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Baghdad Bulletin “The Baghdad Bulletin is Iraq’s only English-language newsmagazine and one of the country’s only independent publications. The third issue (published Monday, July 7) is now being distributed across Iraq and in Jordan.” They have a short bit about how Chemical Ali may have escaped Baghdad.
posted by raaka at 9:32 PM PST - 1 comments

Van Gogh's Moon Shines Again This Weekend If you go out this Sunday evening and look up at the Moon, you will see not only our closest celestial neighbor, but a piece of art history as well. The rising full moon will appear exactly the way it did 114 years ago, when Vincent Van Gogh captured the scene in his famous painting "Moonrise.". Also learn how the moon helped date the painting.
posted by NewBornHippy at 6:58 PM PST - 12 comments

where r u? where would u like 2 b? Just answer those questions in the popup window (hit "click here to find out how..." or via email or text message)--your response will live online and will be launched at sunset from the banks of the River Avon on July 13th 2003...Possibly to be discovered by someone, somewhere. More info here (you can be anonymous if you wish, and javascript and flash are in the popup)
posted by amberglow at 6:02 PM PST - 13 comments

The best thing about Polygamy.com is not the educational benefits (for example, did you realize that Polygamy is the ultimate feminist lifestyle?), it's reading the personals, such as this heartwarming story of Adolph & his two wives - they're looking for a 3rd sister wife, if any female mefites are interested.
posted by jonson at 5:46 PM PST - 36 comments

It's a Giant Sperm! Whale! The Chilean sea blob is revealed to be the carcass of a Moby Dick.
posted by jengod at 4:13 PM PST - 6 comments

Judge Finds Documentation Connecting Iraq with Al-Qaeda? Federal appellate Judge Gilbert S. Merritt of Nashville is in Iraq as one of 13 experts selected by the U.S. Justice Department to help rebuild Iraq's judicial system. And in an article from the Tennessean, he claims to have found a newspaper published in the Babylon Daily Political Newspaper, run by Uday Hussein, in which was a "List of Honor" containing the names of 600 men in high esteem by the former ruling regime. Among these was, apparently, ''Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, intelligence officer responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group at the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan.''
posted by namespan at 3:19 PM PST - 31 comments

Mark Pilgrim and Dave Winer are fighting, again. It started over a remark Dave made about various blogging services. Mark turned around and created a bot that reads Dave's RSS feed every 5 minutes and spits out the text, annotated to show what's been added/deleted/changed since the last time it ran. Dave's claiming copyright infringement, Mark's claiming fair use. Okay MeFi folks, which side are you on, and why?
posted by tommasz at 1:29 PM PST - 67 comments

The public socks it to the FCC "This is not about race - It's about voting for the very best one and being cheated out of that vote!" Clay Aiken fans and Reuben Whatshisname haters unite to make their voice heard. Oh, the outrage! (via The Smoking Gun)
posted by Gilbert at 12:48 PM PST - 23 comments

Bob Masse's Rock Posters ~ Thirty-five years of poster art by one of North America's premier poster artists.
posted by crunchland at 11:20 AM PST - 5 comments

is george george tenet the administrations fall guy on niger/uranium issue? should he be? and where does our vice president fit into the puzzle?
posted by specialk420 at 10:36 AM PST - 87 comments

Comeuppance is served: Blair Hornstine, the litigious valedictorian MeFi loves to hate, has been dropped from the Harvard class of '07 for her adventures in plagiarism. Quoting Nelson Munz here would be superfluous.
posted by serafinapekkala at 9:54 AM PST - 158 comments

Chucks News of Nike's buyout of Converse got me thinking about the oldest sneakers around. I don't mean that crusty pair buried in your closet, unless it's (likely for some of us) the Chuck Taylor All-Star basketball shoe. Sure, some of us wouldn't be caught in a pair, but as the choice of legends, the uniform footwear of baby-boomer youth (knock-offs were worn at risk of mild derision) and as a cultural mission statement, this 80-year-old low-tech affair is still chuck-full of game, and still as affordable as that other guy's shoe isn't. Fortunately for the shoe's many adoring fans, the word is that the Star won't be replaced by a Swoosh.
posted by LinusMines at 9:07 AM PST - 39 comments

A lightning bolt created a beautiful smoke ring in the sky the other day. It resembles of Mt Etna's and other volcano's beautiful rings. Nature at it's best.
posted by tomplus2 at 8:05 AM PST - 20 comments

We are because of others. We are born into this world with minds as naked as our bodies and we have to rely on others to feed, clothe us, and to teach us to think of ourselves as selves. The key is language -- grammatical speech and human culture build upon the brain's biological capacities to create a mind that is something different again than that with which we are born. We are conscious because we can speak to others and ourselves, because we can speak of ourselves to others and ourselves. Language gives us as individuals, memory, and as groups, culture, the social memory. Or so thought Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, among others. Welcome to the the neuronaut's guide to the science of consciousness.
posted by y2karl at 7:57 AM PST - 36 comments

So very silly: Make a pillow dance to the lovely music.
posted by taz at 7:56 AM PST - 4 comments

Interview with Jim Gray, head of Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center. "Clear your schedule, because once you've started reading this interview, you won't be able to put it down until you've finished it. Who would ever, in this time of the greatest interconnectivity in human history, go back to shipping bytes around via snail mail as a preferred means of data transfer? (Really, just what type of throughput does the USPS offer?) Jim Gray would do it, that's who. And we're not just talking about Zip disks, no sir; we're talking about shipping entire hard drives, or even complete computer systems, packed full of disks."
posted by mooncrow at 6:41 AM PST - 23 comments

You are your record collection. If you really want to get to know someone, try rummaging through their CD collection. "I don't think anyone who's really passionate about music just 'listens' to it. This research is positive confirmation of the fact that songs are emblematic of people's characters. I've always believed that people's musical taste says a lot about them. If you like Avril Lavigne, for example, you probably need to have your ears syringed."
posted by eyebeam at 6:37 AM PST - 51 comments

The Mythical Quest, an old exhibition at the British Library. 'Throughout the world, tales have always been told of heroes and heroines embarking on perilous quests in search of lost loved ones, the secret of immortality, earthly paradise or simply great riches. Many of these stories have elements in common, such as clashes with monsters, battles with the elements, interventions by the gods and tests of moral character, mental cunning and physical strength. These tales have been expressed in songs, literature, art and dance for thousands of years, and are still being reinterpreted today in books, comic strips, interactive games and adventure films.'
More British Library exhibits here, from early Indian photography to the secret life of maps.
Examples of mythical quests :- Monkey: Journey to the West (another version here, not to mention the TV series); the Ramayana (and the Ramakian, the Thai version); Cupid and Psyche at the Classics Pages (subject of a previous thread); the Holy Grail (more at the Catholic Enyclopaedia); the journey of Alexander the Great; Pilgrim's Progress and John Bunyan; the world of Dante and a map of Hell.
posted by plep at 6:25 AM PST - 17 comments

They'll put anything on a postage stamp. Or will they? Some Friday quiz fun from mental_floss magazine.
posted by Oriole Adams at 5:56 AM PST - 4 comments