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Iranian Policewomen: The policewomen are very serious. Take a look.
posted by mert at 11:42 PM PST - 73 comments

The Ghazal is a kind of poetry, originally of pre-Islamic Persian origin, consisting entirely of couplets, called "sher," that share (no pun intended) an end rhyme. Well-liked especially in India and Pakistan, the difficult-to-master form has experienced a surge of popularity among, of all people, white Canadians. Spurred by the breathtaking poems of the late John Thompson, contemporary writers like Phyllis Webb and Eric Folsom have created a interesting hybridized verision--"The Bastard Ghazal". That's not, of course, to ignore Kiran Ahluwalia, an Indian-Candian ghazal singer who hews more closely to the form's origins.
posted by maxreax at 10:59 PM PST - 13 comments

Rice, the rocket. Secretary of State shares fitness tips with early-morning DC news. Next week: Cyclin' with POTUS (schedule subject to change).
posted by rob511 at 10:11 PM PST - 17 comments

Vlad gives his views on the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. As the anthem of Phystech promises, "we will disperse, when the time comes, in all the world, from Dolgoprudny"
posted by tellurian at 10:04 PM PST - 3 comments

How Sub-Pixel Rendering Works: a method of anti-aliasing, sub-pixel rendering (or ClearType as Microsoft calls it) exploits the fact that pixels on LCD screens are actually made up of three sub-pixels: red, blue, and green. By constructing fonts using the sub-pixels, the results are arguably smoother lines and easier-to-read type. Sadly (or happily) CRTs benefit little, if at all, from the technology.
posted by falconred at 9:51 PM PST - 31 comments

So ODD it just HAS to be funny. (via)
posted by Doorstop at 9:14 PM PST - 31 comments

At this Larry King interview and in other places, Jon Stewart is getting ready for his very big "before and after" moment. In one week he will go from hosting a sort of anti-establishment "basic cable" talk show to hosting the very establishment (of some sort at least) Oscars viewed by usually at least 40 million people. Despite what most of us me-fiers might think, Stewart is sort of unknown outside his core devotees and especially for a Oscar host -- unlike Bob Hope, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, and even Chris Rock -- he has never been responsible for a hit movie. Moreover, his ratings (at 1.1 -- or about two and half million people a night) would place him at about the sixth most seen cable news "show" -- behind Greta, Shepard Smith, Hannity, Larry, and, of course, the factor. Now, that's a very wealthy, influential 2-3 million viewers that policy makers and advertisers love, so it's not chicken change but you can still understand what the Oscars might mean for fans of Jon. For people who believe Stewart is the only effective keeper of a liberal flame, you can only hope he will continue to impress on the bigger stage. However, some people are getting worried -- a la the NYT and the New Republic which is already claiming Stewart is losing his bite in order to please Hollywood and that he might not be so funny in the first place.
posted by skepticallypleased at 7:39 PM PST - 76 comments

Scratch one Enzo Ferrari. Dodgy Swedish game-maker kisses Malibu telephone phone at 162mph.
posted by soiled cowboy at 6:27 PM PST - 40 comments

Somebody made a funny. (the funny is a series of fake christmas cards with stories)
posted by snsranch at 5:29 PM PST - 13 comments

One of the great virtues of the internet is the manifold ways in which it has revolutionised the arts. The postmodern works of contemporary artists Pomme & Kelly (Google Video), when viewed together in context, form a striking example of a well-placed critique of popular culture, and modern living at large. The zeitgeisty meta-irony of their seemingly content-free interpretations of popular songs are only enhanced by the fact that, in a clever keeping with style, they blog about it as well.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:09 PM PST - 30 comments

Say what you want about Tom Monaghan, he thinks big. He built a big company, he's got a big agenda , he wanted to build a big Jesus, and now he's building a whole new town. That would be the town of Ave Maria, Florida, -- home to Ave Maria University, , but that's not all - welcome to America's newest mini-theocracy: "You won't be able to buy a Playboy or Hustler magazine in Ave Maria Town. We're going to control the cable television that comes in the area. There is not going to be any pornographic television in Ave Maria Town. If you go to the drug store and you want to buy the pill or the condoms or contraception, you won't be able to get that in Ave Maria Town." aturally, this has run him afoul of Florida's ACLU.
posted by contessa at 4:26 PM PST - 99 comments

Hamlet on the Ramparts is a public website designed and maintained by the MIT Shakespeare Project in collaboration with the Folger Shakespeare Library and other institutions. It aims to provide free access to an evolving collection of texts, images, and film relevant to Hamlet’s first encounter with the Ghost. More inside.
posted by matteo at 3:34 PM PST - 11 comments

Getting Away with Murder A new Human Rights First report [PDF] "provides the first comprehensive accounting" of the 98 cases of detainees who have died in US custody in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2002. "Thirty-four deaths were homicides under the U.S. military’s definition...Only 12 deaths have resulted in any kind of punishment." Most of the people behind the abuse have been promoted. The Washington Post concludes that, based on the report, US policy seems to be that torturing a foreign prisoner to death is excusable, but getting photographed doing it will get you in trouble.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:59 PM PST - 15 comments

So if you run the CD in your personal computer, by the end of it, the Minnesota GOP will not only know what you think on particular issues, but also who you are. --a cd being sent out to home by the Minnesota GOP is polling people who use the cd, sending their personal info, including name, address, and phone, among other info, back to party headquarters. No privacy policy or statement identifying what the cd does is visible anywhere: ...As far as I could tell, nothing tells you that the answers are about to be e-mailed or otherwise transmitted to the Minnesota GOP. So you finish, and then the phone rings. "Hello, Mr/Mrs. Voters, it's Joe and I notice you support gun control and the marriage amendment, would you like to donate some money to us?" That might startle the person who may have thought he/she was viewing the presentation in the privacy of the computer room. ...
posted by amberglow at 2:36 PM PST - 78 comments

Creative Home Engineering is a registered contracting company that adds value to homes by integrating silent, automated, hidden passageways. [note: flash]
posted by crunchland at 1:55 PM PST - 31 comments

Windows Live Local Orgasmically merges street level imagery with satellite to create virtual streetwalks (For Seattle or San Francisco anyway)
posted by marvin at 1:49 PM PST - 24 comments

PIGS IN SPACE!!!! ok, well not actually in space. But flying pigs, er pig, old school. (Flickr photo set)
posted by edgeways at 1:28 PM PST - 21 comments

Anti-Hippie Action League
posted by dios at 12:46 PM PST - 128 comments

Laurie Pycroft , age 16, took a year off school to build websites and futter about on the Internet. When animal rights campaigners waged a series of protests against a new biomedical research lab being constructed at Oxford University - with the extremist group Animal Liberation Front threatening buildings, students and staff as "legitimate targets" - Laurie decided to form Pro-Test, an organisation in support of animal testing, and stage a counterdemonstration to the monthly anti-testing demo at Oxford. The result: On 25 February, at least 700 protestors, eminent scientists, politicians, and students showed up. So did the media.
posted by By The Grace of God at 12:29 PM PST - 72 comments

US Troop poll results in: 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately. In other news, 58% of Americans think the troops should stay. Back to the troops: 85% said the U.S. mission is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks,” 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was “to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq.”
posted by caddis at 12:15 PM PST - 74 comments

Whereas: Dada is a virgin microbe which penetrates with the insistence of air into all those spaces that reason has failed to fill with words and conventions. .

The mayor of Lawrence, Kansas proclaims February 4, April 1, March 28, July 15, August 2, August 7, August 16, August 26, September 18, September 22, October 1, October 17, and October 26, 2006 as International Dadaism Month.
posted by billysumday at 12:12 PM PST - 58 comments

Flickr: The Musical (Google video). Random lyrics inspired by random images fom Flickr. A wonderful & worthy effort by Jonathan Coulton, subject of this previous Mefi post.
posted by squalor at 11:56 AM PST - 23 comments

Exclusive: Dubai ports firm enforces Israel boycott [Defenders of the Bush/Dubai deal argue that we ought to be fair and not be racist in being anti-Arab...that is "un-American."] "The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.....Moreover, the Post found that the website for Dubai's Jebel Ali Free Zone Area, which is also part of the PCZC, advises importers that they will need to comply with the terms of the boycott....
posted by Postroad at 11:30 AM PST - 58 comments

Black man, white woman, black baby...? So the song goes, but when two of those babies got together as adults, the already shaky formula of racial outcomes was shown to be fallacious by a million-to-one event: the birth of black and white twins. An interesting aside of a media event, to be sure... but underneath the surface lurks an interesting subversion of the intuitive basis of race itself. What race is anyone? Then again, are you sure? I ask because it's amazing how not sure you can be.
posted by illovich at 11:28 AM PST - 46 comments

Effa Manley. Pioneer then. Pioneer still.
posted by grabbingsand at 11:03 AM PST - 6 comments

The Sarong Theorem Archive is the premier online repository for pictures of mathematicans in sarongs proving theorems.
posted by Wolfdog at 10:50 AM PST - 24 comments

British comedian Linda Smith dies of cancer. Linda Smith, president of the Humanist society and a regular on BBC Radio 4's flagship comedy shows such as The News Quiz and Just A Minute, plus her own A Brief History of Timewasting, her wonderfully deadpan style and the ability to transform moaning into an art form will be missed by many.
posted by ceri richard at 10:23 AM PST - 31 comments

"My Barbarian's rock-operatic ouvre synthesizes music, art and theater through site-responsive spectacles, videos and recordings." Their videos are a hoot—watch their epic "Unicorns L.A." (quicktime) for the Breakfast Club moment.
posted by goatdog at 9:10 AM PST - 9 comments

Foshata! Write your own English subtitles to Japanese commercials.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:03 AM PST - 8 comments

Disappeared In America. DISAPPEARED is a project by the Visible Collective/Naeem Mohaiemen that uses films, installations, & lectures to trace migration impulses, hyphenated identities and post-9/11 security panic.
posted by chunking express at 8:46 AM PST - 5 comments

Offensive cartoons aren't limited to Islam. Others: 1,2,3,4, 5. The cartoonist's name? (wait for it) Christian Keesee. In the current environment, Radford's Whim Internet Magazine is getting "exciting" media attention.
posted by spock at 8:45 AM PST - 55 comments

The Lost Kingdom of Tambora, Pompeii of the East, was recently uncovered by an oceanographic team from the University of Rhode Island and Indonesian researchers. The kingdom was buried when Mount Tambora violently erupted in 1815, and set the conditions for 1816, the Year Without Summer. It was not the first, or last time, that a volcano eruption affected the world.
posted by Atreides at 8:00 AM PST - 14 comments

For the past few days I have been mainly totally jealous of the guys in this video (linked google video). It features Toronto's Team Ryouko performing martial arts and breakdancing moves that look lifted straight out of beat-em-up computer games. I wish this (linked google video) was me on the beach (rather than this). Some more here.
Others doing similar stuff include "Martial Arts Trickz" from bilang.com which despite a pretty lame name are capable of some amazing things (linked google video, few more).
(yesterdays post on breakdancers reminded me of how jealous I am of these kinda guys because they appear to me to be so free of gravity)
posted by 13twelve at 6:24 AM PST - 33 comments

The Shock Absorber Bounce-o-Meter is *definitely* NSFW, but sure is a lot of fun. Choose your cup size, then your level of activity, and you will be presented with naked breasts, breasts in a normal bra and breasts in the Shock Absorber bra side by side...all the while doing some exercise to get things jiggling.
posted by gren at 5:58 AM PST - 53 comments

Venezuela bad, Colombia good
Founded in the 1980s by landowners and powerful drug dealers, the paramilitaries carried out numerous massacres in villages they considered sympathetic to the rebels and were blacklisted by the U.S. State Department as terrorists. In recent years, however, the militias put their rebel-fighting efforts on hold to smuggle narcotics, extort businesses and engage in other illegal activities.

Strange how the White House decides which countries are "friends" and which are not. What exactly are the criteria?
posted by nofundy at 5:36 AM PST - 21 comments

Fresh is best. "It's like drinking their youth."
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:58 AM PST - 46 comments

Was U.S. Patent Number 7,000,000 reserved for DuPont? The USPTO issues utility patents every Tuesday. Patent numbers are normally assigned sequentially first to the week's general and mechanical inventions, next to chemical inventions , and finally to electrical inventions. In the Official Gazette (OG) published on February 14th, there was gap in the list of the list of electrical patents where the patent number 7,000,000 was supposed to be. And at the very end of the list of chemical patents you find U.S. Patent 7,000,000 assigned to E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company of Wilmington, Delaware. Just random chance, I wonder, or perhaps just another indication of the ability of corporations to influence U.S. government agencies?
posted by three blind mice at 1:32 AM PST - 40 comments

The Six Thousand: 6000 [well, at least twenty or so right now] intriguing people you want to meet online before you die, edited by Cliff Pickover. My fave right now? Asya Schween.
posted by exlotuseater at 9:13 PM PST - 41 comments

Pictures of the Year Gallery posted. A few may be familiar to those who read this previous post, but still very much worth seeing.
posted by ig at 7:22 PM PST - 16 comments

The Catseye - similar to Botts' Dots, [Wikipedia talk] is in the final 10 for the Great British Design Quest.
posted by tellurian at 6:24 PM PST - 12 comments

Jeffrey Lewis: Iran & the Bomb. A comprehensive examination.
posted by panoptican at 6:10 PM PST - 42 comments

More point-n-click Flash puzzles, this time in a series: Escape to Obion, episodes one, two, three, and four.
posted by Gator at 6:06 PM PST - 7 comments

"Call for Entries: The Ultimate Food Shoot Challenge. The idea is simple, take one of the gray and eerie government meal packets ... unpack it, arrange it, light it and shoot it to look as scrumptious as it could ever hope to be.

As you can see... in the right hands, this can be done with remarkable grace."

Evidently the images will be used for a 2007 calendar, with proceeds to benefit The People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition. Registration deadline April 15.
posted by cloudscratcher at 5:52 PM PST - 30 comments

A previously unbroken Enigma code has been solved by a group of hackers. After just over a month of effort, the M4 group, using distributed computing, cracked a 60 year-old German naval code. The message: "Forced to submerge during attack." There are lots of other interesting historical codes that still remain mysteries, however. Lots of Enigma goodness in an earlier post.
posted by blahblahblah at 4:50 PM PST - 16 comments

When was the last time your country's minister of Justice expressed his policies in rap form? Here's the Dutch justice minister's Piet Hein Donner's debut on the mic (mp3). [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:39 PM PST - 19 comments

On your mark, get set, bring out your dead! Commemorating the deceased, Manitou Springs style. More pictures here.
posted by Hesychia at 2:39 PM PST - 8 comments

Kristine Larsen: Before and After 9/11
posted by matteo at 2:01 PM PST - 71 comments

Art Frahm gets an update. Ever wanted to see Art Frahm's vintage pinups modernized? With some of those outrageous "Goth Girls" as models? Your wait is over! Now you can see for yourself what happens when those girls in their fishnet stockings and those scandalous dresses have their knickers accidentally fall down to their ankles. (No nudity.)
posted by CrunchyFrog at 1:58 PM PST - 33 comments

Slow Life is a Japanese movement that eschews the fast-paced consumption of modern urban life for the slower pace of farming and small villages. It emphasizes self-reliance, sustainability, and the appreciation of leisure. From some perspectives, it can be seen as a reaction to hazards in the modern world or as a peer to Shinto and modern schools of thought.
posted by mikeh at 1:55 PM PST - 21 comments

NSA continues TIA (Total Information Awareness) program under different name "Total Information Awareness Lives On", a Democracy Now follow up on a 2/23 story from the National Journal. This was reported earlier in the Christian Science Monitor US Plans Massive Data Sweep Another Newsweek story, Wanted: Competent Big Brothers talks about TIA activities continuing under a program called TOPSAIL.
posted by notmtwain at 12:55 PM PST - 25 comments

Pictures of a guy in a blue shirt. More Inside
posted by dios at 12:37 PM PST - 61 comments

Concerned (Half-Life 2 comic)
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 12:09 PM PST - 38 comments

In the "debate" over the War on Drugs, there's a lack of nice quantitative data presentation in one place. Brian C Bennett aims to rectify that. From trends in alcohol initiation relative to legal age limits, to investigation of the deaths classified by CDC as marijuana-induced. There are lots of charts, as for cocaine purity over the years, or treatment admissions, or arrest trends. The site map is your quick guide to the 2000 charts & articles.
posted by daksya at 11:24 AM PST - 18 comments

Unseen. Unforgotten. The Birmingham News recently discovered previously-unpublished photos of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama, during the late 1950s and early 1960s. The site includes audio interviews with some of the photographers and a PDF of how the photos appeared in the newspaper.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:24 AM PST - 13 comments

Crazy breakdancers from Korea - one minute of annoying lead in followed by two and a half minutes of cool moves.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:12 AM PST - 23 comments

If Microsoft designed the iPod box. (Faster YouTube) Fanboys of all stripes can agree: it's funny. Via Digg.
posted by fungible at 10:42 AM PST - 72 comments

Maki Kawakita is a Japanese photographer living in New York. She shoots in a hyper-realist style, but her subject matter is another story. Lots of pop culture, some corporate surrealism, and even an occasional model worthy of her own post on MeFi. One or two images on her site are NSFW, and some others are just vaguely disturbing . More here, here and here.
posted by bashos_frog at 9:50 AM PST - 4 comments

Firefox really is amazingly extendable, but perhaps too much so.
posted by mathowie at 9:39 AM PST - 59 comments

Diebold whistleblower busted for whistleblowin'. Stephen Heller, who leaked classified information showing how Diebold illegally used uncertified voting machines in California in 2002, is being charged with sundry computer crimes by the LA County DA's office.
posted by delmoi at 8:20 AM PST - 53 comments

Never Mind the Bollocks.
posted by bardic at 7:39 AM PST - 81 comments

Really, the Olympics still mean something. No they don't: "They are a random collection of winter activities, most of which have their own world championships anyway, which should suffice." Not even a Lindsay Lohan hookup story could save these games.
posted by js003 at 6:55 AM PST - 107 comments

Last week US District Court Judge A. Howard Matz ruled against Google and found them to be in copyright violation for thumbnailing images from the soft core magazine/site Perfect10 (NSFW)... more inside
posted by cedar at 5:47 AM PST - 36 comments

How to Follow Soccer in Europe. A handy comparison of American sports leagues and European soccer. Also: The competitions. Going to the game.
posted by Ljubljana at 1:41 AM PST - 64 comments

...you can follow a complaint (maybe). Your daily dose of outragefilter. Video courtesy of South Florida's CBS 4.
posted by Kwantsar at 11:31 PM PST - 142 comments

A Cello Rondo A cello piece digitally combined from 37 different cello parts all played by the same musician. With funky video. [Qucktime, 45mb], [Quicktime, 22mb]. Other formats available through the link. via Digg.
posted by ontic at 10:04 PM PST - 17 comments

Bubble Rings are like smoke rings, except they exist under water, and they are made of pure, clean air instead of smoke. Though normally seen in dolphins, here's a video of a beluga whale blowing a bubble in a Japanese aquarium. Nice, but is it culture?
posted by dhruva at 9:38 PM PST - 12 comments

Hey man, good flash games take time. And apparently, so do bad ones. On the Cheese*Enjoyment scale this one is off the charts. I LOLd.
posted by Paris Hilton at 9:03 PM PST - 12 comments

Ten things evolutionists can do to improve communication. Speaking as a battle-scarred survivor of a few battles over evolution on teh Interweb, I plead guilty to ignorance of a few of these rules. But I wonder, too, what good any of these would do in the grand scheme of things: could we expect Creationists to act as honorably, or as honestly? And what would the Flying Spaghetti Monster think?
posted by micketymoc at 6:56 PM PST - 166 comments

Here are some nice fractal desktop pictures.
posted by obeygiant at 5:03 PM PST - 36 comments

Added to the rolls of those that passed away this weekend. Octavia E. Butler Sci Fi writer, MacArthur Genius grant winner... And as she wrote. "I'm a 53-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer. I'm also comfortably asocial -- a hermit in the middle of Seattle -- a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive."
posted by edgeways at 2:50 PM PST - 63 comments

The things I will not do when I direct a Shakespeare production, on stage or film. "32. I will not employ a conception of Caliban which would require him to wear a ghastly furry costume reminiscent of a hypothetical offspring of Chewbacca and the Wolf from Into the Woods." "358. If cast members, especially fairies, are supposed to sing, I will make sure they can actually sing before opening night." Some of these appear to have been agreed to through bitter experience. I don't know about you but I'd like to add 400. I will not set A Comedy of Errors in a climbing frame which is meant to represent a lunatic asylum and have lookalikes played by the same actor in both parts as if has a split personality (watching that show was possibly the longest two hours I've spent in a theatre).
posted by feelinglistless at 2:48 PM PST - 90 comments

For the women of South Dakota: an abortion manual --building on the history and expertise of Jane, , an underground referral and abortion-providing group in Chicago in the 60s, Molly provides the vital info women in South Dakota (and maybe elsewhere soon) need.
posted by amberglow at 12:28 PM PST - 133 comments

'You really liked it, huh? You really thought it was good?'
He regaled one friend with memories of being in the womb, took another shopping for jerseys in Paris, and said he regretted calling his play Godot. As the centenary of his birth approaches, 'Beckett Remembering Remembering Beckett'. More inside.
posted by matteo at 8:36 AM PST - 16 comments

Congressional Oil spokesman goes after Citgo. In Washington, Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton (R-ExxonMobil) has launched an investigation into Citgo. But he is not investigating whether any of the oil giants are engaging in price gouging at a time when gasoline and heating oil casts are skyrocketing. Instead Barton has set his sights on the only oil company that actually dared to lower its prices last year - at least for the poorest Americans. Last week Barton demanded the Venezuelan-owned company Citgo produce all records, minutes, logs, e-mails and even desk calendars related to the company’s novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States. The Citgo program, which began late last year in Massachusetts and the South Bronx, provides oil at discounts as high as 60% off market price.
posted by mountainmambo at 7:45 AM PST - 88 comments

Oranges & Apples Digital photography is amazing and impressive in many ways, but if you choose it over film, expect to make sacrifices. I've assembled articles here exposing these sacrifices. I do this not to make a case for film, but to temper the popular view that advances in digital photography have now made film obsolete.
posted by Lanark at 7:10 AM PST - 75 comments

Dora Maar was immortalized by Picasso in many portraits, one of which is up for auction this May. Tho many are familiar with her face, fewer are aware that she was a respected surrealist photographer in her own right. An exhibit at the Musee Picasso in Paris documents the stormy and artistically rich decade of their relationship via the contents of Dora Maar's estate.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:58 AM PST - 9 comments

National Pancake Day. Free pancakes at IHOP. Yes, it's real. Happy Shrove Tuesday.
posted by fixedgear at 4:45 AM PST - 44 comments

"It's not the robbery that separates the amateur from the professional. It's the way you deal with the money afterwards." A fascinating analysis of the Tonbridge heist.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:43 AM PST - 19 comments

The Century Of The Self. It's a documentary, and the four parts are available at archive.org [2][3][4] -- with a higher quality bittorrent option [via mindhacks]. The program is about the use of psychoanalytical techniques to manipulate and control the "bewildered herd", "engineering consent" in a world fraught with "irrational impulses" [more inside].
posted by gsb at 12:43 AM PST - 16 comments

Last Saturday, a woman and her four-year-old son climbed a fence to get a closer look at two black bears in the care of the non-profit Maymont Foundation. Bear bites boy.
posted by emelenjr at 11:51 PM PST - 54 comments

(Use the torrent.)
Toy Story 2: Requiem
posted by Tlogmer at 11:03 PM PST - 17 comments

The World’s First Cell Phone Feature Film. Sony Ericsson sponsored the film by providing W900i cell phones. The cheap medium allowed for a very loose shooting style, with multiple cameras constantly rolling, freeing the actors to experiment and improvise.. the footage looked "fabulous" when blown up to 35mm.
posted by stbalbach at 10:59 PM PST - 12 comments

US Border Patrol attempts to build a wall between Mexico and the US. Coyotes are not worried Mexico is already coming up with plans around it and the Americans are already coming up with a way to not pay for it.
posted by subaruwrx at 10:27 PM PST - 42 comments

Another favorite old actor has shuffled off the mortal coil. I will always remember Darren McGavin best as The Old Man, Ralphie Parker's father, in the best Christmas movie ever made (so says I!), but he had a long and active career in films and television.

Sigh. I hope there is lots and lots of turkey in heaven, and that the Bumpuses' dogs are nowhere to be found.
posted by John Smallberries at 9:07 PM PST - 50 comments

US as Lord of War in Rwanda?
posted by pwedza at 8:15 PM PST - 15 comments

"My name is Gudo Wafu Nishijima, a Buddist Monk, who is 86 years old, and recently because of my old age, I finished my Buddhist lectures, which were held at many places for many years, and so I decided to open Dogen Sangha Blog, to express the Buddhist thought. It might be very short sentences, but I would like to continue it as far as possible almost every day."

