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posted by crunchland at 11:46 PM PST - 10 comments

Former N. Korean Nuclear Contractors are "pretty sure that at some point Don was involved," since it was not unusual to seek help from board members "when we needed contacts with the U.S. government." An article in yesterday's Fortune mentions and quotes a number of former employees/contractors for a Swiss engineering firm -- headed by Donald Rumsfeld at the time that Pyongyang began getting its nuke on. Nevertheless, Today Rumsfeld, riding high after the Iraq war, is reportedly discussing a plan for "regime change" in North Korea. But his silence about the nuclear reactors raises questions about what he did--or didn't do--as an ABB director. unsurprisingly, the media is not exactly all over this.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:40 PM PST - 25 comments

road map to peace lets see. one side appears to be off on the right foot ... despite efforts to derail the process ... the other side ... well ... they have yet to "accept" the roadmap.
posted by specialk420 at 11:07 PM PST - 2 comments

Explore a Chinese Language. The Ting Chinese English Center is a database of tools to learn Mandarin or English, and it's fun to boot. Don't miss the tongue twisters, and try to guess how to pronounce the color before clicking on the sound file.
posted by frykitty at 10:30 PM PST - 11 comments

The return of the dangerous classes: crime control in the 21st century. "The language of crime control seems to be today on the verge of eclipsing all others - in particular that of social rights – and becoming the single, all encompassing goal of social policy."
Sounds topical? John Lea's work on the changes postfordism has brought to crime control are even more relevant now than they were when he wrote them back in the nineties. [more]
posted by slipperywhenwet at 8:22 PM PST - 3 comments

Recipe for Success, French-Style: Take one quirky Japanese pop artist; mix with one trendy New York designer; shake in rip-off French leather merchant and add streetwise celebrity . Finally, importantly, make resulting concoction completely unavailable. Result: Madness ensues. How un-American can it be to lay down over 2000 dollars for a cartoony handbag you can't even get your hands on? [Flash req.]
posted by Schweppes Girl at 7:35 PM PST - 18 comments

Jason Halperin went into a New York curry house, and got a side dish, he didn't expect.
-- A gun in his face and the trashing of his constitutional rights. Tasty.
"Two weeks ago I experienced a very small taste of what hundreds of South Asian immigrants and U.S. citizens of South Asian descent have gone through since 9/11, and what thousands of others have come to fear. I was held, against my will and without warrant or cause, under the USA PATRIOT Act."
posted by Blue Stone at 7:28 PM PST - 67 comments

ChoicePoint buys data on 65 million Mexicans. You might remember ChoicePoint as the company that provided the data to purge black "felons" from voting in Florida 2000. Welp, good news! We get another free lap around the track and all of our Latin American friends will be there to greet us in common victory. What a coup!
posted by crasspastor at 6:27 PM PST - 2 comments

Illuminated manuscripts are truly a joy to behold. And there are a remarkable number of them available on the web for your viewing pleasure. The most famous illuminated MS is the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. For galleries with multiple images, try the resources at DScriptorium, Web Gallery of Art, and the Leaves of Gold exhibition. Elyse Boucher's page is a work-in-progress detailing the history and methods of illuminating books, with both images and secondary sources; see also Sue Wood's Art and Books page.
posted by thomas j wise at 5:53 PM PST - 10 comments

Vote the Experimental Party! America's latest political party. "We must work to incorporate the avant-garde and the spirit of experimentalism into the fabric of our nation. The history of our next hundred years must emerge from the rich mosaic of alternative culture, from the lofts of San Francisco to the barrios of New York City." One mad artist with unfortunate facial hair and a Tom Paine fetish. God love ALL the kooks.
posted by theplayethic at 3:34 PM PST - 6 comments

Is there no spoon? The Warner Bros Matrix site is home to a series of scholarly essays inspired by the film (last updated 3/20/03). I mean, sure, the film offers some "whoa dude" moments regarding technology, perception, and vinyl pants, but I was surprised to find it an interesting launching point for discussions about freedom, heaven, and Plato's Cave as well. Being a philosophy layman, I can't vouch for their quality with any authority, but if you know the movies inside and out, as I apparently do (god help me) you might find the essays interesting.*
_{*for the next 15 agonizing days, anyway}
posted by scarabic at 3:16 PM PST - 36 comments

Bookfinder has added an interesting new service: a report on the most requested out of print books, based on searches submitted to them between July and December 2002. Will publishers take note?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:39 PM PST - 8 comments

MeTaFiLTeR = 318514 The Phonetic Numerals system provides a convenient way to remember long strings of numbers. It's really simple: the system replaces the numbers 0-9 with the symbols S, T, N, M, R, L, J, K, F and P (the strikethoughs indicate the difference between the symbol and the letter that it takes the place of). Take a long number (3.1415926, for example), convert it into Phonetic Numerals (MTRTLPNJ), then come up with a phrase using those letters (MoTheR ToiLed a PaN Job.) See? Easy!
posted by me3dia at 1:07 PM PST - 21 comments

I am happy to see that the GOP is expanding their reach to the more eclectic fringes of society. Although it may freak some other people out.
posted by EmoChild at 1:05 PM PST - 7 comments

Why am I getting all this spam? The Center for Democracy & Technology Unsolicited Commercial E-mail Research Six Month Report.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:37 AM PST - 22 comments

"I explain to them that they are in my restaurant. And they must have the flounder the way I make it."
One of Washington's top chefs draws the line with picky diners. Welcome rebellion or self-important rant? Discuss.
(This is a Washington Post "Live Online" chat. The chef's letter is the first entry; scroll down further for reactions on both sides.)
posted by PrinceValium at 10:56 AM PST - 172 comments

Frontier Psychology - Does Frontier Psychology drive America in a direction that the rest of the world cannot comprehend? Roughly defined as "the effort on the part of Americans to come to grips with untamed elements of nature and, by taming them, to reorganize their society" We see it everywhere, even in Buffy. Europe appears to value stability over mobility and change, in opposition to America. Prof. Richard Slotkin has written extensively about these concepts. An interiew with audio clips is here. (Real)
Are America's recent domestic and international policy decisions attempts to tame "untamed elements" around it?
posted by Argyle at 10:45 AM PST - 23 comments

Custom paperback editions of classic novels starring YOU! Now also available in a "happy ending" edition! Didn't like that Romeo and Juliet die at the end? Choose the Happy Ending Version a new scene is added with a twist — the lovers live happily ever after! A short scene is added after Act V Scene III. It turns out the apothecary's poison didn't work and Romeo survives, and Juliet's stabbing of herself merely made her pass out. The problem with public domain is that the integrity of the original is lost once it's Disneyfied.
posted by riffola at 10:13 AM PST - 20 comments

Ever felt alone? No, I mean really alone, as in "13 year old girl has forgotten the lyrics to the national anthem in front of 20,000 restless fans on national TV" alone? Natalie Gilbert has, but suddenly someone was there, and she wasn't alone(3.8MB .asf video).(via PLA)
posted by dglynn at 9:55 AM PST - 49 comments

Archive footage of a lanky 19 year old draft-dodger guiding CBC documentary film makers around the LSD and cannabis addled hippie village of Yorkville back in 1967. His name? William Gibson. Via William Gibson Board.
posted by armoured-ant at 9:53 AM PST - 13 comments

Eunuchs' Day in the Sun: Eunuchs from all over India gathered in a small village, Koovagam, this week to re-enact a story from the Hindu scriptures in which they pretend to marry a warrior-god. Pictures from the festival.
posted by Spezzatura at 8:41 AM PST - 10 comments

A Profile of Adolf Wolfli : "Adolf Wolfli, a Swiss madman, born in 1864, who spent the last thirty-five of his sixty-six years in a psychiatric hospital, is among the greatest of outsider artists. Indeed, he could serve as Exhibit A in a study of the outsider phenomenon: cases of wild, solipsistic genius that challenge the values of formal training and cultural initiation, not to mention sanity, in significant art. ... [His]large, incredibly dense drawings combine religion, sex, language, music, geography, economics, and other aspects of the artist’s fantasy empire, which, for him, was more or less the universe. ... Especially in his earliest surviving pictures -- from 1904 to 1907, after the staff at the Waldau Mental Asylum stopped regarding his work as 'stupid stuff' -- he emerges as, among other things, a master of graphic design with an exceptional talent for tonality."

You can see reproductions of sixteen of his works here. I looked around for more examples of his work online, but found little beyond this diminutive Artcyclopedia entry. (Thanks to Robot Wisdom for the first two links.)
posted by eyebeam at 8:40 AM PST - 30 comments

Who's the only man who can take on President George W. Bush in a debate? Why, it's Texas Governor of the past, George W. Bush! BUSH v. BUSH! How surreal...(realplayer req)
posted by jearbear at 8:39 AM PST - 28 comments

Dutroux to face jury trial This one's a shocker. Marc Dutroux has been held in custody in Belgium since 1996, having been arrested for the kidnap and killing of several young girls. There's 2 theories why the Belgian legal system has been unable to bring this guy to trial - either gross incompetence, or a conspiracy to protect those more important than himself, going all the way up to the government. [ more inside ]
posted by derbs at 7:58 AM PST - 8 comments

Bible Sex Stories: The Good Book's dirty bits explained. Pssst, wanna snack while you read? [From the always entertaining Jewsweek; Definitely NSFW or for those still with one foot still out of their handbasket to Hell.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:08 AM PST - 17 comments

The times, they are etcetera-ing. Jean Chrétien drew applause and a few whoops of joy at a fundraising dinner Tuesday night when he said that legislation decriminalizing possession of marijuana in Canada would soon be announced. "Don't start to smoke yet," he quickly cautioned the celebrants in the audience. Meanwhile, across the border, there are more than 236,000 drug offenders in state prisons. Hands up who's heading north.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:37 AM PST - 91 comments

German Objectivist photographer Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) once said "the best constructions for industrial design have already been anticipated in nature." Do your eyes a favor and look here.
posted by taz at 12:47 AM PST - 9 comments

April 30 is Koninginnedag. Time to party, drink beer in huge crowds (Amsterdam 2001) or to get rid of your stuff in the attic on a "vrijmarkt". Kids love selling all kinds of junk. Queens love Queensday too. Vote for the top 10 Queen outfits. Finally, this one's for the monkeys. Click on Koninginnedag.
posted by ginz at 12:02 AM PST - 10 comments

The Magic Mirror of Life. An appreciation of the camera obscura.
posted by plep at 11:42 PM PST - 6 comments

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Have yours been abused lately?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:34 PM PST - 11 comments

Marginwalker — MetaFilter for the technocrat elite.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 9:33 PM PST - 4 comments

Some guy named Luigi is coming to repo Air Force one if the US doesn't pay up. Follow up to this post.
posted by CrazyJub at 9:30 PM PST - 7 comments

Palmer Cox created the famous Brownie characters in 1883, and a successful series of children's books detailing their adventures. These are the characters that George Eastman chose for promoting the Brownie line of Kodak cameras.
posted by hama7 at 8:34 PM PST - 3 comments

The politics of Polysyndeton On today's Fresh Air, Linguist Geoff Nunberg explores the affection conservative writers hold for the polysyndeton. (Here is the segment in RealAudio and Windows Media. Scroll down to "Listen to Linguist Geoff Nunberg".)
posted by 4easypayments at 8:14 PM PST - 18 comments

Still legal after all these years and slowly but surely taking over the Internet: The Mullet. Why?
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 7:29 PM PST - 15 comments

When the Fifth Avenue Grocery in Roundup, Montana closed it's doors, it really closed them. Everything was left inside, as it was, until last year. Now the doors are open and everything's going up for auction tomorrow.
posted by kayjay at 7:06 PM PST - 12 comments

baddesigns.com -- This is not a urinal. This phone is hard to turn on. This must be annoying. This design could get you a traffic ticket. This guy has too much time on his hands.
posted by anastasiav at 6:12 PM PST - 32 comments

Hi! You have the right to remain silent! (wanna cyber?)

The RIAA, bastions of goodness and justice, are sending IMs to nasty file-sharers, telling them that what they're doing is naughty. And that they might just end up in court.
A private company they're hiring plans to send a million messages per week, telling the thieving pirates that the RIAA knows where they live.

Looks like "Hilary Rosen" is one person I'll be putting on my ignore list.
posted by Blue Stone at 4:44 PM PST - 27 comments

WHO lifts Toronto travel ban. And Health Canada Recommendations: Health Canada continues to strongly endorse travel into and throughout the GTA [Greater Toronto Area] as safe and encourages travellers to maintain their business and/or personal travel plans to the GTA.
That's just great. What, a week after banning all travel to Toronto because of SARS, it's on again?

That's bloody irresponsible, considering the damage it has done and will continue to do so to travel to Canada no less Toronto. [s'more inside]
posted by alicesshoe at 4:23 PM PST - 15 comments

"Select guests have gathered at a top Paris restaurant to sample the one millionth duck to be snatched from grassy marshland, carefully strangled and ritually cooked with its own blood." The Tour d'Argent seems pretty proud about its baby-duck strangling, even going so far as to use duck images as the navigation icons on its [ridiculously pretentious] website, and gloating about its own hideous brutality within: "On the Eve, in spite of its youth ­or rather because of its very youth (from six to ten weeks) --, the poor bird was unfeelingly smothered then plucked by its assassins." Can we really trust a country capable of such evil with a new military alliance?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:20 PM PST - 32 comments

Girls! Girls! Girls! Girlamatic features webcomics created by women, (mostly) for women. Today's featured comic is Kris Dresen, a Xeric grant award winner and an Eisner-nominated comic artist. Some of the Girlamatic site is subscription, but the free section changes every day. (mostly safe for work)
posted by answergrape at 2:46 PM PST - 5 comments

No Respect I Tell Ya, No Respect Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf is attempting to surrender to US forces, according to a London-based Arabic newspaper. But Al-Sharq al-Awsat says the Americans have refused to arrest Mr Sahhaf - who became a familiar face during the war with his upbeat assessments of Iraqi military "successes" - because he does not appear on their "most wanted" list of 55 former regime officials
posted by turbanhead at 2:31 PM PST - 19 comments

Free Speech Button Police -- Chicago-area schools debate ban on teachers wearing "No War" buttons vs. the ubiquitous flag lapel pins. What are the limits to teachers' political fashion statements -- are students a captive audience? More inside.
posted by serafinapekkala at 1:35 PM PST - 49 comments

Deaf Gamers is a terrific resource containing electronic game reviews with the hearing-impaired in mind. Digging a little deeper, I found a still-in-work but promising Gamers With Disabilites FAQ hosted by Gone Gold. We all love to play games and the resources contained herein will hopefully help us all play better. Any other resources out there that you'd like to share?
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:33 PM PST - 6 comments

Lynne Stewart, a New York human-rights lawyer was arrested and had her files searched, on charges relating to her work as defence counsel for Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman who is serving a life sentence in connection with the bombing of the WTC in 1993. A law school's graduate students seeking to honour her with an award at their graduating ceremony has been stopped from doing so by the dean afraid of bad publicity.
posted by fvw at 1:33 PM PST - 10 comments

Looking for an exotic, interesting place for brunch this Mother's Day? This underwater restaurant sounds like just the place for any manner of memorable meal.
posted by darsh at 12:41 PM PST - 6 comments

THRIFT STORE ART | If you frequent thrift stores, you've most likely seen some enigmatic art on display. You've asked yourself the question: What was she thinking? Why paint a clown riding a tiger surfing on a wave of toothpaste? Here is someone's personal collection of thrift store art. Also, Huge Magazine (The Internet's Superchunky Arts and Leisure Magazine) has its very own Thrift Store Art Gallery.
posted by jacknose at 12:37 PM PST - 8 comments

The Government is acting quickly. Quickly, to stem the deluge of Mexican terrorists.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 12:08 PM PST - 16 comments

You're in control. I think this will be the Next Big Thing in Japan.
posted by Cerebus at 10:41 AM PST - 17 comments

Microsoft announces music service: Apple roughed up in playground, candy stolen.
posted by aladfar at 10:30 AM PST - 37 comments

Poetry is dead.
posted by basilwhite at 8:48 AM PST - 92 comments

Classic Bat-Vehicles...for the Gotham City crime-fighter on the go!

• The Car
• The Boat (more photos)
• The Chopper
• Both Cycles

posted by LinusMines at 8:38 AM PST - 9 comments

Just in: Jakob Nielsen Declares the Letter “C” Unusable.
posted by Su at 8:23 AM PST - 28 comments

'Virgin birth' method promises ethical stem cells. The technique, parthenogenesis, manipulates unfertilized eggs to produce short-lived embryos from which stem cells can be obtained. As the article states: "it produces embryos that could never become human beings. So destroying these embryos to obtain stem cells would avoid the ethical concerns that have led to restrictions or bans on embryonic stem cell research in many countries."
posted by jsonic at 7:47 AM PST - 19 comments

It took the Smithsonian author and naturalist Kjell B. Sandved 24 years to find all the letters that went into the butterfly alphabet. Along the way he found butterfly wings imprinted with salutations and smiling, happy faces, and threatening expressions on wings and flowers with menacing expressions that say "Do Not Eat Me". Explore the site yourself by going directly to the gallery without looking at all of the images I've linked to, or read the story of how Sandved discovered his magnificent obsession.
posted by iconomy at 6:31 AM PST - 23 comments

Walking Together What Remains: A beautiful, old Flash poem by Chris Green about looking where you're going. Isn't beauty, like the distant objects in car mirrors, always nearer than we think? It's in the eye of the beholder, sure, but only if she or he actually stops to behold...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:16 AM PST - 10 comments

"We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis." So are there WMDs in Iraq or not? ABC is running a story that says that the Bush administration was not primarily concerned with any threat from Iraq, but with making an example of them to other evildoers. Discuss.
posted by eateneye at 11:44 PM PST - 74 comments

Mike Hawash Charged with conspiracy to levy war against the United States, conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda and conspiracy to contribute services to al Qaeda and the Taliban. Heavy. 5 days ago, a now near-famous letter was removed from a website that had recently been trumpeting his cause. Today, the Feds allege terrorism. -- Of note: the frequent allusion to "secrecy" and "secret warrants". Is this ammo for the pro-PATRIOT crowd? Any changing opinions on Mefi?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 6:29 PM PST - 62 comments

E-voting could counter apathy amongst the young on May 1st. Research published by HEDRA indicates that over half of young people would be more likely to vote if they could do so via the Internet. But is it secure and verifiable? They seem to have covered most of the bases. But the question remains, will voters trust such a system? Unfortunately, the discussion seems to have been prematurely terminated. Warning: pdfs!
posted by cbrody at 6:21 PM PST - 34 comments

Stip Naked and Walk, Thief. On the chests of the men had been scrawled an Arabic phrase that translates as "Ali Baba - Thief."
posted by four panels at 2:44 PM PST - 33 comments

I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream Free Scoop day at Ben and Jerry's tomorrow, and Wednesday at Baskin Robbins. (via fark)
posted by bitdamaged at 2:39 PM PST - 16 comments

A Disgusting Practice Vanishes With the Token "Officially, the crime is classified as theft of Transit Authority property. But among transit police officers it is more accurately and less delicately known as token sucking. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it is exactly what it sounds like." (Originally from NYT. More here.)
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:01 PM PST - 18 comments

Why Mow? Indeed. Give me wildflowers and trees any day.
posted by tr33hggr at 11:48 AM PST - 68 comments

Unused audio commentary by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, recorded Summer, 2002, for The Fellowship of the Ring (Platinum Series Extended Edition) DVD, part one and part two. [Via Sassafrass Log.]
posted by homunculus at 11:22 AM PST - 26 comments

The Generation Gap. How differently do you see the world from people born just 18 years ago?
posted by grrarrgh00 at 11:20 AM PST - 37 comments

It's official - Apple today launched its' music service So now that it's 'beyond hype', the rumors of Apple's buyout of Universal Music unfounded (instead, sealing deals with each of the big five music firms), what does everyone think of this rather slick, easy to use and somewhat inexpensive alternative to illegal music swapping? $.99 per song seems pretty fair to me, not to mention the very generous licensing terms provided.
posted by tgrundke at 11:06 AM PST - 164 comments

Space Law. It hadn't even occurred to me that there was some, so I was interested to find the "Outer Space Treaty", which has also been generously translated for thickies and teachers .
posted by biffa at 10:49 AM PST - 7 comments

NUTS! While we should all strive to appreciate diversity of opinion, this (via NandoTimes) just goes to prove that idiocy knows no bounds. Comments are probably superfluous...
posted by Pressed Rat at 8:50 AM PST - 31 comments

Bush Regime Playing Cards, with Ari Fleischer as the King of Hearts. [via Daily Kos]
posted by kirkaracha at 8:05 AM PST - 24 comments

Blog from the top of the world A blog from Everest could prove to be the most remote location for a web diary yet.
posted by turbanhead at 7:17 AM PST - 19 comments

Lewd & Lurid Vintage Tabloid Photos
posted by crunchland at 5:50 AM PST - 19 comments

Things to scale. Mostly terrifying. IE users can drag around.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 5:20 AM PST - 43 comments

There is a heppy lend, fur, fur a-wa-a-ay - Sure as moons is cheeses
posted by y2karl at 3:40 AM PST - 28 comments

The Timeless Theater. Extensive guide to the cultures of India - architecture, arts, religion etc.
Related interest :- Indian Temples.
posted by plep at 12:39 AM PST - 5 comments

The Chairman Of The Bad: "Brassiere! I dig a broad with no brassiere!"... Full of unreleased concert material and wonderful anecdotes, This American Life's programme about Frank Sinatra is still the most entertaining I've ever heard about The Voice, bringing out his worst as well as his very best. It almost makes you feel like catching the next corny My Way [Though it has a goodish list of his most lasting songs] or Rat Pack show. Bone up on the wonderful slang or take the Sinatra quiz. And, if you're still a bit of a stranger to Sinatra, perhaps the Frank-ylizer will lead you to a record appropriate to your tastes and lifestyle. No, there can't be many better ways to fight the Monday blues! ["Chairman of The Bad" is a 1994 Bono quote; Sinatra's "brassiere" adlib is sung to the tune of Ary Barroso's famous Aquarela do Brasil/Brazil. Real Audio req.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:46 PM PST - 12 comments

Meet Granny D. She's walked, talked and cross country skied across America for campaign finance reform, sucessfully derailed a plan to open-air test the H bomb in Alaska, and she used her 93rd birthday party as a venue to protst the war. This week she's on the road again with Jim Hightower, Eric Alterman and others for the Rolling Thunder Democracy Tour. Arrest won't stop her... nothing will. "Fight like hell for your values and our common dream of brotherhood and sisterhood on this, our garden Earth."
posted by moonbird at 6:26 PM PST - 5 comments

ISSHO is the global village incarnate. Brazilian Portuguese, English, French, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese daily blogging on one page, and Russian and some others. And a wiki, too.
posted by hairyeyeball at 6:06 PM PST - 3 comments

Een woord: LOL!!!!!!!!!!
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 6:02 PM PST - 28 comments

One of the left's strongest allies in the war against media conglomeration is... Barry Diller! Weeks after telling the National Association of Broadcasters that their industry needs "more regulation, not less," Diller speaks to Bill Moyers.
posted by PrinceValium at 3:45 PM PST - 2 comments

Osama Bin Laden Link To Iraq found by a Toronto Star reporter, Mitch Potter. "The documents, discovered yesterday in the bombed-out headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's most feared intelligence service, amount to the first hard evidence of a link long suspected by the United States but dismissed as fiction by many Western leaders." [more]
posted by alicesshoe at 3:37 PM PST - 71 comments

Revolution is not an AOL keyword. "You will not be able to stay home, dear Netizen.
You will not be able to plug in, log on and opt out ..."
posted by sheauga at 12:40 PM PST - 21 comments

Today is World Pinhole Photography Day. You can make some fascinating, evocative, and compelling images with lensless cameras. (Lomophiles, eat your heart out!) What is pinhole photography? Simply put, it's photography using a tiny aperture instead of a lens to focus the light rays on the film. You can make your own camera out of anything from an oatmeal can to a camping trailer. Get shooting!
posted by Vidiot at 10:10 AM PST - 10 comments

Truffle Hunters "The pig is not content to wag his tail and point when he has discovered a truffle," says Peter Mayle, author of 'A Year In Provence'. "He wants to eat it. In fact, he is desperate to eat it. And you cannot reason with a pig on the brink of gastronomic ecstasy. He is not easily distracted, nor is he of a size you can fend off with one hand while you rescue the truffle. There he is, as big as a small tractor, rigid with porcine determination and refusing to be budged." Which is why Hungarians are teaching dogs to do the work -- but should they be asking a canine to do a sow's job?
posted by feelinglistless at 9:55 AM PST - 6 comments

Jane's Polynesia Homepage with historical images and much [more].
posted by hama7 at 6:09 AM PST - 5 comments

Yippie. Denmark beats US in world cup hockey. We have not participated in the world cup since a 0-47 loss to Canada in 1949.
posted by Eirixon at 4:50 AM PST - 18 comments

Compliance or Consequences Compliance with the USA PATRIOT Act has never been easier, thanks to Sybase's PATRIOTcompliance Solution. It integrates your existing customer and transaction information systems into a consolidated compliance system that detects unusual activity and automates its investigation and resolution in a timely manner.

Ugh...
posted by delmoi at 3:46 AM PST - 46 comments

Mystery Object. What is this?
Another mystery object. And another.
posted by plep at 12:21 AM PST - 17 comments

You Are Cordially Invited To A Night Of Fados. It's Saturday night; you're hidden deep down in one of Lisbon's fado houses; so pour yourself another glass of thick, blood-red wine; cast your mind back to loves lost and the memory of joys that will never return; take out your most tear-absorbent handkerchief and prepare to indulge in the most melancholy, poetical and maudlin of all urban songs: Lisbon's Fado... [More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:38 PM PST - 32 comments

Webby Awards show cancelled. Heh.
posted by dchase at 4:33 PM PST - 24 comments

"If what AARON is making is not art, what is it exactly, and in what ways, other than its origin, does it differ from the "real thing?" If it is not thinking, what exactly is it doing?" Asks Harold Cohen, the inventor of AARON, the computer artist. Now, if you own a PC, you can download an Aaron Screensaver (9Mb, asks for details but worth it) and have it produce original works of art on your desktop.
posted by jamespake at 1:40 PM PST - 48 comments

If you think about it, the book is a pretty wierd (but efficient) way of storing information. Instead of being laid out in a continuous linear fashion, information is broken into roughly equal sized chunks. Then 50-70 of these chunks are printed onto these moveable flaps which all pile on top of one another.
Xeric grant winner Jason Shiga makes amazing, hilarious comics. You can get them in print or read many of them online.
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:27 PM PST - 2 comments

Doritos, Hitler, Geese, and a Safari. Flash, with a pinch of lunacy.
posted by Espoo2 at 12:01 PM PST - 20 comments

Mille Fiori by Chihuly - a sweeping glassworks art installation marks the opening of the new Tacoma museum building. Dale Chihuly, one of the great masters of our time, also has an exhibit in Hamilton, NJ through July. Not content with stunning windows, walls and chandeliers, Chihuly creates towers, gardens, ceilings, and more, often weaving his work within natural elements to create fantasy waterscapes and landscapes. - more -
posted by madamjujujive at 10:56 AM PST - 12 comments

Scissors, paper, stone
A completely pointless flash game! Hurrah!
posted by Mwongozi at 10:49 AM PST - 15 comments

It's Aprill, with his shoures soote, so here's The Canterbury Tales, complete with hypertext glossary. Sorry about the frames.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 5:27 AM PST - 6 comments

Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse at the circus, Love and war, Foxy Grandpa and Polly in a little hilarity, Roosevelt, Friend of the Birds, Refrigerator-Man, Mabel and Fatty viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco, Visitin' 'round at Coolidge Corners, Ranch Rodeo and Barbecue (1951), Panorama of Eiffel Tower , Colored troops disembarking, The mob outside the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition, Theodore Roosevelt's arrival in Africa, Trapeze Disrobing Act, Tourists going round Yellowstone Park, Skyscrapers of New York City, from the North River, Girls winding armatures, Bird's-eye view of San Francisco, from a balloon , Walking hot dog, hamburgers, and disappearing Coca-Cola, um, and The phable of the phat woman.

