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A fascinating Salon (Premium, alas) article asks why we haven't heard more about the purported Israeli art student spy ring. Depending on who you ask, there's either nothing *to* ask, or there's a cover-up of positively Oliver Stone-ian proportions underway. Riveting reading, whichever explanation you subscribe to.
posted by artifex at 10:56 PM PST - 20 comments

"NASCAR has sold its soul to the devil," says 45-year-old veteran driver Ricky Rudd, who's thinking about retirement. Maybe he's just pissed about losing to younger competitors. Or maybe he has a point when he says, "They are massaging this thing to target a certain crowd and before you know it, they'll have us up there flexing and in bathing suits like we're professional wrestlers." NASCAR's definitely been trying to broaden its appeal in other ways. And when is the increasingly popular racing world going to start requiring soft wall technology at all of its tracks, anyway? Last Sunday's wreck during Indy 500 practice seems to have convinced one driver, at least, that soft walls work.
posted by mediareport at 10:25 PM PST - 19 comments

Readerville is a community of readers. The site is supported, probably not very extravagantly, by book sales. It describes itself as "The social life of the mind".
posted by theora55 at 7:46 PM PST - 3 comments

Backstabbing your coworkers via email -- In a British survey almost 40% said they used email to further their own careers at the expense of colleagues.
posted by palegirl at 7:41 PM PST - 9 comments

Backsliding - What does it mean and where does it begin? The one common cause of backsliding is sin allowed in one's life. The remedy is repentance and return to God. God offers hope of restoration for the backslider. Who's been backsliding recently?
posted by jeremias at 7:25 PM PST - 19 comments

Backlinking approaches critical mass. Append the referreral history to the page served and illuminate another dimension of linkspace. Via flutterby
posted by NortonDC at 7:08 PM PST - 4 comments

Remember all the furor in '70's and '80's over Backmasking , which for the uninitiated is inserting backwards messages(usually Satanic) into records to seduce the innocent.Usually the allegations came from folks like this. Judas Preist even found themselves dragged into court over it. Thankfully, the audio at this site you can judge for yourself. More links here. I don't buy it myself. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go kill my parents.
posted by jonmc at 7:03 PM PST - 12 comments

silicon art
"Looking inside, Chipworks has found creative expressions on many of the chips that we have examined. Our combined facilities house six optical microscopes that provide us with the magnification required to discover the hidden art on some chips. Magnification can vary anywhere from 200 to 500 times the actual size. We think that these masterpieces deserve a wider audience. Have a look at what we've found!"
posted by quonsar at 6:10 PM PST - 2 comments

Las Vegas obstetricians are turning away newly pregnant women, including existing patients who become pregnant, because they say they cannot afford to deliver more babies ... If newly pregnant women cannot find care in Las Vegas, their choices include moving elsewhere, traveling out of state for care or going without prenatal care and delivering in area emergency rooms or a casino?
posted by lola at 5:18 PM PST - 11 comments

Pocky for Men? Mmmm, Pocky, I love you. But a flavor for men only? I don't like bitter chocolate! This is my favorite flavor. It reminds me of Crunch Berries. Mmmm...Crunch Berries. Just because I like a hot pink candy stick doesn't make me any less of a man, does it? Perhaps this is some sort of snack food cultural barrier that needs to be addressed. I admit, I don't get the green tea 'mousse' style Pocky, but to each his own, eh? Let's hear it for Pocky!
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:46 PM PST - 18 comments

DVD Menu Design: The Failures of Web Design Recreated Yet Again. We've all been thinking it.
Very Nielsen-esque, for obvious reasons, but without a lot of what we hate Nielsen himself for.
posted by Su at 4:28 PM PST - 18 comments

StarWars.com redesigns. And Natalie Portman has... nice abs. In your face, Princess Leia!
posted by robbie01 at 4:16 PM PST - 44 comments

Last week, Iambic registered the domain names Datebk5.com and Datebook5.com. However, Iambic does not make a product called Datebk. Pimlico Software, Iambic's closest competitor, does. (more inside)
posted by dobbs at 4:04 PM PST - 10 comments

Helder admits to mailbox bombings: "Helder admitted manufacturing eight pipe bombs in his apartment in Wisconsin," according to the affidavit. "Helder further admitted to assembling an additional 16 pipe bombs at a motel in Nebraska." I hope he gets thrown into a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
posted by Kevin Sanders at 2:18 PM PST - 45 comments

Why is there no cent sign on computers? I've always wondered why we had a dollar sign, but no sent sign. Now I know.
posted by fnirt at 2:12 PM PST - 55 comments

I Am a Racially Profiling Doctor "In practicing medicine, I am not colorblind. I always take note of my patient's race. So do many of my colleagues. We do it because certain diseases and treatment responses cluster by ethnicity." (NYTimes link)
posted by Irontom at 11:10 AM PST - 30 comments

