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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

Bloggingheads TV. Video blogging dialogue between Mickey Kaus and Robert Wright.
comment posted at 4:47 AM on Nov-18-05
comment posted at 7:07 AM on Nov-18-05

After the first time I flew on an upgraded ticket, I wondered why some airline didn't just make slightly more expensive tickets on a plane filled with fewer, roomier seats for those that crave comfort (basically, all business class). Well, it looks like someone has at Eos Airlines. The seating arrangements look fantastic, going from roomy seat area to flat bed to double table with two seats (for a coworker), with privacy and aisle access for all. Unfortunately "slightly more expensive" is pretty high at $5k for NYC to London, though that's cheaper than major airlines. Business Week has the full story on this new venture.
comment posted at 9:46 PM on Nov-12-05

Sony steps in it again. In the midst of the uproar about the Sony rootkit previously mentioned here, J. Alex Haldeman found a second sneaky piece of work in Sony CD's. It's pretty clear now that the only safe way to listen to music from Sony is to steal it. [via]
comment posted at 6:17 PM on Nov-12-05

Arrested Development Gets The Ax There was no official announcement -- there rarely is when the networks wield the ax -- but after two and a half wonderfully funny seasons, Fox's Emmy-winning "Arrested Development' is dead. It's not like no one saw this coming, but who the hell are all the people watching Nanny 911 and So You Think You Can Dance instead of the best show on TV?
comment posted at 6:42 PM on Nov-11-05

iBelieve. The cross-shaped iPod Shuffle cap for those who want their MP3 player to double as a crucifix.
comment posted at 5:26 AM on Nov-11-05
comment posted at 6:57 AM on Nov-11-05

Japanese games shows are f*cked up, part 4,543,213. Contestants strap meat to forehead and release giant lizard. Hilarity ensues.
comment posted at 12:50 AM on Nov-10-05

Dahlia Lithwick in Slate urges Democrats to grow a spine, and use the Alito hearings to provide the American public with some liberal talking points for a change. "If the Scalias, Thomases, Alitos, and Borks of the world had their way ... there would be no meaningful gun control. States could have official churches. Hard-fought federal worker, environmental, and civil rights protections would disintegrate. What you currently think of as the right to privacy would disappear. These are the questions Senate Democrats need to ask of Sam Alito: Should property rights trump individual rights? Should the right to privacy be interpreted as narrowly as the framers might have intended? Do you believe that a return to the morals and mores of two centuries ago is in the best interest of this nation?"
comment posted at 11:46 PM on Nov-7-05

Newsfilter: The NYTimes is reporting that the Democrats forced Congress into a closed session last week (previous MeFi discussion here) because of a recently declassified memo citing concerns by intelligence agencies over the source of information used to justify the Iraq war. Turns out the White House had been informed their source couldn't be trusted to tell the truth and were probably fabricating evidence. Knowing this, the Bush administration still presented the stories as absolute truth. The memo was apparently ignored. Of course, the administration has ignored important memos before.
This new evidence probably invalidates the conclusions (pdf) drawn by the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on the Intelligence Community's pre-war work on Iraq.
comment posted at 4:20 AM on Nov-6-05

Quake iV full panoramic screenshots (req. QTVR) as seen on digg.
comment posted at 12:55 AM on Nov-4-05
comment posted at 3:52 AM on Nov-4-05
comment posted at 5:58 AM on Nov-4-05
comment posted at 4:31 PM on Nov-4-05

The night before. You can bet that most times when someone goes all murder-suicide, there are a few awkward conversations prior when sane people try to talk them out of doing something stupid. You know there is something wrong when the voice of reason is the something awful forums.
comment posted at 3:47 AM on Nov-3-05
comment posted at 5:26 AM on Nov-3-05
comment posted at 5:26 AM on Nov-3-05

Up for auction is Vincent Gallo's sperm.
comment posted at 12:51 AM on Nov-1-05

No list that puts MeFi at #55 is perfect, but Yahoo's 100 Sites for Men includes lots of other goldmines, like an info source for embarassing problems, hangover cures, and other gems like Draw Your Boss. Ladies, don't miss the top 100 Sites for Women, and if anyone's Ball of Paint needs are unfulfilled, you can always check out the Top 100 Weird Sites.
comment posted at 5:33 PM on Oct-31-05

