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We can all breathe a little easier now, but it comes at a hefty price - $428 million. That's a boatload of money for a security blanket we may not even need. It's times like this, though, that make me happy (not necessarily proud) to be an American. What do you think?
posted by catatonic at 10:58 PM PST - 11 comments

What goes up, must come down. After it's meteoric rise in the ratings, WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE's future is looking bleak. This comes after news that a British Millionaire contestant accused of cheating. <coff, coff!> Do you think maybe it was just all too crass in the post 9/11 world?
posted by crunchland at 10:36 PM PST - 10 comments

PrintCafe sues idiot. Literally. They are suing several individuals who posted anonymous comments on F---edCompany's message boards. So far, all they have are the aliases the comments were posted under, namely "Ex-DLJ", "sucky-me", and "idiot!". Apparently that's all they're going to get, since Pud says here, "FC servers contain no logs ". Also of note is item number 4 on this page of the letter Pud received.
posted by Potsy at 10:29 PM PST - 8 comments

There are some new cops out on the street. Yes. Its Eric Stoltz starring in "Jesus & Hutch". Just in time for Christmas. *Warning* This is a movie so if you are on a dialup like I am, sorry.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:45 PM PST - 8 comments

Culture clash. A pilot's investigation of the crash of EgyptAir 990, and the cultural reverberations of a seemingly straightforward airplane crash. Truth as political expediency.
posted by semmi at 9:33 PM PST - 3 comments

Conflict Resolution In The Middle East? Johann Galtung, professor of peace studies and conflict resolution at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, from a taped lecture re-broadcast recently on Democracy Now! In Exile. [RealAudio, courtesy of WFMU Archives]
posted by tpoh.org at 7:26 PM PST - 2 comments

In lieu of the Magic Lantern thread, Symantec will be ignoring the FBI trojan. [taken from ./]
posted by hobbes at 6:35 PM PST - 22 comments

According to this editorial, the Russians have outmaneuvered the US oil interests by encouraging the Northern Alliance to take Kabul. "The alliance is now Afghanistan's dominant force and, heedless of multi-party political talks in Germany going on this week, styles itself as the new "lawful" government, a claim fully backed by Moscow."
posted by electro at 6:22 PM PST - 14 comments

Richard & Judy's new show on Channel 4 has begun. Three episodes in and Judy still looks nervous and Richard's marbles have still escaped him. But they've also taken a turn in 'National Enquirer' territory, featuring an item about non-movement excersise programmes and a video about a man who could change shape. As 'Off The Telly' reports: "This pandered to Richard and Judy’s well-worn obsession with anything of a freakish nature. The footage showed an ordinary person - or “Spookman” as Richard instantly dubbed him - whose face ostensibly changed into others as you studied it. The studio crew were convinced, gasping on cue, and Richard was rapt: “Oh man, I could watch this all night”
posted by feelinglistless at 4:39 PM PST - 15 comments

Sports & Leisure Wash® Ever get that not-so-fresh feeling after a big game? Are you interested in "a thorough bath in just 10 minutes with NO shower or tub, NO water, NO soap, NO towels, and NO laundry"? Sorry ... I just can't see how you can possibly get a thorough bath without water ... ewww ...
posted by GatorDavid at 4:17 PM PST - 2 comments

The Martians are coming!... and I feel fine!
posted by geronimo_rex at 3:52 PM PST - 7 comments

Looking for that perfect family getaway? Norway has a killer vacation package for the discriminating tourist that helps correct an "imbalance in the ecological system." Ice pick sold separately.
posted by gazingus at 2:47 PM PST - 13 comments

In praise of bad habits. Interesting lecture that postulates our bad habits make us human, and help fulfill an evolutionary need for risk. The lecturer also poses some interesting moral questions about the "health police": "Engaging in risk - smoking, drinking, creating the possibility of sexually transmitted diseases, eating fat, sugar, salt and avoiding too much exercise - is characteristic of a different strata of society - the poor and marginalised, the working classes, ethnic minorities and 'deviant' groups. When the proponents of healthism are urging changes in lifestyle in order to achieve, in their terms, 'well-being', they are advocating changes for others much more often than they are for themselves. In this sense they are essentially moralists seeking to stigmatise specific members of society."
posted by kittyloop at 2:38 PM PST - 15 comments

Just think, it's normally worth a red card. (from espn) MADRID -- Sevilla's Francisco Gallardo is totally surprised that the Spanish Football Federation has opened an investigation into his bizarre goal celebration during his team's 4-0 victory over Valladolid last weekend. Gallardo was caught on camera bending down and biting teammate Jose Antonio Reyes' genitals in celebration of the striker's goal early in the second half of the match. "I don't think what I did was very noteworthy," Gallardo was quoted as saying by Spanish media Wednesday. "I just felt a slight pinch. I didn't realize what had really happened until I saw the footage on television," Reyes was quoted as saying by the French Press Agency. "Gallardo hasn't heard the end of this. The worst thing now is the stick I'm getting from the other players," he added.
posted by crabwalk at 2:36 PM PST - 26 comments

The World Cup draw is Saturday, though I am a bit confused about the process. Why on earth is England ranked behind Germany?
posted by tranquileye at 1:40 PM PST - 19 comments

