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Philip Larkin: Great Poet, Shame About The Man? When is an excess of biography, i.e. high-minded, clumsily-disguised gossip, an impediment to literary appreciation? Nowadays, it seems always. [More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:54 PM PST - 26 comments

Topple Dr. Strangefeld in Taos! Some of Mr. Rumsfeld's Taos neighbors are celebrating the first anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by toppling him in effigy. The twenty-foot statue of Rummy riding a missile recalls the final scene of Dr. Strangelove. I cannot wait for pictures!
posted by answergrape at 9:52 PM PST - 4 comments

Why I stopped going to baseball games. I was there for McGwire's 62nd homer, hugging my son afterwards and glad-handing everyone in sight. Although it was a special moment for us both, the luster is now gone, and we don't go to the ballpark anymore. Donald Fehr is one reason, who refuses budge from his latest contract to effectively address the steroid issue. Count me gone... but perhaps it's always been a dying sport.
posted by F Mackenzie at 7:18 PM PST - 37 comments

Spark is a new magazine about the good things that are going on all over the world, and the people working to create a brighter future for us all. (via WorldChanging)
posted by stbalbach at 7:10 PM PST - 6 comments

Daring Planet --retrofuturistic online space serial (most of it to come, but a teaser, and tons of clickable cool), by Paul Corrigan.
posted by amberglow at 6:52 PM PST - 7 comments

All This Progress Is Killing Us. "Increasingly, Western life is afflicted by the paradoxes of progress. Material circumstances keep improving, yet our quality of life may be no better as a result - especially in those cases, like food, where enough becomes too much."
posted by the fire you left me at 5:09 PM PST - 17 comments

FORMER WHITE HOUSE TERRORISM ADVISOR: BUSH ADMIN WAS DISCUSSING BOMBING IRAQ FOR 9/11 DESPITE KNOWING AL QAEDA WAS TO BLAME Former White House terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tells Lesley Stahl that on September 11, 2001 and the day after - when it was clear Al Qaeda had carried out the terrorist attacks - the Bush administration was considering bombing Iraq in retaliation. Clarke's exclusive interview will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday March 21 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Clarke was surprised that the attention of administration officials was turning toward Iraq when he expected the focus to be on Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. "They were talking about Iraq on 9/11. They were talking about it on 9/12," says Clarke
posted by Postroad at 4:21 PM PST - 102 comments

Britney Says... Pop Superstar Discusses Her High-Brow Faves
Britney writes about her exposure to high art and literature. The gallery is meant to help her grow as an artist, and expose her to new audiences. She doesn't want to perform for teenagers all her life, she's getting older after all. Features pictures of Britney reciting lyrics and poems. She wants to be taken seriously as a PERSON.
posted by rschram at 3:39 PM PST - 18 comments

Animal Yawns.
posted by hama7 at 1:57 PM PST - 16 comments

At the tone, please leave your snark... This is a pretty cool application of technology. We all have heard of the slow rise of the audioblog (indeed, it was discussed here!): people posting to their blogs or journals or whatever via their phone. Eric Rice of Slack Street (previously discussed here) has taken things one step further, and added the ability to call a toll-free number and have your audio comments strung together with others, and put on his audioblog site. Still kind of wonky (gotta listen to every recorded item, instead of being able to cue between tracks, looks like comments have to be approved first using some interface, etc.), but neat! Now, instead of bitching about people's poor grammar and spelling, we can rant about crappy pronunciations and accents! And for IraqFilter fans, his newest entry is actually begging people to leave him messages on the one year anniversary. Obviously he has no idea what he's getting into. Hurrah for tech-nol-o-gee!
posted by tittergrrl at 12:51 PM PST - 6 comments

1980s Vinyl Multimedia In the 1980s UK, artists were busy embedding multimedia-enabling compiled computer code into the locked grooves of their vinyl releases (and some cassette tapes). Who knew?
posted by meehawl at 11:20 AM PST - 28 comments

The Apparat: George W. Bush's back-door political machine -- "It's anti-democratic, anti-Constitutional, and is working to create a one-party America"

Consider this article from Media Transparency regarding how "hundreds of tax-exempt organizations of the far right have been exploiting the twilight zone of campaign and IRS regulations for three decades -- receiving billions of dollars in grants and contributions to wage ideo-political warfare for far-right ideas, causes, and Republican candidates."