The blog of Zen Master Gudo Wafu Nishijima, founder of Dongen Sangha Buddhist group. Learn from his video, How to Practice Zazen, or read some of Nishijima Roshi's lectures and articles, including the interesting talk, Zazen, A Better Way of Experiencing Pain.
posted by MetaMonkey at 5:01 PM PST - 44 comments

Massive Multiplayer Pong
posted by furiousxgeorge at 4:34 PM PST - 24 comments

Inspector Wombat, a point-and-click Flash puzzle game somewhat clumsily translated from the German. Inspector Wombat has a seemingly-bottomless sack in which to store all the random crap he picks up, like banana peels, his lady friend's stereo system (dude, she's standing right there. Ever try asking?), and tasty foodstuffs somebody left in the street. Your object is twofold: Find and apprehend the kooky blackmailer who's messing with the museum director, and fix the museum's paintings which have mysteriously gone all wonky (hint: it's because of evil, unhappy bacteria).
posted by Gator at 3:18 PM PST - 3 comments

Call him Mr. Limpet, Mr. Furley, Wormie, Les Calhoun, or Barney Fife. Actor Don Knotts has passed away at 81.
posted by Smart Dalek at 2:46 PM PST - 128 comments

Looking for an ego boost? The fine people over at The Screenplay Agency are the place for you! No logline too stupid, no script too poorly written! Are you tired of agency after agency telling you that they don't want your 20 year old screenplay about how much you love peanut butter just because "It doesn't make any sense, and is written with crayon on a pile of dirty gym socks?" I know I was! Until I found out about The Screenplay Agency, who promptly accepted every criminally copyright infringing idea I threw at them until I just KNEW I was every bit as good I writer as I've always told myself I am. And all they asked of me was approximately $250 in fees paid to coverage agencies no one has ever heard of and which seem to be owned by the same company that owns The Screenplay Agency! Sure, you've heard of publishing scams like Publish America (part 2) thanks to the diligence of sites like Making Light and our own thread on the matter, but The Screenplay Agency is totally different! For one thing, they only rip you off boost your ego through screenplays. Now, some legitimate screenplay writers high and mighty hollywood types have gone and pranked this excellent automated delusion reinforcer. But don't let those spoilsports spoil your sport! (God, I am such a great writer. No wonder they loved my screenplay!) Go ahead and generate your own rave reviews!
posted by shmegegge at 1:59 PM PST - 14 comments

Meet the Loremo. Up until now high efficiency vehicles have looked a little bizarre, to say the least. Recently the Toyota Prius (in its 2.0 form) brought HE cars more into the mainstream, but the Loremo looks to beat it hands down. Having lightened the car as much as possible -- it weighs a paltry 450kg, less than half a ton -- engineers were able to bring its fuel consumption down to 1.5l/100km, or over 150 mpg. And make it look pretty good. And bring the cost down to less than 11,000 euro. The company says it'll be available in 2009, but are they for real? (via digg)
posted by clevershark at 1:38 PM PST - 44 comments

John T. Reed’s analysis of Robert T. Kiyosaki’s book 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad'. [cache] Kiyosaki has spun a business empire off his book, including follow up publications, TV appearances and columns that make suprisingly broad statements about what's worth doing.
posted by Firas at 12:52 PM PST - 24 comments

Simply mad about the boy. I've learned my lesson from these gay-themed novelty records from the Sixties. I'd rather fight than swish.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:03 AM PST - 22 comments

The National Archives of the United States and Google have announced a pilot project to digitize historic films and make them available via Google Video for free. The project's initial offering of 101 films include NASA documentaries on the spaceflight program, samples of United Newsreels from World War II, and early films from the Department of the Interior highlighting public works such as the construction of the Hoover Dam and the work of the National Park Service. Also of note is the earliest film in the National Archives holdings, an odd compilation circa 1894 containing Carmencita's Spanish Dance, boats being pulled upstream, people crossing a bridge, and Japanese women playing stringed instruments (on silent film, of course...) last link is direct to video, 2 minutes 46 seconds in duration
posted by edverb at 9:37 AM PST - 23 comments

China Pictures is a free picture site featuring [thousands of ] pictures throughout China, including pictures of China's major cities and tourist attractions as well as pictures of Chinese people and their daily life. You will find not only pictures of the famous Great Wall of China, the forbidden City and the Terracotta Warriors, but also pictures from the unbeaten path as far as Guizhou, Xinjiang, Tibet and other places.
posted by Postroad at 8:21 AM PST - 7 comments

The Asana Index. There are literally 1000s of asana variations in Hatha Yoga. We are attempting to collect the most descriptive pictures of these asanas from all over the Internet, published materials, and individual donations, listing them in an alphabetical index. (via chattering mind)
posted by matteo at 8:19 AM PST - 7 comments

Feeling frustrated at work? This little flash game lets you be Joe IT, avenger of the oppressed in offices everywhere. Best of all, you can't lose ... unless you actually try this at work.
posted by pyramid termite at 7:17 AM PST - 16 comments

Slashdoc - a nice shiny web site where you can swipe read various essays.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:47 AM PST - 44 comments

Secret tunnels may give any Tom, Dick, and Harry a way out in the movies, but Hollywood only scrapes the surface of serious pick and shovel work throughout history. The lure of freedom, overconfidence, or sheer persistence — combined with much ingenuity — has empowered good and evil schemes alike. Some hidey holes are mysterious and some are uncovered, but it's always a tough job for tunnel rats to keep the bad guys from digging in.
posted by cenoxo at 3:27 AM PST - 17 comments

Gunkanjima or Battleship Island is 480 x 160 meters and was home to more than 5000 people. Abandoned for more than 40 years it is a microcosm of 20th century industrial development. A soundtrack to the photos. Or take the multimedia tour. Urban exploration.
posted by arse_hat at 12:22 AM PST - 18 comments

From the Hands of Slaves: Common products of forced labor. [Via MoFi.]
posted by homunculus at 12:08 AM PST - 16 comments

Over 1300 people have jumped to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge since it was built in 1937. Is it time to stop just filming them and install a net or fence-type "suicide barrier" to keep these people from killing themselves? Student-studies at Berkeley argue that barriers are effective. And Mary Zablotny, mother of a jumper, wants to know: "what kind of monster would stand there before me and tell me that aesthetics are more important than my son's life." Opponents argue that suicide is a public health issue that requires a holistic response, and is ill-addressed by simply blighting public landmarks, offering some - ahem - innovative alternatives. [some previous discussions]
posted by scarabic at 6:39 PM PST - 119 comments

Reasonable people are capable of thinking about complex issues without resorting to simplistic oversimplifications. These two scholarly types discuss what seems obvious but lacks traction amongst most people. What can be done to make these voices heard and more importantly, accepted?
posted by mulligan at 5:15 PM PST - 35 comments

Tom Baker does 'Video Killed The Radiostar' Poigniant application of the new BT Text service. [via]
posted by feelinglistless at 4:21 PM PST - 50 comments

The Hype Machine tracks MP3 blogs so you don't have to.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:15 PM PST - 24 comments

Hello and welcome to Weird Meat(.com).

I've eaten dog, cat, rat, cockroach, camel penis, bee larve, scorpions, spiders, night hawk, and pre-born duck embryo without feeling ill. Can't say the same for Taco Bell or McDonalds.

Also see Ox Knee and One Day Old Chicks for more wonderful articles documenting the Weird Meat experience.
posted by benhugstrees at 3:22 PM PST - 44 comments

Ohio Senator: Bar adoptions by the GOP ---In response to Ohio Senator Hood's bill to bar adoption by gays and lesbians, one Senator uses humor to counter hate: ...To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that ``credible research' shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing ``emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.' However, Hagan admitted that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims. Just as ``Hood had no scientific evidence' to back his assertion that having gay parents was detrimental to children, Hagan said. ...
posted by amberglow at 2:58 PM PST - 29 comments

US Sgt enlists Canadian hackers to take down weblog? Apparently a US chaplain posted some information about visiting a base that doesn't exist. Some networking people are concerned and since Canada's hockey team was out early in the Olympics, thought some Canadian hackers may be able to help...
posted by Coop at 2:43 PM PST - 9 comments

A few years ago, Sam Brown of explodingdog.com started drawing red robots (including my personal favorite). Other people started drawing similar red robots, and Sam collected links to them. Back in 2001, I posted to MeFi about the phenomenon. Then I forgot about it. But the meme continued to expand. Now, if you do an images.google.com search for "red robot," you get dozens and dozens of Sam Brown bots. The bot also shows up on Flickr. He also comes in blue, green and pink. And perhaps some other flavors.
posted by grumblebee at 2:34 PM PST - 17 comments

Tetrod is a jigsaw puzzle and a four-sided domino game mixed together. -- Java puzzle game; choose 3x4, 4x4, 5x4, or 5x5.
posted by Gator at 2:32 PM PST - 9 comments

Ninja and Zombie A short film and internet serial about the daily lives of a ninja and his roommate, a zombie. Episodes are available on the site or via podcast feed. [via mefi projects]
posted by boo_radley at 2:21 PM PST - 7 comments

Rephotographing Atget: Eugene Atget photographed Paris from 1888 until his death in 1927. Christopher Rauschenberg retraced Atget's steps in 1997 and 1998, photographing the same scenes, and documents his project in a gallery at Lens Culture. The gallery includes an audio discussion of the project. [more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:02 PM PST - 19 comments

Marcus McKinney was arrested Wednesday for the gang-related shooting of Michael Jacola at Orange Park High School in Jacksonville. Florida. Marcus was caught because left his photo on his Myspace.com profile alongside various comments about belonging to a gang.
posted by tapeguy at 12:31 PM PST - 38 comments

Venezuela bans US Airlines. The Chavez government announced yesterday that as of March 1st, Continental and Delta will no longer be allowed to fly into Venezuela, and American's flights will be restricted significantly (allowing AA to continue their Miami to Caracas route, which is the same one that Aeropostal flies to the US). We've talked about Chavez in the blue before, and this may be simple political posturing in an effort to open more routes for Aeropostal and other Venezuelan airlines, but between this, and the recent comments by Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Porter Goss, are we looking at a new low in US/Venezuela relations?
posted by toxic at 12:08 PM PST - 45 comments

Feet Meat. {Probably NSFW}
posted by dios at 11:18 AM PST - 49 comments

Max Rodenbeck reviews a new collection of Osama bin Laden's speeches and a biography by Peter Bergen. David Cole discusses the US side of the conflict, reviewing the latest book by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon: "--when it comes to fighting the decentralized threat of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, Benjamin and Simon maintain, the best defense is not a good offense, but a good defense." More on al-Qaeda: Rodenbeck, MetaFilter.
posted by russilwvong at 10:57 AM PST - 1 comment

Ukulele Ike. We know his quavering, tentative, high tenor voice from his voice work as Jiminy Cricket, but Cliff Edwards -- aka Ukulele Ike -- was much more than that. Wikipedia offers a brief introduction to the man, his life, his works, and his lonely death. But, to my tastes, the best introduction to this once hugely popular singer is the man's own voice (mp3 links).
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:47 AM PST - 5 comments

The story of an autistic basketball player in his first game (youtube video) is an amazing story. It's worth the three minutes and you might even shed a tear of joy by the end.
posted by mathowie at 10:44 AM PST - 92 comments

Have you ever thought "Bush should read this book". Anatomy of a meme.
posted by stbalbach at 9:54 AM PST - 32 comments

My eensy-beensy alma mater in eastern Wisconsin currently has the only undefeated men's basketball team in the nation. This is not just in the NCAA, but in the NAIA as well. It's a Division III team, and its only loss this season didn't count--it was to Division I UW-Madison in an exhibition game. Like most Division III schools, Lawrence offers no athletic scholarships whatsoever. Its immediate past president, Richard Warch, in a 1987 speech at the NCAA national convention, controversially called for abolishment of all athletic scholarships.
posted by gillyflower at 9:53 AM PST - 15 comments

Columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Art Buchwald is dying. On today's The Diane Rehm Show on NPR, he was interviewed in the Washington hospice he has moved to, about many topics, including his decision to suspend treatment for his advanced kidney disease, and live out his life in hospice.[more inside]
posted by paulsc at 8:47 AM PST - 18 comments

What if the South had won the war? Professor and director, Kevin Wilmott, brings you his vision of a Confederate victory with C.S.A. The Confederate States of America. Not quite Harry Turtledove, NPR examined Wilmott's satirical look at a not quite so possible future and offered their opinion of it. Trailer, anyone?
posted by Atreides at 7:48 AM PST - 338 comments

nsfw/(Defekto|Vomitus): (presence|representation) (emulsiates|animates) (real|imagined) (Baltimore|portal)./id
posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:30 AM PST - 11 comments

I'm no dancer, but I'm fascinated by the Dance History Archives. The index of dance styles is comprehensive, and the individual entries provide everything from history to related music links. (Jitterbug, May Pole, The Watusi) There's a short glossary, an index of dancers, a voluptuous section on burlesque (including some great NSFW pictures), an archive of posters (Josephine Baker!), and so much more. The list of Dancer Related Celebrities is pretty extensive (Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth), although there's no Jennifer Grey, so I guess Baby got put in a corner after all.
posted by OmieWise at 6:46 AM PST - 17 comments

London's mayor suspended for four weeks for comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard.
posted by atticus at 6:34 AM PST - 66 comments

Only in Tucson can the Mayor and his wife get rear-ended by a stagecoach. It all happened during the annual Rodeo parade in downtown Tucson. There is a fantastic made for TV video of it attached this story.
posted by Guerilla at 6:23 AM PST - 15 comments

Black Box Voting has completed their analysis of log files from Palm Beach (FL) county voting machines stemming from the Nov 2004 general election. You know it's not good news when the article starts with: The internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night.
posted by taumeson at 6:18 AM PST - 90 comments

We all have a lot of questions that are very hard to answer. Like how to prepare cereal, how to prepare a Pop Tart correctly, and how to walk like a ballerina. Luckily, wikiHow is there to help us dummies.
posted by a47danger at 6:05 AM PST - 16 comments

Samarra is in the news. The modern city is small, but built on the colossal ruins of the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. Google Earth reveals amazing details of the ancient city, one of the largest archaeological sites in the world.
posted by grahamwell at 5:04 AM PST - 16 comments

UAE, Jolted by Port Deal, Is Key Western Arms Buyer The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the centre of a growing controversy over its proposed management of U.S. port terminals, is one of the world's most prolific arms buyers and a multi-billion-dollar military market both for the United States and Western Europe.
posted by Postroad at 4:57 AM PST - 57 comments

On this date in 1848, The Communist Manifesto was published. Howard Zinn: "I don’t see much point in abstract theorizing or getting into arguments about Marxism, Leninism, etc. ... Theoretical analyses are useful but not crucial. There is a lot of wasted time in such endeavors, but not all is wasted. Marx’s Communist Manifesto was a theoretical analysis, immensely useful and inspiring. His first volume of Das Kapital was useful too. His second and third volumes, and his Grundrisse, were probably a waste of time!" Informal Poll: How many of you have actually read the entire Communist Manifesto? (I haven't.)
posted by mickeyz at 3:57 AM PST - 42 comments

Twilight for Black Farms. An interesting topic at NPR. Photos. Audio. Essay.
posted by dgaicun at 2:55 AM PST - 6 comments

Einstein was a very clever man, but dear lord did he write some weird things on his blackboard... (It's Friday, it's Fun, it's not Flash. Never mind...)
posted by twine42 at 2:54 AM PST - 22 comments

Odd Supernova Amateur and professional astronomers rejoice , point your telescopes at RA: 03:21:39.71 Dec: +16:52:02.6 to watch a new phenomenon that could turn into a supernova explosion
posted by elpapacito at 2:30 AM PST - 17 comments

One in five Americans consider themselves "holy", according to a recent poll by the Barna Research Group.
posted by bcveen at 1:52 AM PST - 52 comments

It has always amazed me what people will do for free and how much innovation goes on outside of the commercial videogaming industry. Gamehippo, Caiman, Acid-Play, Noodan and Planet Freeplay collectively have thousands upon thousands of freeware games of varying quality, with everything from Super Mario clones to completely original titles.
posted by pancreas at 1:48 AM PST - 3 comments

It was only a matter of time before someone recorded "Cheney's Got a Gun" and made it into a Flash cartoon. Or the Dick Cheney Quail Hunt game. After all, he's our Notorious V.P.
posted by Soliloquy at 11:54 PM PST - 13 comments

Eddie Sutton, Oklahoma State University's beloved basketball coach, is back on the sauce. Sutton, 69, is the winning-est active coach in the NCAA, but like other basketball legends, he's no stranger to controversy or tragedy. Sutton previously spent a stint in rehab in the late 1980s.
posted by Brittanie at 10:40 PM PST - 8 comments

Will Malcolm Gladwell's blog be as good as his New Yorker articles and books? Will it be better? I'm always fascinated when "big name" people start blogging. Will he be interesting and personal, dry and professional, or will the blog crash and burn?
posted by cmaxmagee at 9:47 PM PST - 34 comments

tea-bagging ruined my life a ruinous teabag incident
posted by obeygiant at 9:38 PM PST - 101 comments

"Kowloon Walled City resembled a living, breathing creature, born from its inhabitants over its long lifespan." "...occupying an area of approximately 200 by 150 metres. Most of the 500 buildings in the City, housing almost 50,000 residents" (MI)
posted by arse_hat at 9:28 PM PST - 28 comments

The Terrain Engine Project is a nicely documented series of posts about writing a terrain engine from scratch. The author doesn't detail the actual code, instead covering some general problems involved in rendering decent-looking terrain that doesn't require mega-1337 hardware. It's pretty interesting, even for non-coders.
posted by Lirp at 8:52 PM PST - 11 comments

The Mr. Hetero contest. by this guy.
posted by es_de_bah at 7:17 PM PST - 28 comments

Nigga Pleez!
posted by Mijo Bijo at 7:17 PM PST - 32 comments

I apologize to those who have found this site looking for solutions to their companion's pain and suffering.
posted by betaray at 6:16 PM PST - 37 comments

From Inner Sounds to Astro Sounds Session guitarist Jerry Cole made several albums of instrumental surf rock as the leader of Jerry Cole & His Spacemen, but after playing on sessions that produced the Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man and the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, he realized he had to adapt to new musical trends. In the summer of '66, Cole responded by bringing several session buddies together to record The Inner Sounds of the Id, a psychedelic studio creation that was at least a year ahead of its time. The story might have ended there if the producer hadn't stolen the Id's session outtakes... (more inside)
posted by jonp72 at 5:00 PM PST - 8 comments

The other religious riots. While much of the world's press has covered the Muslim cartoon riots, not nearly as much ink has been spilled over the continuing violence in Nigeria. A good analysis of underlying factors here. A Shell report points to oil as a proximate cause of violence as well. For oil companies, this may not be a bad thing. (If I was more interested in trolling, I'd have framed this as "Christian Leaders Fail to Condemn Religious Violence." The real world's a little more complex).
posted by klangklangston at 4:56 PM PST - 15 comments

Kiva allows users to sponser small business enterprises in developing countries through flexible loans. By getting repaid and reinvesting, it's a really cool way to give a sustainable gift that keeps on giving.
posted by rollbiz at 4:28 PM PST - 30 comments

(COMICS NERD FILTER) Have you, like me, ever imagined that that somebody could convince a woman that looks remarkably like Katee Sackhoff to portray Power Girl in a fan film about Kara's search for a "real job?"

Imagine no more. Ambitious for a fan film, quite entertaining and the rewards for True DC Comics Fans are quite abundant.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 4:22 PM PST - 23 comments

The New Deal Network from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute has articles, photographs, and other collections of material about the Great Depression and the New Deal. There are selections from the slave narratives collected by the Federal Writers Project, an account of the Harlan County mine wars from John Dos Passos, and enough stuff to waste time keep busy for days.
posted by dilettante at 3:46 PM PST - 8 comments

Morrissey Investigated by the F.B.I. The former Smiths lead singer was interviewed and taped. The FBI was apparently trying to determine if he was a threat to the government.
posted by ND¢ at 3:43 PM PST - 88 comments

Listen to live police scanner audio-feeds from all over America. Most require Realplayer, but it's definitely worthwhile. It's things like this that remind me how awesome the internet can be.
posted by 6am at 3:43 PM PST - 7 comments

Sam Rockwell cast as Batman. Does this mean Christian Bale is out?
posted by Robot Johnny at 3:11 PM PST - 19 comments

You can't just give away free software! Or can you? Firefox's copyleft premise destroys U.K. anti-piracy laws. Gervase Markham takes on a U.K. official who wants to arrest pirates for distributing firefox.
posted by FeldBum at 3:04 PM PST - 14 comments

The 25 most popular television broadcasts, actors and directors based on anonymous, aggregated data from DVR owners, updated weekly.
posted by crunchland at 2:53 PM PST - 27 comments

Bouncin' Bop, episodes one, two, three, four, and five. Cute little Flash game in which you control Bop, a happy smilin' rubber ball that ever bounces. Collect coins and don't touch the monsters, lest Bop join the Choir Invisible.
posted by Gator at 2:12 PM PST - 5 comments

So you want to hear the new Guns N Roses tracks.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:53 PM PST - 74 comments

Republic World News is a fake news site promoting Robert Ferrigno's contribution to paranoid, apocalyptic literature: Prayers For the Assassin.[MI]
posted by brundlefly at 1:27 PM PST - 25 comments

Should the LPGA control photos taken at its events to this extent? It seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot. Don't they want to be featured in the press? Are they infringing on the photographer's "rights"? More info here.
posted by tcobretti at 1:24 PM PST - 27 comments

Veedub holding it down on tha engineering tip y'all
posted by 13twelve at 1:10 PM PST - 37 comments

An ambitious time capsule. In the basement of Phoebe Hearst Hall at Oglethorpe University in Georgia, there is a stainless steel vault door which was welded shut over sixty five years ago. Behind this door lies a 20' x 10' waterproofed room containing a menagerie of once-modern artifacts and microfilm records, placed there by men and women in the years between 1937 and 1940. If their goal is realized, the contents of this vault will remain unseen and undisturbed for the next 6,107 years. Official site, pictures, and inventory. (link lovingly pilfered from another filter)
posted by caddis at 12:59 PM PST - 42 comments

(CanCon Newsfilter): The vacant seat on the Supreme Court of Canada will be filled by Marshall Rothstein of the Federal Court of Appeal. Interesting enough, as he's the fellow that ruled that Harvard was entitled to patent a mouse (which was overturned by the SCC) and was involved in banning Ernst Zundel and David Irving from Canada. However there's a twist. For the first time in Canada, Stephen Harper's new Conservative government has decided that an all-party committee will question the nominee and provide recommendations to the PM (although the final decision rests with Harper, and the committee has no veto power).
posted by loquax at 11:49 AM PST - 14 comments

"A patent has been granted to a relatively unknown California Web-design firm for an invention its creator says covers the design and creation of most rich-media applications used over the Internet. ... The patent--issued on Valentine's Day--covers all rich-media technology implementations, including Flash, Flex, Java, Ajax, and XAML, when the rich-media application is accessed on any device over the Internet, including desktops, mobile devices, set-top boxes, and video game consoles, says inventor Neil Balthaser, CEO of Balthaser Online, which he owns with his father Ken. 'You can consider it a pioneering or umbrella patent. The broader claim is one that basically says that if you got a rich Internet application, it is covered by this patent.'" (via Jeff Zeldman)
posted by grrarrgh00 at 11:42 AM PST - 45 comments

Piero Scaruffi is a normal person. Like so many others, he ponders knowledge, language, and art from time to time. When he travels, he takes pictures. Just like everyone else. Sure, he has his thoughts about politics and world affairs, who doesn't? And when he's done with all of this he just wants to rock. Exactly like you. See?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:38 AM PST - 12 comments

Bush's "pepperoni" defence of outsourcing. "India's middle class is buying air-conditioners, kitchen appliances and washing machines, and a lot of them from American companies like GE and Whirlpool and Westinghouse. And that means their job base is growing here in the United States. Younger Indians are acquiring a taste for pizzas from Domino's, Pizza Hut..."
posted by insomnia_lj at 11:32 AM PST - 90 comments

"This recording of Pauline Kael delivering a talk at San Fernando Valley State College sometime in 1963 does closely follow her essay Circles and Squares. But even if you're familiar with the work in question, her tone of voice and formal delivery make these 55-minutes a genuinely nasty, invective-laden eye-opener". (via flickhead)
posted by PenguinBukkake at 11:29 AM PST - 31 comments

“Judges are humans,” he said. “They’re not going to have any sympathy for this guy.” Some talk about free speech recently got me to thinking about what’s-his-name and some brothers who are doing something about it. (I always thought God was a biker. I mean, check out the beard.)
posted by Smedleyman at 10:22 AM PST - 30 comments

MIT World (not the same as OpenCourseWare). And don't miss LSE, CMU, and Connexions. Still bored? Don't forget ResearchChannel, Vega, and Wikiversity. Do you care for psychology, biology, geology, or math? Or maybe you prefer journals, papers, textbooks, or podcasts? Knowledge is useful and wonderful.
posted by foraneagle2 at 10:11 AM PST - 27 comments