Selections from American Memory Online Films (More Inside)
posted by y2karl at 3:20 AM PST - 13 comments

BIG BIRD UNPLUCKED Murdoch's yellow journalism finally finds a subject that's equally yellow, as they pull the juiciest 'nuggets' from the about-to-be-published book by 'the person beneath the feathers'.
* The battle to save Big Bird from being "the village idiot"!!!
* His declaration of allegiance with Red China!!!
* How Jim Henson made Big Bird dance AND made him cry!!!
* The accident that almost 'cooked his goose'!!!
* The rapper who broke Big Bird's neck!!!
Of course, those tabloid turkeys missed the REAL inside story of Big Bird: from his recent awards to his Secret Connection to Bob Dole!!!
posted by wendell at 2:25 AM PST - 11 comments

Orkneyjar. The history, folklore and traditions of the Orkney Islands - ghost stories, megaliths, and more on this extensive site.
Related interest :- St. Kilda: Death of an Island Republic. A matriarchal society? Via Utopia Britannica: British Utopian Experiments 1325-1945.
More :- the National Trust's St. Kilda website; the Iona community, an ecumenical community founded in 1938 (more about the founding of the monastery on Iona by St. Columba in 563); independent Eigg; life in Westray, one of Orkney's north isles; the Shetland Museum.
posted by plep at 12:18 AM PST - 7 comments

Dalai Llama muses: meditating monk sets "positive emotion" record : The 14th Dalai Llama, Tenzin Gyatso, muses on new research on the benefits of mindfulness meditation: "A University of Wisconsin-Madison research team has found that a small amount of "mindfulness meditation" results in positive, lasting changes in the brain and immune system." The mainstream medical community in the U.S. has now acknowledge the significant benefits of mindfulness meditatiion - "...a significant decrease in symptoms, both during and after the course."

[ Tenzin Gyatso ] "The calamity of 9/11 demonstrated that modern technology and human intelligence guided by hatred can lead to immense destruction. Such terrible acts are a violent symptom of an afflicted mental state. To respond wisely and effectively, we need to be guided by more healthy states of mind, not just to avoid feeding the flames of hatred, but to respond skillfully. We would do well to remember that the war against hatred and terror can be waged on this, the internal front, too.".....I once was host to Tenzin Gyatso's brother and several other Tibetan monks for a few weeks - and was never again quite the same. So, when Tenzin Gyatso speaks, I listen.
posted by troutfishing at 9:33 PM PST - 22 comments

Federal judge rules Morpheus, Grokster not liable for Internet piracy. Well that is until the big pocketed music industry finds a favorable judge and wins the appeal.
posted by thedailygrowl at 8:42 PM PST - 3 comments

We Have Cameras Magazines: Why is Maxim offering a free, no-catches 2 years subscription to anyone who can be bothered to give them one of their spamsucker e-mail addresses? Hey, I hate Maxim but I'd take one if I lived in the U.S, if only to keep the postal service busy and ingratiate myself with my nephews. Will all magazines - at least the shittiest ones - be free in the future? Subscription rates, sales and advertising revenues keep falling and it seems the only bargaining chip magazines have left (to solicit advertisements) is circulation. And still new mags, like Radar, keep popping up. Good thing? Bad thing? You tell me.
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 8:08 PM PST - 25 comments

SARS much more deadly than first estimated. Analysis of the latest statistics on the global SARS epidemic reveals that at least 10 per cent of people who contract the new virus will die of the disease. The low death rates of about four per cent cited until now by the World Health Organizatio n and others are the result of a statistical difficulty, well known to epidemiologists, that hampers the early analysis of new disease outbreaks. [...] A better current estimate of the deadliness of SARS may be the number of deaths as a proportion of resolved cases. Those numbers for Hong Kong, Canada and Singapore are 15.8, 18.3 and 13.7 per cent.
posted by Bletch at 5:39 PM PST - 68 comments

Sometimes a mother gives birth only to discover—sometimes immediately, sometimes much later—that she has made a mistake. A post-natal abortion is simply the clean, efficient disposal of that "mistake". We at the Sweetwater Post-Natal Abortion Clinic believe this is a deeply personal choice that every mother has the right to make.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 3:22 PM PST - 100 comments

The Defense Medical Surveillance System (DMSS). The "engine" of the DMSS is a continuously growing relational database of up-to-date and historical data related to medical events, personal characteristics, and military experiences of all Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine service members over their entire military careers. [It] is available to all military and civilian researchers, policy makers and others with a need to evaluate the health of active duty service members.
posted by the fire you left me at 3:16 PM PST - 1 comment

WebCollage: Exterminate All Rational Thought --Neato (and sometimes beautiful) page refreshed every minute or so. Every image is clickable, too. It finds the images by feeding random words into various search engines, and pulling images (or sections of images) out of the pages returned.
A very cool surfing tool for when you're bored of your usual web haunts (mefi excluded, of course)
posted by amberglow at 2:51 PM PST - 19 comments

better luck tomorrow goes into wide release today. an unknown filmmaker funds his project on ten maxed out credits cards. then, it is chosen out of over 1,000 films to be featured at sundance. then, without an agent, it becomes the first *acquisition* ever for mtv films in conjunction with paramount. and it has an entirely asian-american cast who weren't cast into stereotypical roles. today, it goes into wide release. i'm excited to see how this film does.
posted by notoriousbhc at 2:16 PM PST - 31 comments

Every Unhappy Family Has Its Own Bilinear Influence Function.
posted by semmi at 1:42 PM PST - 19 comments

In a reversal of fortunes for the RIAA et al, a judge rules against them saying that p2p technology is "not significantly different from"..."home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights."
Of course this isn't the end of it, and appeals are being made, but for once things are going the way of the P2P software makers, it seems.
posted by Blue Stone at 1:20 PM PST - 20 comments

Is this your fetus? Are you the one I slept with? Remember when we discussed this before? Florida has now been forced by 4 plaintiffs and the ACLU to repeal the so-called Scarlet Letter law that forces women who are pregnant and giving children up for adoption to take out an ad local papers once a week for 4 weeks, stating her name and her sexual history in the last year, to let men know if they *might* be the father. Here is the ACLU legal brief. The details about the decision are in the first link. Thank god for the ACLU.
posted by aacheson at 11:41 AM PST - 46 comments

"Legislator to alter plan for anti-abortion statue" I'm pleased to see the bill's sponsor realized a statue of a fetus is a bit over the top....but why do it at all? (Especially in light of some budgetary problems we've had with education and other areas.) South Carolina: It's Not The Heat; It's The Stupidity. (more inside)
posted by alumshubby at 11:06 AM PST - 26 comments

Rallies in the streets didn't do much stop it. The Florida Division of Cultural Affairs distributed $28M last year to 720 arts organizations. Gov. Geb Bush proposed a 57% cut to $12M. The House proposed $6.6M, a 78% cut. The Senate voted to abolish the fund, and today the House voted 67-44 in agreement with the Senate. Some Florida press are calling it "culture on the chopping block" but arts groups are mobilizing action in hope of some funding miracle.
posted by bclark at 9:54 AM PST - 16 comments

Throwing Muses are among the most sadly unsung bands of the alt.rock era. Though beloved by critics (particularly the British press) and adored by a small army of devoted fans, they disbanded in 1997 for financial reasons. After releasing a killer new album, the band (featuring prodigal Muse and Belly founder Tanya Donnelly) are back for what may be the last time. (more inside)
posted by pxe2000 at 8:55 AM PST - 32 comments

It's Free Comic Book Day again on May 3rd, 2003. As the name implies, Free Comic Book Day is a single day when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world are giving away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their stores.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:14 AM PST - 26 comments

Centennial of Flight [more]
posted by hama7 at 7:05 AM PST - 14 comments

Style Wars the 1983 graffiti, breakdancing and hip hop culture proto-documentary 20 years later comes out from obscure, grainy, 5th hand bootlegs and into the 21st Century. This funky white boy is excited. (Be sure you check out some of the other links from the NPR site!)
posted by Pollomacho at 6:29 AM PST - 9 comments

How To Bow - learn Japanese etiquette for business and social situations in this quirky flash animation that offers practical tips on how to behave as a guest, how to avoid embarrassing dining gaffes, how to conduct a successful business meeting and what to expect in a public bathroom. Don't "drop a brick" - learn to avoid common mistakes!
posted by madamjujujive at 6:29 AM PST - 27 comments

blur are back. My favourite band since seeing them play in a pub in Leicester, blur release their 7th album next month. They "invented" Britpop, then reinvented themselves when the backlash began, and it's lovely to still have them around. Something I've grown with and recognise as I stare at another edition of Top of the Pops, understanding nothing of the karaoke-cover-pap in the charts today. If you're going to see them in London next month, I'll be the one at the back with a pint in my hand and a contented smile on my face (too old for this jumping around at the front lark)...
posted by jontyjago at 4:21 AM PST - 35 comments

Jeff Webster threw water on women who were silently and legally protesting the U.S. invasion of Iraq in my hometown of Soldotna, Alaska. He has been charged with harassment, a misdemeanor. The Anchorage Daily news reports with photos of both parties involved. Video of the incident here (window media format). Aside from the support for and against Webster's actions, does throwing water on people constitute a right of free speech?
posted by ericrolph at 3:10 AM PST - 50 comments

Motor City Online, the online musclecar racing game is going to be over on April 19th. (member only petition here) If you are a a diehard fan still out there: It was great.
posted by Keyser Soze at 1:53 AM PST - 3 comments

Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and Doris Day
--four of sixteen hundred photographs of celebrated jazz artists--
William P. Gottlieb - Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz.
posted by y2karl at 1:19 AM PST - 12 comments

With Tungsten C - it's most powerful handheld ever (according to themselves) Palm is making some aggressive moves to turn its business around and brings wireless 802.11b-based connectivity to the Palm family of devices. Microsoft, on the other hand, is to use FM radio waves for news, weather and traffic, etc - on your watch. Is this a race or PDA technology diversity at its best? ...and here I'm sitting around with my stone age Visor.
posted by psychomedia at 12:31 AM PST - 25 comments

Child Slaves in Ghana. Short article and photos, from AllAfrica.com.
Related :- Ghana's trapped slaves. "The girls are my slaves - they are the property of my shrine"
posted by plep at 12:02 AM PST - 10 comments

american-pictures.com
Arriving in America with only $40 for a short visit, a young Dane, Jacob Holdt ended up staying over five years, hitchhiking more than 100,000 miles throughout the USA.
He sold blood plasma twice weekly to be able to buy film. He lived in more than 400 homes - from the poorest migrant workers to America's wealthiest families such as the Rockefellers.
He joined the Indian rebellion in Wounded Knee, followed criminals in the ghettos during muggings, sneaked inside to work in Southern slave camps and infiltrated secret Ku Klux Klan meetings as well as Republican presidential campaign headquarters. See his work !
posted by bureaustyle at 11:50 PM PST - 22 comments

When Animal Rescuers Attack? "I wish I could get inside his head," Tippi Hedren said. "In my wildest imagination I cannot understand how anyone could do this." There are other people out there helping tigers, lots of them, even places where you can protect endangered tigers while having a relaxing vacation.
There's other tiger news today:
Two steps forward and one back at the Indianapolis Zoo and proof that you don't need to be in a jungle to get in trouble with a tiger.
But what is it about tigers? "These days the tiger’s huge popularity as a poster boy for endangered species stands in sharp contrast to its grim image in earlier times as the incarnation of evil." Why do we love these animals so much we try to save the life of one that has killed a human? Of course there are other forms of tiger abuse...
posted by wendell at 11:41 PM PST - 7 comments

The Short Stories Long, Long Photographs Of Daniel Blaufuks: The collected long short photographs stories, some from New York, of an amazingly talented Portuguese photographer.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:24 PM PST - 2 comments

Anonymous weblogging could be the next big thing for those who want total anonymity online. Using the mixmaster remailer and GPG encryption you can have a truly impersonal weblog. (my thoughts inside)
posted by j.edwards at 9:24 PM PST - 9 comments

Gawker Stalker and The Elevator Chronicles: I'm a sucker for genuine celebrity sightings (in my experience, they're true if they're thoroughly disappointing and boring) and Gawker has been having a whale of a time with them. The unfolding Elevator Saga (starring Anna Wintour, the editor of Yank Vogue) and Gawker Stalker are great fun, even for profound thinkers such as myself. [My paltry celebrity sighting inside.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 7:05 PM PST - 47 comments

Doing Their Own Thing, Making Art Together is a NYT piece (mirrored, no registration needed) about modern American art collectives. Some are physical, in a real communal sense, while others are entirely virtual. Does anyone have direct experience with those mentioned in the article or listed here (half-way down). Others?
posted by maniactown at 6:48 PM PST - 2 comments

QuackWatch.Org has long been a solid source for debunking medical claims by alternative health care practioners. But it turns out things are not all they are Quacked up to be, find out who is really behind the QuackWatch Conspiracy at QuackPotWatch.Org
posted by stbalbach at 5:59 PM PST - 40 comments

The Internet Sacred Text Archive is an online archive of electronic texts about religion, mythology, and various esoteric topics. The site has many complete books from a wide variety of traditions, including the only (to their knowledge) comprehensive online translations of the Kalevala, Shinto texts, and the Upanishads. There's a lot of fascinating stuff here.
posted by homunculus at 5:02 PM PST - 12 comments

The American Museum of Photography
posted by crunchland at 4:32 PM PST - 4 comments

TSFW
posted by bingbangbong at 3:41 PM PST - 34 comments

Get your Armageddon on. North Korea admits vast nuclear weapon program.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 3:19 PM PST - 45 comments

The Afghanistan Digital Library Project : From the folks at the Book People mailing list. Nice to know that someone is paying attention to the libraries while our boys are guarding the oil pipelines.
posted by hairyeyeball at 2:31 PM PST - 3 comments

Technology comes to the rescue via the Department of Homeland Security. Now we will never have to fear terrorists, or criminals again. This post is 23 days late, but remains ever so relevant.
posted by caddis at 2:10 PM PST - 9 comments

BBC chief attacks U.S. war coverage The head of the BBC has launched a broadside against American broadcasters, accusing them of "unquestioning" coverage of the Iraq war and blatant patriotism.
posted by turbanhead at 1:51 PM PST - 50 comments

I thought this had to be a joke from the Onion. Madonna is quoted as saying that "We as Americans are completely obsessed and wrapped up in a lot of the wrong values -- looking good, having cash in the bank, being perceived as rich, famous and successful or just being famous." She also states that "the only thing that's going to bring you happiness is love and how you treat your fellow man and having compassion for one another." Ridiculing celebrities just doesn't get any better than this!!!
posted by Durwood at 1:05 PM PST - 43 comments

Student kills principal, self at school. "A heavily armed 14-year-old boy shot and killed his school principal inside a crowded junior high cafeteria Thursday morning, then killed himself, authorities said. " I'm finding nothing else about this other than the AP story. I'm curious what they mean by "heavily armed."
posted by archimago at 1:02 PM PST - 42 comments

MovableType, , the blogging software of choice (well, for a lot of us), have launched a new user-friendly service on their own servers, called TypePad (here's the press release). Is this a first direct hit at Blogger, a service they have denied gunning for, in light of Google's move? Will it work? My vote: Hell yes. MovableType have not put a foot wrong yet, and now they've got Anil Dash on board, the lucky tyke...
posted by wibbler at 12:34 PM PST - 29 comments

Come to the Quiet Party. No loud music, no yelling, no cell phones and one designated area where there is no talking AT ALL!!
posted by hammurderer at 11:53 AM PST - 17 comments

Way Lay is the homepage of cartoonist Carol Lay, creator of the strip Story Minute. In addition to being one of the few places one can view the strip without going through Salon's obnoxious free pass system. The site has the best autobiography I've seen for an artist site and images of earlier bizarre parodies of Salvador Dali and the Shroud of Turin.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:45 AM PST - 6 comments

City Size Comparison lets you, well, compare the relative sizes of various US cities side-by-side. The site also lets you compare US cities to Baghdad, which "may be useful if you are trying to envision driving through, searching or invading Baghdad, but you've never actually been there." [via xblog]
posted by kirkaracha at 10:22 AM PST - 14 comments

"I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class. I begin to feel like most Americans don't understand the First Amendment, don't understand the idea of freedom of speech, and don't understand that it's the responsibility of the citizen to speak out....When I write a political column for the Chicago Sun-Times, when liberals disagree with me, they send in long, logical e-mails explaining all my errors. I hardly ever get well-reasoned articles from the right. People just tell me to shut up. That's the message: 'Shut up. Don't write anymore about this. Who do you think you are?'" Roger Ebert chats about dissent, celebrities, the power of film to effect change, and Moore.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 9:22 AM PST - 111 comments

Dog Survives Car Crash, Gunshot, Freezer... My dog, on the other hand, wets herself when I raise my voice.
posted by vito90 at 7:35 AM PST - 34 comments

Library of Congress celebrates its 202nd birthday . Today, the Library of Congress celebrates its 202nd birthday. On April 24, 1800, President John Adams approved the appropriation of $5,000 for the purchase of "such books as may be necessary for the use of congress."
The books, the first purchased for the Library of Congress, were ordered from London and arrived in 1801. The collection of 740 volumes and three maps was stored in the U.S. Capitol, the Library's first home. President Thomas Jefferson approved the first legislation defining the role and functions of the new institution on January 26, 1802.
Check out, Jefferson's Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress and a Concordance of Images for more.
posted by Blake at 6:16 AM PST - 12 comments

300 reasons why we love the simpsons The 300th episode of The Simpsons is broadcast today. Find a space on the sofa and read why, in 14 years, Matt Groening's show has become the world's best TV programme.
posted by Cool Alex at 6:03 AM PST - 37 comments

How bona to varda your dolly old eek! Fancy a bevvy? If so, then you must know how to speak Polari, a language that is a mixture of romany, cockney, criminal slang and Italian. Many people first heard this secret language on the radio show round the horne with Julian and Sandy, but it still crops up now and again. Morrissey even used it on his album Bona drag (see the lyrics to Piccadilly Palare). Gives a whole new meaning to people who troll as well.
posted by ciderwoman at 4:21 AM PST - 8 comments

Yesterday the World Health Organization launched a report on diet and nutrition, saying that sugar should be restricted to 10% of caloric intake. Predictably, the sugar industry (press releases) threw fits and called on their cronies in Congress to cut off WHO funding. Apparently they're fighting and clawing even more than the tobacco industry in similar circusmtances, and WHO fears that lobbyists have more power with the Bush administration. The SA believes that inactivity, not our increased sugar consumption, is the primary cause of the obesity epidemic. Are we in for another few years of declarations of junk science and endless gov't investigations into what seems obvious, a la most environmental and health concerns?
posted by fotzepolitic at 4:03 AM PST - 35 comments

Statistics are great! According to Statistics New Zealand, the population of my small island-nation home reached 4 million today! At 5:35pm (NZST) in fact. Not a big number really but a nice milestone. I think I am number 3,184,236 but I am open to correction.
posted by sycophant at 4:00 AM PST - 11 comments

Psst, wanna buy some napalm?
posted by biffa at 3:44 AM PST - 14 comments

Habla Usted Clear Channel? So Clear Channel wants to dominate Spanish-language radio? Nothing new. From the first link, the final piece in a Salon series on media consolidation: The deal is big and contentious, and involves politics, music and media -- and, to make matters even more interesting, Clear Channel, the U.S. radio station conglomerate, has a starring role. Clear Channel is HBC's largest shareholder, and the company has been accused by opponents of the deal of maneuvering illegally behind the scenes to exert control over HBC, as well as spreading rumors of drug use about the CEO of HBC's chief competitor.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:38 PM PST - 2 comments

There was a spontaneity about the crowd that contrasted with the sullenness and silences of the Saddam years. Most converged in the centre from all directions and joined throngs marching up and down Ali Abbas and Hussein streets, next to the Shia Muslims' two holiest shrines. Others exercised the right to do nothing, to sit on doorsteps watching people pass, to play or to cook on open fires. They chanted that they had come to celebrate their martyrs in spite of all the efforts by Saddam to persecute their religion. In keeping with Shia tradition, some tore their clothes and cut themselves, drawing blood. Others flogged themselves with chains, to bring themselves closer to the pain of the martyrs.
Iraqi Shiites Show Their Fervor in City They Hold Holy.
U.S. Planners Surprised by Strength of Iraqi Shiites.
Why the Mullahs Love a Revolution.
The war was won as planned.
The peace was not planned quite as meticulously.
A Democratic Iraq May Not Be Friendly to U.S. (More Within)
posted by y2karl at 10:27 PM PST - 22 comments

What the **** do you think you're doing? People who try to download tracks off of the new Madonna album from peer-to-peer networks will likely get an MP3 full of silence, prefixed by this short personal message from Madonna (nsfw mp3). Hear the remixes that have already begun! Make your own!
posted by Espoo2 at 10:25 PM PST - 80 comments

Is It Fiction If It Says "Fiction" On The Cover? Jorge Luis Borges brilliantly obscured fact and fiction presenting fiction as fact. Things seem to have swung round 180º and fact is now increasingly being sold as fiction. This certainly seems to be the case with Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved. She's Paul Auster's second wife and... Well... now even critics, like The New York Observer's Joe Hagan have joined the fun, as Slate's Katie Roiphe duly noted. Fact is now presented as fiction, without the traditional disguise of the roman à clef. I think it's sad. In fact, it's an attempt on the life of imagination itself. Perhaps these authors who write memoirs masquerading as novels could be sued under the Trade Description Act? [With thanks to the always excellent Literary Salon weblog. Thanks to ColdChef for pointing it out to me.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:14 PM PST - 28 comments

Can open, worms everwhere.
posted by CrazyJub at 9:01 PM PST - 12 comments

"Let me help you. Step down. Here we go!
The drum major's widow! She's worn his coat since the day he died. The horse's head has lost an ear! That's the florist laughing. He has crinkly eyes. In the bakery window, lollipops! Smell that! They're giving out melon slices. Sugarplum ice cream! We're passing the butcher. Ham, 79 francs. Spareribs, 45! Now the cheese shop. Picadors are 12.90. Cabecaus, 23.50. A baby is watching a dog that's watching the chickens! Now we're at the kiosk by the metro. I'll leave you here. Bye!"
posted by MzB at 9:00 PM PST - 12 comments

''It's a bunch of bullshit," said Dr. Donald Low, one of Canada's leading infectious disease experts and a key member of the SARS containment team. ''It's inappropriate.'' The WHO added Toronto to the list of places to avoid due to the SARS breakout. This is certain to f'up T.O.'s economy if Ottawa can't get the WHO to retract the advisory. Are people blowing SARS out of proportion? Perphaps it is time to relax and look at things in perspective.
posted by birdherder at 8:57 PM PST - 37 comments

Deep Throat uncovered. No, not that one, the one of Watergate notoriety. A journalism class at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana has determined that this man is the infamous Deep Throat.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:34 PM PST - 17 comments

An interesting modern take on an ancient artform.
posted by saladin at 3:55 PM PST - 9 comments

BookShare is a napster-like service that relies on volunteers to share e-books with as many people as possible, and it's completely legal. The reason? Thanks to a special carve-out in copyright law which states "if such copies ... are reproduced or distributed in specialized formats exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities."
posted by mathowie at 3:50 PM PST - 15 comments

In defense of elitism. For smart people only.
posted by adrober at 2:43 PM PST - 62 comments

What if oil was traded in euros? "Even more alarming, and completely unreported in the U.S. media, are significant monetary shifts in the reserve funds of foreign governments away from the dollar with movements towards the euro. It appears that the world community ... seems poised to respond with economic retribution if the U.S. government is regarded as an uncontrollable and dangerous superpower." An analysis of the previous link. Apologies to those I
posted by Birichini at 2:14 PM PST - 25 comments

Where Iraq's desaparecidos wound up. This is about Iraq, but it's not about the war. It's about a graveyard, its manager, and his "awful green book." The reporter is an Arab, which makes a difference, as you can see in the striking last sentence of this paragraph:

All of the dissidents buried at the Kirkh Islamic Cemetery were once held at Abu Ghreib prison, the country's largest and most notorious jail, from which Hussein released nearly 10,000 inmates last October. When word of their release came, the prisoners—from petty thieves to political dissidents, and all kept in horrendous conditions—overran the guards and stampeded the iron gates. Abu Ghreib is also the name given to Iraqi fathers who no longer have children.

posted by languagehat at 1:43 PM PST - 9 comments

But hey, what do we know? We're the corporate media. Independent Media is thought of as an important source to obtain news on events that are glossed over, or not covered at all, by Corporate Media. But how effective is it at that task, and is Independent Media as clean nosed as it intends to be?
posted by mnology at 1:24 PM PST - 4 comments

Jules is a thief. The fact that "all the embedded reporters were doing it" does not make it right. Presumably the US soldiers who were overseeing the embedded reporters knew of this kind of cultural theft -- more than likely, many were a party to it themselves. I'm sending him an email to remind him of that fact, and I will also contact his bosses, urging disciplinary action.
posted by insomnia_lj at 11:56 AM PST - 41 comments

"Three Kings" almost becomes "Four Kings"
Once again, life imitates art.
posted by mapalm at 11:34 AM PST - 25 comments

Penny Arcade, everyone's favorite gamegeek comic strip(well, not everyone's, but mine) is facing legal action over a recent strip they did, parodying Strawberry Shortcake. It seems American Greetings owner of such 80s icons as Popples and the aforementioned Shortcake, don't take too kindly to folks using their precious nostalgia. Here's the offending cartoon.
posted by hughbot at 11:22 AM PST - 29 comments

The World as Blog : A flash visualization locating recent blog updates on a world map, combining RSS, Weblogs.com, and GeoURL. Gadgety. Neat. Via MingTV, whom I located through another awesome new social-networking gewgaw, Blog Matcher.
posted by hairyeyeball at 11:08 AM PST - 4 comments

Is your cat too superior? Giving itself the airs, is it? Who does it think it is? Deck it out in one of these hats and see its dignity plummet. [Scroll down for the headgear; site in Japanese but pics in universal colour. Via Linkfilter.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 11:04 AM PST - 21 comments

Is Grub out of control? Barely more than a week old, the distributed search engine is already causing headaches. It does not properly follow the Robot Exclusion Standard and thus spiders sites against their owners' wishes. Because it is a distributed client run by thousands of volunteers (and therefore connects from many different IP addresses), it is non-trivial to block. The Wikipedia project, for example, is experiencing slowdowns because of it. Let's hope they can solve these problems, as the idea seems to be quite cool.
posted by Eloquence at 10:32 AM PST - 7 comments

Seen an ad parody lately?[pdf alert] What is your favorite ad parody? [There is a great list of sites that feature ad parodies on page 20.]
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 8:51 AM PST - 6 comments

Trent Lott: The Sequel, in which Conference Committee Chairman Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) gives an interview to AP in which he blames the recent Catholic Church scandals on a cultural tolerance of consensual "deviance"; i.e. homosexuality [more inside].
posted by Vetinari at 7:38 AM PST - 108 comments

WhatSpeak?
Republican pollster Frank Luntz realized he had a problem. Many of his GOP clients had a consistently bad rap on the environment. Word on the street was they took in millions in contributions from polluting industries, and either sat idly by while environmental safeguards were weakened or, worse, led the charge to undermine decades of protections.

