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Inaugural protest pics (series begins at that photo): Kevin Smith attended the inaugural protests and took some (IMHO) really good photographs that you weren't likely to see on any of the mainstream media outlets. Outside of the subject matter itself, I enjoy his photos and wanted to share these given this sets timeliness. In particular, I like this one and love this one. Non protest pics can be find by using the first link and then navigating back through his archives.
posted by jperkins at 11:24 PM PST - 82 comments

The City [Parts I & II, each a 15:00+ minute realPlayer video].
An urban planning film from 1939 that takes a nostalgic look at country life, compares it to the hustle and bustle of 1930s big city life, and presents a utopian alternative. Reviews of The City, Parts I & II, can be found at the Prelinger Archives if you want to read about them before you commit to watching the 30 minute movie. I tripped across this while surfing around on the forums at Cyburbia: The urban planning portal. Also notable: Music by Aaron Copland.
posted by Doohickie at 9:28 PM PST - 14 comments

Ta-Da List is 37 Signals' latest offering is free sharable to-do lists. You can keep them to yourself, share them with only specific people, or share them with the world. So now you have no excuse for forgetting to buy milk on the way home.
posted by riffola at 8:49 PM PST - 29 comments

Terrorist Video Bloopers Chicago comedy troupe Teatro Bastardo spoofs the hostage video: Three warnings: 1. Windows Media Player required 2. Funny AND offensive 3. Might be low-bandwidth
posted by lilboo at 8:12 PM PST - 28 comments

Protest Warriors Clash • Gil Kobrin of the Protest Warriors went down "under a hail of black boots" belonging to anti-Bush peace activists. "It wasn't much of a contest. ProtestWarrior's contingent numbered 13, the other side in the hundreds. If they won any hearts and minds, no one said so." Meanwhile, DC activist group Anarchist Resistance issued their call to action: "There's nothing left to salvage in this empire that is the U.S. government. It's time to bring it down." AR is listed as a resouce by the Internet Liberation Front who Kos reported "hacked and defaced six Republican websites" yesterday. Some commentary on civil disobedience by Thoreau & ActUp.
posted by dhoyt at 7:12 PM PST - 88 comments

Knight's Tour Notes. More than you ever wanted to know about knight's tours on a chessboard.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:06 PM PST - 7 comments

Idiotarod. The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. Our Idiotarod is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it's people, instead of sleds, it's shopping carts, and instead of Alaska it's New York City.
posted by thanatogenous at 6:46 PM PST - 12 comments

Avatar High - you are back in school. Better study for that test. Hey, what are you doing Friday night? Flash fun for Friday. (best for those younger than you, but still interesting)
posted by caddis at 6:33 PM PST - 10 comments

Do you speak American? The companion website to a PBS series, full of interactive language and dialect tools. You can map your attitudes about regional correctness, guess the speaker's home, learn about American varieties, track the history of certain words, hear samples of regional dialects, and more.
Further reading: Dialect Map of American English [image], Slanguage's local terms, and this collection of local phrases.
Previously on MetaFilter: The Dialect Survey (and results), The Speech Accent Archive, Pop vs. Soda.
posted by stopgap at 6:03 PM PST - 13 comments

The 50 Most Loathsome People of 2004 Funnier than The NYP 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers. And you're in it, to boot.
posted by Space Coyote at 5:37 PM PST - 41 comments

Muppets Overtime via (MoFi) QT
posted by shawnj at 4:42 PM PST - 25 comments

Bollywood Record Covers Crazy Bollywood soundtrack LP covers. My likes? This one and this one. No, I have no idea what they say either.
posted by bdave at 4:40 PM PST - 11 comments

suck squeeze bang blow (SFW)
posted by jonah at 4:22 PM PST - 22 comments

Dr Hugo's Museum of the Mind - Synaesthesia
posted by Gyan at 2:19 PM PST - 22 comments

