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"I'd rather use the nuclear bomb," Nixon responded. "That, I think, would just be too much," Kissinger replied. "The nuclear bomb. Does that bother you?" Nixon asked. "I just want you to think big."
posted by aaronshaf at 11:42 PM PST - 12 comments

"It's really like rape" say lawyers for a college student who sued Arco Media (makers of "Wild Party Girls Video") and won 5 million dollars. From what I was able to find, alcohol was not forced down her throat (she used intoxication as part of her defense) so I am having a difficult time seeing where the "rape" part comes in.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:14 PM PST - 48 comments

1/20th the size of 5k: the 256b competition
Most won't work on anything but Win/IE5+, and you have to download the (65.2Kb) .zip file, but ... wow.
posted by sylloge at 10:28 PM PST - 11 comments

Old times there are not forgotten. From NPR: elderly white folks from Louisiana are asked to reminisce about life before the end of racial segregation. On the whole, they seem to have preferred it. Some insist that everyone was happier, and others simply claim that we should just move on. (Note that the last two links here are to brief Real Audio files.)
posted by BT at 8:33 PM PST - 9 comments

Another decade, another network jump for Letterman? Dave is very seriously considering an offer from ABC for its 11:35 slot, for reasons not unlike the ones he gave for jumping to CBS from NBC in the first place: little network support. More distressingly, the article strongly implies that Nightline is doomed in its present form regardless of whether Dave decides to join ABC or stay at CBS.
posted by aaron at 7:55 PM PST - 37 comments

I dunno, if you're like me you're probably discontented with the state of lamp art nowadays. Too slick, too soulless, all that perspective and shading and whatnot. Am I right? So you'd probably like to see some poorly drawn lamps. Well...here. Part of Shoebox World; via Librarian Avengers. The web is a weird place.
posted by rodii at 7:09 PM PST - 11 comments

Apple's iPod used in stealing software. Not only is it an mp3 player or a portable 5 gig harddrive, but now it's being used to steal software!
posted by dilok at 6:33 PM PST - 17 comments

The US may have killed 15,000 of it's own with nuclear tests. Somewhere around 100,000 people died as a result of the bombs dropped by the US over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A new study shows that back home in the heart of the U.S., fallout from Cold-War nuclear tests may have killed as many as 15,000 people. This would be front page news everywhere if it had happened all at once - but since it took years for these people to die - it will barely be a blip in the history books.
posted by stevengarrity at 6:04 PM PST - 8 comments

The Hendrix of The Accordion, the Stevie Ray of the banjo,and even Tubas are producing some rockin' stuff. I see something of a small trend here an I think it's a good one. These artists take the insturments you hated to be stuck with in the high school band and turn them into something astounding. If anyone knows of other examples, I'd love to hear about 'em. (some sites require Flash)
posted by jonmc at 5:41 PM PST - 15 comments

F1 2002 is go! The Formula 1 circus hit the track a couple of minutes back and officially kicked off the 2002 season.
posted by riffola at 4:46 PM PST - 14 comments

Remember Schwa? You know, the enigmatic graphic design project featuring that smiley-face of the nineties: the almond-eyed alien head? Bill Barker's sinister alien art project used to reside at www.theschwacorporation.com, but I'm not making that URL into a link for a very good reason: it's now a porn site devoted to wife-swapping. What happened?
posted by Zettai at 4:12 PM PST - 13 comments

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack received a bill Wednesday that would make English the official language of the state May be in violation of US law, but that aside for the moment, is this a good or bad idea?
posted by Postroad at 3:37 PM PST - 48 comments

Public shaming is in order. It's bad enough to rip off a design. But this person ripped off BABY PICTURES from Hoopla without credit, along with layouts, bits of text, and who-knows-what-else. Also compare: Leslie's status, Enurv's status. The "personal" part of personal publishing means you do it yourself. Argh.
posted by lucius at 3:19 PM PST - 41 comments

IBM gives Moore's Law a punch in the face by developing a 110GHz silicon germanium microchip. Only for use in ultra hi-tech environments right now (network infrastructure, military, etc.), of course. What other things could these processors be useful for? Finding vaccines? Genome mapping? SETI? And how many years before they're mass-producible and inexpensive enough for consumer use?
posted by andnbsp at 1:55 PM PST - 11 comments

Morpheus is broken. The Netherlands-based provider of the technology used by Kazaa and Grokster upgrades their system, but leaves out Streamcast Networks' (formerly Music City) Morpheus network, and suddenly, everyone is locked out. Kinda punches a giant hole in their EFF-backed battle with the RIAA, which hinges on the assertion that their network is 'decentralized' and impossible to stop.
posted by pzarquon at 1:44 PM PST - 12 comments

Fuzu has a hodgepodge of things such as Steev's what we talk about when we talk about wrestling, some unique movie reviews, and Douglas's adventures with whores in Mexico. A strange brew. Enjoy.
posted by dig_duggler at 1:21 PM PST - 3 comments

a war on the environment? along with his threats to open up ANWAR this appears to be stinging evidence - this quote is too good: "His dad should talk to him."
posted by specialk420 at 1:00 PM PST - 16 comments

Fatmouse is coming and he has a message and you are not going to like it. Tubcat, beware.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:38 AM PST - 17 comments

The lasting legacy of Daniel Pearl. By William L. Winter, Ph.D. President & Executive Director American Press Institute.
posted by RobertLoch at 10:03 AM PST - 3 comments

MNF: Miller out, Madden in? After two years of sinking ratings, is ABC and Monday Night Football ready to concede that Dennis Miller was not really good pick for a football commentator? Fox has released John Madden from his contract, making an Al Michaels-Madden booth a likelihood next fall.
posted by mattpusateri at 9:35 AM PST - 39 comments

It's easy to think of lawyers as greedy, overpaid blood-sucking pigs. But do we have any clue what lawyers earn? Yes we do, thanks to American Lawyer Media's (via law.com) annual roundup of lawyer compensation. Not all of which is surprising. For example, partners at the top corporate firms like Wachtell Lipton, or Cravath, Swaine & Moore or Davis Polk each averaged millions in 2001 ($3,285,000, $2,245,000 and $1,740,000, respectively). Even piddly little first year associates at those firms got $125,000 to start. (We're talking 24-year-old law school grads with precisely zero professional experience and know-how. Zero.) But most newbie lawyers don't win those jobs. Also difficult to land are entry-level positions at district attorneys' offices, but they're not nearly as lucrative. A junior Manhattan D.A. earned $45,000 last year (up from $42,000 in 2000). But locking up criminals beats toiling for civil rights at a not-for-profit like the New York Civil Liberties Union, which paid entry-level lawyers only $35,000 last year. Over all, best off are lawyers who work for big companies. Top counsel at IBM last year earned a measly $506,000 in cash (salary & bonus), but throw in stocks & options and his compensation totaled $7,795,613. Compared to that, you have to worry about the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court whose family in 2001 had to struggle along on $192,600.
posted by jellybuzz at 9:25 AM PST - 36 comments

A federal appeals court in New York has overturned the convictions of three of the police officers in the Abner Louima torture case.
posted by hob at 8:58 AM PST - 29 comments

Men become more irritable as testosterone levels decrease. I am confused.
posted by costas at 8:36 AM PST - 5 comments

on a budget madame, well incarceration is our cheaper plan. Yes it seeems that the economics suggest that life imprisonment is the prudent option rather than the wanton excess of execution.
posted by johnnyboy at 7:36 AM PST - 17 comments

Attorney General John Ashcroft sings (sort of) "U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft ended a speech at a Charlotte, North Carolina seminary with a rousing rendition of a song he wrote called 'Let The Eagles Soar'' (Not safe for work unless you really want to annoy your coworkers)
posted by tippiedog at 7:11 AM PST - 25 comments

Sigh. In case all this talk of foreign crazies was stealing the spotlight from our homegrown malcontents.
posted by donkeyschlong at 7:10 AM PST - 9 comments

Shoplifters Of The World, Unite And Take Over! An interesting NYT article(reg.req.)says stealing from restaurants is increasing. But it's still only 3% of tableware costs and allegedly doesn't contribute to higher prices. I confess I often lift the odd item from hotel rooms. Not just as "souvenirs" - that would be hypocritical. As booty. So, what ethical constraints and liberties do MetaFilterians think should be taken into consideration when stealing? Does it matter whom you're stealing from and how much money you've previously spent on them? And, for the more immoral fellow members, what are the best strategies for liberating certain objects?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:06 AM PST - 259 comments

Maine man escapes from prison by having another man trade places with him while out on work-release. The next night he gets into a bar fight and is arrested, by some rather confused cops.
posted by damn yankee at 7:03 AM PST - 7 comments

Did you hear Michael Greene's speech at the Grammys? At first it seemed like it was going to be just yet another recording industry weasel with an obligatory goatee congratulating himself on stage. But it quickly turned into a lesson on the harms of the illegal Internet downloads. "This illegal file-sharing and ripping of music files is pervasive, out of control and oh so criminal. Many of the nominees here tonight, especially the new, less-established artists, are in immediate danger of being marginalized out of our business. Ripping is stealing their livelihood one digital file at a time, leaving their musical dreams haplessly snared in this World Wide Web of theft and indifference," says Greene. Was this appeal-cum-address effective or appropriate? Were you more sympathetic to the RIAA or artists afterwards?
posted by emptyage at 11:49 PM PST - 78 comments

I support the war in Afghanistan because I believe the Al Qua'eda network is an enemy that must be eliminated. I stand almost alone in my community and in my family in this belief. A former punk describes how she re-examined her beliefs after Sept. 11 and found out that what the extreme left were saying was as tired and reactionary as those from the extreme right. This piece posted on Blogs of War was turned down for submission in Punk Planet as not being timely enough...or was it because it was too moderate. After yesterday's post on Punk=Capitalism is this a meta trend?
posted by AsiaInsider at 11:43 PM PST - 34 comments

Not Just a Birthmark. "I was chemically altered at embryonic stages of my life by conglomerate CEOs to display their logo on my forehead. This I am sure of. My parents remain unaware. My life remains affected each and every day. Those viewing my face think only of Nike shoes, even if they fail to recognize it. Who knows when this madness will end, or how far its fingers have reached." (found at Sound the Sirens)
posted by lostbyanecho at 10:58 PM PST - 4 comments

Creative storytelling at Flight404.com. Visited this link a long time ago from the forever-in-hiatus K10K when it was a white splace page with a vector drawing of a plane, now it's a great online story.
posted by hobbes at 10:45 PM PST - 12 comments

"A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Energy Department to release thousands of records on Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, criticizing the government for moving at 'a glacial pace.' " Is anyone else interested in this? This is honestly the first time since Bush took office that I've felt optomistic about much. Anyone old enough to remember the look on Nixon's face as he stepped on to Marine One for the last time, when he turned to give the victory sign? The Vice President surely remembers, I wonder if he's thought of it lately?
posted by jack-o at 8:15 PM PST - 32 comments

Coleman Confidential. No joke. Gary Coleman was just in my office a little bit ago and while he was here, he talked about this section of a site he promotes where he answers email. But some of the answers (let alone the questions) are ridiculous! I don't know what's funnier, him in person or the answers to these questions. Good reading when you've got little to do.
posted by whoshotwho at 4:49 PM PST - 10 comments

I'ma write a little letter, gonna mail it to my local DJ... Don't bother they're writing their own. Books, rather, but writing just the same. If, like me, you can remember when the radio was a magic box full of surprises rather than boredom, you'll want to read IndyWeek's reveiws of these two books by disc jockey's:college and pirate radio stalwart Jesse Walker and Richard Neer of the legendary WNEW-FM in NYC, the station that ignited my love affair with rock and roll(I still harbor pipedreams of hosting a show with Scott Muni.) These tomes may be partially exercises in nostalgia, but they may also hold clues on how to recapture what radio once was.
posted by jonmc at 3:57 PM PST - 10 comments

Fetapets: for busy city dwellers who can't deal with the hassle of living pets. No it isn't a joke.
posted by akmonday at 3:37 PM PST - 20 comments

It is one of the biggest critters in the ocean and has never been seen alive...until now. The ultimate goal is to get living juveniles to aquariums on land and raise them until their bodies grow to about ten feet long. I'd pay to see one.
posted by piskycritters at 1:46 PM PST - 29 comments

Amy Fisher vs. Tonya Harding The good people at FOX have put together another award winning special. 3 boxing matches featuring Danny Bonaduce vs. Greg Williams (Brady), Tonya vs. Amy and a third bout to be named later. Isn't this a sign of the apocolypse??
posted by Lanternjmk at 12:17 PM PST - 41 comments

Seven minutes to midnight. "Today, the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the minute hand of the 'Doomsday Clock,' the symbol of nuclear danger, from nine to seven minutes to midnight, the same setting at which the clock debuted 55 years ago. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991, this is the third time the hand has moved forward."
posted by dnash at 11:11 AM PST - 29 comments

Poll: Muslims call U.S. 'ruthless, arrogant' Do we nuke 'em, give them money so they will like us, tell them to fight their own wars and governments without us, plead for understanding. Or just say: What, Me Worry? Whatever.
posted by Postroad at 11:01 AM PST - 54 comments

Hacking could now lead to life in prison. Someone that kills someone you love would get less time in prison than what they are proposing for this hacker legislation. Is this punishment just for this crime?
posted by bump at 9:19 AM PST - 14 comments

Vandalism proclaimed as art by art student victims, sort of. Is the problem with art (it is easy and anyone can do it) spreading to crime? Via ObscureStore
posted by sailormouth at 9:05 AM PST - 11 comments

Heather Hamilton got fired because of her blog. (NB: foul language a-go-go)
posted by silusGROK at 8:08 AM PST - 155 comments

Capitalism, punk as fuck "Imagine this: you're 23, working in a grocery store for minimum wage and saving to start your own indie record shop. You finally get enough to open it and, though sales are slow, you have a dedicated customer base and loyal friends to work the store when you can't."
posted by Mick at 7:44 AM PST - 85 comments

KinderZimmer - Wir Sind Da Wo Oben Ist. Mix it up in in your own sort of du hast dream. I'm sure this amuses me a lot more simply because I have no clue what the majority of the words mean. Fun though. Enjoy.
posted by dreamling at 7:30 AM PST - 5 comments

Alzheimer's gene screened out from newborn. Doctors successfully made sure that the mother's Alzheimer's gene wasn't inherited by her baby. This is big news for prospective parents with hereditary diseases.
posted by costas at 6:27 AM PST - 16 comments

Virgo? Leo? Virgo-Leo cusp? Who cares! All that really matters is your Birth Playmate! (eventual nudity)
posted by johnnydark at 5:43 AM PST - 13 comments

Unemployed people are supposed to be actively looking for work, not spending all of their time answering e-mail, drawing cartoons and getting interviewed on television about being unemployed. So there is a good chance Todd Rosenberg, creator of oddtodd.com and "Laid Off: A Day in the Life," will be asked to repay the last seven weeks of his unemployment benefits.
posted by tranquileye at 5:29 AM PST - 13 comments

Was John Wayne A ... Welshman? In that case, I nominate Johnny Cash as the No.1 American icon. Unless it turns out he's English or something. [Inspired by jpoulos's, Kafkaesque's, Optamystic's and others' recent celebrations - elsewhere on MetaFilter - of the great man.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:09 AM PST - 15 comments

3dHTML. No Flash, no nothing. Wow.
posted by Su at 5:03 AM PST - 8 comments

spike milligan dies the world needs people like him.
posted by quarsan at 2:58 AM PST - 28 comments

That Russel Crowe sure is a class act.
posted by donkeyschlong at 2:57 AM PST - 26 comments

New owners purchase the San Jose Sharks George Gund III sold a majority share of the team to a group including Stratton Sclavos [Verisign], Tom McEnery [former mayor], Kevin Compton [Kleiner Perkins], Greg Reyes [Brocade], Gary Valenzuela [past Yahoo CFO], and Harvey Armstrong [MyCFO].

My only question... where is Scott McNealy?
posted by swenson at 2:47 AM PST - 2 comments

your quest for a loyal compatible sex partner will come to an end, this website has the perfect answer as well as many other answers to common difficulties
posted by johnnyboy at 2:28 AM PST - 10 comments

the thoughts of childhood summed up in four panels
posted by drezdn at 11:44 PM PST - 5 comments

Aid workers forcing refugees to trade sex for food Over 40 aid agencies including the UNHCR were implicated, and 67 individuals - mostly local staff - named by the children. Some under-age girls said United Nations peacekeepers in the West African region were involved.
posted by nobody_knose at 11:07 PM PST - 9 comments

Avant-no -- Avantgo puts limit on "free" channels. If you currently offer a "custom channel" through Avantgo (in other words, one you're not paying for), there is now a limit of eight subscribers to that channel before you have to pay. Starting price: $1,000. (More inside...)
posted by metrocake at 9:48 PM PST - 11 comments

School Fascism at all-time high? Okay, forget the various and sundry suspensions for alcohol, fighting, or bringing anything even vaguely pointy to school. This guy took innocent pictures of girls in his school with their knowledge using his own camera, and posted them to his own web site. Are we a little overboard here?
posted by umberto at 8:45 PM PST - 24 comments

Speaking of Pat Robertson , if the 700 club thinks that this isn't the mark of the beast, sign me up for the pre-implant kool aid anesthetic. As long as I don't have to carry the smoking man's alien baby, I'll be a good citizen.
posted by machaus at 7:49 PM PST - 16 comments

Design For Chunks "puking in dull bags can no longer be accepted, imagine your delight when you discover the receptacle you are about to puke into is of the highest pedigree." A gallery of sick bags, for designers, by designers.
posted by zeoslap at 5:05 PM PST - 9 comments

Top-secret agents leave Cheney's itinerary in a Salt Lake City souvenir shop. So much for "secret" service. I wonder if it listed Yahoo Map directions to Cheney's undisclosed location.
posted by billder at 3:22 PM PST - 16 comments

"The fraud, the huckster, the salesman are not new phenomena in America; what is new is that they now so strongly control every estate of our society." For the last few days, I've been reading the Progressive Review's Undernews, a sort of progressive news blog-by-e-mail -- and frankly, it's amazing. One of today's articles blew my mind: it's a spot-on encapsulation of What's Wrong with America Today. (Scroll down to "Derivative America and the Enron Generation." This link is to the "Latest Issue" page. Tomorrow I think it will be archived here.) Seriously, read it now. It's worth it.
posted by tweebiscuit at 3:00 PM PST - 36 comments

A Brief History of the Apocalypse
posted by signal at 2:23 PM PST - 15 comments

Pat Robertson calls Islam a Religion of Violence. Citing citing various verses from the Qur'an he concludes "... that militant Islam is dedicated to the destruction of America and the killing of the Jews and Christians around the world. To deny that the Koran promotes violence to many followers would be to deny the truth." Arab response: "We know the word for this. This is called anti-Semitism." Where did that come from?
posted by aaronshaf at 2:11 PM PST - 102 comments

Genome liberation. "Life science researchers -- even those who work in academic settings -- are finding that corporations are just as eager to patent the tools as they are the data, and in many cases, universities are bending over backward to let the private sector have its way. As a result, a growing number of bioinformatics researchers are beginning to look to the free-software and open-source software movements for inspiration in their quest for bio freedom."
posted by homunculus at 1:40 PM PST - 2 comments

How Americans view us... You don't really ... do you? "They responded very readily to Britain and the British: 'Tea... proper... trousers... Monty Python... Jane Eyre... Austin Powers... soccer hooligans... Prince William... dry and witty... educated... not huggy...' "
posted by feelinglistless at 12:58 PM PST - 60 comments

The Tech Museums Awards have announced a call for entries for their 2002 event. $50,000 will be awarded to five winners in a competition "designed to recognize people, companies or organizations which develop or use technology in creative ways to solve global challenges and have a high potential of yielding lasting, beneficial impact. The awards honor innovators from around the world in the categories of health, education, environment, economic development and equality." Just imagine: technology benefitting humanity, and getting financial support for it. 2001 winners here.
posted by mathowie at 12:26 PM PST - 6 comments

Wayward Cow Caught! The fugitive cow, earning clemency after escaping from Ohio slaughterhouse, was captured not far from the scene of the escape. The cow will now spend his days on the farm of former Cincinatti Reds owner, Marge Schott.
posted by Lanternjmk at 12:00 PM PST - 26 comments

Here is a text-to-speech demo from AT&T that's fun to play with.Spanish and German versions due in March. It will say anything you type, apparently.Yes, those words too.Go crazy.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 11:44 AM PST - 23 comments

The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick: Following a minor operation of March 1974, Dick had a series of powerful religious visions that he spent the remainder of his life trying to interpret, and which heavily influenced his late work. This is a story by Robert Crumb (originally published in Weirdo) that draws on interviews Dick did about this period in his life. Thanks to Robot Wisdom.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:04 AM PST - 5 comments

It's time to stop racial profiling and start profiling rich white men. So says one man's editorial. I think we can all agree -- it'd probably prevent another Enron.
posted by tiny pea at 10:19 AM PST - 30 comments

SF area woman wants to be aeorobics instructor but she weighs 240 pounds. Company says they won't hire her because of her weight. She is suing.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 10:00 AM PST - 123 comments

Fascist fashion vs. Communist chic. Why is one okay, the other not?
posted by Ty Webb at 9:52 AM PST - 37 comments

Muslim states hate us because their culture is backwards and corrupt, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial. The writer, tired of America-bashing, explores the inferiority complex of the Arab world: "Like Third World Marxists of the 1960s, who put blame for their own self-inflicted misery upon corporations, colonialism and racism--anything other than the absence of real markets and a free society--the Islamic intelligentsia recognizes the Muslim world's inferiority vis-à-vis the West, but it then seeks to fault others for its own self-created fiasco. Government spokesmen in the Middle East should ignore the nonsense of the cultural relativists and discredited Marxists and have the courage to say that they are poor because their populations are nearly half illiterate, that their governments are not free, that their economies are not open, and that their fundamentalists impede scientific inquiry, unpopular expression and cultural exchange." via kuro5hin
posted by swift at 9:44 AM PST - 36 comments

The best solution I've heard so far to end the mess in Israel. A Saudi Prince suggests plan that trades occupied land in return for the Arab world recognizing the Israeli state. Is it a viable plan? Will Barak have the courage to give it a shot? Could the Arab nations ever recognize a Jewish state? Could Palestine and Israel coexist peacefully next to each other?
posted by aacheson at 9:30 AM PST - 28 comments

Rotating Ski Slope. This seems a little far fetched, if not dangerous. Skiers travel down the side of the revolving slope at the same time as it moves upwards. The result is that the ski run is effectively much further than the actual 300-metre length of the incline. It is in Wales though - which will be nice.
posted by Spoon at 8:57 AM PST - 12 comments

NY Times on female cruelty (subscription req'd) This is an insightful examination of cruelty by girls struggling for power in complex Middle School social hierarchies. Many points made about "girls" here also apply to young adult women -- at least the ones I know. In our tabloidized, materialistic culture, might adult women abandon such behavior someday? Link posted by Voyageman on a discussion page yesterday. Thank you Voyageman.
posted by mcgraw at 8:55 AM PST - 10 comments

102 Beats. For its third anniversary, Freaky Trigger is trying out a neat project: You write exactly 102 words about a bit of music. Then someone else will do the same. More inside.
posted by Skot at 8:49 AM PST - 7 comments

Targeting Toddler Terrorists "There, at midnight, is a 30-pound, 36-inch-tall peanut with his arms and legs spread, wand searching his body, one security agent removing his shoes to check for explosives and another rummaging through his Scooby-Doo backpack."
posted by waffleboy at 7:18 AM PST - 42 comments

Jim Fitzpatricks Celtic art is pretty nice to look at, and unlike the otherwise excellent Boris Vallejo website, all content is free to download. Also check out his assertion that he produced one of the more famous Che Guevara posters which has an interesting (typically irish) story as to how it went down in Ireland.
posted by kev23f at 7:00 AM PST - 5 comments

In a small Ohio town, a fight over the right to knock on doors You are a Supreme Court Justice. How would you rule on this case?
posted by Postroad at 6:49 AM PST - 36 comments

Can't remember your phone number? At the phonespell.org website you can get a list of all the possible word combinations made by your phone number. If you have 1's and 0's in your number, the possibilities are fewer.
posted by altojen at 6:46 AM PST - 34 comments

Pick a dawg, any dawg. Mine's Dawgspeare. I find this subculture fascinating. Pathetic but fascinating.
posted by Karl at 6:41 AM PST - 6 comments

Why Sex with Cars? I keep asking myself: Is this a well-done fake or is it as serious as it looks like? B.
posted by Baud at 4:34 AM PST - 23 comments

The Elephant's Memory is a beautiful logographic language oriented towards children. In late 1999, the creator wrote an article for Apple's Learning Technology Review[the PDF version is better illustrated] that goes into much more detail than the original site, which appears not to have been updated since 1996. A CD-ROM was in production, with a pre-release reviewed by Intellect Books, but I can't find any info on whether it was finished or is still available.
posted by Su at 2:50 AM PST - 5 comments

A different kind^H^H^H^Hspecies of camgirl. Safe for work, but not necessarily for young children.
posted by louie at 12:10 AM PST - 5 comments

Canadians have a reputation for being whiners. I love Rick McGinnis.
posted by acridrabbit at 11:24 PM PST - 3 comments

Transparent Aluminium actually fake, *kinda* according to the update from the site that broke the story for us english speakers.
posted by ejoey at 10:13 PM PST - 7 comments

Personal Testimony of an Israeli Refusenik
"Asaf Oron, a Sergeant Major in the Giv'ati Brigade, is one of the original 53 Israeli soldiers who signed the 'Fighters' Letter' declaring that from now on they will refuse to serve in the Occupied territories. He is signer #8 and one of the first in the list to include a statement explaining his action."