What to do? Instead of counseling his clients to take a principled stand against these polluting policies, Frank simply wrote a memo and invented LuntzSpeak - an exciting new way to put a positive spin on an abysmal environmental record.

Of course, this memo was supposed to be confidential. But lucky for us, Jennifer 8. Lee at the New York Times was given a copy by the Environmental Working Group. Now all of us can learn how to decode and use LuntzSpeak for ourselves!

Submitted in belated recognition of Earth Day. Hope you enjoy.
posted by nofundy at 7:27 AM PST - 10 comments

Oh, God! Under the Bush administration there were a lot of things we had to forget, things like how democratic presidents get elected, how to sell democracy to undemocratic peoples, how to be free, patriotic, etc. Now, it seems, is the time to forget all about this menace to mankind: SCIENCE.
posted by acrobat at 7:18 AM PST - 35 comments

Chandler Release 0.1, the open source Outlook clone is now available. This piece of software was developed by the Open Source Applications Foundation. "While we're still very early in the design and implementation process, we intend for this 0.1 release to make us a more fully open project." says Mitch Kapor.
posted by riffola at 6:27 AM PST - 10 comments

Have you ever wondered... Just how long would it take to travel through a theoretical hole to the other side of the earth? Apparently 42 minutes.
posted by batboy at 6:00 AM PST - 26 comments

Happy St George's Day. Patron saint of England, Portugal, skin diseases and syphillis amongst other things. Saint George may not have been English, or even have set foot in England, but a poll suggests many English people would like his day to be more enthusiastically marked. There's even an online petition you can sign in support of making St George's day a national holiday.The government shows little interest though. What's wrong with being English, and why shouldn't we celebrate our national day properly?
posted by squealy at 5:44 AM PST - 28 comments

Graphing Google Neat little Java applet which will create pretty graphs of inter-site relationships based on Google's 'Related Sites' feature. Check out MetaFilter,BBC News and Slashdot for good examples of how deep the inter linking can go. Try graphing your own site! Neat. (Requires Java)
posted by metaxa at 3:00 AM PST - 8 comments

Gods of Japan. A photo-dictionary. 'This photo library and dictionary is a labor of love. After moving to Kamakura in 1993, I became intrigued by the many deities and faces of Buddhism and Shintoism. There are over 650 photos in this library ... '
Related :- Quirky Japan. This site is just fabulous. 'Are you tired of shrines and temples, reconstructed ferro-concrete castles and tea ceremonies? Do you like to get off the beaten track? Would you like to meet Japanese people who do not meet the conformist stereotype? Japan, behind the conservative grey suits and formal bows, is a country quirkier than you can ever imagine. The Quirky Japan Homepage provides information about oddities such as the The Meguro Parasitalogical Museum, the Thousand Person Bathtub, Love Hotels, temple lodging, and the Yakiimo man (the ice cream man's evil twin). '
Related interest :- Lost Japan. Here's an interesting interview with the author, Alex Kerr; and here's a piece about his wonderful house.
posted by plep at 2:49 AM PST - 14 comments

Starting with Super Bowl 2002 , the ONDCP launched a media campain linking drugs to terror, pregnancy, shooting your friend with your dad's gun, and running over a girl on her bike (Cost to taxpayer: $3.4 million). Soon after, the ads were refuted and parodied. Now the ONDCP says they'll end the ads in June, but not before they make some token Earth Day link and a weak argument against legalization.
posted by MarkO at 11:18 PM PST - 32 comments

90,000 rare manuscripts on the history of India's Parsi community have been discovered at the Dastoor Meherjirana Library at Navsari, and will be preserved by the Parzor Foundation. The Parsis are Zoroastrians who were driven from Persia by the Muslim invasion 1400 years ago. But today, the Parsi population is fading, largely due to the orthodox refusal to recognize intermarriage. Some Parsis, like the Association of Inter-Married Zoroastrians, are trying to change this. Ironically, the vultures who consume the Zoroastrian dead in Bombay are also declining, forcing the less orthodox to switch to solar panels.
posted by homunculus at 9:58 PM PST - 6 comments

Children are being held at Camp X-Ray admits the US, as reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
posted by Blue Stone at 9:03 PM PST - 28 comments

Please read what Trotsky thought of fascism from his pamphlet "FASCISM -- What It Is and How To Fight It". I'm much more interested in the "What It Is". This article from the Guerrilla News Network got me thinking about it. Trotsky does a lot of the definition here. The foreward by George Lavan Weissman contains such gems as:

The germ of fascism is endemic in capitalism; a crisis can raise it to epidemic proportions unless drastic countermeasures are applied.

and from elsewhere:

In order that the social crisis may bring about the proletarian revolution, it is necessary that, besides other conditions, a decisive shift of the petty bourgeois classes occurs in the direction of the proletariat. This gives the proletariat a chance to put itself at the head of the nation as its leader.

Oh MAN. I'm more fearful than normal about where the US is headed. And to throw some water on the flames, yes, I know that there isn't any systemic violence against the masses, but think of how the fear that's created by the administration takes the place of violence in cowing the populace.
posted by taumeson at 8:09 PM PST - 43 comments

Barber or hairdresser?(Or perhaps you prefer it uncut?)
posted by jeremias at 5:26 PM PST - 14 comments

The White Stripes will be appearing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, for the entire week, starting tonight. The band is promoting their new album called Elephant.
posted by Beholder at 1:27 PM PST - 45 comments

For 2004, Bush's Aides Plan Late Sprint for Re-election. Interesting piece on the Bush administration's re-election strategy. The GOP convention marking the formal launch of Bush's campaign will be Sept. 2 — the latest nominating convention in the party's history — in New York. "Mr. Bush's advisers said they chose the date so the event would flow into the commemorations of the third anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. The back-to-back events would complete the framework for a general election campaign that is being built around national security and Mr. Bush's role in combatting terrorism..." [more inside]
posted by Dirjy at 12:59 PM PST - 71 comments

Clutter: A wondrous little application, Clutter grabs album info from a currently playing MP3 track, sends it off to Amazon, and comes back with an image of the CD cover. Once done, these images can be moved about the desktop at will; a double click plays the record in its entirety. And it's free. God bless the independent developer! [OS X and iTunes compatible only, unfortunately.]
posted by aladfar at 12:52 PM PST - 13 comments

Boohbah! According to this thread it's TV turn-off week, but just imagine some aliens kidnapped a Teletubby, pumped it full of ecstasy, acid and marijuana, forced it to play Rez for eight hours straight and then sent it to bed and somehow watched its dreams. I can personally assure you the result would be absolutely nowhere near as demented as Boohbah, a new children's TV show from Anne Wood, creator of the afforementioned Teletubbies. Boohbah's quite possibly the most surreal thing I've ever seen, which had me in turns laughing out loud and almost in tears at the sheer beauty of the whole thing. It'll probably be crossing the Atlantic soon, and I'm beginning to suspect that kids' TV is a hell of a lot better than the stuff made for adults.
posted by hnnrs at 12:20 PM PST - 34 comments

Bush vs. Science. George Bush's religion-based, restrictive policies on stem cell research continues to stunt medical research that could help millions of Americans. He is hindering research that could help treat and possibly cure Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, and heart disease. We are told that America is supposed to unite behind our troops. Shouldn't we be united behind our scientists, who are fighting battles against crippling, cruel diseases that bring suffering and death to millions of Americans?
posted by crookdimwit at 11:31 AM PST - 61 comments

I heard it through the grapevine that Will Vinton has been "let go" from Will Vinton Studios.

Best known for the California Grapes commercials, the creator of Claymation™ has been rather unceremoniously kicked out of the animation studio he started.

Isn't this like kicking out Walt Disney or Jim Henson (when they were both alive, obviously)? What's the value of a studio without the talent it was named after?
posted by jpburns at 11:17 AM PST - 12 comments

Should the Beatles have released the White Album as a single album? The Beatles producer, George Martin, thought so. Other music critics have come up with their own single-album versions. And now there's an applet where you can make your own version of the abridged White Album.
posted by jonp72 at 11:17 AM PST - 35 comments

I like it when Chinese pigs say "hu-lu hu-lu," it's so exotic. Stupid American pigs just say oink. Also, horses in Thailand say "hee hee (with high tone)"!! How cool is it that, first, they even HAVE horses in Thailand, and second, that they sound like Betty Boop?
posted by luser at 11:13 AM PST - 5 comments

After nearly five years of silence Valve is starting to talk about Half-Life 2. More to come at E3 in Los Angeles. What ever happened to Team Fortress 2? (Vaporware?)
posted by McBain at 10:49 AM PST - 35 comments

Snoring causes headaches..... according to recent research. I post this as I recall from a previous thread that some interest was generated from a post on migraine. I drove my GP mental then, trying to tell her how to do her job based on some contributions to mefi. Now I will be starting all over again.
posted by Fat Buddha at 10:47 AM PST - 8 comments

$300 million in advertising= 300,000 lost subscribers. MSN's butterfly ad campaign has led to a loss of 300,000 subscribers. Why? Terrible creative(remember the butterfly man?)? Price competition? Saturated consumer market? Environmental outrage at the use of decals and graffiti? Discuss.
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 8:29 AM PST - 40 comments

All your Iraq are belong to us 50% will lie. 50% will call names.
posted by Postroad at 8:21 AM PST - 29 comments

Happy Earth Day. We probably need an all-encompassing post. So post your links here. Find local events here and here (hint: they're not all taking place today, many are this upcoming weekend). Do something for the future generations.
posted by Ufez Jones at 7:52 AM PST - 16 comments

The New Chosen. After reading about six Congressmen living in unbelievably cheap housing owned by a religious organization called "The Fellowship Foundation" (or "The Fellowship" or "The Foundation") (via Fark), I became curious about the group. They sponsor the National Prayer Breakfast, but they'd rather you didn't know that - they go to great pains to give the impression that it's an official government function. (President Bush's remarks from 2002, and Rev. Rob Schenck's take on missing the same breakfast.) In March, Harper's Magazine ran Jeffrey Sharlet's first-person account on being a Fellowship neonate, in which he describes the group's organizational structure (which takes its clues from terrorists, Hitler, and the Mafia). In 2002 the Los Angeles Times published an examination of the Foundation's political activities (hosted at toobeautiful.org, which recounts an interesting episode in which three Congressmen, all Fellowship members, take the opportunity to proselytize to a foreign head of state while on official government business. [more inside]
posted by UKnowForKids at 5:53 AM PST - 35 comments

Russian History. 'Few nations have as colorful and vivid a history as Russia. At times torn between the East and the West, sometimes buffering the two, Russia has always been a pot of enormous ethnic diversity which refuses to melt. The result has been a mixture of socialism and capitalism, of east and west, Christianity and Islam with a bit of social experimentation thrown in. '
A Chronology of Russian History; the Russian Assembly of Nobility; the History of Moscow; the Khazars; the History of Jews in Russia; Treasures of the Tsars; Soviet and Russian Technology; Soviet Archives Exhibit.
posted by plep at 2:20 AM PST - 8 comments

Battle of the "Gypsy"s. There was Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly and Bette Midler. There was even the possibility of Barbra Streisand as Madonna's mother. And now comes Bernadette Peters in the Sam Mendes production of the show theater guru Frank Rich called his favorite musical. This surely begs the question: who's the swellest, greatest, world-on-a-platiest Mama Rose ever? And who are your top five desert island Mama Roses? (Note: participation weighs significantly on your sexuality...contribute at your own risk.)
posted by adrober at 12:27 AM PST - 17 comments

Anita Mk VII the "A New Inspiration To Accounting" OR "A New Inspiration To Arithmetic" was the world's first electronic desktop calculator. Launched in 1961, the Mk VII and Mk VIII were the only commercial calculators available for a period of two years.
posted by riffola at 11:10 PM PST - 9 comments

It started in November of 2000, with Iraq wanting to switch to the Euro for oil payments. Following recent events, Muslims at large are thinking about dropping US currency for the Euro. With a large US presence now in the Middle East, this event may never occur.

Related Stories
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1554.htm
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/euro/comment/0,9236,940790,00.html
posted by CrazyJub at 10:17 PM PST - 9 comments

Is it just me, or are bikini's getting smaller? (NSFW)
posted by glitterbug at 7:51 PM PST - 53 comments

Prom for the young at heart. A Milwaukee woman raises awareness about Alzheimers using a high school theme and some creativity.
posted by Macboy at 7:22 PM PST - 4 comments

Writer's Write. "Your one-stop resource for information about books, writing and publishing." An excellent resource site, filled with many links that may be useful to new writers. I especially liked their article titled "Writing Sketch Comedy That Sells".
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:58 PM PST - 20 comments

Excessive Democracy? Faree Zakaria, editor of Newseek International, has written a new book challenging perceptions of the relationship between democracy and constitutional liberalism. This lesson is meant to be applied at home as well as abroad. He has been a hot topic of late. Beyond the narrower scope of Iraq, is there anything to his underlying idea that : (more inside)
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 5:27 PM PST - 23 comments

I've written before about the myth of the heartland--roughly speaking, the "red states," which voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election, as opposed to the "blue states," which voted for Al Gore. The nation's interior is supposedly a place of rugged individualists, unlike the spongers and whiners along the coasts. In reality, of course, rural states are heavily subsidized by urban states. New Jersey pays about $1.50 in federal taxes for every dollar it gets in return; Montana receives about $1.75 in federal spending for every dollar it pays in taxes.

Any sensible program of spending on homeland security would at least partly redress this balance. The most natural targets for terrorism lie in or near great metropolitan areas; surely protecting those areas is the highest priority, right?

Apparently not. Even in the first months after Sept. 11, Republican lawmakers made it clear that they would not support any major effort to rebuild or even secure New York. And now that anti-urban prejudice has taken statistical form: under the formula the Department of Homeland Security has adopted for handing out money, it spends 7 times as much protecting each resident of Wyoming as it does protecting each resident of New York.

Paul Krugman, cited by Eric Alterman in regards to Jonathan Chait's The 9/10 President, a story we all seemed to have missed. Not long ago, the Washington Post carried Begging, Borrowing for Security.
Welcome to Trickle Down Homeland Security.
posted by y2karl at 5:01 PM PST - 27 comments

America has discovered a new beer, one that seems right for a country facing bad times. More than just a beer for white trash or 50s suburbanites, this fine product has entered the cultural lexicon.
posted by Wet Spot at 4:39 PM PST - 43 comments

Invoice Past Due "Obviously, a book about a corporatized future names a lot of names. Since I didn't want to give companies free advertising, I invoiced them for product placement." The follow-up letters and responses are amusing. [via a reader comment at kottke.org]
posted by kirkaracha at 3:55 PM PST - 6 comments

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hires a huge U.S. legal team to defend them against the landmark $1 trillion lawsuit on behalf of the victims of 9-11 (msnbc link)

Baker Botts is the lawfirm representing the Saudis.
I find it interesting that this lawfirm boasts former secretary of State James Baker as one of its senior partners. Its recent alumni included Robert Jordan (Jordan, a corporate lawyer in the Dallas office of Houston-based Baker Botts, defended Bush in a probe of insider trading allegations in 1990. Bush was cleared of wrongdoing), the former personal lawyer for President Bush who is now U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
posted by bureaustyle at 2:58 PM PST - 10 comments

Jazz and protest singer Nina Simone is dead at age 70.
posted by turbodog at 2:11 PM PST - 44 comments

Arcata City Council: always political, always controversial always entertaining. Arcata is now the first city in the nation to pass an ordinance outlawing voluntary compliance with the Patriot Act. Stories in today's Washington Post, as well as previous articles in the San Francisco Chronicle, and the local Times-Standard, tell of Council Member David Meserve, who ran for office with the campaign slogan "The Federal Government Has Gone Stark, Raving Mad," and who drafted the ordinance, which passed by a 4 to 1 majority. Meserve calls the new law a "nonviolent, preemptive attack."
posted by runthegamut at 11:43 AM PST - 23 comments

A Special Kind of Poverty This great article appeared in yesterday's Washington Post Sunday Magazine. Its subject: the trials and tribulations of the poor seeking treatment for their infertility. I don't think I have to list the whole raft of issues this subject raises. As touching as it is thought-provoking.
posted by tommyspoon at 10:50 AM PST - 77 comments

Happy Smigus Dyngus Day! (Or Dyngus Smigus?) Everyone got their buckets and squirt guns?
posted by thunder at 10:31 AM PST - 2 comments

Evelyn Hernandez: the forgotten Laci Peterson. SF Chronicle story on a nearly identical case of a missing pregnant woman...both sad stories, but one received almost no media attention. Laci was from the same town as Chadra Levy: was that the hook that created a ghoulish media darling? More inside...
posted by serafinapekkala at 10:17 AM PST - 13 comments

So who really did save Private Jessica? An interesting backside to military propaganda.
posted by the fire you left me at 8:54 AM PST - 37 comments

What's a company to do? Imagine this. You are the mighty Gillette corporation. You wish to promote your Mach 3 Turbo razor. You send free razors in the mail on an unsolicited basis. Guess what? There is another company out there that is giving away YOUR razors for free. It turns out that they are pretty aggressive- they ask consumers for their credit card number when they sign up. Those who sign up get eight replacement blades every two months. [You can sign up five friends and not pay for life, by the way.] You know what? There is nothing you[i.e., Gillette] can do about it. Oh, what's a company to do? You start calling them renegade and urge consumers to complain to state authorities. Will consumers care enough to complain?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 7:40 AM PST - 25 comments

The Republicans seem to be turning on one another over the budget-minded restraint of such moderates as Senators George Voinovich (R-OH) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), who don't support George Bush's sweeping tax cuts. The funny thing? They're pictured over French flags, the new symbol of evil.
posted by jpburns at 7:13 AM PST - 40 comments

Grub: The seti@home of search engines?
According to the New Scientist: "A distributed computing project called Grub, which harnesses individual users' spare computing power and internet bandwidth, began cataloguing millions of web pages this week."
Grub has thus launched before HyperBee, a similar distributed search project.
This link was previously posted on MeFi when it was still in the conceptual stage.
The project is being run by LookSmart (along with its own open directory project called zeal) but as the New Scientist article notes: "Website information collected by Grub is already being fed into one of LookSmart's search services, called WiseNut. But the collected data are also freely accessible to the public, so they can be incorporated into any web site or desktop application."
Possible Google competition or doomed from the start?
posted by talos at 5:44 AM PST - 10 comments

Planetarium. A puzzle-story in 12 weekly installments.
posted by plep at 2:18 AM PST - 3 comments

Permanent Revolution It's a little Ph'D in tone, but it's a great topic: the history and significance of the revolving door. References everyone from Elmer Fudd to Kingsley Amis, Rem Koolhaas to King Vidor. One man invented them: Theophilus Van Kannel (of Philadelphia). Bizarre personal fact: my home county in Scotland makes bulletproof revolving doors. Ever had your revolutionary moment?
posted by theplayethic at 1:47 AM PST - 2 comments

Why Isn't Evelyn Waugh The Most Popular Great Writer On Earth? It's his centenary this year and it's time to ask why such an irrefutably superb prose stylist - after Samuel Beckett, I rate him last century's funniest and most perceptive tragicomic writer, the best since Dr. Johnson - is still not as widely known and loved as his work deserves? Is it because he was so utterly reactionary and misanthropic, as brought out by this adorable BBC interview? After all, other far more reactionary writers, such as Ezra Pound, Fernando Pessoa, Gottfried Benn, Georg Trakl, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Allan Tate or Philip Larkin are, arguably, more widely read today than Waugh is. Which brings me to my question: are poets forgiven their ideological trespasses far more than is the case with novelists and essayists? Why? Isn't this one of the most unfortunate - and unfair! - consequences of today's outrageously politically correct culture? I fear so. And hate so, too! [A little more on Evelyn Waugh inside... ]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:07 PM PST - 40 comments

TV Turnoff Week - April 21-27, 2003 (it's baaaaack!)
posted by boost ventilator at 8:04 PM PST - 69 comments

A crackdown in Texas. America - land of the free. And to guarantee that freedom, everyone has to be constantly watchful. Like the photo store clerk from Eckerd who dutifully reported a Peruvian-born couple's lewd shots of their infants to the Richardson (Dallas/Texas suburbs) police. The photos showed the parents' two infants bathing naked, lying together in bed with their mother (again naked) and the 1-year-old Rodrigo suckling his mother's (naked) breast. So the couple was arrested -- the maximum prison sentence for the crime in question being 20 years -- and the children taken away. (verbatim k5)
posted by The Jesse Helms at 7:28 PM PST - 77 comments

Review on SF Site Here’s a question: what if the Wachowski brothers’ 1999 film The Matrix was not just an entertaining piece of sf-action-adventure hokum. What if, instead, it is all true? Imagine it as a message sent via the medium of the Matrix itself (Hollywood cinema) from someplace outside the Matrix, to wake us up to our human condition, to alert us all to the fact ‘that we are slaves’. If so, then we are not living the lives we thought we were living; we are instead inhabiting a virtual reality composed by oppressive machine-intelligences. What if this were literally true? How would it appear to us? Well, clearly, it would appear exactly as our lives presently appear to us. Unless we get ‘unplugged’, unless we become enlightened, we cannot see past the illusion that has been created for us. What should we do in this circumstance? Should we collaborate with the machines and not rock the boat? Or should we fight, free ourselves and eventually free everybody else? Clearly, says The Matrix Warrior, this latter. This is a book that proceeds from the assumption that the situation described in The Matrix is real, and tells you where to go from there.
posted by metameme at 5:32 PM PST - 54 comments

Philosophy Radio and Philosophy Lectures

Among many selections are Relativism and Scepticism, Ethics and Morality ,The Origins of Value, Heidegger's Being and Time, Memes, Zombies and Human Consciousness, The Soul In Our Time and a football match between Grecian and German philosophers. We call it soccer. There's more comedy featuring a pseudointellectual cult leader beloved by privileged prep school students and college freshmen everywhere and stavrosthewonderchicken has recommended The Philosophers Drinking Song. Miguel has his picks, too. I found this while researching my I Feel Therefore I Am post yesterday and mentioned it in a comment but, heck, it deserves its own post, no?
posted by y2karl at 4:11 PM PST - 12 comments

Lawyer says sex should be legal for 14-year-olds Should a 14 year old be allowed to make up his or her mind to have sex with whomever they want? This lawyer thinks so. The current legal age of consent in New Zealand is 16. He is proposing making it 14.
posted by tljenson at 1:47 PM PST - 44 comments

June 8: The forgotten holiday of Pinkster. At first celebrated among the Dutch communities of New York and New Jersey, by the 19th century the holiday of Pinkster was heavily African-American, and cross-culturally infused. In Albany, the week-long observance began the seventh Sunday after Easter at Pentecost, corresponding with the Episcopal Whitsunday, by raising a large camp of temporary shelters at "Pinkster Hill." Crowds of blacks and whites would mass, waiting for the appearance of King Charles, "the chief character in a ceremony on a Dutch Holiday in America[...,] an African-born black wearing a British brigadier's jacket of scarlet, a tricornered cocked hat, and yellow buckskins." Successive nights included food, drink, sports and Toto, the Guinea dance, which included the "most lewd and indecent gesticulation, at the crisis of which the parties meet and embrace in a kind of amorous Indian hug, terminating in a sort of masquerade capture, which must cover even a harlot with blushes to describe."
posted by Mo Nickels at 1:31 PM PST - 4 comments

Iranian blogger arrested Sina Motallebi, well-known blogger and journalist was arrested this morning. He is accused of threatening the national security by giving interviews to Persian language radios outside Iran, wrtiting articles both in newspapers and his weblog. His weblog, WebGard (i.e. web surfer), was among the top 5 Persian most popular weblogs while his wife, Farnaz, has her own weblog, mostly writing about their newly-born baby boy, Mani. [via jj]
posted by dagny at 12:34 PM PST - 12 comments

I've just returned from Haiti, spending time volunteering in hospitals and orphanages. It's a land of incredible beauty and desperate poverty and economic disparity. For many there is still an air of mystery about the culture and the religion,and despite the many rueful hands history has dealt them, the Haitians are remarkably resilient and hopeful people.
posted by moonbird at 11:47 AM PST - 6 comments

PopSculptures.com is a site offering "a new type of news media: 3D News." Their mission is "to provide a 3D portal to the latest Pop Culture events. Our sculptures provide a new visually stimulating way of remembering current and past world events." Ethically, their most recent sculptures range from the sick, to the really sick. Anyone wager a guess that Jeff Koons is somehow behind this?

