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The Secret of W's Success.....Could it really be this simple to stymie the Dems?
posted by BGM at 11:14 PM PST - 28 comments

It was "clearly a big device", which contained high explosives. Set by what appears to be the IRA outside of the BBC headquarters in London. Clues were given via coded messages phoned into a hospital and an "unnamed charitable trust" much in the same way as when the M16 building was attacked with a rocket last year. Forget Osama bin-laden. The Irish can be dangerous as well.
posted by liquidgnome at 10:48 PM PST - 20 comments

Going down? NPR's Savvy Traveler did a bit on this site; apparently it tells you the odds of a crash on your chosen flight. Question is, do I want to know?
posted by stevis at 9:47 PM PST - 2 comments

Does this mean free lattes for the Cylons? Director Bryan Singer to work on a remake of BattleStar Galactica. Or is it going to be "BattleStar Galactica: The Next Generation"? What I'm wondering is: What's Starbucks going to do about it?
posted by brownpau at 8:59 PM PST - 10 comments

But what about the children! An internet censorship bill before the South Australian Parliament gives police ridiculously broad powers in going after material "unsuitable for children".
posted by frykitty at 7:57 PM PST - 6 comments

This scares me silly given the general skill level drivers display in my town. I'm imagining some idiot chatting away on a cell phone taking out my condo.
posted by rdr at 6:33 PM PST - 8 comments

Livia Let Die. Learn how The Sopranos brought Livia Soprano (played by actress Nancy Marchand) back to life for one more encounter with Tony Soprano. Warning! Some minor Season3/Episode1 Spoilers. (via Slate)
posted by stew560 at 2:55 PM PST - 5 comments

You thought Amazon's One-Click patent and following legal battle was bad... Have you had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich lately? You did not cut off the crusts and crimp the edges together, now did you? If so, you just have infringed on U.S. Patent 6,004,596 (currently owned by 'surprise' Smucker). From the patent: "The upper and lower fillings are preferably comprised of peanut butter and the center filling is comprised of at least jelly. The center filling is prevented from radiating outwardly into and through the bread portions from the surrounding peanut butter. " Michigan's Albie Foods just sued to have the patent removed. Let's hope they win, or pbjs soon may become an act of civil disobedience...
posted by noom at 2:38 PM PST - 7 comments

Cortes Bank is a 17-mile underwater mountain range that comes to a head 3 feet below the surface at a spot called Bishop Rock, about 100 miles off the coast of San Diego. When open ocean waves encounter this seafloor anomaly, they break with stunning speed and size. This is the story of a "tow-in" surfing expedition to Cortes Bank, with jaw-dropping Quicktime movies of surfers riding 30-40 foot waves in the middle of the ocean...
posted by cfj at 1:39 PM PST - 5 comments

Spy problems...not easy work We saw before the expressed problems NSA said they had. Here, what they have been up to and the technology currently being used (but not against our citizens?)
posted by Postroad at 12:35 PM PST - 1 comments

Just call us Peoples' Telephone & Telegraph. [NYTimes, reg req] A federal appeals court claims that by restricting AT&T and AOLTW from expanding their cable service areas, First Amendment rights have been violated. Thus: these two companies will continue to be the only games in town.
posted by hijinx at 9:54 AM PST - 4 comments

The Surrendered Wife continues the recidivist trend in best selling "self-help" books by urging wives to "avoid criticising him... and give him lots of oral sex." Can anyone explain why this nonsense sells so well?
posted by Chairman_MaoXian at 8:42 AM PST - 13 comments

Ok... let me get this straight. copyright.net has turned loose a tapeworm, called CopyrightAgent, that crawls around on your computer without your permission, looking for copyrighted MP3 files. If it find them, it reports back your IP address, and they have Napster block you, if you're a Napster user. Otherwise, they contact your ISP, and have *them* block you under the DMCA.

And the first I heard about this was a Knight-Ridder wire story in my local paper?? Why the hell hasn't the Internet reacted by burning these people's offices (or uplink :-) to the ground?
posted by baylink at 8:18 AM PST - 20 comments

New Jersey teen is halfway through his pledge not to speak for a year! He writes that he came up with the idea because his inability to follow through with his commitments was troubling him. He's getting quite a bit of media attention, too - he's even got a publicist. (via NPR this morning).
posted by beth at 7:28 AM PST - 19 comments

Heavy Petting - Peter Singer (bioethics professor, animal rights guru, frequently admired or hated Australian philosopher) discusses bestiality, which is probably much more popular than you imagine: "In the 1940s, Kinsey asked twenty thousand Americans about their sexual behavior, and found that 8 percent of males and 3.5 percent of females stated that they had, at some time, had a sexual encounter with an animal. Among men living in rural areas, the figure shot up to 50 percent. "
posted by pracowity at 6:01 AM PST - 19 comments

"This is a movement keenly aware of the power of words and symbols." Naomi Klein on the Zapatistas, and their "spokesperson", Subcomandante Marcos. Lots of connections here: the "networked" approach to protest and rebellion that fuels the anti-corporate movement; the use of the internet as an agent of ideology; and most interestingly for me, the submergence of identity within the networked space. Two words: Luther Blissett.
posted by holgate at 4:10 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Oddcast Host Workshop The results are nowhere near as cute or charming as StorTroopers, but making your own virtual host is fun in its own way. Try and see if you can get your host to look like you. [via Cynthia on mockerybird]
posted by lia at 2:18 AM PST - 7 comments

Are teens a reflection of the media or is the media a reflection of teenage culture? According to NYU prof Miller "The MTV machine does listen very carefully to children. In rather the same way--if I can put it controversially--as Dr. Goebbels, [Hitler's] ministry of propaganda, listened to the German people. Propagandists have to listen to their audience very, very closely. When corporate revenues depend on being ahead of the curve, you have to listen, you have to know exactly what they want and exactly what they're thinking so that you can give them what you want them to have." More about the PBS special here
posted by noom at 12:29 AM PST - 76 comments