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It's All Pledge Drives Considered. This is Coordinated Fundraising Week, where stations pull Ken Jennings out of a hat and go for all the gimmicks in the book, while your favorite shows subtly change formats. All this, by the way, mainly to reach the so-called "Cheap 90" percent of people that listen but don't contribute. Because we couldn't do it without you!
posted by calwatch at 10:49 PM PST - 52 comments

Indie pop cares a lot! Sure, you could buy a tsunami relief album from famous or even religious folks, but wouldn't you prefer to get a free cd as a reward for your generosity instead? South Asia still needs your help, and some fabulous indie rockers (including a number of songfight celebrities) have pitched in to entertain your earhole.
posted by equipoise at 9:00 PM PST - 24 comments

Watch as the GOP eats its own! Thrill as the media is fed more and more damaging info! Stare in Awe at the inside information calculated to get rid of him! Marvel at the downfall (and eventual Gingrichian comeback?) of Representative DeLay!
posted by amberglow at 8:40 PM PST - 137 comments

Pictures of a not so pleasant day of sailing on the bay...
posted by H. Roark at 7:57 PM PST - 48 comments

After decades of denial, official honors for terror bombers of Lavon Affair infamy. See also Liberty, USS.
posted by greatgefilte at 6:54 PM PST - 36 comments

Novelist Saul Bellow is dead. "Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love." Interviews: 1965, 1982, 1987. Partial bibliography. Saul Bellow Society. Wikipedia entry.
posted by Mo Nickels at 5:09 PM PST - 54 comments

Hunter S. Thompson's ashes WILL be blasted from a cannon mounted inside a 53-foot-high sculpture of the journalist's "gonzo fist" emblem. You can see Hunter & Ralph Steadman plan these details in the BBC documentary Fear & Loathing in Gonzovision.
posted by helvetica at 4:41 PM PST - 22 comments

Croatian keyboardist Belinda Bedekovic is quite a spectacle (video). According to her biography, "on her public appearances with her virtuosity and performance she 'demolishes everything in front of her', and they are regularly accompanied by enthusiastic applause, sometimes even leading to euphoria."
posted by mert at 3:35 PM PST - 58 comments

The British and Irish Lions tour the remote South Pacific nation of New Zealand once every 12 years. Rugby is like a religion on these islands and the rich history and intense rivalry between the Lions and the All Blacks will combine to make this the single biggest event in New Zealand’s history. New Zealand will be bursting at the seems during the tour and the economy, already buoyant will get another boost.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 3:31 PM PST - 33 comments

Sasha-Frere Jones writes a New Yorker column on Slint, who reunited this year for a tour: "During the nineteen-nineties, [Slint's album] 'Spiderland' sold steadily, a rare feat for an obscure, independent band that no longer existed and had performed live fewer than thirty times. In 1991, [producer] Steve Albini reviewed 'Spiderland' for Melody Maker, a popular British weekly, calling it 'flawless' and awarding it ten fucking stars." Mp3s from the recent tour can be found at MySpace & transmission3000.
posted by dhoyt at 1:45 PM PST - 48 comments

Confessions of an EBay opium addict - Like anyone trolling the Internet at 4 a.m., I had been looking for some kind of temporary drug fix. I found it on eBay under Crafts>Floral Supplies>Flowers, Foliage>Dried. (via Alternet)
posted by mrgrimm at 1:27 PM PST - 74 comments

Mirapuri - City of Peace and Future Man
posted by Captaintripps at 12:45 PM PST - 10 comments

Olives have a taste that is older than wine.
A stand-alone appetizer, these drupes are fine.
One of the first accomplishments of civilized man,
Now they are harvested in many a land.
This fruit of the tree that feeds the child,
Are oft' sour and tangy, definitely not mild.
Olives are known to make you look and feel great.
While those who don't love them are prone to debate.
They're artsy and craftsy, some virginal, some not.
And you can stuff 'em with just about anything you've got.
posted by debralee at 12:35 PM PST - 35 comments

