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The Bureau Of Public Secrets, Kenneth Rexroth and Sappho. It was while looking for this fragment of hers, translated by him--(Details within)
posted by y2karl at 11:44 PM PST - 7 comments

Qwest Finds Buyer For QwestDex The buyer is a group led by the Carlyle Group and Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe. The question is: Why does an investment firm that primarily deals in Defense Contracts want a phone directory company? Tell me I'm just being paranoid.
posted by bas67 at 9:19 PM PST - 7 comments

You Opportunity To Jump For Joy At the Defeat of a Dreadful, Icky, Arguably EVIL person. No more Bob Barr!
posted by ParisParamus at 8:26 PM PST - 43 comments

Iraq's Aziz Says U.S. Attack Would Fail This is a news story? What is the Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz supposed to say? "W. has been right all along, Saddam is a tyrant. We need to get him out. Even Saddam agrees he has gone to far." or "Now that you mention it, our military is a mess, the stuff we have bought is junk and your tanks will rip it to shreds."
posted by Coop at 7:34 PM PST - 14 comments

Ginkgo supplements don’t help...Um...................um...... A new study suggests ginkgo supplements do nothing to quickly improve memory in healthy people, a finding that goes against years of well-publicized claims that helped turn the supplements into a multimillion-dollar industry.
posted by DailyBread at 4:41 PM PST - 26 comments

Thirty days in jail and $200 fine for using the "N" word?
posted by kablam at 3:33 PM PST - 52 comments

Be thinkful? sure, whatever... It turns out that Phil Donahue's new show is just a sort of left-wing version of Bill O'Reilly's. What a shock. Read how guests are ambushed and shouted down by the guy who "doesn't let the government tell him what to think".
posted by clevershark at 2:44 PM PST - 38 comments

Pentagon busily ruining the credit ratings of service personnel. "Hapless" military personnel are ordered to use a government-issued credit card for travel expenses, then submit for reimbursement. But the reimbursements (and even paychecks) frequently come late, making the soldier unable to pay the credit card bill -- thus branding them as "delinquents", "credit risks" and even causing their wages to be garnished.

"U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan have found themselves stranded in the desert without a dime because their credit was suddenly cut off, according to a May 29 report in the Military Times, leaving families behind in a nasty Catch-22: Swallow the debt, or borrow more money to pay the bills so their credit wouldn't be ruined."

It truly gives one the warm fuzzies to see that our government and military leaders give our service personnel the respect they deserve.
posted by chuq at 12:48 PM PST - 48 comments

Launching this Sept 11th (ok, the 10th, but still): the DEA Museum will open a "powerful new exhibit that traces the historic and contemporary connections between global drug trafficking and terrorism." Good idea. Tasteful timing.
posted by engelr at 12:26 PM PST - 42 comments

A new use for haiku! Ancient Japanese art as spam filter? Habeas seems to think so. Come on kids, let the sorry attempts at poetry begin!
posted by krunk at 12:03 PM PST - 28 comments

Read People's Thoughts Just by Looking at Them

A wild claim, but a very interesting article.
posted by Irontom at 12:00 PM PST - 40 comments

S.K. Thoth is one of a kind. I used to see him around San Francisco, and last night I was surprised to see a documentary about him on cinemax. His material is inspired by the mythological world he created when as a youth, and his solo operas are amazing to behold.
posted by homunculus at 11:52 AM PST - 8 comments

Nasa plans to read the minds of terrorists... NASA wants to use "noninvasive neuro-electric sensors," imbedded in gates, to collect tiny electric signals that all brains and hearts transmit. Computers would apply statistical algorithms to correlate physiologic patterns with computerized data on travel routines, criminal background and credit information from "hundreds to thousands of data sources," NASA documents say
posted by Espoo2 at 11:30 AM PST - 12 comments

Are "multiculturalists" the real racists?
posted by 314/ at 11:06 AM PST - 74 comments

Coca-Cola Accused of Using Death Squads to Target Union Leaders. In a link from yesterday we saw Coca-cola avoid taking responsibility for the actions of one of its franchise outfits. Let's see how they weasel out of this one.
posted by Qubit at 10:07 AM PST - 15 comments

Want to cut taxes? Eliminate libraries. NY Times story (yeah, yeah, reg required, sorry) talks about a ballot initiative in Stevens County, Washington that may totally eliminate its libraries. (more inside...)
posted by PeteyStock at 10:05 AM PST - 67 comments

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where all these profits came from, and why all these acquisitions went sour, what our net income is, and why WorldCom stock prices are in the toilet, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." Holden Caulfield, caught up in the boom.
posted by luser at 9:28 AM PST - 7 comments

Girls seek "divorce" of lesbian mother The Scottish paper seems to take a fairly serious anti-gay stance, where as the report in the Houston Chronicle seems to be a little more factual and less hysterical. But, in either case, do children have the right to demand that their parents "stop being gay"?
posted by dejah420 at 8:35 AM PST - 51 comments

Iraqi Dissidents Seize Embassy in Berlin. An Iraqi dissident group calling for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein occupied the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin Tuesday and took several hostages, including the ambassador. Is this just a stunt before the upcoming German elections?
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 8:31 AM PST - 28 comments

By the power of Grey Skull... Cartoon Network is airing a new He-Man cartoon series. Feel free to reminisce about the original Masters of the Universe.
posted by uftheory at 8:27 AM PST - 53 comments

Ever wonder where stars are born? an unprecedented, detailed view of the entire inner region of 30 Doradus, measuring 200 light-years wide by 150 light-years high. You can go straight to the photo here.
posted by aLienated at 8:27 AM PST - 3 comments

A dangerous drug... Is it possible that the anti-malaria drug Lariam contributed to the recent series of murders at Fort Bragg? Three of the soldiers involved were on the drug, which has been known to cause aggression, paranoia, hallucinations, and thoughts of suicide. After identifying the potential side-effects, why are we still prescribing this drug to our troops?
posted by greengrl at 8:03 AM PST - 20 comments

If Earthlink starts killing pop-up ads will a trend emerge? I hate pop-up ads, but they must have some effect because I see more and more. I can see the logic in Earthlink's attempt to gain customers by promising to block pop-up ads, but will it have an effect? I can get other pop-up killers without getting it from Earthlink. Why don't they address spyware and attack web advertisers where they live?
posted by john_lustig at 7:28 AM PST - 27 comments

Women in Refrigerators looks at the disproportionately grim fates of women superheroes and sidekicks in comics, relative to their male counterparts. Be sure to check out the responses from comics authors and readers, including a well-thought attempt to put it in the context of the medium.
posted by mkultra at 6:14 AM PST - 21 comments

Why are there monsters like this? and perhaps more to the point, why as a society are we so ill-equipped to deal with them effectively?
posted by Pressed Rat at 6:03 AM PST - 128 comments