Our parents' generation lets out a sigh: we've embarrassed them yet again. But isn't it all your fault? What did you raise us on? Universal ethics and universal justice, on the one hand, peace, liberty and equality to all. And on the other hand: "the Arabs want to throw us into the sea," "They are all crafty and primitive. You can't trust them."...I was raised on two value systems: one was the ethical code and the other the tribal code, and I naively believed that the two could coexist.
posted by mapalm at 10:05 PM PST - 11 comments

Enron Fraud dot Com. The law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach cordially invites Enron stockholders to partake in their class action lawsuit against the fallen energy baron. Great domain, great layout, great case. How could they lose?
posted by tankboy at 9:50 PM PST - 6 comments

Some nice origami
posted by rdr at 9:35 PM PST - 9 comments

The NIH is abandoning phase III trials of a possible hiv vaccine due to "technical reasons" the trial will continue in thailand. On a happier note there are currently more than 90 other hiv vaccines in other stages of trials. What do people think are the chances the pharmaceuticals will decide chronic disease management is more profitable, and actually do something to make this a more likely outcome?
posted by rhyax at 6:51 PM PST - 21 comments

We're exporting toxic technologies to third world countries. We all know computer components contain lots of chemical badness, and it seems that as much as 80 percent of US electronics trash is sent to developing countries, where it is becoming a major health hazard.
posted by brookish at 6:21 PM PST - 22 comments

Film noir, Monica Lewinsky style. As of January 22, 2001, Lewinsky was free to talk about the events that led to her immunity agreement with Ken Starr. HBO signed her up for some audience Q & A, and has taken this opportunity to push the envelope by filming it in black and white. It's set to premiere on March 3. Slightly more here. Really though, what's the point? Let's just put her in a zoo and let the patrons throw her peanuts.
posted by mikhail at 5:26 PM PST - 46 comments

Gee, this a good idea (NYT reg req) - The New York Times discusses the growing popularity of .zip whole album downloads on Audiogalaxy. The article is also kind enough to include a step-by-step how-to for idiots like me who want free music but haven't thought of this before. Thanks!
posted by dydecker at 5:23 PM PST - 37 comments

The most detailed map of Mars ever produced. Brought to you by Malin Space Science Systems. The images were captured from The Mars Global Surveyor. They really are incredibly clear. I'm trying find the Mars Face. No luck yet though. (Click image to zoom in)
posted by RobertLoch at 5:23 PM PST - 12 comments

Drug War roundup. The US will end drug-related sanctions against Afghanistan and Haiti. Neither country stopped producing drugs, they need loans sanctions stop them from receiving. A British journalist compares the drug policies of Holland to Britain. Noteworthy: despite heroin being half the price, there are 25% fewer Dutch addicts. The FARC and Columbia are openly warring again. So far, only civilians have been killed. The California Medical Association voted to lobby the state government to raise the smoking age from 18 to 21.
posted by raaka at 2:30 PM PST - 22 comments

John Dewey and the Alexander Technique. Anyone with an interest in either the philosophy of John Dewey or the Alexander Technique will find this interesting. Dewey was a devoted student of the Alexander Technique and acknowledged its influence on some of his ideas. This site includes Dewey's writings on the Alexander Technique and other articles about their relationship.
posted by homunculus at 1:07 PM PST - 8 comments

When Skyscrapers and Cities Become One. Tsui has designed the Ultima Tower (a two-mile high, one-mile wide building), and Takenaka the Sky City 1000, in the name of conservation and ecology. William Pedersen, designer of the World Financial Center in Shanghai, believes that "cities within a single building . . . are definitely going to come to pass within the next 25 or 30 years." These sky cities will have "vast open-air wooded parks, giant waterfalls, and automoble-free neighborhoods."
posted by jacknose at 12:37 PM PST - 58 comments

Pay for CNN.com? CNN International President sees subscription fees for online news services likely in the near future. If CNN, MSNBC or any of the major sites start this trend, the Drudge Report may be everyones destination!
posted by Lanternjmk at 11:33 AM PST - 19 comments

The US reserves the right to turn your weak country to glass.
The Bush administration is no longer standing by a 24-year-old U.S. pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, a senior administration official said yesterday. I fear this news will go unnoticed amidst the terrorism furor.
Why doesn't our nuclear policy get much press these days?
posted by norm at 11:12 AM PST - 63 comments

Dean Kamen does a lecture from his Ginger. Compelling broadband video clip from the recent Harvard Cyberposium (official site), where the man on the two-wheeled scooter talks about physics, Enron, dot-bust and everything - while trundling around on his machine. Paradigm-busting moment of realisation: he looks disabled, like he can't actually walk. Seems like John Hockenberry's dream - "When you think disability, think zeitgeist" - is coming true.
posted by theplayethic at 10:31 AM PST - 18 comments

Why Men Treat Women as Property! Somebody dropped their psychology lecture notes, revealing the embarassing truth ... Are there really connections between Islamic fundamentalism, and the global masculinity crisis? Be it Resolved: According to Google, the struggle against "Women as Chattel" is the essence of feminism! Other links that "+women +chattel" reveals ... (more)
posted by sheauga at 10:27 AM PST - 9 comments

make sure she really means "yes"... consent condoms are an interesting twist on using condoms in a causal sex environment. the man hands a package to his partner containing a condom and a card which takes her fingerprints and lets her tear off the date for which the condom is to be used. one's to wonder if all casual sex will be conducted like this in the future.
posted by boogah at 10:11 AM PST - 33 comments

Transparent aluminum is here. Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home: documentary?
posted by o2b at 9:16 AM PST - 26 comments

human wrongs. With the downfall of the taliban, maybe restoration of human rights should focus closer to home.
posted by johnnyboy at 9:07 AM PST - 18 comments

Hey, it's beautiful here in San Dieg . . . I mean, Boise Also, "this morning," which is actually several weeks from now. You prolly know that many DJs aren't local now. But it's this bad? Clear Channel radio chief to the WSJ: "I don’t think it’s at all wrong or deceptive to put together terrific programs that reflect local communities and sometimes use talent who may physically be somewhere else."
posted by raysmj at 8:56 AM PST - 11 comments

Barclay employees lose job after 44000 pound dinner Mind you: they paid for the meal out of their own pockets. They were fired because of their decadence (while the City was suffering a slow period) and their behaviour when the details of the meal became public. (The story started in July last year, but I couldn't find anything about it in the archive). Next time you order a bottle of '47 Petrus, make sure your boss is not looking.
posted by swordfishtrombones at 7:53 AM PST - 16 comments

Comic books on the web. So Crossgen comics is starting their fee-based webcomics initiative, and for the first few weeks, EVERY comic they've published is online for free. Does this turn those of you who couldn't care less about comics onto something? Would it get you into your local comic book store? Can these replace physical comic books? And is the interface better or worse than on Marvel's dotcomics?(Main link does not seem to support Mac.)
posted by matt8313 at 6:52 AM PST - 10 comments

Need a great prank? Whether it is for your office, your sig O or if you just want to be evil in general, this website is for you. The site has everything from bad pickup lines to strange laws to personality quizzes... My personal favorite to date, in the article section is the Free Baby ad. Just a little something to give you a giggle on a Monday. Enjoy!
posted by gloege at 6:34 AM PST - 22 comments

Erotigo's got the goods for your sexy mobile lifestyle. Now: Which of you's got a subscription? We want details!
posted by Su at 2:29 AM PST - 10 comments

Welcome to the 2002 FIFA Worldcup, er, make that WorldCup, um... "The efforts being made by organizations of all kinds to ensure that a positive image of [Korea] is projected this summer deserve the highest praise. It is a crying shame, however, that so many of these efforts will be undermined by the comedic quality of much of the English being used." Not intended as a poke at Korea, but an interesting example of how hard it is for people (or a people) to change their mindset (more inside).
posted by Bixby23 at 11:49 PM PST - 13 comments

Norway Briefly Lead By Gay Prime Minister whilst Egyptian Human Rights Groups Cannot Defend Gays Compare and contrast: this cannot be seen simply as another East/West culture clash, when we know that there are a variety of views in the 'West' about gay 'rights', and indeed within Egypt itself. However, once achieved for homosexuals in western Europe (note the support of the French President), is the march to progressive equal rights going to have any effect on friendly countries elsewhere in the world? What's the situation like in your neck of the woods? (hint: we've done Alabama...)
posted by dash_slot- at 7:35 PM PST - 9 comments

The National Obituary Archive is filled with details and biographies about those who left this life recently and tragically, the famous and infamous, and even one or two notes about just plain folks.
posted by bradlands at 7:08 PM PST - 5 comments

Sporting News Predicts the Future. It's 9:30 pm EST and the closing ceremonies have been on for 1 hour, but the Sporting News has provided us with a complete recap of the night, including Rogges final words to Salt Lake City. They must have hired Ms. Cleo recently.
posted by smcniven at 6:30 PM PST - 6 comments

The Wayback machine shows some biographical reconstructive surgery for the Secretary of the U.S. Army. Post-Enron collapse bio versus pre-Enron Collapse bio. 1984 style revisionism meet digital storage technology! [story from NTK].
posted by srboisvert at 6:13 PM PST - 5 comments

Photoshop 7.0 for OS X finally released!
posted by dilok at 4:43 PM PST - 34 comments

During my day's aimless surfing I was feeling a mite wistful, and it did my heart a load of good to stumble on the internet home of Funny Face mugs. I also found the Mr. Men and Little Miss Club. Both of these bits of pop culture were objects of devotion to me as a tyke. Looking at the sweet simplicity of the products today, it amazes me how easy it was to invest plastic mugs and simple line drawings with meaning and personality. I wish there was a place for them in today's Kiddie Kulture which seems to be about filling in all the blanks before the kids get to use there imaginations.
posted by jonmc at 4:25 PM PST - 7 comments

Lord of the Rings sweeps Baftas It must be wierd for Peter Jackson to be working on the final two acts of his trilogy when the first part is winning awards. I think this is what can be termed 'pressure to perform'.
posted by feelinglistless at 3:52 PM PST - 9 comments

ULTRa set for take off in Cardiff! Urban Light Transport is finally here, and trials are under way in Cardiff, Wales for these four passenger driverless cars. It is estimated that the cost of implementation ($60m) will be 1/3 to 1/2 of that of a comparable light rail system.
posted by Why at 3:51 PM PST - 10 comments

Joe Queenan apologizes for being "an irredeemably horrible human being." Unfortunately, he doesn't apologize for the annoying pop-ups and banners on his Geocities website, but I do.
posted by MrBaliHai at 2:40 PM PST - 14 comments

Will this spoil the party in Canada ? (NYT reg req) Great victories by the men and the women. Sure. But then one is reminded again in the NYT today about last week's controversy - "The judge, Marie Reine Le Gougne, said the pressure she felt was unlike any in her 14 years of judging, that it intensified as the Olympics drew near and that it came from one country, Canada" You cant help but wonder.
posted by Voyageman at 2:35 PM PST - 26 comments

"I don't think it's a big problem," Willy told her. "It's a lot of little problems, and I think that's good, because little problems have little solutions." Leave it to a 6-year-old to describe my life far more eloquently than I ever could. I have an autistic son, and deal with the little things on a daily basis. I don't think I am all that unusual; what kind of little things are a part of your life that other people might consider a big problem?
posted by Lokheed at 10:19 AM PST - 4 comments

Democracy is expensive. A New York Times article examines the high costs of building the government infrastructure of a democracy, and suggests that they may be too high for a poor or war-torn country. I hope there's an alternative to "Live free or die".
posted by mattpfeff at 9:31 AM PST - 7 comments

Seventeen Magazine made me look superficial Do female teen magazines provide a crass commercial role model for young women? Who says that Mefi doesn't try to get in touch with its feminine side. (found from obscurestore.com)
posted by AsiaInsider at 8:17 AM PST - 12 comments

easyJet has introduced a £0 price as the standard lead-in fare for the majority of flights between Belfast International, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Any chance of a trans-atlantic service too...?
posted by scotty at 8:00 AM PST - 8 comments

The Sunday Funday Blues: This is supposed to be on of the worst Nintendo games ever. Heh. No wonder. Yet it seems appropriate. As does Storman' Norman's Sunday Blues radio programme. What is it about Sundays anyway? And what's the best way to survive them? What are the local traditions? Here in Portugal, it's the Sunday papers; not going to Church; feeling guilty; drinking too many Bloody Marys; late, enormous lunches; lazy love-making, listening to football on the radio and naps...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:22 AM PST - 27 comments

slurdb an interesting look into an often overlooked and ignored lexicon - even if it is an ugly one. jtx from hatesville is building a reference to the language of hate, but he needs your help.
posted by boogah at 12:36 AM PST - 6 comments

Washington States insatiable appetite for money has led to the highest state tax on cigarettes, $1.425 per pack; this is in addition to the federal tax of $.39 per pack and the State sales tax of 6.5%. At least 17 states are considering following suit. Proponets claim it's a win-win situation: tax revenue + 'helping' people quit. Is that believable? Do they want the money or do they want people to quit, or both? And is it fair for 25% of the population to be the sole source of needed revenue?
posted by Mack Twain at 11:18 PM PST - 52 comments

The United States Olympic Committee invites you to help them decide the recipients of the U.S. Olympic Spirit Award. I don't think you have to be an american to participate. Nominations close tomorrow evening, as do the 2002 Winter Olympics themselves. The award is supposed to represent commitment, courage, perseverence and vision. The nominations may be more of a popularity contest, but the U.S. Olympic Committee itself makes the final determination. Previous recipients include Carl Lewis and Scott Hamilton.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:27 PM PST - 15 comments

Keo Satellite to Carry Messages to Earth's Future A nonprofit French group hopes to launch a satellite on a 50,000-year spin around Earth next year, loading it with as many as 6 billion messages from humans eager to give the far-flung future a glimpse of the present.
posted by Tarrama at 7:53 PM PST - 6 comments

How to hack grey matter A big security loophole with grey matter powered sites is out there. It lets anyone have the username and password to these sites. Luckly there is a fix for it which can be found here.
posted by thebwit at 6:17 PM PST - 20 comments

Ready for a one-hour science fiction television show about space exploration not set in the Star Trek universe? How about a half-hour show about the developing relationship between a blind girl and a sci-fi fan? Well, Richard Whettestone thinks you are, and he's got the scripts -- now he just needs PBS to pick up the shows!
posted by jimw at 4:43 PM PST - 10 comments

"The PRAVDA Forum" in English. Vlad Putin's homeboys serve up Colombian FARC manifestos, and grin- "Let's roll!" They invite you to mix it up with black blockers, American hawks, meglomaniac spymaster wannabes, Osama fans, Nazis and ethnic cleansers, irate Israelis, Pakstanis, Indians, hardcore feminists, peaceniks, dolphinsavers, conspiracy theorists, and the Chinese. Free speech in wartime, Russian Communist style. (Warning: Offensive content guaranteed.)
posted by sheauga at 4:09 PM PST - 8 comments

Steve McCurry has spent his life looking for beauty in warzones. This flash site pulls together some of his most vivid images, including the iconic image of a young girl from Afganistan. But his work hasn't been without a few dangers: "I've had a couple of close calls in my career, but part of my brain that's concerned with self-preservation is very large. I was almost drowned in India and I was in an airplane crash in Yugoslavia, where I found myself about 10 feet underwater. Miraculously, I was able to swim out from underneath the seatbelt. But I came within a fraction of an inch of not making it. I'd rather take the risk and have the adventure, than to be timid and not take those risks ... It's the best life."
posted by feelinglistless at 3:44 PM PST - 6 comments

Godzilla (MP3).I was searching for Godzilla stuff and ran into it.The so called great nirvana seems to taken Blue Oyster Cults Godzilla and changed it a little.
posted by Niahmas at 11:53 AM PST - 26 comments

The Alphabet Synthesis Machine uses a generative algorithim to allow you to evolve letterforms for your own nonexistent langauge. Once you've tweaked it to the way you like it, you can download it as a TrueType font, and it's added to an archive of available alien fonts. Via socialist superstar JBushnell
posted by thirteen at 11:17 AM PST - 5 comments

Tie yourself to a half-constructed house on a school campus and live there in solitary confinement while on semi-public display to the world, pissing into a jug and making conch-shell noises from a piece of cardboard and a bullhorn. And do it all in a lobster suit. If that's not performance art, then what is? (Link from a blogger-friend who got it off NextDraft.)
posted by brownpau at 8:20 AM PST - 12 comments

The nihilism of the new teenage criminal, as reported in this long, unsettling account in The Atlantic. Narcotized, unattached, deadened by imagery, "the goal for the bright ones is to truly mesmerize the middle class with violence." [via AL Daily.]
posted by argybarg at 8:20 AM PST - 34 comments

Peter Norvig has written a Python script that generated a 12293word palindrome. Impressive. But before you ask: No, it doesn't make any sense.
[via Play with the Machine]
posted by Su at 7:20 AM PST - 16 comments

"Happiness has not gone up even, as a society, we've gotten richer and have more access to more things. Advertising is the illusion that stops us from recognizing that." Sut Jhally is a communications professor at the University of Massachusetts, founder of the Media Education Foundation, and an excellent teacher of media literacy.
posted by tranquileye at 7:06 AM PST - 54 comments

Reparations activists are going after corporations who may have had ties to or profited from the slave trade to seek financial compensation. "So far, the reparations legal team has publicly identified five companies it says have slave ties: insurers Aetna, New York Life and AIG and financial giants J.P. Morgan Chase Manhattan Bank and FleetBoston Financial Group." Of course, the article (or the sidebar) doesn't cite anyone who may be against the whole notion - which is possibly bias of some sort, and seeing Johnnie Cochran on the list of people involved doesn't exactly warm one's heart either. (here are several other related "background" articles)
posted by owillis at 1:01 AM PST - 42 comments

Copy Protected CD makers lose battle. Was it inevitable? Do you consider this good news?
posted by onegoodmove at 11:35 PM PST - 17 comments

Survivor III Finale Flawed. If there's any doubt still that this show is a complete waste of time, check out this "news" tidbit that CBS is doing a good job of squashing. Turns out the ending was flawed; the other finalists have now been paid handsomely to behave.
posted by Fofer at 11:14 PM PST - 13 comments

Enron's historical precidents. This L.A. Times article discusses the historical precidents to the Enron debacle. My favorite (among lots of good stuff):

"Like Enron, ITT was a big campaign contributor. But Geneen's idea of how to use political influence made Lay and associates look like choir boys. In 1970, the company offered Republicans $1 million and consulted heavily with the Nixon White House and the CIA when Chile's new socialist president, Salvador Allende, threatened to seize the ITT-owned Chilean Telephone Co. Allende was overthrown with U.S. aid."
posted by electro at 10:58 PM PST - 9 comments

Daniel Pearl's widow speaks out. "Revenge would be easy, but it is far more valuable in my opinion to address this problem of terrorism with enough honesty to question our own responsibility as nations and as individuals for the rise of terrorism." (via the indispensable rc3.org)
posted by jjg at 10:12 PM PST - 12 comments

What's down, Doc?
Animation genius Chuck Jones has died of conjestive heart failure.
Has any other creative-type-person brought more joy and laughter to the last three-or-four generations?
At least his website had already started paying tribute to him while he could still see it (click on "Letters from the Heart", optional Flash).
posted by wendell at 7:37 PM PST - 29 comments

Can you be outwitted by a goldfish? Forgot the attention span debate: follow the link and try to figure out the card trick. (Via PhotoDude).
posted by maudlin at 6:59 PM PST - 33 comments

It's official, streaming music is now 14 cents per song and retroactive to 1998. An update to an earlier thread, this new ruling would add $150,000 in monthly royalty fees to live365, and probably kill whatever streaming radio sites are currently out there. Of course broadcasting via AM/FM is half price, so maybe pirate radio stations will grow more popular.
posted by mathowie at 5:55 PM PST - 57 comments

Enron had a fake trading room on the 6th floor. [via D] This whole Enron thing is really turning into something. First the WH, then Cheney is being sued, now smoke and mirrors; I'm telling you, Enron is at a theatre near you before 2006.
posted by Why at 4:40 PM PST - 13 comments

Gutton Bowl was disgusting, obnoxious, incredible. A follow-up from this thread, and perfect Friday fodder. No one who I talked to around the water cooler who saw this last night could stop talking about it. So why isn't it being discussed here?
posted by tsarfan at 4:02 PM PST - 38 comments

The Internet: breeding ground for goldfish-like attention spans.

...

The Internet: breeding ground for goldfish-like attention spans.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 2:56 PM PST - 23 comments

"The concept of anarchism has always appealed to me" says a senior ranking London Police Commissioner on Urban 75 (posting as 'Brian the Commander'). "Say nothing on the web you wouldn't say on the office notice board" runs the popular wisdom, and Scotland Yard is set to call him to heel. But which serves us best - Dixon of Dock Green, slavishly following Police Federation convention, or Descartes of Dock Green, letting it all hang out?
posted by RichLyon at 1:07 PM PST - 4 comments

Southern California just had a good shake up An earthquake measuring 5.2 just hit there. Anybody have anymore details?
posted by Davezilla at 11:49 AM PST - 23 comments

Afghanistan looks at itself:

Q: So if I brought you free films but they weren't about fighting, would you show them?
A: No.

A moving photo-essay on rebuilding Afghanistan's media sources.
posted by modge at 11:31 AM PST - 5 comments

What can The White Rose teach us today? 59 years ago..."February 22, 1943, 9am... three students from the University of Munich are brought to trial for treason. The trial lasts until 1 pm and by 5 o’clock all are dead...Why are their voices silenced? And how many more innocent people will have to die before they are heard?" Their executioners maintained "It was not a time for tackling theoretical problems, but rather for grasping the sword , yet [they] sowed doubt among our youth. [They] nourished doubt instead of dispelling it..."

In memory of Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willie Graf, Kurt Huber, and untold others whose terrible crime has been to speak truth to power.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 11:11 AM PST - 20 comments

Detailed instructions on how to give birth to the reincarnation of Dr Hans Fink of Portland Oregon. Or Mother Teresa. Or Lady Diana. Or anybody else you feel like. Isn't modern technology something?
posted by signal at 11:06 AM PST - 2 comments

In California, it's now legal for criminals to profit from the sale of stories related to their crimes. Yesterday the CA Supreme Court unanimously struck down the 16 year-old Son of Sam law. The test case involved the movie rights to the story of the man who kidnapped Frank Sinatra, Jr. Victims are angry, but others say that the law represented a direct conflict with free speech, and could have been used to suppress anti-government voices. (more inside)
posted by bingo at 10:54 AM PST - 15 comments

Russians Challenging Hughes Skating Gold Russian Olympic officials lodged an official protest, demanding that Olympic Silver Medalist Irina Slutskaya be awarded a gold medal, accusing the ladies figure skating judges of being biased against the russian skater. This is the biggest batch of sour grapes I have ever seen in sports.
posted by Lanternjmk at 10:43 AM PST - 45 comments

Iran Online. Can the opening of a countires 'cyber-borders' contribute to the liberalisation (small 'l') of the society? Iran has a rapidly increasing population, as well as a rapidly increasing online percentage, they have sports sites (they seem to like soccer), portals and the 'IranMania' search engine. Can un-censored access to the internet help build tolerance?
posted by asok at 10:20 AM PST - 5 comments

Thousands of Women Killed for "Family Honor" This story was done by the National Geographic News...the photo gallery was heartwrenching. Don't go there if you just ate.
posted by bunnyfire at 9:33 AM PST - 48 comments

State of the Validation 2002. Off the 506 W3C members, only 18 (3.6%) have sites that validate with the W3C validator as either HTML or XHTML! 141 members' sites have definite markup errors. 342 members' sites don't even include the DTD, therefore they can not be tested. [via the big orange Z.]
posted by riffola at 9:32 AM PST - 26 comments

Are we sending our $300 rebate checks right back this year? According to MIT economist and New York Times writer Paul Krugman, line 47 of the 2001 1040 will be designed to do just that. NYTimes.com so you know the drill u:metafilter p:metafilter.
posted by McBain at 9:02 AM PST - 40 comments

lego mecha a friend just sent me this site showcasing some lego mecha. pretty incredible stuff! be sure to check out the links esp. the hall of fame :)
posted by kliuless at 9:01 AM PST - 7 comments

Challenging the Goliath of Environmentalism This piece is a brief chronicle of the (mis)adventures of a "green" whose only sin is optimism. Are the environmentalists too doomsday-ish for their own good? Is technology the problem, or part of the solution? Link via The Daily Grail.
posted by yesster at 8:57 AM PST - 8 comments

Jimmy Carter Rips Bush on 'Axis' Label The former President called Bush's statement overly simplistic and counterproductive and also said I think it will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement. Leave it to Jimmy to tell the truth.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 8:24 AM PST - 65 comments

Sodomy laws repealed in Massachusetts Equal laws no matter what 'things' you're doing? The sky is going to fall? You decide.
posted by LinemanBear at 7:55 AM PST - 27 comments

Figures show shark attacks down in 2001. Before September 11, it was the "Season of the Shark." Perhaps we can forgive the newscasters their excess in this matter. Or may be it's another reason to make sure you get your news from multiple sources and different media--now, more than ever.
posted by piskycritters at 6:35 AM PST - 10 comments

weapons of teeny boo-boos? and now for something completely different. Weapons of mass destruction are so twentieth century.....
posted by johnnyboy at 5:57 AM PST - 3 comments

give war a chance an influential Palestinian writer in a Palestine paper says that war makes more sense than negotiating for a peaceful resolution. Perhaps he ought to send his son into the struggle as a suicide bomber
posted by Postroad at 5:09 AM PST - 33 comments

Moment of simplicity A selection of chilled out music and images
posted by Tarrama at 3:44 AM PST - 12 comments

Click here for martyrdom (In Arabic though) The Financial Times reports volunteers are invited by Ansar-e-Hizbollah, Iran's radical Islamic shock-troops, to register by internet for worldwide suicide attacks in the event of a US military strike.
posted by brettski at 2:11 AM PST - 4 comments

Free Web Building Tutorials. This site seems like a great resource for people wanting learn about making their own website. My brain hurts already and I'm on "How does the WWW work?". Anyone else have good educational sites for a novice Webmaster?
posted by sadie01221975 at 2:05 AM PST - 13 comments

Today is slacker day, at least in the UK. Rest up and do nothing all day. As Spaced's Simon Pegg says on the site: "How can you possibly comprehend the value of your own hectic endeavour if you don't occasionally put your feet up and experience a state of complete calm. So, when Slacker Day comes around, stop Yanging around and Yin out for a bit. You'll feel better."
posted by viama at 1:16 AM PST - 13 comments

Russians going home? Apparently, Russian Olympic Committee president Leonid Tyagachev said there was a 24-hour window to address the situation, and that if Russia left Salt Lake City it probably would not compete in Athens in the next Summer Games.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:38 PM PST - 34 comments

Dr. Paul Linebarger became a spy for the U.S. Intelligence community because he was an expert in propaganda, psychological warfare, and the culture of China. In his other secret life, however, he wrote some of the most wildly inventive and unusual science fiction ever, forming a history of mankind and its Instrumentality that spanned fifteen thousand years. To protect his identity, he published under the name Cordwainer Smith.
posted by Hildago at 7:25 PM PST - 15 comments

Um... not counting that whole WW2 thing. February 18, 2002 -- President Bush, in a speech in Japan. "My trip to Asia begins here in Japan for an important reason. It begins here because for a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times. From that alliance has come an era of peace in the Pacific." Of course, the Official White House transcript corrects the blunder.
posted by crunchland at 7:23 PM PST - 60 comments

Teddy Bears to watch you While other countries are banning teddy bears from Children's hospital rooms, Japan is putting digital high tech teddy bears that will watch you and inform doctors when you need help.
posted by AsiaInsider at 6:25 PM PST - 5 comments

"You were not responsive, lying on a bed of sheets covered with blood." A young woman crashes her car, is airlifted to the hospital, and goes on life support. Her parents continue her 10-year-old diary during her stay in intensive care. Years later it's all posted to the web.
posted by D at 6:18 PM PST - 3 comments

Ethnic Cleansing: Wired Chimes In "We want people to recognize we're average people," Hale said. "If we can influence video games and entertainment, it will make people understand we are their friends and neighbors.... As long as it doesn't denigrate white people or have pornography in it, it's OK with us."
posted by tpoh.org at 5:19 PM PST - 21 comments

The world's leading manufacturer of realistic feminine breasts. Chestal nudity on second page, link is safe for work. "High quality breast forms." Not only do they make foam breats, but they are also using the latest advances in breast technology using Siloxane. Is your breast needing repair? Simply get some breast renovator or some rubber or silicon nipples. The question now is, where can I sign up to work in the factory as a QA tester?
posted by manero at 5:11 PM PST - 15 comments

Frat Boys Gone Wild! "...the last straw came when the national office discovered the chapter's recreational boxing tournament in which members recruited local homeless persons, "liquored" them up, gave them large boxing gloves and "let them go to town,"" apparently as part a "...tradition of cock fighting and gambling in the house's basement."
posted by n9 at 3:25 PM PST - 59 comments

Obese people may get an extra seat for free when they catch a flight in Canada, following an unprecedented legal ruling that is rattling the airline industry.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:59 PM PST - 41 comments

Is Yates kids' memorial website a bit odd to anyone else? Will Andrea visit them here?
posted by jbunch at 2:40 PM PST - 9 comments

File under "How Low Can You Get?". Las Vegas TV station dubs in sound and gunshots on a video tape showing an attempted robbery at Harrah's. Original footage had no sound so it had to be made more "dramatic".
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 1:59 PM PST - 6 comments

Andrew Sullivan on why Bush should sign Campaign Finance Reform.
posted by Ty Webb at 1:40 PM PST - 12 comments

CNN reports Daniel Pearl is dead
Damn.
posted by brookish at 1:37 PM PST - 66 comments

Bush and Giuliani nominated for Nobel Peace Prize Rudy? No way - I still don't know what this guy did beyond being a fatherly voice for NYC. As for GW, well I know some will strongly disagree, but waging war for peace is sorta like having sex for virginity.
posted by holycola at 1:32 PM PST - 15 comments

The Hottentot Venus is going home. An African woman named Saarjite Baartman, apparently EXTREMELY overendowed in the buttock/labia department (second floor, next to men's shoes, watch the doors), she did the freakshow thing in Europe for five years in the early 19th c., was edited down at death to her relevant bits and pickled for posterity. Ever been to an actual state-fair freakshow? I saw the alligator lady in the late 70s somewhere in Kentucky. A morally complicated experience.
posted by luser at 12:35 PM PST - 19 comments

