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Where do all the teaspoons go to? A scientific study published in the British Medical Journal about where all the teaspoons in a works canteen go to.
comment posted at 4:40 PM on Dec-25-05

It Isn’t Easy Being the Sexy Bin Laden : “the face is alluring (big dark eyes, long lashes, plump lips, caramel skin)”. Satin sheets, a feather boa and not much else. And who could resist alluring bin Laden quotes like this?

“At the end of the day, I believe that the American people understand things and they have compassion and they see what’s fair,” [bin Laden] says. "They’re very fair, and that’s why I love America, and that’s why my mom loves America.”

Or this quote:

“Come on, where’s the American spirit? Accept me. I want to be embraced, because my values are like yours. And I’m here. I’m not hiding.”

comment posted at 4:46 PM on Dec-25-05
comment posted at 7:59 PM on Dec-26-05

Listening In and Naming Names "...The press tends to shy away from covering America's largest and most secretive intelligence agency, fearing precisely the kind of scolding President Bush delivered to the New York Times. But the truth is that the NSA—which has an estimated $6 billion annual budget bigger than those of the CIA and the FBI combined—has a decidedly checkered history when it comes to playing by the rules." And yet, NSA abuse seems not limited to Bush. Now, possib ly, Carter and Clinton also used NSA for spying on civilians. That said, NSA seems also to have been used for non-miltary spying, to help selected American firms compete against rival companies elsewhere. What is curious about this agency is that it is the single biggest intelligence organization in our country and yet so few people know what they do, where they are, what they had been legally allowed to do. If, as we are told, tapping phones is necessary in our fight against terror, why then doesn't the FBI do this? If any mobster worth his blackjack knows not to use phones because they are potentially tapped, why are we told that NSA doesn't want terrorists alerted to our tapping their phones and therefore there ought not to be any discussion of this "strategy."? In sum, my suspicion is that a lot more is going on than we have thus far been told, and that in fact email and the internet are more involved in what is taking place than is phone tapping.
comment posted at 9:09 PM on Dec-21-05
comment posted at 6:38 PM on Dec-24-05

Digital Universe , an alternative to Wikipedia, has been launched by wikipedia proposer Larry Sanger. Digital Universe will be powered by ManyOne, a new 3D browser, will include paid experts, a subscription option, and will require real names from contributors. This may or may not be connected to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales' editing his own bio to remove reference to Sanger as co-founder.
comment posted at 10:12 PM on Dec-20-05

"More cowbell!" is the new "Freebird."
comment posted at 10:07 PM on Dec-20-05

Conyers Flies Paper Airplane into Whitehouse. Rep. John Conyers has submitted motions to censure Bush and Cheney, and to establish a select committee to investigate their offenses. He outlines the evidence in The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War. (3.8MB pdf)
comment posted at 4:51 PM on Dec-20-05

75 hard-core alcoholics to be offered apartments. Seventy-five alcoholics... are about to get an invitation to move into a new apartment building all their own on the edge of downtown Seattle. At tax payer's expense. What's different about this homeless shelter? The residents will be allowed to drink alcohol, provided they do it in their rooms. [.PDF]

"As much as we want it to work, the idea of asking a hard-core population of chronic alcoholics, for example, to put down the bottle before they get a set of apartment keys is unrealistic and impractical." Predictably, the project was not without opposition. [bugme]
comment posted at 4:14 AM on Dec-20-05

News filter: Wikipedia founder 'shot by friend of Siegenthaler' Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has been shot dead, according to Wikipedia, the online, up-to-the-minute encyclopedia. Apparently, the assassin was a "friend" of the victim of a recent controversy
comment posted at 5:28 PM on Dec-17-05

The Chappelle Theory. According to this anonymous theorist, a team of African-American celebrities called the "Dark Crusaders" threatened Chappelle with a package containing a picture of a man, of Al Sharpton's build, standing next to his sleeping children. Is this a joke or the work of a right nutter?
comment posted at 10:43 PM on Dec-17-05
comment posted at 4:15 AM on Dec-19-05