Guess the movie is a quiz where you have to guess the correct film from a single frame jpg. Part II here. Warning: site is crazy slow loading, may somehow be hosted on Geocities.
posted by jonson at 9:18 AM PST - 25 comments

Don't Be Evil is Google's motto. But now they're putting their money (approx. $1.1 billion) where their mouth is. The man in charge of Google's new philanthropic arm is Dr. Larry Brilliant, a man of exceedingly humanitarian endeavors.
posted by Like the Reef at 8:09 AM PST - 61 comments

[Warning! This is completely and utterly not safe for work. We're talking NSFW with sugar on top.] We've all been there. You meet someone you find attractive. They're intelligent and they share your interests. But there's still one thing you need to know about them and you're just not sure how to ask... [Link is to embedded video.] [Seriously. This is not safe for work. Hell, it's probably not safe for Alabama.]
posted by Clay201 at 7:17 AM PST - 88 comments

Newsfilter: On Wednesday, the South Dakota state Senate voted, 23 to 12, to criminalize abortion. The new law makes it a felony for doctors to perform the procedure, except to save the life of a woman. "'The momentum for a change in the national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future,' said Rep. Roger W. Hunt, a Republican who sponsored the bill. To his delight, abortion opponents succeeded in defeating all amendments designed to mitigate the ban, including exceptions in the case of rape or incest or the health of the woman. Hunt said that such "special circumstances" would have diluted the bill and its impact on the national scene."
posted by milquetoast at 3:02 AM PST - 183 comments

Can I get an amen? An installation featuring an acetate pressing of a well worded spoken piece about copyright law, creative commons, culture and even advertising from the perspective of the history of the now ubiquitous Amen Break featuring audio samples of songs and artists from the well known to the unusual. Please feel free to use this archive.org mirror of the video indicated on the project description page with the entirety of the audio of the acetate at archive.org. (34MB MP4/Quicktime, majority of video portion consists of various views of the turntable, but the audio is quite good.)
posted by loquacious at 12:48 AM PST - 13 comments

Google Pages is basically Geocities 2.0. You get a wysiwyg editing interface, a bunch of templates to pick from, and the ability to make as many pages as you need. Time will tell if this revolutionizes the web the way Geocities did (aside from all the obvious crappy pages from Geocities, it did give thousands of new writers and designers a place to start), but it's certainly a cool set of tools to do something mundane like start a website. [via waxy]
posted by mathowie at 12:31 AM PST - 88 comments

The real Jewish Underground — During the Nazi occupation of World War II, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian Jews were killed or transported to Nazi concentration camps. In 1942 and 1943, thirty-eight men, women, and children aged 4 to 74 years survived by living underground in two caves for nearly two years (their 344 day stay in Priest's Grotto beat Michel Siffre's 1972 NASA research study.) Emerging at night to cut firewood and steal food, these unwilling troglodytes returned to the cave before dawn to avoid capture. Spelunker Chris Nicola first discovered their survival story (PDF, pp. 6-12) in 1993.
posted by cenoxo at 10:12 PM PST - 23 comments

You've heard about YouTube's issues with NBC. It seems the words copyright violation have scared them into a stupor, as now several bloggers are complaining, and even calling for a little civil disobedience.
posted by Brittanie at 9:25 PM PST - 22 comments

The promotional game for an upcoming movie has drawn the ire of the National Institute on Media and the Family and some Twin Cities parents for having graphic sex scenes (in which "You literally engage in oral sex as a player of the game") that are easily accessibly to children by lying about your age.
posted by charmston at 9:19 PM PST - 44 comments

Democracy Player. Watch internet videos like you watch TV. Cool trick to it, whichever OS you are on (OS X or Windows for now, *nix coming soon) the homepage will load the appropriate download link. Built in channel guide gives you access to tons of interesting content, and lets anyone share their vids.
posted by gren at 9:09 PM PST - 35 comments

hotghettomess.com -- I found this by following links from an earlier post. I am posting it because it is full of content and wry commentary. Since it may need to be said, I am not posting this out of any prejudice.
posted by longsleeves at 6:59 PM PST - 47 comments

"Dave, don't you come across here with that watch." On July 21, 1865, Wild Bill Hickok killed his friend Dave Tutt (illustration) in Springfield, Missouri, in what may have been the first ever Wild West shootout. Tutt had won the watch and cleaned Wild Bill out the previous night in a poker game. Wild Bill's reputation was made in this February 1867 article in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, which was full of inaccuracies, like most of the stories about his career.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:24 PM PST - 14 comments

The Blog of Captain Jean-Luc Picard The Diary of a Harassed Starfleet Officer in the 24th Century of the Star Trek of Life. Read the trials of tribulations of the most pompous Captain in the Fleet. Including Borg Recruitment, Worf being stalked, and Equal Pay for Holograms. Written as dryly as Patrick Stewart acts.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 4:32 PM PST - 39 comments

The Proud Band of Fluxus Indians, Coon Rapids, Iowa.
posted by klangklangston at 2:03 PM PST - 10 comments

The Mystery of Henry James's Testicular Injury
posted by grumblebee at 2:01 PM PST - 32 comments

Meditation found to increase brain size (maybe) according to research led by Harvard neuroscientist Sara Lazar. Meanwhile, Atheist Manifesto author Sam Harris recently went on a meditation retreat and seemed to find it pleasant enough.
posted by homunculus at 1:24 PM PST - 79 comments

Make Kevin wear the same suit until he gets fired.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:00 PM PST - 24 comments

Interesting (Norton?) Bug If you're using norton, you might just have fallen off the internet. Or something. Try this on your friends!
posted by winjer at 12:50 PM PST - 33 comments

The Worst Company in America. Which company sucks most? The first two square off: Halliburton vs. Monsanto. Do your own research and vote.
posted by FlamingBore at 12:30 PM PST - 47 comments

Researchers have discovered a cave so large two helicopters can comfortably land inside it and containing a new species of poison dart frog.
posted by driveler at 12:13 PM PST - 55 comments

Sufficiently advanced quantum computer is indistinguishable from magic
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 11:41 AM PST - 88 comments

Annoyed by the Bill O'Reilly's and Rush Limbaugh's of the world? So is Mike Stark, and he goes out of his way to get on the air on their shows. And then, of course, writes about it in his blog, Calling All Wingnuts, which includes mp3 clips of his escapades on conservative talk radio airwaves.
posted by Mijo Bijo at 11:36 AM PST - 51 comments

American Chemical Society Feb. 2006 "As the federal government cuts back on funding for research, scientists are now forced to rely more and more on financial assistance from corporations; this raises troubling questions about whether the results from these studies will be impartial and objective or favorable to the companies that paid for them." “The whole scientific enterprise is being distorted by these corporate interests ...”
posted by hank at 11:19 AM PST - 12 comments

Best juggling with 3 balls - Chris Bliss Make sure you turn up the sound (loud), as that is what makes this so incredible. This is my first FPP, and in a quick search did not find anything matching so ... If its been posted before my apologies.
posted by tallpaul at 10:33 AM PST - 78 comments

The mystery of John Doe No. 24 outlived him. But this 1993 obituary in the New York Times, briefly covering what was known of a deaf, dumb, blind teenager found wandering the streets of Jacksonville in 1945, inspired a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter, which in turn inspired Illinois journalist Dave Bakke to "meticulously reconstruct nearly fifty years of John Doe's life...using police reports, mental health records, oral interviews, newspapers" and write God Knows His Name: The True Story of John Doe No. 24.
posted by weston at 10:06 AM PST - 16 comments

Gore in '08? Several weeks ago, former Vice President Al Gore told the Associated Press that he “had no plans to seek the Presidency in 2008.” His words were eerily reminiscent of a quote from another former Vice President, Richard Nixon, who told the same Associated Press in November of 1965 that he “had no plans to seek the Presidency in 1968.”
posted by caddis at 9:57 AM PST - 209 comments

Teddy: A sketching interface for 3D freeform design (in Java). Noodle around with the online applet (see the tutorial for instructions; there's also a demo in .avi format), or download the program so you can save your creations. An even niftier upgrade is available, SmoothTeddy (.avi demo), but SmoothTeddy doesn't have an online version to play with.
posted by Gator at 9:21 AM PST - 11 comments

Well over 100 universities around the world have set up searchable digital repositories to make available journal articles, datasets, theses and other academic materials using the DSpace repository system. DSpace at MIT alone hosts over 11,000 theses. Also, the software running the sites is freely available and open source.
posted by cog_nate at 9:04 AM PST - 12 comments

Kottke ends the micropatron experiment. After a year (and $39,900), Jason decides that loafing around collecting paypal payments is just too much work.
posted by crunchland at 8:59 AM PST - 149 comments

Oooh, I want one. Or all of them. Vintage high-tech, from the good folks at Worth1000. (Great idea, but I feel like even more could be done with this meme. Pointers?) [Via BoingBoing.]
posted by digaman at 8:34 AM PST - 21 comments

Neutral Milk Hotel demos, videos, and bootlegs. Brainchild of enigmatic, now-reclusive singer/songwriter Jeff Mangum (not Magnum!), the "fuzz-folk" project known as Neutral Milk Hotel began and ended in the 90s and only released two LPs, but is still held as a touchstone by many indie rock critics. More live recordings can be found at the site for Elephant 6, the collective which included NMH and other bands like Beulah, Circulatory System, Elf Power, and Apples in Stereo. The complete discography and more MP3s. Some lyrics. (Previously)
posted by ludwig_van at 7:51 AM PST - 62 comments

Remember flash mobs? Two and a half years later, the inventor, the mysterious "Bill," reveals himself as.... an editor at Harper's, aka the Metafilter of the print world. He unmasks himself in a mammoth rumination on hipster culture, an attack on flash-mob cooptation, and a paean to Stanley Milgram. Harper's is serializing the essay on its website; the first part is up here.
posted by oldleada at 7:37 AM PST - 41 comments

The Abrigded King James Version
And the LORD Capital said unto the socialist, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
Hope you enjoy!
posted by nofundy at 7:07 AM PST - 11 comments

Say "cheese" — stinky, expensive, overprocessed American cheese. The venerable Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has revealed its set design for the Seventy-Eighth Academy Awards® Telecast. This year's edition is described as "an homage to old movie theaters" by designer Roy Christopher. "It's a no-holds-barred return to classic Hollywood glamour." Others may beg to differ.
posted by rob511 at 2:51 AM PST - 56 comments

TEAMS, The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages, in association with the University of Rochester, has long made available an impressive collection of medieval English texts in electronic format. More Middle English texts are available at the University of Michigan's Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, UVa's Middle English Collection, and Project Gutenberg's Middle English section.
posted by bcveen at 12:30 AM PST - 15 comments

Pugs in hats.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 12:03 AM PST - 46 comments

Remember when PayPal was just for beaming money from one Palm to another? NYTimes covers Y Combinator, and points out one of their projects, TextPayMe.com, which is trying to repeat PayPal's feat but on your cell phone with text messages. For those interested: Wired coverage from last week.
posted by pwb503 at 8:48 PM PST - 27 comments

Mad Mullah Rave Party Sensation. via The Religious Policeman.
posted by semmi at 8:10 PM PST - 46 comments

'Dear Elders' Dispense Advice Online

The Elder Wisdom Circle was founded on the premise that people over 60 y.o. have wisdom to impart. Its members nationwide offer advice to thousands who e-mail the group's Web site.

posted by ericb at 7:45 PM PST - 29 comments

The impressive Gimli Glider. Yes, seriously: it can be a glider. An amazing story of a commercial pilot with mad emergency landing skillz.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:27 PM PST - 41 comments

The iTunes Billion Songs Countdown is bringin' out the nrrrrds: they developed a widget, published stats, wrote a Java applet, and even hacked a more accurate counter than Apple's (which by all appearances, seems to be to be rigged!)
posted by eener at 6:59 PM PST - 22 comments

It Only Takes A Second is the name of this 1996 industrial film from Federated Mutual Insurance. Essentially 3 straight minutes of chaotic on the job accidents geared towards terrifying the customers into being more careful (and thus more profitable), it may be my favorite industrial film ever. link goes to embedded QT video
posted by jonson at 4:40 PM PST - 64 comments

The Passion of the Christ 2: Judgement Day. (Let's see... There's a short advert at the beginning and one for X-play at the end. It looks like it uses Macromedia Flash 8, and it's probably NSFW. But it is the director's cut!) Oh yeah, Family Guy did a similar gag recently, too. And no, you can not get two minutes of your life back.
posted by Cyrano at 4:28 PM PST - 31 comments

Why is Ice slippery? You would have thought this would be well defined in 2006. But scientists are still arguing about the key elements. Plus no clear definition of Ice IX...
posted by somnambulist at 4:13 PM PST - 23 comments

Praise "Bob", slack off, lose custody of your child. A Texas woman has lost custody of her son, not even being allowed to write to him, because she was involved in activities of the Church of the Subgenius. Although her son never attended any of the events, which involved fun, nudity, and good old-fashioned blasphemy, a New York judge, James P. Punch, allegedly a "strict catholic", has denied custody of the child Kohl out of anger after seeing videos of the church's devivals and X-days. Rev. Ivan Stang goes into more detail about the situation in alt.slack.
posted by Jimbob at 4:07 PM PST - 97 comments

Jack Hamm Religious Cartoons. Hamm's art instruction books, including Cartooning the Head and Figure, have been widely influential among a generation of illustrators, Simpson's creator Matt Groening among them. Hamm began his cartooning career in the late 1930s and founded "The Jack Hamm Show," one of the first television art programs, which aired in the Dallas, Houston and Waco, Texas, TV markets.
posted by Otis at 3:57 PM PST - 17 comments

No stranger to controversy, Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers steps down from Harvard. Somewhere, the world's smallest violin is playing...
posted by phaedon at 2:03 PM PST - 57 comments

Out along old Route 66 in Northern Arizona is Canyon Diablo. Best known for its large meteor crater, the canyon and its surroundings contain another fantastic story. It begins in the mid 1870’s with a Apache raid on the Navajo that ended in the gruesome death of some 50 Apaches trapped in what is now called “The Apache Death Cave”. The story picks up about 10 years later in 1880 when the Atlantic and Pacific railroad ran out of money at the canyon’s edge. Unable to progress any further a make shift boom town grew up over night. Said to be more dangerous than Tombstone and Dodge City combined, the first sheriff appointed at 3pm was dead by 8pm that same night. The city of Canyon Diablo lasted 10 grizzly years, ending only when the US Army was dispatched to gain control over the murder, theft and prostitution that ran rampant. The story continues in 1920 at the inception of Route 66. Harry E. (Indian) Miller, opens up one of the first and what would become one of the most elaborate Route 66 trading posts/gas station/curio shop/ tourist attractions. Named Two Guns, it was complete with Hopi made buildings, a gas station, a well-lit “Death Cave” , a “zoo” of filled with the local fauna. and lots of colorful characters. In a short time, the roadside stop began to take on what many by that time calling the curse of Canyon Diablo. Shady business deals, fires, maimings, and murder abounded. After several attempts thru the 50’s and 60’s to rebuild ,all that is left is a crumbling, beautiful husk.
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 1:59 PM PST - 28 comments

The Freaky Universe of McDonald's Advertising
posted by anastasiav at 1:23 PM PST - 31 comments

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was gunned down in Harlem. After being shot several times inside the Audubon Ballroom, he was pronounced dead on arrival at Vanderbilt Clinic, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Malcolm sez: "If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country." (from a November 1963 speech in New York City) Then, there's this 1964 speech.
posted by mickeyz at 12:23 PM PST - 57 comments

I'm sorry Mr. Callahan, your surname may offend Muslims. Yahoo! has banned the use of the word Allah in all usernames. These names are still available however. [via]
posted by Mijo Bijo at 11:16 AM PST - 67 comments

"To tell the truth ... I'm sorta surprised they haven't caught me yet," The Washington Post ran an interesting interview with a botmaster, a young man who made serveral thousands of dollars a month installing XXX spyware on machines that he controlled. He installed the software on the machines of people he did not know by hacking into them remotely. The lenghty article included a partial photo of the botmaster along with vauge descriptions of the small midwestern town where the man lives, and was published with the understanding that the man's identity would be kept secret. Someone should have told that to the person that manages photos at the Washington Post. An estute reader over at Slashdot was able to locate some extra information stored in the picture's metadata including the photographer and the location the picture was taken, Roland, Oklahoma, a town of less than 3000 people. Whoops.
posted by daHIFI at 9:44 AM PST - 54 comments

Takeshi no Chousenjou may be the hardest videogame ever written. With a title screen warning that it was "created by somebody who hates videogames" (actually writer/actor/director/comedian Takeshi "Beat" Kitano) "Takeshi's Challenge" forces gamers to endure such tasks as singing karaoke for an uninterrupted hour and holding a single button for four straight hours. Players who endure to the end are rewarded by having to hit the final boss 20,000 times. If you don't speak the language, you might be able to enjoy the game as a Japanese precursor to Grand Theft Auto, but those who understand it more fully see it as "a videogame that riffs on human disappointment for as many hours as the player is willing to search for redemption." Warning: last link contains possible spoilers for Mother 2 and some of the Metal Gear Solid games.
posted by yankeefog at 9:15 AM PST - 31 comments

Retirement village VS permanent residence on a cruise ship. Crazy? Not so fast! Bea Muller has been doing it for years (and not on just any ship, mind you). It's not a hoax.
posted by spock at 9:15 AM PST - 29 comments

Nature's Control: Hired Thugs Bugs to police your garden. "If desired, you can keep ladybug adults from flying by "gluing" their wings shut, temporarily, with a sugar-water solution. Half water and half sugared pop (Coke, Pepsi, etc.), in a spray bottle, works fine."
posted by Gator at 9:10 AM PST - 13 comments

They come to life playing out scenarios which are in many ways less ridiculous than the reality of the politics they parody. [via]
posted by If I Had An Anus at 8:50 AM PST - 2 comments

We have all seen lots of YouTube and Google Video but have you ever seen a woman breast feed a cat? (nsfw) Or a 500 KV electrical discharge? wonder what the daily show take on social networking is? check out videosift, a digg like collaborative blog for trolling up the best/weirdest? in video on the web. [via mefi projects]
posted by sourbrew at 8:48 AM PST - 36 comments

Religious use of ayahuasca ruled lawful in U.S.
posted by xowie at 8:02 AM PST - 77 comments

OSX has a security bug that can be triggered simply by visiting a web page in safari There is an example of the exploit here, to see if your machine is affected. You should probably use firefox until a patch is released.
posted by delmoi at 8:00 AM PST - 64 comments

Going Down the Crooked Road. Explore the sights and sounds of Virginia's Heritage Music Trail.
posted by srboisvert at 7:04 AM PST - 6 comments

Berlusconi allies with Italian fascists. Declaring the opposition party as a threat to democracy, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi did the obvious thing... he allied with the fascists. After all, what did they ever do to harm anyone? They look like a friendly, patriotic group. Cleancut... and they sound kinda cheery too. Their websites feature familiar faces. I'm sure the knifings and the bombings -- yes, plural -- were just a matter of youthful overexuberance. So, where's Bush on this issue?
posted by insomnia_lj at 6:15 AM PST - 64 comments

If indeed information technology is seeping out of cyberspace at a rate that will soon immerse us in a world of smart furniture and spime wranglers, I think we have bigger things to worry about than disambiguating the terminology (user experience and opting out come to mind). MeFi's own Adam Greenfield weighs in with his first book, Everyware.
posted by mikepop at 5:24 AM PST - 2 comments

The Immortal Game between Anderssen and Kieseritzsky is, by some, "considered to be perhaps the most entertaining game of chess ever played". Now, 155 years later, you can enjoy the interactive version, the many many commentaries , and even buy the movie.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 5:01 AM PST - 20 comments

Microsoft recently made a change to the license agreement saying that a new motherboard is equal to a new computer, hence you need to purchase a new Windows license. Here is what Microsoft has to say:

“An upgrade of the motherboard is considered to result in a “new personal computer” to which Microsoft® OEM operating system software cannot be transferred from another computer. If the motherboard is upgraded or replaced for reasons other than a defect, then a new computer has been created and the license of new operating system software is required.”

The reason Microsoft gave for this term is that “Microsoft needed to have one base component “left standing” that would still define that original PC. Since the motherboard contains the CPU and is the “heart and soul” of the PC, when the motherboard is replaced (for reasons other than defect) a new PC is essentially created.” Microsoft sent a memo to its OEM partners asking them to enforce this new policy, every time they upgrade a computer for a client.
posted by zouhair at 3:17 AM PST - 93 comments

Remains of guru's disciple identified Shortly after the 1998 death of "A Separate Reality" guru Carlos Castaneda, whose peyote-fueled sorceric journeys into the Mexican desert captured the imagination of a generation in the 1970s, five of his closest disciples made out their wills, disconnected their telephones, and disappeared into thin air. via
posted by hortense at 11:57 PM PST - 46 comments

45King Perhaps you'll remember his 1-900 song that Ed Lover used to (and still apparently does) shake his ass to. Turns out the guy -- 45 King -- has been producing into the modern age. The interface runs the gamut from "OK" to "barely passes", though doesn't overly interfere with your download and enjoyment of beats, loops and YES!!! More beats! • Caution: may make noise come out your speakers • please enjoy [with help from the good folks at 32944...]
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:18 PM PST - 7 comments

Weird buildings.
posted by angrybeaver at 9:17 PM PST - 63 comments

Kruschen Salts and Camus' Stranger: "A bit later, for want of anything better to do, I (Mersault) picked up an old newspaper that was lying on the floor and read it. There was an advertisement of Kruschen Salts and I cut it out and pasted it into an album where I keep things that amuse me in the papers." Dave Till has collected some other advertisements that Meursault might like.
posted by eighth_excerpt at 8:46 PM PST - 7 comments

Bob Parsons of Go Daddy warns about the proposed contract between VeriSign and ICANN, allowing VeriSign a permanent monopoly on .COM and price increases without regulation.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 7:18 PM PST - 29 comments

The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft: A searchable database of people accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736. Currently, 3,837 people have been identified, 3,212 by name. 113 cases involved fairies, 74 had a known political or property motive, 70 involved some aspect of "white magic". This is the real, and utterly fascinating, history of a hysteria that griped a country and a continent for more than a century. Religion, folk belief, fear and local relations all played out in witchhunts - and we still do not really understand why, why they started or why they ended. Projects like this one are invaluable to help us begin. (Co-developed by mefite Flitcraft)
posted by jb at 5:01 PM PST - 16 comments

Mocan and Tekin aren't sure why criminals tend to be ugly. Is it that ugly people make less money? Is it that they are given lower grades? Is it that people are just mean to them and they hate the world? Or does their asymmetry hint at psychological imperfections like criminal tendencies? Scientist have long suspected a connection between crime and physiognomy.
posted by missbossy at 4:58 PM PST - 57 comments

While it may not be the most aesthetically pleasing image ever created using only MS Paint, the Ultimate MS Paint image does seem like it took the most effort. Background on how the image was created, and pro-active retort by the artist to several of the comments that will be made in this thread regardless.
posted by jonson at 4:39 PM PST - 54 comments

Pete Doherty and the KLF Could Pete Doherty be a fraud perpetuated by KLF - He's really a Buddy Holly impersonator!
posted by kurtrudder at 4:35 PM PST - 35 comments

[Newsfilter] In mid-November last year, David Irving, arguably the world's foremost holocaust-denier (Mel Gibson's dad comes a close second), was arrested in Austria for doing exactly that (previously discussed here). Today he was jailed for it. Should we (read; Austria) be jailing people for their views, however reprehensible or otherwise incorrect they might be? Or is it justifiable in some cases?
posted by Effigy2000 at 2:49 PM PST - 283 comments

Canada's bizarre olympic history - we can be a nation of whiners, but sometimes whiners win (or win, place and show), even forty years later. It doesn't work every time, but there's still time...
posted by Chuckles at 1:31 PM PST - 17 comments

Escape to Romance Here's a blogmeister that runs a romantic Powerball and offers the following: "Romantic_atlanta_2 Are you a member of the Mile High Club? Would you like a free membership? Here is your chance to make your fantasy a reality with the amorous, single webmaster of Grow-a-Brain and the southern hospitality of the folks at Mile High Atlanta." Do you qualify?
posted by Postroad at 1:29 PM PST - 27 comments

The Sartorialist takes a look at fashion trends as seen on the streets of New York City. [via Gothamist]
posted by riffola at 1:06 PM PST - 35 comments

A Master Watchmaker's Notebook. Fascinating, all of it.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:14 PM PST - 27 comments

What song was #1 (in the U.S.) on the day you were born? On my b'day, it was "Stuck on You" by Elvis the Pelvis
posted by mickeyz at 11:39 AM PST - 243 comments

Babies, Footsies, Holdies. Carry, Foul, Slam. Tea Parties, Fairbacks, Cherry Bombs. Double Taps, Underhand, Blackjack. Bitch Serving, Jedi, Extreme. Chicken Drops, Peppermint Sticks, Kamikazes. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. Land Mines, Demons, Black Magic.
posted by bardic at 11:11 AM PST - 18 comments