Rental car firm ordered to stop GPS speeding fine (CNN via Wired) Those Acme Rent-A-Car guys in New Haven who were using the GPS units in their vehicles to track and fine customers who were speeding (mental image of Coyote holding just-opened credit card bill with eyes bugging out, mouth wide open, and ears straight up) have been ordered to stop and pay back all the fines they have collected so far. Big Brother held back for another day....
posted by BGM at 12:29 PM PST - 7 comments

Greeting, Dementoids and Dementites! Stumbling upon this site today was like running into an old pal. I remember when I was 9 years old listening to the Demento show in the dark on my headphones and cackling my head off. The Doctor was also a serious music scholar and record collector, who would play stuff like Bullmoose Jackson and Riley Puckett along with the Weird Al and Tom Lehrer, which would whet my appetite for more. He probably did spawned more record geeks in my generation than any other person. Good to see he's still around, even if no station in my area plays him.
posted by jonmc at 11:03 AM PST - 33 comments

Apple's retail stores are drawing visitors but not generating sales, with a disappointing conversion rate so far. Apple doesn't blame its sales clerks: "Apple stressed Mac expertise — not salesmanship — when it trained them. . . . But now Apple plans to beef up its instruction to teach clerks how to close the deal." But John Manzione isn't so sure: when visiting a local Apple Store, he found that "[w]ho I was dealing with here were Mac enthusiasts who cared more about being around the product than selling it."
posted by mcwetboy at 10:47 AM PST - 42 comments

Small Pieces Loosely Joined. If you liked the cluetrain manifesto, you may enjoy this new book. The entire book is available for reading at here. Do you buy what he has to say?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 10:02 AM PST - 4 comments

September 11th? "My main thought was: What a pain in the ass." The Globe and Mail's Jan Wong has lunch with Elizabeth Wurtzel, the author of Prozac Nation.
posted by tranquileye at 9:57 AM PST - 20 comments

Clerk accused of inciting murders of "persons unknown" refused bail in the UK. Creating cassettes with titles like "No Peace with the Jews", this trial is one to watch and tread carefully with.
posted by dabitch at 9:51 AM PST - 4 comments

Jheronimus! For real connoisseurs of heaven and hell, i.e. life on earth, old Bosch is still unbeatable. This slightly klunky and perhaps over-ambitious site(The Bosch Game, for instance, didn't work for me) is thorough, scholarly and absolutely fascinating. [Do not view just before going to bed.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:46 AM PST - 6 comments

Russian Musicians brawl during mid-Atlantic Flight In the second incident in a week, a group of drunken musicians create havoc in the air. Earlier in the week, another group of musicians were kicked off a plane stopped at Dulles Airport. They were later allowed to resume their flight only after proving their sobriety
posted by Lanternjmk at 9:44 AM PST - 2 comments

GodHatesFlags "If you don't start burning flags, I am so going to destroy your villages! So sayeth your LORD."
posted by pekar wood at 9:29 AM PST - 17 comments

"I'm ashamed I've done so little," said Senator Jesse Helms who expressed regret that he hadn't done more during his tenure to fight the global spread of AIDS and HIV. Lame ducks are the strangest animals of all.
posted by likorish at 9:08 AM PST - 35 comments

Complete collapse of North Atlantic fishing predicted. North Atlantic catches have fallen by half since 1950, despite a tripling of the effort put into catching them. "We'll all be eating jellyfish sandwiches."
posted by uftheory at 8:53 AM PST - 20 comments

Take a Virtual Hajj Tour (via beliefnet)
Today is the day of Arafat or the day to perform one of the main rites towards Hajj (The Pilgrimage to Mecca). Around 2 Million muslims from all corners of the earth are gathered in Saudi Arabia.
posted by adnanbwp at 8:42 AM PST - 3 comments

Neuroscience Art Gallery Cats Painted in the Progression of Psychosis of a Schizophrenic Artist .....
posted by bunnyfire at 7:39 AM PST - 21 comments

Amazon Easter Egg --Click on "Directory of All Stores" near the bottom, then scroll down to the copyright notice at the bottom. Under the "1996" is an invisible link which will take you to the farewell page for one of their employees.
posted by faceonmars at 7:34 AM PST - 29 comments

The first time as tragedy, the second time... Remember last fall when PETA took the University of South Carolina to task over its choice of mascot? Matt Groening's apparently also discovered the school and its famous @$$-Kickin' Chicken. (Warning: RealPlayer or Windows Media Player required, and you'll need speakers, of course.)
posted by alumshubby at 6:27 AM PST - 6 comments

90% of white males suffered downward income mobility over last 20 years Why hasn't this detailed, well-done study by reputable entities gotten any play from the major media? The study linked above proves that things have gone downhill for the vast majority of people here in the USA. Now what I would like to see are the results of a similar study done for northwestern Europeans.
posted by username at 6:02 AM PST - 45 comments

Scientist discovers way to change mechanical properties of ice by changing its electrical charge. Potential applications: instantly de-ice aircraft wings or car windshields or slow-down skis and snowboards.
posted by costas at 5:51 AM PST - 5 comments

Windows Media Player records your viewing and listening habits. But, it's ok cause Microsoft changed their privacy policy to reflect this. Does anyone get surprised by this sort of thing any more?
posted by jeremias at 4:33 AM PST - 17 comments

Black thugs terrorize white students! So the hooligans specifically target people who they think are white. Soon however they are all caught and put in jail. But these hoodlums were not prosecuted under any hate crime laws. But it gets better: Somehow, David Duke gets involved... and the story still hasn't broke nationally!
posted by Keen at 4:02 AM PST - 30 comments

New Scientist article about the Anthrax attacks. "After months of bungled investigation, it now looks certain that America's anthrax attacks came from within. The implications are terrifying".
posted by talos at 3:31 AM PST - 8 comments

Yes, I know it's kinda late - but perhaps you could save it for next Valentine's Day
posted by Arqa at 1:34 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

I'm gonna get crucified for this here, but Bush remembered to take lens caps off. Yeah i know, you can find millions of idiotic gaffes performed President Bush, but he was all business when staring into the dmz.
posted by rabbit at 12:51 AM PST - 87 comments

Blogzilla is a blog about, you guessed it, Mozilla! Why Mozilla? Because IE sucks. Agreed. I've been using Mozilla and IE interchangeably for the last month, and giving serious consideration to going Mozilla full-time. Very serious.
posted by sillygwailo at 12:07 AM PST - 41 comments

Canada Wins Hockey After watching Belarus pull off a miracle, Canada joins in to see them in the semi final. Question is, who's gonna win? Wooooooooo...
posted by Dav0xor at 9:21 PM PST - 16 comments

Mike Tyson Can Box There: Why is Washington D.C. so pathetic? Beyond belief. Put the place on the map?
posted by ParisParamus at 9:03 PM PST - 28 comments

Did anyone else forget that February is supposed to be Black History Month? Would you believe that Black Entertainment Television (BET) did.
posted by Rastafari at 7:11 PM PST - 12 comments

Ashcroft and his wacky antics. Internet Pornography - Medicinal Marijuana and Assisted Suicide
posted by Nauip at 6:55 PM PST - 31 comments

Alabama Chief Justice on homosexuality: "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature". The Christian Coalition applauded. This is the same judge who tacked up the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. I'm just happy we learned some lessons from the Taliban.
posted by owillis at 5:53 PM PST - 80 comments

Was the Gospel of Mark a rewrite of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey? The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark is a book that sets out to show just that. Several scholars who reviewed or commented on it have said this book will revolutionize the field of Gospel studies and profoundly affect our understanding of the origins of Christianity. Will it?
posted by willnot at 5:51 PM PST - 31 comments

"...The Copyright Office followed almost to the letter the RIAA's wish list." The final nail may be about to be driven into the coffin of online music streaming in the US, as the Copyright Office issued its notice of proposed rulemaking on the issue. The proposed rules are extremely favorable to the RIAA, to the point where many streamers are saying they'll simply have to shut down. Even worse, any ruling will be retroactive to 1998, and streamers will have to pay the announced rate on everything they've streamed since that year.
posted by aaron at 4:11 PM PST - 16 comments

Get your snail mail by e-mail. This startup will scan in your postal mail, e-mail you the images, and snail mail back your e-mailed reply. All for a monthly fee of $30 (or $40 for color scans). They offer CD-ROM archiving and optionally weed out the junk mail. Anyone want to try this out and post their experiences?
posted by waxpancake at 2:55 PM PST - 23 comments

Josh Clayton-Felt, lead singer of 90's alterntive rock band School of Fish spent the last few years of his life battling his record company (A&M cum Universal) and his last few weeks fighting a highly aggressive cancer that rendered him comatose just weeks after its December, 1999 discovery. When he lost his fight with cancer in January, 2000, the rights to the third re-recording of his final album had just been returned to him. Dreamworks released it earlier this month to favorable reviews. It can also be heard in its entirety here.
posted by Sinner at 1:13 PM PST - 15 comments

"Dude," a lawyer who lives in Tribeca said last week, "I hope this story doesn't break before I get paid." The New Yorker on the (mis?)application of Red Cross funds.
posted by adrober at 12:56 PM PST - 23 comments

Are You Bot or Not? You need to be 18 or over! It's kept me amused for a couple of days.
posted by vbfg at 11:58 AM PST - 10 comments

Did I say devaluation? Nothing important, just another presidential blunder that caused a bit of confussion among Japan traders. Here in Europe it's been all over the place in the news and I am surprised that that little detail has been absent of the main USA media. I'm sure I didn't do my (online) homework well, could you please help me?

Maybe is that the European media jumps at every oportunity to ridiculize Bush? Or is the american media protecting Bush image inside the USA?

Could things like this controversial Pentagon plan be the beguinning of a New Media War? We begin by hidding the little things and then we'll go for bigger and bigger blackouts, and then even lies?
posted by samelborp at 11:52 AM PST - 17 comments

Cheney's company did millions of dollars of business with the axis of evil under his watch as late as August of 2000, according to this Financial Times article. Are there any holes in this story from November 2000 they missed? Why would someone opposed to terrorism run a company that dealt financially with them (or is this article complete bunk)?
posted by mathowie at 11:08 AM PST - 28 comments

Utah Leads Nation in Rate of Anti-Depressant Use. It is interesting (to me) in that the people doing the study credit a "Mother of Zion" syndrome of married Mormon women putting on the happy face regardless of how happy they truly are. My state is up at the top also. Could be all the rain I guess. . .*sigh*
posted by Danf at 11:08 AM PST - 45 comments

Ashcroft's Jihad. "Attorney General John D. Ashcroft yesterday cast the government's war on terrorism in religious terms, arguing that the campaign is rooted in faith in God and urging Christians, Jews and Muslims to unite in the effort." So as an agnostic, am I excused from the war?
posted by homunculus at 10:58 AM PST - 66 comments

Pay-for-placement. Is this the beginning of the end for Google and we know (and love) it?
posted by Fofer at 10:55 AM PST - 17 comments

What now? Fashion profiling? (NYT) For the third time in 48 hours, an alert Israeli foiled an attempted suicide bombing on Tuesday. Near the West Bank settlement of Mehola in the Jordan Valley, a bus driver, Shalom Drei, thought a man climbing onto the second step of the bus looked suspicious. "He wore an aviator's jacket, zipped all the way up," Mr. Drei told Israeli television. "It looked strange to me." Mr. Drei pushed the stranger back off the bus, then, as the bus pulled away, the man exploded.
posted by semmi at 8:49 AM PST - 39 comments

Triple Palindrome set for tonight. For those that follow British time, tonight, at 2 minutes past 8 your clock will read 20:02 20/02/2002
posted by Lanternjmk at 8:39 AM PST - 17 comments

Powell: French Foreign Minister "caught the vapours." The article posits an etymology dating back to the victorian era. Am I the only one who thinks Colin was dropping a Biz Markie lyric?
posted by Pinwheel at 8:00 AM PST - 10 comments

The 'other' U.S. team makes history, taking first women's bobsled gold. "Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale, Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs, And solid pudding against empty praise." Alexander Pope (1742)
posted by Carol Anne at 7:19 AM PST - 13 comments

Lance Bass of N'Sync is to be the youngest person ever to fly in space. The flight is expected to cost $20 million and will involve a flight on a Soyuz taxi mission to the ISS in November 2002. And no, it is not the first of April.
posted by adrianhon at 5:15 AM PST - 42 comments

School Vouchers. This has been discussed before (a while ago) and is going to the Supreme Court.
posted by sadie01221975 at 3:51 AM PST - 20 comments

waferbaby's new teen log generator produces random paragraphs each time you reload, like: "life is so unfair :/ i need a new host. rofl! haha i wish i got an anti-bloggie, and i'm bitter. i am so not a slut and i'm annoyed. so not going to happen! i wish i was britney." (Buy yourself a webcam, hire a youthful stripper to spend some time in front of it and you may be on your way to getting everything on your Amazon wishlist.)
posted by lia at 2:47 AM PST - 20 comments

Pixar iMac ads in the Luxo Jr style ... inevitable really.
posted by MintSauce at 1:50 AM PST - 17 comments

The Society for the Prevention of Art Monstrosities - for those who like their satire cerebral.
posted by chrisgregory at 12:42 AM PST - 3 comments

Waste a couple of hours at Mrs. Neugast's Fan Worship Page and reminisce about the celebrities you worshipped in your wasted, pasty youth. Be sure to spend some time browsing in the Gallery of Fine Art and Graven Images. (via scrubbles)
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:59 PM PST - 13 comments

Tale of the Radioactive Boy Scout. As the article says, nobody really needs an unsafe homemade nuclear reactor, especially one made of duct tape an aluminum foil. That didn't stop one teenager from trying....
posted by geneablogy at 5:58 PM PST - 7 comments

Mickey Mouse draws "get out of jail" card. US Supremes agree to hear challenge to the 1998 "Sonny Bono" retroactive copyright extension.
posted by mlinksva at 5:48 PM PST - 30 comments

High school drinking game becomes corporate-sponsored tournament. What's next? Bizz Buzz Bang in the Olympics?
posted by billder at 4:36 PM PST - 6 comments

First Monday has not been mentioned since September 16, 1999 (no comments), but it's still timely and intellectual. In this issue, "Technological and Social Drivers of Change in the Online Music Industry".
posted by jacobw at 4:14 PM PST - 2 comments

Tariq Ramadan: The Muslim Martin Luther? Tariq Ramadan is not a household name in the United States, but the Swiss professor could be one of the most important intellectuals in the world. Ramadan's thinking, his methods and his personal history are all connected to the same question: Islam's encounter with the modern world. Can the youngest of the world's three great monotheisms co-exist harmoniously with the Western world and its Enlightenment legacy? Or is it fated to be reactionary, closed off from the world, an excuse for terrorism and failure? (From alt.muslim, Salon Premium required to read full text)
posted by laz-e-boy at 4:09 PM PST - 12 comments

Musharraf berates the Muslim world - "Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race"
posted by revbrian at 2:58 PM PST - 33 comments

Slumber, my catkins, my get, my make - Holding you close, I'll be here when you wake - Softly sleep, softly dream, mother is nigh - Sleep tightly and dream to my purr lullaby. - Paul Gallico.
posted by Arqa at 2:24 PM PST - 16 comments

Multiethnic Barbie. (picture) ""It would be really boring if there were all white people," says the fourth-grader, who also likes her dolls to portray people she knows - from her half-Asian cousins to classmates of all races." Of course, nobody she knows probably has Barbie's proportions...
posted by owillis at 1:45 PM PST - 29 comments

"This war would never have happened had I been president." Ralph Nader being interviewed by the Chicago Tribune yesterday. [reg. req'd] Nader says, "because for 30 years we have had an aviation safety group, and we have been urging the airlines to toughen cockpit doors and improve the strength of the locks, and they have been resisting for 30 years." [via Matt Welch.com]
posted by tsarfan at 12:20 PM PST - 47 comments

Man, I need to go back to college! Berkeley students go to strip clubs and play "The Match Game" in a male sexuality class.
posted by MikeB at 11:23 AM PST - 15 comments

It seems like the Flight 587 conspiracy theorists had it wrong after all. Recently, the NTSB released preliminary findings on the crash of the American Airlines Airbus A-300 at Queens, NY and the evidence increasingly points to mechanical failure. Just in case you want to doubt them (as I did), the NTSB has posted photographs of the failed parts on their site. Intrestingly, a new alternative theory, puts the blame on grey market parts.
posted by costas at 11:00 AM PST - 5 comments

Finally, no more Miss Cleo commercials as the Federal Trade Commission steps into to prosecute late-night TV's most popular psychic peddler. At first I thought if you dumb enough to call a psychic line, the gov't shouldn't be stepping in to block the charges, as the article notes the average call was $60, but they also note misleading "free reading" claims and crooked billing procedures. If you're making that kind of money, why resort to underhanded business practices? Even more obvious: why didn't she see this coming and change their ways?
posted by mathowie at 10:41 AM PST - 22 comments

Cow escapes slaughterhouse by scaling 6' fence and remains "at large" here in Cincinnati - this is too silly to make up. The good news is the cow doens't go back when it's found, dozens of people have put thier names in to take the fugitive cow in.
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 10:19 AM PST - 53 comments

One hit wonders was in my e-mail this morning. What others can you add to the list? about.com link, watch the pop-under.
posted by bjgeiger at 10:11 AM PST - 178 comments

So, has Stephen King lost it? This guy seems to think so. Some would say he never had it. I think that while this guy makes a few valid points, he goes overboard, and brings up many things that just seem petty and silly, like he's trying to over-prove his theory, and increase the word count of the article. What do you think? (Side note: I wouldn't be surprised if "Richard Blow" becomes the name of a victim in a future King novel...).
posted by sassone at 9:33 AM PST - 23 comments

Take It Easy An online version of the award-winning board game Take It Easy. The highest possible score is 307 -- what can you get?
posted by Shadowkeeper at 9:33 AM PST - 26 comments

Have you called Enron lately? Enron's new voice mail greeting. Cute.
posted by Dirjy at 9:02 AM PST - 6 comments

Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad The latest in our propaganda war. Why not simply hire such notables as Britney Spears and other worthies to entertain, free, in countries that do not seem to appreciate what democracy and capitalism are able to showcase as why our system is so good?
posted by Postroad at 8:47 AM PST - 14 comments

Has anyone noticed the lack of hip-hop stars from flyover-country? There seem to be thriving scenes in Gary, Indiana, Philly, and other cities. (Oddly, there's a dearth of info on Chicago.) Aside from a couple of well-known white rappers from the Motor City, the Geography of Hip-Hop remains fixated on NYC and LA and to a lesser extent, Miami and Atlanta. Now there's plenty of urban life going on between the coasts, and I can't believe it's because there's no talent in the breadbasket country. So is it record company stupidity, bad promotion, what?
posted by jonmc at 8:32 AM PST - 17 comments

Get your Voltron on. Voltron is cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet.
posted by uftheory at 8:29 AM PST - 23 comments

This might be taking the war on terrorism a little to far. Royal Marines get lost or should I say vamos. (Parden my french).
posted by FidelDonson at 8:29 AM PST - 8 comments

A Picture is worth a thousand words
Jonathan Jones says America turns to Rockwell's idyllic images in times of trouble.
Remember This Guy from Tiananmen Square, June 5, 1989? A powerful image that seems to be linked to bravery and freedom in most stories I remember.
Now what about This Guy, A Palestinian boy throwing stones at an Israeli tank.
I'm not sure where the connection is here, but the tank images struck me as somewhat similiar to each other, yet, I imagine the two images will mean different things to different people.
I'm not sure what either tank image has to do with Rockwell, that's just the story that got me thinking.
posted by Blake at 8:24 AM PST - 4 comments

Be careful how you sing "My Way" After being ridiculed for an off-key version of My Way, the irate singer kills one heckler and wounds another. Philippine karaoke bars have begun to remove the song from their playlists as this was the climax of several violent incidents when this song was played.
posted by Lanternjmk at 8:20 AM PST - 8 comments

One kid's mission to watch every post-apocalyptic movie ever made. Conveniently, he sorts them by cause of the apocalypse: cyborgs; plague; zombies; nukes; and 'misc'. (The sixth link on the page - 'working' - turns out not to be one of the causes of the apocalypse, at least in Hollywood.) How would you like the world to end?
posted by rory at 7:48 AM PST - 37 comments

Want to be the first kid on the block to own a Segway? Amazon and Dean Kamen are auctioning off three of them. All proceeds go to Dean's non-profit organization, FIRST.
posted by corpse at 7:48 AM PST - 10 comments

What time was my flight? This is a collection of flight timetables through the ages from a large variety of countries - it also serves as a rather nice library of graphic deisgn from around the world. There are some nice links on the front page too.
posted by Spoon at 7:47 AM PST - 5 comments

And You Thought You Knew Your European Flags: A depressing little exercise, guaranteed to expose the ignoramus in each and every one of us. Some of the countries themselves were news to me; never mind the friggin' flags![via Bifurcated Rivets]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:27 AM PST - 19 comments

WGirls is quite simply one of the weirdest site featuring scantily-clad women I have ever seen. Basically, it's very attractive women with the face of an important world leader (by looking at the URL, can you guess who?) superimposed. Scary. [via Slate's Other Websites]
posted by sillygwailo at 10:12 PM PST - 15 comments

Spring feel like it is here a little early this year? does anyone care?
posted by specialk420 at 9:55 PM PST - 23 comments

Corporate censorship in China (via slashdot). I guess censorship and collusion in the repression of people is okay if you're making profits for your shareholders. An eye-opening look into the way that corporations are helping to facilitate censorship on the Internet in China. AOL and Yahoo's attitudes to what I thought were universal human rights is nothing short of sickening.
posted by pixelgeek at 9:07 PM PST - 8 comments

Hugh's Ominous Valve Works. When I get nostalgic for vacuum tubes, I wind up here. I also enjoy his rants and I think his valve dance page beats the hell out of the hamster dance.
posted by realjanetkagan at 9:03 PM PST - 2 comments

validation: (nytimes) the guggenheim has purchased two pieces of online art for its collection for a reported $10-15K each. most interesting to me was that the "valuation of nonphysical art" hoo-ha is surprisingly brief. the art world may finally understand that art concepts, not art objects are valuable.
posted by patricking at 8:47 PM PST - 23 comments

Did the Microflat leave you with a bad taste? Does your New York, LA, or Sydney accommodations leave something to be desired? Or do you like something more round? If so, then try the TurnON, the new prototype by Alles Wird Gut. Be the first one on your block to sit in one of these bad boys.
posted by plemeljr at 6:08 PM PST - 15 comments

That's 1 for "guilt", 271 for "great"! At a company's site devoted to "Decoding The Emotions Driving Consumer Buying Behavior," Steve Ballmer's speeches are "decoded" as an example of how to sell. Is this an example of useful knowlegde used for evil purposes?
posted by victors at 5:13 PM PST - 14 comments

Today the EU imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe. For a long time, critics have charged "President" Robert Mugabe with everything from murder to corruption, but the expulsion of Pierre Schori, an EU election observer, for "political arrogance" was the last straw.
posted by Bag Man at 3:28 PM PST - 13 comments

Boy, 7, charged after crashing dad's car. Nothing beats good old Florida justice. Enough said.
posted by wackybrit at 2:56 PM PST - 16 comments

Roger Ebert savages "John Q." for general dumbness yet agrees with the message: we should have socialized health care. Steve MacLaughlin, however, details how the film greatly misrepresents medical and health care reality just to make its point -- and he fears that Joe Popcorn is going to absorb it as political education. Given that the film is set in the present day, rather than some fictional dystopian future, is this artistic license or irresponsible oversight? Perhaps libelous propaganda?
posted by Tubes at 11:31 AM PST - 73 comments

The death of creationism? William Saletan is claiming that creationism is dead, because Intelligent Design isn't as reactionary as the old creationism, even though scientists still treat it as a threat. I think creationism in any brand is still a threat, regardless of how reactionary it is. What do you think?
posted by stoneegg21 at 9:52 AM PST - 79 comments

PBS's Televangelist: "Moyers's difficulty conversing with people on the right seems to have impaired his ability to report their opinions fairly, particularly on issues of race. "The right gets away with blaming liberals for their efforts to help the poor, but what the right is really objecting to is the fact that the poor are primarily black," he told Alterman. "The man who sits in the White House today [George H.W. Bush] opposed the Civil Rights Act. So did Ronald Reagan. This crowd is really fighting a retroactive civil rights war to prevent the people they dislike because of their color from achieving success in American life."" (via medianews)
posted by owillis at 9:26 AM PST - 43 comments

Le Gougne admits she was pressured to vote in favour of Canadians but believed Russians had better skate (translation via Google). [More inside]
posted by Why at 9:00 AM PST - 21 comments

Somebody is going to link to this Wired article about blogging, so lets get it over and done with.
posted by jedro at 8:55 AM PST - 28 comments

Asbestos: The $200 Billion Miscarriage of Justice The original "mass tort" is bringing down companies faster than you can say "Enron." Since January 2000, 16 asbestos defendant companies have filed for Chapter 11 protection, including Owens Corning, Federal Mogul, W.R. Grace, and USG Corp. Here’s a disaster that’s so screwed-up, and gathering such momentum, that "lawyers who represent the truly ill are teaming up with asbestos defendants to demand reform. They fear that the marginally impaired plaintiffs will drive so many defendants bankrupt that the genuinely sick and dying will have no one left to collect from." And if you’re tempted to dismiss this as just deserts for "evil corporations," bear in mind that, like Enron, asbestos defendants are made up of thousands of workers, many of whom staked their future on pensions and company stock: "At the time of Federal-Mogul's bankruptcy filing this past October, all-too-loyal employees held 16% of the company's stock, which had lost 99% of its value since January 1999. About 14% of Owens Corning's shares--which lost 97% of their value in the two years before its filing--were owned by employees. But those employees' losses have thus far gone unbemoaned by Congress." [more inside…]
posted by pardonyou? at 8:50 AM PST - 26 comments

This is fabulous. SHOCKWAVE / FLASH... Setpixel shows you great stuff, explains the mechanics AND lets you download the source files... Who could ask for more. (the start demo buttons are at the bottom of the text column.)
posted by Spoon at 4:08 AM PST - 5 comments

Record Labels' Answer to Napster Still Has Artists Feeling Bypassed (NY Times). Well, it seems the shoe's on the other foot now. Some artists are learning that the industry alternative (Pressplay, MusicNet) to free music downloading services isn't paying quite the dividends they'd expected.

"Last December, the major record labels responded with two Internet services of their own where fans pay monthly fees to download songs. Under this arrangement, however, the performers still don't get a dime: for each song downloaded, they stand to get only a fraction of a cent, according to the calculations of disgruntled managers and lawyers. And, artists and their managers say, the labels, like Napster, aren't putting the music online with proper permission either.

Can't say I have a lot of sympathy for any of the principals involved. What is especially amusing (but not surprising) is the apparent duplicity of the labels: "in comments not for attribution, several executives at labels and their subscription services did not dispute the accusations regarding the payment plan. They said their first priority was to make the services attractive to consumers and that the details of compensation could be worked out afterward."
posted by topolino at 1:12 AM PST - 14 comments

Had your image entered into a federal database recently? Soon, hundreds of millions will have (or so Safire claims). Are we fighting Al Qaeda or Oceania? As if America needed more professional paranoia. NYT, you know the drill.
posted by gsteff at 11:19 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Make plans to be part of the biggest paintball game ever. Mark your calendars, set your schedule, sign up quick. August 31, 2002 will be a historical date in the annals of Paintball history. William Shatner, the man known to millions of fans as "Captain James T. Kirk" will lead one of the three teams attempting to control the destiny of the universe.
posted by tcobretti at 9:53 PM PST - 15 comments

Why are some police sketch artists so BAD? Images from a fascinating set of sketches at sharpeworld.com.
posted by machaus at 7:13 PM PST - 22 comments

I Nominate Richie Havens As The Most Criminally Unappreciated Recording Artist Ever: In this recent Guardian article, John Aizlewood asked "How on earth did this man miss the boat?" Indeed! His voice is deep and beautiful, his guitar-playing is exciting and innovative and, to my mind, he's the best and busiest no-nonsense live performer around. On his website he generously shows us how to play guitar in his own special way. He also comes across as an inspiring, wonderful human being. And yet, for all his Woodstock kudos, he's more well known for his voice-overs on commercials(McDonalds and Pepsi, for example) than for his music. His new record, Wishing Well, is just out. But nobody seems to care. He's a hero in Europe but negligently seen as a hippy in his native land. There are a lot of other unnaccountably underrated and unknown veteran artists around. Grrrr! Who's yours?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:06 PM PST - 105 comments

Why Your Digital Data Could One Day Disappear HBS Working Knowledge has a Story (actually it's an Excerpt of Dark Ages II: When the Digital Data Die, by Bryan Bergeron) that says data stored on discs and other forms of computer storage are anything but permanent. Not only are the disks themselves the trouble (they last 5-20 years), the computers that read/write them are an added problem, tried opening a Commodore 64 file lately, or a 5 ¼ inch disc?
posted by Blake at 5:54 PM PST - 38 comments

Boy quits school at 7, becomes MIT professor at 20. Is alternative education a good idea? This article seems much more positive than another recent boy-genius post. It appears that most reporters assume that child prodigies are antisocial and that their parents are over-ambitious (they use negatively-connotated synonyms of those terms).
posted by alex3005 at 5:30 PM PST - 20 comments

The great Australian lie? THE Australian navy released only two pictures from more than 100 taken of sailors rescuing boatpeople last October, images the then defence minister seized on to suggest asylum-seekers had thrown children overboard..