Gyroball. [Flash, Addictive]. Remember Marble Madness? At least the controls on that game were orthogonal.
posted by psychotic_venom at 12:06 PM PST - 24 comments

The Good News: you're one of the first in line at Mann's Chinese for the last Star Wars movie ever. The bad news: the movie isn't scheduled to screen there. Logical conclusion: stay put. Out of protest.
posted by tsarfan at 11:54 AM PST - 32 comments

HeiDeas' “Beyond embiggens and cromulent” explores the linguistic humour that appear in The Simpsons.
posted by riffola at 11:26 AM PST - 32 comments

"Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers" documents the findings and authors' conclusions from interviews conducted across 45 states.
A major theory in this study is called Moral Therapeutic Deism, a rather simplified belief system in which:
"God wants little more for us than to be good, happy capitalists...and to be good, happy capitalists, we should be good, unless if being good prevents us being happy." via via
posted by peacay at 11:12 AM PST - 13 comments

America We Stand as One. Can't stop watching. For all the wrong reasons. [.mov]
posted by adampsyche at 10:12 AM PST - 141 comments

The U.S. Army Permafrost Tunnel provides researchers a unique opportunity to study the composition and behavior of ice structures, ice-saturated soils and frozen bioorganics dating over 40,000 years before present.
posted by breezeway at 9:28 AM PST - 4 comments

Scrolling LED Belt Buckles. My mind runs away with me about what to use those 256 characters to say.
posted by 13twelve at 9:06 AM PST - 47 comments

300+ High Schoolers Expelled You don't go to school here, you live too far away...
posted by AMWKE at 8:46 AM PST - 178 comments

The mission of delocator.net is to assist the public in finding and supporting independently owned cafés. There's a thinly-veiled stance against a certain coffee company, but the site's a great community-driven toolkit for finding yourself a good cup of joe anywhere in the US.
posted by mkultra at 7:53 AM PST - 53 comments

Today is the anniversary of the famous Hatrack case, in which H.L. Mencken was arrested for selling indecent literature in Boston. (Herbert Asbury, the author of the Hatrack story, was largely forgotten, except for this incident, until Scorsese made his novel in Gangs of New York.) The case was just one episode in the career of an American literary giant, reporter, columnist, and editor. Gore Vidal said, "Mencken is a nice antidote. Politically, he is often right but seldom correct by today's stern standards." This is perhaps the best website devoted to Mencken, with extensive links. Particularly recommended are The Hills of Zion, part of his coverage of the Scopes trial; and his obituary savaging William Jennings Bryan. If you've never read Mencken it's almost impossible to convey how well-written, incisive and funny his writing really is.
posted by OmieWise at 7:41 AM PST - 18 comments

First Super Star Cluster detected in Milky Way, while in the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), MYSTERY Star Clusters are found.
Unique? Us? Haw. Plenty of Earth-like planets await discovery, say researchers.
posted by dfowler at 7:38 AM PST - 6 comments

A woman’s story of bonding with baby hummingbirds. (3.5 min. audio) From NPR's All Things Considered.
posted by found missing at 5:32 AM PST - 6 comments

What is it with the London Underground and the internet? As many MeFi posts have noted before, no other subway system in the world has quite as many websites and applications devoted to it (why is this?). Until now the bulk of these applications have been based around maps, but the 'tube' has just got an independent site that is story-based. The brand new site at www.yourstation.co.uk wants you to write stories about the networks famous stations. Each gets its own homepage, you fill it with stories or simply read those that have gone before. Want to know how Mudchute got its name? You now know where to look.
posted by MrMerlot at 4:53 AM PST - 20 comments

British band Coldplay revealed the artwork to their new album X and Y. It's cryptic cover has the record company bosses hoping for public intrigue. No clues from the thread at the official forum. I know it's viral marketing, but what could it mean?
posted by kenaman at 4:36 AM PST - 107 comments