnnydark at 4:41 AM PST - 14 comments

Join Uncle Ben and the Rice family as they come to terms with the True Meaning of Christmas in Christmas Lights in Pilaf. [.mp4 video] Warning: This trailer makes little to no sense.
posted by sciurus at 4:40 AM PST - 8 comments

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2004: Elfriede Jelinek, probably best known for the story behind Michael Haneke's La Pianiste.
posted by mr.marx at 4:10 AM PST - 22 comments

The last phase of the Met's Timeline of Art History is now live and well worth visiting.
posted by magullo at 3:58 AM PST - 1 comments

The resumé of George W. Bush, a carefully annotated curriculum vitae for the incumbent U.S. president, with a foreword and an ongoing errata section to keep it honest.
posted by zadcat at 12:38 AM PST - 37 comments