Is it too early to start throwing out the phrase "Kong Bomb?" Is Peter Jackson the next Michael Cimino?
comment posted at 7:30 PM on Dec-16-05

GreedyMe.com is like deli.icio.us for capitalists.
comment posted at 11:50 PM on Dec-15-05

Google releases new FireFox Extensions, one for what they call Blogger Web Comments, and another to prevent against phishing - Google Safe Browsing.
comment posted at 11:48 PM on Dec-15-05

Rescued from rape and slavery - brought to you by the CIA. Also, the Atomic Revolution and AA. From Ethan Persoff who brought us Teddy.
comment posted at 12:50 AM on Dec-16-05

Civil war. Surely this is an adjectival misnomer of the first rank. Of all of the various types of war, civil war -- that is, a violent conflict waged between opposing sides within a society -- has generally been the least mannerly and the most savage... By just about every meaningful standard that can be applied -- the reference points of history, the research criteria of political science, the contemporaneous reporting of on-the-ground observers, the grim roll of civilian and combatant casualties -- Iraq is now well into the bloody sequence of civil war. Dispense with the tentative locution "on the verge of." An active, if not full-boil, civil war is already a reality.

Shattering Iraq
See also Iraq: see no evil, hear no evil
Iran gaining influence, power in Iraq through militia
Bush's Strategy, Iraq's New Army Challenged by Ethnic Militias
Outside View: Iraq's Grim Lessons   More Inside
comment posted at 6:27 PM on Dec-14-05

A Conversation with Stanley Tookie Williams - Amy Goodman had a conversation with Stanley Williams days before he was executed using lethal injection at San Quentin's death chamber. It was good to listen to the audio and following along with the transcript. In listening I kept in mind Williams' violent past, his long incarceration, and his "redemption". I learned something from this. And it was redemption which Ahnold said [PDF] was the reason for no slack. In the end it was Conan the Barbarian who singularly determined Tookie's fate.
comment posted at 4:55 PM on Dec-14-05

"A Helpful Hand" - Penn & Teller call Bullshit! on the "bestselling book in the world," the Holy Bible. (link is to entire episode approx 29mins - *language, flash)
comment posted at 5:12 AM on Dec-14-05

The first Transhuman Conference On the Law of Transhuman Persons: Whether or not you believe humans are set to evolve into gods, or AI is destined to achieve self-awareness the idea of the Transhuman is a thought provoking concept. Philosophers have debated the nature of the self, of the human for millennia. Is it time to start drafting new laws to govern all possible sentient beings on this planet? or is it all just a science of fiction? a comfortable humanist illusion?
comment posted at 10:03 PM on Dec-13-05

Where's the green? In Canada, as elections loom closer, men in suits discuss each other for our bemusement on national television and radio, but where is the green party all of this? %5 of the popular vote, and unable to appear on the nationally televised debates hosted by the public broadcaster...via...
comment posted at 11:45 PM on Dec-12-05

Oops!
comment posted at 2:43 AM on Dec-11-05

"Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag -- greeted by a color guard. But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners -- stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo."
comment posted at 10:34 PM on Dec-10-05

Bush Threatens U.N. Over Clinton Climate Speech Bush-administration officials privately threatened organizers of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, telling them that any chance there might’ve been for the United States to sign on to the Kyoto global-warming protocol would be scuttled if they allowed Bill Clinton to speak at the gathering today in Montreal,
comment posted at 5:58 PM on Dec-9-05

9/11 in comics, including the black-covered The Amazing Spider-Man #36 in its entirety.
comment posted at 3:36 PM on Dec-5-05

An Open Letter to Larry the Cable Guy by David Cross
comment posted at 6:50 PM on Dec-3-05
comment posted at 3:50 AM on Dec-4-05

Conan O'Brien runs the one Walker, Texas Ranger clip that he never dared run before...
comment posted at 7:09 PM on Dec-2-05

