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Annise Parker, current City Controller of Houston, has defeated Gene Locke in a runoff election for mayor. She is the first openly gay person to lead a major U.S. city.
posted by granted at 11:14 PM PST - 119 comments

Prominent bittorrent sites close down or are defanged. Rarely do we hear about any of them coming back from the dead. Today one of them did - demonoid. In the bittorrent world, demonoid occupies a special place. It is not quite as famous as Pirate Bay or the long gone Oink, but beloved by connoisseurs of rare product, be it music, video, e-books or software. Today many people across the globe celebrate.
posted by VikingSword at 10:55 PM PST - 153 comments

Tourist traps in Michigan
posted by jjray at 9:29 PM PST - 54 comments

WordPress has added Twitter API support to hosted blogs. Now you can use Tweetie (or any other configurable Twitter client) to actually read blogs, instead of just getting links to them. The API integration is still undercooked, but is a reminder that there's a lot happening outside of 140 characters. APIs may be BizDev 2.0, but does that include work-alikes? (This isn't the first project to use the Twitter API as a lingua franca for micro-blogging.)
posted by ivey at 6:55 PM PST - 10 comments

Amid the financial headlines (about new banking reforms, more bank failures, the need for more lending by the fat-cats, the question of whether a European-style bonus-tax might be possible here, and the shrinking of the middle class), on PBS yesterday Bill Moyers wondered, in an in-depth segment (with organizers from here and here), whether a new wave of populist economic activism is perhaps, despite all odds, beginning to make a dent after all.
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 6:30 PM PST - 31 comments

A Wish... (part 1) ...For Wings... (part 2) ...That Work (part 3). The only Christmas Special you'll see this year with hairballs, a cross-dressing cockroach, Ronald Coleman and a 22-second warning. The apex for Berkeley Breathed and Opus (for Bill, notsomuch). via.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:12 PM PST - 26 comments

The adventures of Batman will incorporate many different elements of the Batman mythology. Our half-hour series will have a darker look and tone to it, keeping in line with the movie version and recent comic book interptretations. With a nod to the crime films and novels of the 1940s, we will combine both old and new in this "Dark Deco" visual design and create a fresh take on The Batman. - Batman: The Animated Series, the writers guidelines (pdf)
posted by Artw at 6:08 PM PST - 53 comments

With his whimsically biting number from 1988 entitled Jazz Police, ol' Lenny Cohen has shown himself to be a prophet once again: Jazzer drop your axe it's jazz police! [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:07 PM PST - 9 comments

calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese at 4:16 PM PST - 34 comments

Every so often, the Opie and Anthony radio show run a Homeless Shopping Spree, where they take some homeless people off the streets and take them out to an upscale mall to buy clothes for them. This year, a man who calls himself Mustard mentioned to them that he used to be a musician, so they gave him a guitar.
posted by flatluigi at 4:04 PM PST - 76 comments

Brilliant short series of documentaries each dealing with an architect and their signature creations. (each approx. 30 minutes) Frank Lloyd Wright Johnson Wax Building :: Walter Gropius The Dessau Bauhaus :: Alvaro Siza The Siza School :: Renzo Piano Centre Georges Pompidou :: Santiago Calatrava Satolas TGV :: Felix Duban School of the Beaux Arts :: Peter Zumthor The Thermae of Stone :: Emanuele Rocco La Galleria Umberto :: Otto Wagner The Vienna Savings Bank
posted by vronsky at 2:03 PM PST - 12 comments

SLYT. '99 LA Weekly Article. Boing Boing [more inside]
posted by Esoquo at 1:23 PM PST - 29 comments

The Defiant Ones. In today’s picture books, the kids are in charge.
posted by The Dryyyyy Cracker at 11:06 AM PST - 50 comments

After Effects Crash Reports
posted by grumblebee at 10:29 AM PST - 80 comments

A "Dow Jones Index for Climate Change". The IGBP Climate-Change Index distills complex climate change factors into a single number, like how the Dow Jones distills the markets to a single number, and visually graphs it over time.
posted by stbalbach at 10:03 AM PST - 14 comments

A 73 year old Georgina Spelvin talks about her work in The Devil in Miss Jones as part of a music video for Massive Attack's latest single, Paradise Circus. (Last link NSFW, contains porn clips, etc., etc.)
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:13 AM PST - 31 comments

Ghosts of Shopping Malls Past. : beautiful photos of modern ruins.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:14 AM PST - 44 comments

Man in a Chicken suit plays "What is Love" on Pianica. [more inside]
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 7:47 AM PST - 37 comments

The Second City, the world's premier theater of comedy and school of improvisation, is celebrating its 50^th birthday. The school has had many notable alumni: Some early Second City performances by Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, some reminiscences by Tina Fey, Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie, and Fred Willard. [more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:21 AM PST - 37 comments

Lobster: The Journal of Parapolitics was started in 1983 by Robin Ramsay and Stephen Dorril, two conspiracy enthusiasts who weren't actually nuts and believed in proper research. The magazine primarily covered the activities of the British security and intelligence services and what they term 'parapolitics'. They've had a brochure website for a while with some sample articles, but starting from the current issue the full journal will be free online (PDF download). The pair had a falling-out some time ago and have gone their separate ways. On his personal site Dorril, now also the author of a well-received study of Mosley and the Blackshirts, offers early back issues of the magazine for free download too.
posted by Abiezer at 1:57 AM PST - 17 comments

The most expensive movie ever made, is getting its first reviews ... and so far the thumbs are mostly up. [more inside]
posted by philip-random at 12:51 AM PST - 358 comments