Bonus: they will make custom sculptures of your friends and family. Looks like Irony's back in town, baby.
posted by dhoyt at 11:26 AM PST - 6 comments

Like a hole in the head, like an old Onion link, like an outburst of cholera, MetaFilter needs these custom-made Flames. But some of them are hilarious. And anyway, as has been posted before, we didn't start the fire. [Flash needed for this latter golden oldie. Via Linkfilter. NSFW.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 10:18 AM PST - 8 comments

The Camelot Project A wonderful collection of Arthurian images, e-texts, and bibliographies, comprising everything from the Alliterative Morte Arthure to the eccentric Robert Stephen Hawker's "The Quest for the Sangraal." See also this extensive two-part list of on-line Arthurian resources, courtesy of Kathleen L. Nichols (Pittsburg State University).
posted by thomas j wise at 10:10 AM PST - 2 comments

Scaled Composites unveils a privately built spacecraft Could this be the leapfrog event that all of us sci-fi fans have been waiting for? If successful he will open up space for organizations other than the worlds most wealthy governments. Warp speed Mr. Sulu! (sorry getting a little carried away).
posted by canucklehead at 7:38 AM PST - 11 comments

Is Tivo a Cult? - The New York Times discusses Tivo owners and their propensity to evangelize. What is it about Tivo that turns us into volunteer salesmen? I feel the devotion myself, you'll take away my Tivo when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers...
posted by Argyle at 7:36 AM PST - 34 comments

The horror,the horror. Everybody seems to be an expert on airline travel. Whether it's security issues or the dynamics of flight. There seems to be plenty of places to get it off your chest. With the industry in a nosedive will the survivors have to lift their game. Or just cut more corners to enhance the bottom line. Love those 5 hour on the runway to nowhere tales. Um as long as it's not me.
posted by johnny7 at 7:31 AM PST - 4 comments

So they finally arrested Scott Peterson... Modesto Police got their big break. Laci is indeed dead. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, somebody must have killed her, and indeed, Scott is somebody. Seriously: "It was a process of elimination," Wasden said. "At the outset you have the universe to work from. ... we were never able to eliminate Scott." Nothing says "we've got nothin'" like "hair noticeably lighter than before and a new Vandyke beard".
posted by effugas at 6:54 AM PST - 70 comments

Bipin Chandra Photographs.
posted by hama7 at 6:24 AM PST - 2 comments

The Flight of Ducks. An 'online documentary' about a 1933 expedition to Central Australia (containing culturally sensitive material).
What are songlines? 'Songlines, or Yiri in the Walpiri language, are tracks across the landscape created by Mythical Aboriginal ancestors when they rose out of the dark Earth and travelled, creating mountains, valleys, waterholes - all the physical features of the land ... '
Songlines art.
New York Songlines. Walking tours of Manhattan streets.
posted by plep at 1:22 AM PST - 12 comments

The Most Delicious Food That's Also Very Good For You - - in fact, to my mind, the best food in the world, including all the tastiest unhealthy ones, is sashimi. And sushi comes second. But sometimes it's late at night or too early in the morning; you're broke; the restaurants are closed; you're nowhere near Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market and all your sushi etiquette, memories and knowledge; your favourite sushi websites; your well-thumbed sushi books and your fishy wishlists...are of no darn use to you. Then you remember it's late or early enough to hit your local fish market... And it's then that this ideologically incorrect and Hawaii-leaning, California-dreaming, somewhat Englishly-challenged set of video tutorials comes into its own! Truth be told, for the price of one fresh mackerel, one sardine, a slice of salmon... and sashimi is yours! [But who am I kidding? It's just not the same. Oh well, Windows Media required for the vids.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:21 PM PST - 28 comments

Soldiers Find $650 Million in US Currency "A huge cache of United States currency that American soldiers found hidden in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces could be as much as $656 million, senior officials said today."
posted by Sixtieslibber at 7:59 PM PST - 34 comments

Hog Heaven - the Library of Congress celebrates 100 years of the Harley-Davidson in an excellent online exhibit of photos, articles, ads and links. Also, visit HD's anniversary site to learn about upcoming events and celebrations. (via Portage)
posted by madamjujujive at 4:10 PM PST - 20 comments

Now Albums have only recently been introduced in the US, but for British children of the 1980s they were a cost effective way of getting decent recordings to replace the taped off the radio copies of popular chart tracks. I'm awash with nostalgia as I glance through TV Cream's survey of the first twenty; come on, surely you remember Men Without Hats and Fiction Factory?
posted by feelinglistless at 2:48 PM PST - 6 comments

I Feel, Therefore I Am. Consider the work of Dr. Antonio Damasio, humanist and neuroscientist, who has turned the Mind and Body debate between René Descartes and Benedictus de Spinoza upon its head--or at least the heads of Phineas Gage and one Elliott--via his research and writings such as The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Descartes' Error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain and Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. He's influenced writers like Ian McEwan and David Lodge, and via his thoughts on the perception of music, inspired a composition. (More Inside)
posted by y2karl at 2:25 PM PST - 21 comments

"S1ngularity is the literary equivalent of a heroin spike in the eye..." is the typically underblown description of the latest ezine set up by sf critic, bookseller and force of nature Gabe Chouinard. Crazy, passionate and friends with, among other authors you've never heard of but should, Jeff VanderMeer Mr Chouinard and his cohorts are attempting to "bring exemplary fiction to the masses, and complement it with serious critical reviews and probing, insightful interviews."
And have what looks like a lot of fun in the process.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 2:22 PM PST - 6 comments

Sure, sex and drugs have been associated with rock & roll from its very beginnings. But what about finely granulated sugar? See defining moments in the history of rock and roll, as re-enacted by marshmallow peeps. swiped from large hearted boy
posted by iconomy at 11:37 AM PST - 6 comments

Here's a collection of mind-bending job interview questions from Microsoft, along with other tidbits about the MS interview process. Possible answers to some of these questions (as well as some of the Car Talk Puzzlers) can be found here.
posted by arco at 10:19 AM PST - 28 comments

Where is Raed Salam Pax? Writing under the pseudonym 'Salam Pax' (words meaning 'peace', in both Arabic and Latin), a Baghdad resident provided a personal point of view on what was going on. However, the blog hasn't been updated since March 24th. Has the worst happened?
posted by robzster1977 at 6:28 AM PST - 28 comments

Howard Dean writes about the Bush doctrine (and more) for Common Dreams.

"I am what is commonly referred to as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative."

In other words, he's not only about the war, it's the economy stupid.
posted by CrazyJub at 6:08 AM PST - 16 comments

The title of Radiohead's sixth album:          Hail To The Thief
lyrics:
are you such a dreamer to put the world to rights...
Learn more about: Radiohead
posted by bureaustyle at 3:00 AM PST - 45 comments

Train Oddities & Curiosities features stunning illustrations and articles from late 19th/early 20th century science magazines. Read about the Chase-Kirchner Aerodromic Railroad, the beautiful Meigs Elevated Railway, or the history of the "Rainmaking" car. Be sure to check out the other sections for more fascinating train lore.
posted by snez at 12:32 AM PST - 6 comments

Miguk - A film documentary on the life of an expat English teacher in Korea. If you've done it, this will bring back memories. If you're thinking of doing it, this is worth watching. If, like me, you're in Korea now, watching it on 'film' somehow dignifies the experience. Two thumbs up. [.wmv format, 16 segments]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:42 PM PST - 21 comments

Young-hae Chang's latest, Operation Nukorea, is shattering, unflinching, and beautifully executed. It's a little tale about consequences, and what happens downstream from decisions not sufficiently considered.

It probably would have brought tears to my eyes even if I did not have family in Seoul. Watch it through to the end.
posted by adamgreenfield at 11:39 PM PST - 56 comments

The Gates of Paradise. [more]
posted by hama7 at 11:31 PM PST - 7 comments

A fresh perspective on world maps. Francis Irving writes about his fascination with upside down maps, "It needn't be a Eurocentric world." Why haven't more upside down maps made their way into our daily life?
posted by ericrolph at 11:27 PM PST - 15 comments

BBC News reporters' weblog on the war is closed. It was a great example of how the idea of weblog can be used in mainstream media. (Although it lacked hyper-links) In it's last instalment, reporters record some final impressions and look back at what it was like reporting the war. The daily archives are available on the right column of the page.
posted by hoder at 9:01 PM PST - 3 comments

How Important Is Religious Belief In The Definition Of Our Personality? I would say not at all, but Bernard Lewis's essay gave me pause. Bringing it all back home and wondering about MetaFilter's religious breakdown, does the fact that there are far more atheists, Jews (like me) and Mormons here than in the Western population at large, make any difference? Christians get a hard time here, in my opinion. Is it because, as Lewis says: "Tolerance was a much more difficult question for Christians"? Atheists, Jews and Buddhists seem to have a disproportionately large influence. Whereas Muslims, sadly, hardly get a look-in. What does this mean? That is, if it means anything?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:44 PM PST - 62 comments

Beautiful Girl is an upcoming print magazine for teenage girls interested in fashion, boys, and beauty. Nothing new, except it's from a Christian perspective. Discover God's makeup tips and learn about his "romantical" side (yes, he's got a crush on you). What do you imagine girls will think about this magazine?
posted by acornface at 7:24 PM PST - 32 comments

AIBO Disco Scroll down to the bottom and check out videos of what some creative folks have programmed their AIBOs to do. The AIBO Disco dances are particularly cool. :)
posted by y at 6:38 PM PST - 6 comments

Eric Conveys an Emotion. Not just the easy ones like fear, annoyance, and did I leave the oven on?, but also the universal states of the human condition: realizing Dan Quayle is your father, the blue screen of death, caught downloading naughty pictures, erectile dysfunction. Requests cheerfully accepted.
posted by Wet Spot at 6:37 PM PST - 18 comments

An article in the Independent newspaper reports that pests have started thriving on poisons genetically implanted in crops.

It seems that before, the organic pesticide used, was effective because it was only sprayed occasionally (once or twice a year) and the pests didn't have time to develop resistance.

With the pesticide being accessible throughout the whole crop-cycle, the pests have adapted, and now thrive on the poison, which they now regard as a food source, growing even larger than normal, and rendering a weapon in the arsenal against pests, entirely ineffective.
posted by Blue Stone at 5:54 PM PST - 15 comments

Required Reading from the President's Council on Bioethics. Each of the readings that follow - which include poetry, short stories and more - is accompanied by a brief introduction and questions about the bioethical implications of the work. The new booklist includes James Watson, Tolstoy, Shakespeare and Ovid. Via the WSJ.
posted by turbodog at 3:58 PM PST - 2 comments

Easter Fun. A mindless diversion for Easter. This reminds me of the 'pusher' games they have in amusement arcades the length and breadth of England. I am no good at those either.
posted by essexjan at 3:12 PM PST - 4 comments

The Terrorism commercial from Redmond. "I help make the internet vulnerable to terrorists." (quicktime parody)
posted by mathowie at 2:46 PM PST - 9 comments

Death photography Since Good Friday is pretty much all about death, how about a look at memento mori, otherwise known as postmortem photography? Some are heartrending, and many are quite artistic. Of course, there's an ugly side to this, too.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 1:28 PM PST - 11 comments

The World History of Male Love website is a fairly good collection of homoerotic representations, covering a wide variety of ancient cultures. Certainly not comprehensive, but a good stop for quick reference. Of note is their library. Learn, and enjoy, and then kiss me you fool, unless you're at work where some of the artistic representations may not be safe. But call me later!
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:26 PM PST - 8 comments

A brand new tobacco company was officially incorporated in Virginia on March 19, 2003. Discover what makes this company different, read a message from their CEO, learn from their modern corporate philosophy, and check out all the media buzz.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 12:32 PM PST - 47 comments

''It's possible,'' Lt. Col. David Branham of the Air Force says, ''that in our lifetime we will be able to run a conflict without ever leaving the United States.'' On the end of the most remote-controlled war yet, this article in the NYtimes discusses a not-too-distant future in which missile-toting unmanned helicopters and hummingbird-sized surveillance planes can swarm upon any target at the control of war planners deep beneath Tampa, Florida.
posted by 4easypayments at 12:17 PM PST - 36 comments

Shiseido Women. 'In Japan, womens fashion, like makeup, continues to evolve, reflecting the moods and mores of the times. The following photographs of women provide tantalizing glimpses into some of the radical changes that have marked the past century. '
Related interest :- An American Visit to Japan, 1923.
posted by plep at 11:44 AM PST - 7 comments

Over $200 million collected for future enhanced-911 service. But the 911 of the future, which was supposed to be in place now, hasn't actually arrived. The problem? The money, collected via a mandatory cell-phone tax, wasn't actually used for setting up an e911 system at all. - Wired.
posted by cinematique at 11:42 AM PST - 8 comments

funonmars is the online home of Sally Cruikshank. She's perhaps best known for the animated sequence in Twilight Zone:The Movie, but her quirky cartoons (available here) are basically like treasure. On the site, may I recommend the epic Titanic 2? [warnings: Flash and Javascript. Also, sounds require somethin' called Beatnik player which I decided not to download 'til I familarize myself with it.]
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:14 AM PST - 5 comments

Jerry Springer: The Opera? You know, whenever I happened to have this misfortune to watch Springer, I too thought "It's got tragedy. It's got violence. There are people screaming at each other and you can't understand what they're saying." but I didn't quite make the leap that "It's perfect for opera."

But now on an operatic journey that takes us the tv studio to hell, the British National Theatre is realizing this vision.

To quote from the libretto: "This is a Jerry Springer moment!" sing the chorus. "We don't want this moment to end, so cover us in chocolate and throw us to the lesbians."

Skeptical? Read the reviews!
posted by jearbear at 11:06 AM PST - 1 comment

Revoke the Oscar. Should "Bowling For Columbine" be considered non-fiction if it manipulated scenes and knowingly left out key information? Would a new category be better, like say adjusted documentary or propaganda? Or is it impossible to make a documentary without some point of view?
posted by destro at 11:04 AM PST - 52 comments

Stunt Jesus Don't try this at home. Can someone explain how this is anything but stupid?
posted by GernBlandston at 10:34 AM PST - 14 comments

Remember the Honda advert? It was real. [Previous]
posted by Pretty_Generic at 10:19 AM PST - 21 comments

H.J. RES. 25. Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 22nd amendment to the Constitution.
posted by four panels at 9:59 AM PST - 24 comments

Tips on Finding Easter Eggs, containing many tactics reminiscent of the Taoist wisdom of Sun Tzu. My favorite: "Wait til' your brothers and sisters find them first, then steal them for yourself."
posted by Shane at 9:05 AM PST - 10 comments

Bunnies and Easter Don't Mix, please think twice before getting that cute baby bunny as a gift for a child. Rabbits require the same committment as dogs or cats and can live 10 years or more (mine is 11). So this year, Make Mine Chocolate.
posted by tommasz at 8:44 AM PST - 12 comments

The annual pilgrimage to the Sanctuario de Chimayo and Tome Hill. Here in New Mexico, this week Catholic pilgrims walk to Chimayo and Tome Hill. The Penitente, a long-excommunicated Catholic cult began by a wayward Jesuit in the late 1600's, hold their mock-crucifixion rituals this week as well, but the secret society doesn't encourage visitors. Are there more pilgrimages that happen Easter Week?
posted by answergrape at 6:57 AM PST - 7 comments

So Your Lover, Your Boss or Your Best Friend Are Coming to Town to Spend the Weekend... Where would you put him/her up? If price were no object and you could choose a hotel/inn within 3 hours drive from where you live, what establishment would you choose? Would it be 3 different hotels? The same one? The so-called best hotels are so...uninspiring and silly. Your objective: to win him/her over completely. I love hotels (is this more a woman thing than a man's?) and I would choose these, respectively: Quinta da Capela in Sintra, and the Ritz Four Seasons and the Palácio Belmonte in Lisbon. [Please link!]
posted by Schweppes Girl at 6:40 AM PST - 21 comments

A Prayer for George Dubya just in time for Passover and Easter, what the universe has to say to our president. (featuring Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Gandhi, and more)
posted by amberglow at 6:00 AM PST - 78 comments

An Insider's Look
at the Southern Baptist wing of the Republican party. How religion and politics became so entwined and how fundamentalists took control of a major American denomination.

The Southern Baptist fundamentalists conquered their denomination; they have every reason to hope the Bush administration will make over the world in their image.
...
The separation of church and state, long central to Baptists, is of little interest to the fundamentalists: In 1998, Richard Land, at a strategy meeting with Republicans and members of the religious right, told the Republicans, "No more engagement. We want a wedding ring, we want a ceremony, we want a consummation of the marriage."
posted by nofundy at 5:31 AM PST - 47 comments

Zombie and Mummy are friends. They have many excellent adventures. via surfstation, quirky midi alert.
posted by iconomy at 4:42 AM PST - 6 comments

Is the U.S. the last Western country where wild animals can be kept as pets? Why? And why not? Although this is definitely cute and this is even cuter, it's just not the same. When I was young, several of my friends with ranches kept pumas. But no longer - it's now illegal in Argentina. Though I understand all the problems, I fail to see why, in principle, it should be. If hunting them is - aargh! - allowed and promoted, why not owning them? Does anyone know of any resources on the Net about buying and owning wild cats? Or indeed wild animals in general? I couldn't find one to balance this post. Where do people get them? How do they know how to keep them? [Though I did find a very amusing column about ferrets in Jeremy Clarke's column for today's Spectator...]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 1:54 AM PST - 10 comments

The Visual Telling of Stories Archive is a database used to train illustrators and designers. It's a deep, rich resource spanning centuries, and a very fun site to explore. I enjoyed puzzle pictures, the section on poses which includes a wife's grateful gestures and the Neapolitan language of gestures, a group of woodcuts of Boccacio's women from 1473, the hidden language of sex, and far too many other things to cite.
posted by madamjujujive at 12:12 AM PST - 13 comments

Not your father's Easter eggs, um, unless your family's Ukrainian, of course. Pysanky (mentioned in passing here) is a folk art with a rich symbology behind it. Whatever the meaning, though, these eggs are simply amazing to look at in person, and hopefully at least some of that comes across in 72dpi web photos. [more inside]
posted by soyjoy at 7:47 PM PST - 15 comments

"Mindfulness In Plain English" is a meditation manual by Henepola Gunaratana which has been reprinted online. It's a great introduction and step-by-step guide to Vipassana ('insight') meditation, a technique practiced in Theravada Buddhism. There are several centers which teach classes and retreats in the U.S. and Europe. There's also a 90-day online course, but the next open course doesn't start until September.
posted by homunculus at 5:35 PM PST - 15 comments

I wish Elvis had lived long enough to record La Vida Loca... but since he did not, I have to content myself with "Kingtinued", a CD of modern, largely A.E.D. (After Elvis' Death) tunes recorded in the style of the large one. Only the highest quality material was selected for the CD, to be sure.
posted by jonson at 4:02 PM PST - 13 comments

Learn English.
posted by xmutex at 3:57 PM PST - 15 comments

Like cats? Like fans? Here’s a little pre-Friday fun for those who want a good laugh.
posted by Bag Man at 11:28 AM PST - 52 comments

North: An Intuitive Arctic Exploration. 'Small stories', connected in some way with the Arctic region. Start exploring.
posted by plep at 11:21 AM PST - 4 comments

The Gumball Rally 3000 is almost upon us. San Francisco to Miami in five days all in the spirit of the classic movie. With an entrance fee of $20k and A List celebs like Johnny Knoxville and Jason Priestly participating... Not to mention the Bikini Bandits it's sure to be a wonder to behold. Starts at the Fairmont today at 9. Be sure to say hi to the Hustler Honeys in their twin turbocharged Lamborghini....
posted by zeoslap at 10:55 AM PST - 22 comments

HBO has decided to "shelf" Oliver Stone's documentary on Fidel Castro on the basis that the documentary depicts Castro without judgement. Should documentary filmmaking be a "true journalistic endeavor" as the article suggests?
posted by ericrolph at 10:13 AM PST - 26 comments

So, I'm trying to look up the site for the new movie A Mighty Wind. I wanna see it and trying to figure out when it'll make it's way here. (Answer: It won't!) Anyway, you'd think "amightywind.com" would be it wouldn't you? Sometimes there's no amount of money too steep to buy a domain back. And somehow REALLY religious people and web design don't mix. I wish they would. (Site info: hit enter waaaaaaaaaaaay at the bottom of the homepage, "meet the ministers", and be sure to click for the "nav bar, and listen to the Midi Juke box)
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 9:04 AM PST - 32 comments

Which Country Has The Most Beautiful Women? The best quality of life? The most divorces? The most mobile phones? The highest cost of living? Which one is the most visited? Rank the bastards! After browsing through this website, I'm sure the conclusion that we're all living in the wrong one is inescapable. The statistics and sources may be questionable, but there sure are a lot of interesting lists here! Meanwhile my own country, Portugal, has just been denounced as the the laziest in Europe and the booziest in the world. They lie! They lie! [Actually, it's a fair cop, guv. And it was nice to drag down the Brits with us.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:29 AM PST - 53 comments

Many know about the WWII propaganda films made by Warner Bros & Disney. But few know of the CIAs efforts to produce Cold War propaganda films. Like this take on George Orwells, Animal Farm.
posted by Dreamghost at 8:04 AM PST - 5 comments

The Bishop Museum, and its ethnology database: Hawaii and the Pacific
posted by hama7 at 6:40 AM PST - 5 comments

Mmm. Oh yeah, that's right. That's perfect, right there, yeah. Dutch technology means you no longer need someone else if you want a good massage. And don't try to tell me that this works.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:11 AM PST - 23 comments

Roy Orbison in cling film. "Hello, and welcome to my homepage. My name is Ulrich Haarbürste and I like to write stories about Roy Orbison being wrapped up in cling-film." You think you've seen everything and then...
posted by Spoon at 4:24 AM PST - 41 comments

How male or female is your brain? Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen argues in today's Guardian that the male and female brains tend to be hard-wired for different kinds of thinking - empathising (more common in females) or systemising (more common in males). Take the test.
posted by jamespake at 3:22 AM PST - 85 comments

Jesus Christ Racing Team is a Christian Race Team that races the car called the Christmobile
A great way to spread the words of Jesus !
Jesus also hates carbusters and knows that they will burn in hell for their terrorist sins...
posted by bureaustyle at 3:16 AM PST - 25 comments

The Ambient Orb No, not a prog-rock-house fusion band... But a little wireless egg, that sits on your desk, talks to your dataflows, and glows appropriately. Stocks up? Glows green. Lover online? Glows red. You calibrate the frosted glass through "thousands of colours". These design jockeys think it could be cooler though. Already, though, the idea is really mellowing me out. "The Lava Lamp of the 21st Century"...
posted by theplayethic at 2:29 AM PST - 13 comments

CNN's future obituaries the credit obviously goes to FARK and the Smoking Gun
posted by magullo at 12:54 AM PST - 13 comments

Maledicta Press Online May your balls be skewered neatly On Poseidon's triple spear! (it's all text, but NSFW warning if someone's reading over your shoulder. Found because both MeFi and this site were listed together on this page.)
posted by WolfDaddy at 12:03 AM PST - 9 comments

The change in private employment, two years after recession began, for 1953 to Present.
Details: The jobless recovery continued in March 2003 as the nation's payrolls contracted by 108,000, according to report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). These losses are in addition to last month's payroll declines, which also were revised up to 357,000. Taken together, the economy has lost 465,000 jobs in the past two months. In the two years since the recession began in March 2001, total payrolls have fallen by 2.1 million and private sector payrolls are down by 2.6 million.
The Jobless Recovery.
Low growth accompanies record trade deficit:
Last month in Beijing, Robert Zoellick, President George W. Bush's international trade ambassador, had nothing but praise for China's growing trade surplus. Meanwhile in St. Louis in January, the president stumped for more tax cuts, standing before a facade of boxes with the words "Made in China" covered over in tape.
2001 Tax Cuts and the Proposed 2003 Cuts
Details: Discarding pretense of tax cut equity
Also: Economists Voice Opposition to Bush Tax Cuts
posted by y2karl at 11:38 PM PST - 41 comments

All that's cat, all that's hep? Huh? I am utterly mystified by not quite sure about the website, which seems to be Italian, but the pictures are cute and the music snippets that you get when you click on the covers sure are strange and funny and sweet...and I wish I understood what it's in aid of! Can anyone here tell me what these Old Woogie guys are up to? Are they evil? Are they devious? Or are they just tragically enthusiastic?
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 11:33 PM PST - 3 comments

"The original holy instrument of The Yoga of Jesus."
posted by oissubke at 9:28 PM PST - 5 comments

The poet Vachel Lindsay committed suicide by drinking it. The Edmonton liquor control board arrested a grocery store owner for selling it. Weirder yet, the American Medical Association once condemned its manufacturer for advertising it as a contraceptive or douche. The bizarre history of Lysol disinfectant.
posted by jonp72 at 6:53 PM PST - 6 comments

Metallica's St. Anger is receiving rave reviews and there seems to be a great deal of hype, but none of it from a very well known source except the MTV review.

Oddly, the only english website with a review that isn't a blog is MTV's. A google search does reveal a few alleged foreign reviews, though.

Given Metallica's record of rampant pursuit of paranoid lawsuits, should one be skeptical that all of this hype is real? Given rock and radio's sordid past and present - I don't think I'm alone in my doubt.
posted by twiggy at 5:17 PM PST - 45 comments

The name "Firebird" was chosen by Mozilla to rename their Phoenix product. However, Firebird is also the name of a popular and long-standing open-source database project -- and the Mozilla organization was clearly aware of this naming conflict before making their decision. Some feel that such an action, within the context of the open-source community, is unfair and constitutes bad etiquette, at the least. The discussion is ongoing, but LinuxWorld reports that the Mozilla organization has deleted recent message-board comments that criticized their decision.
posted by TreeHugger at 3:06 PM PST - 18 comments

Homeland Security Dept. Fills their Privacy czar post with....(drumroll)...Nuala O'Connor Kelly, formerly the Privacy Officer of Doubleclick. Yes that doubleclick, and that one too. Also this one. I feel safer already. Is it still April 1st somewhere in the world?
posted by mathowie at 2:36 PM PST - 23 comments

Early Light Emitting Diode watches. From photos to advertisements. Commodore to Tiffany to Ragen Synchronar.
posted by four panels at 11:34 AM PST - 14 comments

Weapons of mass destruction free mid-east
sound like a good idea - perhaps could lead to other countries in hot zones giving up their WMDs as well? I wonder if other countries in the region would consider giving up their stockpiles?
posted by specialk420 at 11:31 AM PST - 26 comments

Mt. Moosilauke. Folklore and stories around a mountain in New Hampshire, with a nice interactive map.
Related interest :- Nos Histoires de L'Ile, historical photographs of a French community in Maine.
posted by plep at 11:18 AM PST - 2 comments

If this technology works as advertised, supported by Warren Buffet, ConAgra, CIA and the US Govt, our foreign oil dependency may be over in our lifetime. In fact, scarcity of oil may be a thing of the past as everything from municipal trash to human waste to grass clippings to old computers to ButterBall Turkeys can be reduced to only fuel-grade oil, fuel-grade gas, fertilizer minerals, pure carbon dust and clean water with no waste product or pollution. It will Change The World.
posted by stbalbach at 11:12 AM PST - 47 comments

LSD turns 60! 60 years ago today, Albert Hofmann accidently mixed up a batch of lysergic acid diethylamide-25 and took a "beautiful and pleasant" bike trip home from his Sandoz AG lab. His book "LSD: My Problem Child, Reflections on Sacred Drugs, Mysticism, and Science" can be found on Amazon or for free at http://www.flashback.se/archive/my_problem_child/Even though Hofmann isn't really for the use of LSD outside of the medical community, some zealots started a foundation in his honor. (Hofmann thinks people might hurt themselves while under the influence.) Regardless, the 97 year old Hofmann is still alive and is one of the major influences in modern popular culture history. Who were the Grateful Dead without LSD?
posted by meanie at 10:52 AM PST - 32 comments

Long before William Wegman dressed up his dogs in silly costumes, posed them and then took snapshots of them, other photographers were doing the same thing in the 1800s. See the results at the Photography as a Fine ARF! exhibit at the American Museum of Photography. Other current exhibits include Did You Ever Have A Dream Like This, The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes, The Face of Slavery & Other Early Images of African Americans, and Of Bricks and Light.
posted by iconomy at 9:02 AM PST - 9 comments

Penisblog Ben Brown did it ages ago, staking out the avant-garde as usual. Now the meme gets its own site. Can you match the member to the bloggeur? (Extra credit for spinning the project into a discursion on openness and self-revelation online.) Not, as they say, work-safe.
posted by joeclark at 8:17 AM PST - 64 comments

Japanese Streets. 150% cool.
posted by gottabefunky at 8:04 AM PST - 25 comments

Dubious Nation States
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:58 AM PST - 23 comments

How to kill terrorists without anyone knowing. An enquiry into collusion between the British army and both loyalist and republican paramilitaries in Northern Ireland has revealed that undercover agents may have been responsible for several assassinations, including lawyer Pat Finucane. By creating army units immune from the usual checks and balances, the government kept its hands clean. This is an account from someone who was involved.
posted by Summer at 3:49 AM PST - 17 comments

Salvia Divinorum is a plant which is (currently) legal to grow, own, or smoke in the U.S. The effects of this plant, when smoked or eaten, take place over the course of only a few minutes, but supposedly are very similar to those of certain illegal chemicals, such as the late Terrence Mckenna's well-documented fave; DMT. The user briefly finds themself to be in a world where the laws of physics, and logic have been subtly or grossly changed - an experience as jarring as the witnessing of the non-euclidean angles described by Lovecraft... and then the real world reasserts itself.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who is curious about this question - are the results of the ingestion of halluciniogens a self-fulfilling prophecy - the user 'seeing' something beyond the pale that they expected or wanted to see - or is there something more meaningful to the experience?
posted by GriffX at 11:10 PM PST - 70 comments

"Modern scientists have known about synesthesia since 1880, when Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, published a paper in Nature on the phenomenon. But most have brushed it aside as fakery, an artifact of drug use (LSD and mescaline can produce similar effects) or a mere curiosity. About four years ago, however, we and others began to uncover brain processes that could account for synesthesia. " This article from Scientific American seems to be turning heads around the Psychology Department at U of M [Michigan]. It's got me going too. I've seen real connections between color and sound before, stone sober. Could there be something to all this?
posted by phylum sinter at 9:13 PM PST - 23 comments

SecurityFocus is talking about Niels Provos, a graduate student well known for his work in steganography and for creating the honeyd program, having to move his research for his PhD from his U of Michigan homepage to a server in the Netherlands and keep U.S. citizens from viewing the information. Why? Because the state of Michigan passed their version of DMCA. I can see the routers and firewall software piling up in the trash.
posted by memnock at 7:38 PM PST - 10 comments

Guy Bourdin, Photographer Extraordinaire, 1928-1991 He was the most controversial of the not-really-fashion fashion photographers. "Too sexy, too necro, too sado, too gratuitously violent, too misogynist", they said. Now he's on the verge of a big retrospective, opening Saturday at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; being exhibited at leading galleries; lauded in the NYT and the object of a website as excellent as the one in my main link. [ These last 3 links go directly to the portfolios.] I just hope - being old enough to remember being severely scolded by my parents for collecting the photographs he published in my generation's vademecum, the since-degraded French magazine Photo - that these far more politically correct times (specially in increasingly intolerant, hygienist and puritanical America) won't prove to be even less welcoming of his work than his own times were.[ *sigh* Probably still NSFW, though most of his work was flipped through by our mothers in Vogue magazine more than 20 years ago...]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:28 PM PST - 3 comments

Ut pictura poesis (that is, "as is painting, so is poetry"). The Web has helped solve at least one scholarly conundrum: what's the best way to present the work of those artists who took the theory of "the sister arts" to its logical conclusion? Try, for example, The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, hosted by the University of Virginia. Or, if Pre-Raphaelites are not quite your thing, there's the William Blake Archive, which offers multiple versions of the illuminated books. And don't forget the man behind the wallpaper, William Morris. While William Makepeace Thackeray was a rather less successful artist--his ambitions in that line didn't quite pan out--nevertheless his illustrations to Vanity Fair (scroll down) are crucial to the novel (which doesn't stop many publishers from leaving them out...).
posted by thomas j wise at 7:09 PM PST - 8 comments

"Once Upon A Classic." A Boston Globe article by Ty Burr (reprinted on the PT Anderson website) that lists the new "classic" film canon for the post-MTV generation. Here's the top five: 1. Pulp Fiction, 2. The Godfather, 3. Fight Club, 4. Run Lola Run 5. Amelie. Discuss!
posted by adrober at 6:34 PM PST - 106 comments

Elocution lessons are helping staff working at call centres in India neutralise their accents and make their sales pitch more effective
call-center workers, computer programmers, these and other positions are being transferred to countries like India. We all know why. Only one reason, they call it Tight labor markets.