It doesn't look good for the ruling government, but Australian public opinion is so heavily weighed against the 'illegal immigrants' that the bulk of voters will move on. They'll forget and probably forgive. After all, we expect our politicians to lie and/or manipulate. Don't we?
posted by skinsuit at 4:51 PM PST - 14 comments

Slayage: The Online International Journal for Buffy Studies offers scholarly essays on the characters and themes of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer.' Interesting reading for brainy Buffster fans. (The navigation is less than ideal -- click on the link above the cover to enter the latest issue and archives.)
posted by Dirjy at 4:50 PM PST - 14 comments

Does this ad for an SUV make you want to buy one? I think that it says a whole lot about our society, non-withstanding one's preference for soy-based foods. I see the humor here and I can laugh at myself as readily as the next person, but this seems to embody the "Bush/Cheney" ethos at its most cavalier. Comments?
posted by Danf at 4:40 PM PST - 82 comments

A POLISH explorer who sets off next week in search of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold in South America, says that he has located it using a 16th-century Jesuit manuscript from the Vatican archives.
posted by stbalbach at 3:40 PM PST - 23 comments

Reed proposed faith-based Enron support Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition leader and now corporate lobbyist and Georgia GOP chief, made a business offer to the Enron Corp. in October 2000. In a memo outlining the offer, he proposed mobilizing religious leaders and pro-family groups for a battle over electricity industry deregulation. The price? Reed suggested $380,000. Could any cynical comments made about this proposal possibly be harsh enough?
posted by raysmj at 11:13 AM PST - 29 comments

McG to direct first Superman movie in 15 years. The now-discarded Tim Burton/Kevin Smith collaboration made more sense to me...seems that a less confident, more troubled Kal-el, living in a darker world, would take off the campy edge Superman stories often have, and draw modern audiences (especially today's teens). But surely McG (Charlie's Angels) and writer J.J. Abrams (Alias and Felicity) will bring us a smugly self-actualized Superman in a postmodern world full of kaleidoscopic action scenes. And that will never work as anything more than eye candy...will it?
posted by bingo at 11:01 AM PST - 43 comments

Those who vote for Democrats only aid the terrorists. "In a series of TV and radio ads in each of five states hosting top Senate contests, President Bush utters the tag line to a narrated paragraph slamming the Democratic senator of that state for being partisan during a time of national duress." Has anyone seen any of these ads? What did you think of them?
posted by homunculus at 11:01 AM PST - 27 comments

Crematory operated for years without burning bodies. Hundreds of decaying corpses found strewn about, and the crematory owners lived next door. Apparently, the furnace broke down, and cost too much to fix. How exactly does one deal with a crime like this? (NYT link)
posted by Ptrin at 9:10 AM PST - 52 comments

For all you poor, chaps out there who are searching for an identity, this could help you in your quest - enjoy darlings!! :-)
posted by Arqa at 8:54 AM PST - 6 comments

Arab Experts Fault Saudi's Idea Based on Land-for-Peace Trade Let's see if I have this right. Five arab nations attacked Israel a few times and Israel, winning, occupied land, waiting for a peace settlement. Now the very influential ruler of Saudi Arabia has a plan that will tgive back all occupied land to the Palestinians and give them a state and give them their place in Jerusalem. But other Arab "thinkers"--academics, so to speak, think this is unwsise because it would help Sharon. Instead, Israel, the victor in these wars, ought to give all back and them hope that the losers in the struggle will in turn recognize Israel's right to exist in peace. Seems a rather odd way to win or lose in warfare and suggest to mea certain intransigence when this might be the beginning of a breakthrough that the world has waited for. What think?
posted by Postroad at 8:34 AM PST - 29 comments

U.S. Tightening Rules on Keeping Scientific Secrets [NYTimes free subscription required] "One White House proposal is to eliminate the sections of articles that give experimental details researchers from other laboratories would need to replicate the claimed results, helping to prove their validity " It's a new monkey to keep See, Hear, and Speak no evil company: Publish no scientifically replicable evil.
posted by srboisvert at 7:39 AM PST - 7 comments

Laser Weapons like in Real Genius, but for real! Combine them with GPS and you get Death Rays!! The technology is there, but how will it change warfare? (via drudge :)
posted by kliuless at 6:33 AM PST - 11 comments

Regional Coding of DVDs is a common practice among the large movie studios. Mostly American companies putting into place regional coding "to protect American interests" in many cases. But then why does content vary so much between the US and the European counterparts of the home entertainment industry. The industry claims it is to protect themselves from piracy, but is it really the control of content that they want? And whether they've created that content or not, is it collusion and unfair business practices to give one region completely different availability than another, or just business as usual?
posted by benjh at 5:13 AM PST - 22 comments

The A to Z of Britney Spears "T is for Totally, Britney's favourite adverb. After taking delivery of freebies from Hilfiger, she reported: 'My mom and my sister are like totally walking around in Tommy stuff.' Asked whether she and Justin understood each other, she cooed: 'We totally do.' And, with a grateful glance at the sky, she once asserted: 'I am totally blessed.' She has every right to appropriate the word. She is, after all, a totalitarian phenomenon. " [from The Observer, who really should know better]
posted by feelinglistless at 4:03 AM PST - 27 comments

Book-A-Minute SF/F--- Their "minute" is so spot-on a review for those books I've read that I'm off to find some books I haven't, just on this site's odd say-so.
posted by realjanetkagan at 12:55 AM PST - 15 comments

Scriptographer is an Adobe Illustrator plugin that allows usage of Javascript to extend the functionality of the program. Looks really interesting. Short on examples right now, but the documentation and whatnot is all there. [Note: Major dHTML usage on the page. No stupid window resizing and such, though.]
posted by Su at 9:24 PM PST - 9 comments

Ethnic Cleansing - The Video Game? I don't know what can be said about this. It pushes several hot buttons - violence in video games, "hate speech" and (in the US) the First Amendment, and race relations in a post 9-11 world. Yes, it's reprehensible - but can you play Voltaire and defend the author's right to create it? (Warning: Pro-Aryan website; link contains explicit depictions of race-based violence.) Discuss.
posted by tpoh.org at 8:42 PM PST - 39 comments

Discarding evidence because of a possible Miranda violation. Sure, Miranda serves a (good) purpose but are the scales of justice tipped a little too much in favor of the accused when the entire chain of evidence can be discarded because of a confession of a possibly dubious nature?
posted by owillis at 8:07 PM PST - 16 comments

A Chronological History of English Glam Rock! (baby) presents "a biased history of UK glam rock" from 1970 through 1975. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play my Sweet, T. Rex, and Slade albums REALLY LOUD. Talk amongst yourselves. (Warning: this site contains a rather bizarre pornographic image)
posted by MrBaliHai at 4:45 PM PST - 31 comments

Understanding USA is (almost) worthy of Tufte (presentation wise), but best of all you can download the whole book in PDF format. As a non-American I ask, does this help us understand the USA or is it all just statistics? (more inside).
posted by Zootoon at 3:29 PM PST - 33 comments

US planes rain dollars on Afghanistan Brings a whole new dimension to the term "throwing away taxpayers' money". What kind of logic does the US govt put behind a stunt like this?
posted by ssheth at 3:21 PM PST - 28 comments

Rijksmuseum: Many of the paintings of this famous Dutch museum can now be viewed online.
posted by justlooking at 12:30 PM PST - 10 comments

Wacky news is on the rise, and not just here at MetaFilter: it's showing up more and more on mainstream news media sites desperate for your attention (and in traditional print and broadcast media, too). For better or for worse, it's not just for FARK anymore. We've discussed many a weird news item here (much to mathowie's annoyance); what about weird news as a trend?
posted by mcwetboy at 11:46 AM PST - 12 comments

Operation No Living Thing Part of the larger website-Postcards from Hell- a website of A. Raffaele Ciriello's photojournalism. I still can not believe what happened in Sierra Leone actually happened, much less remains obscure to most people. These are photos of some people who survived. Their quiet dignity is beyond words.
posted by quercus at 10:57 AM PST - 3 comments

How sad! DALLAS--From the Bart Simpson "I didn't do it" school of how to avoid taking personal responsibility, we have what could be the start of a trend. Real men, enveloped in scandal and accused of wrongdoing, don't admit mistakes. They don't apologize. They simply express sadness.
Ken Lay
In Dallas, it was the DA's office that pursued convictions--and did so for four months after learning that the drugs were fake.
posted by onegoodmove at 9:44 AM PST - 10 comments

The Care and Feeding of the Happy Drinking Bird. "You will learn how to identify several different subspecies of Drinking Bird, and marvel at a detailed examination of the creature's anatomy. Another section provides lucky Happy Drinking Bird keepers with information on proper care and feeding, to ensure that theirs indeed remains a Happy Drinking Bird." So that's how it works…
posted by darukaru at 8:15 AM PST - 10 comments

Prophet Kim Miller resurfaces and predicts The Beginning of the End on the Millenium's 777th day. Which just so happens to be today, here on North America's west coast, for about the next 45 minutes as of this post and has to do with the Olympics as well.

You may remember Kim Miller and his flock, known as the "Concerned Christians" from back in 1999, when several of them were deported from Israel.
posted by crasspastor at 11:26 PM PST - 14 comments

"Cinema at its finest! Or something like that." I like 'The Deconstructed Voice' stuffs myself. crazy little quicktime movies. for when you get sick of the olympics. or sitcoms. or pancakes. not that anyone gets sick of pancakes.
posted by jcterminal at 10:48 PM PST - 2 comments

Ladies and Gentlemen, Behold the Lummox! For years, I believed myself to be a demographic of one, however novelist Mike Magnuson has shown me that I am one among many. However, heretofore we've lacked a snappy name like " yuppie" or "slacker." Magnuson's site and the book it promotes are for those of us "smarter-than-he-looks" guys who had to "find [ourselves] in the Reagan Years." For those of us beer-drinkin', donut-munchin' regular joes who were forged in those baffling times, our patron saint has arrived.FWIW, his previous books are terrific, too.
posted by jonmc at 9:12 PM PST - 5 comments

Thailand Life.....as seen through the eyes of a Thai teen
posted by bunnyfire at 7:13 PM PST - 10 comments

The serious business of selling all-American fun "There could hardly be a better summation of the opportunity that American pop culture companies like Disney are enjoying overseas. With the end of the Cold War, the opening of China, and the worldwide triumph of American-style capitalism, the brand-name purveyors of American food, fashion, and entertainment have never had it so good."
posted by owillis at 7:05 PM PST - 10 comments

Actor Kevin Smith (no, not Silent Bob... Ares from Xena) has died after a large fall in China.
posted by sycophant at 6:28 PM PST - 31 comments

Tearing Apart The Fast Company 1990's From Salon.com. A superb critique of management à la the 1990's and a really good explanation of Enron, rolled into one.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:08 PM PST - 3 comments

An insider's take on the olympics Working at the speed skating rink apparently holds ample opportunity for port-a-loo incidents and other funny not-so Olympic moments.
posted by prodigaljester at 4:19 PM PST - 4 comments

Though the president has claimed Ken Lay is merely an acquaintance that he hasn't seen in months, the smoking gun uncovered documents pointing out historically there has been a fairly regular correspondence and perhaps a close friendship between the two. They're all from 2000 and earlier, but will things like this dog the president or raise any suspicions?
posted by mathowie at 2:38 PM PST - 31 comments

Is the New York Times rewriting history? This link claims (and an archives search backs up) that the Paper of Record deleted a bin Laden-related story published two days before 9/11, and now redirects searchers to a story written on 9/12. The story isn't damning, but it does point out how much we knew about him before the event. Is it bad journalism? Bad politics? Extra points awarded for Orwell quotes.
posted by chino at 1:50 PM PST - 31 comments

Did Max Bickford get a v-chip implant? "...the FCC ruined television throughout the 1990s by allowing mega corporations and multinationals to gobble up TV networks and distribution outlets, including cable and satellite companies..." Now that the big corporations own the content, they obviously have the right to change it. It's capitalism, pure and simple, but it may also mean bad TV. Does the goverment have the right, responsiblity, or obligation to to re-regulate the industry, just so the quality of programming improves?
posted by bingo at 1:38 PM PST - 14 comments

There is a form of support for just about everything under the sun, but when it comes to something like having a large penis wouldn't one think a good pair of underpants would be enough? Apparently not, welcome to The Large Penis Support Group--and their message board. There are no pictures (which is why I felt this is not innapropriate), and there are some hillarious threads, and ego/hymen-shattering stats.
posted by Eric Lloyd NYC at 12:28 PM PST - 49 comments

Garageband is out of business. Damn. For any aspiring musicians/bands (myself included), this was a really nice service. Upload your original MP3, get reviews from other bands, etc.. Another dot com flameout? Whaddaya think?
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 12:05 PM PST - 3 comments

The Boss of the Bossa Nova. A very thorough tribute site to Antonio Carlos Jobim, with scores of scores, english lyrics, and rare recordings. The music's greatest interpreter is the enigmatic genius Joao Gilberto. For more on brazilian music in general, there's Slipcue, AllBrazilianMusic, and The Brazilian Sound. (For Portuguese speakers only, there's an excellent encyclopedia on the subject.)
posted by liam at 11:40 AM PST - 10 comments

Chariots of Ire Olympics may never be held again in the U.S. because of--well, what many perceive as too much security and flag waving. As though terror had never before struck the Olypics (Germany) when it was not very well guarded. Or am I perhaps a part of the jingoism that is here deplored?
posted by Postroad at 11:08 AM PST - 31 comments

What fun it must be to be gay and in the military. Seems like the military can't make up its damn mind about whether or not gay people are ok to serve.
posted by 4midori at 11:08 AM PST - 16 comments

Justice Served Canadian figureskating team gets their gold after all.
posted by neilkod at 10:09 AM PST - 73 comments

There goes Colin Powell, pissing off the far right again. This time the Family Research Council and folks like Gary Bauer demand to know how dare he go on MTV and, in response to a teen's question about AIDS, tell kids to USE CONDOMS! (And for that matter, what is the secretary of state doing appearing on that smut-filled network in the first place, and what kinds of parents allow their children to listen to satanic rock music and hip-hop, and how dare insolent children raise filthy questions with government officials about SEX?!)
posted by jellybuzz at 9:54 AM PST - 56 comments

Get Chipped! A Brazilian legislator wants to become the first politician to be implanted with a controversial microchip that would contain his personal information. Hmmm, would the real Kevin Warwick please stand up.
posted by nakedjon at 9:31 AM PST - 3 comments

Why Are So Many Americans Cancelling Their Subscriptions To "The London Review of Books"? This letter from Paul Genova rings true - and touché - to this European at least. Ever since the very respectable LRB published its issue on the September 11 attacks, American readers(and some notable contributors) have been writing in droves to cancel their subscriptions and connections to the journal. Mary Beard's article(op.cit.) aroused most of the fury, though others are arguably just as outrageous. In the pages of this most lively of letter sections - graciously available online - this particular correspondence seems to demonstrate an ever-sharpening divide between American and European intellectuals. Are Paul Genova's and other readers' disgusted reactions justified? Are they specific to the WTC attacks or, more worryingly, representative of a wider separation?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:35 AM PST - 46 comments

Bermuda Celebrates Quincentennial....er.....Never Mind Bermuda, set to celebrate the 500th anniversery of it's founding, cancelled next year celebration when it was discovered that Bermuda was founded in 1505, not 1503.
posted by Lanternjmk at 8:34 AM PST - 4 comments

Farrakhan to Hip-Hoppers: Know Your Roles, Educate. From the West Coast Hip Hop Summit.
posted by Ty Webb at 8:27 AM PST - 13 comments

Happy John Frum Day Everyone! If there’s one date you circle on your calendar this February, forget Fat Tuesday and skip Valentine’s Day, too. The visive holiday to celebrate and remember is John Frum Day. Recognized annually on the island of Tanna, John Frum Day celebrates American culture and all its riches. Here's hoping that John Frum flies over your house today, delivering loads of good Tok-Tok.
posted by Neologian at 7:50 AM PST - 6 comments

Okay, so you can smell my brains... which is sort of required viewing to, uh... enjoy the sequel. Which may or may not be safe for work, depending on how your employer feels about animated kitty porn.
posted by headspace at 7:18 AM PST - 15 comments

Too much sleep may shorten your lifespan, according to this MSNBC article. Assuming that this data is correct, I'd still rather deal with less time alive (but fully alert) vs. a prolonged life of grogginess. (via Fark)
posted by sigma7 at 7:01 AM PST - 25 comments

download your crappy free aim client here Yup, this morning got bounced from trillian using AOL Instant Messenger again.
This time, got an interesting message from AOL. The AIM client opened itself with this message:

AOL Instant Messenger: You have been disconnected from the AOL Instant Message Service (SM) for accessing the AOL network using unauthorized software. You can download a FREE, fully featured, and authorized client, here http://www.aol.com/aim/download2.html .

So, fellow Mefi readers, how long can AOL block Trillian? Shouldn't they be coming up with more innovative campaigns, or is this a sign that the IM market is about to become a lot more competitive? Tawk amongst yourselves.
posted by purplecow at 6:27 AM PST - 56 comments

www.computerhistory.org is the virtual incarnation of computer historian and collector Michael Williams' phat-ass computer museum. My favourite, BTW, is the timeline, searchable by year or topic. What technological milestones occured in the year of your birth?
posted by stuporJIX at 4:43 AM PST - 8 comments

The People's Bureau for Consumer Information has been a long time coming (The Designer's Republic have been trailing it to those in the know for over 2 years). Yesterday, it finally went live. tDR's work may or may not be your bag (I'm about 50/50) but the way they have set this site up is amazing - everything even the secure purchasing is done with a very uniquely styled Flash frontend.. It's worth going just to play with it.
posted by jackiemcghee at 1:07 AM PST - 34 comments

Get your 15 minutes of fame right here. Upload an image to the Warholiser at the Tate and the best images will be turned them into modern day masterpieces.
posted by Spoon at 1:01 AM PST - 7 comments

The new entry in Fox's "reality" lineup: Glutton Bowl. Eat a bowl of mayonnaise, win fabulous cash prizes. For this they're canceling Family Guy and Futurama?
posted by darukaru at 12:40 AM PST - 17 comments

Coral Castle is the amazing labor of love built solely by Ed Leedskalnin, a man who claimed to have discovered the "secrets of the pyramids". Did he? We may never know, but this frail, tubercular, 100-pound man managed to quarry, transport, shape, and erect chunks of coral weighing up to 28 tons by himself, using only the simplest of tools. The castle also includes a nine-ton gate that is so perfectly balanced it can be opened by a child, and the world's largest valentine, which weighs in at an incredible 5,000 pounds.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:06 PM PST - 12 comments

Washington State house members voted today to end the TV blackouts imposed on local Seahawks games. The taxpayers are paying for the stadium. Should they continue to be forced to go to it in order to see the games?
posted by goto11 at 8:53 PM PST - 5 comments

Ex-CIA official to head investigations of intelligence failure in 9/11 attacks. Whether you trust the government or not -- do you think the truth will come out with someone so close to the agencies running the investigation?
posted by bas67 at 8:15 PM PST - 17 comments

50 Best Album Covers. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the covers chosen have less to do with artistic or photographic merit than the "statement" that Rolling Stone believes they show. And it might be interesting to see how they measure up to the 100 Best Album Covers.
posted by jacobw at 8:15 PM PST - 42 comments

With the relentless march of the franchises on one hand, and the onslaught of health-conciousness and fad food on the other, that venerable culinary institution, the neighborhood greasy spoon, is becoming an endangered species. Well, fear not, Roadfood.com is the web resource for those of us who like our food drippin' with grease, smothered with chili and served in an unpretentious enviornment. two of my local faves are there, along with mouthwatering pictures of their specialties. I'm sure your local house of grease is featured as well.[warning: will induce major muchies.]
posted by jonmc at 8:14 PM PST - 18 comments

Bush Announces Clear Skies & Global Climate Change Initiatives. An olive branch to Venice, Bangla Desh, and other low lying countries? A Commander-in-Chief tanks up on biodiesel, throws the rudder hard over for a Willamson turn, and attempts to get all those folks left of Atilla the Hun back on the boat? We'll let him speak for himself. (BTW, if you're concerned about the "axis of evil", check out your tax $ at work today at the State Dept.)
posted by sheauga at 7:14 PM PST - 8 comments

List-O-Mania Craptacular Rolling Stone's Well Hung at Dawn looks at the stuff that happened last year. September 11th did not change our relationship to pop culture, except for the fact that we couldn't see Collateral Damage and are still waiting for Showtime to air The Believer. Osama didn't make "Beautiful Day" sound any friggin' better (though it did put Ray Stevens back in the Top Ten, and that's not a bad thing!).
posted by Foaf at 6:05 PM PST - 4 comments

Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge dead at 81. She just published her book and a documentary of her life premiered hours before her death. She was in his bunker when he committed suicide in 1945 and she took his last will and testament. She died still maintaining that she knew nothing of the holocaust or the depths of the Nazi horror.
posted by Dean_Paxton at 6:05 PM PST - 7 comments

Osama Bin Laden - The Musical? A new play, being performed in the Jordanian capital Amman, is inspiring a rare glimmer of humour about the world's most wanted man. In one joke, Osama bin Laden tells the audience that he is ready to travel to Washington to hand himself over to US President George Bush but on one condition - "You come with me and I fly the plane!" The musical satire, written by actor/director Hisham Yanes, provokes laughter in about 70% of the audience, he says. The rest want to see him lashed. (Via alt.muslim)
posted by laz-e-boy at 4:53 PM PST - 2 comments

Kate, bad breath cramps any girls style! This and a ton of other great Medical oriented advertising from the 1910's to 1940's can be found at the Medicine and Madison Avenue Project. How is it that with all of our 21st century technology we've lost something as crucial as Gardol?
posted by willnot at 4:10 PM PST - 18 comments

Miserable Melodies has collected some the world's most excremental music for your masochistic listening pleasure. See if you can make it all the way through Linda McCartney singing backup on Hey Jude or the Portsmouth Sinfonia's rendition of Also Sprach Zarathustra without clutching your head like a stunned monkey. Requires RealPlayer, unfortunately.
posted by MrBaliHai at 3:49 PM PST - 15 comments

Enraged about Enron? Buy the T-shirt
The latest Enron related meme in Houston is a slew of anti-Enron shirts. Just today at lunch I picked up the coolest one to date, the Enrage shirt, for $10 with a $2 donation to the ex-Enron employees fund. Other Enron shirts can be found here.
posted by DragonBoy at 3:15 PM PST - 8 comments

Woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery The man with whom she had sex admitted it, then denied it, and was set free for lack of evidence. She was pregnant when she received the sentence (which provides for her to be buried up to the chest and stoned by male villagers until dead). The Nigerian court in question recently implemented a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic Law (Sharia, in the case), and have returned to mandatory sentences like stoning to death for adultery and amputation of hands for theft. Modernity, how we luff ya.
posted by brookish at 2:59 PM PST - 23 comments

Death Comes To Time, a new series of official on-line adventures for Doctor Who began tonight. Not as good as the Big Finish adventures to be sure, but there may be some interest for Buffy fans, as this one features the vocal talents of Mr. Giles ...
posted by feelinglistless at 2:01 PM PST - 6 comments

Never mind the judges Geography and GDP rule the medal totals at the Olympics.
posted by srboisvert at 1:21 PM PST - 2 comments

Proposal for a 9/11 Memorial. Two piers: one points toward the Statue of Liberty, the other toward Ellis Island. From the air they look like a fallen WTC. Some might call this ingenious.
posted by xowie at 12:41 PM PST - 33 comments

Where in the world is Neal Stephenson? The Web page of Neal Stephenson, author of Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, etc., explains how busy he is writing his new book. (Quicksilver, according to this old interview.) The site's fabulously cranky, and a refreshing alternative to marketing sites for artists and authors, but no further explanation is forthcoming.
posted by krewson at 11:57 AM PST - 41 comments

The Gong Clock - McGuyverism is alive and well, especially when waking up in the morning.
posted by plinth at 11:07 AM PST - 5 comments

A Time For Dissent This piece suggests that the Bush team has been riding high and mighty because of or since 9/11 and that it is time to ask specifically what has been gained and what lost. Leftist rant or spot on?
posted by Postroad at 10:45 AM PST - 27 comments

MissingMatter.net - this is how Slashdot started out. Relatively technical weblog that deals with everything from nano to CS and quantum, to design and the occasional "popular" news items (ex. praying achieves pregnancy). Been up for a year and a half I think but still doesn't have the user base. But the stories posted there are worth it. You can search the whole archive since day one, by category.
posted by Why at 10:32 AM PST - 12 comments

Shredding with Auntie. A snowboarding game from the BBC. I'm stoked. Are you stoked?
posted by liam at 9:45 AM PST - 4 comments

Looks like the Olympics isn't the boon to business Salt Lake City expected it to be. It might be convenient to blame the terror scare, but the same thing happened to Atlanta a while back. Businesses hired extra workers and spent money to prepare for crowds that never showed. Is all the money to be made taken in through corporate sponsorship deals and television? How have other cities fared financially during and after past Olympics?
posted by troybob at 9:26 AM PST - 19 comments

·Why do black folks seem to always order red or orange soft drinks?
·Why do men have nipples?
·Why do Indian woman have a red dot on their forehead?
·In Jewish dietary laws...can fish and milk be mixed, i.e. cod in cheese sauce?
The Y?Forum, the National Forum on People's Differences. The Y?Forum "gives you a way to ask people from other ethnic or cultural backgrounds the questions you've always been too embarrassed or uncomfortable to ask them." Some of the topics discussed: Differences between people of different age, class, gender, geography, occupation, race, religion, sexual orientation.
posted by jpoulos at 7:59 AM PST - 78 comments

Guttenberg, Babbage...Gates? [via Techdirt] Reading this caused me to question what caused Salon.com to publish this glowing valentine/commercial endorsement for Microsoft's .NET (a general catch-all marketing phrase covering MSFT's implementation of a number of standards supporting web services). Ignores most of the security shortfalls of .NET and compares Gates to Guttenberg. Should this bear the title "Paid Advertising"?
posted by O Boingo at 7:51 AM PST - 20 comments

National Pancake Week isn't getting the press it deserves. It seems like sometimes with all this "War on Terrorism" and "Olympic Fever" stuff, we forget about the really important things in life.
posted by Samsonov14 at 7:17 AM PST - 11 comments

Will you marry me? - Is this the first weblog marriage proposal? What a way to ask... (courtesy of Slashdot).
posted by robzster1977 at 7:14 AM PST - 17 comments

If I were her, I might consider shutting up on the family values issue
posted by magullo at 7:01 AM PST - 27 comments

Kitty Cloning: Texas A & M scientists have cloned a housecat, the "world’s first cloned companion animal". Do we need more cats that badly?
posted by Jos Bleau at 6:24 AM PST - 28 comments

War, what is it good for absolutely nothing?. Poverty, political, social and economic inequalities result in war. So whats new.
posted by johnnyboy at 4:46 AM PST - 8 comments

Does anyone care that nobody needs to sing well anymore? Spot-on piece about the way that digital music tools aren't just making rotten singers sound OK (with software that shifts their pitch upwards), but good singers lazy ("hey that's fine, just copy'n'paste it into the next chorus"). And removing the excitement from studio performance. Is the only honest response to this electro-fakery to go all Daft Punk? Or am I just an old Stevie'n'Retha'n'Marvin nostalgist?
posted by theplayethic at 3:36 AM PST - 53 comments

Cam Girls Gone Wild... Looks like Webpig from InternetGossip is putting together a little side project to complement his popular tabloid site. I bet the parents of these girls would be thrilled to know the type of subculture their daughters have gotten involved in. Nevertheless, this is genius, ( as far as tacky things like this go). There's a P.O. box somewhere in Orange County just begging to be filled up with cash from this methinks.
posted by rabbit at 2:05 AM PST - 40 comments

Is Justin Chapman a misunderstood genius (at age 7) or just an average little boy pushed beyond reason by an abusive, mentally ill mother?
more thoughts inside...
...with thanks tocrabwalk.com
posted by anastasiav at 11:11 PM PST - 29 comments

Was the fix in on 9/11? My guess is if the accusations the author makes are true we'll never know, but if just one of them is true...
posted by tankboy at 9:49 PM PST - 53 comments

Colonial furniture shall not pass through my door. This site is simply the best compendium of modern furniture links that I have ever seen. Some link rot, but worth it if you fancy an Eames chair or Ron Arad shelf. It is all there folks.
posted by machaus at 8:36 PM PST - 9 comments

Valentine's Teddy Bear bomb warning The FBI said a man, "possibly of Arab descent", bought 14 gas canisters, 12 packages of lead gun pellets and nine white Valentine teddy bears at Stevenson Ranch in California on January 15. Please be careful.
posted by Tarrama at 7:41 PM PST - 16 comments

Germany completes it fifth sweep of the women's luge medals. After the snarky anti-American Olympic snowboarding thread the other day, I am surprised that this wasn't immediately posted with snarky anti-German commentary! Becky Wilczak finished fifth, matching the highest finish ever for an American. I guess we don't dominate every sport. Dern.
posted by RevGreg at 7:37 PM PST - 2 comments

How to Remove Linux and Install Windows: Just in case you were wondering... heheh. :) Ah, the fun never stops, now does it?
posted by crankydoodle at 7:36 PM PST - 17 comments

Kisses anyone, favorite memories of kisses, that first french kiss, that first kiss...in memorable places, lets hear some kissing stories folks.
posted by bittennails at 7:22 PM PST - 23 comments

Colorado real winner of Games Besides possible event fixing or the exhaustion of SLOC's 400,000 hot dog supply on DAY 5, what other Olympic donnybrook might be worth mentioning? This will probably not seem interesting to anyone outside of Utah or Colorado, but Denver Post columnist Woody Paige wrote an inflammatory column that has many Utahns, uh, losing their religion.