It's a hard life for Kazakh opposition leaders. Even if you didn't have to worry about the government all up in your grill, or the police picking on your relatives, there would still be people (totally unrelated to the government, of course) trying to kill you over business disputes, or something. No wonder the last guy killed himself.
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:37 AM PST - 8 comments

Tammy NYP Was the #1 search today on technorati.com. Who or what does it refer to? A girl named Tammy who attends Nan Yang Polytechnic in Singapore, and who's camera phone was stolen by a "a rival cheerleader, jealous of her popularity" who promptly uploaded a 10 minute video of her having sex. Is Tammy the next dog poop girl? The consequences could be a little worse, as the school may kick her out of school, and the average sentence for an 'unnatural sex act' is one year in jail, according to this moralizing (and oddly worded, but grammatically correct) blog entry.
posted by Paris Hilton at 10:19 AM PST - 78 comments

What is Beauty ? What do you think?
posted by ozomatli at 10:10 AM PST - 39 comments

Kill Bill + Harry Potter = Kill Harry, featuring cameo appearances by Bender the robot, Bruce Campbell, and Zombie Rick James, bitch.
posted by Gator at 8:40 AM PST - 16 comments

"Don't talk to me. Don't speak to me. Stay with me." Three years later, the author of Atlantic Monthly's most popular essay sits down for an interview.
posted by empath at 8:33 AM PST - 111 comments

One Billion Mazes This site contains one billion mazes in high-quality printable PDF format. You may view, print and solve these mazes... and yes, there are exactly one billion mazes!
posted by ajbattrick at 7:21 AM PST - 43 comments

Due to the insanity of the 'cartoon riots' one man takes it upon himself to support Denmark
posted by cdcello at 6:58 AM PST - 59 comments

Laurel Hester, RIP --because she and her partner fought, New Jersey police and fire department employees can now name anyone--not just a spouse--as a beneficiary for pension rights, helping to protect those they love after they're gone. Just one person who made a difference.
posted by amberglow at 6:12 AM PST - 15 comments

Drugs on the Rez. It's a hell of a life going from utter poverty, where your mom gets you drunk so you'll stop complaining about being hungry, to being able to buy your kids toys with $100 accessories and sending them to private schools, to going back to literally not having a quarter to call your dad. In this case, the money came from Canadian oxycontin. It's not just Native Americans who are targeted by the authorities. It's also Indians. There's a pretty good newish book on the subject of black markets, Illicit. Laos' opium market is apparently gone -- in favor of meth and Afghanistan's market is black in name only, so why keep up the facade?
posted by raaka at 4:24 AM PST - 14 comments

Looks like Ricky Gervais (and Steve Merchant and Karl 'I could eat a knob at night' Pilkington) are looking to commercialise on the success of their first series of podcasts. The second series is going to be a pay-for affair via Audible.com. The asking rate is $6.95 for 'at least four' episodes.
posted by pivotal at 11:22 PM PST - 42 comments

Don't take your sexual frustration out on your bass guitar. The Bass Player Cycle of Abuse: 1) Bass player joins band. 2) Bass player resents getting less groupie sex than rest of band. 3) Bass player misdirects their resentment and creates one of these.
posted by basilwhite at 8:45 PM PST - 33 comments

If you ever feel like you just aren't particularly amusing, what you need to do is find a pack of 1 year old quadruplets. Those kids will laugh at anything.
posted by jonson at 4:13 PM PST - 106 comments

Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit company that preserves and sells an amazing variety of heirloom seeds, including seeds for fractal-like romanesco broccoli, all-blue potatoes, near-black tomatoes, and what could well be the most garish veg ever. Nipple fruit, unfortunately, is solely ornamental.
posted by bcveen at 1:29 PM PST - 71 comments

John Kricfalusi GHOFB -- "I make cartoons and play in a band. I like playing in a band because it's actually fun and no one tells you to be lousy on purpose."
posted by LinusMines at 1:11 PM PST - 30 comments

37 million poor hidden in the land of plenty Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now cannot meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in 10 citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening. Are you proud to be an American? (newsfilter - no apologies).
posted by adamvasco at 11:51 AM PST - 255 comments

The Axis of Evil has some competition — in Ohio. The Bush Administration continues to apply pressure to North Korea about its alleged counterfeiting of $100 notes: This Korean story quotes Amb. Alexander Vershbow demanding physical proof that Pyongyang has destroyed its forging equipment. On the other hand, according to the BBC, South Korea's intelligence service doubts the North is counterfeiting, although it may have done so in the past. Meanwhile, on the homefront, a 16-year-old has been fingered as the mastermind of a bogus bill ring operating out of the boy's home in North College Hill, OH. Oddly, the Cincinnati Enquirer article announcing the bust is chock-full of juicy tips for would-be home engravers: rip off old bills rather than new, don't overlook those colored fibers, and set the wash cycle for delicates. Oh, and don't even think about using scissors: it's a sure giveaway!
posted by rob511 at 11:49 AM PST - 15 comments

Attending a show? You will, of course, be on time. You will not talk (or poke your fellow theatergoers). You will not use your cell phone. You will not bring your own food. You will not fight. You will not riot.

Audiences weren't always so sedate. Roman audiences were notoriously drunk. Shakespeare's groundlings were famously rambunctious. Victorian theater were hotbeds of prostitution. Indeed, it isn't until P.T. Barnam opened a lecture hall in his American Museum that "museum" standards of behavior became applied to audiences for live entertainment, and it never completely stuck (see Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford's wonderful Sleazoid Express for fascinating descriptions of the lively audiences found at Times Square's grindhouse theaters). But, for the most part, theater and moviegoing is now a civil, dignified undertaking. How did this happen?

Well, it all started one day in 1849.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:15 AM PST - 26 comments

The Memory of The Netherlands is an extensive digital collection of illustrations, photographs, texts, film and audio fragments from a large variety of Dutch cultural institutions. There are about 50 collections (in english).
posted by peacay at 10:40 AM PST - 7 comments

Vishavjit Singh is a cartoonist who focuses on cartoons describing the aspirations and frustrations of Sikhs. Sikhism, of course, is the world's 5th biggest religion, but somehow still seems to be unknown to the vast majority of the world. Amazingly enough, they are quite often mistaken for muslims (it's like mistaking a jew for a muslim) !!!
posted by lowgfr at 9:52 AM PST - 31 comments

Take One Museum on BBC Four is the Russian Ark of documentaries as expert Paul Rose looks around a museum, with the help of some tour guides in one take over a thirty minute period. I caught the tail end of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum episode and he seemed like a man of great enthusiasm. Much like New York's Museum of Modern Art's podcast official and unofficial, an audio podcast version of the show is available so that a visitor to the actual museum can cover the same ground with the aid of their mp3 player. Excellently, it's the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester next week so I'll definitely be going there again soon to see what this is like.
posted by feelinglistless at 8:53 AM PST - 4 comments

"Q: Is that another car on top?
 A: Yes, it's a VW bug." -- Carthedral. A few more (clearer, daylight) photos here.
posted by Gator at 8:34 AM PST - 26 comments

If you are one of the Good People, you are entitled to the phone number of a homeless, haloed Computer Genius. And even if you're not Good, you can have some free advice about such topics as how to lose weight ("Stop being so LAZY and INCONSIDERATE") and how to overcome "saxual" addiction ("When something in your pants or panties is taking over your life . . . find a hobby you can do instead of sax").
posted by parrot_person at 3:06 AM PST - 19 comments

A lapsed neocon speaks out: The problem with neoconservatism's agenda lies not in its ends, which are as American as apple pie, but rather in the overmilitarized means by which it has sought to accomplish them.... After the fall of the Soviet Union, various neoconservative authors like Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol and Robert Kagan suggested that the United States would use its margin of power to exert a kind of "benevolent hegemony" over the rest of the world, fixing problems like rogue states with W.M.D., human rights abuses and terrorist threats as they came up. Writing before the Iraq war, Kristol and Kagan considered whether this posture would provoke resistance from the rest of the world, and concluded, "It is precisely because American foreign policy is infused with an unusually high degree of morality that other nations find they have less to fear from its otherwise daunting power." ... We are fighting hot counterinsurgency wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and against the international jihadist movement, wars in which we need to prevail. But "war" is the wrong metaphor for the broader struggle, since wars are fought at full intensity and have clear beginnings and endings. Meeting the jihadist challenge is more of a "long, twilight struggle" whose core is not a military campaign but a political contest for the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims around the world.
posted by caddis at 10:43 PM PST - 56 comments

When good samaritans go bad, and find lost property they'd rather keep, they make up excuses like "but now he's been using it for a week and he really loves it and we can't bear to take it from him" and "we had to spend a lot of money to get a charger and a memory card". Stay tuned for vigilante justice.
posted by pivotal at 10:01 PM PST - 129 comments

I am stuck on The Borowitz Report and The Onion when it comes to favorite regularly updated satire on the Internet. I also enjoy the Slate cartoons, the JibJab animated cartoons, and Mark Fiore's flash. There is also the Specious Report, and the very meta SatireSearch. I am sure that I am still missing some good satire. MeFi'ers, where do you go for your satire?
posted by Adamchik at 8:08 PM PST - 35 comments

Buy an ad, and Aric posts a funny photo of himself and your product. Another entry in the "million dollar homepage" series of viral-advertising-as-content sites. [via mefi projects]
posted by brownpau at 7:15 PM PST - 21 comments

The Chittagong ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh disassemble half of the world's supertankers. Shipbreaking, though profitable, is not particularly safe for either the workers in the shipyard or the surrounding environment. It does, however, make for some spectacular pictures. Also, pinpoint the location of the shipyard and explore via satellite with Google Earth.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 3:04 PM PST - 54 comments

"He was someone who acted out our psyches ... He somehow got into the shadows inside our bodies; he was able to nail down some of our secret fears and put them on-screen... the history of Lon Chaney is the history of unrequited loves. He brings that part of you out into the open, because you fear that you are not loved, you fear that you never will be loved, you fear there is some part of you that's grotesque, that the world will turn away from."
A Valentine for Lon Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces. (BugMeNot for the first link; more inside)
posted by matteo at 12:48 PM PST - 14 comments

Back to the Bowery: The End of McGurk's Suicide Hall is a photographic walking tour of the Bowery as it is today. Don't miss The Sunshine Hotel (the last of the flophouses) or the photo of the gen-yoo-ine Bowery rat.
posted by kalimac at 12:28 PM PST - 16 comments

Olympicsfilter: American skier biffs hard. How about the rest of the team? Kwan. Miller. Johnny Weir. But props to Shani Davis, the first African American to win an individual gold, and of course, plucky Norway, currently the medal leader. Among other losers: NBC.
posted by bardic at 11:33 AM PST - 96 comments

"You will be naked within 20 minutes of the kids being in bed…You are to do everything that is requested or expected of you, if you do not, you are considered noncompliant." – from Travis Frey's "Contract of Wifely Expectations" which also includes detailed instructions what panties she can wear, what sex acts she must perform, how often and where she must shave and how she can earn "good behavior days." Frey, 33, of Iowa, has been charged with kidnapping his wife.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:07 AM PST - 344 comments

The top-rated Greek news channel is Alpha TV's. Tonight's second-lead story: outrage and disgust over babycage.net, a quite obvious web hoax that is even listed as one on Open Directory (and which took this Googling non-journalist about 60 seconds to discover). The breathless commentary on this "instance of American self-indulgence"? how this is a first step towards a new Orwellian society --ironic considering they are spreading disinformation through mass-media, just like Mr. Orwell predicted...
posted by costas at 10:59 AM PST - 17 comments

I love beer mats. Those with a low tolerance for slow-loading pages with too many graphics on them - or pages that require horizontal scrolling need not click. Other tegestology pages. I had no idea.
posted by spock at 10:53 AM PST - 6 comments

The Book of Ralph. "A True Graphic Novel On Ralph Reed" written by Doug Monroe from Atlanta's Creative Loafing, drawn by Josh Latta of CuteGirlDemographics, and based entirely on potent quotables from Mr Reed himself.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:55 AM PST - 6 comments

eBay hilarity: "THIS VEHICLE HAS COME TO US VIA AN INSURANCE COMPANY, IT HAS TRAVELLED 32,000 MILES AND IS ONE NOT VERY HAPPY OWNER FROM NEW. MUST TELL STORY:" (via)
posted by NekulturnY at 7:08 AM PST - 40 comments

There is a new question asking website. It is powered by humans via the Mechanical Turk program. Said the Gramophone has a bit of fun with it.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 6:07 AM PST - 15 comments

NewsFilter: I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
posted by I Love Tacos at 2:08 AM PST - 151 comments

The punkiest Monkey that ever popped from an egg on a mountain top, the one and only Monkey from cult Japanese TV series Monkey Magic, is finally coming back to our TV screens after a 30 year absence. Monkey will be played in the new series by Shingo Katori and even with blonde hair, in the role of Monkey he will no doubt tease the Gods and everyone and, presumably, have some fun while he's at it.
posted by Effigy2000 at 1:20 AM PST - 28 comments

Dale Begg-Smith is being called the "golden boy of the slopes" by the Australian media after winning gold in the Turin Winter Games. However, when asked about his business, which has reportedly earned him millions of dollars and enabled him to buy a Lamborghini, Begg-Smith became "..vague about its nature." "It's complicated," he said. "We make the technology for companies to monitor their online advertising campaigns." What is emerging now is that Begg-Smith's companies, AdsCPM and CPM Media, are linked to home page hijacking, spyware, porn redirectors, and other unsavory internet practices. A quick WHOIS of AdsCPM.com reveals that the same IP address is shared with porn domain names and websites that are notorious for distributing spyware. Bloggers using the Wayback machine have turned up similar information. Is he a willing spyware merchant who has now reluctantly been bought to our attention, or a legitimate internet entrepreneur?
posted by davem at 11:47 PM PST - 39 comments

Battle plans for Iran... resonates with the sad ring of real possibility.
posted by Muirwylde at 11:08 PM PST - 63 comments

Clik. Clak. (embedded Quicktime video.) Short animated film featuring little robots who make their own language using Rube Goldberg contraptions.
posted by jann at 10:22 PM PST - 28 comments

Mario Adventure - SMB3 hacked into an entirely new high-quality game
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 8:37 PM PST - 19 comments

The First Few Microseconds of an Atomic Blast. 3 photos of the early stages of an above-ground atomic test. I was aware of the work of high-speed photographer Harold Edgarton but I'd never seen these until today.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:34 PM PST - 31 comments

Kicking the Pigeon: On Sunday, April 13, 2003, at about 5:00 p.m., Diane Bond, a 48 year-old mother of three, stepped out of her eighth floor apartment in 3651 South Federal, the last remaining high-rise at the Stateway Gardens public housing development, and encountered three white men. Although not in uniform, they were immediately recognizable by their postures, body language, and bulletproof vests as police officers. Bond gave me the following account of what happened next.

“Where do you live at?” one of the officers asked. He had a round face and closely cropped hair. Bond later identified him as Christ Savickas.

“Right there,” she pointed to her door.

He put his gun to her right temple and snatched her keys from her hand.
posted by jennyb at 7:02 PM PST - 48 comments

Eighteenth Century E-Texts, a sub-branch of Eighteenth Century Resources, maintained by Jack Lynch, of Rutgers.
posted by mwhybark at 6:11 PM PST - 17 comments

Monk-e-mail If you want to send a message, this is....unique.
posted by konolia at 5:20 PM PST - 47 comments

Flea Circus! It's just like Lemmings! Only tinier! And faster! And you can only make three moves: Block, ramp, and other ramp! (java)
posted by Gator at 4:32 PM PST - 11 comments

A monstrous discovery suggests that viruses, long regarded as lowly evolutionary latecomers, may have been the precursors of all life on Earth. "We haven't even begun to scratch the surface. The numbers are mind-boggling. If you put every virus particle on Earth together in a row, they would form a line 10 million light-years long. People, even most biologists, don't have a clue. The general public thinks genetic diversity is us and birds and plants and animals and that viruses are just HIV and the flu. But most of the genetic material on this planet is viruses. No question about it. They and their ability to interact with organisms and move genetic material around are the major players in driving speciation, in determining how organisms even become what they are."
posted by five fresh fish at 3:57 PM PST - 60 comments

Pillow Fight Club went off with nary a hitch in San Francisco on Valentines Day with over 1,000 people in attendance. Pictures at laughing squid, flickr, video, and previous thread.
posted by sourbrew at 3:33 PM PST - 16 comments

HotOlympians.com has been shut down by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

The domain name hotolympians.com is infringing on federal trademarks. When I registered the domain name, I did some research on olympic trademarks and came to understand... that "olympic" was trademarked and "olympians" was not. I was wrong. And thus we will continue publishing under a new domain name which will be up shortly...

When asked why a local newspaper could publish a feature of an athlete right next to an advertisement, I was told that we weren't a news operation. I was told that hotolympians.com jeapordized American athlete's right to participate in the games.
posted by Tin Man at 3:09 PM PST - 35 comments

Newsfilter: H.R. 4694 - Let the People Decide Clean Campaign Act. Introduced by Representative David Obey (D-WI), this act seems to be intended as campaign finance reform, but some suggest that it "eliminates any hope of reasonable, legitimate competition being raised by any third or independent party in the future." The Libertarians and The Green Party are among those that see this act as anti-American.
posted by Joey Michaels at 2:58 PM PST - 8 comments

Creative Americans: The Carl Van Vechten Photographs Collection at the Library of Congress consists of 1,395 photographs taken by American photographer Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) between 1932 and 1964. The bulk of the collection consists of portrait photographs of celebrities, including many figures from the Harlem Renaissance. Portraits include those of Tallulah Bankhead, Salvador Dali, Truman Capote, Dizzy Gillespie, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Eartha Kitt, and Joe Louis. They are all available in medium or high resolution JPEG’s or uncompressed archival TIFF versions.
posted by ND¢ at 12:39 PM PST - 10 comments

NPS PEPC is the National Park Service Planning, Environment and Public Comment website. From the site: ".. provides access to current plans, environmental impact analyses, and related documents on public review. Users of the site can submit comments for documents available for public review."

A good place to start might be this one, in which the NPS "is proposing to update the policies that guide the management of the national park system." Comment period closes tomorrow.
posted by the Real Dan at 12:30 PM PST - 2 comments

Canons of Construction and the Elusive Quest for Neutral Reasoning. The Canons are a tool Courts use to interpret statutes and consist of things just as ejusdem generis, noscitur a sociis, and wxpressio unius est exclusio alterius. The usefulness of the Canons was famously called into question by Karl Llewellyn in an influential law review article. Still today, the Canons of Construction have influential support, but some people disagree with their utility. Some have even tried to apply them in other areas.
posted by dios at 12:09 PM PST - 20 comments

Fan fiction in motion: Cherub, the Vampire with Bunny Slippers is the latest "internet video series" following several other parodies, no-budget home movies and web-only serials inspired by Joss Whedon works (or the sudden lack thereof). Released every Friday and in its second episode, Cherub (trailer) is part comedy, part cheeseball community theater and based on the WB series Angel. And there are others in the works.
posted by nev at 11:59 AM PST - 5 comments

Oprheus, is said to be the founder of The Orphic Mysteries, or Orphism. While in school most students are taught the Theogony of Hesiod, but as in most religions, a differing account existed: The Orphic Theogony, summarized somewhat in this short video (nsfw? abstract nudity). The Orphic Reform to the Dionysian Mysteries included vegetarianism, abstention from sex, and restraint from eating eggs and beans — which came to be known as the Orphikos bios, or "Orphic way of life". Initiation into the Mystery school was needed to teach the Road to the Lower World, through Bone Tablets and papyrus remnants of Orphic Hymns. The Orphic Mystery has been seen as very similar to other religions. (scroll about 2/3 down the page or search for Orphics).
posted by ozomatli at 11:57 AM PST - 7 comments

Starting a new job at the big law firm? Make sure you read this coloring book for lawyers. Need a little background material for your next legal discussion? Bone up with Learning About the Law, Learning More About the Law, and Learning About Judges (also available in Spanish). For law enforcement information, try Law & Order, an Adventure to Color. [most links pdf]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:48 AM PST - 18 comments

"How are EPA scientists supposed to engage in cutting edge research when they cannot find what the agency has already done?" Good question. As noted in an earlier post, the EPA is one of the agencies that is facing cuts to finance BushCo's America. How? By shutting down its network of libraries and its electronic catalogue.
posted by 327.ca at 11:48 AM PST - 16 comments

It wouldn't make sense if I explained it. Dogs go backwards slowly in Vitalic video. Vitalic 's last video was posted here, but this is better. (Vitalic is the last electronic artist I can remember being excited to find out more about. His Bjork remix, streamable though his site, is amazing).
posted by klangklangston at 11:46 AM PST - 24 comments

"They are demanding that I kill the children of my people with my own hands"
On October 4, 1939, a few days after Warsaw's surrender to the Nazis, Adam Czerniaków was made head of the 24 member Judenrat, the Jewish Council (write "Czerniakow" in the linked page's search box) responsible for implementing German orders in the Jewish community (interactive map of the Warsaw ghetto). On July 22, 1942 -- Tisha B'Av, the "saddest day in Jewish history" -- the Judenrat received instructions that all Warsaw Jews were to be deported to the East (exceptions were to be made for Jews working in German factories, Jewish hospital staff, members of the Judenrat and their families, and members of the Jewish police force and their families. Czerniaków tried to convince the Germans at least not to deport the Jewish orphans). Czerniaków kept a diary from September 6, 1939, until the day of his death. It was published in 1979 in the English language as the "The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniaków: Prelude to Doom", edited by one of the most prominent Holocaust scholars, Raul Hilberg. More inside.
posted by matteo at 11:22 AM PST - 23 comments

7000 frames per second Newscientist article, with links to the movies. "Atmospheric 'sprites' captured in explosive detail ... by researchers using an ultra-high-speed camera. "The best images yet of the flashes – which resemble a giant undulating jellyfish with its tentacles falling from a halo of light – have allowed the team to pick apart their structure and mechanics. "
posted by hank at 11:04 AM PST - 22 comments

That thing called love. "National Geographic Photographer Jodi Cobb scoured the globe to document how people define love and how it fits into their lives." Some great photos and interesting commentary.
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:12 AM PST - 17 comments

The Bull Moose likes the idea of reducing abortions by 95% in 10 years. A group of largely pro-life Democrats have banded together to "put aside the debate on the legality of abortion" and focus on how to greatly reduce the number of abortions in America. Is this an example of Democrats challenging Republicans to put their money where their pro-life principles are? Or, because the initiative "bans late-term abortions and requires parental-notification laws," is this another example of America's continuing drift to the right?
posted by billysumday at 9:24 AM PST - 147 comments

The sad aftermath of the Rwanda genocide.
posted by semmi at 9:14 AM PST - 4 comments

2-D Katamari Damacy. Flash friday.
posted by empath at 8:58 AM PST - 60 comments

Lazy Monday, a west coast response to SNL's "Lazy Sunday" video, is the best, but not the only fan followup. The midwest is represented by Lazy Muncie, and for a surprisingly well done version with 11 year olds lipsyncing to the original, there is Lazy 11-year-old Sunday.
posted by centerpunch at 8:46 AM PST - 44 comments

Amal Graafstra has implanted two rfid chips into his hands to permit himself keyless access to his computer, car and home. He's also written a book about the experience and the various rfid "toys" he's devised. This Valentine's Day, he and his girlfriend expressed a "modern declaration of their affection for each other, with implanted electronic chips that allow them unfettered access to each other's lives". Interested in something similar? The company Amal used is selling a kit. Though they don't actually recommend it for use with medical implants. So, cool, crazy or inevitable?
posted by darkstar at 8:10 AM PST - 21 comments

Web2.0 hits the skids. Someone has finally taken the Web2.0 trend to its logical conclusion. Good luck to him, I say. My only question - why didn't 37signals think of it first?
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 7:49 AM PST - 61 comments

Let's go quail hunting. (flash) Don't drink too much. We all had a good laugh over the Dick Cheney Quail Hunting game (Deadeye Dick sure is quite a shooter), but here you actually get to shoot some quail. (my apologies to PETA and Harry Whittington) Sorry, but this will only waste about five minutes of your time this Friday.
posted by caddis at 7:42 AM PST - 16 comments

The White House Office of Management and Budget has published a rundown on all federal programs called ExpectMore.gov, rating them as either "Performing" or "Not Peforming." (See Previous discussion on programs slated for budget cuts , in which some wondered about the analysis behind the cuts -- this is it.) 72% of all programs are rated Performing (of which 15% are Effective, 29% are Moderately Effective, and 28% are Adequate. 28% are rated Not Performing, but of these only 4% are Ineffective -- the other 24% are rated Results Not Demonstrated because of a lack of established goals or lack of collected data. Under each rating you can find all the programs in the category and drill down to details on the assessment For example, leading the "Ineffective" list is Even Start, a DOEducation program that is supposed to "the cycle of poverty and illiteracy for low-income families." But OMB says that three major studies of the program failed to show it was having any impact. Ditto AmeriCorps NCCC and the Oil Technology Program (it hasn't led to any new reserves being found). In case you are wondering, both the Dept. of Homeland Security's Domestic Icebreaking Program and its Biological Countemeasures program are considered Effective.
posted by beagle at 6:53 AM PST - 28 comments

The Getty Address is a glitch opera about Don Henley by Dirty Projectors, released on Western Vinyl in April 2005. Vs. Anna Films is turning the audio opera into an epic animated film .

