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"It's been a rough few days for the A-10," the pilot told her father after she landed, but she assured him that the A-10 'Warthog' is a "a durable and reliable plane." It. Sure. Is. But the pilot brought it back from Baghdad in this condition with dead hydraulics, using only manual controls, and landed safely. The A-10 may be slower than birds, but it's loved by the Army.
via The Cellar's Picture of the Day
posted by Slithy_Tove at 10:45 PM PST - 29 comments

Remember how we beat the Taliban? This must be science fiction - I was told that we freed Afghanistan and killed all of the evil-doers there! I hope wacky stories like this don't start cropping up while we're introducing democracy to Iraq! I suppose it doesn't matter what the repurcussions are; even in our silly movies we have a history of ignoring that sort of thing.
posted by GriffX at 9:10 PM PST - 61 comments

Create a Plastic Paradise with Fant-O-Side! The Western Red Cedar Lumber Association actually took the time to put up a phony website to coordinate with its current ad campaign. Oh, I know this isn't a new technique - shoot, Lee Jeans did the same kind of thing way back in 2000 (as was noted here). Fair warning - don't click on any of the old links in the Wired article, unless you enjoy going to pop-up hell.
Surely, there've been more of this type of one-off phony site ...
posted by yhbc at 7:20 PM PST - 9 comments

The winners of the annual Muzzle Awards have been announced by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression; these are given out to "those who have forgotten Mr. Jefferson's warning that freedom of expression cannot be limited without being lost." The lucky winners this year include (among others) include John Ashcroft, for the DOJ's secretive expanded powers; the 107th U.S. Congress for USA PATRIOT; National Zoo Director Lucy Spelman for covering up mysterious deaths of zoo animals; and the NC House of Representatives for trying to shut down a college assignment involving the Koran. Are there any other outrageous cases of censorship this year that the Muzzles should have included? Are all of the winners worthy of ridicule?
posted by waldo at 2:00 PM PST - 19 comments

Bibendum (AKA The Michelin Man), or how an anthropomorphic pile of tires became one of the world's most recognizable corporate symbols.
posted by MrBaliHai at 1:40 PM PST - 20 comments

"We believe there are chemical weapons in Syria" President Bush gets ready to liberate Syria.
posted by four panels at 11:54 AM PST - 132 comments

A bunch of very beautiful Old Japanese Maps has been put online. Java application Insight(tm) required to view and includes a nifty GIS application to overlay old maps on current maps with 3-D animated fly-throughs. State of the art in online map presentation "The digital images are even better than the originals because you can amplify them, rotate them to look at them from different angles," Mr. Zhou said. "In practical terms, this is a better way of using the material than actually coming here to see the pieces."
posted by stbalbach at 11:48 AM PST - 5 comments

Mathew Branton, an established author is giving away his latest novel "The Tie and The Crest", for free on the internet, here he explains why. It's all very noble and I applaud it. While we are on the subject, has anyone mentioned the Big Read yet?
posted by Fat Buddha at 6:07 AM PST - 11 comments

'Barefoot Gen is a vivid autobiographical story. Artist Keiji Nakazawa was only seven years old when the Atomic Bomb destroyed his beautiful home city of Hiroshima. The Artist's "Gen" manga (visual novel), tells the tale of one family's struggle to survive in the dreadful shadow of war ... '
"I named my main character Gen in the hope that he would become a root or source of strength for a new generation, one that can tread the charred soil of Hiroshima barefoot, feel the earth beneath its feet, and have the strength to say "NO" to nuclear weapons.... "
More survivors' stories :- Nagasaki Nightmare, the art of the hibakusha, or A-bomb survivors.
Voice of Hibakusha includes eye-witness accounts of the atom bombing of Hiroshima. Here are more testimonies of survivors. (Via the A-Bomb WWW Museum). A personal record of Hiroshima A-bomb survival, posted to a message board, with responses from readers.
Remembering Nagasaki, a slide-show of Nagasaki after the A-bomb.
The story of Sadako, an A-bomb victim, and the Thousand Paper Cranes project she inspired.
posted by plep at 3:39 AM PST - 15 comments

No Webby for Meta. 2003 Webby Awards Announced. Does anyone still care?
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:22 AM PST - 23 comments

Love Philtre and SundayFilter Dare To Board The Love Boat... and almost drown in it! Let your wildest notions and your most secret pairings go wild and [cue awful Berlin song you thought you'd never hear again] get the Love Calculator to take your breath away. To start you off, here are the Matt vs. MetaFilter match results: "Dr. Love thinks that a relationship between mathowie and MetaFilter has a very good chance of being successful, but this doesn't mean that [Matt] do[es]n't have to work on the relationship. Remember that every relationship needs spending time together, talking with each other etc."
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:02 AM PST - 24 comments