(You'll note that the link isn't to the Denver Post website -- that's because they yanked the Feb. 12 column from their site earlier today, without comment. A mailto link was posted on their splash page for complaints about the article, but even that's gone now.)

Talk about sour grapes.

I suppose that if the games are ever held in Tel Aviv, Woody will fill his column with references to "funny" Jewish apparel, hair styles, dietary habits, or worse.

FWIW, Barry Newman's column in today's Wall Street Journal was a lot more balanced . Sorry, no link -- subscibers only :(
posted by Big Dave at 6:13 PM PST - 13 comments

"Peaceful Tomorrows" launches tomorrow (Feb 14th). "Peaceful Tomorrows continues the work of family members who took part in the Walk for Healing and Peace from the Pentagon to the World Trade Center (winter 2001) as well as those who met with Afghan families affected by the subsequent bombing campaign (January 2002). Our goal is to facilitate dialogues on alternatives to war that utilize all of America's collective wisdom, skills and talents. "

Good luck Peaceful Tomorrows!
posted by crasspastor at 5:25 PM PST - 1 comment

If you're anything like me, you like to know something about your gay male escort before you spend your hard earned money... Well, now you can!! That is, thanks to a blurb from Michael Musto in the Village Voice. Introducing: Male For Male Escort Reviews! Musto calls it: "The Zagats of pay-for-gay!" I call it..err...disturbing?
posted by adrober at 5:19 PM PST - 4 comments

U.S. authorities had seven chances to catch the hijackers before September 11th.
posted by euphorb at 5:01 PM PST - 3 comments

Country Great Waylon Jennings Dead Well, there aren't too many outlaws left.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 4:51 PM PST - 22 comments

Social Cruelty in Adults: Does High School Ever End? An upcoming ABCNews Special with John Stossel (airing Friday) explores peer pressure, being in the "in crowd", and the role that popularity plays not only during our years in the groves of academe but also in the professional workplace. We'll see John's report on Friday, but I wish to redirect this discussion to the mefi crowd: Were you in the "in crowd" during your high school/collegiate years or on the outside looking in? Did it even matter, and if it did, how and in what way? Has it played a distinct role in the person who you feel you've become?
posted by iceblink at 4:43 PM PST - 42 comments

Ninjas are totally awesome.
posted by tiger yang at 4:20 PM PST - 15 comments

Free Digital Photo Enhancer program ~~ So many of you have visited my Pencam site, and know that I've become somewhat obsessive about taking pictures with an inexpensive digital camera. In order to make the pics I take look even halfway decent, I have to pull all of them into Photoshop, and tweak them a bit, adjusting the contrast, etc. I enjoy doing it, but it can be time consuming. Now, a company called Media Chance has come to the rescue. They're giving away a cool little application that will automagically enhance your digital photos. It's really quite something. PC only, I'm afraid... still. If you've been dissatisfied with the results of your digital camera, it's worth checking out.
posted by crunchland at 3:02 PM PST - 26 comments

Taking a swipe at celebrity cause-fests: The ever-witty Pulp (whose latest album, "We Love Life," might finally be seeing a Stateside release come spring) enlists a host of celebrity impersonators (how many can you point out?) for the video promoting their newest single, "Bad Cover Version."
posted by maura at 2:25 PM PST - 6 comments

"They are hardened criminals." Is the "domestic terrorism" of radical animal-rights and environmental groups really the same as the 9/11 attacks? Or just an excuse to crack down on liberals?
posted by centrs at 1:50 PM PST - 50 comments

U.S. CONSIDERS MILITARY ACTION TO REMOVE SKATING JUDGES. I don't mean to pimp Borowitz again so soon... but damn. Best line from this: While the decision to use military force against the figure skating judges was Mr. Bush’s, sources say there was a split within the Administration as to the appropriateness of using U.S. troops and air power to change the results of an Olympic skating contest.... These sources indicate that Secretary of State Colin Powell favored using economic and diplomatic measures while Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz advocated detaining and torturing the figure skating judges until they reversed their earlier decision.
posted by mattpusateri at 1:38 PM PST - 3 comments

Ye olde Axis of Evil turns out to be, really, just an exercise in getting rid of Saddam (registration required). Not that I blame W but shouldn't we get a few other countries to back us up in a potentially long, protracted war? Could North Korea be right?
posted by boardman at 1:32 PM PST - 9 comments

Big Brother really IS watching you. Hey, at least if they put these on the web, you’ll be able to watch me walk to work.
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:27 PM PST - 2 comments

Make way for the Mormons :) Reports of religions' demise have been greatly exaggerated. The Economist reports, "[w]ithin four decades, one in 20 Americans may be a Mormon and there may be 50m or more worldwide. How will outsiders react to the next world religion?" Minivans, trampolines and canned food, hooray!
posted by kliuless at 1:12 PM PST - 29 comments

Cajun Whitewater Rafting What does a towboat do when the bridge doesn't open? Becomes a submarine.
posted by joaquim at 12:36 PM PST - 18 comments

get me a job - win $200!! marc needham, one of the chicagobloggers circle, is taking matters out of a recruiter's hands and turning them over to his network. it's simple: get him a contact or interview that leads to a position fitting his criteria and you get $200. what i find interesting here is not the publicity skew that could be put on the event, but that recruiting can become grass-roots again. especially in an industry that's become as over-formal as have interactive conent agencies.
posted by patricking at 12:27 PM PST - 17 comments

Scribble, doodle, dabble and draw. Every day a randomly generated squiggly line is generated as a muse. Go forth and create a wonder of pixelated goodness. [Shockwave and Flash required]
posted by pedantic at 12:07 PM PST - 5 comments

Hindu protests against Valentine's Day Cards in India While I understand the "protest against encroachments of Western culture" part of this, I find it curious that part of the problem is that they find the cards obscene "because they show young couples embracing and kissing" - considering certain bits of Hindu cultural history.
posted by dnash at 11:32 AM PST - 43 comments

Kill everyone. (Well, virtually.)
posted by reishus at 10:15 AM PST - 8 comments

"Don't touch our monkey, Frau Bleucher. We know the people running your server." Acme Vaporware is "Hell-bent on World Domination". The site offers (amongst other things) a Feng Shui TorpoFluxometer that "enables anyone to instantly determine which direction to orient their network for chi optimization". and an AcmeVaporware TorpOracular Tech-Tarot System that is "is incredibly rich in Data-Transport Reality-Archetype symbolism". What more does the modern network administrator need?
posted by biscotti at 9:37 AM PST - 1 comment

Stand up for sitting down! Management at Indigo/Chapters (a Canadian bookstore mega-chain equivalent to Borders) is drastically reducing the amount of comfortable seating in their stores chain-wide. This committed group of activists isn't taking the matter sitting down. Show your support!
posted by scarabic at 9:02 AM PST - 19 comments

For Lent, I'm Giving Up Not Drinking Cocktails - What About You? I collect cocktail books but there are two web sites* that are just as good as the best bartender's bible. The first is Dale DeGroff's. The second, sadly discontinued but still invaluable, is Paul Harrington's. Both are very personal and reveal a deep knowledge and love of this quintessentially American and civilized art form. Cocktails may very well be the only truly democratic and universally accessible pastime. They can be made at home quite cheaply by anyone and be just as delicious as the very best served in the very best bar to the richest imbiber in the world. Not to mention their incredible Valentine's Day potential... so what's it to be, pal? *Webtender, Drinkboy and Esquire's cocktail guides pale by comparison
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:41 AM PST - 53 comments

100,000,000,000,000 Poems. In 1961, French writer and mathematician Raymond Queneau published a work consisting of ten sonnets with the lines cut up so that they could be recombined in this number of ways. Magnus Bodin's page offers all the variations (in English, French or Swedish). Queneau, who also wrote a book consisting of one small incident described in 99 different styles, was a member of the OuLiPo group of writers, who chose to work under systematic constraints. Other members included George Perec, who wrote a novel without using the letter E, (a lipogram cleverly translated by Gilbert Adair), Italo Calvino, and Harry Matthews. Techniques to consider when filling that blog becomes a chore.
posted by liam at 8:40 AM PST - 10 comments

Children's lives insufficiently documented. Video-shunning parent ostracized, jailed. I agree with this parent. Constantly taping your child, it does sometimes feel as if you're sacrificing actually being in the moment to capturing the moment, and this during some of the best "moments" of your child's life. If my understanding of old age is correct, however, memories are all you have. So I'm trying to nail me some shit down, for rocking chair days.
posted by luser at 8:18 AM PST - 23 comments

Mouchette. Web portrait of the artist as a young woman.
posted by Pinwheel at 7:52 AM PST - 11 comments

Is this really news reporting? This entire article is based on one source: another ABC Reporter. I'm not saying the allegations aren't true, but the ABC piece just seems more fit for a newsgroup posting than for a major media outlet. Tell me if it's just me.
posted by lawtalkinguy at 7:35 AM PST - 11 comments

Proof that the movie "Best in show" was not a joke. We have a winner! I am a big fan of dogs but I think this is a bit goofy. Honestly, some people are just a little bit to crazy.
posted by aj100 at 7:29 AM PST - 28 comments

are you a music loser? 25 albums that make you a dido fan. how many have YOU got?
posted by nylon at 4:37 AM PST - 95 comments

Lego Shannanigans! Lego that solves the rubik's cube, the towers of hanoi, is a vision command enabled, four-shot rotary cannon but probably still really hurts when you step on a single block.
posted by Spoon at 2:12 AM PST - 7 comments

The Deacon Effect. "Two ladies will be tested. The two ladies chosen were "Sarah" and "Katie". Katie is the typical nice girl, on one hand she will probably put up with a ton of shit, on the other she probably has idealistic image of how men are supposed to act, think: Gentlemen. Sarah is your typical raving bitch, she won't put up with any sh*t, on the other hand her image of men is less idealistic and more "bad boy", think: Biker Trash. Both ladies will experience "Sabastian the ass..."

Two ladies. One man. Does being a jerk actually get you chicks, or does nice guys finish last? Sabastian finds out, in the name of science.
posted by jcterminal at 10:59 PM PST - 38 comments

Australians! Give Ramon a bed for the night.. 'After almost 8 months of travelling through 13 countries, I took a break back home again in January 2002. Now it's time to hit the road again. I have put my mind on Australia.' I really enjoyed meeting Ramon last year, and it seems he is ready to hit the road again.. so take a chance, and invite him over. Or if you would rather read the weblog of a guy who has just been attacked by natives in Borneo, check out Marlow Bidforth's backpack adventure.
posted by wackybrit at 10:16 PM PST - 5 comments

This is unbelievable! Make sure you read about Mike and Craig's adventures at the Adult Expo in Las Vegas. Talk about taking medicine to the sick. Thought provoking, to say the least. (This link is work-safe.)
posted by ooklah at 8:08 PM PST - 13 comments

Village Voice Pazz & Jop Pool is out. Albums and Singles.
posted by rex at 6:27 PM PST - 34 comments

this nytimes article about okwui enwezor, the first non-european to head documenta (kind of like the olympics for art, but unfortunately always held in the town of kassel, germany) mentions an "anonymous and scandal-spreading e- mail message" which was sent to artworld honchos. in light of the fact that his curatorial style has a lot of artists and critics justifiably perturbed, i wonder what's in the email. of course i wonder what's in the email because it might be juicy, but i attempt to justify my curiousity to myself and to you.
posted by subpixel at 6:08 PM PST - 17 comments

A man in New Zealand received a huge bill from Telecom, with an added insult. (via sensible erection)
posted by RylandDotNet at 6:05 PM PST - 12 comments

Here's a damning indictment of the (mis)use of regression analysis in the social sciences.

[Y]ou may have fallen for a pernicious form of junk science: the use of mathematical models with no demonstrated predictive capability to draw policy conclusions. These studies are superficially impressive. Written by reputable social scientists from prestigious institutions, they often appear in peer reviewed scientific journals. Filled with complex statistical calculations, they give precise numerical "facts" that can be used as debaters' points in policy arguments. But these "facts" are will o' the wisps. Before the ink is dry on one study, another appears with completely different "facts." Despite their scientific appearance, these models do not meet the fundamental criterion for a useful mathematical model: the ability to make predictions that are better than random chance.
posted by electro at 6:01 PM PST - 11 comments

Tales for The L33t presents 'Romeo and Juliet' (flash, ~5min) Here's a classic of literature presented in new, revised language to reflect these changing times. It's quite possibly the most ineptly produced flash animation I've ever seen- yet I can't say I wasn't rather entertained. Wildly fluctuating production values, a "soundtrack" that cuts in an out randomly, character animation so bad it had to be intentional, and dialogue that... well. You really have to see it to believe it.
posted by hincandenza at 6:00 PM PST - 20 comments

ALMOST 1.5 MILLION PCs around the world are being used to develop a treatment for anthrax, without their owners knowing After discovering this I decided to donate my free CPU cycles here Here are some other choices Is anyone else offended by this switch.
posted by onegoodmove at 3:48 PM PST - 5 comments

Apple announced QuickTime 6 today with MPEG 4 support but refused to release it. Apple, along with other members of the Internet Streaming Media Alliance are not happy with the the MPEG-4 licensing scheme. And they have good reason, among other fees, the plan includes per minute charges for viewing content, with no maximum amount.

Is this the Moving Picture Experts Group and their licensing partners admitting that content will be worthless in 5 years? Is the financial future of the entertainment industry modeled on the utility companies?
posted by joemaller at 2:59 PM PST - 5 comments

Worst losers ever. Get over it LA
posted by Greener at 2:30 PM PST - 41 comments

SafeWeb not so safe? It was pitched as a "web anonymizer." It was supposedly even "CIA proof." Now some holes have been found.
posted by yesster at 1:20 PM PST - 13 comments

Religion, Government, and Media When all three are combined, as in Saudi Arabia, you get interesting newspaper articles. It would seem very strange to have a mainstream paper such as the New York Times having a section like this.
posted by LinemanBear at 1:07 PM PST - 29 comments

First the Family Guy gets the ax, and now this: according to gotfuturama.com and aint it cool, Futurama will be cancelled. For me, there's officially no reason to watch the Fox network now, as they've cancelled the only things I recorded each week.
posted by mathowie at 11:13 AM PST - 56 comments

The Secret Diary of Gollum : Day Thirty-One - "[Very] Dark in Mines of Moria. Bad for ogling. Have been following sounds of Legolas complaining loudly about state of his backpack and dank air of Moria being bad for his skin. Gandalf stuck gum in his hair while he wasn’t looking. Rather like Gandalf. Always has gum."

Ignore the fact that it's a LiveJournal link. It's Middle Earth slash-fiction. And it's funny. Really, really funny. [via Modern Life is Rubbish]
posted by grabbingsand at 10:38 AM PST - 21 comments

Eating Healthy Can Make You Sick With the current societal obsession with getting thin, what happens when people take this obession too far? Steven Bratman has researched this obession extensively and labeled it "orthorexia nervosa". But as interesting as this disorder is... (more inside)
posted by harrycaul at 10:31 AM PST - 37 comments

Are there other universes? It's mind-boggling to imagine how this might be so, but some scientists think it's possible. But if there's no way to detect something, does it really exist?
posted by Prawn at 10:02 AM PST - 60 comments

If, like me, you were part of the "underground" in the early 1990's, you'll remember that for awhile the 'zine scene seemed to be producing our next great crop of non-fiction writers. Of the original crop of greats Paul Lukas(Beer Frame) published a book that quickly faded. Jim Goad(Answer Me!) published a book, went to prison and is now up to his old tricks. David Greenberger(Duplex Planet) seems to be MIA. Other 'zinesters stories seem to have followed the same pattern. Is the reason the aging of their original audience? Are today's zinesters bloggers instead? Or perhaps todays media corporatization is, in part a reaction to that burst of independent creativity?
posted by jonmc at 9:59 AM PST - 33 comments

A 19th-century Internet love story.
posted by arco at 9:52 AM PST - 10 comments

Another Prime Minister kisses ass. Maggie tells us to git 'em, because "it is best that the United States, as the only global military superpower, deploy its energies militarily rather than on social work." (NYT)
posted by swift at 9:40 AM PST - 27 comments

Happy New Year! While you're having some Dim Sum and King Cake at your parish Pancake Supper, remember to celebrate the Year of the Black Horse and get those fireworks set off before Lent begins! Oh, my. Now my head is swimming... have to go lie down.
posted by dwivian at 8:35 AM PST - 8 comments

Do you think there is a possible connection between the events (NYT headlines): Attack Possible in U.S. or Yemen, the F.B.I. Warns and Small Fire Becomes Inferno, Burning Homes in California ?
posted by semmi at 8:30 AM PST - 26 comments

House set to vote on campaign finance reform It would be the biggest overhaul of the nation's campaign finance laws since Watergate. "We should win it," Shays, R-Conn., said Monday. "We've had the votes in the past and, frankly, I think our cause is just." Some people are against it.
posted by kliuless at 7:53 AM PST - 30 comments

Compassionate Conservatism? Why is anyone surprised by the difference between campaign rhetoric and action once in office?
posted by chris0495 at 7:34 AM PST - 71 comments

Shock! U.S. takes all medals in snowboarding Was anyone honestly surprised by this? Or (for that matter) when USA Basketball beats all opponents in the summer Games? We don't tend to win in things like figure skating, luge, bobsled, etc. ... so we add events like this, then trumpet them when we sweep the competition...
posted by krewson at 6:39 AM PST - 65 comments

Happy Mardi Gras
posted by danOstuporStar at 6:03 AM PST - 19 comments

Oscar Nominations Let the bickering begin...
posted by ColdChef at 5:53 AM PST - 86 comments

The Valentine Candy Heart Generator scribes the perfect romantic sentiment for the discerning geek in your life, assuming you can express yourself in eight letters or less. An oldy but a goody, for those 'net neophytes among us.
posted by johnnyace at 5:41 AM PST - 4 comments

www.nevergetoveryou Instant musical classic? With lyrics like: "I stayed up all night - Construction web-site - Just click on our fight - And watch me crying" how could you go wrong? Make sure you check out the trippy animated music video. I guess, like Gorillaz, Simon & Milo are "not real", but it looks like they're huge in Canada.
posted by owillis at 3:04 AM PST - 15 comments

Released today: Al Qaeda's Mr Big? Lotfi Raissi has been in a British prison for five months, accused by the FBI of training the September 11th hijackers in their deadly mission. But where is the evidence?
posted by asok at 2:49 AM PST - 2 comments

When a Palm Pilot is mixed with an oven pilot light, you know it's going to be an awful mess. But if the Pizza was good, it was all worth it.
posted by h0ney at 11:44 PM PST - 6 comments

Jerry Springer: the Opera has become a cult classic in London! Is this another testimony to the death of high culture or the popularity of American talk shows like Jerry Springer? Has anybody seen or heard about this themselves?
posted by crog at 11:18 PM PST - 7 comments

Here's Entertainment Weekly's Top 5 Surprisingly Romantic Films for Valentine's Day. (Star Man!?) This begs the question: who actually reads Entertainment Weekly? Oh, and what are YOUR Top 5 Romantic Films for Valentine's Day?
posted by adrober at 9:49 PM PST - 41 comments

Oldest fossilised vomit pile uncovered "We believe this is the first time the existence of fossil vomit on a grand scale has been proven beyond reasonable doubt"
posted by srboisvert at 9:29 PM PST - 10 comments

The 22nd Annual Razzie Nominations are in. Looks like Tom Green stands to be the big winner this year.
posted by BoatMeme at 8:38 PM PST - 8 comments

What were the skating judges watching? What a robbery! The Canadian pair, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were just fantastic, and deserved the gold. It is hard to imagine what the judges were thinking, because they had it all - technical merit, drama, passion, and excellence. And after the decision, dignity.
posted by wpeyton at 8:34 PM PST - 68 comments

Now this is progress: FAA-Certified Bomb Resistant Aircraft Baggage Container. Since before Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbee in 1988, this technology has been in development. It has finally passed the FAA test. Check out the cool video of the tests. I, for one, will feel safer in the air.
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 8:19 PM PST - 5 comments

Since I recently suffered a back injury, I have a new appreciation of ergonomically correct workstations. Are these the workstations of the future?
posted by alball at 6:22 PM PST - 15 comments

New FBI warning about imminent terrorist strike A bit more specific this time
posted by Slagman at 6:21 PM PST - 36 comments

Olympic Farce "...there has been an attempt over the past few years to hijack the Olympic spirit, to minimize national pride and turn the events into a UNICEF-style celebration of global harmony and cooperation. The organizers are trying to turn the Olympics from a series of sporting contests into a multinational festival..."
posted by bunnyfire at 5:52 PM PST - 29 comments

The Secret Lives of Numbers A couple of programmers took it upon themselves to use "a popular search engine"(just say it: Google) to determine the relative popularity of every integer up to one million. Even if you just take it as a big case of overthink, it's kind of fun to play with the Java-based visual representation, which provides some of the terms associated with the numbers as you click on them.
[Short warning inside; read before visiting.]
posted by Su at 5:44 PM PST - 20 comments

What exactly does "certified organic" mean? The Consumer's Union has whipped up this good (if incomplete) idea of a resource for people to find out exactly what those so-called "eco-labels" mean. I had heard "free-range" means almost nothing, but didn't find info here on that. But I did learn a few things about how some labels are skewed by industry. Potentially a great site if they ever get around to populating their database and lose the dumb flash stuff.
posted by brookish at 4:38 PM PST - 4 comments

Damn, that's just sad. 13 kids. 4 moms. 1 dad. No dairy products, no sunshine, and apparently no clue. One child is dead of malnutrition, others have ricketts, and none of the adults are cooperating with authorities.
posted by ilsa at 3:51 PM PST - 25 comments

Bush abandons national strategy to bridge the digital divide. After a year of public speculation over whether the White House was committed to expanding Internet access and skills to all of America's citizens, the administration has finally broken its silence. In its FY 2003 budget, the White House stripped over $100 million in public investments previously available for community technology grants and IT training programs--programs that offer real payoffs to rural communities, the working poor, minorities and children.
posted by badstone at 3:47 PM PST - 20 comments

Manic Miner Believe me when I say that suddenly every British reader who had a computer in the 1980s has started to grin. Well here it is, just one click away. What the heck was that yellow thing in the 'Central Cavern'? Also at this Java ZX Spectrum Emulator site, see the sequel Jet Set Willy. [via linkmachinego]
posted by feelinglistless at 3:28 PM PST - 5 comments

"Hold on, please..." Please! Do this! If we all do it, we can change the world! A national No-Call list would be great, but that assumes that telemarketers will follow the law.
posted by o2b at 3:11 PM PST - 45 comments

The Battle Over Bush's Gov. Papers. What are they hiding? Executive order blocking Presidential papers, refusing to turn over Energy Taskforce member list, and now this! There must be something to hide. But what?!?!?
posted by bas67 at 2:42 PM PST - 10 comments

Jack Henry Abbott committed suicide in his cell. He was found yesterday, apparently, but I guess it didn't hit the wires until today. I would've figured someone would have mentioned it here since Mailer was a topic of interest just a few days ago.
posted by sherman at 2:38 PM PST - 1 comment

Who wants to be a saintly millionaire? I thought stealing was wrong...or is this just a homage?
posted by kirkaracha at 1:28 PM PST - 5 comments

Kelly vs. Arriba (PDF) Arriba search engine has been determined to be infringing on the copyright of photographer Leslie Kelly. The reason? Arriba displays thumbnails of copyrighted images in their search results, and displays the original page in a frameset. What kind of precedent will this set for Google and the rest of the web?
posted by johnjreeve at 10:55 AM PST - 17 comments

Are any other fathers of daughters shuddering with helpless grief at this movie? I Am Sam, with Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer, has recieved the most abusive and the most effusive reviews. Moving exploration, or exploitative tear-fest, about the rights of disabled people to look after their children? Or is it just the ultimate weepy catharsis for Pious "New" Dads?
posted by theplayethic at 10:27 AM PST - 27 comments

Use the natural squatting position with Nature's Platform. "Two-thirds of humanity use the squatting position to answer the call of nature. Doctors and Yoga teachers recommend it for more complete elimination and to prevent hernias, hemorrhoids and colon disease." And what a fine Valentine's Day gift it would make too!
posted by homunculus at 10:19 AM PST - 28 comments

Iraq Calls Bush's Bluff on Weapons Scrutiny. Former U.N. Weapons inspector Scott Ritter claims that Iraq's new attitude toward inspections might undermine attempts to end Saddam Hussein's regime.
posted by Ty Webb at 10:06 AM PST - 7 comments

Is Comcast modifying your packets? With the transition from @home to Comcast it seems that Comcast is considering the possibility of intercepting your port 80 web traffic and inserting ads or selling your browsing history to marketers. According to Federal law isn't monitoring and altering your traffic illegal or does that not apply to large corporations? With a possible AT&T/Comcast merger this is a little scary.
posted by suprfli at 9:49 AM PST - 17 comments

The America-Hating British? In the UK's Spectator : "And this time it’s not just the usual America-haters at the Guardian and the BBC, but the likes of Alice Thomson, Stephen Glover, Alasdair Palmer, Matthew Parris, my most esteemed Telegraph and Speccie colleagues...many people over here had no idea quite how ridiculous you are. You’re shocked by us, we’re laughing at you. In fairness, instead of coasting on non-existent diseases and wild guesses at the weather, the always elegant Matthew Parris at least attempted to expand Guantanamo into a general thesis. ‘We seek to project the message that there are rules to which all nations are subject,’ he wrote in the Times. ‘America has a simpler message: kill Americans, and you’re dead meat.’ This caused endless amusement over here. As the Internet wag Steven den Beste commented, ‘By George, I think he’s got it!....’ PS What is an internet wag anyway?
posted by Voyageman at 8:45 AM PST - 19 comments

