MetaFilter

A flood of red ink This time the turnaround will be much tougher. There will be no “peace dividend” from the end of the cold war (indeed, the pressure on military spending may continue to increase). America is unlikely to see another stockmarket bubble, with its surge in tax revenues. As baby-boomers retire, the pressure from entitlement spending will be more acute. Set against this background, the path back to a sustainable fiscal policy will be extremely painful, even without any dramatic fiscal crisis. Long after Dubya is back on his ranch, Americans will be trying to recover from the mess he created.
posted by y2karl at 10:49 PM PST - 35 comments

I half figured this would be posted here by now... The folks at Google have done it again. The Google deskbar has been released. In front of their apparent IPO (previously discussed here), Google rolls out something even cooler than their toolbar. Cue the critics saying that this deskbar violates my privacy somehow. As I hope we all know, Google has fixed the toolbar problems, albeit after people started complaining.
posted by ajpresto at 7:21 PM PST - 45 comments

Cunnilingus In North Korea - Young-Hae Chang. [flash]
posted by hama7 at 6:47 PM PST - 42 comments

What's in a name? Taste to find out. Fancy Lawnmower Beer, No Disput'n Putin Russian Imperial Stout, Bierbitzch, Honey Act Your Sage, and Old Numbskull. What's your favorite beer with a wacky name?
posted by jasonspaceman at 5:13 PM PST - 53 comments

Picture Hunt time! How many women are in this picture? (more inside)
posted by AaRdVarK at 3:48 PM PST - 54 comments

The New Orleans Karaoke Cam comes to you live from Cat's Meow in New Orleans. Choose the streaming video option and you can watch and listen to the performers and sing along if you know the song! If karaoke isn't your thing, there are other cams on the site as well. Warning: this can be a MAJOR waste of time.
posted by SisterHavana at 3:40 PM PST - 5 comments

How do you get teens to crave milk? Load it with caffeine. "We're giving teens the caffeine they want but also vitamins, calcium and protein" ...and also a lot more calories.
posted by bluno at 3:12 PM PST - 32 comments

The Ideosphere, a prediction market like the one the Pentagon wanted to set up, predicts a 20% chance of the non-test use of a nuclear device on U.S. soil by 2010. Other predictions include the likelihood of various candidates winning the next Presidential election, as well as the number of troops killed in Iraq and the chance of a human clone by 2005.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:54 PM PST - 7 comments

Amnest Int'l drops documentary after petition. Two Irish filmmakers were inside the palace during the coup in Venezuela in 2002 (also on MeFi: 1 2). I caught their powerful documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised here in Chicago (review). The film was just recently dropped from Canada Amnesty International's upcoming film festival in Vancouver after opposition parties in Venezuela organized a petition of over 7,000 signatures (mp3). The groups have concerns about it's accuracy, especially in it's characterization of the opposition to the democratically elected President Chavez. A petition supporting the film has been started as well. I found the movie stunning and a chilling account of how media outlets can shape, gauge and control public perception at home and abroad (ergo the Reagan miniseries debacle). Also notable I found was Chavez's passion to teach the poor to understand the constitution of their country - impoverished Venezuelans talking passionately about how they realize that understanding politics and policy is one of the first steps out of their poverty. I picture Jerry Springer trash trying to articulate any understanding of the U. S. constitution. Any Venezuela MeFi'ers wanna give a background on how the country had been faring since the coup and restoration? Was it a CIA action? I'm sure the honeymoon's over - how's it going?
posted by ao4047 at 2:33 PM PST - 16 comments

Church sign generator. Crank out your own roadside platitudes.
posted by ChuqD at 1:36 PM PST - 49 comments

New nickels in 2004. Also, the mint is holding out the possibility of further changes after the Lewis and Clark designs are retired after 2005, so maybe they'll finally have the guts to use Felix Schlag's original design for the coin, with the oblique view of Monticello.
posted by yhbc at 11:12 AM PST - 21 comments

Cyber-Coolies? Huh? Is There A New Globalization-Savvy Racism In the Air? I admit I was discomfited by this article - it seemed sly paternalistic and colonialist at best; racist if you read between the lines. Are these sort of attitudes going to ruin what the global telecommunications revolution has achieved? (Via should-know-better Arts and Letters Daily.)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:55 AM PST - 58 comments

A total lunar eclipse will be seen Saturday night, November 8 in the Americas and early the next morning in Europe and elsewhere.
posted by the fire you left me at 9:09 AM PST - 5 comments

You want me to stick what, where? [via Gizmodo]
posted by anathema at 8:44 AM PST - 19 comments

McNewsFilter... National Public Radio is announcing today the largest donation in its history, a cash bequest from the will of the late philanthropist Joan Kroc of McDonalds of well over $200 million.
posted by bluedaniel at 8:24 AM PST - 47 comments

This is Broken A compendium of bad designs. By Mark Hurst
more inside..
posted by anastasiav at 7:55 AM PST - 9 comments

Those anti-Semitic Europeans are at it again. In an opinion poll conducted in October, when shown a list of countries and asked "if in your opinion it presents or not a threat to peace in the world", some 59 per cent of European Union citizens polled said that Israel was a danger. "This shocking result... defies logic and is a racist flight of fantasy that only shows that anti-Semitism is deeply embedded within European society, more than at any other period since the end of the war," responded Rabbi Marvin Hier. But, is it really so?
posted by acrobat at 7:50 AM PST - 53 comments

National Men Make Dinner Day is today, gentlemen. What culinary delights will you be whipping up this evening?
posted by debralee at 4:49 AM PST - 90 comments

The Internet Broadway Database From The Prisoner of Zenda, which opened Sep. 4, 1895, to (well) Urinetown, due to close in January, a comprehensive hyperlinked database of official Broadway performances through the years.
posted by dhartung at 1:55 AM PST - 10 comments