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The Bush Landgrab George's latest: get the federal government to seize land so the power companies can string more power lines up. Aren't the Republicans supposed to be against federal land-grabs like this, or is it okay as long as we're not saving endangered animals?
posted by owillis at 6:28 PM PST - 22 comments

the truth is out there? Do aliens exist? I'm not sure, but a presentation before the National Press Club does lend a certain credibility to the idea, or maybe it discredits the press instead?
posted by drezdn at 6:09 PM PST - 11 comments

Got Milk? Two reporters win a lawsuit against Fox for being fired when they wouldn't lie about bovine growth hormone.
posted by thunder at 4:59 PM PST - 22 comments

What goes around comes around for Rambus. Like Jacob, I will predict that Steven is not suprised about the fraud claims.
posted by john at 4:39 PM PST - 1 comments

A Cure for Poverty? (NYT, free registration required. It's worth it this time, really). "The depressed poor perceive themselves to be supremely helpless -- so helpless that they neither seek nor embrace support. This means that most people who are poor and depressed stay poor and depressed. Poverty is depressing, and depression, leading as it does to dysfunction and isolation, is impoverishing. " via FMH
posted by frykitty at 4:20 PM PST - 29 comments

Operation Probe: a top-secret, drug-sniffing gerbil program developed in the early 1980s.
posted by cardboard at 4:13 PM PST - 2 comments

Internet bypasses censorship of school paper, when students prevented from publishing multi-article feature on school violence [ChiTrib: free reg] put it online at Geocities. Was the issue too provocative for a school paper that must answer to parents? Is the internet "safety valve" a realistic solution for these all-too-common disputes?
posted by dhartung at 2:48 PM PST - 9 comments

All my life, people have been studying the hidden (sometimes very well hidden) profundities of pop-music lyrics. You know, however, that 99.99% of it is mundane and not worth studying. Wrong!.
posted by luser at 1:59 PM PST - 8 comments

In looking for a Hurricane Andrew image to illustrate a point on the ham radio thread, I came across evidence that the weather geeks may be the geekiest of all. Cool pull quote inside.
posted by baylink at 1:29 PM PST - 9 comments

The Doctor is still blundering about time in a series of new adventures featuring the most 'recent' actor to play the part on TV, Paul McGann. This past season has had the flavour of the Tom Baker stories, with strong writing and acting from some familiar faces, making the lack of visuals a real strength. Pity it's so expensive though . . .
posted by feelinglistless at 1:19 PM PST - 4 comments

Chicago invaded by Bunim-Murray Productions. Well, we can either take this opportunity to culture jam, or spend the next several months griping about camera crews taking up too much space on the El during rush hour. Any bets on what neighborhood they'll be in?
posted by gsh at 1:17 PM PST - 34 comments

The new Webmonkey redesign is slick. Liquid width, CSS positioned boxes (hacked z-index and negative margins to get those overlapping boxes is my guess), easter eggs on the logo, and now a frontdoor split based on skill level. Although this design doesn't lend itself well to their more text heavy subpages, I'd prefer to see a bit more integration than the new on the front and old look inside (the splash of white from every link off the main page is a bit much).
posted by mathowie at 12:06 PM PST - 32 comments

Go is better than Chess. (This discussion started in MetaTalk through topic drift, and it really belongs here.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 12:05 PM PST - 23 comments

Well, they called a truce. The Chinese Hack attack pack has officially called a truce. Thank God. I was worried about this showing up on my card catalog page again. (happened two days ago, some nice old blue haired lady almost had a heart attack trying to find the new Left Behind book.....
posted by bradth27 at 12:01 PM PST - 6 comments

I've been very disappointed at the lack of Jakob-bashing in recent weeks, so I stopped by useit to see if he had actually stopped being a dope... Nope!

"Two years ago, I predicted that poor intranet usability would cost the world economy $100 Billion in 2001. I just computed a current estimate of the cost of poor intranet usability for Business 2.0 magazine. Surprise -- the result is exactly as predicted: $100 Billion lost per year."

