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Scalped basketball tickets: $370. XBOX 360: $299. Having Ebay stop the bidding and award all items to the person who bid $80: Priceless
posted by chakalakasp at 10:40 PM PST - 25 comments

Wait. What?
posted by keswick at 9:37 PM PST - 119 comments

Kiwi Actually French: Film At 11. The French wine industry is notably protective of domestic producers' rights to use terms like Champagne and Burgundy, both geographic indications of areas of France. The Institut National des Appellation d’Origine even protested against the US registration of the trademark Goats do Roam (sounding similar to Côtes du Rhône). Now one winemaker, Lacheteau, which sells French wine under the brand Kiwi Cuvee, has successfully scared off a New Zealand winery from using the "Kiwi" appelation in the EU.
posted by afiler at 9:15 PM PST - 24 comments

Warning signs ahead. Use caution. Don't be somewhere you shouldn't. No crapping in the woods. I just don't know.
posted by mss at 8:28 PM PST - 17 comments

Anthology Holy Tango of Literature: "The question of what would happen if poets and playwrights wrote works whose titles were anagrams of their names is one that has been insufficiently studied in the past." Francis Heaney has published his book online under a Creative Commons license, along with the Holy Tango Basement Tapes.
posted by mendel at 5:07 PM PST - 21 comments

Gay hating Ford exec led push for Roberts nomination, meanwhile..... The scandal [ see mefi 47306] lurches in new directions as antigay Ford exec caught "running secret meetings out of Ford's own offices in support of Bush's far-right Supreme Court nominees." The Ford / Nazi link is bad enough, and the leader of the largest branch of American Judaism has recently said, in a speech, "when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations", now a new Am. Judaic alliance to oppose ( viciously anti-gay ) Christian theocratic nationalism ?
posted by troutfishing at 4:39 PM PST - 54 comments

Britain may pull out of the JSF program. Multinational defense programmes are becoming more common, and the JSF is indicative of particularly close ties between the U.K. and the U.S. Representatives Hyde and Hunter have opposed the transfer of technology to Britain. Even with the Rueda Report (pdf) concluding that the embargo against China not be lifted, eventual third-party sales to China still appear a concern.
posted by Captaintripps at 4:06 PM PST - 16 comments

Have you got a copy of the bible you no longer want or need? Do you want some porn? Well, if you live in San Antonio, you're in luck, because a group of atheists at UTSA are trading bibles for porn.
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:35 PM PST - 84 comments

Project Porchlight [via mefi projects] is a volunteer-based, not-for-profit group that aims to deliver one free energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulb to every household in Canada. If successful, the resulting reduction in pollution from energy saved will be the equivalent of taking 66,000 cars off the road.
posted by Robot Johnny at 3:12 PM PST - 26 comments

Bush administration admits denies making mistake! Starts off new relationship with conservative German chancellor by personally insulting her. "We are not quite sure what was in her head." - a senior Bush administration official, referring to Merkel. This after Condoleeza Rice gave Merkel private assurances and made a public statement in which she said "when and if mistakes are made, we work very hard and as quickly as possible to rectify them. Any policy will sometimes have mistakes . . . we will do everything that we can to rectify those mistakes." Obviously, Condi was mistaken. The Bush administration does not make mistakes.
posted by insomnia_lj at 2:54 PM PST - 54 comments

The Garbage Man: where would we be without him?

Some are under-appreciated, some hated. Some may deserve our ire. Some just don't care.

