MetaFilter

Maniac Muslim: Making Muslims look cool since 1984. A humorous look at all things Muslims, by Muslims, and for Muslims (and you), such as Annoying Quirks Of Masjid Uncles, Your Guide to Islamic Conferences, and Muslim Chat Lingo. The impetus for the sight can be found here.
posted by Falconetti at 10:25 PM PST - 25 comments

Joy to the world! The Lord has gum! "Good King Wences' car backed out / On the feet of heathens..." We've discussed Mondegreens (misheard lyrics), but tis the season for Christmas Mondegreens. Snopes has culled out some great ones, and there's also a book of them, "Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly."
posted by GaelFC at 9:36 PM PST - 51 comments

FARNE North East English folk archives. Interviews, performances, manuscripts, photos and videos. You can browse the archives a few different ways to get the feel of the place.
posted by tellurian at 8:46 PM PST - 4 comments

John Lennon: The Wenner Tapes. A BBC program centered around never-before-aired audio of Jann Wenner's benchmark 1970 Rolling Stone interview with John Lennon, available online for the first time at the BBC. (Text excerpts from the same interview.)
posted by BackwardsCity at 8:27 PM PST - 19 comments

Mapping Margery Kempe Visual, geographical, and cultural context for Margery Kempe's famous autobiography.
posted by thomas j wise at 6:50 PM PST - 7 comments

Environmental Literacy in America (PDF) is a new a report from the NEETF on the poor state of environmental literacy in the US and the consequences of our growing nature-deficit disorder. Meanwhile, some students have uncovered a confidential brief on climate change (PDF) for the president, allegedly from the IPCC (but probably not.) [Via WorldChanging and Gristmill]
posted by homunculus at 6:30 PM PST - 8 comments

le Papillon An beautifully animated quicktime short about filial dedication in a feudal japanese setting. via Drawn!
posted by boo_radley at 5:42 PM PST - 22 comments

X3 Trailer released! The first X3 trailer has been released, due to everyone downloading this, it may take awhile. Looks like its gonna be a good one!
posted by edmcbride at 4:56 PM PST - 73 comments

Need cash right away? Your local car title lender will be happy to lend you a couple of grand. But you'd better be able to pay it back in a month, or you'll lose your car--or get trapped in a spiral of debt. This is a business model based on preying on the working poor. Imagine my surprise when I saw the latest commercial for title loan company LoanMax, featuring their new spokesman.
posted by EarBucket at 4:39 PM PST - 86 comments

First People is a collection of artworks, vintage photographs, clipart, legends, essays, treaties, poems and more, relating to the first peoples of America and Canada (Turtle Island). [via]
posted by peacay at 3:51 PM PST - 6 comments

Tomorrow for the 35th anniversary of WBAI's four and a half day radio reading of Tolstoy's War and Peace, the amazing Pacifica Radio Archives will host a 18 hour fundraiser on the Pacifica Foundation Network. (KPFK, KPFT, WPFK, and the first listener supported radio station in America, KPFA.) A hour long speical on the War and Peace broadcast will be featured on Democracy Now! Tune in for a slice of history.
posted by wheelieman at 3:32 PM PST - 9 comments

Kong Kicks Ass [flash] Squish, crush, eat or poop on your favorites.
posted by kosem at 3:29 PM PST - 15 comments

After he discovered a false biography on Wikipedia that claims he was responsible for the death of JFK and his brother Bobby, John Seigenthaler wrote an op-ed piece in USA Today refuting those claims and rebuking Wiki admins and the ISPs that host them. Now, in light of Seigenthaler's outrage, the once open access Wikipedia now requires registration to submit new articles to the English language version of the site.
posted by brittney at 3:27 PM PST - 70 comments

Sexy Furniture. "The shape of a woman, her organic architecture, combined with my passion for wood inspired me to sculpt these sexy designs." Passion for wood, indeed. NSFW.
posted by OpinioNate at 2:21 PM PST - 41 comments

Corollaries to famous quotes pt 1: "Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted." - Shelley.
posted by lalochezia at 2:11 PM PST - 7 comments

And of course we'll keep you notified about that story as soon as we get any. But now. Still to come. A round-up of our reminders of all the news still to come so far. All that still to come. But first. Coming up next. [mostly RealMedia]
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 1:58 PM PST - 19 comments

The first episode of a new podcast by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant (of Extras and The Office fame). If you need a bigger fix, try the archive of their radio shows from the last few years.
posted by greycap at 11:46 AM PST - 30 comments

America's hopes today for an orderly exit from Iraq depend completely on the emergence of a viable Iraqi security force. There is no indication that such a force is about to emerge. As a matter of unavoidable logic, the United States must therefore choose one of two difficult alternatives: It can make the serious changes including certain commitments to remain in Iraq for many years that would be necessary to bring an Iraqi army to maturity. Or it can face the stark fact that it has no orderly way out of Iraq, and prepare accordingly.

Why Iraq Has No Army   [pdf]
via Small Wars Center of Excellence, an Official Marine Corps Web Site
See also Why the Strong Lose   [pdf]   More Inside
posted by y2karl at 11:18 AM PST - 151 comments

A Peek Under the PR Mask Once in a blue moon, we actually get a peek under the White House's public-relations mask, and this morning it comes courtesy of Peter Baker and Dan Balz , whose front-pager in The Washington Post suggests that Bush's unflagging public confidence about his Iraq policy reflects the work of public opinion researchers.
posted by Postroad at 10:38 AM PST - 25 comments

Interesting (if biased) article on the downside of Craigslist's populist appeal in the form of it's contribution to the imminent death of the print newsmedia, especially in the SF Bay Area.
posted by jonson at 9:51 AM PST - 64 comments

Precision Lawn Chair Marching Dads
posted by dios at 9:42 AM PST - 28 comments

Tim Tom [QuickTime] is a charming CGI short film from 2003 that looks like stop-motion animation at first glance. More info here.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 8:05 AM PST - 14 comments

The only bad thing I can say about the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive is that it's been on the internets for 12 years but has never been posted to Metafilter.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 7:53 AM PST - 31 comments

The Forbes Fictional 15 -- it is list season, after all--the usual suspects, and some new entries. Daddy Warbucks (Net Worth: $27.3 billion, attended SUNY Stony Brook) gets this: Iraqi conflict has been kind to Warbucks; recipient of multiple defense contracts; cat-food holdings also up.
posted by amberglow at 6:48 AM PST - 49 comments

MemoryWiki is a project to create a bank of memories, stories and experiences. Anyone can submit their account of an historical or personal event. Some examples: First sight of Viet Cong dead | The first time I told a lie | Working with Frank Sinatra | Ukranian Independence Day, 2005.
posted by chrismear at 5:56 AM PST - 36 comments

Harry Beck's famous map [current 287K .gif version] of the London Underground has a long history and is often praised as a definitive example of excellent information design. Many consider it unimprovable, but that doesn't stop many others trying. The latest variant is a project by Oskar Karlin, redesigning the map to illustrate journey time [warning: large, slow loading .pdf]. [partly via]
posted by normy at 4:44 AM PST - 17 comments

The mystery of Qwert Shmarble--solved! If you've ever wondered how stunningly useful items like Qwert Shmarble end up on Amazon, here's the inside story, from the former Amazon temp who wrote the user manual to the NM-156 Reciprocating Emu Press.
posted by yankeefog at 3:38 AM PST - 16 comments