Does anyone else find it fishy that this guy is being asked to verify his own predictions?
posted by o2b at 11:55 AM PST - 34 comments

Finances can be a sticky issue in relationships
Can you pay my bills?
Can you pay my telephone bills?
Can you pay my automo-bills?
If you did then maybe we could chill
I don't think you do
So, you and me are through

Can I get paid to write stuff like this? And just how would one get started?
posted by 4midori at 11:46 AM PST - 18 comments

If you're reading this, then you're probably qualified. This is my job, but I've tendered my resignation so I can move out to Wyoming and become a carpenter. If you know a web-master/designer who's been 'down-sized' (and who doesn't?), hook a brother up.

It's actually a nice place to work. I don't dig the corporate thing at all, but the IS dept is very friendly and you do get a measure of creative freedom. (and i've broken them in, so they're used to off the wall ideas.)

posted by jcterminal at 11:30 AM PST - 22 comments

As a struggling ex-smoker, I applaud these people for the effort. But part of me still wonders if Unfiltered (a "reality TV" webshow about 5 teenage smokers) is going to have any impact on teens who smoke.
posted by Reggie452 at 10:47 AM PST - 3 comments

Survival Research Labs: as covered by KCOP TeeVee in L.A. I like this clip because not only is the contrast between the slick newscaster and exploding, flaming machinery bizarre in and of itself, but there is some great footage of the SRL shows and machinery. Hey, it's summer!
posted by mecran01 at 10:40 AM PST - 9 comments

Vacuum bra: give your bust line a boost "If you suffer from cleavage envy but are averse to scalpels and sacks of saline or silicone, there’s a new option: Hoover-ing your way to a bigger bust with a battery-powered wearable vacuum bra. Physicians are lining up for the chance to offer the Brava Breast Enhancement and Shaping System to their less-endowed female patients." (see also Brava, the creator of the device)
posted by timothompson at 10:25 AM PST - 20 comments

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's global consciousness ... is it for the birds?
posted by sudama at 10:18 AM PST - 3 comments

A Jacksonville aviation company and others are making daily prayer meetings, chaplains and burning frankincense a permanent part of the workplace. Should we thank God, or pray this doesn't happen where we work?
posted by rcade at 9:16 AM PST - 29 comments

Ask the rabbi...about storing your ammo. I love the total randomness of this, including the fact that it's all coming to you from Wisconsin, the Badger State.
posted by luser at 8:30 AM PST - 8 comments

Spam vengeance feels oddly satisfying; a simple click costs spam software companies from a few pennies to a few dollars.
posted by greensweater at 8:09 AM PST - 27 comments

Ben Allinger for fascist dictator page (official). Now there's a young man with big plans for his (our) future. Where does one vote for world dictators? He's as good as they get.
posted by talos at 7:42 AM PST - 12 comments

Vigilantism Taken To The Extreme Man guns down "career larcenist" as he's ransacking his car. No one in the neighborhood is crying for the criminal, who had 47 arrests. They're going to be character witness for the killer, who's charged with 2nd degree murder. Should I feel guilty that I'm not terribly sorry New York is minus one thug this morning?
posted by darren at 6:31 AM PST - 60 comments

How to become heterosexual.
Dr. Spitzer, "a Jewish, atheist, secular humanist" and psychiatrist, has found that it is possible to change sexual orientation.
Question #1
Would it also be possible to make straight people gay?
Question #2
"...11 percent of men and 37 percent of women reported a complete absence of homosexual indicators"
Homosexual indicators? Such as ..........?
Question #3
...... oh never mind.......
posted by nonharmful at 6:03 AM PST - 108 comments

neo-neo psychedelic, man the new new psychedlic art artists are creating with Flash is trippy. . It's like 1968 all over again, without the nasty side effects (nam, nixon). I'm quittin my job and moving to Frisco.
posted by brucec at 5:41 AM PST - 35 comments

Remember my.mp3.com? Remember how MP3.com settled up with the major music distributors for a whole bunch of money? Looks like the smaller fish are trying to get their share. Rights, royalties, blah blah blah, what I'm curious about is, will this hurt Tom Waits's remarkable credibility.
posted by alana at 12:58 AM PST - 9 comments

Not merely content to invent the future, Japan is also hard at work inventing the past.
posted by lagado at 12:40 AM PST - 25 comments