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The Esoteric Archives - for when you are tired of getting your fix of Hermetic neo-Platonism from secondary sources. Or for when you simply must know what on earth those John Crowley novels were about.
Translations of works by Giordano Bruno, Cornelius Agripppa and all your other favorite Renaissance magicians ...
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:58 PM PST - 11 comments

Bond: Bored and Boozy James Bond. John Lanchester, in an insightful essay for the (beautifully redesigned) London Review of Books, counts (and staggers at) the amount of booze Ian Fleming's alter ego got through in a single day. He needn't have bothered: there's a delightful, knowledgeable and fanatical website, called Make Mine An 007 that does little else but tally up every drink that passes Agent 007's (or his enemys') lips, in his novels and in his films; listing the brands, the recipes and even totting up the glorious, final statistics.[More inside]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:06 PM PST - 31 comments

Return of Bush's Faith Based Initiatives "So the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives is pursuing a new agenda that does not depend on the consent of Congress, starting with the development of proposals to change a host of federal regulations to lower the barriers encountered by religious groups in dealing with the federal government." Kind of surprising this was leaked out before the November elections, because much like how social security privatization has been downplayed due to unpopularity ("My social security was in Enron??") - it's intriguing campaign fodder.
posted by owillis at 8:22 PM PST - 10 comments

In an a era where so much music seems overly mechanical Funk45.com and Galactic Fractures are terrific reminders that danceablity can be warm and loose and that human-powered music is the funkiest. These sites have what every good music site should have, encyclopedaic knowledge, detailed info, and truckloads of audio that makes you wanna find a good record store and hunt down the 45's yourself. And it's all presented in a way that encourages you to dig deeper. The song You Got Me Mama by Hayes Ware is a favorite, but there's plenty of great stuff. requires RealAudio
posted by jonmc at 8:09 PM PST - 6 comments

You think your neighbors are bad? Try living with a lady who kept cows in her upstairs apartment.
posted by kingmissile at 2:22 PM PST - 48 comments

Women's group asks CBS to drop The Masters golf tournament With all the issues facing women today in America, I have a hard time believing that getting a female member into the Augusta National Golf Club will help the cause of women's rights. It now appears that the National Council of Women's Organizations are also going after the employers of club members. Have they never heard of the old saying: "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." Wouldn't fighting for equal pay in the workplace for women do more for the average female than getting female members into Augusta National Country Club?
posted by jasonbondshow at 1:59 PM PST - 61 comments

Accounting scandals aren't the only kind of corporate crime, maybe the Justice Department should talk to this guy.
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:21 PM PST - 7 comments

Self-portraits with an edge. "In a series of extraordinary transformations, this young, Korean-born conceptual artist unfolds a multiplicity of lives and identities documented through the lens of her point-and-shoot camera as she "becomes" a young punk in the East Village, a Connecticut-based exotic dancer, or a senior citizen picking through thrift stores in Murray Hill."

Nikki S Lee takes Cindy Sherman in another direction. Sherman's classic photographs, as their title Film Stills indicates, are static and meticulously set up. But Lee takes her characters to the street, using real people as props and set.

Fluidity of identity? Artist-subject relationship? Comment on sub-cultures? Isn't contmporary art great?
posted by statisticalpurposes at 12:27 PM PST - 24 comments

ICANN disses the the dot. The guy who runs the Internet Multicasting Service teamed up with the guy who runs the Internet Software Consortium and submitted a proposal to mange the .ORG registry. ICANN's conslutants [sic] dumped on the proposal (300KB PDF) claiming it is among the worst proposals from a technical standpoint. Mind you, ISC produces the software that runs the DNS and actually operates root and top-level servers. And ICANN thinks they lack the technical mojo? Wow! Are we all ready to admit that ICANN is completely corrupt and beyond saving? More info here. (via IP)
posted by chipr at 12:03 PM PST - 12 comments

"...padded bras in my size did nothing for my chest but protect it from flying objects." One woman's humorous and touching story of her decision to get breast implants. For the record, I like boobs, but the idea of having pieces of plastic stuck under one's skin creeps me out no end. To implant or not to implant, that is the question....
posted by BGM at 10:51 AM PST - 49 comments

FORD Pulling Plug on Electric Car... Ford Motor Co. on Friday said it was pulling the plug on its Think electric vehicle division due to poor customer demand and lack of government support for the environmentally friendly cars. "The bottom line is we don't believe that this is the future of environmental transport for the mass market."
posted by DailyBread at 10:09 AM PST - 32 comments

Codename Marklar: Marklar is maintaining a feature-complete marklar of Marklar running on Marklar as a fall-back marklar in case the Marklar is no longer viable. Maintained since the early days of Marklar, Marklar gains greater relevance in the context of Marklar's inability to deliver higher-frequency Marklars, but is seen as less likely given Marklar's forthcoming 64-bit Marklar-based Marklar. (via Marklar)
posted by mcwetboy at 8:35 AM PST - 23 comments

If you enjoyed the bus company owner's collection of manuscripts, you might also like to check out the Vatican Library exhibit. Loads of extremely clear images of manuscripts with accompanying information.
posted by kate_fairfax at 8:18 AM PST - 1 comments

"Take good care of them. They are my whole life." A young woman painted her life as an autobiographical series of over 1000 gouaches (in 2 years)--image and text, with planned complementing music and songs--and called it Life? or Theater? Charlotte Salomon's life. more inside
posted by amberglow at 7:04 AM PST - 13 comments

Amina Lawal Must Not Face Death by Stoning says UK Amnesty International. Nigerian woman, divorced & single, with 3 kids, to be executed by a Sharia Court for giving birth outside of wedlock. Other pregnant unwed mothers, such as this computer student, are seeking asylum outside of Nigeria to avoid being stoned to death by a Nigerian Sharia Court in accordance with Islamic law principles. Amina's whole convoluted and horrible story is laid out nicely here. Sharia Courts, and their ilk, punish sexual and "moral offenders" through stoning, amputation, crushing the victim with walls, hanging, or even rape.

Meanwhile, in another universe, the Nigerian 419 scam has mutated into Amina Lawal's "barrister" spamming the net with pleas for cash. Instead of that, sign the open letter to the President of Nigeria asking that death by stoning be stopped.
posted by filchyboy at 1:11 AM PST - 14 comments