While the rest of the country seemed focused on the $40 million dollar block party in Washington, D. C., those of us down in the Big Easy were having a protest the best way we knew how, with a jazz funeral, or more specifically, a jazz funeral for democracy. What else would you expect from a party city that voted 77% for Kerry.
posted by Igor XA at 2:04 PM PST - 35 comments

Bob Marley's works enter the Grammy Hall Of Fame - including No Woman No Cry, Marley's tale of his time in the ghetto of Trench Town, Jamaica (photos)...Marley gave his friend Vincent Tata Ford writing credits, in part, to keep Ford's soup kitchen running...
posted by tpl1212 at 1:26 PM PST - 17 comments

U.N. Oil for Food Program. Former Bob Dole running mate, Jack Kemp was recently "quizzed" by the FBI about his involvement in the scandal.
posted by rocket_skates at 1:18 PM PST - 7 comments

Shot In Our Name. Seattle's arts weekly The Stranger graphically expresses popular sentiment this day in urban America.
posted by newton at 1:16 PM PST - 18 comments

TLE, possibly one of the most common diseases, believed to affect 600,000 to a million Americans, remains obscure. It is what afflicted Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, and Dostoyevsky. Known through the work of Bear and Geshwind, it is virtually impossible to diagnose except in a severe cases where a seizure can be witnessed by an MRI or EEG, also because of the controversial theories on personality. While a neurological disorder, it is treated by psychiatrists, and when medicated, artists have often felt that the muse has left them.
posted by scazza at 1:15 PM PST - 38 comments

With all the talk about the emergence of Europe as an economic rival to the US, is there a more likely rival emerging? A real strategic partnership between Russia and China could be exactly the combination of nuclear power, boots on the ground, and economic momentum to truly create a new bipolarity. Apparently, there has been serious collaboration in military philosophy between the two powers at least since the USSR broke up, and flash gamers have known about it for at least a couple years, but now it is becoming very real. Conventional wisdom says that there are longstanding disputes over trade and territory, but things generally seem to be warming up. You want to know what the world will look like in 20 years? Look to Siberia.
posted by milkman at 1:04 PM PST - 9 comments

Dell dismisses "one-product wonder" iPod as a "fad". Also says cheerleader who rebuffed him in high school "not that pretty, had a big butt and I think she was gay anyway."
posted by Dome-O-Rama at 12:28 PM PST - 70 comments

Nothing like spending time on the beach... with your laptop. (.mov trailer)
Geeks On Board is a documentary about a unique phenomenon, a one-week cruise designed for people who have an extraordinary relationship with their computers.
posted by jba at 11:48 AM PST - 9 comments

The Condi Conflict: Finally, here is a compelling list of reasons why Bush was forced to give Condoleezza Rice the position of Secretary of State. This makes it absolutely clear: On the left... On the right...
posted by jb_thms at 10:23 AM PST - 37 comments

The One Man Star Wars Trilogy is a one-hour, high energy, nonstop blast through the first three Star Wars films. The catch is, there's only one cast member. Charles Ross, the writer and solo performer, spent too much of his childhood in a galaxy far, far away- adulthood has been similar. Ross plays all the characters, recreates the effects, sings the music, flies the ships, and fights both sides of the battles.
I'm not so sure I want to see him playing Carrie Fisher, especially in E6
posted by Hands of Manos at 10:23 AM PST - 21 comments

Researchers Report Bubble Fusion Results Replicated. Bring on the Mr. Fusion, please.
posted by loquacious at 9:44 AM PST - 46 comments

Uh Oh! Giant Squids, not to be confused with your regular, everyday squids, are washing up by the hundreds on the beaches of Southern California. This may be because Giant Squids are taking over the world!
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:26 AM PST - 61 comments

Tiger Woods in Dubai shagging drivers off the top of the Burj Al-Arab.
posted by jonson at 9:21 AM PST - 26 comments

"Yes, I'm comin' back to serve a second term..." JibJab strikes again (flash).
posted by Robot Johnny at 8:07 AM PST - 43 comments