Merlin Mann's 43 Folders podcast is hilarious.
comment posted at 5:29 AM on Oct-27-05
comment posted at 4:19 PM on Oct-27-05

We believe that a power greater than Sid Meier can restore us to sanity. Yeah, World of Warcraft may currently be ruining your life, but I'd bet good money that over the long haul Civilization and other games by Sid Meier have ruined more lives than that upstart. Don't give in! NO MORE TURNS!
comment posted at 12:24 AM on Oct-27-05

Ubisoft's demo of the new King Kong PC game comes with a lovely surprise: StarForce copy protection software. Starforce installs a device driver with no warning, and many users have complained that it causes system instability. It also appears totally contrary to the idea of allowing users to copy the demo between one another (effectively robbing Ubisoft of free advertising). As with any form of copy protection it appears StarForce is simply an annoyance to the casual user, while the dedicated pirates are well on their way to cracking it.
comment posted at 6:36 PM on Oct-24-05
comment posted at 6:38 PM on Oct-24-05
comment posted at 7:20 PM on Oct-24-05
comment posted at 11:48 PM on Oct-24-05

Double Plus Ungood --so there's this soldier in Iraq with a blog, All The King's Horses. He usually complains a little, tells readers about what he does, talks about the stop-loss thing that's keeping him in Iraq, etc. So, the Operation Truth site posts something by him, and the next thing you know, the blog is dead, and an unwilling public apology and retraction and statement of support for Bush and his leadership is posted. ... it breaks my heart to say that this will be my last post on this blog. I wish I could just stop there, but I can not. The following also needs to be said: For the record, I am officially a supporter of the administration and of her policies. ...
comment posted at 7:14 PM on Oct-23-05

OCTOBER 22 IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY!!!
EVERY YEAR WE GET TOGETHER AND MAKE SALMON FOR TOAST, EVERY YEAR WE GET A CROCKETY BLOAT, EVERY YEAR WE GET DRUNK ON THE DOCKS, AND EVERY YEAR WE HAVE SEX WITH OUR CAPS LOCKS!!!!
comment posted at 6:06 AM on Oct-22-05

Epic 2014 In the year 2014, The New York Times has gone offline. The Fourth Estate's fortunes have waned. What happened to the news? A look back from the year 2014, charting Google's takeover of traditional media. (Flash, sound)
comment posted at 5:21 AM on Oct-21-05
comment posted at 5:53 AM on Oct-21-05

OPB: The mother of all beers. Says artist Toi Sennhauser, "By adding a trace amount of my vaginal yeast to regular brewer's yeast, my 'Original Pussy Beer' pays homage to beer's ancient creators from 'the cradle of civilization.'" [more inside (heh)]
comment posted at 2:00 AM on Oct-21-05

Bush teleconference with troops staged. Nothing in the article says who is responsible for organizing the staged question and answer session, The White House, military officials, or others in the defense department. Just that it infact was staged, and that the troops were coached for 45 minutes prior to the actual teleconference. When Bush, in an unscripted move, asked an officer if he had anything to say, he stammered through a sentence, in stark contrast to the well put together responses to all the other questions, thanking the President and saying, "I like you." More PR from the Bush administration.
comment posted at 6:09 PM on Oct-14-05

"Cheap, paper-thin TV screens that can be used in newspapers and magazines have been unveiled by German electronics giant Siemens. The firm says the low production costs could see the magazine shelves in newsagents come alive with moving images vying for the customers' attention as they move along the aisle. The new technology caused a sensation when it was first made public this week at the Plastics Electronics trade fair in Frankfurt....the new screens, which are literally paper thin, can do everything a regular TV screen or computer monitor can do, but cost a fraction of the price....one square metre of the material costs around £30 [US$53], and scientists working on the screens said they should be available by 2007." -- more...
comment posted at 11:11 PM on Oct-13-05

Gone by 2040: Religious Hierarchy, Japan's Passivity, The Chinese Communist Party, Auto Emissions, Monogamy, The Euro, The War on Drugs, Sovereignty... To mark their 35th year in publication Foreign Policy magazine asks 16 influential thinkers which ideas, values, or institutions will be gone by the year 2040. Also discussed on NPR radio today.
comment posted at 11:22 PM on Oct-13-05