Chocolate french fries? I thought Heinz might have gone too far with green ketchup, but Cocoa Crispers, "brown chocolate fries designed for kids with a sweet tooth" really make my stomach turn. Also announced: Crunchy Rings - basically Tater Tots with a hole in the middle. Yum.
posted by ry at 8:39 AM PST - 38 comments

Could this new digital camera technology finally spell the death of traditional emulsion-film cameras? According to inventor Carver Mead, the X3 photographic sensor chip "delivers two to three times the image-producing power of today's digital cameras." Although not the first to try to bring this promising technology to the market place, Carver believes his new start-up company "Faveon," has made the breakthrough necessary to usher in the age of affordable 35mm film quality digital photography. link via techdirt
posted by lucien at 7:45 AM PST - 42 comments

This year's Anti-Bloggies have been posted. I won an award for a characteristic of my site that faded into relative obscurity more than a year ago, but hey, free gift certificate!
posted by nickd at 7:35 AM PST - 12 comments

Pssst...Got A Good Caption For A New Yorker Cartoon? Because the winning entry in this year's caption jamboree isn't very funny. Neither are the other shortlisted suggestions. It may be up to The New Yorker's standards, but it's certainly not up to MetaFilter's...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:09 AM PST - 25 comments

Wanna Cure Back Pain?? Australian Freestyle Skier Jaqui Cooper drank a potion of Diet Coke and crushed cockroaches to help cure her fractured vertebra. Finally, something roaches are useful for!
posted by Lanternjmk at 6:11 AM PST - 11 comments

Click and pay? Imagine if one company held the right to collect a fee each time an Internet user clicked on a Web site link...
posted by Spoon at 3:31 AM PST - 16 comments

Men in skirts are a meme-wannabe, popping up often, but never quite breaking out into the mass culture, or at least not recently. But if someone as puissant as this guy can wear a Little Black Dress without blushing, perhaps this guy can, too. [obSkirtman link] Me, I'll stick with chinos.
link found on Robot Wisdom
posted by Slithy_Tove at 3:09 AM PST - 13 comments

The world of the laid-off techie. "Human resource experts say the underemployment trend in the current economic cycle is just starting to emerge. Many workers got the ax when mass layoffs peaked in the summer and fall of 2001, and they coasted on several months of severance and unemployment insurance, which generally lasts six months. With the tech job market still in the doldrums, they're now considering new gigs as waitresses, bartenders, forklift drivers or baby sitters--anything to pay the rent. " I wish the media hadn't/didn't focus so much attention on the suits who seem to only be able to "fail upwards" versus the folks in the trenches. (via /.)
posted by owillis at 2:56 AM PST - 64 comments

Artificial womb. Goodbye women, hello complex ethical debates. ... artificial wombs raise the prospect that gay couples could give 'birth' to their own children. 'This would no doubt horrify right-wingers, while the implications for abortion law might well please them,' he added.
posted by geoff. at 9:23 PM PST - 27 comments

Bob Mould on wrestling, the internet, and mp3s. With his first new album in years coming out, Bob's got a new outlook that's different than the old open taping/bootleg philosophy. Since he's distributing his own work, and paying for it all, you're taking money out of his hands, so he's going with the honor system. Is the value of music really going down, or will Bob have no problem finding people to pay for it?
posted by mathowie at 5:56 PM PST - 29 comments

What if they threw a Winter Olympics and nobody came? ... because they felt it was too cold? The Dutch Olympic team had a hard time finding someone to carry their flag, the winter "athletes" complained it was too cold to bother with.
posted by tsarfan at 5:55 PM PST - 30 comments

The brain is like the Internet.... Scary, huh...especially since things can go wrong...
posted by bunnyfire at 5:25 PM PST - 4 comments

Lo! Behold the power of the internet!
That'll teach the guy to put sharply-worded messages on his own property. The nerve of some people.
posted by phalkin at 4:54 PM PST - 7 comments

Police Arrest an allegedly Fake Nun. But really, is she any more dishonest than a regular church is? "Say, why is that priest driving a Porsche?"
posted by kingmissile at 2:08 PM PST - 10 comments

Bigots are alive and well in America. Here we are still fighting for equal rights for all Americans. Some will find this link uplifting because of the outpouring of community support, but to me it's just another sign of how quickly intolerance turns to attempted murder.
posted by fleener at 11:25 AM PST - 53 comments

Barry White to Serenade Sharks: Sharks are to be serenaded . . . at The National Sea Life Centre in Birmingham in an experiment to help them mate. His love songs and other romantic tunes will be pumped in to tanks containing dogfish, starry smooth hounds and tope. Just in time for Valentine's Day ;) Thanks again to the fabulous Nutlog.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:09 AM PST - 8 comments

Chicken Soup for the soulless? Is Psychology screwing us all up? From messing up the civil rights movement , medicalizing grief, inventing faux illnesses and treating them , planting false memories , to diagnosing 25% of the United States with PTSD on October 11th, the industry/profession of psychology and its drug prescribing cousin psychiatry seem to be both the sloppiest and most ethically bankrupt scientific field. Is a diet of steady chicken soup for the soul actually toxic?
posted by srboisvert at 9:54 AM PST - 40 comments

There's another Enron out there: Global Crossing. Same tale on a slightly smaller scale, but one big difference - the politicians who benefited were mostly Democrats.
posted by Jos Bleau at 6:57 AM PST - 18 comments

This article was mentioned briefly in another thread several days ago, but I thought it was time it had its own forum, since it's quite possibly the stupidest, most infuriating article you'll read all year (and it's only February). Let's see: poverty is positive because, "hey, I'm a writer!" Right. Now go get a job. (Scalzi has a fine piece about the article).
posted by sassone at 6:38 AM PST - 98 comments

Is this the last days of the Empire, or just the beginning? America the most powerful country since Roman Empire. I for sure hope that the good old US of A don´t meet the same destiny as the Roman Empire...But!? Has there been any country (empire) that survived being the biggest and best(?). Usually i read a lot about Swedens time of glory some couple of hundred years ago, now hoping that my grandchildren won´t read the same about the States. Should we be worried about what the history tells us?
posted by Ulwen at 4:25 AM PST - 68 comments

Enron? Nader is glad you asked While Democrats are readily dismissive of Nader's efforts, claiming he wrecked their chnces in the last election, the Demorats and the Republicans seemed incapable of standing up to the corporations and the largesse being handed out. Could Nader have made a difference? Or, better, can he now make a difference?
posted by Postroad at 4:02 AM PST - 8 comments

The perfect antidote to PopIdol cack - speakers up darlings!! :-)
posted by Arqa at 2:32 AM PST - 5 comments

Will wins Pop Idol - the contest to win a recording contract finally comes to a conclusion. To me, this programme just about showed how easy it is for anyone to end up in the charts. Now it's time for them to find out what the music industry is really like...
posted by robzster1977 at 12:43 AM PST - 7 comments

Seanbaby's reaction to terrorism. I agree with everything he says; I just wish someone with more credentials was there to say it.
posted by MarkO at 12:37 AM PST - 49 comments

Message to Pres. Bush: Please stop kissing Saudi butt and kindly tell them to go to hell!

Bandar was instructed to cut off further discussion between the two countries. The time had come to "get busy rearranging our lives in the Middle East." Bandar's message was a shock to the Bush administration... But over the next two days, the United States went to extraordinary lengths to try to repair the relationship, its closest with any Arab country, finally satisfying the Saudis with a personal letter to Abdullah from the President himself.
posted by Rastafari at 12:32 AM PST - 8 comments

It ain't so dark anymore. Dark matter seems poised to assume its place among those astronomical phenomena that were predicted to exist before being observed. The planet Neptune and black holes to mention two of them. The last 100 years have really been a boom time for astronomy, and they're not slowing down.
posted by holycola at 11:53 PM PST - 5 comments

Little Man in a box Try not to let him push you around.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:42 PM PST - 16 comments

Go for the gold! Concord 2002: Site of the upcoming Loebner Prize. Can reigning champion A.L.I.C.E. repeat her triumph? Chat bots from around the globe are scouting out their rivals on the AI competitive circuit and studying their crib notes.
posted by otherchaz at 7:04 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

I.B.M.'s MetaPad (NYTimes link) is a slender black rectangle, that works as a PDA and a PC. Best part it's non-OS-centric. In desktop mode it uses Windows XP, in PDA mode it uses Palm OS, also should work with Linux. Not to be confused with Metapad. [Via SVN]
posted by riffola at 6:12 PM PST - 19 comments

If you've ever worked in retail, you MUST download this song. Apparently, back in the mid 1960's, Woolworth decided that the best way to motivate their managers was to hire one Michael Brown to compose and sing a snappy pop tune just for them, with predictably bizarre results. Here at the store, it's become our new anthem. For more info the tune and it's creator go here and scroll down.
posted by jonmc at 3:55 PM PST - 24 comments

"I spent an interesting evening recently with a grain of salt" This could explain a lot....computer generated, no less.
posted by bunnyfire at 1:50 PM PST - 13 comments

21 assisted suicides in 2001. Physician assisted suicide, officially known as Oregon's Death with Dignity Act, has been used by 91 people since 1998. The Oregon Public Health Service has released its Annual Report, and the demographics are very interesting. The fear-mongering critics have been proved wrong in that it's not poor, uninsured, uneducated or minorities asking for this, yet the Bush administration and John Ashcroft are trying to nullify the law. Is physician assisted suicide wrong, and if so, why? Is it the business of the Federal government to interfere in a State issue such as this, and is this just another wedge of their pro-life agenda?
posted by Mack Twain at 11:58 AM PST - 15 comments

Senator Hollings makes the case for a special council to look into the Enron affair. (NY Times link). San Antonio columnist Jan Jarboe Russell argues for the same. Here's a Guardian article on the situation.
posted by Ty Webb at 11:40 AM PST - 11 comments

Princess Margaret dies It was only a matter of time. The palace have announced a private funeral for family and a few friends.
posted by feelinglistless at 11:32 AM PST - 23 comments

The 19th Winter Olympics are now officially under way, begun with America's take on the traditional opening ceremonies. What moved you to tears? What made you gag? Were you proud to be an American, or so embarrassed that you couldn't watch? Was the WTC flag presentation tasteful? Was John Williams' score inspirational? Did you like the ice dancing, the fireworks, and the Native Indian celebrations? Who did you want to see light the Olympic caldron?
posted by johnnyace at 8:00 AM PST - 73 comments

Some undiluted Brother Cornel West for ya. Now, who could give this man a professional reprimand? A great 3 hour clip from CNN's Book Tv. "Between Coltrane and Chekov is where I live... think in love, fight in justice". Shameless big-name-dropper: total genius. And the controversial CD? Mnnff... preachy performance, watery r'n'b. Not quite Gil Scott Heron or Last Poets. But not a firing issue, President Summers.
posted by theplayethic at 6:35 AM PST - 19 comments

Got a taste for quasi-celebrity schadenfreude? Then glut yourself on the promotional materials of C-tier entertainers at the Hal Morris Museum. Care to slip down another couple of rungs on the ladder of fame? Have a look at the Celebrities of Real Estate. (thanks, Misterpants!)
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:18 AM PST - 2 comments

Designomatic Worthy of a slight chuckle.
posted by bjgeiger at 4:43 AM PST - 7 comments

Enough Already With The Journalists - What Do The Finest Political Philosophers Think About Terrorism? There aren't many of them. On the liberal side of things, apart from John Rawls, Michael Walzer [here's a fascinating interview with him]is probably the most original and intelligent pluralist alive. In the above-linked article in Dissent he sets out the questions that we should be asking ourselves right now about terrorism. Something tells me we should be paying attention. But what would our answers be? Or are we too caught up with the banality of columnists and pundits to actually face up to the thoughts of a real political thinker?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:42 AM PST - 27 comments

The Case of the Head-Butting Hoopster. High-school basketball players collide during a game; the guy from the visiting team allegedly head-butts the other but is called for only a personal foul. On the home team is the son of the local district attorney, who is sitting (or perhaps ranting) in the stands. He's just sure that a crime has been committed, so ... (more inside)
posted by diddlegnome at 1:27 AM PST - 11 comments

Ask and you shall receive. Move over, Amazon Honor System! Now you can sign up for a one-click service that lets visitors to your Web site donate something you'll really appreciate: oral sex. Best of all, they don't keep a percentage of your donations like Amazon and PayPal do.
posted by kindall at 12:29 AM PST - 6 comments

I blame Ray Liotta for my inevitable death. Ray Liotta makes me want to kill myself.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 12:08 AM PST - 14 comments

Someone please get this man some pancakes.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:38 PM PST - 31 comments

The New Voice of MSNBC: Twisted Sister's Dee Snider He's the new voiceover guy at MSNBC.I knew I recognized that voice, I just couldn't place it. It sort of makes you wonder who other networks might get to do voiceovers.
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 8:04 PM PST - 13 comments

Too bad I don't have an extra $80,000, because this underwater imaging system could really help my fishing (and I could also tell even better stories about the one that got away.)
posted by Dinzie at 6:57 PM PST - 1 comment

how few pixels are needed to still be "porn"? "...I started experimenting with thumbnails that my mom could tell were porn. Then I started applying filters and such to see if I could obscure the suggestive content into a more abstracted form..." Has this art touched upon a new art?
posted by jcterminal at 6:01 PM PST - 24 comments

What should I do with my life? "I hit on an incredible wellspring of honest sentiment. Complete strangers opened their homes and their lives up to me, and confessed feelings and events they hadn't revealed to their closest friends. This was at a time when the stock market was falling, our faith in new technology had been lost, and the result of a Florida election left many feeling like they didn't live in a democracy. Everyone was reassessing what mattered to them and what they believed in." Preview page from Po Bronson's next book, still a work in progress.
posted by Calebos at 5:48 PM PST - 13 comments

Is it Live or Is it Moronic? Yes ladies and gentlemen, though they still deny it or have no comment, many famous allegedly talented performers in the music industry do actually lip synch. Since Milli Vanilli accusations have been the norm, [sarcasm] but Inside Edition reported it today as if this was a brand new discovery, so it must be true. [/sarcasm] ...If a concert is advertised as live, shouldn't the advertising also specify whether or not the live vocalist actually vocalizes? What are the legalities involved if irrevocable proof is ever found? Or is it irrelevant because today's sophisticated audienes don't mind it when their favorite music performers lie to them?
posted by ZachsMind at 5:35 PM PST - 32 comments

There is so little that's original on the web these days. Everything seems a bit recycled, plagiarised, stolen, revisited, reworked, repackaged. Especially in the personal publishing world.
posted by Duug at 3:42 PM PST - 39 comments

Enduring Freedom: The action figures Hong Kong hobbyists collect action figures with an intensity that in Japan would be labled Otaku-like. These action figures are more than toys, they are miniature replicas of real and modern weapons. Now you can buy your Covert CIA Agent Jones action figure and direct Long Range Airstrikes at home.
posted by AsiaInsider at 3:41 PM PST - 5 comments

'A willing participant'? A woman parties and cavorts with athletes, brags about posing for Playboy. Fast forward a couple of days and she presses rape charges. NFL defensive lineman is one of the guys supposedly holding the camera videotaping the sex, so he's charged. He's got a record of drug use so he's no angel either. Of course, "no means no" but what was she doing there in the first place?
posted by owillis at 3:33 PM PST - 21 comments

Missing Schüss, the stylized skier, or Mikhail Potapych Troptygin, the bear cub? Pick your favorite designs from the Olympic mascots, logos and torches at the Olympic Almanac. The pickings are slim.
posted by liam at 2:57 PM PST - 6 comments

Interview with Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, the two French authors of the increasingly infamous book "Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth." That's the book in which former FBI deputy director John O'Neill claimed that U.S. oil interests were an obstacle to fighting terrorism.
posted by homunculus at 2:24 PM PST - 4 comments

Leonard Pinth-Garnell wishes he had it so bad. Or, if a reinterpretation of modern fare isn't your bag, baby, try this retelling of a timeless classic. (Just don't you go talkin' trash 'bout my peeps!)
posted by verdezza at 2:17 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Did someone say pancakes? [RealPlayer required] PlayMail by AT&T Labs allows you to send emails read by a talking face. If you get froggy, you can even create your own talking yak, chiffarobe or even yourself.
posted by pedantic at 1:44 PM PST - 15 comments

"Who’ll stop the rain? Apparently our government and a few of their closest friends in the military industrial-complex. " According to this piece in Alternet, there's been an ongoing US Gov't. project since at least the 1970s whose aim is to manipulate the weather, largely to give us yet another edge in military superiority. If you have more time than I do, read this Air Force white paper on the subject - Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025. I found the executive summary to be rather chilling.
posted by martk at 12:53 PM PST - 4 comments

"Why we talk about Reagan"
posted by bunnyfire at 12:26 PM PST - 81 comments

Road to Demolition Man? Arnie as California Gov? Thank goodness for T3 and True Lies 2....
posted by tetsuo at 12:06 PM PST - 6 comments

Killer Dog Trial... ...continues to get weirder and weirder. The longer this story goes on, the stranger it gets. 3-way sex with a convicted felon, who belongs to a white supremacy group. The dogs are for protecting Meth labs for the group. The couple adopts "Cornfed" Schneider (the convict) as their son (he is 39 years old) because they can't marry him (polygamy). Add on to it charges of Bestiality between the female defendant and the male dog "Bane," and the story just gets more and more interesting. The story so far will be coming out in this week's Rolling Stone Magazine.
posted by da5id at 11:24 AM PST - 16 comments

You lookin' at me? Participate in an intriguing art project (results will be presented in an art gallery). You know what you're thinking, but what are they thinking about you? [a project by Kristin Anderson]
posted by jacknose at 11:15 AM PST - 4 comments

Muhammad O' Ali. Geneologists have uncovered his Irish roots. His great grandfather was an Irish emigree who married an African American woman in Kentucky.
posted by Lanternjmk at 10:42 AM PST - 12 comments

Town passes law banning nudity... ... but more notable is the section of the law banning erections in males over 10 years old. Why was a law like this needed? (link via Obscure Store)
posted by krewson at 10:37 AM PST - 15 comments

Eat a candy bar - go to Jail. An update on a previous Mefi thread: Hemp foods are now illegal as per new DEA rules that took effect this Monday, 02/06. (PDF version is available as well.) This Canada study shows that it would take the consumption of a hell of a lot of Hemp products to reach the same THC levels as Marijuana.
posted by bkdelong at 10:09 AM PST - 13 comments

Nevada's Governor Kenny Guinn and Idaho's own Senator Larry Craig duke it out over nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain. Of course the plan has no shortage of detractors like "Yucca Mountain Facts", and the Las Vegas Sun has done a pile of reporting on it: their "dossier", and "science vs. politics" (first in a five-part series, all of which is now online). The state should have a copy of the Evironmental Impact Statement somewhere, too. It's fun for the whole family! Guinn and Craig's stories are part of the High Country News' syndicated Writers on the Range series.
posted by dcehr at 9:43 AM PST - 3 comments

Here comes the backlash. Like a torrent of crap down Main St., Blogtown after a heavy rain.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 8:59 AM PST - 13 comments

The Kansas State Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling sentencing an 18-year-old man to 17 years in prison. His crime was performing consensual fellatio on a 15-year-old boy. Had this been a heterosexual act, his sentence would have been a year and three months maximum.
posted by grrarrgh00 at 8:05 AM PST - 60 comments

Ohio school board considers adding "Intelligent Design Theory" to science curriculum. I wish I could find better links than these. I've been hearing about this on NPR every morning this week, but have been unable to find any news links - I can't even find the Ohio State School Board site. They are debating whether or not to start teaching IDT, which seems to be Creationism with a pseudo-scientific background. Here is a transcript of comments that were given to the board by John Calvert, J.D., a supporter of IDT. Anybody know any more about this theory?
posted by starvingartist at 7:50 AM PST - 64 comments

America Too Patriotic, Says Norman Mailer
posted by StOne at 7:03 AM PST - 51 comments

Art in the twenty-first century. Twenty-one artists who are defining the visual arts for a new millennium discuss their life, their work, and their vision in Art:21 - Art in the Twenty-First Century, a four-part series premiering Fall 2001 on PBS. Art:21 offers a unique glimpse into 21 artists' personal experiences, sources of inspiration, and creative processes. The last episode played last night, but the site has a wealth of information on some amazing artists. Did anyone catch this?
posted by mad at 7:01 AM PST - 8 comments

White men can't jump...or do much of anything else. "Look how white I am. Am I lame or what? Can't jump. Can't dance. Can't run. Can't dress. Can't hang. It's O.K. I know I'm a pathetic White Guy. I'm at peace with it. In fact I laugh about it all the time. I have to. Black athletes today love to make fun of us White Guys." Does the White Guy have feelings?
posted by Werd7 at 6:33 AM PST - 46 comments

Ketchup? Mustard? Relish? How much are you willing to pay for these little extras. In this prison, you'll now have to pay per packet.
posted by LinemanBear at 6:21 AM PST - 18 comments

Foreigners and Rulers, this is an issue that albeit being an old one keeps cropping up, here is her official position. I am interested in opinions of whether you think it is okay for a foreigner (born and raised to "adulthood") to become a political leader of another country. And is anyone aware of a similar situation in others parts of the world where this has either been considered or has occurred.
posted by bittennails at 5:59 AM PST - 37 comments

Scientists in the USA have discovered [NYTimes] a new cell in the eye responsible for resetting the biological clock. Its being called "heretical".. Not every day, Dr. Provencio said, do scientists find a new body function.
posted by stbalbach at 5:54 AM PST - 3 comments

Media Conspiracies Revealed! Ever notice unusual references to "creamy thighs," "okra," or the phrase, "it was as if an occult hand had. . . " in your daily newspaper? From The Poynter Foundation website, candid confessions from journalists about how they fight the boredom of writing daily news. It's a conspiracy, all right--"right down the cock."
posted by busbyism at 5:53 AM PST - 5 comments

Scientists in Australia have discovered a new gene. Called BRCA3, this genetic mutation causes up to 10% of the breast cancer cases which run within families. This breakthrough completes the search for the trilogy of gene mutations. The first two gene mutation markers were discovered in 1994 and 1995 respectively.
posted by lucien at 5:45 AM PST - 1 comment

Limp Bizkit wannabes triumph over teachers integrity. Has the Internet become a recycling whirlpool of ideas? Are there any original thinkers in this next generation?
posted by Stretch at 5:38 AM PST - 13 comments

Limp Bizkit Steal Music. Well there's a surprise. Whilst crossing the country supposedly auditioning replacements for Monkey Boy, the world's most forgettable band, headed by Interscope VP Fred Durst, are taking the opportunity to steal licks from stacks of no-hoper guitarists for their own use without credit or recompense.
posted by GrahamVM at 5:05 AM PST - 34 comments

"Sexual dreams. Most people have experienced them. Some people welcome them for their intensity and excitement; some people fear them as they induce guilt and shame. But, perhaps more so than any other type of dream, they always intrigue. They get our attention and "seduce" us into taking notice of our inner world."
posted by giantkicks at 1:39 AM PST - 7 comments

Great Jumpin' Jehosephats of Juxtoposition! The American Taliban & how he and his community from which he sprung should be viewed: Each side making their case.
One however, brilliant and equanimious. The other whiny and accusatory. Decide: A or B
posted by crasspastor at 1:26 AM PST - 9 comments

Presidential Makeover? Instant freelance political cartoons. Kind of like those games where you use a magnet to rearrange metal shavings into a guy's funny beard, only it's the Commander-in-Chief. (requires Flash)
posted by samuelad at 12:09 AM PST - 1 comment

So it's finally come down to this. E-content, 2002 style. Could there be any more conclusive proof that the dotcom era is over?
posted by aaron at 9:16 PM PST - 21 comments

Scalia: Think the dealth penalty wrong? Resign In particular, he says, any Catholic jurist who agrees with the Vatican's anti-death penalty stance should resign. One to raise an eyebrow over, given that Scalia - a jurist who just happens to be Catholic - has been a consistent foe of Roe v. Wade and legalized abortion. He says his opposition to Roe, however, is mainly legal, and adds that his religious views should play no role in his decisions.
posted by raysmj at 8:31 PM PST - 24 comments

Former Playmate of the Year wins another battle against Playboy. 1981 POY, Terri Welles has been fighting Playboy magazine for the last four years over the fact that she wants to mention the world famous nudie mag's name on her (nude) web site, in her bio, and in her meta tags.

Apparently Hef's lawyers seem to think this is a bad thing, claiming that it would infinge on the Playboy trademark. Monday the appeals judge disagreed. My question is, why would something like this get Hef in such a huff?
posted by tsarfan at 5:26 PM PST - 17 comments

New World Order? As Israel and India form a new friendship, it seems that Israel's arch enemy, Arafat, is forming alliance with China, India's arch enemy. Apologizes for linking to DrudgeReport for the Arafat story, but that's all I could find.
posted by Rastafari at 4:58 PM PST - 15 comments

Palestinian, Israeli coaches come to US to play peace Sometimes, not too often, you find a glimmer of hope even in an area of the world that is so troubled and chaotic. But could they have done this in the Middle East or did they need "to get out of town" in order to do it?
posted by Postroad at 3:19 PM PST - 3 comments

"This is not about a team; this is about a territory." "If Americans can't light up the room during the next two weeks with a howl for a speedskater from small-town Wisconsin who lives in a mobile home and works at Home Depot and listens to the Dixie Chicks ... then when?"
posted by owillis at 3:10 PM PST - 28 comments

Brain tumor suspect guilty, again. A follow-up to this, wherein a man tried to blame his brain tumor for his walking uninvited into his neighbors' house and getting into bed with the wife, who freaked when she realized what was going on. Last week, he was convicted of stalking. On Monday, the judge convicted him of sexual abuse and burglary. The previous story left some unanswered questions. I can't answer all of them, but there's more info inside.
posted by diddlegnome at 2:52 PM PST - 2 comments

The Book of Sand - a hypertext puzzle (via the Garden of Forking Paths). "There are people who barely feel poetry, and they are generally dedicated to teaching it." Jorge Luis Borges.
posted by liam at 2:52 PM PST - 9 comments

First genetic evidence of macroevolution found. …the scientists show how mutations in regulatory genes that guide the embryonic development of crustaceans and fruit flies allowed aquatic crustacean-like arthropods, with limbs on every segment of their bodies, to evolve 400 million years ago into a radically different body plan: the terrestrial six-legged insects.
The link is to a press release with a basic explanation; if you've got a subscription to Nature, you can read the whole article there.(via /.)
posted by darukaru at 1:36 PM PST - 7 comments

Eric's Treasure Trove of Life. The cellular automaton known as 'Conway's Game of Life', that is. Many things to see, from the Table to the B-Heptomino, and even an AK47 Reaction. There's a huge community out there devoted to discovering new 'still lifes', 'puffers' and 'induction coils'. Who would have guessed Life could be so interesting?
posted by chrismear at 1:14 PM PST - 5 comments

The Blue Marble. Adjust your gamma settings kids. The Earth with true-color imagery at 1-kilometer resolution.
posted by pedantic at 1:07 PM PST - 29 comments

Howard Stern bets $100,000.00 in Las Vegas and the winnings would have gone to one of three contestants whose story is the saddest. The woman with the dying daughter actually played, decided to hit on 15 and busted. Sorry lady, your kid's just gonna have to croak from brain cancer while you're working and and struggling to pay her hospital bills.
posted by Modem Ovary at 12:48 PM PST - 23 comments

The new Mormon Temple in Snowflake Arizona is temporarily open to the public before its dedication next month, however the Masonic-like rituals that take place inside are still top secret. Shhh, don't tell.
posted by johnnyace at 12:46 PM PST - 24 comments

Their Circular Life (requires Flash) - a way to explore a few environments. [via photographica]
posted by gluechunk at 12:28 PM PST - 5 comments

It's not a "sit-in" but it rhymes with it. "Caroline Estes is organizing a mass protest of a new Austin police policy to ticket women who flash their breasts at the upcoming Mardi Gras celebration on Sixth Street."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:19 AM PST - 46 comments

HOP draws beautiful abstract images and real-time animations, based on "strange attractor" formulas, enhanced by mathematical and graphical special effects. It's a unique interactive fractal generator, but doubles as a cute screensaver if you're feeling lazy (runs in DOS/windows).
posted by walrus at 11:04 AM PST - 2 comments

Jakob Nielsen believes that Cleartype can save you $2000/year. Um, yeah, Jakob.
Go just for the experience of seeing the God of Ugly Design say, "We desperately need better-looking computers..."
[link via typographer.com]
posted by Su at 10:01 AM PST - 34 comments

The miniature earth. A beautifully crafted Shockwave site, in your choice of Spanish, English, Portuguese or Italian that should give you pause to reflect just how fortunate you are.
posted by Lynsey at 10:00 AM PST - 45 comments

LucasFilm vs. Enron. The people over at LucasFilm aren't very happy that Enron used Star Wars related names for the phony comapanies used to hide millions in debt. Chewco, JEDI, Kenobe Inc, Obi 1 Holdings LLC among the names used.
posted by Lanternjmk at 9:59 AM PST - 11 comments

Israel's Peace Army Mobilizes
"We will not continue to fight beyond the green line [Israel's pre-1967 border with the West Bank and Gaza] in order to rule, expel, destroy, blockade, assassinate, starve and humiliate an entire people."