Pro-life protester wins settlement. Background: As Ann Norton, 57, and friend Diane Roberts picketed an abortion clinic, a passerby who disapproved of Norton's sign tore it from its backing, leading Roberts to telephone police. One officer was dispatched to the clinic to file a report, but several days later, the center said, Norton and Roberts were informed by police they were being charged with a violation of state law for displaying the graphic sign. Michigan statutes prohibit the public display of pictures of murder.
posted by aaronshaf at 11:06 AM PST - 21 comments

Small free speech zones on public college campuses seem incongruous. A more-carrot, less-stick solution might be a free speech zone that was indoors, with seating, like part of this was. Maybe then, fewer people would want to demonstrate elsewhere. This would probably ony work if people regularly came to listen and debate.
posted by engelr at 10:27 AM PST - 9 comments

16thandmission: Urban Data Stories is "an investigation into the interplay of data, interactivity and narrative in an urban environment. It takes as its focus the corner of 16th and Mission Streets in San Francisco.... Depending on the state of the bus system at any given moment, the narratives interrelate to a variety of degrees with the map framework." [For you non-san-franciscans, 16th and Mission is a well-known intersection - lively, multicultural, gritty]
posted by vacapinta at 10:19 AM PST - 9 comments

When kid porn isn't kid porn. By thinly skirting the line between legal and illegal, purveyors of child pornography have become harder to nail down.
posted by susanlucci at 10:13 AM PST - 14 comments

Are you an identiopath? Do you know anyone who is? Deadpan satire from Hermenaut.
posted by darukaru at 10:02 AM PST - 5 comments

Expos declare independence from MLB.
"The grim, bleached-blonde visage of Richie Sexson will serve as a warning to all opponents who attempt to subvert the revolution or phone the bullpen," said Expos second baseman/People’s Minister of Security Jose Vidro.
Few humor sites on the web are truly funny, but The Spitter has a high batting average.
posted by Holden at 9:25 AM PST - 3 comments

ANDDOVUS Nations Authorize ÒRegime ChangeÓ for USA
BUENOS AIRES -- The Association of Nations Destroyed, Destabilized or Otherwise Violated by Uncle Sam, or ANDDOVUS, has authorized the ouster of the current U.S. administration by no later than March 2003. Foreign ministers of the 123 nations that make up ANDDOVUS met earlier this week in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they agreed to appropriate $42.8 billion for what they termed Òregime change in the United States.Ó
posted by mapalm at 9:24 AM PST - 11 comments

ixi software is a network of experimentalists in the field of computer music and computer music software. Don't miss their cool downloads.
posted by signal at 9:13 AM PST - 6 comments

Have you heard of the Feminine Empire of Aristasia? It seems to be "an alternative reality that is really lived by girls today." Whether this is fact or elaborate fiction, there is a crowd of websites out there devoted to this subject. There is a glossary, a pinup area of ideal Aristasians, even types of people. Is this Lesbian role playing? Is it real? You be the judge: Google it.
posted by ashbury at 6:14 AM PST - 29 comments

Jazzercise Eats Its Words after being accused of weight bias. MeFites may recall the heated discussion this story originally garnered (and the associated firestorm in Metatalk) when Jazzercise refused to hire an instructor that did not meet their "fit appearance" criteria. They have since changed their policy "based upon the information and research that perhaps it's possible for people of varying weights to be fit." The barred instructor has gone on to start her own successful aerobics franchise based on her "fitness-at-any-size" philosophy.
posted by johnnyace at 5:48 AM PST - 46 comments

Those Malignant Musical Tumours Lodging, Growing In Your Brain! I came across this bulletin board while seeking to update two of my favourite 2001 posts: the May 10 and the October 10 threads about earworms - those annoying, infectious songs that get stuck in your brain and slowly destroy it. Here's a working link to the relevant article, since the one on this last post is broken. [My AAARGH! list inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:02 AM PST - 90 comments

Koleen Brooks, in getting elected mayor of Georgetown, CO, was hardly the first to successfully transition from the stage to politics. But what makes her story unlike the high-profile successes of Ronald Reagan (and perhaps more akin to the that of Gov. Ventura both in notoriety and for their "independent" political affiliation) is that her stage had a metal pole and lots of nudity (NSFW). In a recent interview, Koleen Brooks discusses her political forays cut short for now by a recall election last month.

There is certainly nothing new about controversial celebrity characters being elected to office, especially local office, and as the mayor of Inglis, FL has demonstrated with her anti-Satan proclamation, it is easy to obtain national notoriety while remaining well within the bounds of "traditional conservative values". Nevertheless, might Brooks's successful candidacy be the beginning of a more significant trend within American politics as the sons and daughters of the Sexual Revolution bring their sexual dilettantism into the dominant elderly voting bloc?
posted by tiny pea at 12:58 AM PST - 9 comments

In a major policy reversal, the Justice Department has officially endorsed an individual right to bear arms. In doing so, the Justice Department has abandoned its long-held position that the second amendment is limited in scope to protecting militia activities. Does this mean the Justice Department will stop enforcing federal laws that it sees as violating the 2nd amendemnt? Should it? If there is a individual right to bear arms, how far should it extend?
posted by boltman at 12:29 AM PST - 65 comments