One of those things you stumble upon online that makes sifting through contentless sites worthwhile.....Touring starts next month and we'll definitely be making the trek to Baltimore for this ! Happy Friday Metafilter.
posted by shimmerglimpse at 6:28 AM PST - 7 comments

Seen anyone on Google Earth lately?
posted by divabat at 6:09 AM PST - 33 comments

The Wiki History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less [via]
posted by moonbird at 5:55 AM PST - 14 comments

2005 Washington State 10 largest agricultural commodities: (1) Apples, (2) Milk, (3) Wheat, (4) Potatoes, (5) Cattle and calves, (6) Hay, (7) Nursery and greenhouse products, (8) Marijuana, (9) Cherries, (10) Onions.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:37 AM PST - 24 comments

Writer Merrill Markoe proposes a novel solution to the issue of having our elected officials turn out to be little more than political figureheads for corporate special interests; why not allow the corporations to run for office directly?
posted by jonson at 11:02 PM PST - 21 comments

"Oops. Now his master boot record started with 'ATDT' and the university modem pool phone number. I think he implemented permission checking the following day." Linus Torvald's former officemate shares his lighthearted recollections about the creation — and creator — of Linux.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 10:39 PM PST - 7 comments

What makes an official executioner? Is it obsession with the tools of death? Does it run in the family? Is it a religious duty? Happenstance? A good way to test your sword? Whatever the reason, one wonders what it takes to make a successful executioner and what it would be like to walk in their shoes. Sometimes there is a terrible profundity in their final act.
posted by Falconetti at 10:04 PM PST - 27 comments

The Value of Algebra: "Gabriela, sooner or later someone's going to tell you that algebra teaches reasoning. This is a lie propagated by, among others, algebra teachers."
posted by daksya at 9:56 PM PST - 187 comments

Just wandering through the streets of Naples. (make sure to peruse each link as each has more to be seen!)
posted by snsranch at 8:33 PM PST - 9 comments

In apartheid South Africa, "We were the first blacks to go everywhere, that was the power of our music." Despite dozens of album credits, two Grammys and the long list of major artists they've performed with, their proudest accomplishment may be singing at President Mandella's inauguration and being told "Your music gave me hope when I was in prison." Ladysmith Black Mambazo has been making a difference with their traditional Zulu Isicathamiya music for over 40 years. Listen.[popup w/audio]
posted by raedyn at 7:25 PM PST - 11 comments

Sine-Off is the first brand of cold, flu and sinus congestion medicine to completely reformulate and remove pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient needed to make Crystal Meth.
posted by ijoshua at 6:17 PM PST - 99 comments

The Office of Human Radiation Experiments , established in March 1994, leads the Department of Energy's efforts to tell the agency's Cold War story of radiation research using human subjects. We have undertaken an intensive effort to identify and catalog relevant historical documents from DOE's 3.2 million cubic feet of records scattered across the country. Internet access to these resources is a key part of making DOE more open and responsive to the American public.
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 6:01 PM PST - 7 comments

Himmapan.com features illustrations and photos of artistic depictions of the creatures of the legendary Himmapan (or Himapan/Himaphan) Forest of the Himalayas. Fantastic chimeras of Asian mythology.
posted by Gator at 4:28 PM PST - 7 comments

Children review classic games- some more. Back in November '03, 1up.com rounded up some kids from the 8-12 age range and had them play video and arcade games from the 70's and 80's, including Pong, Donkey Kong, and Tetris. The resulting commentary was mostly along the lines of "Tim: They could've just as easily called this game anything—Baseball, Bowling, Escape From the Monsters. EGM: Did you score? Kirk: I bumped into a dot." In December 2004 they brought them back to review Mike Tyson's Punch-Out and the 1983 Arcade version of Star Wars, among others. "EGM: What do those TIE Fighters look like? ...Are they scary? Anthony: No. It feels like they're trying to give me flowers."
posted by Meredith at 4:22 PM PST - 43 comments

The RIAA would like to remind you that copying purchased music to your iPod is illegal without first gaining permission from the copyright holder. Thank you.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 2:12 PM PST - 86 comments

Back when President Bush declared a state of emergency, then did it again, and people were wondering Could Terrorism Result In A Constitutional Dictator? I was reminded of the UN invasion paranoia under Clinton and Senate Report 93-549, written in 1973, which said "Since March 9, 1933, the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency." and the question was have we been living in a state of National Emergency for over six decades? Back then it was easy to write off with the tinfoil hat crowd. But it seems throughout the nation's history, presidents have in fact been using executive orders on "emergencies" to circumvent the Constitution's division of power.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:11 PM PST - 21 comments

"Thank you for the refresher course on contracts. This is not a bar exam question."
'bla bla bla."
posted by orthogonality at 1:54 PM PST - 85 comments

LED Throwies (QT) A simple combination of lithium battery, diffused LED, strong magnet and a little tape. Developed by the Graffiti Research Lab division of the Eyebeam R&D OpenLab, full instructions are posted and take only a few minutes to follow.
posted by cali at 1:06 PM PST - 51 comments

"The Korean Saving Private Ryan," or Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (2004). Reviews. Plot synopsis (spoilers). Box Office: Over 20% of South Korea saw this film.
posted by bardic at 1:03 PM PST - 34 comments

Remembrance on the Island: The enduring legacy of the Jewish-Cuban diaspora, and the existence of the 1,500 Jews that still remain in Cuba.
posted by naxosaxur at 12:57 PM PST - 12 comments

We all know the Nazis picked, and ruined, a perfectly good basic geometric symbol. But what about other symbols of fascism? Not as well known, not as demonized, but interting for students of symbolism.

Oldest, and among the most interesting and enduringly popular, is the fasces, a bundle of sticks wrapped around an axe, from which fascism gets its name. It's pretty rare to see swastikas in public nowadays -- they're so associated with the Nazis that they were universally stripped off American sports jerseys, soda pop promoting watch fobs, and first ladies. And yet, in the United States, fasces can still be found everywhere: medals of honor, the doors to the Nebraska Supreme Court, even behind the president as he speaks at the U.S. House of Representatives.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:36 PM PST - 45 comments

The SEC has proposed new rules [pdf] to drastically increase requirements on executive compensation disclosure. You can read a summary of the proposal in the SEC's press release, as well as statements from Chairman Cox and Commissioner Atkin. [more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:29 AM PST - 23 comments

A Blinding Flash of the Obvious "The city is too beautiful of a city to be known around the world as the capital of exclusion and intolerance." He was right. Now, a 22-minute film documents the successful fight to repeal an anti-gay ordinance in Cincinnati last year. The campaign was successful because it was honest, and because it included people of faith.
posted by tizzie at 11:20 AM PST - 23 comments

"Symmetry": the basis of Schindler House. (BugMeNot)
posted by matteo at 11:08 AM PST - 6 comments

"[Vitek] Boden had waged a three-month war against the Scada (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system of Maroochy Water Services in Australia beginning in January 2000, which saw millions of gallons of sewage spill into waterways, hotel grounds and canals around the Sunshine Coast suburb." A 2002 Washington Post story on possible al-Qaeda attacks also mentions the Boden case: "Specialists in cyber-terrorism have studied Boden's case because it is the only one known in which someone used a digital control system deliberately to cause harm."
posted by russilwvong at 11:03 AM PST - 3 comments

28 U.S.C 1367 was a controversial and confusing attempt by Congress to codify and address the issue of Supplemental Jurisdiction established in cases such as United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715 (1966), Zahn v. International Paper, Co., 414 U.S. 291 (1973), and Finley v. United States, 490 U.S. 545 (1989). The Supreme Court tried to clarify some of the confusing issues regarding 1367 in a 2005 opinion. Exxon Mobil Corp v. Allapattah Servs., Inc., (2005) (Kennedy, J., writing for the Court) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). The question of whether the Court clarified the issue or made it more complicated remains arguably unanswered.
posted by dios at 10:32 AM PST - 25 comments

Notice: henceforth, the Minister of War shall address the people only through the Ministry of Truth. The story-behind-the-story of the Vice President's hunting mishap is the denigration of the MSM^TM as the traditional proxy of the public interest, says NYU journalism professor and media critic Jay Rosen. "It strikes me that the Corpus Christi Caller-Times is just as valid a news outlet as The New York Times is," Cheney told cherry-picked Fox "News" correspondent Brit Hume yesterday. GOP spokesperson Mary Matalin underlined the point by saying that Cheney considered holding a news conference, but that "would have meant a lot of grandstanding" by reporters; Donald Rumsfeld often goes even farther, claiming that terrorist organizations manipulate the American press directly through "media committees." Judging by the administration's contempt for the Fourth Estate, says Rosen, "The public visibility of the presidency itself is under revision. More of it lies in shadow all the time. Non-communication has become the standard procedure, not a breakdown in practice but the essence of it." Even arch-conservative pundits like George Will are starting to get nervous about the lack of check and balances under the current regime. There's no doubt that the White House press corps seems angrier these days -- but are they missing the bigger stories by focusing their wrath on Scott McClellan's birdshot spin?
posted by digaman at 10:22 AM PST - 34 comments

Blueprint ... Guide the ball to the target by making a path for it to follow. Fourteen levels of perplexity! (Flash)
posted by crunchland at 9:26 AM PST - 35 comments

Red State, Meet Police State --take a big anti-Bush bumper sticker, some DHS cops, and an outspoken and educated federal employee. Put them in Boise, Idaho. Mix well. "It's the First Amendment for a reason--not the last, not the middle. The first."
posted by amberglow at 7:32 AM PST - 249 comments

Has oil already peaked? Princeton University geology Professor Kenneth Deffeyes argues that it has, based on the fact that oil production should peak when half the worlds oil has been produced. According to him, that happened in December of 2005, at 1.0065 trillion barrels. critics claim that new methods and economic effects should prevent peak oil from happening, although global oil discovery actually peaked in the 1960s. Meanwhile stock speculators are making mad bank betting on peak oil today.
posted by delmoi at 7:31 AM PST - 75 comments

On February 7th, 2006, Haiti had its first (nearly) bloodless, democratic election Two years since Aristide fled to South Africa (with the "help" of the US), and twenty since Baby Doc Duvalier was overthrown, and the bloody reign of the Duvaliers and the Tonton Macoute were ended.[more inside]
posted by kalimac at 6:55 AM PST - 13 comments

File this handy Reuters article for future use: How to bury your dead.
posted by spock at 6:19 AM PST - 46 comments

Barbarians are at the gates, testing the locks again. Mac OS X users beware: A file supposedly containing pictures of Mac OS X 10.5, actually does other things. Lots of info and links at this first link. Here's the disassembly of the executable (it's just a plain text file) and some notes on the application which comes to this conclusion: "In the end, it doesn't appear to actually do anything other than try to propagate itself via iChat, and unintentionally prevent infected applications from running It seems that this is more of a "proof of concept" implementation that could be utilized to actually do something in the future, depending on how successful it is, or it was simply done to garner attention/press. Which I'm sure it'll get. " Might be a good idea to check out a Mac OS X security primer.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:03 AM PST - 48 comments

Sheetrock (drywall) doesn't slow any round down much. If you shoot in the house, walls will not stop any serious round. Insulation doesn't help. Metal front doors provide concealment, not cover - they won't stop bullets. "How hard is it to shoot off a lock?" Answer: Very hard. The .44 Magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world and capable of blowing your head clean off", according to Dirty Harry, penetrates standard issue fragmentation body armour "like an ex-wife through your life savings."
posted by three blind mice at 5:52 AM PST - 88 comments

Lust's passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes-Marquis de Sade (tyannizes NSFW) (MI)
posted by snsranch at 8:03 PM PST - 24 comments

Survivorman. An incredible show of one man surviving all alone in some of the harshest conditions for 7 days without a camera crew. He has to not only survive but carry 50 pounds of camera equipment he uses to film the show. Don't be fooled by the 30 minute abbreviated shows being aired on the US Discovery Channel, the good stuff is the meaty hour-long episodes available on The Science Channel.
posted by crunchyk9 at 7:58 PM PST - 33 comments

A day without an immigrant.
posted by angrybeaver at 7:35 PM PST - 48 comments

The Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up. To start, pick the five or six words that you feel best describe you. Your results will be saved, under a name of your choosing, so that you can send your friends and colleagues directly to your Window.
posted by airguitar at 6:17 PM PST - 17 comments

A scientist is... Before and after drawings of scientists by seventh graders. Discussed at Cosmic Variance.
posted by tellurian at 6:15 PM PST - 48 comments

Lost Rhapsody Lost according to Weird Al.
posted by konolia at 6:15 PM PST - 33 comments

Sports Illustrated's infamous swimsuit issue has taken to featuring naked models with the swimsuits painted directly on their shameful nakedness in recent years; for this year's entry they feature Heidi Klum in a tribute to the bathing suits of the 1940's. Full gallery online here.
posted by jonson at 4:58 PM PST - 91 comments

Drag-Queen.com Your one stop drag queen shop. (via)
posted by philcliff at 4:55 PM PST - 17 comments

HarperCollins is the first major publisher to give away an entire version of a new book online, revenue being raised through Yahoo! ads. But they don't seem to be 100% committed - if you go to their website you can pay $18.26 for the e-book and no mention is made of it being available free at the author's own website. [Appropriately the book, "Go it Alone" by Bruce Judson is about entrepreneurial ideas]
posted by meech at 4:51 PM PST - 6 comments

The Dumpster is "an interactive online visualization that attempts to depict a slice through the romantic lives of American teenagers. Using real postings extracted from millions of online blogs, visitors to the project can surf through tens of thousands of specific romantic relationships in which one person has "dumped" another." Launched yesterday at the Whitney. Frenetic social data browser with voyeuristic blog-sniffer available here
posted by jessamyn at 4:41 PM PST - 14 comments

Welcome To IOTA NA-178 Mission Control On behalf of IOTA Ham operators WorldWide, the SouthEast Farallon Island - Project NA-178 HAMS HELPING HABITATS project (conducted by K6VVA & K9AJ) will assist the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge ("The Refuge") by transporting materials and equipment via helicopter from the mainland for an important habitat restoration project on SouthEast Farallon Island ("SEFI"), as well as the return of old unwanted infrastructure water pipe from the Island for disposal.

If you thought Eco-tourism was passe, try a DX-pedition! Of course hams have also put their personal concerns aside for other things, such as helping provide emergency communications during natural disasters. One thing you might not realize is our penchant for broadband Internet via BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) may interfere with this hobby of radio enthusiasts.
posted by jackspace at 3:41 PM PST - 34 comments

We've Got Questions. Got Some Answers? The guy selling you batteries at RadioShack may be better educated than the company's CEO who fudged his resume and claims his diploma was lost in a fire. OK, it's not Enron, but still.
posted by punkfloyd at 2:31 PM PST - 23 comments

RanXerox is a science fiction graphic novel series by Gaetano 'Tanino' Liberatore and Stefano Tamburini. "Ranxerox in New York" ran in the magazine Heavy Metal back in 1982. The series follows the adventures of the intensely violent robot named "RanXerox" and his pre-teen girlfriend Lubna. Still somewhat underground in popularity despite the game, the desktop theme, the t-shirt, the podcast (there were rumblings of a movie). The stories are dark satire. The adult artwork made it sophisticated enough to ban in some countries. (Some images NSFW, babelfish can help translate pages)
posted by Smedleyman at 1:21 PM PST - 22 comments

The Nissan Terranaut. Quite the vehicle.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:08 PM PST - 47 comments

In the Muslim world, the major argument against punishing European governments for the cartoon scandal is that it was not caused by those governments, but by private newspapers. Italy's Reform Minister tries to put things right.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 12:52 PM PST - 47 comments

Pantalaine has been making plural clothing since 1950? Imagine sweatpants with arm attachments, or even better, a couch dress.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:38 AM PST - 26 comments

... before the toads evolve into even more dangerous adversaries. So read up. Know the enemy. Consider biological warfare which may be in violation of one of those Geneva Convention thingies.
posted by ewkpates at 11:02 AM PST - 32 comments

David Garrow reviewed Justice Blackmun's papers, released to the public in 2005, and concludes that towards the end of his career, Blackmun's clerks all but signed his opinions. In an interview, discussing senility and Supreme Court Justices, Garrow argues that there has been "a dramatic increase over the last 35 or 45 years in the amount of the justices’ work that is performed by their law clerks," and recommends a "reduction to two or, even better yet, one clerk" from the four clerks available per Justice now. Garrow also comments on the now-deceased Chief Justice Rehnquist, who suffered from an addiction to painkillers in the 1980s. Garrow's view is controversial, though, and Legal Affairs published several responses in the same issue. Other law professors have weighed in, including Dan Markel, Mark Tushnet, and some of the folks at the Volokh Conspiracy. So how large is the impact of law clerks?
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:55 AM PST - 63 comments

In the Twilight of Modernity and the Silent Film (.pdf) Irie Takako was the most popular actress in 1930s Japan: film scholar Tanaka Masasumi locates the turning point of Japanese modernity in 1933, the year Kenji Mizoguchi's The Water Magician was made, arguing that Irie's transformation from radiant embodiment of moga(modern girl, the Japanese version of the flapper)-hood to suffering beauty in a kimono (.pdf) epitomized modernism's (modanizumu) defeat by nationalism in 1930's Japan. (via Camera Obscura; more inside)
posted by matteo at 9:57 AM PST - 5 comments

The "D" stands for Demolition. In an attempt at building awareness of Detroit's rotting, decaying neighborhoods(as if one needed further awareness), the Detroit Demolition Disneyland project finds long-abandoned, neglected structures that the city has failed to demolish and paints them with Tiggerific Orange paint.
posted by 40 Watt at 9:38 AM PST - 36 comments

The 2005 Annual Survey on Choice of Law in American Courts. [pdf] The survey on Choice of Law looks at the recent controversial Supreme Court ruling dealing with conflict of laws. See Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line, Ltd., 125 S.Ct. 2169 (2005). (Kennedy, J., writing the opinion of the Court) (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (Thomas, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part). At issue in Spector was whether disability statutes applied to ships that depart from Texas and travel through domestic waters but fly under the flag of the Bahamas. Other 2005 Supreme Court conflict of laws cases included Small v. United States and Pasquantino v. United States.
posted by dios at 9:18 AM PST - 12 comments

Batman kicks al Qaeda's ass Frank Miller is working on a Batman vs. Al Qaeda comic. At least he's being honest that it's utter propaganda.
posted by jbielby at 8:34 AM PST - 80 comments

Married to the Wrong Sex. A short, poignant article on a gay man's decision to marry heterosexually, because it's what his family and society expect.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:31 AM PST - 176 comments

"This is the most tacky, tasteless, smutty, down-in-the-gutter tour ever created," Tollini told the 80 or so adults who piled onto two trams and devoted three hours to tales of fornicating felines and hermaphrodite ostriches. Big thanks to Tizzie at 9622.net.
posted by ColdChef at 8:01 AM PST - 10 comments

Jasmine Roberts, a seventh-grade student: "I found that 70-percent of the time, the ice from the fast food restaurant's contain more bacteria than the fast food restaurant's toilet water."
posted by riffola at 7:51 AM PST - 63 comments

Out of touch with today's 'yoof'? Fire your marketing team and get interns to do it for free. Sony's cynicism knows no bounds as they pollute the blogosphere with intern-generated progaganda for their artists, hot on the tails of launching their gay record label, to better plunder the pink pound. It's a shame they couldn't take the lead from the other parties burnt in the rootkit scandal and promise more transparency.
posted by NailsTheCat at 7:26 AM PST - 41 comments

FDA re-opens probe into benzene contamination of soft drinks US food safety authorities have re-opened an investigation closed 15 years ago into soft drinks contaminated with cancer-causing chemical benzene, following evidence the industry has failed to sort out the problem.
posted by mlis at 7:22 AM PST - 25 comments

Three Legged Legs animation & directing collective bring friendly monsters to LA (quicktime) based on the art of Jeff Sotto. They also blow up people (quicktime) pretty good.
posted by a47danger at 7:20 AM PST - 12 comments

Eidos announces a new Lara Croft (of Tomb Raider fame) to take over from Angelina Jolie. Her name is Karima Adebibe, and she is a completely unknown shop assistant from London. She has some big ... boots ... to fill.
posted by SharQ at 1:14 AM PST - 43 comments

Man down in the Great Democratic Upheaval of 2006. Paul Hackett announced yesterday that he's bowing out of the primary race for the Ohio senate seat. This race might have been the wrong fight at the wrong time, though it was hardly the only front. There have already been some bad ideas shot down, and at least one fantastical dream that seems to be stuck in the pipe.

But there are more promising battles brewing up ahead, and the fight is just now being joined. The first target -- marked by a kiss. As was the head that would be the most prized trophy of the season.
[reg sites abound, WaPo, NYT, LAT and more]
posted by snortlebort at 10:00 PM PST - 47 comments

60 "secret" Abu Ghraib photos have been leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald. (Warning, very NSFW and disturbing.) They are thought to be among those viewed in private by U.S. senators following a May, 2004 hearing and "withheld from the public to protect the integrity of military trials and to avoid further inflaming America's enemies."
posted by Saucy Intruder at 6:59 PM PST - 191 comments

RIP Andreas Katsulas ...and G'Kar, and Commander Tomalak, and the big screen's one-armed man, and ... damn.
posted by WolfDaddy at 6:52 PM PST - 60 comments

Tess Fragoulis: "Alternately, you might spend time with people who should have got divorced, but didn't, opting instead for a lifetime of bickering and dissatisfaction. Call up Mom and Dad and invite yourself over for dinner. Understand once and for all why marriage has always seemed a fate worse than death to you."
posted by rehpotsirhc at 6:39 PM PST - 8 comments

Sex, Drugs, Einstein, & Elves: Sushi, Psychedelics, Parallel Universes and the Quest for Transcendence (♫); Solving all the world’s problems with nanotechnology (♫); Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Robot Rebellion (♫); Origins of the Homebrew Computer Club (♫); Philip K. Dick, the robot (♫); Found processes as conceptual art (♫); Hip: The History (♫); Poetry slams, feminist burlesque performance art and the war against the past (♫); Arthur! (♫); BoingBoing co-founder (♫); Evolution Control Committee (♫); Singularitarianism (♫); Burning Man (♫); UFOs, time travel, and making the technology of Star Trek a reality (♫); RE/Search Publications reprints J.G. Ballard (♫); Was 9/11 a Conspiracy? (♫); The last editor of the first great website (♫); Everybody Into The Pool (♫).