This from an increasingly vocal group of Israeli soldiers and officers who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories. An encouraging sign of hope that there are a growing number of people in Israel who strongly disagree with the current policy of subjugation.
posted by mapalm at 9:59 AM PST - 9 comments

Remember the 15 year old that crashed a cessna into a Florida building? His suicide note is up at the smoking gun, and apparently "Al Qaeda and other organizations have met with me several times to discuss the option of me joining" and he thought "Osama bin Laden is absolutely justified" in a screed that blasts US involvement with Israel. Kids today.
posted by mathowie at 9:32 AM PST - 33 comments

Attempted hijack of United Airlines flight to Argentina...
A passenger was seized by cabin crew today as he attempted to enter the cockpit on an American Airlines flight from the US to Argentina today...
I don't think this is anything al-Quaida related, but I thought it was worth the post.
posted by tomcosgrave at 9:18 AM PST - 12 comments

There's no better way to go back in time than listening to airchecks -- recorded segments of top 40 radio from years past, often an hour long, sometimes including commercials and news.
posted by luser at 8:31 AM PST - 12 comments

Dr. Dre vs Osama : I guess Osama heard the news and got sick of waiting to respond. Classic Dre with a new spin. (2.5 meg mp3)
posted by Leonard at 8:07 AM PST - 3 comments

The diary of Nancy Crick. Ever watched a parent or loved one die in agony? Ever begged a doctor to put them out of their misery? Should people be allowed to die with dignity? Read the diary of Nancy Crick.
posted by chrisgregory at 6:52 AM PST - 33 comments

Learning Japanese (or at least hiragana) can be easy and rewarding. This link is NSFW, depending on how much hirigana you know.
posted by headspace at 5:21 AM PST - 19 comments

Eeyore itches; Pooh dribbles. Kind of disgusting and incredibly juvenile, but they made me laugh (via lukelog).
posted by methylsalicylate at 2:34 AM PST - 6 comments

Beam me up dipankar. The dream of teleporting atoms and molecules - and maybe even larger objects - has become a real possibility for the first time. Look out! - it's nearly the future. Not long until we all get our silver faces.
posted by Spoon at 1:20 AM PST - 25 comments

Harry Potter fans warn against dangerous effects of Bible A number of concerned British Harry Potter fans have spoken out against the Bible, claiming that the holy text of the Christian Church can cause serious damage to children.
posted by helloboys at 1:15 AM PST - 16 comments

Osama "The Stilt" Bin Laden victim of "close encounter of the worst kind with a hellfire missile"? May be, maybe not. What's more interesting is the hopefulness with which they offer the possibility based only on his height.
posted by Hildago at 10:48 PM PST - 13 comments

"AXIS OF EVIL" was supposed to send a message. "Those who condition themselves to think that an axis of evil surrounds them will only live a painful, gloomy and uncomfortable life. They will, in effect, loose many of their powers and abilities as a result of their exaggerated sensitivity and drown themselves in fatal ignorance of the blessings and good things of the world."
posted by sheauga at 9:41 PM PST - 17 comments

When Chyrons go very, very, very, very, very, very, very bad. (Or, How To Lose Your Job In Just One Second) Niger Innis is the spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, one of those scary conservative African-American groups. He's also a regular MSNBC pundit. Well, he was on there the other day talking about Enron, and whoever was in charge of plugging the names into the rundown that hour was a little sloppy with his or her typing and ... well, just click on the link.
posted by aaron at 9:05 PM PST - 67 comments

An interview with photographer Nancy Jo Johnson about Tibet. Johnson paints a depressing picture of the state of Tibetan culture under Chinese rule. Adding insult to injury, China is building a new monument to commemorate the 1951 "liberation" of Tibet in front of the former winter home of the Dalai Lama.
posted by homunculus at 9:05 PM PST - 6 comments

The B-list of bad has an axis to grind -- According to one of Canada's national newspapers, Libya, China and Syria today announced they had formed the "Axis of Just as Evil," which they said would be way eviller than that stupid Iran-Iraq-North Korea axis President George W. Bush warned of in his State of the Union address.

Not only was this article in the paper today, it actually made the front page.
posted by heybate at 8:03 PM PST - 10 comments

"Civil War, Revolutionary War and Pirate cannons could not harm tanks, half tracks, armored cars or self-propelled guns." Army Men, my friends, Army Men.
posted by rodii at 7:25 PM PST - 21 comments

Oh, I got it now. One "rowdy" group in the streets lights bonfires, climbs lightpoles, blocks traffic, dances on cars and a police van as "bemused" riot cops looked on. Another group "allegedly committed vandalism" and were consquently arrested in droves. See, if you generally run wild in favor of the status quo, the cops are your friends. If you march in opposition to the status quo you get arrested.
posted by raaka at 6:05 PM PST - 18 comments

How to survive in London on £7,000 a year: I'd love to be rich, but it is so expensive. Only joking. Spending big money and accumulating material possessions has never interested me. I don't need retail therapy to cheer me up: my desires are focused elsewhere - in social justice and human rights. Via Nutlog.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:47 PM PST - 15 comments

Hate mobile phones? Man... this site both makes me laugh, and makes me furious in anger.. because it's so damn hilarious, but I imagine if this happened to me I'd be horribly upset and angry... I hate the misuse of mobile phones, but I do USE one...
posted by twiggy at 2:37 PM PST - 32 comments

Funeral Home Murders Drug-Induced? A mortician and his assistant found dead by coroner seeking death certificate . Motive unclear. Says local police sergeant: "We have received reports from some agencies in the city that [criminals] might be involved in taking chemicals from funeral homes and using them to soak their marijuana cigarettes or regular cigarettes in, but we have not been able to prove a robbery or anything like that."
posted by brookish at 1:23 PM PST - 4 comments

Goodbye QWERTY, Hello ',.PY !!! [Or, One Writer's Love Affair with the Other Keyboard Layout.] From Slate.com
posted by adrober at 12:51 PM PST - 31 comments

With a grand prize of $10,000, the First Annual Google Programming Contest is sure to catch the eye and keen mind of many a programmer who has thought "Oh, what interesting things I could do with 900,000 web pages in a pre-parsed and raw format!" The Google phenomenon has already inspired add-on search tools and a game or two. What new tricks will add value to this handy web repository?
posted by girlhacker at 12:50 PM PST - 25 comments

Ok, maybe I'm an idiot, but I think this is hysterical. Not sure why.
posted by lawtalkinguy at 12:39 PM PST - 44 comments

Robots bartenders in Berlin. As one of the founders says, "there's a lot of inter-member conversation." Please, touch my monkey. Link via Slashdot.
posted by swift at 12:38 PM PST - 6 comments

Notmilk.com hacked? A growing feud between the notmilk man Robert Cohen, who wrote Milk: The Deadly Poison and VegSource.com who hosted his site leads to VegSource removing all content from the notmilk.com site. Cohen sends out a newsletter saying that his site had been hacked, VegSource responds and calls Cohen a "big fat liar". Is this an abuse of VegSource's discretion? Is this just petty name calling? Whose extreme views will reign supreme here in Vegan Stadium!?
posted by jonah at 12:37 PM PST - 8 comments

The return of Trax sneakers might be a strategic way for Kmart to come back to life. Same goes for Pony. If Candies could do it . . .
posted by boardman at 12:09 PM PST - 9 comments

Dating services thriving despite Internet. There are two things here I find interesting: the idea that people prefer the traditional services because there's background checks on drug-use, employment status, et. al. As well, this breakdown of number of dating agencies by state. I would be interested in knowing the demographic breakdown of the clientele of the 66 agencies in Florida -- are there bunches of retirees looking for that special someone?
posted by meep at 12:07 PM PST - 4 comments

How geeks can do away with cash and be their own banks. We've been around the topic of alternative economics a few times before on MeFi, but this piece from the reliably clever Shift makes it all clear to me. How you can do it, and why. And it actually suggests that programmers are the best people to manage a new money system. There's even a Bay Area monetary guru to hand. Does this make as much sense to anyone else as it does to me?
posted by theplayethic at 11:53 AM PST - 6 comments

Bacon, eggs and less marijuana: a weed watchers diet for Willie "Even honky-tonk heroes and country legends have to watch what they put in their bodies these days. And for Austin's Willie Nelson, staying fit also means giving the lungs a breather by cutting back on those marijuana cigarettes now and then."
posted by tippiedog at 11:31 AM PST - 7 comments

America Pays Out. $1000 each to the families of the 18 Afghans mistakenly killed by the fine folks at "Damage, Inc."
posted by delmoi at 11:30 AM PST - 22 comments

The Reagan Legacy Machine rolls on... For Ron's 91st, National Review talks to Peggy Noonan, who claims that Reagan lived an "emotionally and intellectually arduous life."
posted by Ty Webb at 11:23 AM PST - 39 comments

Students Plagiarize Less Than Many Think
RIT Profs say 16.5 percent of students reported having "sometimes" cut and pasted text into a paper without a citation, only 8 percent of students reported having done so "often" or "very frequently", but 50.4 percent reported that others "often" or "very frequently" cut and pasted text from the Internet.
"High-school students who are growing up with the Internet, they're having real difficulty" distinguishing what is and is not plagiarism, he says. "Many of them are developing an attitude that anything on the Internet is public domain, and they're not seeing copying it as cheating."
posted by Blake at 10:36 AM PST - 10 comments

The War on Iraq Will Be Launched in September... or so a russian journalist says based on russian military intelligence. If any of this bears out it seems a lot like global domination vis-a-vis installing controllable pro-western leaders...what say the rest of you?
posted by bittennails at 10:33 AM PST - 12 comments

Wow, talk about your bad luck. Or perhaps proof that heavy pot use(or hot-tubbing) can addle your thinking processes.
posted by jonmc at 10:18 AM PST - 11 comments

Bob Barr keeping Washington D.C. from announcing medical marijuana election results. The government of the nation's capital skips the U.S. Constitution. Anything goes.
posted by magullo at 9:48 AM PST - 15 comments

Not Flying Down To Rio For The Carnival? Never mind! Beat the crowds but catch the beat by listening to this year's terrific sambas before the rest of the world can. This is the real shanty-town stuff, not the watered-down touristy rubbish[WindowsMedia required]that passes for Samba. This year my favourite for first prize is Mangueira. What's yours? The Brazilian Carnival[learn all about it here] starts Saturday and goes on straight through to Tuesday. For the latest inside information - including the Bin Laden Mask controversy - O Globo's special web site[In Portuguese]is unbeatable. Enjoy!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:29 AM PST - 13 comments

Tiffany goes Topless 80's teen pop sensation Tiffany will appear in a photo spread in an upcoming issue of Playboy. She says "it's time the world realizes she's no longer 18 but a wife and mother."
posted by Lanternjmk at 9:13 AM PST - 54 comments

E911 technology allows for the location of a cellular phone to be determined by the wireless service provider within several hundred feet. As consequence, privacy groups have been extremely resistant to the implementation of E911. In the wake of the September 11 tragedies, however, the balance between privacy concerns and national security to have changed for many American citizens. Sort of via 2600 This seems to be coming, what do you think?
posted by thirteen at 8:50 AM PST - 20 comments

Which side of the road do you drive on?
It's all down to which side you held your sword on, in the end. (Via Fark.)
posted by Mwongozi at 8:45 AM PST - 4 comments

Ever wonder how Lord of the Rings would've turned out had it been written by Raymond Chandler or Gene Roddenbury? Me neither, but fortunately for us Alison Brooks and David Flin have. Be sure to take a look at some of their alternative history scenarios while you're there.
posted by MrBaliHai at 8:38 AM PST - 4 comments

Christian Science Monitor Loves Metafilter almost as much as we do. They note such intriging stories as the woman who flushed herself out an airliner toilet and Googlewhacking. Big praise from the mainstream!
posted by rev- at 8:33 AM PST - 15 comments

"Everything's changed"? No, very little has changed. Exhibit A: the upcoming broadcast of the complete "in-the-belly-of-the-beast" WTC collapse video by CBS. Only three "very special" sponsors, and 50 million are expected to watch. Including me. (Hey, I'm a complicated person and/or hypocrite)
posted by luser at 7:59 AM PST - 16 comments

MAJORITY OF AMERICANS NOW BELIEVE EVIL IS BAD, SURVEY SAYS Andy Borowitz is rapidly becoming the best political satirist on the web. More frequent than The Onion, and more wide-ranging in his humor than Tom Tomorrow, this guy is becoming a must-read for left-leaning humor. All three great sources of political humor beg the question of why cartoonists and humorists seem better capable of attacking conservatism than liberal politicians or pundits?
posted by mattpusateri at 7:52 AM PST - 25 comments

Bob and David need your help! "We've always felt that everyone down the line has severely under-estimated our fans, both in numbers and sincerity. Don't be dicks about it, but just let them know that there's an audience waiting out there."
posted by nicholm at 7:49 AM PST - 14 comments

Terry Gross gets more than she bargained for from KISS frontman. Don't you think they'd make a cute couple? (Maybe soon we'll see her here.)
posted by ColdChef at 7:31 AM PST - 74 comments

Who are the new revolutionaries? A Mefi thread from yesterday contained the quote "We are skinheads, and we are revolutionaries." That got me thinking... who are the social revolutionaries these days (not political, there are plenty of those)? People who are trying to lead humanity to a better way?
posted by dammitjim at 7:15 AM PST - 8 comments

In what can only be described as top-notch hit-whoring, Shift magazine has compiled a list of the Web's 25 most interesting personalities. Let the thinly veiled resentment commence.
posted by rcade at 7:11 AM PST - 18 comments

How green is your car? If it's the Honda Insight (at 57 MPG), it's very green... if it's the Dodge Ram 2500 Pickup (at 11 MPG), well, shame on you. Check out the "Green Book: The Environmental guide to Cars and Trucks".
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 6:55 AM PST - 9 comments

PBS's Frontline finds making porn special "more than we bargained for." We know the networks pull out the stops for Sweeps Week, but have they finally gone too far? Or this just a temporary set back on the road they've been on for decades?
posted by tommasz at 6:47 AM PST - 7 comments

New Survivor 4 Contestants Announced Sixteen back-stabbing, over-competitive, fame-seeking, hunger-loving castaway wannabes were announced this morning on CBS' Survivor site. Fewer people watched the mother-of-all-American-reality-TV-shows in it's last incarnation in Africa - will this one in the Marquesas continue the ratings slide?
posted by stevis at 6:42 AM PST - 10 comments

Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Gap.... If ever there was a candidate for being sued this site would be it... with a three-minute music video setting logos, brand names and glossy corporate imagery against adbusting in-jokes and shots of police brutality. Anti-capitalist anthem or the ultimate in product placement? And how long until the site's namesakes get it pulled off the Web?
posted by skylar at 6:36 AM PST - 19 comments

Chef says bin Laden fled to Iran. "Osama had three offers of escape," he tells the Christian Science Monitor. "One from Iraq, one from Iran, and another from some mafia types.... We received a lot of Iranian currency, and the commanders distributed it to the soldiers," he says, adding that he received 700,000 rials ($1,400) for his own personal use." He also says that bin Laden prefers quail for dinner.
posted by thescoop at 6:35 AM PST - 8 comments

Oppose a National ID card , this article tells the many reasons and abuses of freedom that will take place.
posted by Budge at 6:14 AM PST - 32 comments

Microsoft announced a month long moratorium on new coding in order to fix bugs. Purcell,their privacy chief is quoted as saying Gates "is really annoyed by the incredible pain we put everyone through in computing" . Microsoft's bug problems and security vulnerabilities have lately been getting out of hand. There has also been rumours last month that Gates wants the entire company reoriented towards ..well providing bug free products. Do you think that serious changes are underway in Microsoft? What does it really take for an sofware development enterprise the size of Microsoft to have to provide secure, reasonably bug free products? (via GMSV)
posted by justlooking at 12:45 AM PST - 23 comments

Natural Hazards and unique imagery . NASA's fascinating and informative freely-accessible Earth Observatory. [news release]
posted by mkn at 11:14 PM PST - 7 comments

The Bad Taste Tour of Branson, MO. "Branson is a strange, kooky place nestling deep in the Ozarks. One of those quaint, old-fashioned American country towns where ... the menus in the restaurants have Biblical quotes next to the appetizers and where people walk around wearing orange duck beaks. "
posted by grabbingsand at 9:14 PM PST - 22 comments

Pssst. Hey buddy: wanna name a bridge? Nothing is sacred. Or public.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:34 PM PST - 12 comments

Researchers at the University of Utah and Ohio State have developed a light-tunable plastic magnet. "The researchers developed a plastic material that becomes 1.5 times more magnetic when blue light shines on it. Green light partially reverses that effect." My mind is now completely blown.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:32 PM PST - 9 comments

NASA's 2003 budget cancels the Europa and Pluto missions. Instead it seeks to produce nuclear powered propulsion. I am sad about the Europa and Pluto missions, I was really looking forward to those, but I am intrigued by the prospect of nuclear propulsion in space.
posted by homunculus at 8:32 PM PST - 13 comments

Troubling News from the heartland: Looks like Double-Secret Probation for this Animal House. Yet as students emulate their heroes, serious questions arise over college alcohol abuse.
posted by Zbobo at 8:14 PM PST - 14 comments

From Marco Polo Jr. vs. the Red Dragon to Fat Albert Meets Dan Cupid, the Big Cartoon Database has the skinny on a mindboggling 33,563 animated features, featurettes and series.
posted by disarray at 7:57 PM PST - 11 comments

Not even the duckie escapes co-optation No one disputes the XP GUI is cool. "Good Artists create, Great Artists STEAL, and Real Artists Ship" [link from nofuncharlie]
posted by otherchaz at 6:36 PM PST - 30 comments

Plus P Technology , 'specialists in the training and use of lethal force', teach self defense in the way of the gun. Is this a good idea gone to far? Notice the banner link to a militant group on the bottom of their page.
posted by jasonspaceman at 6:32 PM PST - 3 comments

Everybody remembers this girl from the cover of National Geographic c1985 and on the cover of their Best 100 Photos Ever book. Now she's in hiding on the Afghan-Pakistani border believing the CIA are after her when they found out she gave English classes to Bin Laden's daughters. There was already a major hunt for her after the photo came out
posted by Zootoon at 6:08 PM PST - 13 comments

People are reduced to cartoons says a Native American activist regarding sports teams with "Indian" mascots. The NFL's Redskins are dropping the Indian head from their helmets. Is this a sign they may one day consider changing the name? Maybe the designers of the Salt Lake City Olympic mascots can teach us Washingtonians something about honoring native traditions while respecting their wishes. (or maybe the SLC designs are just goofy. me, i just wanna be able to wear my team's logo without a crisis of conscience.)
posted by danOstuporStar at 5:25 PM PST - 39 comments

SmallPox 2002 - Silent Weapon...
It is April 2002, and a smallpox outbreak occures in New York. 4 and a half months later and 60 million people across the planet are dead. Tonight, The BBC broadcast a fictional documentary as if it were filmed in 2005, looking back at the smallpox pandemic that swept the world in 2002 and killed 60 million people. Heavily rooted in fact, it was disturbing viewing, to put it mildly. Did anyone else in Europe see this?
posted by tomcosgrave at 4:30 PM PST - 22 comments

Some highlights (mostly worksafe) from a game that would rock in a play-by-email or forum format. The inventor, alas, is dead. Another site here; and here's two random servers (possibly work-unsafe).
posted by cps at 4:16 PM PST - 8 comments

The Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations. Ah, what would the silent animals do without we oxy-moronic humans looking after their welfare. Pity they taste so good.

Some giblets to chew on: "No person shall use, or cause or permit to be used, any mechanical apparatus to kill any surplus chick unless the apparatus contains rapidly rotating mechanically operated killing blades or projection...any person who slaughters by a religious method any animal which has not been stunned before bleeding shall ensure that each animal is slaughtered by the severance by rapid, uninterrupted movements of a knife, of both its carotid arteries and both its jugular veins...no person shall use, or cause or permit to be used, a water bath stunner to stun any bird unless appropriate measures are taken to ensure that the current passes efficiently, in particular that there are good electrical contacts and the shackle-to-leg contact is kept wet...no person shall bleed any bull, cow, heifer, steer, calf, sheep, goat or pig in a slaughterhouse, knacker's yard or lairage within sight of any other such animal."
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 3:06 PM PST - 17 comments

Interesting The guy who wrote Your CSS Bores Me(previously linked and discussed here) has decided to accept his own challenge. For the month of February, he will be applying a different stylesheet to the index page of his site, with no manipulation of the HTML document itself. This is one to watch, if you're also a code geek.
posted by Su at 2:42 PM PST - 21 comments

IOC will not allow WTC flag at the SLC Olympics. A flag was found in what was left of the World Trade Center. It was going to be flown at the opening ceremonies but the IOC says that the flag is too political. What does everyone think about this?
posted by Keen at 2:15 PM PST - 110 comments

His Dark Materials Trilogy to be co-produced by New Line. Philip Pullman's Whitbread award-winning trilogy of fantasy novels for children is one of the best series I've read in a long time, and it's equally entertaining for adults. If books were food, then Harry Potter would be a beefburger and the HDM trilogy would be a gourmet meal. Also: Philip Pullman on How to Write a Book. Anyway... let's just hope they don't screw the films up.
posted by adrianhon at 2:05 PM PST - 16 comments

"They thought I was some kind of Greek god." Tim Eyman, the self-styled "maverick" author of several tax-slash initiatives in Washington state, has admitted to not only taking $210,000 from his "grass-roots" campaigns for personal use but consistently lying about it. Now, he says, he wants "his peasants" to decide whether he should give it back. When will people learn what populists usually amount to?
posted by argybarg at 12:18 PM PST - 22 comments

Little Girl Missing in California Is this front-page national news because she is the only missing child in America, or because she's a cute white girl from the suburbs?
posted by kirkaracha at 11:47 AM PST - 38 comments

Prison survival guide NEVER invoke debts you cannot repay. It is best not to invoke any debts period. When you first enter any institution, you will be approaced with 241 offers. Meaning that the person will front you 1 item (pack of cigs, commisary food, whatever) but you will have to repay them two. This is a classic trap for unexperienced inmates. If you smoke, quit. If you want items from the commisary, etc. wait until you have money on your books, or your in a position with your prison job that you can run your own hustle, and have items to barter with. The basic rule, is to NEVER take ANYTHING on credit. This will get you killed or seriously injured or TURNED OUT and pimped to pay your bill real fast.
posted by keithl at 11:10 AM PST - 50 comments

NYT Magazine's Lauren Slater on Self-Esteem
Last year alone there were three withering studies of self-esteem released in the United States, all of which had the same central message: people with high self-esteem pose a greater threat to those around them than people with low self-esteem and feeling bad about yourself is not the cause of our country's biggest, most expensive social problems. The research is original and compelling and lays the groundwork for a new, important kind of narrative about what makes life worth living -- if we choose to listen, which might be hard. One of this country's most central tenets, after all, is the pursuit of happiness, which has been strangely joined to the pursuit of self-worth.

Great, long article on the change in perspective on self-esteem. Do you question yourself? How does your self-esteem impact yourself or others around you? Is high self-esteem importatnt to you? What if your high self-esteem could negatively affect others around you?
posted by gen at 9:17 AM PST - 39 comments

Every multiculturalist is a recruiting officer for al-Qa’eda. The Spectator's cover story this week suggests that white intellectuals' posture of hatred for Western civilization is at least somewhat responsible for British Muslims' hatred of the West. Is this a revealing insight, or just a twisted blame-the-victim argument? Or both?
posted by mattpfeff at 8:53 AM PST - 54 comments

NYC Police Arrest Transgender Man for Using Men's Restroom The first link is just a post-arrest picture of riot cops and protestors. Read the story here.
posted by SuperGoat at 8:39 AM PST - 32 comments

For any unconvinced that demonstrations against corporate greed are called for, take a look at this documentary about a section of NAFTA which allows corporations to sue governments (in private tribunals) for having laws which get in the way of their profits. One current example is a canadian company suing the US gov't for an environmental law which bans their product.
posted by mdn at 8:01 AM PST - 50 comments

"...[T]heir lives were rich with experience, and they felt compelled to share it, at least among themselves." Cowboy poets strut their stuff at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Be sure to look for some of them at the Olympics.
posted by arco at 7:06 AM PST - 2 comments

The grid: The future of scientific networks. "Built on the Internet and the World Wide Web, the Grid is a new class of infrastructure. By providing scalable, secure, high-performance mechanisms for discovering and negotiating access to remote resources, the Grid promises to make it possible for scientific collaborations to share resources on an unprecedented scale, and for geographically distributed groups to work together in ways that were previously impossible."
posted by talos at 6:01 AM PST - 6 comments

Dark knees say it all. If a man's knees are dark, he is not a virgin. If a boy urinates straight up into the air, he is a virgin. If the urine sprays, he has had sex before.
posted by arrowhead at 5:54 AM PST - 10 comments

There has to be something better to do than sit infront of a pc all day ;-)
posted by Arqa at 5:54 AM PST - 4 comments

Fall of the Muslim Empire
posted by bunnyfire at 5:43 AM PST - 7 comments

The Patriots didn't win; Britney did. TiVo analyzed their viewers behavior during the Superbowl and they came up with some pretty interesting results. How soon till TV programming adapts to viewer behavior?
posted by costas at 5:15 AM PST - 35 comments

It’ll Never Be The Same Again (~2.5mb mp3 down at the bottom there.) After Neil Young’s predictable homage, Paul McCartney’s song I can’t stand nor can I escape; Bono’s immense display of poor taste; the atrocious "What’s Going On" cover (I laugh at you Limp Bizkit!); I finally found a tune that makes sense of 9.11 for me. Ryan Adams’ "New York, New York" doesn’t count because it isn’t about that Tuesday. Fine track though.
posted by raaka at 4:32 AM PST - 23 comments

Klingon Google Search whatever next ;o)
posted by MintSauce at 3:08 AM PST - 23 comments

New poster boy for perverts! The latest rising star on the FBI's top ten chart is a gimping, balding southpaw (name is Michael Scott Bliss by the way) who likes to videotape himself molesting young girls and then put the clips on his computer. Sounds like a sociable fellow...
posted by Bixby23 at 1:31 AM PST - 14 comments

What The Hell Is THIS All About? WTF? Is Fusion Anomaly a crazy encyclopedia? A warped search engine? A mind control machine? What's up with the entities, the flavors, the words and all the other stuff? Who's doing it? And why? Please advise. All instances of the famous MetaFilter detective work would be greatly appreciated.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:30 AM PST - 16 comments

They can't find Ken Lay. Via Reuters. Scroll down to "more business news". My guess is he headed for high ground.
posted by bas67 at 6:39 PM PST - 62 comments

Fake profits are causing the stock market to descend. Could someone explain to me the meaningful difference between Enron and Amazon.com? One company recently reported fake profits of $5 million, while having billions in debt. Enron, well...no profits either, and billions in debt. So why is Amazon.com considered "promising"? Enron had a revenue stream too.... Prediction: Amazon.com's stock will be "revalued" sharply lower as people get lucid about real profits and as the accounting/profit scandals spread.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:37 PM PST - 19 comments

How the U.S. Killed the Wrong Soldiers I read the original report of this attack and discounted the possiblity that it was a major screw up but it looks like it was. The same story from Knight Ridder
posted by onegoodmove at 6:07 PM PST - 27 comments

What does Sesame Street and Greta Van Susteren have in common? They both recently received a dramatic facelift.
posted by gazingus at 4:46 PM PST - 51 comments

Oregon man says brain tumor caused him to jump in neighbor's bed Although Jackson County has paid nearly $150,000 for surgery and medical treatments, the Judge said "I do not find adequate evidence of mental defect," There are many examples of persons who may have acquired sociopathic personalities due to pathological brain lesions, such as tumors, yet no doctor testified to the tumor's effect at the trial. Poor lawyering?
posted by Mack Twain at 4:08 PM PST - 9 comments

Whizzy, spinny, Enterprise/UFO looking like thing. SimiCon, a Norwegian company focused on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is developing a circular craft that uses both rotors and a low profile jet in order to provide the high performance of a fixed wing craft along with the VTOL capabilites of a helicopter. Looks pretty cool.
posted by zeoslap at 3:43 PM PST - 13 comments

Arafat's duplicity revealed on video. His call for an end to terrorism, published in The NY Times suggests peacful intentions. This article claims he has made videos which suggest to Arab audiences that his talk is merely strategic and he has the elimination of the State Of Israel as his goal
posted by Postroad at 3:30 PM PST - 35 comments

UCSF's Legacy Tobacco Documents Library -- a library of formerly secret tobacco industry internal documents -- goes live this week. It's a searchable archive of fifty years of "scientific research, manufacturing, marketing, advertising and sales of cigarettes" including a lot of inadvertently humorous material.
posted by jessamyn at 2:38 PM PST - 3 comments

The American Academy of Pediatrics announces its support of adoption by same-sex parents. "...a new AAP policy statement, "Coparent or Second-Parent Adoption by Same-Sex Parents" supports legal and legislative efforts that provide for the possibility of adoption of those children by the second parent or coparent in same-sex relationships."
posted by prozaction at 2:31 PM PST - 2 comments

Cybracero: Wave of the future . No longer will immigrants have to cross borders to do manual labor thanks to this visionary and exciting technology. Telerobotics mean that manual labor from 3rd world countries can now do their work from home! Check out the video and technology pages for examples of how this revolutionary idea will change the world!
posted by cell divide at 2:20 PM PST - 4 comments

Bush and Blair Nominated for 2002 Peace Prize ''The background for my nomination is their decisive action against terrorism, something I believe in the future will be the greatest threat to peace,'' Nesvik said. ''Unfortunately, sometimes ... you have to use force to secure peace.'' ---Harald Tom Nesvik
posted by ezfowler at 1:17 PM PST - 25 comments

Search engines sued over pay-for-placement. "The maker of a popular weight-loss system filed suit against four search engines this week, alleging that their policy of letting advertisers pay to appear in top-ranked search results violated federal and state trademark and fair-competition laws." [from CNN]
posted by tranquileye at 12:05 PM PST - 14 comments

Yasser Arafat. Wealthy and gentle, servant of the merciful, and an exemplary model? I guess this makes me a right-handed, brown-skinned, young fighter. Cool. And just what is his name, anyway?