"311, I am ready to fight." Tough times for Scott Stapp. via.
comment posted at 2:59 AM on Dec-3-05

Remember that Shining trailer from a few weeks back? Now they've done it with Big. (embedded WMV)
comment posted at 7:11 PM on Dec-2-05

This entry from the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization website is kinda creepy, especially if you download the high resolution JPEGs and look at them in an image editor.
comment posted at 11:11 PM on Dec-1-05

The Beerbelly A removable spare tire that serves a stealth beverage.
comment posted at 4:56 PM on Dec-1-05
comment posted at 5:24 PM on Dec-1-05

Have you ever wanted to fly through the clouds? Even if it was in a hospital gown? Cloud is a beautiful, simple, and free 3D game developed by students at the USC Interactive Media Center and funded by a grant from Electronic Arts.
comment posted at 6:45 PM on Nov-30-05
comment posted at 3:36 AM on Dec-4-05

The wait is over : Firefox 1.5 is out, to be found on the brand spanking new mozilla.com.
comment posted at 4:21 AM on Nov-30-05
comment posted at 4:21 AM on Nov-30-05

"'We want that shock. We want that awe. But at the same time, we don't want people to feel their rights are being threatened. We need them to be our eyes and ears'.... [Police] officers might, for example, surround a bank building, check the IDs of everyone going in and out and hand out leaflets about terror threats." While there have been no specific threats of terrorism against Miami, "'[t]his is an in-your-face type of strategy. It's letting the terrorists know we are out there,' [Deputy Police Chief Frank] Fernandez said."
comment posted at 6:37 PM on Nov-28-05

Abuse in Iraq Now Worse Then Under Saddam 'People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse,' [Iraq Prime Minister] Ayad Allawi told The Observer. 'It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.' Let's see ... no WMDs, no al-Queda ties, and now this. I'm so glad that we are making Iraq a better place.
comment posted at 10:02 PM on Nov-27-05

'Gay' horse jibe lands student in court
comment posted at 8:51 PM on Nov-25-05

Canada boots out its government: the Non-confidence Vote. A binding, non-confidence vote is being tabled and the minority parties -- which collectively hold a majority of seats -- agree to support it. It's also a bit historical: it has been more than a century since a general, binding non-confidence vote has been tabled all by itself, unattached to a big-issue item like the budget.
comment posted at 5:21 PM on Nov-23-05
comment posted at 5:24 PM on Nov-24-05
comment posted at 9:39 PM on Nov-24-05

Dulce et Decorum Est Kurt Vonnegut was interviewed by an Australian newspaper, which took the quote out of context and completely missed the poetic reference Vonnegut was making with the comment , thereby generating what will likely be a firestorm of negative publicity for Vonnegut. (A blogger's negative reaction was Farked.) I am sure that Metafilter readers would spot the reference, but having been Farked and misquoted on ABC (Australian TV), Vonnegut is probably in as much trouble as Terrell Owens.
comment posted at 12:29 AM on Nov-22-05

Zarqawi denounced by his own family, tribe.
comment posted at 5:07 AM on Nov-21-05

All your semantic web are belong to google? The implications of Google Base on the fabled semantic web.
comment posted at 5:44 PM on Nov-20-05

Yongfook: The Japanese food blog (monjayaki, umeboshi, Carrot au Lait)
comment posted at 10:01 PM on Nov-19-05
comment posted at 10:04 PM on Nov-19-05
comment posted at 4:09 AM on Nov-20-05

Ignorant hillbilly plays treason card STATEMENT FROM REP. GEOFF DAVIS ON SHAMEFUL DEMOCRATIC CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ 11/17/2005 - “An arbitrary call for the withdrawal of our troops serves only to embolden our enemies and makes meaningless the sacrifice of American men and women. The universal message I hear from our troops – from enlisted soldiers to West Point classmates of mine serving in the Middle East – is that we are making progress."
comment posted at 4:58 AM on Nov-18-05