This is great news for India, but what exactly will the current call-center workers, programmers and other white collar workers in US do if their jobs will be gone to India ?
Are you worried that your position will one day be replaced by someone on the other side of the world working for 1/3 of your salary ?
posted by bureaustyle at 6:09 PM PST - 42 comments

Proof of Life After Copyright : An overexcited e-mail from the Gutenbergers:

April 10, 2002 was the day Project Gutenberg reached 5,000 eBooks. By Moore's Law, October 10, 2003 could be the day for number 10,000. We are just over half way — 7,661 as I write this — 2,339 to go! That will take over 300 eBooks per month; we need you to help us push our average up from 268 per month to get to 10,000 by December, 31st.

God help us if the entire universe fails to obey Moore's Law: the IPO of the singularity could be delayed. So pitch in.
posted by hairyeyeball at 2:35 PM PST - 10 comments

"Mary smiled and asked to see Martin. I said, ‘No, pet, Martin is dead.’ She turned round and said, ‘Oh, I know he’s dead. I wanted to see him in his coffin,’ and she was still grinning."

Mary Bell was convicted in 1968 for the murder of two boys: Martin Brown, age 4 and Brian Howe, age 3. And how old was Mary? She was 11. Released on license in 1980, Mary is in court again, this time to determine if she can retain the state-granted anonymity she has enjoyed since her release. But should one remain anonymous after profitting from their own biography?
posted by grabbingsand at 1:20 PM PST - 26 comments

Hyperweb was, and is, an "an experimental hypertext site using HTML" — from 1996. The experiment itself, an interactive essay of sorts, starts here; you can click around, or watch it cycle through by itself.
posted by mattpfeff at 12:56 PM PST - 4 comments

Did CNN turn up the booing on Michael Moore's Oscar acceptance speech? Check out the waveform analysis and decide. (via On Lisa Rein's Radar).
posted by hammurderer at 12:18 PM PST - 55 comments

Survivor Sucks A nice little site which rips every reality show apart quite nicely, but my favorite is the "Off Topic" section where threads on any subject offer up some of the best trolling/flamebait and some very funny comments. More inside...
posted by Mack Twain at 11:48 AM PST - 9 comments

A court in the Netherlands has awarded damages to a severely disabled girl for having been born -- a so-called "wrongful life" judgment. While we discussed French suits like this a while back (1 2), this decision seems noteworthy because it allows the child herself to receive damages, not just the parents who must pay for her care. In my mind, that opens up a whole new can of worms, both in terms of the message it sends and the incentives for doctors that it creates.
posted by boltman at 11:18 AM PST - 12 comments

Ethiopian Icons: Faith and Science. Richly hued religious art from an African Christian culture.
posted by plep at 11:13 AM PST - 11 comments

Expedition vehicles range from customized Land Rovers, pickup-truck camper tops to tricked out Ford F550's. European-style expedition vehicles include the Unicat, Pinzgauer, Langer & Bock and American-made Earthroamer. For those with no budget the MaxiMog was recently showcased at the New York museum of Modern Art. The specs are unbelievable "It costs more than a Unicat and less than a Boeing 777" and with a dashboard like this it will make your SUV neighbors green with envy.
posted by stbalbach at 11:07 AM PST - 39 comments

Krishnamurti discussing war, belief, and the desire for security in response to the question "How can we solve our present political chaos and the crisis in the world?" "As long as each one of us is seeking psychological security, the physiological security we need - food, clothing and shelter - is destroyed. We are seeking psychological security, which does not exist; and we seek it, if we can, through power, through position, through titles, names - all of which is destroying physical security. This is an obvious fact, if you look at it."
posted by bathtime at 11:03 AM PST - 5 comments

Whether you call it the "Jumping Flea" or "that Hideous Portugese Instrument," I'm sure we all have come to know, if not love, the ukulele. Of course, the best known uke player of recent times was Tiny Tim, though you may also remember performances in certain films. This last contains a very famous song. Converted? Then why not learn to play? Don't have an instrument? Build one for $12.
posted by kaibutsu at 10:45 AM PST - 32 comments

Will the S.S. United States sail again? Norwegian Cruise Lines has purchased (NYT link) the United States, holder of the Blue Riband award for the fastest transatlantic crossing. Now a derelict hulk in Philadelphia, the colossal ship may become one of the first cruise ships registered under a U.S. flag in fifty-odd years.
posted by Vidiot at 10:05 AM PST - 13 comments

The Colorful Past of US Tax Finished your return? Then spend a few minutes contemplating historical revenue stamps for a wide variety of consumer goods (my favorite stamp scans are for beer, matches, medicine bottles, and motor vehicles). A separate page offers the history of the subset of proprietary die or "match and medicine" stamps, and provides scans of stamps for canned fruit, playing cards, and perfume. Finish up with a look at "taxpaids" like cotton, oleomargarine, and ale.
posted by clever sheep at 9:52 AM PST - 5 comments

Parodeities' Greatest Hits Don't miss: Adam Was Made From Dust, Welcomed by the Devil, Takin' Care Of Jesus, and, of course, God's Filled Ya [mp3 links all].
posted by Shadowkeeper at 9:48 AM PST - 5 comments

Avadim Chayeinu: A BDSM Haggadah In some way or another, all who celebrate Passover, end up writing their own Haggadahs. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of different ones to choose from. Tradition says: never forget that YOU were freed from the land of Egypt. The desire to tell one's own tale of liberation and free one's own voice has led to holocaust haggadahs, gay and lesbian hagaddahs, zionist hagaddahs, feminist haggadahs, secular humanist haggadahs and now, a haggadah for those to whom the term "slave" has an altogether different meaning. (via boingboing.)
posted by jann at 9:16 AM PST - 5 comments

Sixth-grader goes to jail for stomping in a mud puddle. Police called it a proper arrest.
posted by Ron at 9:16 AM PST - 25 comments

IM just for Wifi - Trepia has developed a new method for wifi users to connect to each other. Imagine turning on your laptop and seeing the other wifi users near your physical location and being able to chat with them.

There's only a Windows client at this time. I asked where the Mac & linux clients were and the CEO told me they were coming in the future once the Windows version takes off. I'm betting that if enough people ask, they'll accelerate their plans.
posted by Argyle at 9:11 AM PST - 12 comments

Wacky food from around the world. Can food be a cultural icon? According to South Australia's annual heritage icons list it is. A tantalizing Pie Floater is a meat pie, drowned in pea soup and topped with tomato sauce. Are there any other "culinary" cultural icons in other parts of the world?
posted by Civa at 8:15 AM PST - 47 comments

The one and only Dead Rock Stars Club. This site, while nothing really to look at, does represent one hell of an effort. Only on the web.

1980, as it happens, was a particularly bad year, taking Ian Curtis, John Bonham, John Lennon, Bon Scott and Peter Sellers.
posted by psmealey at 7:40 AM PST - 11 comments

Behold the dark brilliance of modern media-management during wartime. Everybody here was having the same perfectly Groundhog Day experience: You woke up only to repeat the day before, and no matter what you did or said or thought, you were helpless to effect a change in the next day. So every day, everybody asked the same questions about Basra and the supply lines and the whereabouts of the WMDs and Saddam, and got the same answers.
posted by BentPenguin at 6:21 AM PST - 26 comments

We've been one-upped. "I won support from voters with this face, and to take it off would be breaking promises." We can't let this stand. If we don't do anything wackier next election year I'm moving.
posted by wobh at 5:57 AM PST - 5 comments

Southwark Council is planning Europe's tallest skyscraper for the middle of London. The 66 floor London Bridge Tower certainly looks impressive, and it's 'Extra White Glass' is expected to make the top of the tower "disappear into the sky" and change colour with the weather. But does London really need a 1000ft glass shard?
posted by twine42 at 4:31 AM PST - 37 comments

Buddyzoo is an interesting new site that lets you see which buddies on your AIM buddy list your buddies share with you. Sort of like a six degrees of seperation kind of thing. Very neat. Go check it out and sign up! And tell your friends!
posted by aznblader at 3:25 AM PST - 13 comments

The Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul. Lavish treasures.
posted by hama7 at 2:50 AM PST - 14 comments

The city of Peoria, Arizona has a problem with a car dealership flying too many American flags. They have threatened thousands of dollars in fines and even jail time if the flags aren't removed. The perpetrator pleads guilty of patriotism.
posted by MrAnonymous at 10:49 PM PST - 41 comments

Automaton \Au*tom"a*ton\, n.; pl. L. Automata, E. Automatons. [L. fr. Gr. ?, neut. of ? self-moving; ? self + a root ma, man, to strive, think, cf. ? to strive.] 1. Any thing or being regarded as having the power of spontaneous motion or action.
posted by crunchland at 10:28 PM PST - 12 comments

What has Wes Anderson been up to since The Royal Tenenbaums?

...a few unböring tv spots for IKEA's unböring ad campaign. There is a nice site about him which was updated March 18 announcing his fourth film starring, again, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Gwenyth Patltrow, Jason Swartzman and also Nicole Kidman and Robert Musgrave. Of course Mark Mothersbaugh has supposedly signed to do the score.
posted by tomplus2 at 9:58 PM PST - 30 comments

many of haliburtons subsidiaries pay no taxes as they are ensconsed in offshore tax havens. the vice president is collecting substantial sums in deferred payments, and sizable government contracts are being awared to this company without competition. should we ask our vice-president to encourage his former employer to pay corporate taxes like the most of the rest of americans and american businesses, considering the hefty sums of money being handed them by the american tax payer?
posted by specialk420 at 9:56 PM PST - 25 comments

Sex in an MRI scanner shows that in the missionary position, the penis looks like a boomerang.
posted by agregoli at 8:20 PM PST - 19 comments

No war in Syria? It appears not, as the US president has blocked the Pentagon from making preparations for an invasion. Is this for real, or is it merely a ploy to sway international opinion?
posted by fnord_prefect at 7:34 PM PST - 35 comments

"This isn't freedom, this is bullshit"
posted by delmoi at 7:04 PM PST - 52 comments

The Funniest Writer Not Writing Today ...or yesterday, or last year, or even for ages, has to be Fran Lebowitz. So it was quite refreshing to find this little website devoted to her scant and miserly online presence. The latest publication featuring her name is, in fact, the menu of the newly-opened Café Lebowitz in Manhattan's Nolita. Well, the author of the two masterpieces of wit, Social Studies and Metropolitan Life, recently anthologized in The Fran Lebowitz Reader, always warned us she was pathologically lazy... But the old, occasional, lazy (but always witty) interview or odd, random quotation is no compensation. I think she's up there with S. J. Perelman. Robert Benchley or Dorothy Parker. If only she'd actually do some work! Are there any other wilfully and chronically unproductive writer you miss terribly and would force out of retirement if you could?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:42 PM PST - 16 comments

Was Saddam a gay porn star? The answer is a resounding "maybe"! It all depends on how much you want to rely on Yahoo! Entertainment news to bring you the most accurate news, but there it is nonetheless. True or false, this has to one of the more "interesting" pieces to come out of Operation Iraqi Freedom so far.
posted by Hackworth at 4:57 PM PST - 26 comments

Walk thru of the now destroyed Iraqi Museum Even though I saw some discussion on MeFi on the Iraqi Museum, this link really brought it home. Forgetting the political BS, it's just a tragedy.
posted by zebra_monkey at 4:06 PM PST - 44 comments

If you're of a certain age, you will easily recognize the sign. Warhol made art out of them. Many families whiled away lazy rainy days licking them. Despite being one of the most dominant forces in cosumer's lives during the middle of the 20th century, the 80s saw them fade away, and eventually disappeared entirely just this year. Since 1999, though, they've been back, albeit in virtual form. You might even still be able to redeem your old stamps! Let's fondly remember the most successful implementation of the granddaddy of all today's shopping 'reward' programs...S&H Green Stamps!
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:05 PM PST - 7 comments

Another great French prison escape. Two members of an international drug smuggling ring hijack a helicopter, abseil into the prison exercise yard, and resuce a third man. Also, “last month, a commando-style gang used plastic explosives and a rocket launcher to blow its way into a prison near Paris and free a convict serving a sentence for organized crime. In a separate attack, men brandishing what turned out to be a fake rocket launcher freed another crime kingpin from a prison in Borgo on the Mediterranean island of Corsica.” In August, a man secretly replaced his brother, a Basque separatist leader, in prison.
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:05 PM PST - 7 comments

Who Is J. Hutton "Jovan"? Good question, since on every other page on this site he calls himself "J. Hutton Pulitzer," with a prominent Joseph Pulitzer quote to imply he's family. See, he "changed his birth name ... to shake the hold he felt his "Family Name" had over his life." Gosh, was it that, or maybe the fact that under his real name, J. Jovan Philyaw, he's the bozo behind the huge CueCat boondoggle? You be the judge! After all, 'J. Hutton has created many "first".' And look at his impressive company headquarters! Oh wait, that's just an office building that remains unnamed on this page. Still, you can take his word that "The Pulitzer Collection represents Gods’ devine communication of Himself and beauty to humanity." (via Dallas Observer, via Romenesko)
posted by soyjoy at 2:02 PM PST - 20 comments

"Now What a Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943
Approximately one hundred sound recordings, primarily blues and gospel songs, and related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State College (now Fort Valley State University), Fort Valley, Georgia. The documentation was created by John Wesley Work III in 1941 and by Lewis Jones and Willis Laurence James in March, June, and July 1943. Also included are recordings made in Tennessee and Alabama by John Work between September 1938 and 1941. Audio Title Index

The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip
Folk singers and folksongs documented during a three-month trip through the southern United States. Audio Title Index

California Gold: Northern California Folk Music From the Thirties
Materials from the WPA California Folk Music Project Collection, including sound recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents from a variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities in Northern California. The collection comprises 35 hours of folk music recorded in twelve languages representing numerous ethnic groups and 185 musicians. Audio Title Index (As Always, More Inside)
posted by y2karl at 12:43 PM PST - 12 comments

pallalink takes urban architectural symmetry to new abstract extremes. Be sure to view the archives. [via lightningfield.com]
posted by riffola at 11:57 AM PST - 15 comments

SARS A Biological Weapon? Now that SARS has been decompiled (sequenced), scientists are starting to suggest that it appears to be manmade, possibly as a bioweapon that escaped from a lab. Via linkfilter.
posted by timbley at 11:56 AM PST - 45 comments

Fatal Shooting at New Orleans High School. Another violent high school death. Bush should send troops to liberate New Orleans.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 10:45 AM PST - 24 comments

Yesterday, Paula Radcliffe won the London Marathon. She ran 2:15:25, setting a new world best, and in doing so beat all of the British men racing (she would have placed 15th in the men's elite race). Are the women catching up with the men?
posted by daveg at 10:00 AM PST - 13 comments

Colin Thompson writes and draws children's picture books. These books are a sheer joy to read, both for adults and children, as they feature an interesting storyline and fantastically detailed pictures. You can buy his prints from his site or you could take the plunge and buy this one for U$4800.
posted by ashbury at 9:23 AM PST - 6 comments

It's in the mail. Dylon Whyte's Art of Chainmail site features beautiful, clear renderings showing, step-by-step, how to join chain links to form different mail patterns, including European, Japanese, and (probably-not-)Persian designs. This is actually fascinating stuff even if you're not a medievalist or a Renaissance-faire type. Also, from the same source, a brief history of armour and the the secret behind the chain bra!
posted by taz at 8:55 AM PST - 13 comments

Probably the quinesstiential one-hit wonder, Little Eva has died.
posted by timeistight at 8:53 AM PST - 24 comments

Yessir, you're my baby! Eeeeewwwwww.... Is this the end of masculinity as we know it? In a word: yes. And I don't mean maybe. Not that this would ever happen in a hot-blooded Latin country, mind you. Not safe for you workers - get back to work! [Via Linkfilter.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 8:26 AM PST - 9 comments

Her name is Trisha Meili. She was attacked in Central Park fourteen years ago. Now she's written a book (excerpt) telling her story.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:38 AM PST - 11 comments

So how will you spend Easter? Are your plans just a tad pedestrian? If egg hunts leave you cold, perhaps you need a bit more edge. For many, things begin this week. In Czechoslovakia, men carry woven willow sticks and whip girls on the legs, but in Taxco, Mexico, it's all about self-flagellation. In the U.S., many go theatrical with a living last supper; in the Philippines they favor more authenticity - every year about 20 people re-enact the crucifixion, nails & all. If that's too real, you could order supplies to build a backyard corpus shrine for next year. - more -
posted by madamjujujive at 7:22 AM PST - 23 comments

How to police Iraq, and where to sign up. The US Army Peacekeeping Institute site is full of useful information for understanding the nuts-and-bolts of putting together a successful military occupation. Even though this is exactly the kind of material that journalists, students, and policymakers ought to be reading these days, some of it may be about to disappear. The Peacekeeping Institute website is shutting down on May 1. Will the Google cache preserve its contents for us?
posted by sheauga at 4:30 AM PST - 5 comments

Mesopotamia at the British Museum.
posted by plep at 3:46 AM PST - 3 comments

Nationalise Google? "Perhaps the time has come to recognise this dominant search engine for what it is - a public utility that must be regulated in the public interest." Bill Thompson from the BBC tells me that Google puts a cookie on my computer that can't be deleted till 2038: "This means that Google builds up a detailed profile of your search terms over many years. Google probably knew when you last thought you were pregnant, what diseases your children have had, and who your divorce lawyer is. It refuses to say why it wants this information or to admit whether it makes it available to the US Government for tracking purposes." Are they "a secretive, hyper-competitive company with no respect for the personal privacy of its users"? Are other search engines better behaved? And is this the beginning of search ethics?
posted by theplayethic at 2:19 AM PST - 60 comments

"It's been a rough few days for the A-10," the pilot told her father after she landed, but she assured him that the A-10 'Warthog' is a "a durable and reliable plane." It. Sure. Is. But the pilot brought it back from Baghdad in this condition with dead hydraulics, using only manual controls, and landed safely. The A-10 may be slower than birds, but it's loved by the Army.
via The Cellar's Picture of the Day
posted by Slithy_Tove at 10:45 PM PST - 29 comments

Remember how we beat the Taliban? This must be science fiction - I was told that we freed Afghanistan and killed all of the evil-doers there! I hope wacky stories like this don't start cropping up while we're introducing democracy to Iraq! I suppose it doesn't matter what the repurcussions are; even in our silly movies we have a history of ignoring that sort of thing.
posted by GriffX at 9:10 PM PST - 60 comments

Create a Plastic Paradise with Fant-O-Side! The Western Red Cedar Lumber Association actually took the time to put up a phony website to coordinate with its current ad campaign. Oh, I know this isn't a new technique - shoot, Lee Jeans did the same kind of thing way back in 2000 (as was noted here). Fair warning - don't click on any of the old links in the Wired article, unless you enjoy going to pop-up hell.
Surely, there've been more of this type of one-off phony site ...
posted by yhbc at 7:20 PM PST - 9 comments

The winners of the annual Muzzle Awards have been announced by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression; these are given out to "those who have forgotten Mr. Jefferson's warning that freedom of expression cannot be limited without being lost." The lucky winners this year include (among others) include John Ashcroft, for the DOJ's secretive expanded powers; the 107th U.S. Congress for USA PATRIOT; National Zoo Director Lucy Spelman for covering up mysterious deaths of zoo animals; and the NC House of Representatives for trying to shut down a college assignment involving the Koran. Are there any other outrageous cases of censorship this year that the Muzzles should have included? Are all of the winners worthy of ridicule?
posted by waldo at 2:00 PM PST - 19 comments

Bibendum (AKA The Michelin Man), or how an anthropomorphic pile of tires became one of the world's most recognizable corporate symbols.
posted by MrBaliHai at 1:40 PM PST - 19 comments

"We believe there are chemical weapons in Syria" President Bush gets ready to liberate Syria.
posted by four panels at 11:54 AM PST - 129 comments

A bunch of very beautiful Old Japanese Maps has been put online. Java application Insight(tm) required to view and includes a nifty GIS application to overlay old maps on current maps with 3-D animated fly-throughs. State of the art in online map presentation "The digital images are even better than the originals because you can amplify them, rotate them to look at them from different angles," Mr. Zhou said. "In practical terms, this is a better way of using the material than actually coming here to see the pieces."
posted by stbalbach at 11:48 AM PST - 5 comments

Mathew Branton, an established author is giving away his latest novel "The Tie and The Crest", for free on the internet, here he explains why. It's all very noble and I applaud it. While we are on the subject, has anyone mentioned the Big Read yet?
posted by Fat Buddha at 6:07 AM PST - 11 comments

'Barefoot Gen is a vivid autobiographical story. Artist Keiji Nakazawa was only seven years old when the Atomic Bomb destroyed his beautiful home city of Hiroshima. The Artist's "Gen" manga (visual novel), tells the tale of one family's struggle to survive in the dreadful shadow of war ... '
"I named my main character Gen in the hope that he would become a root or source of strength for a new generation, one that can tread the charred soil of Hiroshima barefoot, feel the earth beneath its feet, and have the strength to say "NO" to nuclear weapons.... "
More survivors' stories :- Nagasaki Nightmare, the art of the hibakusha, or A-bomb survivors.
Voice of Hibakusha includes eye-witness accounts of the atom bombing of Hiroshima. Here are more testimonies of survivors. (Via the A-Bomb WWW Museum). A personal record of Hiroshima A-bomb survival, posted to a message board, with responses from readers.
Remembering Nagasaki, a slide-show of Nagasaki after the A-bomb.
The story of Sadako, an A-bomb victim, and the Thousand Paper Cranes project she inspired.
posted by plep at 3:39 AM PST - 15 comments

No Webby for Meta. 2003 Webby Awards Announced. Does anyone still care?
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:22 AM PST - 22 comments

Love Philtre and SundayFilter Dare To Board The Love Boat... and almost drown in it! Let your wildest notions and your most secret pairings go wild and [cue awful Berlin song you thought you'd never hear again] get the Love Calculator to take your breath away. To start you off, here are the Matt vs. MetaFilter match results: "Dr. Love thinks that a relationship between mathowie and MetaFilter has a very good chance of being successful, but this doesn't mean that [Matt] do[es]n't have to work on the relationship. Remember that every relationship needs spending time together, talking with each other etc."
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:02 AM PST - 24 comments

Dive bars. Every town must have one. This is an interesting story about the bar that I imbibe at most often. I'm sure there are more like this. Please share.
posted by TurkishGolds at 11:14 PM PST - 42 comments

Coffee, our nan? Is this "Would you like some more coffee, Grandmother?" or Kofi Annan? Oh and mathowie - are you sure the Irish Haughey is pronounced Howie? [Check out Charles Haughey for the proper way.] Thank you, Voice of America, for teaching us how to pronounce those pesky foreigners' names. And shame on you, BBC Pronouncing Unit, for not being online! [This last link requires Real Audio but is really worth listening to if you have anything against stuck-up English twits.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 6:44 PM PST - 16 comments

Fleshlight. I paid over $60,000 to GET RID OF a woman that didn't feel 1/2 as good. The interactive model. Don't miss the testimonials, either. NSFW
posted by angry modem at 6:03 PM PST - 46 comments

A dissappearing history. The National Museum of Iraq recorded a history of civilizations that began to flourish in the fertile plains of Mesopotamia more than 7,000 years ago. But once American troops entered Baghdad in sufficient force to topple Saddam Hussein's government this week, it took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 170,000 artifacts carried away by looters.
posted by the fire you left me at 5:26 PM PST - 58 comments

Maggot art! Ah, maggots - some folk find them gross (warning, gross), some find them tasty, some think they're pretty bad-ass, and name their hardcore band or rugby team after them. But truly, their greatest talent must be as artists.
posted by jearbear at 5:25 PM PST - 7 comments

The Anglosphere: This has been floating vaguely in the memesphere for a year or so, and is ready to pop. Seems we Anglophones are not nations separated by a common language anymore, but "a distinct civilization in [our] own right."