They can inspire fiction, poetry, even a cult! [warning: midi bagpipes]
posted by Mr T at 2:02 PM PST - 22 comments

It's that time of year again: Dutch people dressing in blackface.
posted by bigmike at 1:58 PM PST - 52 comments

Salon Video Dog: (Reg. Req'd.) After squandering an entire decade on all-too-often embarrassingly cerebral journalism, online publishing pioneer Salon.com has clearly decided to finally get serious, making a concerted push to join the ranks of the internet's pillars of innovation and originality. Good thing too, because it's all too hard these days to find quality mirrors for the Star Wars Kid, the Exploding Whale, and freshly ripped clips from last night's Stewart/Colbert broadcasts. Thanks, Salon!
posted by MaxVonCretin at 1:49 PM PST - 21 comments

Timelapse Typeface: [Flash: "Type Something"]
posted by nobody at 1:29 PM PST - 8 comments

Games for the Web: Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer On-line Games Students of Trinity University's Communications department wrote their term papers on various issues that come up in the MMORPG, World of Warcraft. I'd like to take that class!
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 12:08 PM PST - 27 comments

Claiborne Paul Ellis, union organiser, born January 8 1927; died November 3 2005. He was Studs Terkel's favorite interviewee, and a former Exalted Grand Cyclops of the KKK. In 1971, he co-chaired a 10-day discussion group on school desegregation with Ann Atwater, a local civil rights activist who had once tried to stab him with a pocket knife during a city council meeting. Over the course of those ten days, the two former antagonists formed an unlikely bond. Their friendship became the subject of a prize-winning book, and a subsequent documentary film. (The "Curriculum and Video Guide" .pdf on the film web site is also interesting. Direct link to .pdf)
posted by halcyon_daze at 11:41 AM PST - 17 comments

Photos of the outcome of a motorcycle merging with a car @ 155 miles per hour.
posted by jonson at 10:40 AM PST - 110 comments

"[She] loved as in our age
People already do no longer; as only
The wild soul of a poet
Is still condemned to love".
Ever since her tragic death in a car accident in 1967, Forough Farrokhzad has been drawing thousands of visitors to the Zahir-al-Doleh cemetery in Tehran. They come to lay flowers, recite poetry and light candles on the grave of the poet who has become an inspiration to women not only in Iran, but wherever women's rights are severely curtailed. If she had survived her car crash, the poet would have celebrated her seventieth birthday this year. Farrokhzad was also a film director: her documentary The House is Black is considered a masterpiece by filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami and Chris Marker and critics like Jonathan Rosenbaum. More inside.
posted by matteo at 10:26 AM PST - 8 comments

Snowplowing. Too much seriousness here on the blue today. We need something fun. Since it is snowing where I am, a flash snowplowing game it is.
posted by caddis at 10:21 AM PST - 12 comments

For most of human history, infants have needed to stay in close proximity to their mothers simply to survive. The result? Most cultures developed and used some kind of soft baby carrier that straps to the mother's or caretaker's body. Despite research, doctor's advice and celebrity endorsement, American and European babies spend less time in arms and more time in containers than babies in more traditional cultures. Somehow, the concept simply picking up and carrying the baby continues to elude many parents.(warning: music)
posted by Biblio at 10:12 AM PST - 30 comments

In a sardonic new editorial, the Register asks whether the EFF is harming the very causes that it's supposedly fighting for. This isn't coming out of left field. The EFF has lost numerous cases that could have been won, and in doing so is helping to creating precedents that make fights for civil liberties harder to wage.
posted by bshort at 10:07 AM PST - 35 comments

For 45 minutes on Dec. 6, 1989 an enraged gunman roamed the corridors of Montreal's École Polytechnique and killed 14 women. Marc Lepine, 25, separated the men from the women and before opening fire on the classroom of female engineering students he screamed, "I hate feminists."
posted by aclevername at 8:50 AM PST - 152 comments

This Site Cannot Exist! Recently I've been seeing a lot of crazy talk around the web regarding the possibility of a purely "community driven" website. And it is FIERCE -- running the gamut from here to here to here . And, although the ongoing discussion is interesting (and centered around the pontification of one person), I couldn't help but think, "What the Hell is wrong with these people?" Community-owned blogging/websites have been alive and well for years. For example: Kuro5hin, Slashdot, Linkfilter, Plastic, and a growing host of sites using community platforms like Drupal and Scoop. Heck, all they'd have to do is head on over to Google and type in the words "Community Weblog" to discover the answer to their queries. That's right. At the top of the page staring them in the face is the grand-daddy of all community Blogging -- the pioneer that started it all -- Metafilter.com!! Is community blogging possible? Come on! Long live the Big "M"!!
posted by jb_thms at 8:43 AM PST - 43 comments