What would it take to revolt? There has been lots of debate, lots of outrage - both false and real, justified and not, over the various foibles of the current administration and President Bush (too numerous to list here). There has also been talk about revolution, uprising, impeachment, etc, and I wonder - theoretically - just would it take for a modern individual to engage in active revolution? This for me might be it. Fortunately at least one republican representative and perhaps 69% of U.S. households are with me.
comment posted at 5:38 PM on Oct-12-05
comment posted at 11:47 PM on Oct-12-05

Did Dick make him do it? The Huffington Report claims that both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomsburg News are working on stories indicating that Vice President Dick Cheney is the target of the special prosecutor's investigation into Plamegate. George Stephanopoulos also recently claimed that a source close to the investigation told him that Cheney and Bush were involved in discussions on how to handle the Wilson affair that may have led to the leak. Meanwhile, Cheney's chief spokesman has left the country until October 26th, two days before the conclusion of the grand jury investigation.
comment posted at 11:04 PM on Oct-11-05

The U.S. President speaks to the nation. With an approval rating hovering in the low 40 percentile, the sting of conservative hostility to his Supreme Court nomination Harriet Miers fresh on his jaw, and another deadly day in the Occupied Territories, George Bush summons the courage to approach the microphone to present yet another new rationale for his war: "Some call this evil Islamic radicalism. Others militant jihadism. Still, others Islamo-fascism... we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We're facing a radical ideology with unalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world."
comment posted at 5:15 PM on Oct-6-05

"Mom, you're not going to like this." A mother of a U.S. soldier tells her son about the latest Iraq torture admissions, only to be told that his unit routinely beat and abused Iraqis. "...suppose you visit an Imam and you want him to call off IED attacks in his neighborhood. If you just go in and ask him politely, he'll tell you he'll try to help; but, he won't . . . But, if you go to that same guy and beat him up thoroughly, then ask him to knock off the attacks, he'll respect you and he'll try to help. . . ." The mother reports that her son was "under the impression that the conduct was in line with military policy."
comment posted at 4:57 PM on Oct-6-05
comment posted at 6:09 PM on Oct-6-05

AOL is buying Weblogs, Inc! Reuters and Paidcontent.org say it's for at least $25 million.
comment posted at 5:22 AM on Oct-6-05

AOL Time Warner's Road Runner ISP has placed a nationwide blackout of all of Alex Jones' websites nationwide. If you can't read that link . . . your ISP has probably blocked it.
comment posted at 7:01 PM on Oct-5-05

Evidence of the "Milky Sea" -- The mysterious ocean glow described by Jules Verne in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" and observed by sailors has been confirmed by recent satellite photos. On many occasions over the centuries, mariners have reported witnessing surreal nocturnal displays where the surface of the sea produces an intense, uniform, and sustained glow that extends to the horizon in all directions. Although such emissions cannot be fully reconciled with the known features of any light-emitting organism, these so-called "milky seas" are hypothesized to be manifestations of unusually strong bioluminescence produced by colonies of bacteria in association with a microalgal bloom in the surface waters. Because of their ephemeral nature and the paucity of scientific observations, an explanation of milky seas has remained elusive. Here, we report the first satellite observations of the phenomenon.
comment posted at 11:38 PM on Oct-4-05

pem Hov jaj Haw'choHnIS 'eng 'ej Haj. ghoch vIghaj; 'ej pa' muDmo' jIbel. chay' Sesame He vIghoS? SIbI' jIHvaD 'e' yIDel.
comment posted at 8:59 PM on Oct-4-05

So, there will be a movie made from the video game Halo , which is bad. But it's being Exec. Produced by Peter Jackson, which is good.
comment posted at 11:21 PM on Oct-4-05

Microsoft retools processes in order to become more agile in their development processes. Yeah, it's probably just a big PR blowjob for Vista, but I was fascinated about the process they undertook to make their development work a more smoothly (and the amount of code that got thrown out). Like Microsoft or hate 'em, it's quite an interesting (though repetitive in parts) article.
comment posted at 7:21 PM on Oct-4-05
comment posted at 8:39 PM on Oct-7-05

Martian dust devils (gif movies) NASA’s Mars rover Spirit has caught a bevy of dust devils racing across the surface of Mars.
comment posted at 5:03 AM on Oct-4-05

Revisiting Spore (audio interview with Will Wright) - also video of Will Wright talking at GDC on content creation issues (Scroll down, and registration required for the video).
comment posted at 4:43 AM on Oct-4-05