Western in origin but no longer entirely Western in composition and nature, this civilization is marked by a particularly strong civil society, which is the source of its long record of successful constitutional government and economic prosperity. ... [its] continuous leadership of the Scientific-Technological Revolution from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first century stems from these characteristics and is thus likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

It is not, however, a return of " the racialist Anglo-Saxonism dating from the era around 1900" ... he says. The author was profiled in Industry Standard in August 2001. His company provides "sovereignty services" — i.e., moving wealth offshore.
posted by hairyeyeball at 4:58 PM PST - 9 comments

The Feudal States of America? Timely article from Thom Hartmann called The Real War - On American Democracy. "Those of us who still believe in republican democracy would have "We, The People" make the decisions through representatives we've elected without the feudal influence of corporate money. We realize that "big government" is, indeed, a menace when it's no longer responsive to its own people, as happened in Germany and Russia in the last century - and is happening today in America under the neoconservatives."
posted by thedailygrowl at 1:26 PM PST - 32 comments

Donald Rumsfeld is a man of many talents. Earlier in the month we found out he is a poet. Well, not only is he well versed in defense policy, but sex advise as well. Watch out Dan Savage!
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 1:19 PM PST - 9 comments

Visceral beauty Long-standing Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell offers some thoughts on covering the war One of the real advantages of being able to draw in this awful context is that it affords the chance to manipulate a little of this flood of imagery and turn it back on itself; since I'm certain the vast bulk of these mega-pictures constitute a campaign of deliberate obfuscation.
posted by skellum at 12:55 PM PST - 7 comments

SADDAM AIDE SURRENDERS Saddam Hussein's chief weapons adviser has surrendered to the US military. US officials had described Lieutenant General Amir al-Saadi as the person they most wanted to speak to about Iraq's weapons programmes. Now we will know about WMD or the integrity and effectiveness of the give-inspections-a -chance folks. Any bets to be placed?
posted by Postroad at 10:21 AM PST - 40 comments

The Parlor is worth watching again once you figure out what is going on [Some language nsfw]. From the 2002 Chrysler Film Fest, reg. required for the full versions of the 2003 films but you can see clips here.
posted by dogwalker at 8:58 AM PST - 6 comments

Amusing Bass Guitars - a fun 62 page collection of unusual bass guitars from Bunny Bass where "basses are bunnier." Also, don't miss the gallery of bass & guitar girls and the lusciouslyy-crafted instruments from custom design builders. Seen any good basses you would add to this collection?
posted by madamjujujive at 6:28 AM PST - 16 comments

The Ethnographic Lens: Images from the Realm of a Rain Queen. Between 1936 and 1938 social anthropologists Eileen and Jack Krige undertook intensive fieldwork in the north-eastern regions of South Africa among the Lobedu people whose chief Modjadji was widely acclaimed as a rainmaker.'
'In 1943 their book 'The Realm of a Rain Queen' was published and has remained in print ever since. Some of the photographs taken by the Kriges were used as illustrations in the book but many remained unpublished and little known ...' Via this collection of archaeological and anthropological resources from the South African Museum.
Princess Makobo Modjadji of the Bolobedu has just been crowned as the new Rain Queen, Modjadji VI. A light drizzle greeted the inauguration, which may be a good sign.
The Rain Queen was the inspiration for H. Rider Haggard's 'She Who Must Be Obeyed'.
More on the world of the Rain Queen - including biographical details on the last Rain Queen, and her relationships with politicians such as Nelson Mandela in a changine South Africa - here.
posted by plep at 3:36 AM PST - 5 comments

$400 Dollars (yes, that's four hundred) is the price per gallon of gas for our military. The cost of moving fuel to a war theater can boost its price to about $10 dollars per gallon. And if it has to be airlifted in, that price tag can reach $400 dollars a gallon or more. This story is the opening piece on this week's edition of Living on Earth on NPR. Read the transcript here, or listen via MP3 or Real Player.
posted by bluedaniel at 3:34 AM PST - 13 comments

Let The Iraqi Looters Loot: there's pleasure and there's payback in looting! [A little more inside]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 12:13 AM PST - 43 comments

A walk in the park? How about 250 km (150 miles) over Sahara sand dunes in temperatures reaching 44°C (111°F) carrying all your food and gear. Stage 4 was a 52 mile double marathon. Today it was just a simple 26 miler. 4800 masochists have done it since 1986, ranging in age from 17 to 78. The Ahansal brothers took 7 hours 33 minutes to finish the 84 km leg. Slower than last year because of the strong winds and blowing sand. Luke Cunliffe has been blogging his experience at the end of each day. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I guess. Shall we form a MeFi team for next year?
posted by Geo at 11:17 PM PST - 5 comments

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Yo-Yo. Health officials in New York are concerned about "water yo-yos", a hot new toy imported from Asia filled with a "foul-smelling liquid" that has made some kids ill. So far, they haven't been able to figure out what the liquid is, who manufactures the toys, or who brings them into the United States.
posted by jjg at 9:06 PM PST - 28 comments

Still a few days left for peace. Peace Poster design contest ends April 17th.
posted by crunchland at 9:06 PM PST - 2 comments

Last week some friends of mine launched terroristidkit.com to, as they put it, "[poke] fun at the racial profiling, loss of civil liberties and terrorist paranoia that is sweeping the US." Five days later Register.com seized their domain and refuses to explain why, despite the fact that they complied with two requests for identity verification and even called Register.com to talk about it; after putting them on hold for twenty minutes, Register.com put the phone down. Today the domain is now owned by Register.com. What the hell is going on?
posted by lia at 6:28 PM PST - 49 comments

Dealing With Saddam What's in the cards for the missing members of the Iraqi high command? According to Reuters AlertNet "The United States will soon deliver Iraq's deposed president Saddam Hussein and his inner circle into the hands of its own troops -- as a deck of playing cards...Brigadier General Vincent Brooks held up one of the first examples of the card packs at a Central Command briefing on Friday, explaining that each card depicted a character the United States wanted pursued, killed or captured." Checking the deck quite predictably we find that Saddam is portrayed as the Ace of Spades, and his strong-arm younger son Qusay is tricked out as Ace of Clubs. Ironically, elder-psychopathic progeny Uday, who is said to favor the use of rape as a weapon of torture, is imaged as the Ace of Hearts. An Adobe Acrobat PDF image of the full deck is available at Defense Link.

Is this the the new US military card game, Poke-Iman? "Hey, soldiers...gotta catch 'em all!"
posted by Dunvegan at 5:53 PM PST - 27 comments

The (Re)making Project: "There is no such thing as an original play," says playwright Charles Mee. His site offers full-length transcriptions of his own hilarious, profound works and encourages users to plunder them: "Please feel free to take the plays from this website and use them as a resource for your own work: cut them up, rearrange them, rewrite them, throw things out, put things in, do whatever you like with them.." Mee's generous, Classicist approach to his work contrasts sharply with, say, Lars Ulrich.

In helping live theater overcome its marginalization in the U.S., Mee's accessible, re-mixed adaptations of Greek tragedies seem like a positive contribution. But why does live entertainment like sports and music draw Friday-night crowds while theater plays to a tiny national audience?
posted by dhoyt at 3:09 PM PST - 21 comments

Is Cuba Next? As long as you're cleaning up for Poppy, why not clean up for the Democrat's martyred Sun King at the same time?
posted by alms at 2:00 PM PST - 27 comments

Jason Pettus is back online. While offline, he was stood up by a swinger, tried out for a reality tv show, had his book courted, then rejected by a publisher, and had six teeth removed. Before there was a Blogger, before "weblog" was even a word, Pettus was chronicling his life and (mis)adventures as a novelist, poet, and porn aficionado struggling to geek out a living in Chicago. I can't believe I went 3 months with no daily dose of Pettus. Thank the stars, he hath returned, with a snappy new design.
posted by eustacescrubb at 1:27 PM PST - 14 comments

"Is it a boy or a girl?" This simple, common question can be traumatic for some parents. Approximately one out of every 2,000 babies is born with ambiguous genitals, meaning that it is not clear whether the baby is a boy or girl. What to do in such a case? A new study indicates that "gender-assigning surgery," to give the child more "normal" genitals, may increase sexual difficulties later. [more inside]
posted by soyjoy at 1:08 PM PST - 45 comments

Cow Annoyer. It's just like being back on the farm. Moo. [Flash.]
posted by homunculus at 12:02 PM PST - 10 comments

Let's Just Send Suge Knight In To Do It Right! A radio station thought to be backed by the CIA has been broadcasting a gangsta rap-style parody of Saddam Hussein to Iraq.
posted by turbanhead at 12:02 PM PST - 16 comments

We all know that a number of journalists have quit the embedded roles they were playing. And while Saddam's regime may have been quite brutal to the press and others, some claim the recent loss of a few journalists was no accident.
posted by woil at 11:26 AM PST - 17 comments

I yearn for your tasty flesh

[ Gene Study Finds Cannibal Pattern ] - "Deep in the recesses of the human heart, lurking guiltily beneath the threshold of consciousness, there may lie a depraved craving — for the forbidden taste of human flesh. The basis for this morbid accusation, made by a team of researchers in London, is a genetic signature, found almost worldwide, that points to a long history of cannibalism" (NYT)
posted by troutfishing at 11:10 AM PST - 45 comments

Gifted Students Despite her boarding-school education and a personal tutor, Maude Bunn's SAT scores weren't high enough for a typical student to earn admission to Duke University. But Ms. Bunn had something else going for her -- coffeemakers. Her Bunn forebears built a fortune on them and, with Duke hoping to woo her wealthy parents as donors, she was admitted. Afterward, her parents promptly became co-chairmen of a Duke fund-raising effort aimed at other Duke parents. "My child was given a gift, she got in, and now I'm giving back," says Maude's mother, Cissy Bunn, who declines to say how much the family has contributed to the university.
posted by orange swan at 10:31 AM PST - 58 comments

The Dictators Contest "Back by popular demand is the Original Dictators Contest. 16 of the last century's most fearsome autocrats have been selected and pitted randomly against one another to compete for the title Dictator of Dictators". If you don't see your favorite Dictator, try The Second Dictators Contest. Agree with their results? Did they forget anyone?
posted by Mack Twain at 10:15 AM PST - 5 comments

Soaking the Rich This post probably won't be very well received in this forum which is mostly consisted of lefties, but can you really justify stealing such a disproportionate amount from the rich?

Conventional wisdom holds, correctly, that income inequality has been increasing in recent years, though it still isn't as great now as in some past periods. But while incomes are distributed unequally, the federal tax burden is distributed far more unequally.
posted by VeGiTo at 9:35 AM PST - 105 comments

Corporate PR and an obvious parallel? Yesterday, Space Mountain at Disneyland unexpectedly closed for a two year rehab. This was planned for September but a severe maintenance issue seems to have forced their hand. This is a huge things in certain circles, and this guy sees a parallel in the official version of events.
posted by obfusciatrist at 8:01 AM PST - 18 comments

PayPal charged with breaking Patriot Act. Anybody care to explain what does terrorism have to do with glambing? (No, it is not a rescued April fool's joke ...)
posted by magullo at 7:59 AM PST - 9 comments

Hippo Girl [Flash], new from Joel Veitch's rathergood.com. A celebration of accepting whatever hand the universe deals you.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:58 AM PST - 6 comments

Friday Flash: Move Your Butt! This Frogger adaptation is a promotion for a new children's book from Scholastic, The Day My Butt Went Psycho! Where does a book like this come from? Australia, of course. (Link via the Spinnoff Forums.)
posted by UKnowForKids at 7:50 AM PST - 5 comments

EyeWitness: History through the eyes of those who lived it.
posted by hama7 at 6:51 AM PST - 5 comments

The idea: A place for posting songs where they might actually get heard -- preferably someone who can help get it published. We've teamed with SuperfastNetworks to create the first song blog**.

Will the the Metafilter Music Channel be next?
**Actually it works with any digital content.
posted by Shane at 6:45 AM PST - 6 comments

1,200 people in the UK die each year due to passive smoking at work.
Following on from New York's tough stance on smokers, the UK is considering banning smoking in all restaurants in order to cut the number of deaths by passive smoking.
posted by Mwongozi at 6:27 AM PST - 52 comments

Apple Reportedly in Talks to Buy Universal Music!
posted by raaka at 5:40 AM PST - 28 comments

Peeps! All about peeps! So sweet and chewy and cute all over. Apparently, they're not just for Easter anymore. They've come a long way since I got the little yellow guys in my Easter basket as a kid, apparently. I had no idea this company had gotten so far flung in its enterprise.
posted by psmealey at 5:38 AM PST - 12 comments

Ough!* I pronounce the English language unpronounceable: Arriba! Arriba! Arriba! Speedy Gonzales here. When will you make up your minds and stop making fun of pestering us poor foreigners? I mean, it's not as if you yourselves can agree on how to pronounce almost anything... [*As in "plough". Not as in through, , thought, thorough, thought, hiccough, lough or enough already!]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 5:23 AM PST - 84 comments

New 'Matrix: Reloaded' Trailer. Best one yet, .zip, 94mb. Via /.
posted by armoured-ant at 2:11 AM PST - 13 comments

The Bass Museum of Beer. The history of the Black Horse, Findon, West Sussex. A guide to historic pub interiors, from the Campaign for Real Ale. Pub names for all, an amusing pastime. An online guide to pub games. Flash versions of pub games. Unusual pub names of Lancashire. The history of Coaching inns. An interactive map of pubs and clubs of Oxford. Venus and Adonis at the White Hart Inn, St. Albans (you may disagree with the scholarship, but the images are nice). The Star Inn, Bath, an historic pub. A virtual pub crawl of Hull. A virtual pub crawl of Shrewsbury. The Bird and Baby, favoured by Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. (More on Tolkien's Oxford). Guide to Gloucestershire pubs. The Crooked House in the West Midlands (more here via the Strangest Pubs in Britain). The World Marbles Championship takes place every year at a pub in Sussex.
posted by plep at 12:29 AM PST - 13 comments

A Sexual Clash of Civilizations? Using data from the World Values Survey, two researchers argue that Samuel Huntington's theory of a clash of Islamic and Western civilizations completely ignores the role of sexual tolerance as an indicator of a democratic society. An interesting point to ponder when Islamic countries and Christian Right activists have teamed up to lobby the United Nations against the expansion of gay rights and family planning.
posted by jonp72 at 12:06 AM PST - 20 comments

Monsoon Dawn, Roden Crater

I've always wanted to make light something that you treasure. Not just light reflected in glass, or in a scrim, or on the surface of some object. But light objectified. We generally use it to illuminate other things. But I wanted to force people to pay attention to the thingness and revelation of light. This is a place that will do that.
James Turrell [more inside]
posted by y2karl at 11:53 PM PST - 14 comments

The Kids Are Alright, A Documentary (Warning ~60 MB Quicktime download. Worth it.) A bit of strange luck led me to this documentary, in which several teenagers discuss frankly and openly what it's like to be a queer kid in North Carolina. Contrast and compare their experiences with that of 14 year old Thomas McLaughlin in Arkansas. I wonder what Aaron Fricke would think about the last 20-odd years.
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:43 PM PST - 2 comments

Songkran or in other words, Thai New Year. It is celebrated in style with a nationwide, week-long waterfight, amongst other things. The main event is on the 13th, but it seems to have started in earnest about 3 days ago.
posted by johnny novak at 11:17 PM PST - 3 comments

Michael Moore update. Judging from this column he is still alive. and is thriving after his Oscar rant. Bowling for Columbine and his book Stupid White Men continue to break new records.
posted by thedailygrowl at 11:02 PM PST - 55 comments

The culture of a society, is largely invisable to it's inhabitants. While the bigger things in our own cultures are easily identifiable, such as food, customs and religion. More unique things like hitting a statue or a picture of Saddam with a shoe, are not. Symbolism is usually subtle and can easily be missed or misinterpreted by people from other cultures. This is a great article from BBC WORLD NEWS which explains some of the symbolism we're seeing in the Iraqi gatherings.
posted by Civa at 9:10 PM PST - 2 comments

Call the Clone Doctor! In the June issue of Reproductive BioMedicine Online Panayiotis Zavos announced a group has produced "the first human cloned embryo for reproductive purposes". He is leaving his position as professor of animal sciences in the agriculture department of the University of Kentucky (USA) to join the organization responsible for the embryo. He's no johnny-come-lately -- he stated his plans last year.
posted by ?! at 8:36 PM PST - 6 comments

Straw Bale Housing. An an energy efficient, alternative architecture.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 8:18 PM PST - 24 comments

Bootleg Betty: even though there's a weblog about pretty much anything these days, it was still a surprise to see a weblog entirely about Bette Midler. [via Syndic8.com]
posted by sillygwailo at 6:35 PM PST - 1 comment

photos from mid-america | a reminder of what i like about the ol' usa [via newstoday]
posted by specialk420 at 6:24 PM PST - 11 comments

Wait A Minute! Where's That Great Movie I Saw In The Trailer? I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine, said Bruce Lee. Still, expectations and anticipation are an integral part of cinephilia and the fun of watching movies in general. For a lot of us, Tarantino's Kill Bill is by far the most expected movie of 2003. [The trailer and the screenplay reviews, whether enthusiastic or not, lead one to expect a sword-swallowing, fire-breathing mix of "Enter The Dragon", "Slouching Tiger, Creeping Dragon" and "Charlie's Dragon Angels". So - will it be up to Tarantino's best? I venture to say oh yes.]
And if you're not a rabid Tarrantino fan, which upcoming film(s) are you most eager to see, from now until 2006?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:21 PM PST - 57 comments

Saddam sightings. SARS sightings. It's just like Elvis, right? But why use the tired "Elvis sighting" cliche (and trivialize his memory) when you could use Lord Lucan instead? Like this example from the BBC: [scroll to the Baghdad :: Andrew Gilligan :: 1016GMT entry]. Saddam Hussein has already been spotted in more places than Lord Lucan. He's been in the Russian embassy, he's been in the mosque this morning, he's alleged to be on a convoy to Syria - no doubt he'll soon be found on a sofa in Huddersfield.
posted by TheManWhoKnowsMostThings at 5:54 PM PST - 4 comments

iraqwar.ru
posted by crunchland at 4:03 PM PST - 22 comments

Iraqui currency hot on the 'bay Start your bids, folks.Wired is reporting a boost in auctions for Iraqui currency that contains images of its current leader.
posted by psycht at 3:01 PM PST - 6 comments

Snakeman Steve. Get the jump on Friday!
posted by srboisvert at 2:39 PM PST - 4 comments

This personal ad validates what I've always suspected about life, dating, and everything.
posted by goethean at 2:37 PM PST - 25 comments

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraq's ceaselessly optomistic information minister, has gone missing. Until he turns up, relive some of his choicest quotes.
posted by zedzebedia at 2:32 PM PST - 26 comments

Axing Foreign Acts — Now that immigration control falls under the rubric of Homeland Security [+ | +], ticket sales should pick up for Broadway shows: foreign culture exchange is on the wane down the drain, says the Voice's Don Mattingly this week. Students, too. Bureacratic transition pains or police-state policy? More info? Paranoid surmises?
posted by hairyeyeball at 12:39 PM PST - 6 comments

Asianart.com is a great site which I've been enjoying lately. The online exhibitions are lovely and the articles are fascinating. They also link to several private galleries. If you like Asian art, spend some time here. [Via plep, who linked to Wood and Transience recently.]
posted by homunculus at 11:59 AM PST - 6 comments

Hymen and the back seat of your father's car not included It’s requirement for ladies who looses their virginity (virgin size) usually after delivery and some cases before also and slowly both partner looses interest in each other without knowing the cause, this Virgin cream gives you complete youthfulness and bring back virginity (virgin size) to its original shape. Your partner starts taking interest in you, which you might have not experienced before.
posted by orange swan at 10:24 AM PST - 52 comments

Singaporeans under government home quarantine orders due to close contact with SARS patients will have electronic cameras installed into their homes. "These people will then be called at random intervals and asked to stand in front of the camera to show they are home. Anyone found breaking quarantine will be served a warning letter and given an electronic wrist tag."
posted by plenty at 9:49 AM PST - 24 comments

Multi Genre Star Ship Comparison? "This site is intended to allow science fiction fans to get an impression of the true scale of their favorite science fiction spacecraft by being able to campare ships accross genres, as well as being able to compare them with contemporary objects with which they are probably familiar." Someone has spare time...
posted by Spoon at 9:21 AM PST - 25 comments

Bush and Blair broadcast direct to the Iraqis. Freedom TV will bring the truth (?) to the Iraqis for the first time. I'd like to see a transcript.
posted by Summer at 8:58 AM PST - 24 comments

Whether she is called a geisha, a courtesan, a prostitute, or a dominatrix, women who make their living by offering intimate, one-on-one companionship to men (sexually or otherwise- as is more often the case) have been around since day one. Often reviled, marginalized, and belittled, are they truly the hapless victims and social parasites they are often portrayed as? Or is this sort of profession really one of the few areas where an intelligent woman can achieve financial security and prosperity, even in a patriarchal society? (note: I am well aware that sex is not normally part of the deal with geishas and dommes. However, they are frequently lumped in this category.)
posted by evilcupcakes at 8:55 AM PST - 50 comments

Spoils of War This op-ed piece in The New York Times (free reg req'd) follows the path of money into who is getting what now that the reconstruction phase is about to begin. Might have called this piece: More than Oil.
posted by Postroad at 7:56 AM PST - 20 comments

Sony is attempting to trademark the term "Shock and Awe" for a computer game. having scored a hit with its original PlayStation game, Conflict: Desert Storm. It is among a swarm of companies scrambling to commercially exploit the war in Iraq (which has killed thousands of civilians and soldiers on both sides).
posted by MintSauce at 5:53 AM PST - 50 comments

The Queen of the Skies retires Undoubtedly the most elegant plane out there, Concorde is being put into retirement, some say too early. She flies over my office every morning and it's a beautiful sight. I feel very sad - is it normal to miss a machine?
posted by jontyjago at 1:45 AM PST - 37 comments

At 2:26 p.m. yesterday, the US House of Representatives was considering a gun control bill. In the process of complaining about "a failed Democratic amendment that would have banned gun sales to drug addicts or people undergoing drug treatment," Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-Wyoming) let slip this telling inquiry: "So does that mean that if you go into a black community, you can't sell any guns to any black person?"
posted by grrarrgh00 at 10:22 PM PST - 60 comments

PATRIOT forever. Toppling one regime to build another, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and a Republican coalition are pushing legislation to make the PATRIOT Act permanent. It's daylight forever.
posted by four panels at 7:30 PM PST - 46 comments

I drink my tea with chopsticks. At least, I would if I lived in outer space. Cool movie (achtung: Quicktime) from the international space station showing the effects of surface tension in the absence of gravity. I wonder if any of us will ever live long enough to experience this in person?
posted by jonson at 4:59 PM PST - 12 comments

If you're still working for K-mart A bankruptcy bonus may be delivered to you soon. 1. Work for some company 2. ??? 3. Bankruptcy 4.PROFIT!
posted by elpapacito at 2:41 PM PST - 10 comments

Disco's dead but not forgotten. It's trying hard to stay alive at Disco-Disco, a tribute site to the clubs, DJs, artists and history of the leisure suit and mirror ball era. Slip on your boogie shoes and get your groove on with some disco trivia, pay tribute to revolutionary disco remixer Tom Moulton or learn the dance steps to the California Hustle (a.k.a. the Bus Stop).
posted by VelvetHellvis at 12:39 PM PST - 34 comments

The non-serious voice of Scientology? Scientology apparently used to have a sense of humor. Make sure to check out the cover art! (via boing boing)
posted by padraigin at 12:05 PM PST - 15 comments

Euphoria in Baghdad • In scenes reminiscent of the Cold War's final days, citizens are filling the streets, throwing flowers, tearing down monuments of Saddam Hussein and any reminders of his long, brutal regime. As this is a moment of reckoning for many people, a lot of questions lie ahead: Was it a risk worth taking, despite the casualties? Could any amount of liberation and jubilation compensate for those casualties? Will this be a celebrated historical moment, or the staging ground for new aggressions? However one feels about the war, it sure is good to see all the smiling Iraqi faces.
posted by dhoyt at 11:39 AM PST - 299 comments

Best. Festival. Ever. The Field Day Festival is taking place on June 7th and 8th in Riverhead, NY and the lineup is amazing. Yesterday, there was an image of the band lineup, but it has been removed. There will be an official announcement on Monday. In the meantime, here is a partial list of bands to whet your appetite: Radiohead, Belle & Sebastian, Spiritualized, Beth Orton, The Streets, Sleater-Kinney, N.E.R.D., Beastie Boys, The Strokes, Sigur Ros, Blur, Flaming Lips, Interpol, The Rapture and Tortoise.
posted by capndesign at 11:01 AM PST - 35 comments

MultiMegaCorp is a new game from the makers of Pyroto Mountain (previously discussed here). They say "Our research has indicated that there is a niche for a game that is similar to Pyroto Mountain, but less esoteric -- a game whose concept can be explained in one sentence." If you tried Pyroto but couldn't get into it, maybe this game is for you. I just signed up, but so far it appears to be much like Pyroto but using different terminology. I'm not sure why anyone would want to imagine themselves in a messive corporation instead of a land of mountains and magic, but the corporate metaphor does make the game's concepts easier to understand initially. Instead of being a Wizard, you are an Employee. The Spirit of The Land becomes the CEO, Manna becomes Influence Points, Robes become Authority, Ethers become the Grapevine, you're climbing the corporate ladder instead of a mountain, and as you get higher, you can do perform more Actions. I wonder how many games you could turn into something that initally seems so different just by changing the words it uses? What else could Pyroto become?
posted by Emanuel at 10:55 AM PST - 3 comments

Since 1996, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network has sponsored an annual national Day of Silence event to help create safer schools for all students, "regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression". Today is the 7th time such an event has been held across the country. Are you participating? What is school like for you in this context?
posted by WolfDaddy at 10:45 AM PST - 22 comments

Industrious caddisfly larvae live within odd protective cases that they painstakingly craft from bits of twigs, stones, gravel, sand, and leaf fragments. They drag the case around, much like a snail or a hermit crab carries their shell. Artist Hubert Duprat, being well aware of the caddisfly larvae's reputation for resourcefulness and adaptablity, decided to see what would happen if he replaced the usual case building materials with precious gems, gold, turquoise, pearls, lapis lazuli and coral.
posted by iconomy at 10:02 AM PST - 21 comments

Geography Humiliation Central: Too many damned What a wonderful diversity of countries! A very annoying stringent set of tests, designed to expose showcase our ignorance knowledge of the political geography of the world we live in. Whether it's Africa, Asia or even Europe, South America or the United States, I seem to know only the really big ones them all. In fact, I've never been so ashamed proud in my life.
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 9:06 AM PST - 51 comments

Children's books of the Early Soviet Era [more]
posted by hama7 at 6:47 AM PST - 11 comments

Hong Kong will take your breath away. With the burgeoning Sars epidemic spreading fear among travellers worldwide, the Hong Kong tourist board must be ruing the day it commissioned a series of magazine ads telling readers a visit to the city will "take your breath away".
posted by MintSauce at 5:27 AM PST - 23 comments

Dictators and their demises: a miscellany. Saddam and the Destruction of Civil Society in Iraq is the timely find, and deals with the entire history of Iraq since the Ba'ath party takeover, including a detailed ideological history of the party and the increasingly totalitarian aspects of Saddam's rule in Iraq. To ask whether democracy, even in a non-Western sense, has a chance in Iraq is to jump one step ahead of the game. The fundamental questions we need to answer first are: What was the nature of Iraqi civil society before the Ba`thist regime destroyed it? How did the Ba`th oliberate it? And can Iraqi civil society be rebuilt after Saddam has left the stage? [more inside]
posted by dhartung at 4:41 AM PST - 19 comments

Is trying to assassinate a foreign leader illegal? Executive Order 12333, signed by President Reagan, says "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination," which confirmed and expanded the bans on assassination laid down by his two prior presidential predecessors. So why is the US government targeting Saddam Hussein and his sons? Has the executive order been secretly (and legitimately) revoked? Should it be? Does it even need to be revoked, even if just for appearance's sake? Has ignoring or revoking it been part of the plan all along? Does the Fourth Convention of the Hague really forbid assassination as well?
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:06 AM PST - 49 comments

Afghanistan 1969-1974. Many photographs of the landscapes and people of Afghanistan as was. 'Searching the internet at the beginning of the year 2001 for "Kabul & museum" or for "Bamiyan" displays alarming news. This is why I'd like to put my old photographs of Afghanistan of the years 1969, 1970, and 1974 into the WWW to preserve a vivid memory of the treasures collected in the museum in Darulaman and of an Afghanistan as it used to be years ago ... ' (Also in German).
Related :- Lost and Stolen Images: Afghanistan, including a section on the Bamiyan Buddhas and some images from the Kabul Museum (via the Huntingdon Archive of Buddhist and related art).
posted by plep at 12:21 AM PST - 7 comments

The Dream Machine. Did anyone else miss this? The Lucidity Institute has purportedly created a machine, the NovaDreamer, that will help "control and create dreams." Retail price: US $300.00.