Podcasting with RU Sirius and The MondoGlobo Network. (video of the studio)
posted by airguitar at 5:31 PM PST - 21 comments

The Roofless realm. Prestes Maia, is a colossal abandoned clothes factory that towers over central Sao Paulo: "At first glance Prestes Maia, which sem-teto members occupied in 2002, resembles a chaotic, multi-storey shantytown; cardboard spews out of its cracked windows, graffiti litter its walls and children rattle through its wide corridors on bicycles. But the community is meticulously organised." It was first occupied as part of the Movimiento dos Sem Teto, an organized movement of homeless families and workers and now houses over 468 families. But, now, an injunction has been issued for the repossession of the building. Everyone must leave by February 15th but there is no plan and the authorities fear violence will erupt. There's a Flickr community.
posted by vacapinta at 3:38 PM PST - 15 comments

MacArthur Award winning novelist Jonathan Lethem chats with cartoon art and graphic genius Gary Panter about lots of stuff , then blogs about music, ducks and chickens.
posted by yakcat01 at 3:15 PM PST - 12 comments

Edna Lewis, the Julia Child of Southern cooking, has passed away at the age of 89.
posted by dersins at 1:52 PM PST - 11 comments

Mind Over Matter: South African Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy site. Bound by the code of conduct of the South African Association of Hypnotherapists ("1.17 Practitioners must not practice dentistry unless they hold an appropriate qualification. 1.18 Patients suffering from AIDS may be treated at the discretion of the practitioner"). Possibly associated with these folks; I'm certainly inspired to put my subconscious in the glittery hands of this guy. P.S.: The female orgasm is 100% Purely Mental.
posted by Gator at 12:58 PM PST - 7 comments

Cheney's "victim" has heart attack after birdshot moves to his heart. (washington post) previously discussed here.
posted by punkbitch at 12:50 PM PST - 295 comments

Happy Valentine's Day
to my favourite virgin.
I'd show you how much I love you,
but I don't feel like getting married.
The 8th Annual Pamie.com Valentine's Day Poems (previously on MetaFilter...)
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:39 PM PST - 5 comments

2 4 8 16 32 64... Storybytes, an ordered archive of nanofiction. It's been done before, by syllables (17), by the masters (Classic Short Stories), and by comedians (Book-a-Minute). But in a dense natural language, with a high meaning-per-word, perhaps bytes would value infodensity more objectively: 256b, 1k, 4Kb. But then again, isn't a spec as much of a cop out as a rigged dictionary? Perhaps the highest infodensities are achieved by works which will have no human readers.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 12:35 PM PST - 8 comments

Meta-cartoon-filter: Can't get enough international incident in your funny pages? Dan Cagle has collected cartoons about the cartoon controversy. And, as the Iranian Holocaust cartoon contest starts getting entries, a group of Israeli comics artists have launched their own anti-Semitic cartoon contest. "We'll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published! No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!"
posted by blahblahblah at 12:15 PM PST - 24 comments

It's Irrational Consumerism day at last, so fold a rose, bake some tasty desserts, dress your self or your SO in something flimsy (previous two links may be NSFW), buy some love potion (via), and throw on some tasty mashup (via).
posted by sourbrew at 11:44 AM PST - 7 comments

The UCLA Folkmed Database A searchable database of over 200,000 distinct folk medicine remedies for ailments of all kinds. The entries are pretty barebones, but -- oh, oh ick.
posted by cog_nate at 11:39 AM PST - 4 comments

Lawyers Group Says Bush Exceeds His Powers [found at Linkfilter] The American Bar Association denounced President Bush's warrantless domestic surveillance program Monday, accusing him of exceeding his powers under the Constitution.
posted by Postroad at 11:11 AM PST - 57 comments

Anderson Cooper's (blog's) Valentine's Day post: "Vaginal rejuvenation costs thousands of dollars and is done with a laser..."
posted by Ricky_gr10 at 9:17 AM PST - 38 comments

Alexadex is a place to buy virtual shares in websites, with the share prices set according to Alexa.com's site traffic ranking. Metafilter.com currently stands at $535 per share.
posted by slater at 9:01 AM PST - 18 comments

Tools for Web Developers. Yahoo gives away some free stuff for people who want to get into Ajax Development. This seems like a nice addition to the other libraries already available.
posted by empath at 8:49 AM PST - 12 comments

Performing Artists and The Robot Uprising: Writers, Actors, and Directors bring us one step closer to the robot apocalypse, or provide us the necessary training to win the battle.
posted by jrb223 at 8:39 AM PST - 4 comments

Anti-Valentines: "She said, 'I've been tapping my foot under my desk so that you'll be my friend again.' Then she started crying."
posted by Mo Nickels at 8:17 AM PST - 56 comments

Zeitgeistfilter: Lumpen Leisure and Welcome to Middle-Class Lockdown... Now Shut Up and Buy Something -- two fine rants about our current state of disunion by James Howard Kuntsler, author of The Long Emergency (excerpt), and writer and Vietnam vet Joe Bageant. "All over but the keening for our soon-to-be-lost machine world," Kunstler predicts in The American Conservative, while Bageant taps the inner stream-of-unconsciousness for Dissident Voice: "Things cannot be as bad as the alarmists say. They cannot be as bad as I often suspect they are. If there really were such a thing as global warming they would be starting to do something about it. And besides, even if it were true, science will find a way to fix it. If there really were genocide going on in so many places far more people would be concerned... If the earth were heating up we would surely notice it. If our soldiers and government agencies were torturing people around the world it would make the news. If millions were being exterminated, it would be more obvious, would it not?" (Kunstler's book previously discussed here, Bageant here.)
posted by digaman at 8:11 AM PST - 52 comments

The Price of Payola and Fake News? 1.6 billion dollars for just 2003-5 alone. The GAO's new report lays it out. That's how much seven federal departments spent from 2003 through the second quarter of 2005 on 343 contracts with public relations firms, advertising agencies, media organizations and individuals, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. ... The new report reveals that federal public relations spending goes far beyond "video news releases." (full report is a PDF download from there) And there's another scandal coming, if Wonkette has it right.
posted by amberglow at 7:50 AM PST - 25 comments

I just watched the chilling video of a sniper [Flash, NSFW] in Iraq on TV. It was given to Paul McGeough of the Sydney Morning Herald and published on their site. As discussed on The ABC Lateline programme (transcript not available at posting time but pretty much covered by the SMH). Please read the report to put the video in perspective. It's propaganda but...
posted by tellurian at 5:18 AM PST - 97 comments

If, like me, you grew up on a steady diet of TV in either the 70s, 80s or 90s, then head on over to Retro Junk. There you'll remember such classics as, for example, The Spiderman Live Action Series from the 70s, Thundercats from the 80s or the legendary Samurai Pizza Cats from the 90s. It even has archives for commercials and movies from these eras as well, just to really complete that sense of nostalgia.
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:33 AM PST - 23 comments

Track your comments. Remember back before Matt gave up his day job? How we didn't have an easy way to keep up with conversations we participated in? Hate that you can't do that with other sites you frequent? Now you can.
posted by FlamingBore at 11:53 PM PST - 16 comments

The 10 Best Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed
posted by Tlogmer at 10:40 PM PST - 156 comments

Donald Trump Can Boost Your Book Sales. Just piss him off and watch your Amazon sales rank climb. [a new yorker link]
posted by adrober at 10:11 PM PST - 11 comments

Tayler makes handmade wooden weapons, which he then uses to stage semi-elaborate one man cosplay involving him, his cat & an Australian Shepherd. Archives of previous months stories here.
posted by jonson at 10:00 PM PST - 24 comments

Newsfilter: U.S. and Israel looking for ways to "oust" Hamas
posted by FeldBum at 9:34 PM PST - 34 comments

We've heard of outsider music, but along with this is the strange world of song-poems. ...ordinary people" respond to come-on ads on the back pages of magazines, mailing in their heartfelt but often bizarre poems to "music industry" companies that, for a fee, turn those poems into real recordings. More inside...
posted by ashbury at 8:59 PM PST - 16 comments

Watch news events happen in realtime as they get pumped into RSS-space™. In the grand if not lengthy tradition of newsquakes, vanishing point, and newsmap. Plugins and stuff required. [Visualize the hell out of the news, come here, post it, then get hauled into Metatalk for your trouble!]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:25 PM PST - 26 comments

Stonefridge - A replica of the famed megalithic monument done entirely in refrigerators by artist and independent filmmaker Adam Horowitz (not to be confused with the Beastie Boy), done entirely in Albuquerque. The sculpture is so massive that it now can even be seen on Google Earth. It has also been a backdrop for a music video. (via GoogleSightSeeing)
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:03 PM PST - 22 comments

The LEGO Suicides. A series of tragic deaths, built block by block. (flickr slideshow; non-slideshow link here)
posted by brain_drain at 7:51 PM PST - 22 comments

Melville's Marginalia Online. The study of Herman Melville's creative process has long been hampered by a lack of primary sources. Melville's long lost annotations (they were written in pencil and subsequently erased) to the 1839 book The Natural History of the Sperm Whale have been restored through high-tech innovations such as squinting and digital photography. The results are available here in a PDF file. [more inside]
posted by marxchivist at 7:05 PM PST - 22 comments

Lawyers appear to missing out on the growth of the leisure class. Despite American's growing leisure time, and despite another round of pay increases for starting associates, lawyers seem to be working more hours than ever. As long as lawyers are tied the billable hour, it seems that greater salaries for associates inevitably means longer hours for associates. Law professor Pat Schiltz argues [pdf] that the longer hours for new associates combined with the high pressures of law practice means that those lawyers often suffer from depression, anxiety, alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide at very high rates, and are often forced into unethical practices just to meet the requirements of the law firm.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 5:30 PM PST - 86 comments

The Compact "About 50 teachers, engineers, executives and other professionals in the Bay Area have made a vow to not buy anything new in 2006 -- except food, health and safety items and underwear..." And presumably gas, insurance, electricity, water, etc. Oh, and Internet service-- they have a blog and a Yahoo group. Did I mention one of them currently works as a marketer and another one is a currently a professor in marketing?
posted by keswick at 4:47 PM PST - 92 comments

British soldiers filmed beating Iraqis. A British tabloid has released footage showing British troops beating Iraqi rioters. The video, available in realplayer format or Windows Media format, was apparently taken by a British corporal, and shows at least eight British soldiers dragging four young rioters inside a British army compound, where they were repeatedly beaten with batons, boots and fists, and kicked in the genitals. Arab television and the BBC have since aired the footage.
posted by insomnia_lj at 4:01 PM PST - 70 comments

Vernon Shoo-Ins Shoo Outsiders. A little town in which 44,000 work, but only 93 live, fights against holding its first election in decades. [bugmenot for the LA Times]
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:52 PM PST - 21 comments

The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene 1974-1984 features, among many compelling pieces, works by Tehching Hsieh. Hsieh may be best known for his 1983-84 collaborative piece with Linda Montano, in which the two artists were tethered together at the waist with an eight foot rope -- for an entire year. [Previously mentioned here.]
posted by milquetoast at 2:23 PM PST - 3 comments

Wanna talk to a person? Gethuman.com lists cheat codes for hundreds of customer service numbers. Sweet.
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:09 PM PST - 14 comments

Proposed Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1. Proposed Rule 32.1 [.pdf] is an attempt to resolve a dispute in federal court practice over the propriety of citations to unpublished opinions. It is an argument that has been played out in academic papers and Circuit Courts. Judge Richard Arnold of the 8th Circuit, writing for the majority, held that local rules which declare that unpublished opinions are not precedent are unconstitutional under Article III. Anastasoff v. United States, 223 F.3d 898, 900(8th Cir. 2000), vacated as moot on reh'g en banc, 235 F.3d 1054 (8th Cir.2000). Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit disagreed, holding that nonprecedential decisions are not inconsistent with the exercise of the judicial power. Hart v. Massanari, 226 F.3d 1155, 1163 (9th Cir. 2001). The proposed Rule would resolve the circuit split, but the debate rages on.
posted by dios at 2:05 PM PST - 18 comments

Cardboard Geodesic Dome. A how-to on building a geodesic dome out of cardboard, a bit of wood, some duct tape and paint. Plus some rebar if you don't want the finished dome to fly like a kite. If you like the concept but not the size calculate your own then apply the concept.
posted by Mitheral at 2:03 PM PST - 14 comments

Room With A View. Has the view out of your living room window become boring and stale? No problem, build yourself a million dollar Rotating Home. A former office manager, self prclaimed "hobbyist" Al Johnstone has built quite the technological feat [PDF] despite having no engineering background, obtaining around 30 patents in the process.
posted by afx114 at 9:29 AM PST - 19 comments

CSS Trappist Monastery. Like the Zen Garden, but without any images (other than the "chosen twelve").
posted by brownpau at 9:07 AM PST - 29 comments

The Center for Cartoon Studies, nestled in the historic village of White River Junction, Vermont, will learn you up good on how to be a comic artist/graphic novelist. They operate under the charter of the National Association of Comics Art Educators; Charles Schulz's widow Jean hooked them up with funding for a library in town. When you apply for admission, don't forget to include that story about you, the snowman, and the robot. A photo tour of the Center and its surroundings can be seen here.
posted by Gator at 6:38 AM PST - 10 comments

Betty and Barney Hill's Bogus Journey: "This is one of the most well known and most historically important cases of alien abduction of all time, mainly because it's all baloney. However, it was well televised baloney, and that brought UFO abductions, and the little gray men that the Hills reported seeing, into the mainstream of popular culture."
posted by furiousxgeorge at 1:53 AM PST - 43 comments

An Australian Government Member of Parliament (MP) will be trying to amend a crucial piece of legislation which, if the amendment is successful, will make it far harder (if not impossible) for Australian women to gain access to abortion drug RU486 because of fears that making it easier for women to access the drug will lead Australia down a path of Islamisation. "I've actually read in the Daily Telegraph where a certain imam from the Lakemba mosque actually said that Australia is going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years' time. I didn't believe him at the time but when you actually look at the birthrates... we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence." Liberal MP Danna Vale said today. Has she been reading Metafilter?
posted by Effigy2000 at 1:12 AM PST - 106 comments

Last week, the Guardian posted a three-part special report by their Middle East correspondent (and former South African correspondent) Chris McGreal on the similarities between the current situation in Israel and the South African Apartheid regime. The report provoked many heated responses, a selection of which is reproduced here and here. The Guardian responded by inviting Benjamin Pogrund, former deputy editor of the famously anti-Apartheid Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, author of a number of books on South Africa and founder of Yakar, a Jerusalem center for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue to weigh in with a response.
posted by ori at 12:16 AM PST - 20 comments

Hors d'oeuvres vich must be obeyed at all times vithout qvestion!
posted by DirtyCreature at 12:01 AM PST - 38 comments

Desperate for Depression Era jobs, the communities of Santa Clara, Alameda, San Mateo and San Francisco raised 476,066 dollars to purchase 1000 acres of land in the fertile Santa Clara Valley and put their community in the running for the first West Coast base for rigid airships. On February 20th, 1933, President Hoover signed the bill that authorized the Navy to accept the Mountain View property. Half of the five million dollars appropriated for construction went to the building of Hangar One, the eventual home of the USS Macon. Sunnyvale Naval Air Station, commissioned on April 4th, 1933, was renamed Moffett Field after the death of RAdm William Moffett in the crash of the airship USS Akron. On February 12th, 1935, the USS Macon ditched off Point Sur, effectively ending the Navy's rigid airship program.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:05 PM PST - 22 comments

The Origo Gallery's recent exhibition features Gyorgy Kemenyi's new works, but for a chronological context it's best to start with his earlier exhibition. The Gallery's archives provide an interesting cross section of a few Hungarian contemporary artists.
posted by semmi at 8:53 PM PST - 3 comments

Home Prices Do Fall A look at the collapse of the 1980's real estate bubble through the eyes of The New York Times
Better with Times select. Also better with Firefox's fetch text extension
posted by Kwantsar at 7:57 PM PST - 33 comments

By now, we know the story: first the U.S. Treasury department wouldn't let Cuba participate in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, only to change their mind later. Whether to play ball with Cuba or not has been debated since at least 1975, when then-commissioner of baseball Bowie Kuhn contacted Henry Kissinger about plans to arrange a game between U.S. and Cuban teams, prompting this now-declassified exchange (made available through George Washington University's National Security Archive.) Indeed, sport and politics are often intertwined in the Case of Contemporary Cuban Baseball.
posted by .kobayashi. at 7:44 PM PST - 5 comments

"I am the Jesus Christ of politics," says this controversial leader. He's also Napoleon, but taller, and recently told people: "Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile." Think we're the only country whose leader makes planetary gaffes? Think again--and elections are coming. You've got to admire the balls on a guy who owns much of his country's media, yet says: "If I, taking care of everyone's interests, also take care of my own, you can't talk about a conflict of interest."
posted by amberglow at 7:36 PM PST - 34 comments

Aliens and Children. This website features a series of drawings made by children who were abducted by aliens for the purpose of creating a new race of alien/human hybrids. They successfully resisted the aliens by using a thought screen helmet which blocks the telepathic control aliens have over humans.
posted by Robot Johnny at 5:40 PM PST - 35 comments

"I'm worried, Larry. A financial planner counsels his client: "...I think it's imperative that we start to budget and plan. New purchases should be kept to a minimum. We need to establish and execute on a diversification game plan, to eliminate (yes, eliminate) all debt and build up a significant, conservatively structured, liquid investment portfolio...." Sound advice, but you wouldn't have thought this dickhead gentleman would need it.
posted by mojohand at 5:20 PM PST - 18 comments

"Who's the only one who's always been there?" Ham asked. "God!" the boys and girls shouted.
"Who's the only one who knows everything?" "God!"
"So who should you always trust, God or the scientists?" The children answered with a thundering: "God!"

Today, on the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin whose discovery of natural selection is the fundamental tenet of modern biology, fundamentalist American Christians work to indoctrinate in children a superstitious disdain for science. Meanwhile, liberal American Christians churches celebrate Darwin and evolution's compatibility with their faith.

But is "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" too corrosive to mysticism to coexist with Christianity?
posted by orthogonality at 5:09 PM PST - 81 comments

The always great (and frequently linked) RetroCrush currently has an exhibit on Polish movie posters for western films; seemingly devoid of the original branding & identity art, it's fun to try and guess what movie the images could even be trying to promote. Some are beautiful, some are amateurish, all are intriguing.
posted by jonson at 4:23 PM PST - 20 comments

Mixotheque is an mp3 blog that does some work for its readers: two songs posted every day (one "classic", one "rarity"), adding up to two well-planned mixes each month (to fit on 80min CDRs, one for newbies, one for collectors). Every mix has its own theme (and artwork, track description, etc.)

It caught my attention because the first month's theme is New Zealand rock, a sweet, occasionally noisy, rather inbred realm of the music world. Already posted are mp3s from the "big" names (like the Clean and the Verlaines) to the obscure-even-for-New-Zealand. The commentary so far has been both enlightening and personal, and a month of this will probably be both a decent education and a solid chunk of probably-new-to-you music.
posted by snortlebort at 4:19 PM PST - 19 comments

Peter Benchley is now sleeping with the fishes.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:10 PM PST - 31 comments

Kid Congo Powers , noted guitar stylist, teenage president of The Ramones Fan Club, erstwhile member of The Cramps, The Gun Club, and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (also known for his collaborations with Julee Cruise, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Khan and others) has produced a two part online autobiography of sorts for New York Night Train. It includes oral histories, available as transcriptions or MP3s, pages from his Cramps scrapbook, a vintage Creem article, free MP3s from his back catalogue, and, of course, his recipe for enchiladas.
posted by jack_mo at 4:04 PM PST - 6 comments

State of the World 2006 , an annual research report prepared by the Worldwatch Institute, has just been released, with a special focus on China and India. Although Limits to Growth type predictions have had their critics, many of the stats and projections presented have a certain brutal inevitability about them.
posted by wilful at 3:39 PM PST - 14 comments

Cheney accidently shoots a hunter. oops.
posted by squirrely at 1:13 PM PST - 307 comments

The School of the Air is a unique accident of time and space; serving as the link to the wider world for thousands of isolated children in Australia's Outback, providing classes by correspondence and evolving into a social network. Radio provided these sheep stations with access to medical care, community life and education. There was no choice.
posted by infini at 12:29 PM PST - 7 comments

What unites hardliners like Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh -- their uncompromisingly conservative take on politics? In a provocative blog post titled Do Bush followers have a political ideology?, Glenn Greenwald persuasively argues otherwise. He believes that the conservative movement -- traditionally against big government, excessive spending, and federal intrusion into the private lives of Americans -- has been hijacked by something much more dangerous: an authoritarian cult of personality, or as Greenwald puts it, "a form of highly emotional mass theater masquerading as political debate."
posted by digaman at 9:31 AM PST - 135 comments

"The German invasion of Britain took place in July 1940, after the British retreat from Dunkirk". We see, documentary-style, members of the Wehrmacht trooping past Big Ben and St Paul's Cathedral, lounging in the parks, having their jackboots shined by old cockneys, and appreciatively visiting the shrine of that good German, Prince Albert, in Kensington Gardens. Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's film "It Happened Here", with its cast of hundreds (.pdf), imagines what a Nazi occupation might have been like — complete with underground resistance, civilian massacres, civil strife, torch-lit rallies, Jewish ghettos, and organized euthanasia. Shot on weekends, eight years in production, made for about $20,000 with nonactors and borrowed equipment and Stanley Kubrick's help, "It Happened Here" was originally envisioned by Brownlow as a sort of Hammer horror flick about a Nazi Britain. Thanks in part to Mollo's fanatical concern with historical accuracy, however, it became something else. The most remarkable thing about this account of everyday fascism is that it has no period footage. Brownlow's 1968 book about the film's production, "How It Happened Here", has recently been republished. More inside.
posted by matteo at 8:04 AM PST - 16 comments

"There are chakrahs in our hands, Jesus had nail holes in his palms, and a sign of worship is to stand with your palms raised. Fortune tellers read palms. Handwriting is analyzed to expose deep secrets. Man’s thumbs differentiate humans from lower species....We control our world with our hands, and our hands are shaped by our world." -- The Manual Project by Bill Westheimer. "Using 19th century collodion wet plate photography I photograph their dominant hand, then we work together to make a photogram of their palm print. Combining these two images together with the person’s handwriting, I create one portrait of the subject. "
posted by Gator at 6:30 AM PST - 12 comments

It's on. Strategists at the Pentagon are drawing up plans for devastating bombing raids backed by submarine-launched ballistic missile attacks against Iran's nuclear sites as a "last resort" to block Teheran's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 5:16 AM PST - 98 comments

This is not a study for the weak of heart or will. If you do it right, it is gonna hurt. A Simple Guide to Ansel Adam's Zone System.
posted by sgt.serenity at 2:58 AM PST - 37 comments

Music history rendered on a London Tube Map They say: "Could we chart the branches and connections of 100 years of music using the London Underground map? Dorian Lynskey explains how a box of coloured crayons and lot of swearing helped." I say: Look also at the comments in the accompanying thread, which features trolling, snarkiness and repetition, beginning with "Why did you do this? What is the point? Wouldn't you have been better off doing something else? Sometimes you media people really worry me." The Guardian are introducing commenter registration on their new blog.
posted by feelinglistless at 2:44 AM PST - 18 comments

Fallacy Files
posted by Gyan at 11:21 PM PST - 16 comments

paved prophets house, put up a parking lot.. “What makes this demolition worse is the fact that the home of the Prophet is to make way for a parking lot, two 50-storey hotel towers and seven 35-storey apartment blocks; a project known as the Jabal Omar Scheme, all within a stone’s throw of the Grand Mosque. Yet despite this outrage, not a single Muslim country, no ayatollah, no mufti, no king, not even a Muslim Canadian imam has dared utter a word in protest. Such is the power of Saudi influence on the Muslim narrative.”
posted by zog at 9:07 PM PST - 36 comments

A map of sex offenders in YOUR neighborhood. People can change, and mistakes can be redeemed, but then again, looking at map of colored dots in my own neighborhood kind of gives me the creeps.
posted by JWright at 8:24 PM PST - 68 comments

The strange story of Billy Yeager aka Jimmy Story the lost son of Jimi Hendrix aka independent film-maker extraordinaire.
I was wearing wigs and disguising myself as different kinds of people or sons of dead rock stars since 7th grade. I ran away at 13 years old. I lived in a tree house. I lost my virginity to a big fat girl who raped me on a hit of acid when I was 14 while her parents were in the living room watching All in the Family.

He's casting for a new film - albeit in a strange manner [swearing, violence, threats - maybe NSFW].
posted by strawberryviagra at 7:54 PM PST - 16 comments

This very cool multi-input touchscreen is an amazing example of potential human-computer interfaces and is not the same thing as the very cool Lemur device marketed in the US by Cycling 74. It really makes you realize that there's a whole new level of graphics, animation, 3D, music and control technology yet to be explored. Fascinating stuff.
posted by dbiedny at 6:58 PM PST - 29 comments

Eloysa Vasquez, a 37-pound woman with osteogenesis imperfecta (the "brittle bone disease"), has given birth to a premature, but otherwise healthy, son. OI is the disease affecting the actor Michael J. Anderson, most famous for his roles as "The Little Man from Another Place" in Twin Peaks and Samson in Carnivale. Children with OI experience so many broken bones that their parents are frequently suspected of child abuse.
posted by feathermeat at 6:02 PM PST - 56 comments

"We can't do anything about it. We just have to obey." Fulton (Mo.) High School drama students learn that resistance is futile.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 3:15 PM PST - 86 comments

Biathlon! Biathletes! History! Primitive style? Proudly an Olympic sport since 1960.
posted by bardic at 2:15 PM PST - 4 comments

Mars Spirit rover finds something strange. Scientists are puzzled. I'm no scientist, but when I saw the photo, "natural phenomenon" wasn't the first thing to enter my mind.
posted by davebush at 2:13 PM PST - 60 comments

The links between some neurological disorders and increased artistic abilities are well documented. Some with decreased abilities elsewhere, such as those with semantic dementia, use it as a coping mechanism, whereas those with synaesthesia combine multiple senses to enhance their works. While some drugs, specifically LSD, can artificially produce synesthesia, that probably isn't a good muse.
posted by duende at 1:04 PM PST - 9 comments

This week we had the the Sphinx Competition (old article) here in Detroit. Following on the heels of rampant consumerism and willy-nilly football, The Sphinx Organization brings urban diversity to classical music - Latino and African American students between 12 and 22 years old are challenging their elders with talent and enthusiasm.
posted by Slap Incognito at 12:01 PM PST - 3 comments

Ray Bradbury proposes monorail-bulding in LA.
via
posted by Afroblanco at 11:43 AM PST - 73 comments

A wise Mefite once said "I cannot fathom the stress of multiple spouses," and I'm sure it only gets more stressful if your loved ones don't know about each other. As Valentines Day approaches, let us take a moment to ponder the difficulties that two-timing scumbags of either gender will have trying to please everyone at once, on this holiday that was created by a greeting card company, yet ultimately benefits private detectives more than any other holiday of the year.
posted by jonson at 10:57 AM PST - 36 comments

Ski Jumping - the only Olympic discipline to ban women. [thanks occhiblu]
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 10:03 AM PST - 33 comments

The greatest Hollywood stunt pilots of them all, Frank Tallman and Paul Mantz not only looked the part, but flew camera ships, raced planes, and performed amazing aerial stunts in films for over 40 years. Not long after forming Tallmantz Aviation, Mantz was killed on location in the excellent 1965 version of Flight of the Phoenix. Tallman, grounded on FOTP due to a go-cart accident, lost his leg as a result but flew in movies for another 13 years until crashing in 1978.
posted by cenoxo at 9:45 AM PST - 6 comments

Scott Stulberg takes beautiful photography of people and places in southeast Asia. Also, some fantastic nature and wildlife work. (flash, sound alert)
posted by madamjujujive at 9:31 AM PST - 14 comments

Witches. Who they are, how to tell, what to do. One example.
posted by caddis at 9:20 AM PST - 24 comments

So it's you, ninja-endo! I'll be Atari, I'll be back!!. From this thread, but I felt it needed an FPP of it's own
posted by delmoi at 9:05 AM PST - 11 comments

Where are the toons now? Friday Saturday Flash Fun. Probably NSFW.
posted by armoured-ant at 8:34 AM PST - 5 comments

From Nellie the Elephant to his arrangement of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Michael 'Olga' Algar shows you how to play your favorite songs by The Toy Dolls. [First two links are embedded video. And, unfortunately, the guitar lessons are in .rm format.]
posted by milquetoast at 8:18 AM PST - 3 comments

"I see paint-cracked walls stained with shite. Long long lock-up days, cold lonely nights. And I think to myself... what a wonderful world." Pete Doherty's prison diary.
posted by creeky at 7:21 AM PST - 29 comments

Did you know that Marilyn Monroe was colorblind? Me neither. How about November being national gingivitis awareness month? No? Well, I'm sure I'm the last person to find out that the standard 52-card deck was originally used as a calendar before it was used for gaming purposes. And that Gershwin is the only composer to have written an orchestral part for the conch shell. Oh, oh, and you know why you close your eyes when you sneeze? Turns out it's because otherwise the pressure behind them would be sufficient to pop them out of their sockets. Don't believe me?
posted by Gator at 6:16 AM PST - 40 comments

Draw one to get one Nice little site that lets you exchange online drawings with anonymous people.
posted by jeremias at 5:38 AM PST - 22 comments

Bollywood is remaking Fight Club. It seems there wasn't enough dancing and singing. Trailers here [Windows media]. No mention of soap.
posted by tellurian at 5:23 AM PST - 30 comments

A Letter to the American Left By Bernard-Henri Lévy. "Nothing made a more lasting impression during my journey through America than the semi-comatose state in which I found the American left. I know, of course, that the term "left" does not have the same meaning and ramifications here that it does in France. And I cannot count how many times I was told there has never been an authentic "left" in the United States, in the European sense.

