December 2, 2005
Nocturnal omissions
Acquitted of rape on basis of "sexsomnia" defense. Ontario resident Jan Luedecke said his unbidden penetration wasn't rape because he was asleep at the time. A judge agreed that "sexsomnia" is an illness. The websites which purport it to be a legitimate illness don't necessarily inspire confidence, and, unsurprisingly, some people are less than inspired. Meanwhile, the victim is appealing the ruling.
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
truthdig --drilling beneath the headlines. A new webmagazine, offering expert in-depth coverage of current affairs as well as a variety of thoughtful, provocative content assembled from a progressive point of view. The site is built around major “digs,” led by authorities in their fields, who will drill down into contemporary topics and assemble packages of content... Robert Scheer is editor in chief (you may know him from the SF Chronicle). The current featured "dig" is on religion and homosexuality.
Big Pharma
Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter 2
Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter 2 has too much dialog, but once it get's going, it totaly kicks ass.
Appropriate Focus?
Deaths from international terrorism compared with road crash deaths in OECD countries (Abstract). In a study published in the Journal Injury Prevention, researchers found that people in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries are 390 times more likely to die in car crashes than in terrorist attacks. The conclusion of the Brief Report (PDF): "Policy makers need to be aware of this when allocating resources to preventing these two avoidable causes of mortality."
Quebec Political Cartoons
Le Cornichon seems to be Quebec's version of The Onion with a strong political bent. There are many excellent political cartoons covering the sponsorship scandal, Kyoto,
and other issues.
Movie posters of your favourite politician: Jeancula, The Godfather, Stephen Harper, Jack Layton as Canada Man, and Paul Martin starring in Pirate of Canada, Paul Almighty and The Aviator. And it's always cool to see a vamped Duceppe.
British and American mefites need not feel left out, Bush and Blair make multiple appearances.
CBC has a fine collection of newspaper cartoons about the current election. (unfortunately they are in a flash wrapper that Firefox has trouble getting through).
Movie posters of your favourite politician: Jeancula, The Godfather, Stephen Harper, Jack Layton as Canada Man, and Paul Martin starring in Pirate of Canada, Paul Almighty and The Aviator. And it's always cool to see a vamped Duceppe.
British and American mefites need not feel left out, Bush and Blair make multiple appearances.
CBC has a fine collection of newspaper cartoons about the current election. (unfortunately they are in a flash wrapper that Firefox has trouble getting through).
Strollin' down the highway with my shoes in my hand...
Tom Fox, a Quaker peaceworker, abducted in Iraq with three others. He understood the risks, accepted them, and now must "stand firm against the kidnapper as... against the soldier". His friends and supporters are calling for the hostages to be released, making it clear that they "[do] not advocate the use of violent force" to save lives.
Wayfarers, Ahoy
Wayfaring.com -- Share your personalized Google maps of your favorite watering holes, hiking trails, or roadside attractions, using numerous customization features. Still in its early stages, you can follow its growing pains on the development blog or post bug reports in the forums.
Bizzare WSJ Article Slams Hybrids
Dear Valued Hybrid Customer... I can't tell if this is a joke or something. As rhetoric, it's well done. As a reasoned argument it falls apart if you actually know anything at all about hybrids.
YetAnotherFilter
LibertyFilter is an aggregator of freedom-focused bloggers, with some original content of its own as well. Great way to keep up on current happenings (good and bad) regarding our rights. Note, however, not much actual filtering seems to occur.
A Ditty 4 You
Mark writes ditties for you. Including such songs as THINK! BEFORE MARKING YOUR EMAILS HIGH PRIORITY and others.
Information You Don't Need
Gov't will no longer report on M3 money supply, nor count Columbia River salmon Without explanation, the the Federal Reserve Board will, in March 2006, be stopping publication of its "M3" money supply information.
Funding for the lab responsible for counting salmon on the Columbia River has also been eliminated.
Homecoming
Homecoming - anti-war movie from National Amusements featuring the ungrateful dead. This will possibly invoke some controversy.
Underworld Engineer
The Charts of Clarence Larkin A mechanical engineer by training, Clarence Larkin later found his true calling as a pastor and an author of influential books on religion. He is best remembered, however, for his detailed charts on topics such as: The Underworld, The Failure of Man, The Threefold Nature of Man, and an incredibly detailed The Book of Revelations from his book on Revelations.
Listmania
The year in lists. Best albums, Top 100 DJs, 100 Notable Books, the list goes on. Lists from 2004 also.
I think we should go to commercial...
Conan O'Brien runs the one Walker, Texas Ranger clip that he never dared run before...