Looking the World in the Eye Huntington, a Harvard prof., lays out his vision for the future of the clash of civilizations in an article in The Atlantic Monthly. The main points are- • The fact that the world is modernizing does not mean that it is Westernizing. The impact of urbanization and mass communications, coupled with poverty and ethnic divisions, will not lead to peoples' everywhere thinking as we do. • Asia, despite its ups and downs, is expanding militarily and economically. Islam is exploding demographically. The West may be declining in relative influence. • Culture-consciousness is getting stronger, not weaker, and states or peoples may band together because of cul tural similarities rather than because of ideological ones, as in the past. • The Western belief that parliamentary democracy and free markets are suitable for everyone will bring the West into conflict with civilizations—notably, Islam and the Chinese— that think differently. • In a multi-polar world based loosely on civilizations rather than on ideologies, Americans must reaffirm their Western identity.
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 1:27 PM PST - 8 comments

The US Bobsled Team has a very good chance to win an Olympic medal in 2002 for the first time since 1956, thanks to a strong group of people, and a bobsled designed by an unlikely person: NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine. Yeehawwww!!! (quicktime)
posted by machaus at 1:16 PM PST - 10 comments

White House predicts budget deficits until 2005. Uh... cause of the war, not monster tax cuts to businesses and billionaires... yeah, that's the ticket!
posted by mattpusateri at 1:08 PM PST - 19 comments

Boy Left At Bus Stop In Snow, Cold "Nicholas Degnan was left standing in snowy and cold weather about a quarter-mile from his house... Nicholas said that his legs were sore after the long walk in deep snow." Hard news, bland food. I love my state.
posted by mecawilson at 12:13 PM PST - 39 comments

Design Not Found is 37signals' latest work. They highlight the very best and worst of online contingency design, the design of pages presented to users when things go wrong. It's looking like it could quickly become a killer resource for users to report examples and web application designers to learn from those.
posted by mathowie at 11:48 AM PST - 19 comments

Merry Christmas. Maybe these families were traumatized by Santa at some point.
posted by Modem Ovary at 11:25 AM PST - 31 comments

Dead Men Walking Thomas Lipscome urges us to think about 4th generation warfare, the nature of the battle, and the potential dangers well beyond the idea of nations such as Afghanistan and Iraq. From the article: "Terrorists become extraordinarily resourceful playing weak hands against the strong and rich. So do revolutionaries. And it is time to realize bin Laden is both" This article is short yet wide-ranging, neatly bringing together the Balkans, Clinton, the Media, and 4G warfare.
via follow me here
posted by cell divide at 10:49 AM PST - 3 comments

The most spectacular corporate imposion in decades. Without 9/11, the biggest news story in the past few weeks would have been the cataclysmic end of one of the 90's hottest companies, headed by one of the President's closest supporters, because of fraudulent accounting practices.
posted by Mid at 10:28 AM PST - 18 comments

Whoops, turns out it wasn't Bin Laden who planned 9/11 after all; it was KOLVENBACH, THE BLACK POPE!!! Dispensational Fifth Monarchy Seventh-Day Baptist-Calvinist White American Freeman anti-Jesuit conspiracies, anyone?
posted by brownpau at 9:18 AM PST - 24 comments

Bombing the Taleban prisoners
"There are hundreds of bodies in there - bodies and bits of bodies, all over the place."

The crush of the Taleban prisoner revolt at the Qala-e-Jhangi fort has Amnesty International asking what happened there... I'd like to know, too. (More here and here and here.)
posted by blackholebrain at 8:55 AM PST - 69 comments

"The Web, left to its own devices, would be the exact opposite of that: It's like a giant city with no neighborhoods; it needs these kind of meta-filters, these second-level kind of things, whether it is Yahoo or Google or Slashdot, to rein in that chaos and turn it to something more organized." From the second page of an interview with the author of Emergence, Steven Johnson (also co-founder of Feed).
posted by adrianhon at 8:36 AM PST - 10 comments

I've been accused in the past of only posting serious news item type links - so just to prove that i'm no stick-in-the-mud here is a fun link. It requires shockwave plugins..... ladies and gentlemen i give you.... table tennis!! please enjoy this during work hours.
posted by Spoon at 7:44 AM PST - 31 comments

Routes of Least Surveillance
It's not the journey or the destination; it's the getting there unseen that counts. (if you hate Wired, don't click the link)
posted by Irontom at 7:31 AM PST - 24 comments

Beneath the Dome... and I mean London's Millennium Dome, still causing controversy nearly a year after it closed. Undercover reporters seem surprised to find there's nothing inside the big top since its contents were demolished. No problem to the Dome's detractors, though, or to the thousands of ravers heading for the Ministry of Sound New Year's Eve party at the Dome, complete with indoor and outdoor funfair! Any MeFiers going?
posted by skylar at 3:03 AM PST - 46 comments

The End of Gay Culture. In a nutshell, the author is saying that the next generation of homosexuals is discarding gay culture after being accepted into society for its financial clout. What do you think? Is this good, bad or way off base?
posted by Poagao at 1:06 AM PST - 24 comments