But at the end of the day, my progressive friends, you may coin ideas in whichever way you like. The fact is: You do have a right. This right, in large part thanks to its neoconservative battalion, has brought about an ideological transformation that is both substantial and striking. "
posted by mountainmambo at 5:16 AM PST - 84 comments

Fired by New York's Mayor for playing a game of solitaire, former $29,000 a year clerk Edward Greenwood IX is sure to become the new parton saint of office politics. Whether one views Greenwood as a hapless Everyman or another poster boy for workplace diversions, the question still remains: what would Ricky Gervais do?
posted by Smart Dalek at 4:59 AM PST - 15 comments

Linda Rayburn and her son Michael Berry were brutally murdered by her husband, David Rayburn, on February 3rd, 2004. Rayburn then hanged himself in the basement of their home, leaving behind a handwritten cryptogram.
posted by tranquileye at 4:44 AM PST - 9 comments

Neverland Amerika. "I don't know if I'm comfortable saying there's some great theory behind the pictures ..."
posted by johnny7 at 2:25 AM PST - 10 comments

US Meat Supply at Risk of Mad Cow Disease is one of the headlnes I missed last week week. Auditors can’t say whether meat plants followed mad-cow rules is another. Plus 'Downer Cows' Entering Meat Supply, USDA Inspector General Says | USDA slammed for letting high-risk downer cattle reach consumers | USDA Didn't Follow Procedures In '04 BSE Test | Agency Fought Retesting of Infected Cow | USDA feared beef test and, um... Confidence in U.S. called key to exports. [more inside]
posted by soyjoy at 11:06 PM PST - 39 comments

Remember that really shocking circa-2003 PUMA advertisement that no one would take responsibility for? Its mystery has finally unraveled.
posted by Bryan Behrenshausen at 8:09 PM PST - 38 comments

The Hall of Best Knowledge "combines lush imagery with lucid prose—imagine the works of Chaucer projected on the ceiling of the Sistine hapel—creating a weekly learning experience that is without equal in this or any age." Updated weekly. A collection of hand-drawn typographic teachings on Flickr. (from Drawn!)
posted by TimTypeZed at 7:26 PM PST - 10 comments

Marilyn Monroe, The Exhibit is a near-complete hoax, if Mark Bellinghaus — a man who appears to put the "fan" into "fanatical" — is to be believed. [wikipedia]
posted by five fresh fish at 4:53 PM PST - 11 comments

Rap Producer J-Dilla Dies; Kidney Failure Suspected J-Dilla, born James Yancy, was a member of Slum Village and worked with various Hip-Hop artists including Kanye West, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest and Common's Grammy-nominated album, BE.
posted by svidrigailov23 at 4:13 PM PST - 14 comments

Good Web Design
posted by Tlogmer at 4:05 PM PST - 96 comments

Now you too can feed your pet endangered meats! Meat from whales caught under Japan's "research" programme is so abundant that it is being sold as pet food. </one link newsFilter>
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 2:38 PM PST - 38 comments

Newsfilter:Former FEMA Director Michael Brown engages in a heated exchange during a Senate hearing Friday. Here is the C-SPAN coverage.
posted by nola at 2:32 PM PST - 19 comments

It's all about the Hamiltons. The new US $10 bill makes it's debut on March 2nd, 2006. How will it 'stack up' against other nations' works of art?
posted by afx114 at 1:43 PM PST - 71 comments

Amazon's "Top Selling Videos" Here's a mystery: Amazon has a page showing their top selling VHS videos. It is "updated hourly." Before you look at what the top sellers are, take a guess. I doubt that anyone would think that the 1994 Richard Simmons "Sweating to the Oldies" video would be listed as No. 1 -- particularly in view of the fact that it is described as being "unavailable." The others in the top 10 are also interesting: #3 is the 1945 black and white "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". Would you guess that #7 is "Fatso", a 1993 comedy starring Dom DeLuise? I may be wrong but I suspect that Amazon's ratings are not accurate. Now I wonder about their book ratings . . .
posted by AJ at 1:25 PM PST - 24 comments

KookyChow. All your favorite real grocery items are here: Sweet pickled watermelon rind, Gerber Graduates Meat Sticks, Pork Brains, and my personal favorite, Instant Natural Jellyfish. Just remember, "there’s nothing wrong with eating food that other people find absurd. In fact, there’s a big difference between absurd food, and bad food. Absurd food is a good thing. Bad food is, well..., not good."
posted by sdrawkcab at 1:23 PM PST - 25 comments

Just how far does this Abramoff stuff go? Sure, we've heard all about the charges of political corruption, but Wampum has been diligently putting the pieces together, and some strange things are coming up, like the Dawes act of 1887, Cobell v. Norton, and $176 billion owed by ranchers and the oil and gas industry to Native Americans. Dustin Wax at Savage Minds concluded that "Abramoff and his peers both in Congress and the business world are working to undermine the last vestige of autonomy Indian peoples possess."
posted by jefgodesky at 1:20 PM PST - 14 comments

The "Jap Doll" -- Ningyô on the Western Toyshelf 1850-1940
posted by matteo at 12:23 PM PST - 10 comments

Live steam creations. We've seen steampunk robots in artwork, and read about them in fiction, but now someone has gone and built real, radio-controlled, steam-powered creatures that roll and creep and swim.
posted by Gamblor at 12:18 PM PST - 13 comments

South Dakota House approves sweeping abortion ban Although saying they personally abhor abortion, opponents made several unsuccessful attempts to make exceptions in cases of rape and incest, and to protect pregnant women whose health may be endangered.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 12:11 PM PST - 50 comments

He liked blue. In fact, he patented his own blue. He like to claim that he could fly unaided. There was a movie. In it, he colored naked women blue and had them make a painting. The film treated this comically, and he was crushed. Two weeks after the film opened, he died of a heart attack.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:03 AM PST - 23 comments

The inside and underground look at the USAFA. Quite simply this is basically an underground e-zine of sorts focused on the United Stated Air Force Acadamy. A major part of the site is The Hate Machine, a flash cartoon featuring the Fightin' Ostriches. A read through eDodo is a good look into what the USAFA looks like inside the zoo.
posted by ozomatli at 11:02 AM PST - 19 comments

Newsfilter: PBS Station Nixes Show On Terrorism. Following last-minute cries of protest from Muslim leaders last week, a Public Broadcasting Service affiliate in Dallas canceled the premiere of a documentary on the roots of Islamic terrorism.
posted by semmi at 10:16 AM PST - 29 comments

I never thought a string of videos of car accidents taken from automatic tunnel cameras in metropolitan tunnels would make for compelling viewing. But it turns out you learn something new every day. warning - embedded video on page contains horrible dance music
posted by jonson at 10:16 AM PST - 57 comments

WOXY.com has begun charging a subscription fee. One of the best radio stations in America, it was a sad day in January of 2004 when WOXY in Cincinnati ceased being a terrestrial radio station. As one of the last truly independently programmed commercial rock stations in the country, it broke new ground and supported many worthy and truly alternative artists and unsigned bands. Unlike other radio stations, it actually lived up to its tagline "97X - The Future of Rock and Roll" -- a slogan you might be familiar with if you've seen Rain Man. Fortunately, with the help of some anonymous "angel" investors it was quickly resurrected as an internet radio station. In the past year or so, WOXY's terrific Live Lounge Act series has seen bands such as Gorrilaz, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Wedding Present, Neko Case play in their studio (The station also makes the performances available as podcasts). Now the station says it's going to have to charge $9.95 a month to listen, in part because of increasing royalties and increasing broadcast taxes. It's worth the money.
posted by Heminator at 10:10 AM PST - 25 comments

New Republican backed ads say our troops should be used as flypaper
and attempt to advance the iraq/al queda link. More on the Progress for America Voter Fund and their links to the swift boaters here. Are they airing these to counter the Bush administrations own admissions that the things are actually worse on most fronts in Iraq than before the war?
posted by specialk420 at 10:06 AM PST - 35 comments

Top 12 media myths and falsehoods on the Bush administration's spying scandal Summary: Media Matters presents the top 12 myths and falsehoods promoted by the media on President Bush's spying scandal stemming from the recent revelation in The New York Times that he authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on domestic communications without the required approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court.
posted by Postroad at 9:52 AM PST - 11 comments

"I hypothesize that if you remove all the text of Garfield's speech, or thoughts, or whatever that is, that it becomes an oddly surrealist comic."
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:50 AM PST - 28 comments

USAF Changes Guidelines to Allow Religious Discrimination Apparently, mainstream media considers this close to a non-story : "The Air Force released new guidelines for religious expression, dropping a requirement for chaplains to respect others' rights to their own beliefs and no longer cautioning top officers about promoting their personal religious views." ( AP ) The NYT carried a a one paragraph AP release on this. Forbes carried an extended AP story. Other coverage ? Well, there's the Daily Kos, Metafilter...
posted by troutfishing at 9:33 AM PST - 54 comments

Today is the last day of Fashion Week in New York. Fall 2006 collections have ranged from the sublime to the regrettable. Check out the list of reviews, or peruse runway videos. Long for the good ol' days of fashion? Amazing vintage pieces at thefrock.com will satisfy your style cravings.
posted by Alison at 9:23 AM PST - 27 comments

Werner Herzog shot at during interview Film critic Mark Kermode was chatting to the director of new film 'Grizzly Man' a few weeks ago for the BBC's Culture Show when someone with an air rifle took a few shots at them. If you think its a hoax you can hear Kermode talking about what happened, during this radio broadcast from a few days later. [sorry everyone but this requires Real but you could try an alternative] [via]
posted by feelinglistless at 8:40 AM PST - 64 comments

xFamily Values. A collaborative work by former members documenting The Family/Children of God religion/cult. Uniquely reflecting the sexual revolution, they encouraged prostitution as a means of gaining converts and offerings (Flirty Fishing). Plus they had comic books for the kids. But in concordance with other cults, abuse, incest, mind-control, secrecy, charismatic leaders and leaderettes, insanity, and irreparable harm were in full swing. (No more inside. There may be PDFs involved. Please note that much of this material is not safe for work, or anywhere else.)
posted by cytherea at 8:38 AM PST - 34 comments

The Pearl A journal of voluptuous reading for discerning readers, hosted in a larger collection of bawdy books, dirty ditties and assorted salacious songcraft. Thrill to cousin-fucking in Sport Among the She-Noodles. Puzzle over endless lashings by old women in Ms. Coote's Confession. Giggle over the protagonist of Lady Pokingham. Note for edification the blasé treatment of homosexuality, both male and female. Memorize limericks that provide both racial and sexual offense for your next social gathering. And learn obscenities you can sneak past all but the most agile editor! Main site also contains hours of mp3s and reams of naughty toasts, drinking songs and folk stories. Other highlights include the ability to compare American ribaldry with earlier British off-colour humour. Some engravings arguably NSFW.
posted by klangklangston at 8:22 AM PST - 21 comments

The Valley of the Kings not done yet? British archaeologists have discovered a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings - the first such find since Howard Carter found Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922. Ironically, the new tomb was a mere 5 meters from Tutankhamun's. The tomb includes unopened sarcophagi and 5 undisturbed mummies. Patricia Podzorski, curator of Egyptian Art at the University of Memphis, said "People have been saying the valley was done for 100 years. They said it before Howard Carter found King Tutankhamun's tomb and they said it after. But, obviously, they are still wrong."
posted by robhuddles at 8:16 AM PST - 19 comments

Video games pioneer Atari fears plug set to be pulled. Hope is fading at Atari, a company that has existed in many forms over the years, but was founded in the United States in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Now might be a good time to take a walk through the Atari Museum, ponder the Zen-like instruction: AVOID MISSING BALL FOR HIGH SCORE, see the world's first video game 'Easter Egg' and pay your respects at the E.T. Landfill. But whatever you do, don't lose hope.
posted by Otis at 8:03 AM PST - 24 comments

"It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," writes former CIA official Paul Pillar, coordinator of U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until 2005, in an article soon to appear in Foreign Affairs, hardly a radical rag. More confirmation that Seymour Hersh was right about the administration "cherry-picking" intelligence to justify a foregone conclusion to go to war in Iraq.
posted by digaman at 7:49 AM PST - 49 comments

A meditating teenage boy in south-central Nepal First mentioned by the BBC at the beginning of December; Ram Bahadur Bamjan is drawing the attention of scientists after attracting huge crowds in the past eight months and earning himself the name Buddha-reincarnate. No food, no water just snakebite. Is this: - holy or hoax?
posted by adamvasco at 7:07 AM PST - 82 comments

We could bomb Iran. But we wouldn't really know what to hit because we don't know enough about Iran's nuclear program. If the Russians don't work something out, maybe helping Iran is the best way to figure out what they have and to stop them from getting the bomb.
posted by js003 at 6:23 AM PST - 55 comments

World Press Photo Awards 2005. See the Gallery of winning shots here.
posted by biffa at 6:15 AM PST - 17 comments

McDonald's: The Videogame. A scathing critique of lousy corporate and environmental practices, or an entertainingly complex little game about the fast food industry? A little from column A, a little from column B. Torch diseased cows with the flamethrower, corrupt politicians and environmentalists, plant genetically modified soy in what used to be the rain forests of South America, force your employees to smile all the livelong day, and try not to bankrupt the company. Be sure to read the tutorial first. (Flash.)
posted by Gator at 5:45 AM PST - 11 comments

Vault Radio. Remember Wolfgang's Vault? They've now started releasing the massive amounts of music that they discovered via FM-quality 128k stream. The current rotation isn't huge (not much worse than commercial radio), but there's a lot of great stuff on there that you've never heard before, presumably.
posted by bigmike at 5:34 AM PST - 9 comments

Real Estate Value + Google Maps Fly around a neighborhood with Google maps and see not only the houses but what they are worth. Click on an individual house for recent selling information, house details, tax assessments etc., all for free and no strings attached.
posted by caddis at 4:54 AM PST - 53 comments

Abramoff says Bush is lying. "Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with them or know them very well." - George W. Bush, Jan. 26, 2006.

"The guy saw me in almost a dozen settings and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows." - Jack Abramoff

Mr. Abramoff, who raised over $100,000 for the Bush campaign, also indicated that he was sent a personal invitation to stay at the President's Texas ranch.
posted by insomnia_lj at 2:51 AM PST - 37 comments

Murder for hire, hypnotism, celebrity marriage, Federal agents, million-dollar yachts, hang-gliding "accidents", collegiate endowments, and diploma mills. Even the author of the piece has an interesting back-story.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 12:23 AM PST - 7 comments

Riba - a gorgeous animation with great 3-D effects - very charming! (6 min. QT clip) (via robot wisdom)
posted by madamjujujive at 12:10 AM PST - 18 comments

Of course, you've seen Get Your War On the comic strip, but have you seen Get Your War On, the Musical? It's playing in Austin, apparently to rave reviews and sold out shows. They even have photos of a performance.
posted by mathowie at 10:54 PM PST - 22 comments

We want you as a new recruit. The Japan Defense Agency has a short recruitment video on their site. [via]
posted by tellurian at 10:48 PM PST - 17 comments

Pilot's eye view of a three day trip [Youtube]. A pilot at American Airlines made this video of his three-day trip from Boston to Paris and back so his young daughter could see where he worked. It's all shot from the pilot's perspective so there's plenty of eye candy for the aviation and gadget geeks. On his day off, fly4fun catches a cruise on a Bateux-Mouches river boat, sees the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, and grabs a few pints in Parisian pubs (including the expat bar, Le Mazet, where the last official sighting of Jim Morrison took place). It's all edited with iMovie and set to U2's Vertigo. [more inside]
posted by junesix at 10:05 PM PST - 44 comments

Bush has been pushing for his tax cuts to be made permanent. James Ostrowski says why an anemic 2.1 trillion dollar tax cut how about a 21 trillion dollar tax cut?
posted by robbyrobs at 6:39 PM PST - 98 comments

The 141 Programs Bush Wants to Cut or Kill.
posted by Hot Like Your 12V Wire at 5:35 PM PST - 82 comments

Man kills jealous boyfriend with coffee mug. This is from my local paper (see also stoner busts self). Just to show you the kind of interesting stuff that goes on here in Utah...(more inside)
posted by punkbitch at 4:51 PM PST - 44 comments

The Songy Challenge (.mov link) "This is that one show called The Songy Challenge...Maybe you don't know as much about lizards as I do, but that lizard's curiosity was PEAKED!" From Iowa City Public Access TV.
posted by scottreynen at 4:20 PM PST - 10 comments

This great picture was taken in the French Pig-Squealing Championships. This pic was alleged by Danish imams to be offensive to Muslims, and was included in the recent tour of the Middle East. The Brussels Journal asks some pointed questions. The Beeb belatedly explains - and (sorta) apologises.
posted by dash_slot- at 4:13 PM PST - 35 comments

GameLife Video Game Review Show Episode 1
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 4:12 PM PST - 29 comments

A little known white guy made at least $6.4m out of hip-hop last year [NYTimes]. Scott Storch has produced 50 Cent, Beyonce and Lil Kim; in fact he made eighty tracks in 2005 and is working on Paris Hilton's new album. He thinks it's because of his low profile that he didn't get a grammy nomination and he's upset.
posted by meech at 3:43 PM PST - 50 comments

Recondo! In 1966, the MACV Recondo School was established to train Special Forces Units in long-range recon tactics and commando operations. Graduates were called "Recondos" and could infiltrate enemy-controlled territory for long periods of time without being resupplied. The school was well known enough to spawn a cheezy GI Joe character. Apparently you can easily infiltrate Hollywood as well with allegedly false Recondo credentials.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:35 PM PST - 12 comments

While my guitar fiercely weeps Next on YouTubeFilter: Prince shares a stage with Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and George Harrison's son Dhani, at Harrison's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No, scratch that: Prince ain't sharin' with nobody -- that stage is all his.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:47 PM PST - 106 comments

New video for "Punks in the Beerlight" from the Silver Jews, directed by Todd Lincoln. Loaded with apey goodness.
posted by slogger at 12:08 PM PST - 19 comments

For all the hoo-ha about Callas first bringing real acting to the operatic stage, one has only to view the footage of Risë Stevens legendary 1952 “Carmen” to see what kind of Method she brought to the Met. Stevens was the definitive gypsy wanton, and her performance has it all— fire, ice, and that impossible balance between elegance and sluttiness. Her technique is superb—licking her fingers before extinguishing the candles in what will be her death chamber, then flicking off the wax; flinging her unwanted lover’s ring at him, spitting out a contemptuous “Tiens!”.
The Metropolitan Opera Guild honors the Bronx-born singer, now 92. More inside.
posted by matteo at 11:07 AM PST - 9 comments

This little old lady is kind enough to teach us how to make delicious deserts and canned goods, while her husband instructs us in the intricacies of caring for wild birds. Don't you just love these simple, old fashioned folks? By the way, their web site gets 78,000 hits a month, they're world travelers and they're more tech savvy than I ever hope to be.
posted by leapingsheep at 8:27 AM PST - 40 comments

The Scottish Qualifications Authority has recently produced a new qualification on blogging [PDF] and used a wiki to produce teaching and learning material. Wikis look well-suited to this purpose. Could this be the future of curriculum development?
posted by bobbyelliott at 8:18 AM PST - 6 comments

Shut yo' mouth! The US government, will soon spider the entire web analyzing all pages -- including your blog -- for evidence of "terrorism". It greatly extends prior government watching of the web for "terrorists" like the ACLU. But not for political speech, of course. Never that.
So shut your mouth and shut down your blog if you don't want to end up on a list of people to be "neutralized" -- like Mario Savio, hounded for ten years despite never breaking a law.
posted by orthogonality at 7:54 AM PST - 111 comments

U.S. Force Feeding Prisoners at Guantánamo [NY Times]. In response to hunger strikes, U.S. military authorities have taken tougher measures to force-feed detainees. This is accomplished using the sometimes deadly restraint chair, also known as the "we care chair". Well, that's what they get for being terrorists, right?[pdf]
posted by ND¢ at 6:16 AM PST - 160 comments

Lone ranger or lunatic? Colin Yeates is about to set off from the Falkland Islands on his second attempt to row alone and unsupported around Antarctica. His previous attempt ended in spectacular failure after just two days of plotting an erratic course in the wrong direction and crash landing on a beach just 50 miles from where he set off. Undeterred by the danger he places in the path of those who will, inevitably, have to rescue him, the father of seven has repaired his tiny rowing boat and seems unbothered that winter is nigh and the local sailors don't want to shake the hand of this dead man walking.
posted by penguin pie at 5:52 AM PST - 51 comments

Mixed Media Watch is devoted to "tracking media representations of mixed people." Whether you identify as "mixed", "biracial", "mulitiracial", etc., this website is a great resource for a growing, but vastly underrepresented segment of the population. Of course, it is also a valuable resource for interracial couples, parents, and anyone else (like myself) who is endlessly fascinated with the social construct that we call race.
posted by crapulent at 5:47 AM PST - 19 comments

Beware, O unsuspecting traveler; for the path you take shall surely lead to your doom. The Galleria Carnivora: A celebration of plants that kill. Also, learn how to cultivate your own Audreys with the help of the International Carnivorous Plant Society (and check out their Members Gallery as well).
posted by Gator at 5:37 AM PST - 14 comments

Remember Dong Resin's book? (discussion here), well another long term Mefite Johnny Novak has just had his first novel published by Random House in the UK, Sea Otters Gambolling in the Wild, Wild Surf. Watch the trailer (flash, sound) or find out more (link to Vintage site). (via Projects)
posted by the cuban at 1:58 AM PST - 37 comments

Food Art Very interesting pictures of food represented as something else - pie tins as ice skating rinks, donut cycling rings, and mining for watermelon seeds.
posted by divabat at 12:09 AM PST - 36 comments

Auctioneer + Political Wonk + Chess Club = The World of Competitive Policy Debate. This video of the national debate championships [realplayer, and many more here, including in other languages] is a real experience. This form of debate has evolved around a very specific set of rules with results that may seem strange to the uninitiated. Each year since 1921 there has been a single topic (take a look at 1939 for an example that reflects the times). Competitors learn to speak very fast, while elaborate strategies for winning have developed and massive amounts of information are presented in just a few minutes. If you like your debates witty and understandable, you may want to check out parliamentary debate instead (real format). I assume there are some other ex-debaters out there in MeFi land....
posted by blahblahblah at 11:20 PM PST - 85 comments

Was Gonzales truthful? Shortly after the warrantless eavesdropping program began, then-NSA Director Michael V. Hayden and Ashcroft made clear in private meetings that the president wanted to detect possible terrorist activity before another attack. They also made clear that, in such a broad hunt for suspicious patterns and activities, the government could never meet the FISA court's probable-cause requirement, government officials said. So it confused the FISA court judges when, in their recent public defense of the program, Hayden and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that NSA analysts do not listen to calls unless they have a reasonable belief that someone with a known link to terrorism is on one end of the call. At a hearing Monday, Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the "reasonable belief" standard is merely the "probable cause" standard by another name.
posted by caddis at 10:47 PM PST - 46 comments

The Mohammed Dance! We all remember the Hampster Dance (more) and the Jesus Dance. Now, with the ongoing cartoon controversy, comes the Mohammed Dance.
posted by dagny at 10:33 PM PST - 97 comments

Cryptome out??? FBI Special Agent Matthew J. Bertron, 26 Federal Plaza, New York, NY 10278, left his card today, 8 February, 3 PM, while we were out, with a request to call his number, 718-286-7154, or the main number 212-384-1000. We called, he was out, he returned our call about 6 PM to ask to meet here at 10 AM tomorrow, 9 February. No reason given. In November 2003, two SAs visited, not sure if one or more this time. We'll report, maybe.
posted by OU812 at 9:50 PM PST - 27 comments

Mavericks Big Wave Surfing Competition has ended. Grant Baker from South Africa took the 30K first place prize. Nice photo gallery.
posted by derangedlarid at 9:03 PM PST - 14 comments

Anatomy of an Affair. An honest account of one man's affair and the ways it changed him forever.
posted by granted at 8:52 PM PST - 150 comments

Hardball's Chris Matthews beats the crap out of former Pentagon spokesperson Torie Clark on the WMD issue. I've never heard a member of the mainstream media so outspoken and heated in slamming the Admin's position on this before. Is the tide turning? (Video-WMP; Video-QT)
posted by darkstar at 8:22 PM PST - 53 comments

Limited Edition Candy. By our very own interrobang
posted by rocketman at 8:21 PM PST - 39 comments

Multiple-contact sensitive touchscreen doing neat things [Quicktime video]
posted by Pseudoephedrine at 8:14 PM PST - 17 comments

Galactic Central is the mother lode of magazine archives, with publishing information and cover art, including a prodigious pile of pulp magazines.
posted by crunchland at 7:54 PM PST - 6 comments

The bad news: "4,100 people diagnosed with diabetes, 230 amputations in people with diabetes, 120 people who enter end-stage kidney disease programs and 55 people who go blind. ..That's going to happen every day, on the weekends and on the Fourth of July. That's diabetes". The worse news: this is in New York City alone. The disease will soon afflict more than a million inhabitants of the city.
posted by storybored at 7:42 PM PST - 23 comments

WTF, Yahoo‽ How many Chinese are you going to help put into the hell of Chinese prison, Terry, Jerry, and David?
posted by five fresh fish at 7:29 PM PST - 26 comments

The New England Belt Sander Racing Association has just held their 2006 Winter Nationals. The results aren't up yet but you can watch a movie of the 2003 championship. [via]
posted by tellurian at 7:27 PM PST - 6 comments

Who is Brad Morgan and what is Moon 168?
posted by lalochezia at 7:21 PM PST - 7 comments

As a proud patriot & supporter of our nation's armed forces, my greatest personal shame comes from the fact that my pugs aren't fit for service (Lola has cuddling issues that would prove a hindrance on the battlefield, whereas Oscar would run afowl of the "don't ask, don't tell" laws). Fortunately, the good people at Pets In Uniform will gladly do an awful photoshop job to make it look like they actually served their nation proudly.
posted by jonson at 5:36 PM PST - 34 comments

""We only have to recall the colour of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who are most devastated by Katrina to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans." - Former President Jimmy Carter.

