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inside Haiti a photo journalist blogs on the conditions in Haiti. No photos yet.
The place is awash with drug money, probably on both sides - Philippe is the former police chief of a town where i've heard reports of people walking down the streets with suitcases full of money, probably not sourced from shaking down shoe cleaners. The chimeres that searched us on the way down from Saint Marc a few days ago were clearly high on some upper, i'd guess coke, amphetamines or both, or maybe crack.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 4:52 PM PST - 26 comments

ultimate flash sonic [note : flash] (alternate link)
posted by crunchland at 4:48 PM PST - 12 comments

The Brave Tale of Katherine Gun, aka The Conscience of the Individual versus the State, aka "How the 'Land of the Free' Stopped Worrying about Legality and Liberty, and Learned to Love Wiretap and Manipulation": "Katharine made the disclosure because she believed that it was necessary to prevent an illegal war in which thousands of Iraqi citizens and British and American soldiers would die or be maimed.""I have only ever followed my conscience," she said. Pentagon Paper's author Daniel Ellsberg described the leak as "more timely and potentially more important than the Pentagon Papers. Truth-telling like this can stop a war." Norman Solomon asks " To what extent is the "special relationship" between the two countries to be based on democracy or duplicity? How much do we treasure the substance of civil liberties that make authentic public discourse distinct from the hollowness of secrecy and manipulation? How badly do we want to know what is being done in our names with our tax money? And why is it so rare that conscience takes precedence over expediency?"
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 3:36 PM PST - 63 comments

Nara Ehon: Japanese illustrated narrative manuscripts.
posted by hama7 at 3:26 PM PST - 4 comments

"Us intellectuals realized a long time ago that no human society could function without heavy-duty jamming all signals that might allow people to see reality. Because reality is so downright horrible we have to jam it tighter than Castro. The only question is who’s going to decide what gets jammed and how to jam it."

The eXile on censorship, why the truth is like kryptonite and how the cast and writers of Will and Grace will end up "at the bottom of a lime-dusted mass grave".
Warning - highly offensive to almost everyone in places.

via The Early Days of a Better Nation
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:50 PM PST - 16 comments

Wages of hate - anti-gay attitudes damage the economy - conversely, Gay-tolerant societies prosper. Will GOP anti-elitism and the US religious right make the U.S. a 3rd world country? Paul Craig Roberts argues that we're on the fast track, and a Carnegie Mellon study (title link) shows that culturally repressive attitudes in America are driving away the "Creative" class. Virginia Postrel defines this class differently (manicurists and stone cutters) but in Richard Florida's "Creative Class War" (recently on Metafilter), "America is no long attracting creative workers from abroad because it is seen as an intolerant society". More than artists and programmers are shunning the US - scientists are staying away too. In the US, meanwhile, a bifurcation - Americans are geographically self-segregating, choosing to live with those who hold similar beliefs and values.
posted by troutfishing at 12:47 PM PST - 61 comments

White House To Seek Ban On Gay Sex On The Moon
posted by elwoodwiles at 12:38 PM PST - 21 comments

Singing Babies! I don't know what to say about it, but it is worth watching. Babies and young children love it! That's why Singing Babies is now one of the best selling baby videos. It is the most fun and entertaining way to teach your child the classic nursery rhymes and toddler tunes! Research shows that babies benefit from watching other babies. Infants learn to talk by studying the sounds and movement made by the human mouth. SINGING BABIES® creatively combines these research findings in a way that accelerates your child's rate of cognitive development, increases capacity to learn language, and enhances your child's natural musical ability.
posted by Slimemonster at 11:34 AM PST - 17 comments

Looky-Loo. They claim it's art. Is it? Would you be able to "complete your business" in this?
posted by aaronscool at 11:21 AM PST - 19 comments

Telltale Weekly launched today. It's public domain meets Creative Commons meets Ogg Vorbis. Their mission is to build a free audiobook library of public domain texts. Four are available now, but Twain, Chekov Doctorow (Corry, not E.L.) and more are on the way.
posted by turbodog at 10:20 AM PST - 7 comments

Meet Lucy. She sure ain't pretty, but she's certainly unique. Steve Grand (interview 1, 2) one of the brains behind Creatures, has been working for the last three years on building a robot orangutan in his own house. Those is the South Wales area can catch Steve speaking about his experiences next month. Steve may well be a non-establishment genius, but when I see pictures like this, I can't help thinking it's already been done.
posted by nylon at 9:52 AM PST - 6 comments

from the Found Images Department: Animals on the Underground
posted by anastasiav at 9:46 AM PST - 5 comments

D.H.S. - The Series. "... a multimillion-dollar episodic series, will explore the inner workings of the Department of Homeland Security, teaming the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and National Security Administration (NSA) together with "first responders" such as local police, fire and safety administrators." The series is being pitched to prospective networks today and has the full support of President Bush and Tom Ridge. "They love it. They think it is fantastic," say the series' producers at Steeple Productions, located in the Seventh-Day Adventist Community of Zillah, Washington. Not familiar with Steeple Productions? Well, perhaps you might find their four-episode "Creation Vs Evolution" series enlightening.
posted by grabbingsand at 9:42 AM PST - 16 comments

The recent post that revived the rude ‘Rainbow’ kids show sketch reminded me of the our (that is, British) obsession with comic double entendre - the ability to accept the filthiest things as long as there is a parallel innocuous interpretation. I think it is something to do our love for wordplay and subtext, our innate hypocrisy and the belief that sex is, in fact, rather naughty. Perhaps the prime example are the Julian and Sandy sketches that ran on the BBC Radio show ‘Beyond Our Ken’ from 1964-69. Over Sunday lunch, millions (there was ONLY the BBC in those days) listened to two very camp characters saying outrageous things in Polari (underground gay slang). A much earlier prime example is the great dirty joke (it’s the one in blue at the bottom of the page) that got comedian Max Miller (died in 1963) banned from the BBC for 5 years. A more recent case of innuendo is, of course, Mrs. Slocombe’s pussy. Of course the double entendre can also be unintentional.
posted by rolo at 9:07 AM PST - 9 comments