Names sure are weird.
posted by apostasy at 11:38 AM PST - 8 comments

Kazaa asks users to accept new terms and conditions when logging on. Anyone know of any hidden pitfalls to the t&c's? Am I going to get visits from the police?
posted by wibbler at 11:35 AM PST - 14 comments

"I think it's a healthy sign that there are demonstrators in the streets. They are raising the question of 'is the rich world giving back enough?'" : Bill Gates (yeah, this guy). I think it's interesting that the "evil capitalists" seem to actually have some similiar beliefs to the protestors at the WEF conference. Perhaps we've moved a step beyond between the us=good them=bad analogies?
posted by owillis at 11:22 AM PST - 50 comments

Nike Air Jordan XVII priced at 200.00. Nike unviels this years prize court shoe that comes complete with metal carrying case and CD. But $200? Thats a wholelota Doritos yo!
posted by Brilliantcrank at 10:37 AM PST - 52 comments

Privacy of MP3 fans at risk A new security hole has been discovered in one of the world's most popular file-swapping programs Morpheus which could allow anyone to gain private information about its millions of users.
posted by arnab at 10:34 AM PST - 11 comments

The ultimate nightmare? Hilarious discussion ensues when a poster to a messageboard describes an embarrassing little problem... No images, but probably not safe for work. (via Haddock)
posted by salmacis at 10:26 AM PST - 20 comments

Little Computer People was a game produced in the '80s and at a time when the gaming landscape was very different from today's market. The point? Life.
posted by moz at 10:17 AM PST - 11 comments

I've got a pseudo machine. I know that we're all living in the world of truth, light and clarity these days, but as a bad casualty of one jargon-ridden film studies course in 1981-82, I loved this little program. Less wieldy than the old classic, the postmodern generator. Has anyone noticed that Chip from the Corrections is a classic of the type - "assistant professor of textual artefacts", indeed. Actually, here's a real life Professor of virtual culture. Cute too.
posted by theplayethic at 9:12 AM PST - 14 comments

Yasir Arafat , in his own words: "The Palestinian Vision of Peace." New York Times Op-ed contribution this weekend, in case it was missed (reg req)
posted by Voyageman at 8:54 AM PST - 9 comments

Um, you know what? On second thought... Ken Lay decides not to testify before Congress.
posted by Ty Webb at 8:35 AM PST - 23 comments

AT&T Wireless' Super Failure: mLife — Quote: "Isn't it about time companies figured out that simple navigation is the key to presenting information? The mLife website is neither mysterious like the ads nor usuable. It's simply crap."
posted by ratbastard at 8:16 AM PST - 34 comments

"I help blow up buildings" was just one of the explosive statements to come rapid-fire at viewers of the SuperBowl. Is the war on drugs back in full force?
posted by glennie at 8:06 AM PST - 51 comments

Sounds like progress to me... The American Academy of Pediatrics released a report that children of same-sex parents do as well as opposite-sex parents, and despite some teasing, cope well. Seems that it's more important for two people to be in a loving relationship than what their sex is. I think it's a pretty big deal for a professional organization to produce this report. You?
posted by gramcracker at 7:39 AM PST - 20 comments

WHACK-A-TROLL^TM Laugh. It's funny.
posted by NortonDC at 7:17 AM PST - 10 comments

selling your daughter for £50, sounds like things are infinitely better for the inhabitants of afghanistan. They must be beside themselves with gratitude.
posted by johnnyboy at 6:46 AM PST - 24 comments

So much for name recognition. Mighty Big TV, a fairly well-known site that's been mentioned in print media and numerous other outlets, has inexplicably changed it's name to Television Without Pity. Of course, the dynamic aspect of the web allows for such things, but is it wise? If "Campbell's Soup" became "Spud's Chicken Noodle Concoction" tomorrow, would you still buy it without batting an eye? Would it matter if MetaFilter became "Matt's Pancake Heaven?"
posted by crunchland at 6:32 AM PST - 28 comments

"The Right to Read." A short story from Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation. What *could* happen to education, innovation, and intellectual freedom if all information becomes property.
posted by sheauga at 6:24 AM PST - 8 comments

'If you want to know what Utopia is like, just look around - this is it,' the article asks is human evolution over? Two interesting "facts?" "points?" 1) the blending of our genes which will soon produce a uniformly brown-skinned population. Apart from that, there will be little change in the species. 2) Just consider Aids, and then look at chimpanzees,' says Jones. 'You find they all carry a version of HIV but are unaffected by it. Something very similar could soon happen to humans. In a thousand years... Link via www.cursor.org.
posted by bittennails at 6:03 AM PST - 38 comments

A clearing house for social and political activism, thought, and design. New project from the stables of San630.com.
posted by prolific at 3:15 AM PST - 1 comment

Gore is back. Discuss.
posted by panopticon at 11:09 PM PST - 86 comments

Does anybody know these people? XEmacs and car nonwithstanding.
posted by swift at 9:42 PM PST - 15 comments

Kaiju Big Battel - See bizarre wrestling matches between gigantic absurd monsters! Watch Tokyo-style monster movie erupt into real life performance-art lunacy! Shudder as Hell Monkey plucks the wings off American Beetle, while Club Sandwich liquefies Kung-fu Chicken Soup!
posted by Stuart_R at 7:29 PM PST - 5 comments

Buffy and The Powerpuff Girls versus Pink and Ally McBeal: Can the modern women become anymore difficult to understand? Makes me yearn for Mary Richards.
posted by treywhit at 7:28 PM PST - 15 comments

Patriots win it 20-17. Everyon thought it would be a blowout for St. Louis, But the Pats pull it out with a last minute field goal. All in all, a good nail-biter of a game. If it can't be my Giants, at least it's an east coast team.
posted by jonmc at 7:08 PM PST - 85 comments

The European Version Of The Burma Shave Billboards: An obsessive Belgian collector, apparently called Bartolomeo Mecánico, has assembled an amazing online gallery of old painted roadside advertisements.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:32 PM PST - 7 comments

I hate posting a link from the much-derided Fark, but as a musician myself, actions like this by the music industry really burn me. Basically Limp Bizkit held a "Nationwide Guitar Audition" to find a new guitarist to replace Wes, and (so the main link says) proceeded to rip off the original, uncopyrighted tryouts from hundreds of guitarists. What do you other musicians think of this? Was it really a ploy?
posted by pheideaux at 5:27 PM PST - 34 comments

The Truth For Youth - Christian preaching in comic form. Highly amusing, yet rather disturbing at the same time -- these are the messages they're trying to get through to kids?
posted by cheaily at 4:24 PM PST - 39 comments

Mitsu of SyntheticZero has started what might become a series of posts related to creativity and depression.

#1

#2

posted by giantkicks at 4:22 PM PST - 21 comments

Live webcast ban of the World Cup (FIFA) finals BY German media group Kirch: An interesting perspective by Alan Docherty in the Guardian. (via Politech) More inside .......
posted by justlooking at 2:53 PM PST - 5 comments

Damn. DRUDGE REPORTS: WSJ BODY FOUND DEAD IN PAKISTAN
posted by MidasMulligan at 12:30 PM PST - 67 comments

Convicted murderer wants taxpayer-financed sex change. "Hill & Barlow, the law firm appointed by the court to represent Kosilek, said in a statement: 'The case raises important constitutional issues about medical treatment for prisoners.'" When fourteen percent of the population doesn't have health insurance at all, is there any legitimate reason to expect the government to pay for this?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:53 AM PST - 23 comments

A Poll on Fark asks its members whether or not they would pay 5$ a month to belong to thier discussion group. How many of you would pay for MeFi? Do you any of you feel that there would be benefits to having MeFi become a pay for service? I do, and I'm out of work!
posted by xammerboy at 9:53 AM PST - 29 comments

"The organiser of a Brisbane sex exhibition is confident he'll easily recruit volunteers to become the first Australians to have sex in public at a Sexpo event."

Apparently "People like to watch and be watched...as long as it's done in a non-tacky way." Having sex at a giant dildo sale. How could that possibly be tacky?
posted by robcorr at 6:48 AM PST - 12 comments

The Classic Hollywood Squares is dedicated to that most raucous of celebrity game shows. We'll have none of that Bruce Vilanch nonsense here. I'll take Paul Lynde to block, Peter.
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:17 AM PST - 5 comments

Free Radio Linux is about to go online, reading the entire Linux kernel over the internet using the Ogg Vorbis codec. Free as in beer.
posted by j.edwards at 4:42 AM PST - 15 comments

I've been accused in the past of only posting clever and astonishingly cynical quips - so just to prove that I'm no fly-by-night-non-serious-funster here is an informative link. It requires no flash plugins of any sort..... ladies and gentlemen I give you.... What Is Cynicism? thank you.. As usual, details within.
posted by y2karl at 2:33 AM PST - 32 comments

Salon makes a go of premium service. 'When Salon announced almost a year ago that it would introduce fee-based content, web pundits dismissed it as a futile gesture that was bound to fail. It appears the critics were wrong' It is funny what passes as a success nowadays. Salon has closed off 30-35% of its content, including all news and political coverage, and even after these draconian measures only 0.8% of its readership have subscribed. In this fluffy bunny critique Salon’s marketing director Patrick Hurley explain how they achieve this extraordinary success. (more inside)
posted by RobertLoch at 12:16 AM PST - 18 comments

There are dozens of people on the internet who have been victimized by her, and yet no one seemed to do much about it. So they did.
posted by oh posey at 10:37 PM PST - 24 comments

Bye Bye Amtrak? "If Congress and the Administration do not appropriate adequate funds for FY '03, Amtrak may be forced to discontinue all long-distance train service effective October 1." Rail advocacy groups have differing reactions.
posted by mrbula at 10:14 PM PST - 28 comments

Erotica runs rampant: "Pornographic images, erotic paraphernalia, and raunchy sexual talk are reaching a near-saturation point in the daily lives of Americans, through television, movies, magazines, and the Internet, say a growing chorus of expert voices. And the target market is an increasingly younger audience." Frontline also has a special called American Porn running this coming week, exploring how the mainstream profits from the adult biz.
posted by owillis at 8:19 PM PST - 61 comments

Gates, Bono, unveil 'DATA Agenda' for Africa "We have an agenda," said Bono at a news conference, "which we're calling the 'DATA Agenda': 'Debt, AIDS and trade for Africa, in return for democracy, accountability and transparency in Africa.'

As bracing as it is to see a picture of Bono with Bill Gates, there is an interesting message here. Bono compares Africa today with post-WWII Europe, describing it as vulnerable to extremism. Bill Gates is fronting the cash to improve health care and raise living standards in third-world countries.
posted by planetkyoto at 7:11 PM PST - 12 comments

Need to know where to find sushi when you travel? Sushiref.com has worldwide listings as well as a plethora of other sushi info that is updated regularly.
posted by machaus at 3:49 PM PST - 4 comments

Alexandre Dumas on film This AP/CNN article says Dumas’ books make good movies, but aren’t being read as much as they used to be. Do the changes the movies make improve the books, or would more faithful adaptations be better?
posted by kirkaracha at 3:12 PM PST - 15 comments

Bette Midler gives one hell of a nose job The weblog of Ívar Páll Jónsson, a 27 year old student of economics from Iceland. As he says himself, "Insanity is just a state of mind."
posted by feelinglistless at 2:14 PM PST - 9 comments

What is Daniel Pearl trying to tell us? (hint) The non-POW's at Guantanamo Bay have found their own special way of showing contempt for their captors.
posted by Real9 at 2:01 PM PST - 18 comments

"I thought we were the popular front." The longer this goes on, the more middle east becomes like the Monty Python flick, Life of Brian. No really, do a find for "palestine" on this state department list.
posted by shagoth at 12:37 PM PST - 6 comments

Jiminy Cricket! It's our Corporate America Flag billboard! Once upon a time (quite recently, in fact), the good people of Adbusters received a call from a production assistant for a movie being made by Miramax, a Disney corporation. It seems the new film needed an establishing shot of Times Square in New York City. But something was in the way. Jiminy Cricket! It's our Corporate America Flag billboard! Disney gave us three options. We could (a) take the billboard down for a week or two; (b) cover up the billboard; or (c) change the billboard's corporate logos back into stars. Flag Picture.
posted by Niahmas at 12:32 PM PST - 25 comments

No more false IDs on Metafilter! Now researchers in Italy have developed a program that can spot enough subtle differences between two authors' works to attribute authorship.
posted by rushmc at 11:36 AM PST - 14 comments

For those who watch the Super Bowl for the commercials, IFILM will be archiving them for post-game viewing, including a Coen brothers-directed H&R Block spot. (via jz)
posted by jkottke at 11:18 AM PST - 11 comments

The veil:Female Form of Jihad???????
posted by bunnyfire at 10:17 AM PST - 18 comments

So what happened? News from New York. A banner was unfurled (somewhere - nobody really saw it). A Starbucks had an incomprehensible something spray painted on a window. A few people protested cheap kakhi's at the Gap (I passed this one on the way to a meeting and, ironically, some appeared to be wearing Gap clothes). The Falun Gong exercised outside, but on the whole this week has turned into a non-protest ... with the 10,000 that organizers expected turning into about 500. Has the anti-globalization movement had the life drained from it by Sept. 11? Is this just a temporary lull?
posted by MidasMulligan at 10:08 AM PST - 47 comments

Easy anonymous email I thought I'd post this since many anonymous remailers no longer exist. In this age of anti-terrorism I don't know how long it will exist.
posted by mecran01 at 9:47 AM PST - 12 comments

Another copyright miasma. The Todd M. Beamer Foundation, named for the passenger who reportedly foiled the hijackers of United Flight 93, wants to copyright the phrase "let's roll" for its own non-profit uses. But others applied for the copyright first. Says one: "I don't care what your name is, it's first in, first swim. It's all about good old American capitalism." So who's the hero here?
posted by argybarg at 9:42 AM PST - 14 comments

"Let's Roll" trademark battle is on Coming to your local Wal-Mart and flea markets very soon... Supposedly, it's become a "national catchphrase". The only people I've heard say it are George W Bush and Neil Young. Anyone need a new coffee mug?
posted by BarneyFifesBullet at 9:13 AM PST - 39 comments

"The NewsInsider - Daily source for under-reported news and analysis" is even better than its name! Hit "global links" for country-by-country listings of news agencies, alternative press outlets, policy-related publications, and selected newspapers. Conservatives, your official .gov World News Connection is "down for maintenance." What gives? For news in all formats, including broadcasts and webcasts, hit Gary Price's List of Lists, the unofficial front page for the web. Top portals for subject-related info and in-depth fact checking are SLA Toronto and the Librarian's Index to the Internet.
posted by sheauga at 8:35 AM PST - 7 comments

Don't let the URL fool you, it's completely work safe, and yet oh so naughty. I wish more sites would do this. It would lead to mass confusion, and last I heard, that's the next big monkey-making trend.
posted by jcterminal at 7:24 AM PST - 15 comments

That game is tomorrow. But any predictions on the final outcome? I couldn't find any previous years predictions and how close some guesses were, but the only link of note was this. 31-28.
posted by brent at 6:38 AM PST - 24 comments

Syria on brink over conflict with Lebanon Our good friends on the far Left never address this other occupation in the Middle East, an occupation that is not the Israelis in Palestinian lands; and our policy makers in Washington almost never discuss the issue either, but to the people who live in Lebanon it is their country that for many years has been occupied by some 35 thousand man army of Syrians against their will. And it is beginning to anger them.
posted by Postroad at 4:57 AM PST - 11 comments

Level of government corruption correlates with environmental health. "That is, the more corrupt the government, the less likely it is to pay attention to the environment." Top five environmentally healthy countries: Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada, and Switzerland. The US ranked 51st, behind Botswana and Cuba. The UK ranked 98.
posted by pracowity at 3:01 AM PST - 5 comments

Match the label to the beer bottle.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 10:34 PM PST - 15 comments

We're all gonna die! We're all gonna....oh wait, maybe not. NASA's got some "bad news for Anthrax", and we can thank better space greenhouse designs. The concept seems to be akin to a stove fan, but it's so much more. It's super-duper-pathogen-killing-fan. It's a pathogen killing machine.
posted by Salmonberry at 10:28 PM PST - 3 comments

The filename says it all. This is an office-friendly, ROFLMFAO kind of photo. It's two great tastes that taste great together. Put it on your desktop if only for a day. Have a super weekend.
posted by KLAX at 10:23 PM PST - 38 comments

Live chickens slaughtered during opera. You got a problem with that? The audience members at the opera in Bonn did. In fact, the opera house could face criminal charges. Who says opera isn't still a living killer art form?
posted by UrbanFigaro at 9:25 PM PST - 14 comments

BusinessWeek's Game Edition With all the hype that games, consoles, and MMORGs are getting in mainstream media, will this be another case of media overkill or will we see the industry blossom as a real alternative equal to the movie and record industry.
posted by AsiaInsider at 8:17 PM PST - 7 comments

How's this for a rape defense: It wasn't me, it was my alter ego. Edward Lawrence Frostbutter, 17, told police that he does not remember assaulting the 16-year-old classmate in a restroom stall in Calvert High School on Jan. 16, according to court documents. Instead, he said his alter ego "Sam" was responsible, and he told police that "he felt awful about what Sam had done," according to charging documents.
posted by Rastafari at 8:07 PM PST - 11 comments

MacArthur "genius" grant winner Samuel "Sambo" Mockbee didn't make it to 2002. His Rural Studio built beautiful, amazing houses for poor people.
posted by theora55 at 7:35 PM PST - 8 comments

Drudge clone Mens News Daily, has vowed to challenge the drudgereport in this Washington Times article. Politics set aside, with hundreds of other second rate "drudge wannabe" breaking news sites like OnlineWorldNews , Aheadnews, ultra-news, etc etc. when does it stop? How much breaking news do we really need. The news can only break so many ways, no?
posted by rabbit at 7:02 PM PST - 4 comments

"Meet the Dynamists and the Stasists" Virginia Postrel and her concepts have been brought up casually in MeFi'ers comments before. But her three year old book on the argument is just getting attention from Flak Magazine. In one of my college courses, we discussed cultural biases as "individualist, egalitarian, or hierarch". There are actually many cultural theories on cultural bias/context. Interesting.
posted by jacobw at 6:02 PM PST - 12 comments

The Enron Blame Game Get yer programs here, find out who's blaming who in the bankruptcy to end all bankruptcies! Pretty neat interactive diagram from the folks at Slate, no matter your idealogical slant.
posted by owillis at 5:33 PM PST - 2 comments

Hand-arm vibration syndrome may be associated with prolonged use of vibrating computer games. Prolonged in this case means seven hours per day, which seems to be "excessive and exceeds the manufacturer's recommendation." Methinks this is the least of his problems.
posted by gazingus at 5:18 PM PST - 8 comments

A New Pirate Radio Station Comes to SF Pressure FM is a new pirate radio station in San Francisco. They focus on dance music, but only broadcast from 6pm-Midnight on Fridays using 88.1 FM. This article focuses on the group's plan for the station (dance music), and how they hope to turn it into a 24/7 broadcast. The Bay Area has a rich history of FCC vs. Pirate Radio battles, but I am curious to see if the feds will take on an all music station. Sure, the operators say that, "[Pressure FM] is clandestine, so it's politically charged," but I wonder if the FCC will ignore them as harmless DJs, only to later respond when Clear Channel executives freak out over underground music in the Bay Area finally getting a legitimate, non-internet, outlet. It should be an interesting barometer of the Bush Administration's tolerance for independent broadcasters (political or not).
posted by ezfowler at 3:16 PM PST - 6 comments

Early tomorrow morning we'll hit 2:02:02 2-02-'02.
posted by mrbula at 2:58 PM PST - 26 comments

Today is the 80th anniversary of the unsolved murder of William Desmond Taylor, silent movie director.

"What was the motive behind Taylor's murder? One interesting theory that came out at the inquest involved the woman Taylor was seeing at the time of his death, actress Mabel Normand. She was a cocaine user, and Taylor had gone to the federal government for help in stopping the pushers who were selling her drugs. Seeing their business threatened, this scenario goes, the pushers decided to hire a hit man to "silence" Taylor."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:34 PM PST - 2 comments

Candystand.com It's Friday, ain't got s--t to do! Whiffle ball is probably my favorite, homerun rally is also a good time killer, and since the Super Bowl is upon us, the armchair quarterback section may be appropriate. (candystand.com is heavy with Nabisco ads, but has some shockwave fun mixed in)
posted by jonah at 1:52 PM PST - 7 comments

Excellent summation of the Cheney/GAO tussle by someone who knows a thing or two about cover-ups: John Dean.
posted by kittyloop at 1:11 PM PST - 12 comments

What role gender plays in marriage, let alone custody is often debated. However in the case of the Kantaras custody case in Florida, gender just got more confusing. He used to be a she. What constitutes gender? As a transsexual, is he the real "father?" Was their marriage legal? And what's best for the children in this kind of circumstance? Further more, can we really leave it up to Judge Gerard O'Brien to make this decision for all of us? And how did some other judges feel about this issue?
posted by eatdonuts at 12:05 PM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

WSJ Reporter Daniel Pearl allegedly killed I certainly hope the reports aren't true. By placing the international media under seige, the stakes of the "war" against terrorism will rise drastically.
posted by prozaction at 11:44 AM PST - 50 comments

Nuclear power for the home... A group of woodcutters found an object that had melted the surrounding snow, so they drag it back home to warm the camp unfortunately turns out it was jam packed full of Strontium90...
posted by zeoslap at 11:34 AM PST - 23 comments

What were you saying on the morning of 9/11? I have been very dissatisfied with this archive of the news on 9/11. I think this stuff has its place. But, it does not help us tell our grandkids how people were reacting that morning. For posterity's sake, I think it is much more important to record what happened on blogs and other online communities that morning. So, I am trying to collect online conversations that took place immediately after the news of the attacks broke on September 11. I have one link from here and one from Slashdot. Sorry if I am missing out on important ones. My hope is that this post will lead to more links to conversations. I am not interested in war blogs unless they have a reference to a conversation on the morning of 9/11.
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 11:09 AM PST - 48 comments

Science and technology in the developing world. SciDev.net went online last month, with the backing of the UK Department for International Development. Its main goal "is to enhance the ability of all its users to engage in informed debate on ways of applying science and technology to social and economic development in an environmentally responsible way." Hopefully, a useful tool for globalisation discussions.
posted by liam at 10:42 AM PST - 3 comments

World Social Forum 2002 started yesterday in Porto Alegre, Brazil, my hometown. Planned to be 'an answer to the World Economics Forum' that takes place in NY this year, can it really offer an answer to so many problems or is it already blind from the start? (more inside)
posted by rexgregbr at 10:01 AM PST - 13 comments

Newspapers lose the web war. While newspapers recognized the risk the web posed to their core business, they often erred by forcing their new online ventures into the mold set by their pre-existing business model. A look at what made newspapers succeed or fail online from a Harvard Business School professor. (Warning: business-speak; via CNet.) Has your local newspaper done a good job on the web?
posted by mcwetboy at 9:06 AM PST - 8 comments

Sperm donor is the legal dad? Hmmm, because this guy donated his goods to a lesbian couple, he is the biological father of three children... but now that the couple broke up, the mother wants child support and took him to court. He fought it, but she won...
posted by darian at 9:02 AM PST - 19 comments

Flash Player 6 Beta .... need I say more.
posted by MintSauce at 8:07 AM PST - 10 comments

Department of Peace vs. Bob Barr's war with the world... I found this really funny, but even I question what a DOP could hope to achieve, any ideas in a realistic sense.
posted by bittennails at 8:02 AM PST - 11 comments

Al-Jazeera Severs Ties With CNN: Does it strike anyone as particularly rich that Al Jazeera, the Arab television network, decided to sever ties with CNN after CNN broadcast portions of a video showing bin Laden making his least ambiguous statements yet on al Qaeda's alleged involvement in the terrorist attacks of 9/11? [more inside...]
posted by verdezza at 7:53 AM PST - 3 comments

Bootylicious vs. Smells like teen spirit (MP3-link). Although it might be a little of the mainstream META-postings, I chose to post this piece of Soulwax music (MP3) because I really want to hear your reactions. The energy attained in this synergetic combination exceeds even math rock.
posted by FidelDonson at 4:55 AM PST - 17 comments

Master U.S. And Poodle U.K.? On the right and the left, a lot of Brits seem to be questioning what they see as the UK's increasingly subservient attitude towards the U.S. Has something changed in the once proud British character or, as Nick Cohen argues in today's New Statesman, is it all just politics?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:52 AM PST - 13 comments

What is Math Rock? I had no choice but to provide this link. It's funny! It's different! It's twisted! Scroll down to the email at the bottom of the page.
link via kottke. Please, let not this thread turn into a kottke.
posted by ashbury at 12:05 AM PST - 61 comments