Might it already be too late to stop this juggernaut?
posted by mooncrow at 10:58 AM PST - 34 comments

Noiseways. Listen to New York City and Portland Oregon. "The negative effects of noise—stress and the disruption of work, sleep, learning and other activities—are well established by scientific research. And of course it comes as no surprise that there is a lot of noise in New York City. The Noiseways Project intends to complement this knowledge by letting visitors to this Internet site experience the effects of noise through the use of pictures and sound recordings. Instead of presenting data, Noiseways engages the senses."
posted by Tin Man at 10:14 AM PST - 12 comments

ChristBot [via gizmodo]
posted by anathema at 9:53 AM PST - 12 comments

Kisses, the sexy urinal. Virgin Airlines is on the cutting edge.
posted by archimago at 9:24 AM PST - 58 comments

It was so cool, I always accepted that "Yeah, they're my moms," but they were actually getting married. I felt thick inside with happiness. Just thick.
Gabriel Damast, 13

It is something I always wanted. I've always been around people saying, `Oh, my parents anniversary is this week.' It's always been the sight of two parents, married, with rings. And knowing I'd probably never experience it ever. The atmosphere was just springing with life, I just couldn't hold myself in. It was oh my god oh my god oh my god. I felt so happy I wanted to scream.
Alex Morris, 11

For Children of Gays, Marriage Brings Joy

Won't somebody PLEASE think about the children?!?   from the children's point-of-view.
posted by y2karl at 9:09 AM PST - 36 comments

Earth Woes The Earth may be on the brink of a sixth mass extinction on a par with the five others that have punctuated its history, suggests the strongest evidence yet. More here.
posted by mcgraw at 9:09 AM PST - 24 comments

I can smell your brain Strange Kitty Flash
posted by DBAPaul at 8:53 AM PST - 7 comments

Another stadium bites the dust. Make sure to avoid the Veterans stadium, South Philly area Sunday, unless you would like to witness the destruction first hand. Next on the chopping block? (Insert desired stadium demolition). But coming new in 2004, Petco and Veterans replacement Citizens Bank Park.
posted by brent at 8:16 AM PST - 10 comments

Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri -- Al Qaeda's #2 man, may be soon be captured or killed. This New Yorker profile from 2002 is the most extensive I've found.
posted by gwint at 7:35 AM PST - 27 comments

Mysterious Fax Adds to Intrigue Over the Medicare Bill's Cost
"Late one Friday afternoon in January, after the House of Representatives had adjourned for the week, Cybele Bjorklund, a House Democratic health policy aide, heard the buzz of the fax machine at her desk. Coming over the transom, with no hint of the sender, was a document she had been seeking for months: an estimate by Medicare's chief actuary showing the cost of prescription drug benefits for the elderly....

"Ms. Bjorklund had been pressing Mr. Foster for his numbers since June. When he refused, telling her he could be fired, she said, she confronted his boss, Thomas A. Scully, then the Medicare administrator. 'If Rick Foster gives that to you," Ms. Bjorklund remembered Mr. Scully telling her, "I'll fire him so fast his head will spin.'"

(NYTimes.com, reg req)
posted by jpoulos at 7:17 AM PST - 5 comments

President and Vice President of Taiwan survive assasination attempt.
The wounds were minor, and they are now both out of hospital.
posted by tomcosgrave at 4:51 AM PST - 16 comments

This company has released a device which claims to provide water "anytime, anywhere" (No Goodies jokes,please) - from the humidity in the air. With two other companies selling these machines in Australia and prices ranging from AUD1,000 to AUD2,300, is this a viable solution to the massive water shortages around the world, or just something else to talk about around the water cooler?
posted by dg at 1:30 AM PST - 18 comments