I think I'll get one. I wonder if there might be any harmful psychological side effects to always dream lucidly? Oh well.
posted by SilentSalamander at 11:08 PM PST - 31 comments

Pulitzer?! I don't even know her! Yes, folks, the 2003 Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded. Jeffrey Eugenides wins the Fiction award for Middlesex (a NYT link to the book's first chapter), Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post wins for criticism (that links you to his LOTR Two Towers review, which made me laugh) and this picture (NYT link) and this cartoon (also NYT) also won.
posted by adrober at 8:46 PM PST - 14 comments

Will we ever know what is real anymore? The making of the Matrix sequels. After these movies, will we ever be able to tell what is real or not on the small and large screen?
posted by npost at 7:11 PM PST - 70 comments

Believe It or Not! Anomalies Unlimited. See the Lord's Prayer Carved on the Head of a Pin! Marvel at the World's Longest Ear Hair! Indulge in the Deep Dark Secrets of The Wonderful World of Disney! Yes! Step right up. No need to push... there's something for everyone under the Big Top...
posted by crunchland at 3:29 PM PST - 17 comments

"This war's musical outcry is no different from those of the past, with one gleaming caveat. Whatever your feelings on folk music, most of the new protest songs concerning the war in Iraq -- how to put this maturely -- suck fetid donkey biscuits. This is the worst dreck ever to to be digitized 'n' downloaded."
posted by kirkaracha at 3:21 PM PST - 35 comments

The Limbless Association has set up a fund to assist Iraqi children who have been rendered amputees by the war. They were prompted by the public response to the plight of 12 year old Ali Ismail Abbas, who lost both his arms (and most of his family) in a missile strike on his house in Baghdad.
posted by homunculus at 3:00 PM PST - 19 comments

The (not so) Secret Weblog of Laura Palmer brings back many memories of trying to work out who the real murderer was, and being deeply infuriated with how the story ended. As Agent Cooper puts it: "I know that good is stronger than evil and yet sometimes it's difficult to see it. Even in a place like Twin Peaks." [via Caro]
posted by feelinglistless at 2:56 PM PST - 17 comments

The Construction Of Memory: Because any description of this webwork would ruin it, let me just say that saudade [please scroll down] is one of the few words I know that entirely befits this moving, bittersweet evocation. Although one of Christina Rossetti's best known poems captures it just as well. [Flash req; poem inside. ]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:53 PM PST - 17 comments

The CRACK Program (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity) The organization's premise is radical, if dizzyingly simple: CRACK gives addicts $200 (they'll throw in an extra $50 if a participant recommends a friend) and sets up the medical procedures at a public hospital or clinic. All Nicole had to do was sign a release form, and two weeks later she had her tubes tied at a local hospital. She received a check the following month.
posted by Espoo2 at 1:37 PM PST - 78 comments

The General Motors EV1 electric car is soon to be a museum piece: "As California retreats from its strict pollution regulation, GM is taking the cars off the road when leases expire because it can no longer supply parts to repair them", according to this article. CARB (the California Air Resources Board) has proposed pushing back its Zero Emissions Vehicle timetable another two years [PDF link], to 2005. Is the success of the hybrid vehicle killing progress on the all-electric vehicle?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:56 PM PST - 23 comments

The Roots of a Haunting Song "Billie Holiday's brilliant interpretation of 'Strange Fruit' made the haunting song about Southern lynchings her own. It also helped make the composer, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx, nearly anonymous. But Abel Meeropol (link contains image of lynching) gets his due in a documentary...airing [8 April] as part of PBS' 'Independent Lens' series..." (CNN)
posted by LinusMines at 10:35 AM PST - 28 comments

MetaToiletFilter Self wiping since 1999.
posted by srboisvert at 8:08 AM PST - 12 comments

Blockbuster late fee. I recently returned a movie a few hours late at Blockbuster. I was surprised to learn that the late fee was equal to what I paid for the movie- $3.25. The company line now is- "We don't have late fees. We just bill you for another seven days." This can be as high as $5.44, apparently. There seems to be no mention of this in the usual places. Shouldn't there be a legal limit to how high late fees can be? [The store clerk told me that late fees represented 40% of his store's earnings- I am not sure if this is true across the board.] I am ready for Netflix. Are you?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 8:08 AM PST - 153 comments

U.S. Kills Journalists. Three journalists in the Palestine Hotel -- which is known as many reporters' base in Baghdad -- have died after the building was bombed by U.S. forces. Simultaneously, U.S. forces hit Al-Jazeera's Abu Dhabi offices with a missle. Officials claim that they were responding to sniper fire, but journalists dispute the claim. Some journalists believe that this was a deliberate attack. Is the U.S. making good on their threat to "target down" journalists?
posted by waldo at 7:25 AM PST - 79 comments

Did you know that George Eliot's Middlemarch is posted online in its entirety? As is Madam Bovary, Anna Karenina, and Don Quixote. ClassicReader.com contains 769 books and 1041 short stories by 211 authors. (via Bookfilter.)
posted by Pinwheel at 7:19 AM PST - 10 comments

It's a sport with a proud history played on a big field, with big scores and grown men in tiny pants. It's got scandals, bizarre rules, and a few colourful characters. It began in Australia, but it's spreading
posted by backOfYourMind at 7:18 AM PST - 12 comments

Information Radio in Iraq. An interesting look at the US radio broadcasts into Iraq (via the Guardian Informer)
posted by brettski at 7:08 AM PST - 1 comment

Welcome to The dullest weblog in the world. Just as Steve Wright is a genius, so too is this weblog. Be sure to check out the sometimes copious commenting for more comedy gold. If you like it, there's a club you could join.
posted by ashbury at 6:41 AM PST - 21 comments

Mabel Stark was one of the greatest tiger trainers of the 1910's and 1920's. Her life is now the subject of a novel, The Final Confession of Mabel Stark by Robert Hough. The book has created a lot of controversy because it describes the sexual nature of Mabel's relationship with her big cats. Film rights have already been sold; Kate Winslet will play the lead. Writer Rip Sense recalls seeing Mabel as an old woman, still handling big cats in Jungleland, California. Want to raise big cats in your home? See this handy guide to matters such as litter-box training, feeding, and keeping the tigers from destroying the furniture.
posted by SealWyf at 6:36 AM PST - 6 comments

"My Wife Dated Idiots" says Michael Douglas. He, on the other hand, kept strictly to Nobel Prizewinners. Insecurity, assholiness and (admittedly) Simply Red's Mick Hucknall apart, why is it that for ex=XX or ex=XY, one's own exes are always better than one's partner's exes?
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 3:45 AM PST - 10 comments

Has global warming been seriously undermined by new research? I read this interesting article about global warming on the telegraph. I generally believe that global warming is caused by man, though this article has given me food for thought. What do you think?
posted by tljenson at 1:07 AM PST - 44 comments

Cultural Entomology. The role of insects in human cultures from every continent :- religion, art, literature, entertainment, and as pets.
Related :- insect drawings used as teaching aids; insects as food.
posted by plep at 12:17 AM PST - 15 comments

Famous SPUN Cook Show
quicktime link: High Bandwidth and Low Bandwidth
posted by bureaustyle at 11:49 PM PST - 3 comments

Staggeringly weird MP3 collection over at April Winchell's blog. Everything from Hindi ABBA covers to hideous celebrity sing alongs from the likes of Hulk Hogan and Catherine "Daisy Duke" Bach. My favorite so far is the german cover of the theme music from Bonanza.fromCKB's blog.
posted by jonson at 10:30 PM PST - 25 comments

Bryan's "I Love Trista" Page [via Geisha Asobi]
posted by hama7 at 10:20 PM PST - 7 comments

msnbc report all the major media are reporting a huge strike that may have killed hussein and perhaps his sons.
posted by muppetboy at 7:39 PM PST - 69 comments

"The Ethics Resource Center (ERC) is dedicated to building community - a bond between individuals that grows from our shared values. We embrace Honesty, Respect, Trust and Excellence in our daily interactions and in our work. Our values enable us to foster ethical practices in individuals and institutions and contribute to our vision of an ethical world." (from their Values Statement) Not to be confused with The Center for Public Integrity. Before one debates either of these issues, it might be useful to consult Robert's Rules of Order, specifically in regards to Decorum in Debate. If that is too "old world" for you, you may wish to consult The United States House of Representative's Rules of Decorum and Debate .
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:29 PM PST - 1 comment

Stencil. Stencil. Stencil. Stencil.
Stencil. Stencil. Stencil.
Stencil. Stencil.
Stencil.
Stencil Revolution.
[via Speckled Paint via Cursor]
posted by mediareport at 7:24 PM PST - 29 comments

Take enough electricity to power 100 houses for two minutes and use it to generate enough elecrticity to power one 40-watt lightbulb for one ten-thousandth of a second. What do you have? Nuclear Fusion.
posted by alms at 7:21 PM PST - 17 comments

Down on Khaki Street. Roman Coppola's ode to summer youth. Available cool with The La's, or even cooler with The Shins!
posted by the fire you left me at 4:32 PM PST - 14 comments

Ever played Dominos as a kid? Honda's new TV ad (56K/100K) in the UK takes the concept to extremes, using parts from a car.
Yes, it's an ad, but it's very, very amusing.
posted by Mwongozi at 3:34 PM PST - 25 comments

"Los Angeles is not the city it could have been" An informative and amusing essay on how L.A. went from 'six suburbs in search of a city' to the 'horizontal sublime.' Part of the 3Cities Project.
posted by snez at 2:42 PM PST - 23 comments

Iraq in a Nutshell
by O'Reilly Books (not really)

A WARMONGER EXPLAINS WAR TO A PEACENIK

A light hearted look at the oft repeated justifications for war in Iraq and their counter arguments.
posted by nofundy at 11:58 AM PST - 82 comments

Who needs to coast? With a fixed gear bicycle, you can't. Not to be confused with single-speeds or multi-gear derailers, this minimalist setup is used in track racing, including Japan's Keirin. Messengers and others ride track bikes on the street (sometimes illegally without a brake): the simplicity means there's less to brake or be stolen. Not all fixies are tracks bikes though, with conversions often more focused on utility and comfort than speed. (Perfect for the commute!) They're great in the winter and offroad, too. You can make your own (you just need horizontal dropouts) and then learn some special techniques.
posted by Utilitaritron at 11:53 AM PST - 53 comments

Walter Matuschanskayasky Understandably Changed His Name To Walter Matthau, Derek Gentron Gaspart Ulric van den Bogaerde to Dirk Bogarde and Goldie Jean Studlendegehawn to Goldie Hawn but who did Splanger Arlington Brugh and Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg turn out to be? What's in a name, you ask? A lot's in a name, as Famous Name Changes extensively shows!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:08 AM PST - 27 comments

All your face are belong to us. 16-yr-old Irish girl looks set to receive the world's first face transplant, it has been reported. Right now it's a medical procedure, but do you think we ever see a day where people grow face replacements for cosmetic purposes?
posted by piskycritter at 10:02 AM PST - 22 comments

Pessimism bad - With the recent kabal surrounding the "dishonesty without intent" (whatever that means) Bjorn Lomborg committed in his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist", Matt Ridley speaks out for more "technological fixes" and against the technological pessimism that pervades the public debate about technology, and which can have perverse side effects, according to him. "In the 1990s Ingo Potrykus genetically engineered some strains of rice to contain a natural vitamin A precursor precisely because he was affronted by the fact that half a million children go blind every year in the third world for lack of vitamin A. He gave up his intellectual property rights, and persuaded Syngenta and other companies to waive their patents so that he could give the rice away for free in poor countries. Yet the crop remains tied up for years to come awaiting regulatory approval as a "drug" because of precautionary regulations urged on third world countries by environmental groups. " Future's so bright, I gotta get an eye upgrade!
posted by NekulturnY at 9:53 AM PST - 13 comments

How BADLY do you want to be a millionaire? Badly enough to cheat on a TV game show? An ex-Army Major, his wife and another man have been convicted of 'procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception' - in other words, getting someone to sign a cheque for a million pounds which was won by cheating.

The scam involved a series of coughs at strategic points in the "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" game show, guiding the Major to the right answers.

The show was never aired after suspicions were raised but I would be interested to see if it'll now be released so I can make up my own mind about the suspicious, ahem, coughs.
posted by essexjan at 9:48 AM PST - 21 comments

Bin Laden, Dostoevsky and the reality principle: an interview with André Glücksmann. Europe is trapped by complacency and an all too human desire for oblivious contentment, says a leading French philosopher. This helps ensure the success of the nihilistic terror and extremist ideology exemplified by al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. Nobody wants war – but genocide is worse than war.
posted by semmi at 9:02 AM PST - 15 comments

For Great Justice. Man appeals to High Court of Australia to apply their jurisdiction to the laws of mathematics. Justice Kirby not amused.
posted by Bletch at 4:25 AM PST - 17 comments

A "Disappearance" In America - Arrested without charge. Secret warrants and subpoenas. No arrest record. No accusation of a crime. Solitary confinement. No access to a lawyer. No comment from the authorities. No court appearance. In other countries, this would be a "disappearance". Here in America, it's just the Patriot Act at work. Read the story of Mike Hawash, and ponder where this country is headed.
posted by laz-e-boy at 1:36 AM PST - 44 comments

Florida Folk Art. 'Welcome to my online Outsider Art Gallery. I collect outsider art, also known as Folk Art or Visionary Art ... '
More folk art :- Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations, a Kansas City Public TV project about the art and oddities of roadside America; the Yard Dog Folk Art Gallery ('folk art of the South'), a nice site from Texas; the Garde Rail Gallery; Folky Art; Four Florida Folk Artists (via Interesting Ideas). Not quite folk art but an interesting idea nonetheless :- the Miniature Book Library, an ongoing mail art project (which invites participants).
posted by plep at 12:12 AM PST - 6 comments

The Classical Music Archives
posted by crunchland at 11:36 PM PST - 14 comments

Happy birthday Astroboy - Born on April 7, 2003. Oh how the future has dissapointed; why don't we have flying juvenile robots to protect us from evil? All we have is kitch T-shirts. The history and episode guide to Astroboy, and lots more information on this Japanese cartoon favourite.
posted by Jimbob at 10:08 PM PST - 14 comments

"It's simple. They want water. I have it, as long as they agree to get baptized," he said. [via anil]
posted by artifex at 9:33 PM PST - 53 comments

Military Hamsters With Cpt. Carl and Sgt. Murphy spear-heading the advance, and with able support from Sgt. Scruffy and Sailor Seymour, the troops of secretary of defense Gemmy (Flash-enabled ruckus inside) meet with little resistance at toy-store cash registers.
posted by LinusMines at 7:44 PM PST - 7 comments

10 Million Kids, 10 Years, 10 bucks Except that they ran out of money a little early. Hopefully, the Lord can spot them a few bucks.
posted by GernBlandston at 5:52 PM PST - 33 comments

washington picks a new man to run iraq , is this guy really the most qualified man for the job? apparently some people think so.
posted by specialk420 at 4:50 PM PST - 16 comments

How to do things with four-letter words. Why do we swear? Or, more importantly, why are swear words "bad" and other words are fine? Angus Kidman's thesus on the semantics of swearing in Australia - and most other English speaking places as well - tries to shed some light. Possibly NSFW.
posted by Fat Elvis at 3:56 PM PST - 21 comments

"If the Sons of Confederate Veterans can't oppose a statue of President Lincoln, we can't do anything," said Bragdon Bowling, Virginia division commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He then added, "You don't build monuments to conquerors."

Ah, life in the modern South... it is so nice to see how far we've come, eh?
posted by grabbingsand at 3:16 PM PST - 64 comments

The Freedom Ship is a testament to what human beings can accomplish if they put their minds to it. How Stuff Works gives us a good description on all the details. The ship will feature a $200 million hospital, a 3,800-foot (1,158-m) landing strip, which will serve private planes and some small commercial aircraft that carry no more than 40 passengers, hangars for private aircraft, a marina for residents' yachts, a large shopping mall, a school system offering K-12 and college education, a golf driving range, bicycle paths, and 200 open acres for recreation.
posted by ashbury at 2:12 PM PST - 36 comments

Re-Code - the revolutionary new way to shop where You Choose The Price! I don't know why it's taken this long, I really don't.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 1:29 PM PST - 21 comments

Democrats finally speaking out? "Today the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives announced that -- and I quote -- 'Nothing is more important in the face of war than cutting taxes.' Let me make this clear: Never in its history has the United States passed a big tax cut in a time of war. We have always believed in shared sacrifice. " Sen. John Kerry's speech at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner April 3 in Georgia. (Salon article, click the free day pass to view)
posted by Espoo2 at 1:26 PM PST - 24 comments

"War Crimes" is a powerful Flash video about the war. "Doctor Bushlove" is darkly comic. Both are by Eric Blumrich, and are well-crafted but quite graphic. And in the interests of fairness, Blumrich has given equal time to his critics. [Via BuzzFlash.]
posted by homunculus at 12:43 PM PST - 18 comments

So, what does one have do to trigger a security alert? A suburban Philadelphia lady finds her credit card has been fraudulently charged for a flight to Philadelphia, with a passenger name that sounds Middle Eastern, during the time that President Bush and DHS Secretary Tom Ridge would be in the city. Worried, she tries to report this to various police and security officials. This is her story.
posted by eriko at 12:05 PM PST - 18 comments

Ebay auction as political statement: Tit for tat.
posted by johnnydark at 9:31 AM PST - 34 comments

Call me dumb, but can anyone think why all the FBI's most wanted terrorists are Muslims?
posted by tapeguy at 7:45 AM PST - 50 comments

Just what exactly was Calvin Klein, the Fashion Designer, saying To Latrell Sprewell, the Basketball Player? [Photo and more inside.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 7:42 AM PST - 11 comments

Film Mogul is an online RPG that's "a simulation of what it is like to be a power player in the movie industry today." Take on the role of studio head, agent, producer, critic, or journalist and make virtual movies every bit as crappy as the ones that the real Hollywood churns out!
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:34 AM PST - 5 comments

The 30 Worst Atrocities of the 20th Century

A graph of The 25 highest percentages of national populations killed during periods of mass brutality

Question: Who was the Bloodiest Tyrant of the 20th Century?

Answer: We don't know.

Sidenote: Do Democracies Make War on One Another? (More Inside)
posted by y2karl at 5:46 AM PST - 33 comments

UN Membership for Palestine — Now! John V. Whitbeck thinks the time is now for Palestine to apply for full United Nations membership. His argument is persuasive, and tasty fodder for a steaming mefi buffet.
posted by giantkicks at 1:07 AM PST - 15 comments

The Century Project (not suitable for work) 'is a series of nude photographs accompanied by highly personal and moving statements by women whose lives span 100 years. The words and pictures combine to form a powerful statement about body image, society's portrayal of women in the media, sexuality, pornography, and women's health issues. For some, this is pretty controversial stuff...yet the simple fact that women have invited me (a man) to exhibit and speak in Churches (3 times!) and on the campuses of Colleges and Universities, by itself speaks volumes about the way in which Century has been received, and what it's value has been ... '
'Life is at its fullest at 94.' - Mary.
posted by plep at 12:07 AM PST - 23 comments

Do Most Of You Yanks Really Understand What The Brits Here Are On About? Although the cultural mistranslations are probably more a question of tone and habits of irony and understatement, Jeremy Smith's online American·British British·American Dictionary, to be published next September, might be of some assistance. Although I still prefer Terry Gliedt's older but pithier United Kingdom English For The American Novice and even Scotsman Chris Rae's English-to-American Dictionary. Here's a little BBC quiz to test your skills. It seems that Canadians, Australians and [another cute quiz coming up!] New Zealanders are the only Metafilterians to completely capture all the varieties of English usage here. Perhaps it all comes down to the fact that non-U.S. users know much, much less about England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand et caetera than vice-versa? Does anyone else get the occasional feeling we're not exactly speaking the same language here?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:18 PM PST - 66 comments

Vertigo then and now is a collection of pictures from Vertigo, then and now. [via Scrubbles]
posted by y10k at 9:01 PM PST - 13 comments

Belgium guts 'genocide law' to end war crimes cases against Sharon, Bush Sr., others About time this absurd law got taken off the books. Good to see the transnationalist Europeans live by their words and stick to truly international bodies instead of this farce.
posted by billsaysthis at 7:50 PM PST - 7 comments

My bet is no-one will care, but I'm marrying my fiancee six months today. Who cares, you say. But think about this... Current UK law means you can either be married by an Anglican minister or by a Registrar. Due to ecumenical fun we're getting married in an Anglican Parish Church with a URC minister and have to get a registrar to stand in the church. Why the religious difference? Does it matter?
posted by twine42 at 2:50 PM PST - 27 comments

When will Rainier erupt? Last night, I dreamt that Mt. Rainier erupted. Now, I don't believe in prescient dreams, but if this were to happen, and it has, we in Seattle might not need to leave Seattle, but those closer to the mountain are probably going to want to get out of the way quickly. I wonder if an earthquake could trigger an eruption, sort of a double-whammy natural disaster that would instantly transform Seattle into the least desirable place to live in the country?
posted by tomharpel at 1:13 PM PST - 26 comments

BBC's Jim Muir explains how Kaveh Golestan, Pulitzer-winner BBC's Iranian cameraman, was killed last week in Northern Iraq: "But the extent of Kaveh's injuries was far greater than could have been inflicted by two anti-personnel mines. I believe the Iraqis had done what they apparently often do, which is to plant an anti-personnel mine on top of an anti-tank mine so that the one detonates the other." More about Golestan on Google.
posted by hoder at 12:26 PM PST - 11 comments

Gracefull bipeds, miniature robot ballets.... Titled by the BBC as "Humanoid robots wow Japanese", The world's largest robot exhibit this weekend in Yokahama features Asimo by Honda ["Asimo can now recognise individual faces and can understand gestures as well as spoken commands. Meet him once and he never forgets, responding by approaching and calling your name on subsequent meetings."] as well as Sony's newest Aibo accesories and their stunning SDR-4X ll, a biped sporting "fluid walking motion and lifelike gestures." Epson Seiko caught my attention, though, with their dozen tiny Bluetooth controlled 12.5 gram Monsieur ll-P robot prototypes which executed a miniature choreographed ballet.

Pretty soon they'll be scuttling around on our walls like cockroaches, watching us......
posted by troutfishing at 9:26 AM PST - 10 comments

Today's Grand National Today 40 horses were forced around an arduous and often fatal 'race course'. This year, only one horse was killed. How can anyone think that this is a sport?
posted by daveg at 8:07 AM PST - 31 comments

Thumbs Up? Anal insult or USA A-Number 1? Via the Riddler. Defense Language Institute:

This gesture, expressing connotations of “I am winning,” historically is offensive to many Arabs. After the Gulf conflict, however, Middle Easterners of the Arabian Peninsula adopted this hand movement, along with the OK sign, as a symbol of cooperation toward freedom.

That's what you think, GI Joe.
posted by hairyeyeball at 7:15 AM PST - 14 comments

Christmas Island is the largest coral atoll in the world with an area of 248 square miles of which 125 square miles is land and the remainder lagoon. [more]
posted by hama7 at 6:13 AM PST - 12 comments

Possibly the greatest band that ever existed is only a few fingerprints away: your own, created right here! [Via Bifurcated Rivets]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 3:25 AM PST - 16 comments

US forces 'move on Baghdad centre' .
US tanks and armoured vehicles are advancing on the centre of Baghdad after reaching the southern outskirts of the Iraqi capital on Saturday morning, US officials say.
Also, US troops in 'Baghdad centre'
Wow, this is definitely breaking news.
posted by y2karl at 1:07 AM PST - 126 comments

Policeman to the World?
Andrew Buncombe in Nasiriyah reports on this "liberated" city "where looters run wild and death stalks the streets."

"While much of the Iraqi army and Fedayeen militia may have been destroyed or forced underground, the city has been given over to lawlessness and looting. Yesterday, the Saddam Hospital itself was pillaged by a gang of 20 armed looters, who made off with a haul of drugs. They even looted several of the hospital's ambulances. What is clear is that Nasiriyah is neither safe nor secure. If this is an example of how the war will unfold in other cities throughout Iraq, it does not bode well.

posted by Dunvegan at 10:59 PM PST - 12 comments

SITE Environmental Design did some pretty cool things for now-defunct big-box retailer Best back in the '70's and early '80's. Unfortunately, all but two of their Best stores have been razed or transformed into plain boxes; and one of those is under threat. They may not have been Chartres Cathedral, but they were certainly more interesting than the standard Wal-Mart or Best Buy architecture.
posted by ukamikanasi at 6:59 PM PST - 12 comments

What does AUS$4 Million get you? A website. Not a very good one at that, but what do you expect when it's only 3.6mil over budget?
posted by Mick at 6:50 PM PST - 24 comments

Ah, L'Amour [Windows Media], a short animation by Donald Hertzfeld. Oh God, I'm so lonely.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:48 PM PST - 5 comments

Yet another reason for me to be ashamed at times to identify with other "Christians." Apparently some Bible study website has purchased the domain blogpsot.com so that people misspelling the address of any blogspot blog will go to the site. That's just great. These people have stooped to the level of pornographers. Check it out for yourself, using these URL's of some blogspot blogs.

http://grandparoland.blogpsot.com
http://shleepybex.blogpsot.com
http://unit64.blogpsot.com
posted by brendoman at 6:45 PM PST - 27 comments

dcmetroblogmap: "the incredibly spiffy map where you can find bloggers in the D.C. metro area, arranged by metro station."
posted by kirkaracha at 6:31 PM PST - 7 comments

War as metaphor, again. The linguist George Lakoff writes a sequel to his seminal piece on the first Gulf war. The Nation as Person, The Just War, War as Business (and Politics), War as Fairy Tale: will these ways of thinking ever be re-framed in the interests of peace and common humanity? Not if any dissent from the accepted line continues to be silenced. Source: Too Much News
posted by cbrody at 6:30 PM PST - 4 comments

Akamai to Al-Jazeera: F*** off. In a manner of speaking.
posted by donkeyschlong at 4:29 PM PST - 54 comments

American Brandstand tracks mentions of consumer brands in songs in the Billboard Hot 100. It's interesting to see which products get mentioned the most; Mercedes is currently on top with 29 mentions so far in 2003. (This week, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, and Li'l Kim all give props to the Benz.) Burberry and Puma round out the top three. Question: is this typically admiration of the product, projecting an image, or product placement? (Via Slate.)
posted by Vidiot at 3:30 PM PST - 21 comments

Naikan: A Practice of Gratitude, Self-Reflection, and Attention. The "concept" of self-reflection is one which is endorsed by nearly everyone - religious leaders, therapists, politicians, scientists, etc... Most people would say that self- reflection is a "good idea" just as most people support the good ideas of "love", "peace", "justice" and "healthy living." How do you actually reflect on yourself? What is the method for examining one's life? (from Utne.com)
posted by ColdChef at 3:01 PM PST - 8 comments

In retrospect I have seen a glimpse of it before, in Baraka (scroll down to images, in the middle of the second row). I had forgotten this. I had read about it before too and smugly thought I knew about it then. When I saw it live for the first time I realized I didn't know anything at all about it. And now that I've seen it, now that it feels like I know it, it still feels like I don't know anything about it.