Aeon Flux, animated Series.
Aeon Flux, animated Series. This may kill all your time today. With the release of the new Aeon Flux Movie, they are releasing some of their animated shorts on their Overdrive application.
Unfortunately, I can't provide a direct link to it, since it goes through a flash interface.
You can get their by clicking on the 'movie' link on top.
Requires IE, Flash, and probably windows only.
A swing and a miss, strike one
NewsFilter: UFO (missle) exhaust seen by pilot Have the aliens landed, and are shooting at planes with unidentified flying objects? Or is it the 'terrorists'?
Don't worry citizens: FBI agents and Homeland Security officials spent the weekend investigating the report of a possible missile fired at an American Airlines.
Don't worry citizens: FBI agents and Homeland Security officials spent the weekend investigating the report of a possible missile fired at an American Airlines.
All the fine young cannibals
"I sat down to it with my bottle of wine, a bowl of rice, salt and pepper at hand. I had thought about this and planned it for a long time, and now I was going to do it. I was going to do it, furthermore -- I had promised and told myself -- with a completely casual, open, and objective mind. But I was soon to discover that I had bluffed and deceived myself a little in pretending so detached an attitude." The problems of researching what you and I actually taste like. [Previous threads]. [Via]
Gulf of Tonkin Intelligence 'Deliberately Skewed'
Gulf of Tonkin Intelligence 'Deliberately Skewed'
The National Security Agency has released hundreds of pages of long-secret documents on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident that played a critical role near the beginning of the Vietnam War. ... The most provocative document is a 2001 article [PDF] in which an agency historian argued that the agency's intelligence officers "deliberately skewed" the evidence passed on to policymakers on the crucial question of whether North Vietnamese ships attacked U.S. destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964. Based on the mistaken belief that such an attack had occurred, President Lyndon Johnson ordered air strikes on North Vietnam, and Congress passed a broad resolution authorizing military action.[more inside]
Sierra Leonese Paid $0.50 an Hour in Iraq
What is a "fair wage" for contractors working in Iraq? Halliburton subsidiary KBR pays subcontracted employees far more than they could earn at home, in exchange for living far from friends and family in a dangerous work environment. KBR insists their contractors adhere to all local labor laws in the country where they operate. But when that country doesn't yet have an effective or legitimate government of its own, and the workers are brought from a country with a 68% poverty rate, is that enough?
Finger Frenzy
Friday Finger Frenzy How fast can you type the alphabet? 9.083 seconds here...
Higher?
SETI's Seth Shostak on Intelligent Design
Why SETI's search for intelligent extraterrestrial life is different from the work of proponents of Intelligent Design. An interesting bit of argumentation regarding the distinction between the simple signals searched for by SETI and the complex signals used in arguments for ID.
Arianna Calling!
Arianna Calling! Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, we learned from reading the New England Transcendentalists, yet Arianna is often put down, bad mouthed, for having moved from the Right to the Left...Yes. she is very wealthy. Yes, she seems always in a spotlight. But there is much substance to this woman, as is indicated in this piece, found via Arts&Letters.
Composite Superman!
"I'm greater than Superman and Batman put together! Before I'm through, I'll have them cringing before the might of Composite Superman!" The mighty Composite Superman is brilliant artifact from the Silver Age of comics. A variation on the theme recently resurfaced in print and on television! Just goes to show that you can't keep a gimmick supervillain down. He's even got his own blog! (via Scans_Daily)
This link contains sex, drugs, and violence. Parental Guidance is Suggested.
The "a" in '[a href=' is for ADVISORY. Given that the social conservatives are eager to spend their waning mandate (and to be fair, hyper-PC liberals too) and extend out the nannystate to Cable TV, satellite, (which isn't entirely a bad thing) and videogames, is it too soon to work about the implications for the internet, and possible requirements and censorship? Blogger Sean Gleason suggests pictorial icons rating each link as to it's content. And of course, you could always make your own.
Let the force flow through you
Friday Jedi Fun - Kill the droids by deflecting lasers into them.
Is H5N1 flu transitioning to human-to-human transmission?
Is H5N1 flu transitioning to a human-to-human illness? Recent reports of familial clusters suggest that it may be, though there are certainly other possible explanations, such as families living in environments contaminated by virus-laden bird feces. On the other hand, it would seem that epidemiologists are growing increasingly interested in the possibility that these clusters are indicative of human-to-human transmissions. Further, the virus may be inching towards being asymptomatic, which isn't as good as it sounds: if people can carry the virus and transmit it to others without showing symptoms, it will be very difficult to impossible to tell who is a vector and highly difficult to control any emerging epidemic.
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