Coretta Scott King was laid to rest Tuesday after a six-hour service attended by four presidents and 10,000 ordinary people who came to pay tribute to the first lady of the civil rights movement - and one of its last icons. But at an event designed to remember the lady who was as memorable as her late husband in fighting for civil rights, politics entered the fray with both former President Jimmy Carter and Rev Joseph Lowery taking swipes at the Bush Administration. They say that there's a time and a place, and while this was clearly not the place, with thousands of Katrina victims (mostly African-American) about to be evicted because of budget cuts by the Bush administration, was it the time?
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:53 PM PST - 149 comments

Otto is just looking for a little love. Can you fit the bill?
posted by atom128 at 3:18 PM PST - 16 comments

It was that inevitable stomach-churning phone call in the middle of the night. The one we all had been dreading for years. The caller was choked with emotion. His words fell like bricks:

" You heard about Jaco?"

Jaco Pastorius bass virtuoso rediscovered. Photos and sounds and perspectives.
posted by Smedleyman at 3:18 PM PST - 28 comments

The Fish in the Nice Sweater : 2' 11" chronicler of the inconsequent.
posted by Francesnash at 3:09 PM PST - 6 comments

Step right up ladies 'n gents! See how to make just about verything from accordions to zirconium. They've got paint, unicyles, condoms and much much more! Diagrams included at no extra charge!
posted by Irontom at 12:38 PM PST - 17 comments

French Abstract CG Piece Starts out slow but really develops. A great mix of sound, visuals, and that damn je ne se quoi! (Qtime Embed)
posted by Mr Bluesky at 12:11 PM PST - 14 comments

Sweden to break oil addiction? (BBC article): Released in a in a public statement the Swedish Minister for Sustainable Development (!), Mona Sahlin, sets forth the goal of a Sweden free from the dependence of oil by 2020. As this Altnews article says, this is essentially just a reaffirmation of a stated goal. Still 2020, is not far off.
posted by edgeways at 11:19 AM PST - 45 comments

Anybody tried Songbird? A preview release of the "iTunes-killer" launched today. Interview with development team leader on Boing Boing. Works great ... but I see no iPod support.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:37 AM PST - 74 comments

Recent surveys show that fast-food packaging makes up about 20 percent of all litter, with snack foods comprising another 20 percent. Oakland, CA is the first city to tax companies who create "Fast-Food Trash".
posted by stbalbach at 9:55 AM PST - 30 comments

Crime and violence are everyday happenings in Cambodia. The Cambodian media thrives on it. But is it just everyday violence or something deeper?
posted by Xurando at 7:34 AM PST - 18 comments

"Light Pollution - and the return of the night" (more inside)
posted by slimepuppy at 7:06 AM PST - 54 comments

Band of Brothers is an organization of Democratic veterans running for U.S. Congress. Maybe you'll hear about their DC rally today on the news (but don't hold your breath). Currently, vets in the Senate are about evenly split among the GOP and Dems, but Republican vets are the majority in the House. This is likely to change if the Democrats take control of Congress in this year's elections, in which the Iraq War will be a primary issue. Has a White House full of chickenhawks destroyed the GOP claim as the military party?
posted by If I Had An Anus at 6:44 AM PST - 41 comments

Pro-prostitution blog. So you've seen the careful, rational and spell-checked arguments for the decriminalization of prostitution. Now read this instead. And don't forget, the author took time out on christmas eve to tell you what it's like in a central american cathouse.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:32 AM PST - 100 comments

Leech Hunter's Chronicles [how to remove them]
posted by srboisvert at 5:12 AM PST - 16 comments

Properly Chilled, "a great guide to the downtempo music scene/lifestyle, spotlighting not only the essential release reviews, label/artist profiles and other data on the genre but also exclusive DJ mixes and all kinds of other goodies" (via). Check out the totally free, totally chill Radio Jazztronica #3 mix from DJ Chicken George. It's 55+ minutes of "unpredictable, energetic and heart-felt" downtempo that packs a serious punch. Did I mention it's free?
posted by JPowers at 5:08 AM PST - 19 comments

I think that I shall never see, A billboard lovely as a...flower. Just in time for Valentine's Day, send your sweetie a dozen roses with custom-printed, spectacular Engrish messages on the petals. Also useful for wedding anniversaries and football games.
posted by Gator at 5:04 AM PST - 18 comments

Metabolism of evolution information in the blogosphere.
posted by melissa may at 12:37 AM PST - 19 comments

RIP Baruchito. The flagship hamster of Baruchito's homeCage has passed away after struggling with the stress of a flea infection and the medication applied to it. Baru was just a couple of months shy of three years -- which is a venerable old hamster age. While he may not have been as notorious as certain late pancake-stacked pets, Baru still lived a full life of fuzzy cuteness and aaaawww-inspiring photos. Those of you with hamsters, won't you arrange them now in missing-man formation?
posted by brownpau at 10:38 PM PST - 17 comments

Updatefilter: George C. Deutsch has resigned. (for NYT links, see BugMeNot)

(T)he young presidential appointee at NASA who told public affairs workers to limit reporters' access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word "theory" at every mention of the Big Bang, resigned yesterday, agency officials said. (previously discussed here on MeFi)

Mr. Deutsch's resignation came on the same day that officials at Texas A&M University confirmed that he did not graduate from there, as his résumé on file at the agency asserted. [...]

Mr. Deutsch, 24, was offered a job as a writer and editor in NASA's public affairs office in Washington last year after working on President Bush's re-election campaign and inaugural committee, according to his résumé. No one has disputed those parts of the document.

posted by edverb at 10:28 PM PST - 85 comments

Family Values. Today Matthew Koso, 23, was sentenced to 18-30 months in a Nebraska state prison for having consensual sex with his wife, Crystal, 15, notwithstanding the fact that their marriage was legally celebrated in neighboring Kansas. In the photo gallery you can view pictures of the victim of this crime as well as the state's key piece of evidence, who will be without a father for the next year and a half or so. (Previous Mefi thread here. Today's links via How Appealing.)
posted by Saucy Intruder at 9:28 PM PST - 140 comments

It's dactylfractal time....
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 9:25 PM PST - 28 comments

Marshall Oak, Starfleet Captain is a photo gallery of 184 shots of Star Trek with Marshal Oak photoshopped in. Obsessive fan? Visual Slash Fiction? SciFi Where's Waldo? All of the above.
posted by mathowie at 7:57 PM PST - 60 comments

All Your Oil Are Belong To Us. Coming off of a recordbreaking profitable quarter, the good chaps at ExxonMobil laugh at your puny attempts to get off of oil.
posted by owillis at 4:48 PM PST - 82 comments

Test your knowledge of philosophy with the 2006 IAP Philosophy Trivia Quiz! This quiz is extremely hard, so you might want to take a break at the Cognitive Science Cafe [pdf].
posted by painquale at 4:27 PM PST - 10 comments

The Steam Tank is a brief visual effects reel by Chris Paul, from the Vancouver Film School. It begins with a somewhat mundane steam powered tank attacking a mounted gun in a downtown building, but then replays the event shot by shot, showing the original filmed plate, and adding on each cgi component, to give a good idea of how cg & reality interface in an effects piece. warning: link goes to direct download of 56MB QuickTime mov
posted by jonson at 4:09 PM PST - 13 comments

Boehner Gets Huge Overnight The Congressman with the unfortunately spelled last name was elected House Majority Leader last week--it was only a matter of time....(embedded movie).
posted by P-Soque at 3:14 PM PST - 47 comments

Newsfilter: "France can take Treme. The king of Jordan can take the Lower Ninth Ward." Ray Nagin seeks international assistance after a certain superpower comes up short. [via Humid City]
posted by brundlefly at 3:07 PM PST - 13 comments

Open up your mind and let everything come through. Psych and Prog get great sharity treatment. (ChrisGoes is also known for his regular appearance on torrent sites with his huge, wonderful collections).
posted by klangklangston at 3:06 PM PST - 11 comments

The Roots Music Listening Room for Collectors of American Roots Music. We feature Old-Time Strings Bands, Ballads & Breakdowns, Early Blues & Gospel, some Early Jazz, Vintage Country Gospel, Early Bluegrass and various Ethnic Musics played by immigrants to America. Most of this material was originally recorded in the 1920s through the early 1950s and was first issued on 78 RPM Records. (Out of consideration for others only download about 15-20 songs in one day.)
posted by crunchland at 2:38 PM PST - 22 comments

Science is better: An enormous scientific study has conclusively demonstrated that "diet had no effect" on rates of women getting cancer or heart disease. Because the study investigated the efficacy of overall low fat diets, rather than the more recently developed hypothesis that saturated fats are the only pernicious kind, some leading medical researchers accept these findings but still think there MAY be a direct link between certain diets and major health problems in women, but (and here's the money shot) "if they did a study like that and it was negative, then I'd have to give up my cherished hypotheses for data." Now that, my friends, is a heartwarming example of one of the pinnacles of human creativity, the scientific method, which is under so much attack these days. . .
posted by twsf at 2:23 PM PST - 29 comments

Find offensive content! The people at Inboxer allow you register for a free account to use their antispam software on approximately 500,000 Enron emails in a database. According to a Wired article, the appliance has found 71,268 inappropriate messages.

And just to add to the fun, they're offering to give away 3 Ipod Shuffles for people who submit the best emails in the "I'd fire him/her" the "Funniest Joke", and the "What were they thinking?" categories. Just to give you an idea of what we're talking about here, check out this lovely Booty Call contract. Also, check out the whitepaper they've written, Monsters in your mailbox (.pdf), and get worried if you're using your business email account for personal messages!
posted by jasper411 at 2:15 PM PST - 24 comments

First it was announced that an Oregon State University graduate student was publishing a story in the journal Science. titled, "Post-Wildfire Logging Hinders Regeneration and Increases Fire Risk," which undercut Bush administration-backed arguments for post-wildfire logging. A week later it was made public that nine professors in the College of Forestry (which gets 10% of its funding from a logging tax) lobbied the journal not to publish the article. Among them was John Sessions, lead author of a report that pressed the U.S. Forest Service to expand salvage logging. After attention was brought to the professors' attempts to keep the article from being published, many worried about the university's reputation regarding academic freedom, if not the state of academic freedom throughout the academic world. However if it wasn't difficult enough to just worry about your own professors standing in the way of getting your data published, you also have to worry about the government pulling your funding if your data doesn't match the data they want to see.

"The Bureau of Land Management acknowledged Monday that it asked OSU if the three-year study led by graduate student Daniel Donato and published last month in the journal Science violated provisions of a $300,000 federal fire research grant that prohibits using any of the funds to lobby Congress and requires that a BLM scientist be consulted before the research is published."

"It's totally without precedent as far as I can recollect," said Jerry Franklin, a professor at the University of Washington who has studied Northwest forests for decades. "It says, 'If we don't like what you're saying, we'll cut off your money.' "
posted by pwb503 at 1:58 PM PST - 51 comments

The Man With The Magnétoscope.
"How marvelous to be able to look at what you cannot see... cinema, like Christianity, is not founded on historical truth. It supplies us with a story and says: Believe — believe come what may."
Jean Luc Godard's 'Histoire(s) du Cinéma' at UCLA.
posted by matteo at 12:55 PM PST - 8 comments

The Oyez Project has placed online mp3s for all of the arguments from the 2004 term of the United States Supreme Court. The 2004 terms spans all cases argued between October 4, 2004, and April 27, 2005, including United States v. Booker and United States v. FanFan, Roper v. Simmons , Raich v. Gonzales, Kelo v. City of New London, McCreary County v. ACLU, and Van Orden v. Perry. [slightly more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:38 AM PST - 25 comments

The Musical Listening test is harder than it sounds, no pun intended. Hosted at the University of Newcastle at Tyne, it is a study of musical perception in the general population. Listen to two short melodic phrases and decide if they are the same or different.
posted by pjern at 11:38 AM PST - 56 comments

What's That? -- skin trouble and bioterrorism, diagnostic help Probably not safe for work viewing
posted by hank at 11:05 AM PST - 7 comments

*Look* both ways before you cross the street "The dangerous drawbacks of driving a hybrid: it's so quiet that pedestrians can't hear it when it's starting up or idling, and they often walk right into the path of the moving vehicle." I've got a feeling this is how I'm going to buy it. Oh well, like the lady said, if it's not one thing it's another. Tip of the hat to Kausfiles via Auto Blog.
posted by mojohand at 10:38 AM PST - 91 comments

Turkey gets tough in Valley of the Wolves Iraq. Previously, Turkey has reenvisioned Star Wars and the Wizard of Oz to the delight of many. Now, Turkish movie-goers are clamoring for this Rambo rip-off in which a Turkish intelligence officer seeks out a rogue unit of U.S. troops led by Billy Zane! The film, which also features Gary Busey, begins with a scene based on the U.S. raid of a Turkish special forces office.
posted by lunalaguna at 10:35 AM PST - 34 comments

Dear First Lieutenant Rebrook: Thank you for your service to your country. Here's your medical discharge, and here's a bill for $700 to cover the loss of the armor you ruined by bleeding all over it when you got shot.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:39 AM PST - 62 comments

"I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness." McCain and Obama engage in the Senate equivalent of The Dozens.
posted by empath at 7:36 AM PST - 138 comments

MySpace: The Movie (embedded .wmv) - Oh that Tom, he's everybody's friend!
posted by Space Coyote at 7:23 AM PST - 16 comments

US Army Teaches Troops How to Pick a Spouse "Army chaplains are trying to teach troops how to pick the right spouse, through a program called "How To Avoid Marrying a Jerk. ... It teaches the lovestruck to pace themselves with a R.A.M. chart — the Relationship Attachment Model — which basically says don't let your sexual involvement exceed your level of commitment or level of knowledge about the other person."

I can't decide if this is common sense or takes all the fun out of love. If, indeed, there is any fun in it. Details on the programme can also be found at www.nojerks.com
posted by badlydubbedboy at 5:37 AM PST - 43 comments

"Lost World" found in Indonesian Papua (with audio)
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome at 5:16 AM PST - 21 comments

More red ink. The White House has just released the budget for 2007. If approved by Congress, this budget would increase defense spending by 24%, cut money from healthcare, education, and the environment all while adding another $354 billion to the U.S. debt. (NPR analysis.). At the end of FY2000, the U.S. debt - the accumulation of the deficit spending of all previous 42 U.S. Presidents - was $5,674,178,209,886.86. Today it is $8,195,544,127,376.07 (here is an up-to-the-minute estimate.) Bush took office with a budget surplus and a forecast of a cumulative 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. In just 6 years, the party of tax cuts and balanced budgets , under the steady leadership of President number 43 has added 45% to the Ú.S. national debt.
posted by three blind mice at 5:04 AM PST - 74 comments

Teddy Girls
posted by anastasiav at 4:49 AM PST - 57 comments

He wasn't asked. He didn't tell. Now he's out — and discharged. Eye-opening tale of Jeff Howe, courtesy of Raw Story. After 9/11, feeling personally unfulfilled and wanting to serve his country, Howe enlisted at the age of 29. Knowing he was gay but realizing that Army guidelines forbade his kind, he re-entered the closet, underwent basic training, and was shipped to Iraq. After a two-year stint on the front lines, with five commendations, he returned stateside. Then he was stop-lossed, shipped back to Iraq, and started writing a blog. That began a chain of events that, through no apparent fault of his own — or loose lip-flapping — led to Jeff Howe and the Army parting company.
posted by rob511 at 3:33 AM PST - 36 comments

H1t3r pwnd UK, USA! A gunnery has been discovered, buried beneath a metre of iron-rich Normandy soil. It was likely part of a ruse on the part of the Axis forces: a fake gunnery was also built, less conspicuously, and it took the abuse. It was forgotten -- or the memory at least buried by the locals and those who fought there -- until recently. Now it appears to explain some puzzles about Bloody Omaha [pic].
posted by five fresh fish at 12:57 AM PST - 49 comments

The Buddha project "The Buddha Project encourages people worldwide to participate by submitting photos of found Buddha, sacred Buddha, ancient Buddha, kitschy Buddha, handmade Buddha"
posted by dhruva at 12:26 AM PST - 12 comments

CSMonitor's Jill Carroll update As there isn't really much news about Jill Carroll, this blog has become mainly about the issues surrounding the Carroll abduction. What is Islam's perspective on foreigners? How does rampant kidnapping effect journalists? The last 'update' is about a poster of Carroll hung from Rome's city hall. Which makes me think two things: there isn't much news about Carroll's situation; why in the hell hasn't a US city hung a poster of Carroll?
posted by raaka at 11:00 PM PST - 7 comments

Motown history traded for Super Bowl parking. (mostly audio) The Motown Center in Detroit was torn down a few weeks ago and turned into Super Bowl parking. Although not the main recording studios, and long abandoned, it still contained many Motown documents and memorabilia, most of which were lost in the razing. Covered by local bloggers: dETROITfUNK (1, 2) , Detroit Blog (1, 2, 3, 4), and Kempa, plus local tv.
posted by caddis at 8:08 PM PST - 45 comments

Prehistoric art in the American Southwest.
posted by snsranch at 7:57 PM PST - 9 comments

ThreadBared.com is the Go Fug Yourself of vintage sewing, knitting, crocheting, and crafting patterns. Some highlights: Lord of the Bellbottoms; behold the Golliwog; That Linebacker Look; Return to Traditional Values; You Should See His Ball Peen Hammer; Never EVER make fun of a man who is both wearing cableknit mittens and holding a shotgun.
posted by Gator at 7:14 PM PST - 7 comments

Newsfilter : Farid Mortazavi, graphics editor to the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri, puts out a call for revisionist Holocaust cartoons. Israeli settlers may plan to riot. Well, continue rioting, anyway.
posted by suckerpunch at 6:50 PM PST - 61 comments

Giant Rabbit. Capable of balancing a dozen short stacks on its head.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 6:36 PM PST - 49 comments

Specious Beasts: the unsuccessful fauna of the American West.
posted by feathermeat at 5:57 PM PST - 14 comments

That scientist NASA tried to silence? He finally did the radio interview last week.
posted by alms at 5:38 PM PST - 16 comments

We think we know what we want, but sometimes we're totally wrong. A woman spends a year dating anyone who asks her out, and finds The One. On the way, she dates a homeless man, 10 taxi drivers, two lesbians and a mime. How much do we really know about what we want until we find it?
posted by onlyconnect at 3:40 PM PST - 97 comments

As a public service, tagged mapping can be used for much more than finding pizza parlors and Craigslist rental entries. Here it gets used to plot criminal activity, like bike thefts and other crimes in West Philadelphia and the larger Philadelphia area, as well as Chicago.
posted by Rothko at 3:09 PM PST - 11 comments

MusicFilter: Rosanne Cash has in many ways followed in her father, Johnny Cash's footsteps as an independent artist critical of the industry and radio marketing. Black Cadillac, her first album since the death of her mother, father, and step-mother in 2003 was released in the shadow of the better known biopic Walk the Line. Reviews that are not obsessed with the movie tie-in appear to be generally positive: Canoe (orig Winnepeg Sun), Rolling Stone, and Metacritic.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:34 PM PST - 15 comments

Nutjobs all over America have reported seeing aliens silently wafting over their trailerparks in big ass triangular spaceships. Could the truth to these sightings be a little closer to home?
posted by zeoslap at 1:29 PM PST - 49 comments

Have you read all these books? Hell, no. Yes, and many more. The answer is yes. No, these are the ones I have to read by the end of the month. Nay, I have written them. No, only four of them. No, and I never intend to live in a house where I can't find a book I haven't read. Not one-tenth of them. No, but I know why I bought each one. Probably not.
posted by mistersix at 1:10 PM PST - 39 comments

He complained to [Kingsley] Amis in 1943...that "all women are stupid beings" and remarked in 1983 that he'd recently accompanied Monica [Jones] to a hospital "staffed ENTIRELY by wogs, cheerful and incompetent." ...His views on politics and class seemed to be pithily captured in a ditty he shared again with Amis. "I want to see them starving,/The so-called working class,/Their wages yearly halving,/Their women stewing grass..." For recreation he apparently found time for pornography, preferably with a hint of sado-masochism".
John Banville on Philip Larkin.
posted by matteo at 12:49 PM PST - 30 comments

Newsfilter: Canada's New Cabinet. Featuring thrills (former Liberal David Emerson crosses the floor to serve as International Trade Minister, and affect the balance of power), spills (Michael Fortier, who is not an MP, will be appointed to the Senate to serve as Public Works and Government Services Minister on the condition that he resign to run for Parliament in the next general election, upsetting some) and chills (everybody's favourite whipping boy, Stockwell Day as Minister of Public Safety). (as a bonus - and for those ignoramuses that care not for the intricacies of Canadian politics - pay some mind to the newly redesigned globeandmail.com, especially the prominence of public commentary on every article - it's the embodiment of newsfilter!)
posted by loquax at 11:53 AM PST - 81 comments

Apparently Gus & Pam enjoy the Star Wars films.
posted by jonson at 10:57 AM PST - 104 comments

NIcodemus, Kansas is the only remaining western community established by African Americans after the Civil War. The promise of freedom and land in the state of John Brown. Though prosperous in the 1880's, it began to fade. Its post office closed in 1953. It is now home to only 27 residents, with an average age of 80, but the "Promise Land" has hope. Wake Nicodemus, wake.
posted by ozomatli at 9:48 AM PST - 22 comments

iQuit [embedded flash movie]. Smoke Screen 2 is a Health Canada funded project that gives young Canadian immigrants and refugees the chance to make their own health awareness videos, since they're often marginalised by mainstream media. Rather than just being a fun little anti-smoking project though, the resulting videos are being shown on national primetime TV. Last year's project, Smoke Screen: Made By Girls, caused controversy when one of the videos was banned by the CBC.
posted by nylon at 8:16 AM PST - 11 comments