Unfortunately there's only so much that can be said about anything. You have to experience it, and even then it has to touch you or resonate with you in some way before it really means anything to you. All I can say is that I saw something last weekend that touched me and resonated very strongly with me. And anything that I or anyone else could tell you about Butoh couldn't tell you what that was, much less give you what was given to me.
posted by wobh at 2:24 PM PST - 10 comments

Question for the class: Why would you want to make a RAID array from floppy disk drives? Answer: because you can if you have a Mac, that is
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:40 PM PST - 28 comments

Culture Jam- Windows Media file Great Fun. Culture Jamming. from Parasite.TV
posted by Niahmas at 1:18 PM PST - 15 comments

"What can escape the eye of God all seeing?" Milton asked. The impossibility of escape from "the eye" is often the very root of what it means to be, like Kokusai Omocha, a "cyborg." The inescapable eye fantasy powers brilliant, archetypal designs of prisons, low brow toy sales and the scourge of the Internet. 108 years ago, the fear of "the eye" induced entrepenuers to invent lead underwear to foil newly invented X-Rays from seeing too much. Today, in the name of security, these metaphors, fantasies and fears all are coming together at a few airports near you.
posted by limitedpie at 1:16 PM PST - 5 comments

Along the same lines of sites designed to get kids to eat more red meat comes the Presidential Prayer Kids website, which instructs the young on how best to support our leader through prayer. This week's lesson instructs the Bush Youth to be faithful, compares them to dogs. "They are showing their faithfulness by obeying the commands they are given and by doing exactly the job they were trained for."
posted by jonson at 10:54 AM PST - 41 comments

Media Map of Iraq (Requires Flash 6.) Click on a location or unit to see a list of embedded reporters. Then each reporter's name is a link to a list of their war reporting either at their website or via a Google News search. Also, Poynter.org is constantly looking to improve this map via reader input, as the Pentagon is not giving up much information on the embedment program. Also, The Atlantic Monthly/Washington Post's Michael Kelly is the first embedded reporter to be killed in this war.
posted by pitchblende at 10:43 AM PST - 8 comments

“You can't deny, even if you are a spiritual being, that you are living in a world organized by money." Bikram Choudhury, yoga’s bad boy and proponent of the intense, sweaty version that bears his name, has copyrighted his famous sequences and is suing schools that teach them without his permission. Many adherents of the ancient technique, whose name can be translated as “unity”, are outraged, and are starting to unite against him. The Beverly Hills resident, who calls his style “the only yoga”, says "I have balls like atom bombs, two of them, 100 megatons each. Nobody f*cks with me." (Click through for free Salon day pass)
posted by gottabefunky at 10:24 AM PST - 28 comments

Friday Doublethink Fun. "An extraordinary communication from the United States to UN representatives around the world has been leaked to Greenpeace. In it, the U.S. warns that the simple act of support for a General Assembly meeting to discuss the war will be considered 'unhelpful and directed against the U.S.'"

But really now, do we actually expect the U.S. (which claims it fights to "democratize" the Middle East) to welcome discourse and listen to what the majority of the world may think?
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 9:48 AM PST - 24 comments

Stones 'fail to rock' young Indians The Rolling Stones have failed to sell out their first concerts in India - amid reports that many young music fans are simply not interested in them. [ the best part is the quote " Tell me how many college kids are into Rolling Stones? " by a guy called Brucelee Mani, Bangalore rock musician ]
posted by turbanhead at 9:12 AM PST - 23 comments

The Public Conversations Project "promotes constructive conversations and relationships among people who have differing values, world views, and perspectives about divisive public issues." They offer guidelines in discussing issues with your community and family as well as a resource in creating dialogue about Iraq. When I find myself reduced to name calling, I need these sort of communication tools.
posted by ericrolph at 9:10 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

UPS revamps Its logo and branding. The unveiling occurred a week ago. Say goodbye to the classic Paul Rand logo, and hello to yet another 'swoop'!
posted by zanpo at 9:01 AM PST - 59 comments

Friday Fun: Heinous bridesmaid dresses. I haven't laughed this hard since the Weight Watchers cards. Make sure to peruse the Pucker contest roundup.
posted by MikeB at 8:41 AM PST - 15 comments

Are American elections fixed? This article discusses the possibility, particularly due to the influx of computer touch-screen voting. While the tilt of the writer is obvious, many valid points are raised. Whatever your affiliation, how can one be comfortable with computer voting? "It doesn't matter who casts the ballots. What matters is who counts the ballots."
posted by eas98 at 8:31 AM PST - 27 comments

Take the Super Quiz and see if you can find images of Sandy Duncan cleverly concealed in paintings by Dutch Renaissance masters (requires Flash). But remember, there is absolutely no prize for beating the Super Quiz. From the wacky folks at Ultraville.
posted by MrBaliHai at 8:14 AM PST - 6 comments

Metafilter has a rich history of posts about vegetarianism, and veganism, and carnivorism, but have we ever delved into the world of fruitarians? Here's a guidebook on how to become one [Eat fruit! Whod've guessed?], a somewhat-puzzling Turkish fruitarian organization, a debunking of some fruitarian claims, and some words of caution for aspiring fruitarians: "...some commercial fruit, such as citrus, is very acidic and will dissolve the teeth out of aspiring fruitarians."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:12 AM PST - 25 comments

At Last A Luxurious Arts And Belles Lettres Magazine You Can Afford: If you have zilch, it's yours: The SCREAMonline, full of goodies for your pleasure. There's Kenn Brown's 8.5 foot DNA illustration [Flash req.]; sober reflections on the fattening of America; the strangely beautiful and boring Mt.Wilson Tower cam; Michael Corrigan's Confessions of a Shanty Irishman; some classic quotations from Woody Allen and the likes; a selection of bizarre record covers - and much more that is lovely to look at and entertaining to read. It's not exactly FMR, but then, how could it be? A propósito, does anybody know of other rich coffee-table weblogs or online magazines that are worth reading and yet look good enough to leave lying around on one's monitor? ;) And isn't still amazing that there are still so many free luxury items on the Web? [Via woods lot, itself a superb left-of-field example of the genre, much as it might pain it to be so described.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:27 AM PST - 10 comments

Let's get in shape 'cause we never know when we'll have to defend ourselves.
Later we can go dancing!

That Friday Flash thing you all like so much 'round here!
posted by LouReedsSon at 7:06 AM PST - 6 comments

"Fighting the Left - Doing it Right" - protestwarrior.com is founded on the basis of letting the "pro-government" people who might be the "silent majority" protest in their own way. so while it's not just a pro-troops rally cry, in essence it's protesting for the war... or any war, for that manner. kind of a novel idea.. looks like they're viewing this as a starting point for people to have a retort against other protestors.
posted by djspicerack at 6:51 AM PST - 26 comments

Nufonia Must Fall is a possibly unique silent film, shot in paperback with a soundtrack for piano and turntable instruments. For any web-enabled numerologists reading, it also has an interesting URL. Check out the flash intro ...
posted by walrus at 6:16 AM PST - 10 comments

"At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: 'Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?' 'Peace and civil rights don’t mix', they say. 'Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people', they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling."
posted by riviera at 5:05 AM PST - 9 comments

But I just wanted some information about the architecture of Alvaro Siza. I didn't expect a sort of Spanish Inquisition.
posted by Dick Paris at 2:31 AM PST - 15 comments

REbranding a few famous sites to more honestly represent the true nature of the sites.
posted by riffola at 11:34 PM PST - 17 comments

Defending America. I really don't know what to say about this site. Except that I didn't even know a .mil domain extension existed until now. The link comes from a letter to the editor of my hometown, small-town Indiana newspaper (also see "Operation Dear Abby"), where people are generally in support of the war. A boy from my hometown was killed. He was a really good kid; I knew his family, who are just the kind of people you think of when you think of small town John Couger-style, pink-housed, middle class America. I am against this war in principle, but how can you say this really decent kid's life was wasted? All questions, no answers, probably a bad post. Apologies all around.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 10:17 PM PST - 23 comments

The RIAA has filed lawsuits against four college students who ran file search services on campus at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Michigan Technological University, and Princeton University. These "local area Napster networks," as the RIAA calls them, contained about 2.5 million files.
posted by oaf at 9:20 PM PST - 60 comments

Remind me never to cohabit heterosexually, "openly and notoriously," in North Dakota.
posted by artifex at 8:53 PM PST - 39 comments

Some ten months ago, Tim Lutero's weblog was hacked and all the entries were erased. The person allegedly responsible for the hack is a weblogger who won 'Highly Commended' status in Guardian Unlimited's 'Best British Blog' competition six months ago. If the allegations can be proven, should this award stand?
posted by JettSuperior at 8:39 PM PST - 46 comments

US fighter shot down by Patriot missile The Patriot Missiles that are supposed to be the protector of American forces are living up to their reputation. So far, one just shot down an F-18, and previously took out a RAF Tornado, killing two people. Another one locked onto an F-16, but the quick-thinking pilot blew up the Patriot missile battery's radar dish with a HARM missile. These missiles didn't work in the last gulf war, and are continuing to follow that trend. The locking onto allied planes seems to indicate a bug in the IFF routines of the Patriots. Not very patriotic of it.
posted by Xoc at 8:38 PM PST - 19 comments

UK rocket builder Steve Bennett is working on the worlds first private maned spaceship built by his company Starchaser with the Nova II announced Thursday. The new rocket will be shipped to the United States and dropped unmanned over the Red Lake Drop Zone in Arizona from 14,000 feet to test its landing systems. If successful, a manned test will take place before the summer, making it Britain's first ever manned rocket capsule. The tests will allow the team to move on to building their ultimate rocket, Thunderbird. Starchaser is confident that Thunderbird will blast off into the history books in 2005, netting the company $10 million from the X-Prize. Others say it's suicide.
posted by stbalbach at 8:21 PM PST - 4 comments

Japanese Sound Effects and what they mean. Spotted on Gen Kanai's blog: this rather comprehensive list of sound-effect words from manga - the Japanese equivalent of BAM! WAP!, OOF! (and possibly even D'OH!), but covering a wider range of social and emotional terrain. Lest you surmise that these are more or less arbitrary, I "tested" ten or so on my fiancee and found that she knew every single one. Aaaa!
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:44 PM PST - 12 comments

Talk about tough: These guys throw themselves out of 50-year-old aircraft into burning Siberian forests. Unfortunately, the entire article isn't available on line, but the pictures, and the brief text, and the writer's notes are worthwhile anyway. Or you can go listen to the stories told at Idaho's Smokejumper Oral History Project. Or get the history from the National Smokejumper Association. And really, you can't beat Norman Maclean's Young Men and Fire, which metafilter dug up a while back, but is well worth revisiting.
posted by weston at 7:15 PM PST - 5 comments

The Year of the Blues. Who knew? Congress named 2003 "The Year of the Blues." This site offers features like blues riff of the month and an extensive calendar of events. The list includes monthly blues fests all over the world, but if you can't catch any, then save April 23 for a televised American Masters premier tribute to the late great Muddy Waters.
posted by madamjujujive at 7:12 PM PST - 11 comments

Dolphin minesweeper returns from being AWOL Tacoma, the dolphin whose disappearance generated so much discussion last week (I take that back, 20-odd comments hardly counts as "much" on MeFi), was found safe and sound near Umm Qasr. Are military dolphins subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice? This at least calls for an Article 15.
posted by TheFarSeid at 7:02 PM PST - 9 comments

Religion in Hellenistic Athens, A Medieval Mirror, Losing Face: Status Politics in Japan, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 , Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture , Freud and His Critics and Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 --all are entire online books from the public section of the University of California Press.

I am, like, going so nutso--Jackpot!
posted by y2karl at 6:47 PM PST - 25 comments

So there's this elk carcass on my front yard and two dogs inside who refuse to come out. One is snoring. And I have guests arriving soon.... No, it's not a joke. It's far funnier than that! [Via Linkfilter]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 6:33 PM PST - 13 comments

Pull my finger! Sometimes the simplest things bring the greatest joy (to simpleton like me, anyway.) If somehow you get bored with that, you can play with this guy, or just watch some nice clouds. If you don't like any of these, then I am very, very sorry (Flash.)
posted by homunculus at 5:16 PM PST - 12 comments

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London, 1674 to 1834 A fantastic, fully searchable database of criminal cases from another era, e.g., speaking scandalous and reflecting Words on His Majesty, assault with sodomitical intent and the appalling Mortal Wound with a Pitchfork on the hinder part of the Head. The Old Bailey's published record was a popular read at the time. Also included is a typology of crimes, a history of London policing before the bobbies, essays about gender and punishment and lots more historical background. [via the always marvelous Researchbuzz]
posted by mediareport at 4:43 PM PST - 9 comments

Follow the pollen trail... The recent volatility on the stock market has nothing on the Tulip Mania that swept Holland in 1637. They went so gaga over over the colorful heralds of spring that one blossom obsessed fella, for example, sold a brewery to buy a single bulb. It's become an example of what happens when we become economically overconfident. Myself, I'd rather deal in flowers than money, anyway.
posted by moonbird at 3:56 PM PST - 13 comments

Be happy MeFi has better standards than this. No, I have no interest in submitting works to these folks, and if I had, I wouldn't bother. And not in fear of rejection, but in embarrassment of simply reading their submission guidlines that only the Soup Nazi could appreciate. Have any MeFites ever come across guidelines such as this?
posted by bluedaniel at 3:52 PM PST - 42 comments

Howard Dean: You know he's the blogging Presidential candidate but did you know that he's also the Meetup candidate? Over ten thousand people met yesterday in coffee houses across the country to discuss this candidate's election possibility. Are we witnessing the first true Internet candidate here? Grass roots/netroots, something interesting is happening with this candidate. He's tied with Kerry in New Hampshire.
posted by cjoh at 3:09 PM PST - 16 comments

Marines taste defeat... Touching. Reminds me of this, which isn't quite the same but altogether much more extraordinary.
posted by ed\26h at 3:02 PM PST - 17 comments

This 'news'... it vibrates? Yes, more than six months after it appeared here on MeFi, New Scientist has just found out about the vibrating broom. I can feel my confidence in them dripping away...
posted by twine42 at 2:55 PM PST - 5 comments

It Could Happen in Oregon: Protest = Terrorism = A Minimum of 25 Years in Prison
Proposed Oregon Senate Bill 724 is an anti-terrorism act that could jail street-blocking protesters for a minimum of 25 years by defining "street-blocking" as an act of terrorism. This act is being opposed by several different coalitions. You can find a copy of Senate Bill 742 online here. There is also an Acrobat PDF version of the bill available.

"Extra bling" points: Rapturists may wish to note that this bill seeks to amend "section 19, chapter 666, Oregon Laws 2001."
posted by Dunvegan at 1:40 PM PST - 40 comments

Arafat on our side? Other than this story (Guardian), I haven't seen much coverage of Yasser Arafat's behind the scenes efforts to protect Western journalists in Iraq. Possibly not the act of the evil man that he's often portrayed as?
posted by daveg at 1:35 PM PST - 37 comments

Bosnia. Here's a news story which has received precisely no attention over the last few days. We should all be joyful that international justice, still in its infancy, helped along by this man amongst others, has led Milosevic to trial.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 12:35 PM PST - 12 comments

Twenty-nine years ago today, a single storm spawned 148 tornadoes across the American Midwest, including twenty-three F4 and six F5 tornadoes. Here are a couple of sites about this incredible storm. If you're feeling a little uneasy after seeing some of these images, maybe you can assuage your fear by boning up on your tornado safety tips; and, as an added bonus, learn how to detect tornadoes using your television.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:28 PM PST - 23 comments

Everyone in America, including me, has been driven completely insane by this war. Neal Pollack once again graces us with his opinions of America, freedom and war. Really, give it a chance
posted by elwoodwiles at 12:07 PM PST - 47 comments

How to make a model starship Enterprise from an old floppy disk. Tired of the war? Have a 3.5 inch floppy disk you don't need? Do something useful!
posted by soulhuntre at 12:00 PM PST - 16 comments

Just when you thought they had marketed everything, the new Hello Kitty SARS facemask is now available. That's right. You heard me.
posted by car_bomb at 11:57 AM PST - 14 comments

So whatever happened to Journeys with George? As mentioned in this previous thread, the documentary aired on HBO last November. Unfortunately I didn't have HBO last november, and never got to see it. If you're in the area, Harvard University is screening it this weekend.

But what about the rest of us? I can find lots of reviews on the web, but no one seems to be selling it. Don't be fooled by imitations.

Any of you mefites seen it? Anyone else want to see it, but can't? Please disclose any relevant business relationships if you review the film in the comments.
posted by zekinskia at 11:48 AM PST - 9 comments

Sending the pregnant to fight Saddam: The dramatic rescue of GI Jessica brings up the issue [preemptive post justification]. This article has a nice historical overview of women's role in the military, in the form of a time-travel dialogue between today's soldier and a Vietnam era grunt.
posted by hairyeyeball at 11:46 AM PST - 21 comments

We are not all jerks. Really, we're not. If you don't believe me, read this t-shirt.
posted by grabbingsand at 11:45 AM PST - 11 comments

Operation Info-Scrub In another example of the administration's predilection for secrecy, President Bush recently signed an executive order to "delay the release of millions of historical documents for more than three years and make it easier to reclassify information considered damaging to national security," the Associated Press reported. The 25-page executive order was signed three weeks prior to an April 17 deadline which would have lifted the veil off millions of documents 25 years old or older.
posted by Niahmas at 11:43 AM PST - 4 comments

Victor, The Budgie Who Could Talk Ryan Reynolds built an online shrine to his friend and pet bird Victor, a precociously chatty budgerigar with an extensive 800-word vocabulary. There are audio and video clips of Victor talking and a history of the bird and even budgie training tips. You may need to replay the audio a few times to get the gist of what Victor's saying, it takes a minute to get into his little budgie accent, but you will be amazed at what you hear (hope this is all true and not a farce). Reynolds has included subtitles with each of the audio and video clips. Sadly, Victor suddenly became very ill and died on March 2, 2001. (Warning: Every link off the main page pops up in a new browser window. It's annoying, but the site is worth the mild inconvenience.)
posted by VelvetHellvis at 10:37 AM PST - 4 comments

Section VIII Double Standards in International Field of Human Rights

In retaliation to the annual report by the US state department critical of China’s current human rights record, China slings back with a report of its own, this time critical of the US for its human rights record.

Is this the superpower propagandist equivalent of schoolyard name calling, or does the Chinese report make some salient points, ones better left unsaid in the conquest of International Pax Americana
posted by jazzkat11 at 10:23 AM PST - 13 comments

42 days to a Googlewash. The Register comes out all guns firing at the blogging community's apparent "redefinition" of a term, calling it Orwellian doublespeak. Is it true that a small coterie of A-list bloggers is able to change the way we (for we: read Google users) define a phrase? Or is there really something bigger going on?
posted by cbrody at 7:10 AM PST - 65 comments

Exclusive Middle East sources have tracked down top Iraqi leadership’s bolt-hole: Now begin to badmouth me. Debka has a going rate that is some 2/3s on target and that makes this piece (headlines) worth considering. Too, they noted some time ago that WMD shipped to Syria. Recall in Gulf war I that they shipped planes to Iran for safe keeping and never got them back. Thus far, we have not found WMD and Iraq has not used any. Ergo....
posted by Postroad at 7:09 AM PST - 32 comments

Character Heads (Die Charakterköpfe, the first link is in German) - the remarkable late work of eccentric/mad 18th century Austrian sculptor Franz Xavier Messerschmidt.
posted by misteraitch at 6:15 AM PST - 10 comments

They may not have staples in their stomachs, but these monthly pictorials might have you wishing that there were more than 12 months in a year. Meet January's lovely Absinthe: mysterious, intoxicating, barely legal, and February's naughty Anthrax, who can only be described as dangerous and intimidating. Or perhaps you prefer spicy Myrrh, December's offering - exotic, refined, desirable. safe for work
posted by iconomy at 5:30 AM PST - 16 comments

Is this World War IV, and is it for a just cause? Former CIA director James Woolsey says the U.S. is engaged in World War IV, to democratize the Arab world. It's not propaganda, but a reasoned argument that the U.S.'s long-term objective should be to give the people of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Egypt the right to self rule. Self-congratulatory or visionary?
posted by darren at 5:29 AM PST - 39 comments

Tick Tock Toys: "Archives and Galleries, a cavalcade of images" Splendiferous things of yore!!
posted by hama7 at 5:07 AM PST - 17 comments

Be Careful Out There: Your Etiquette May Be My Nyetiquette Oh behave! We've all made faux pas, gaffes and complete asses of ourselves when dealing with foreign cultures. Travelling abroad isn't even necessary - a simple sushi meal is fertile ground for a vast panoply of unintended rudeness. While not even the most experienced traveller can insulate himself or herself completely from ocasionally shocking, disgusting or insulting his or her hosts, here is a little something worth keeping in your laptop. Some cultures are more difficult than others but I'll bet we all have our own embarrassing etiquette bloopers, right?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:11 AM PST - 40 comments

The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head. "With its mind enhanced by Internet connective tissue, and international law as a venue to work with others for progressive action, the Second Superpower is starting to demonstrate its potential." Starry-eyed Wired-era cyber-bull? Or are bloggers and texters (plus peace activists) the vanguard of the revolution? Douglas Ruskhoff concurs.
posted by theplayethic at 4:11 AM PST - 12 comments

A soul legend is dead. Edwin Starr, 70s soul singer, who wrote the seminal "War" has died of a heart attack aged 61.

There is one more star in heaven.
posted by essexjan at 3:45 AM PST - 17 comments

'A colossal squid has been caught in Antarctic waters, the first example of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni retrieved virtually intact from the surface of the ocean. ' Related (old news from January) :- giant squid attacks boat.
More squid sites :- Search for Giant Squid, a Smithsonian exhibit about a 1999 expedition. 'Whether living or extinct, on land or at sea, in literature or in life, large animals have long fascinated people. The largest animals have been known and hunted since prehistory: whales, walruses, elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, and large fishes... However, one large animal has gone almost unnoticed or certainly unobserved in its habitat. That animal is the giant squid. Although these animals have been found in the nets of commercial fishermen, in the stomachs of sperm whales, and washed ashore on different continents, no scientific information has been gathered by direct observations of live giant squid ... '
The UnMuseum's article on the giant squid.
posted by plep at 12:52 AM PST - 23 comments

Spring Forward, Fall Back... Daylight Savings Time is just around the corner. This Sunday at 2am to be exact, for Americans. This is just a friendly reminder. In Europe it's already happened. Time's weird. Humanity's been trying to figure it out since Stonehenge and we still have to reset our clocks twice a year. You think by now we'd have gotten it right. Even MetricTime would require regular fixin'. Why can't we just stop the madness? Or would that be even worse?
posted by ZachsMind at 11:28 PM PST - 34 comments

Step above it all for a moment, and take a look at stunning images of the planet as seen through the eyes of the Landsat-7 satellite. Select an area of the globe, or view an index of the images.
posted by dejah420 at 10:02 PM PST - 18 comments

The Virtual Toy Chest is a collection of mostly action toys from the 70's through the 90's, from The A-Team to Zybots.
I found it after reading Pretty_Generic's great cartoon post while searching for pictures of old M.A.S.K. toys. Does anyone remember Madballs? A monster in my pocket? The Infaceables?. How about Visionaries with their cool holographic staffs?
posted by Espoo2 at 9:12 PM PST - 3 comments

Iraq-O-Meter. Sort of like the bat cave.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 6:47 PM PST - 10 comments

Colorful phrases in 172 languages *contains offensive language* - but how else are your going to learn how to say "to pet one's monkey" in Russian or the Romanian classic "Our boss is a bloody farthead"?
posted by H. Roark at 6:20 PM PST - 13 comments

A solid sense of identity. A small but interesting essay that is ostensibly about blogging, but instead really about the core problem of personal identity. "Maintaining a successful blog requires a solid sense of identity. ...A blog's stickiness, or that quality that turns us into its regular readers -- comes not so much from the blog's informative value in content or through the network of links it provides as it comes from the blogger's authority... Teen blogs are boring because what permeates them mostly is a heightened sense of anxiety about one's place in the scheme of things. Having lost that sense of invincibility that comes from being a young adult, the over-forty is thrown in that same breath-choking cold current of doubts that he or she navigated as a teen. That is why a middle-aged woman's blog description of getting a haircut sounds the same as a teenage girl's account of the same event."
posted by namespan at 5:07 PM PST - 13 comments

Meet Judd Arthur and Kristen Claire, two attractive singles with eerily similar design sensibilities who just need a date. Maybe their sites are so similar because this past February, Judd and Kristen apparently contracted their mutual friend Chris to register domains for them(in his name, for some reason) and he farmed designing it out to someone he knows in the design group at his job. To get the word out about their datelessness, flyers are being posted on bulleting boards in public places. Have you seen Judd or Kristen, and where? I'm curious how much they get around. I'm in Chicago.
posted by Su at 4:27 PM PST - 22 comments

Naked is a gallery of sixteen regular people in various stages of undress (using an innovate flash interface). It has extensive interviews with the participants, talking about how they feel about their bodies and being nude in general. It's about as far from being erotic as possible (and rightly so), instead aiming to get viewers thinking about how they confront their own body image issues and how they feel about nudity.
posted by mathowie at 4:22 PM PST - 44 comments

BINCS is an online database of suppliers and identification numbers maintained by the Defense Logistics Information Service. It was used to look up the CAGE code on a fragment of the missile which allegedly hit a Baghdad vegetable market. This confirmed that the fragment was from a missile built by Raytheon Company, and was probably either a HARM or a Paveway. I wonder if the system will remain available online after this. Investors can rest assured that this incident will not affect Raytheon's standing in the Perpetual War Portfolio in any way.
posted by homunculus at 3:41 PM PST - 8 comments

Aphorisms Galore! For some reason I've never really known what an aphorism is. Actually reading this article at Frieze, I'm not sure anyone really knows. It's supposed to be a memorable, light hearted or philosphical quote which gets the point across very quickly. But glancing through the examples, it seems to be a catch all term for anything. But people like to find labels for things which don't need labels.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:09 PM PST - 21 comments

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is an accomplished man. Not only is he guiding the war in Iraq, he has been a pilot, a congressman, an ambassador, a businessman, and a civil servant. But few Americans know that he is also a poet.
posted by misterioso at 3:08 PM PST - 15 comments

Fiendish bouncing snake game. Requires Java and lots of spare time.
posted by Spoon at 2:54 PM PST - 6 comments

Arnett a traitor? Republican senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky thinks the Daily Mirror's newest contributor ought to be "arrested at the border" if he ever tries to come back to the U.S. Is it just me, or is the right going a little far these days?
posted by kgasmart at 2:45 PM PST - 42 comments

New White House policy: Drugs no longer cause terrorism. Well, not really, but the White House is officially pulling the plug on the Ogilvy & Mather "drugs cause terrorism" spots that have been the focus of previous debate here. Also of not in the article, the White House is ceasing the funding of an $8 million annual study that found the ads to be ineffective. That'll show 'em!
posted by jonson at 2:10 PM PST - 11 comments