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Fictional Clerical Detectives. "I take clerical detectives to mean any detective with a significant church or religious background, so I include not only priests (male and female), ministers, monks, nuns, ex-nuns, a Shaker, two rabbis (and rabbis' widows and ministers' wives), a church administrator, and a clerk of a Quaker Meeting, but choirmaster/organists, religously inspired policemen, Buddhists, Muslims, and even a few witches. " Links to each nun can be found on the linked page (scroll down) [more inside]
posted by storybored at 9:14 PM PST - 19 comments

Brilliant mathematical doodler Vihart on ways to heal our country's divide. (Just the video) Wherein the success of Trump is examined with a unique and relatively hopeful perspective.
posted by Glinn at 3:21 PM PST - 31 comments

These quotation marks are why I have "trust" issues. Apostrophe's can be abused. A missing comma? Fucking a dude, can't beat that.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:20 PM PST - 84 comments

Andy Kershaw just spent 45 minutes interviewing The Band's Robbie Robertson. BBC Radio posted the full audio of their chat online as a free downloadable mp3 this morning, and it's fascinating. Among the topics Robertson discusses are a memorable early Hawks gig in Jack Ruby's Texas club, dealing with audience hostility on Dylan's first electric tour, taking the Stones' Brian Jones to a gig by the then-unknown Jimi Hendrix, his memories of the Woodstock festival, 1970s drug madness in the music industry, The Band's legendary farewell at The Last Waltz and why a touring musician's years are like dog years. Both men are clearly enjoying themselves here and Kershaw can be heard cackling like a mad witch at Robertson's best anecdotes.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:47 PM PST - 14 comments

Sandra Jansen recently left the Progressive Conservatives to join the NDP in Alberta, primarily due to the right-wing PCs becoming more extreme. On Tuesday she read aloud some examples of the abuse she has received and called for a fight against it. As a result, she's been assigned a security detail.
posted by juiceCake at 11:30 AM PST - 72 comments

Over the past 12 hours or so the world's favorite flammable object, the Gävle Goat, has been assembled again in Sweden. Watch the 24-hour live cam, or follow him on twitter or Instagram. Will the goat survive until New Year's Day? [more inside]
posted by hippybear at 11:23 AM PST - 49 comments

Hey, you got your Beyoncé in my Hamilton! No, you got your Hamilton on my Beyoncé. [SLYT]
posted by FelliniBlank at 11:05 AM PST - 10 comments

Now, whenever Polly has an anxiety attack, Lauricella puts her into the duck costume, and voila — instant calm. [more inside]
posted by mrjohnmuller at 10:27 AM PST - 26 comments

Still economically devastated by the closure of its steelworks in 1980, "The residents of Consett are key cogs in a booming online industry. A Reuters investigation has found they have served as directors of more than 1,000 businesses: poker games, pop-up get-rich-quick schemes, vendors of colon cleansers and healthfoods, and much more."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:36 AM PST - 15 comments

In anticipation of the launch of Season Eleven, ShoutFactory is doing an MST3K Turkey Day Marathon, with both Joel Hodgson and new host Jonah Ray. It's starting at Noon EST. Maybe you'd like to tune in for Robot Roll Call?
posted by valkane at 9:00 AM PST - 13 comments

Titanpointe, the NSA's spy hub located in a windowless AT&T skyscraper in New York.
posted by beagle at 6:50 AM PST - 39 comments

"Today's poem is very simple and is studied by French middle school students as an introduction to Old French." The author is "an unlikely poet" who was born on November 24, 1394, and whose words form the text of Claude Debussy's Trois Chansons de Charles d'Orléans. But he also wrote in Middle English (selections; full text).
posted by Wobbuffet at 3:17 AM PST - 3 comments