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Remains of guru's disciple identified Shortly after the 1998 death of "A Separate Reality" guru Carlos Castaneda, whose peyote-fueled sorceric journeys into the Mexican desert captured the imagination of a generation in the 1970s, five of his closest disciples made out their wills, disconnected their telephones, and disappeared into thin air. via
posted by hortense at 11:57 PM PST - 46 comments

45King Perhaps you'll remember his 1-900 song that Ed Lover used to (and still apparently does) shake his ass to. Turns out the guy -- 45 King -- has been producing into the modern age. The interface runs the gamut from "OK" to "barely passes", though doesn't overly interfere with your download and enjoyment of beats, loops and YES!!! More beats! • Caution: may make noise come out your speakers • please enjoy [with help from the good folks at 32944...]
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:18 PM PST - 7 comments

Weird buildings.
posted by angrybeaver at 9:17 PM PST - 64 comments

Kruschen Salts and Camus' Stranger: "A bit later, for want of anything better to do, I (Mersault) picked up an old newspaper that was lying on the floor and read it. There was an advertisement of Kruschen Salts and I cut it out and pasted it into an album where I keep things that amuse me in the papers." Dave Till has collected some other advertisements that Meursault might like.
posted by eighth_excerpt at 8:46 PM PST - 9 comments

Bob Parsons of Go Daddy warns about the proposed contract between VeriSign and ICANN, allowing VeriSign a permanent monopoly on .COM and price increases without regulation.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 7:18 PM PST - 29 comments

The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft: A searchable database of people accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736. Currently, 3,837 people have been identified, 3,212 by name. 113 cases involved fairies, 74 had a known political or property motive, 70 involved some aspect of "white magic". This is the real, and utterly fascinating, history of a hysteria that griped a country and a continent for more than a century. Religion, folk belief, fear and local relations all played out in witchhunts - and we still do not really understand why, why they started or why they ended. Projects like this one are invaluable to help us begin. (Co-developed by mefite Flitcraft)
posted by jb at 5:01 PM PST - 17 comments

Mocan and Tekin aren't sure why criminals tend to be ugly. Is it that ugly people make less money? Is it that they are given lower grades? Is it that people are just mean to them and they hate the world? Or does their asymmetry hint at psychological imperfections like criminal tendencies? Scientist have long suspected a connection between crime and physiognomy.
posted by missbossy at 4:58 PM PST - 57 comments

While it may not be the most aesthetically pleasing image ever created using only MS Paint, the Ultimate MS Paint image does seem like it took the most effort. Background on how the image was created, and pro-active retort by the artist to several of the comments that will be made in this thread regardless.
posted by jonson at 4:39 PM PST - 55 comments

Pete Doherty and the KLF Could Pete Doherty be a fraud perpetuated by KLF - He's really a Buddy Holly impersonator!
posted by kurtrudder at 4:35 PM PST - 35 comments

[Newsfilter] In mid-November last year, David Irving, arguably the world's foremost holocaust-denier (Mel Gibson's dad comes a close second), was arrested in Austria for doing exactly that (previously discussed here). Today he was jailed for it. Should we (read; Austria) be jailing people for their views, however reprehensible or otherwise incorrect they might be? Or is it justifiable in some cases?
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:49 PM PST - 315 comments

Canada's bizarre olympic history - we can be a nation of whiners, but sometimes whiners win (or win, place and show), even forty years later. It doesn't work every time, but there's still time...
posted by Chuckles at 1:31 PM PST - 17 comments

Escape to Romance Here's a blogmeister that runs a romantic Powerball and offers the following: "Romantic_atlanta_2 Are you a member of the Mile High Club? Would you like a free membership? Here is your chance to make your fantasy a reality with the amorous, single webmaster of Grow-a-Brain and the southern hospitality of the folks at Mile High Atlanta." Do you qualify?
posted by Postroad at 1:29 PM PST - 27 comments

The Sartorialist takes a look at fashion trends as seen on the streets of New York City. [via Gothamist]
posted by riffola at 1:06 PM PST - 35 comments

A Master Watchmaker's Notebook. Fascinating, all of it.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:14 PM PST - 27 comments

What song was #1 (in the U.S.) on the day you were born? On my b'day, it was "Stuck on You" by Elvis the Pelvis
posted by mickeyz at 11:39 AM PST - 255 comments

Babies, Footsies, Holdies. Carry, Foul, Slam. Tea Parties, Fairbacks, Cherry Bombs. Double Taps, Underhand, Blackjack. Bitch Serving, Jedi, Extreme. Chicken Drops, Peppermint Sticks, Kamikazes. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. Land Mines, Demons, Black Magic.
posted by bardic at 11:11 AM PST - 18 comments

It's a hard life for Kazakh opposition leaders. Even if you didn't have to worry about the government all up in your grill, or the police picking on your relatives, there would still be people (totally unrelated to the government, of course) trying to kill you over business disputes, or something. No wonder the last guy killed himself.
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:37 AM PST - 8 comments

Tammy NYP Was the #1 search today on technorati.com. Who or what does it refer to? A girl named Tammy who attends Nan Yang Polytechnic in Singapore, and who's camera phone was stolen by a "a rival cheerleader, jealous of her popularity" who promptly uploaded a 10 minute video of her having sex. Is Tammy the next dog poop girl? The consequences could be a little worse, as the school may kick her out of school, and the average sentence for an 'unnatural sex act' is one year in jail, according to this moralizing (and oddly worded, but grammatically correct) blog entry.
posted by Paris Hilton at 10:19 AM PST - 86 comments

What is Beauty ? What do you think?
posted by ozomatli at 10:10 AM PST - 39 comments

Kill Bill + Harry Potter = Kill Harry, featuring cameo appearances by Bender the robot, Bruce Campbell, and Zombie Rick James, bitch.
posted by Gator at 8:40 AM PST - 16 comments

"Don't talk to me. Don't speak to me. Stay with me." Three years later, the author of Atlantic Monthly's most popular essay sits down for an interview.
posted by empath at 8:33 AM PST - 113 comments

One Billion Mazes This site contains one billion mazes in high-quality printable PDF format. You may view, print and solve these mazes... and yes, there are exactly one billion mazes!
posted by ajbattrick at 7:21 AM PST - 43 comments

Due to the insanity of the 'cartoon riots' one man takes it upon himself to support Denmark
posted by cdcello at 6:58 AM PST - 65 comments

Laurel Hester, RIP --because she and her partner fought, New Jersey police and fire department employees can now name anyone--not just a spouse--as a beneficiary for pension rights, helping to protect those they love after they're gone. Just one person who made a difference.
posted by amberglow at 6:12 AM PST - 15 comments

Drugs on the Rez. It's a hell of a life going from utter poverty, where your mom gets you drunk so you'll stop complaining about being hungry, to being able to buy your kids toys with $100 accessories and sending them to private schools, to going back to literally not having a quarter to call your dad. In this case, the money came from Canadian oxycontin. It's not just Native Americans who are targeted by the authorities. It's also Indians. There's a pretty good newish book on the subject of black markets, Illicit. Laos' opium market is apparently gone -- in favor of meth and Afghanistan's market is black in name only, so why keep up the facade?
posted by raaka at 4:24 AM PST - 14 comments