MetaFilter

The Seven Year Itch (Not To Mention The Solution To All Your Financial Problems): Bankruptcy! Clarissa Dickson-Wright, the surviving (blonder; more corpulent; less Mediterranean; less adept at actually cooking) half of the wonderful BBC cooking show Two Fat Ladies, serves a salty and amusing column on bankruptcy. For those deep in debt - never mind how paltry the sums involved - it offers a legal, no-more-stiff-letters-and-phonecalls solution. And the consequences, credit-wise, seem only to last 7 years. As someone who's lunatically overspent ever since I was born, growing worse and more debt-ridden ever since, I'm sorely tempted. But the apparent immorality of it keeps holding me back. To what extent is it a viable alternative? Are we hoi polloi suckers for not using it more? I mean, rich people use it mercilessly all the time!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:46 PM PST - 51 comments

In the market for sky high real estate? You can build your very own, hire a contractor, or just rent.
posted by moonbird at 8:04 PM PST - 5 comments

"I will hire an outside independent auditor, free of political influence..." Schwarzenegger breaks promise to Californians, hires Donna Arduin to head the 60-day audit of California. Arduin is "on loan" from Florida, where she is Jeb Bush's Budget director. Arduin has been criticized by economists and even prominent Florida republicans for "surreal",misleading, unrealistic, and risky accounting procedures. During her stint as Budget Director, Ms. Arduin oversaw numerous tax cuts aimed at the wealthiest Floridians, while most Floridians saw no significant decrease in taxes. Infact, today Florida has the second most regressive taxes in the nation.The effects of these tax cuts? Unprecidented shortfalls in state tax revenues, with massive budget cuts for public schools, universities, child welfare, vision services for uninsured children, etc.
Class warfare, anyone?!
posted by insomnia_lj at 6:10 PM PST - 65 comments

Peter Ha Photographs.
posted by hama7 at 5:10 PM PST - 8 comments

Ventriloquist dummies...yikes! Lots of kids are scared of clowns, but for my money, there's nothing creepier than these shiny faced little wooden psychopaths. Ahoy, serious nightmare fuel ahead!
posted by MrBaliHai at 3:53 PM PST - 25 comments

This Monopoly parody is causing quite a fuss among "black leaders". Is it a stereotype of the "ghetto life" image the media shows us? Sure. But is this game (and the "ghetto life" image) a stereotype that you connect directly to dark-skinned people, as the clergymen seem to think?
posted by bhayes82 at 3:27 PM PST - 66 comments

Behold the fuzzback! The new $20 bill comes out today, with its peachy background stripe. For a little perspective in how far we've come, Check out U.S. Currency from the past. The largest denomination paper U.S. currency (for bank transfers in the day before electronic money) to the a small denomination in paper (payable in gold dust). The smallest I could find is a 2-cent bill issued by a druggist.
posted by meep at 1:03 PM PST - 22 comments

Vladimir Brajovic does interesting research on "reflectance perception". The result: the Shadow Illuminator, a site that brings out amazing amounts of detail in the shadowy parts of your digital images.
posted by tss at 12:06 PM PST - 23 comments

Ronald Dworkin’s Rights and Terror [pdf]. At NYU's Colloquium in Legal, Political and Social Philosophy, Dworkin provides a useful catalogue of the Bush administration’s restrictions on the rights of both citizens and non-citizens of the US since September 11th. Via Crooked Timber and Larry Solum's Legal Theory Blog.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:51 AM PST - 3 comments

Sex makes you smell better. Er, in that it improves your sense of smell. And it reduces the risk of heart disease. And relieves pain. And even improves teeth. This Forbes article explains those and other health benefits of getting a little something-something.
posted by NortonDC at 11:45 AM PST - 33 comments

The new Islam. Husam Tammam and Patrick Haenni in Le Monde (English version) describe the new forms of Islamic culture taking shape in Egypt. I follow the Islamic world fairly closely, but this was news to me. Does it herald an Islam that can live with the rest of the world (and vice versa)?

This entry, both with the hijab [veil] and the nashid [religious chant], into consumerism and syncretism with non-Arab models, has led to an implicit questioning of the old puritanism of the 1970s and 1980s - and above all a questioning of the principle of the ideologisation of religion. The change is important: we could trace similar patterns in the Islamic economy, increasingly affected by the ups and downs of international finance; or in Islamic charity, which has been rethought, within a framework of neoliberalism, as a security net to replace the state's withdrawal from this area (a withdrawal the Islamists have widely supported).

(Via Path of the Paddle.)
posted by languagehat at 10:24 AM PST - 9 comments

what do you call your circle of friends? Two years ago, Ethan Watters wrote an article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine, covering the current phenomenon amongst adults who are marrying late, waiting for the 'right one', and using an extended social circle to fill the need for intimacy and emotional support that has been traditionally provided by a marriage. He has expanded the topic into a book covering groups of friends that have the characteristics of 'an urban tribe' bound by a shared culture of inside jokes, origin myths and communal rituals. Does this apply to your social set? Do you have a Yahoogroup or a Friendster bulletin board that is used to plan movie nights, pubcrawls or group vacations? Does introducing a new romantic partner to your friends feel more stressful than introducing them to your family? Conversely, do you need a chart to track who has dated whom, who has slept with whom, and who has had more than their fair share of drunken hookups? Or is this all one man's conflated introspection of his extended bachelorship?
posted by bl1nk at 10:13 AM PST - 24 comments

astrology in the internet age in the era of full-disclosure, even the astrology sites admit that it's all bogus.
posted by jamsterdam at 9:04 AM PST - 32 comments

I created this website because it seemed to me important that Americans said thank you to Prime Minister Tony Blair and the British people.
posted by i_cola at 8:50 AM PST - 49 comments

Vatican declares fresh Death all around. It seems the Vatican is telling people in countries with high AIDS infection not to use condoms, because the virus is small enough to pass through the porous latex. The World Health Organization believes condoms do reduce the risk of AIDS transmission. To which the Vatican's Cardinal Trujillo replied: "They are wrong about that... this is an easily recognisable fact."
posted by the fire you left me at 8:49 AM PST - 93 comments

eMusic Ends Unlimited Service - starting in November, $10/month only gets you 40 downloads. They're "pleased" to announce $50/month for 300 downloads. eMusic has been one of my favorite sites for a while. Just a moment ago, I cancelled my subscription.
posted by Fantt at 6:27 AM PST - 98 comments

Limerick Challenge. In celebration of National Poetry Day we are invited to write a limerick beginning with the line "On Arnie's first day in the job..." with a warning that "BBC taste and decency guidelines apply". Fortunately there are no such guidelines here.
posted by cbrody at 6:22 AM PST - 48 comments

What do Al Jazeera, AOL, Salam Pax and Sheffield City Council all have in common? Well according to PoliticsOnline they are all "Changing the World of Internet and Politics"...
posted by chill at 6:04 AM PST - 3 comments

Pay your electricity bill -- or Fluffy gets it. Russia's First Channel television reported Dalenergo, an electricity company in Russia's Far Eastern city Vladivostok, is so frustrated by customers who owe around 300 million roubles (6 million pounds) that it has decided to confiscate their pets.
posted by gregb1007 at 4:55 AM PST - 7 comments

Razanne, the Muslim alternative to this, this, this, or this
(Last link possibly NSFW?)
posted by magullo at 1:42 AM PST - 21 comments