Blackout Some sites have gone black today in protest of black box voting and/or four more years of Bush. But, actually, I haven't seen many. Are people tired of fighting or is this just a poorly-organized effort no one knows about?
posted by sparky at 7:56 AM PST - 64 comments

New research takes steps towards finding the "gay genes." A study conducted on gay brothers in more than 100 families found several genetic regions of similarity with linkage to sexual orientation. This is kind of dense (scroll to the bottom of the page for the FAQ), but that's because it hasn't been written up in the press so there are only journal doc's and scientific summaries available.
This is the press release, which is clearer (Microsoft Word).
This is the article on the study, as published in the journal Human Genetics (PDF).
posted by joe_murphy at 7:46 AM PST - 107 comments

Dreaming Arnold Schwarzenegger An Exploration into the Structure of Web Presentations. If there’s a funner Schwarzenegger site, tell me about it.
posted by growabrain at 7:29 AM PST - 4 comments

CIA Predicts European Union Will Break Up Within 15 Years. With all the attention focused on Iraq, this new CIA report seems to have slipped under the radar. Europe's dismal economic prospects and the continent's unfavorable demographics could have dire consequences for the EU, result in the dissolution of NATO and generally @#$?! up every post World War II/Cold War alliance that has been formed over the last half-century. Not that the CIA has ever been wrong...
posted by Heminator at 7:28 AM PST - 67 comments

Internal Amazon.com Conference - Liveblogged Interesting approach to sharing the wealth - Amazon.com has rounded up an interesting roster of tech speakers for a private conference - and decided to allow an internal blogging team to liveblog the speeches. Links to their talks (from yesterday and today) are here. (Speakers include Rick Dalzell, Joel Spolsky, George Dyson, James Gosling, Eric Neustadter, Rael Dornfest, Gregor Kiczales, Craig McClanahan, Brian Aker, Gavin King, Bela Ban, Michael Tiemann, Margo Seltzer and Arlene Capismalis, Chris Hofmann, Bjorn Freeman-Benson and Guido van Rossum)
posted by kokogiak at 7:08 AM PST - 6 comments

Guess what? Another poll (since MeFites enjoy them sooooo much)! This one is a take on how much the world trusts and loves Bush.
posted by acrobat at 6:52 AM PST - 7 comments

Let's be friends
posted by srboisvert at 6:41 AM PST - 37 comments

Oh, the Humanity! "I'm a professional musician & I would like to share with you a song that I have just completed, I consider to be one of my most important and controversial pieces of work to date..." [via] I'm looking forward to the next versions of, "Sirhan Sirhan, who are you?" and "Oswald was a patsy."
posted by gsb at 6:06 AM PST - 10 comments

Creating Bush's God Talk by Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter. According to University of Washington professor David Domke, author of "God Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the War on Terror", here's how Bush's God-Talk Is Different ("When Bush speaks of God, he positions himself as a prophetic spokesperson rather than a petitioning supplicant".)
Bonus: "On What Did They Solemnly Swear? Which president opened his inaugural Bible at random in haste? Which didn't swear at all?". Test your knowledge of presidential inaugural Bible use with this quiz.
And: Prayers of the Presidents -- From George Washington to George W. Bush, a sampling of personal and public prayers of America's presidents.
posted by matteo at 5:04 AM PST - 14 comments

One of those geography quizzes that we all know and love. This one involves throwing darts at a map of Europe.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:27 AM PST - 42 comments

Tomahawk® Brand Cruise Missiles Because not all Block II Nuclear Variant cruise missles are alike... Look for the name you can trust!
posted by jimjam at 2:59 AM PST - 31 comments

Who will be the next president of World Bank?
posted by hoder at 1:17 AM PST - 4 comments

A child's brain is like a sponge. (NYT reg) Thank God Focus on the Family is here to save us from gay sponge brainwashing and the left's obvious agenda to get us all to Think Pink.
posted by ElvisJesus at 1:14 AM PST - 24 comments