4 out of 5 non-Christians agree: rape rocks the box! "There may be a genuine moral argument against rape to be made outside of the Judeo-Christian ethic, but I have yet to hear it." Well? Let's hear it.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 8:35 AM PST - 94 comments

Don't mess with Kansas. Professor at the University of Kansas decides to offer this course, is beaten by unknown assailants, withdraws the course. Add "no sense of humor" to what's the matter with Kansas? [more inside]
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 8:14 AM PST - 118 comments

Ford folds to pressure from American Family Association; pulls ads from gay media The American Family Association is forthright about its efforts to take corporations "Head-On" who supposedly embrace the homosexual agenda; apparently in this instance it worked. Ford spokespeople are pitching a different story to the New York Times, claiming the ad withdraws were due to "cost cutting," but John Aravosis claims to have more sources who will confirm Ford's dealings with the AFA. One wonders how Ford could forget its founder's history of intolerance; not everyone is missing the connection.
posted by rkent at 6:50 AM PST - 78 comments

The Doctor Who Cuttings Archive 42 Years of Doctor Who in newspapers magazines and listings...
posted by srboisvert at 6:38 AM PST - 4 comments

I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are As we read of the unfortunate crash of an Iranian military plane, causing at least 119 deaths, it's worth remembering what happened 17.5 years ago. Arundhati Roy has written and spoken about Bush Sr.'s quote but the act itself has often been forgotten. The US did end up going to the International Court of Justice and coughing up some dough, however.
posted by allen.spaulding at 6:34 AM PST - 64 comments

The USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts is a very useful compilation of essays on various topics, searchable versions of the Qur'an (uses three different translations) and hadith (the sayings and traditions of the Prophet), and a glossary (which is how I discovered the site, while trying to find a good reference for a comment on Falconetti's excellent Maniac Muslim post). The first of the Ten Misconceptions About Islam: "Islam is 'the religion of peace' because the Arabic word Islam is derived from the Arabic word Al-Salaam which means peace." Their response:

It might seem strange to think of this as a misconception, but in fact it is. The root word of Islam is al-silm which means "submission" or "surrender." It is understood to mean "submission to Allah." In spite of whatever noble intention has caused many a Muslim to claim that Islam is derived primarily from peace, this is not true.

As you can see, they care about accuracy, not just propaganda.
posted by languagehat at 6:20 AM PST - 24 comments

"If God does not exist, and if religion is an illusion that the majority of men cannot live without...let men believe in the lies of religion since they cannot do without them, and let then a handful of sages, who know the truth and can live with it, keep it among themselves. Men are then divided into the wise and the foolish, the philosophers and the common men, and atheism becomes a guarded, esoteric doctrine--for if the illusions of religion were to be discredited, there is no telling with what madness men would be seized, with what uncontrollable anguish."
posted by empath at 6:19 AM PST - 75 comments

iTunes Gets NBC Shows. And not just this season's: like a page out of Infinite Jest, iTunes and NBC are serving up classic NBC programs, including Knight Rider and Hitchcock Presents. (note: sorry - first link goes to iTunes Music Store -- no press releases available yet to link to.)
posted by eustacescrubb at 5:38 AM PST - 32 comments

3quarksdaily. Just another blog, sure, but a good one. 3quarksdaily is a filter blog much like our very own, but with only 15 users (and an editor). As they say on their about page "On this website, my guest authors and editors and I hope to present interesting items from around the web on a daily basis, in the areas of science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and anything else we deem inherently fascinating." The do an admirable job.
posted by panoptican at 1:34 AM PST - 26 comments

Baby Bush: toys for the resoundingly average child. Also new from plinko design: Fancy Parking.
posted by kyleg at 12:15 AM PST - 23 comments