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Private Collection - an exhibit of not-so-rare objets d'art stolen from European galleries. Apparently, it's "a reaction to the commoditization of art and to gallery monopolies that price art, dictate which artworks have value, and set themselves up as the arbiters of artists' qualities," but you might find the gag funny anyway. [via mlarson.org]
posted by mediareport at 11:23 PM PST - 6 comments

Delaware 7+h Album and 5+h Exhibi+ion: Too Slow to Live Experimental -- ha, excuse me, experimen+al ar+ and visuals by JAPAnese LUNA+ics DELAware. What made me bring this to your attention? Two delicious bites, Monte Blanc and Walk, Don't Learn. The entire album is available to download if you've become enamored or are generally adventurous. [Flash, Audio, embedded gifs, generally odd]
posted by boo_radley at 11:19 PM PST - 7 comments

Live Dead - First Set
posted by persona non grata at 10:11 PM PST - 33 comments

Dapper: The Data Mapper
A recently launched service that allows users to extract data from any website into XML, and transform or build applications and mashups with that data. Described by it's creators as a way to, "easily build an API for any website... through a visual and intuitive process". Plagiarism Today, meanwhile, has cause for concern, "Dapper is a scraper. Nothing more... now the technologically impaired can scrape content from any site... the potential danger [is] very, very real".
posted by MetaMonkey at 8:59 PM PST - 31 comments

Beirut: Before and After
posted by poweredbybeard at 8:28 PM PST - 45 comments

He's 74-years-old, which makes him the world's oldest primate. He was a movie star. He lives a comfortable life as an older retiree. In his spare time, he paints. In fact, if you like, he will paint a painting just for you, and the money you donate for it supports his primate sanctuary. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Cheeta.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:35 PM PST - 37 comments

Here are some alternative therapies you may not have considered. Animal assisted therapy promotes the healing benefits of the animal-human bond. Biblical Therapy provides treatment based on biblical "truths" to strengthen your relationship with Jesus. Color therapy has nothing to do with Spike Lee, and everything to do with your favorite shirt. With Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) you can replace years of therapy with one 90 minute session where you learn to roll your eyes the right way. Feng Shui suggests maybe it's not you, it's your crummy crib. Or perhaps you simply don't get enough Orgone. Doesn't it make you want to scream?
posted by ubiquity at 7:30 PM PST - 21 comments

"A quoi ça sert l’amour?" (previously) is an adorable cartoon set to a fantastic old song by Edith Piaf; recently, students at USC Film School set out to act out a live version of the cartoon, results here.
posted by jonson at 6:59 PM PST - 15 comments

What would the Middle East look like if there was a just realignment of its international borders? Ralph Peters, writing for the Armed Forces Journal, performed such a Gedankenexperiment. The before and the after.
posted by Falconetti at 6:26 PM PST - 38 comments

What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA: She was the chief of operations of the CIA's Joint Task Force on Iraq, in charge of gathering information on Iraq's supposed WMD programs, according to a new article in The Nation based on David Corn and Michael Isikoff's new book, Hubris. On his weblog, David Corn says, "She was an undercover officer in charge of running critical covert operations." Also, in the summer of 2001, "word came down from the brass: We're ramping up on Iraq."
posted by kirkaracha at 6:17 PM PST - 31 comments

ABC News: Osama bin Laden offered sanctuary in Pakistan:

If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden "would not be taken into custody," Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, "as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen."

Offer comes as truce is concluded between Pakistan and Al Queada:

The Pakistani military will no longer operate in the area where Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda operatives are believed to be hiding, according to terms of what the Pakistan government calls a "peace deal," signed today with militant tribal groups allied to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

San Jose Mercury News reports Bush Administration approved truce, will offer millions in aid:

The Pakistani military is striking truces with Islamic separatists along the country's border with Afghanistan, freeing Pakistani militants and al-Qaida fighters to join Taliban insurgents battling U.S.-led troops and government forces in Afghanistan..... when the military failed to crush the separatists, the Bush administration agreed to support Pakistan's truce-making efforts and pledged millions of dollars in additional aid.

posted by orthogonality at 5:33 PM PST - 155 comments

The Memory Project enlists American high school art students to paint original portraits of children in orphanages around the world. The idea for the project came about in 2004 when a Guatemalan man who had grown up in an orphanage mentioned to founder (and then University of Wisconsin student) Ben Shumaker that "he could remember little of his early years and had nothing to help him fill in the gaps." The project connects American students with orphaned children around the world. CBS News' photo essay.
posted by ericb at 4:43 PM PST - 9 comments

Que would happen if, wenn Du open your Metafilter, finde eine message in esta lingua? No est Englando, no est Germano, no est Espano, no est keine known lingua - aber Du understande! Wat happen zo! Habe your computero eine virus catched? Habe Du sudden BSE gedeveloped? No, Du esse lezendo la neue europese lingua: de Europanto!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:16 PM PST - 130 comments

Daniel Levitin is a musical neurologist. His new book, This is Your Brain on Music, has an intriguing premise, and a very entertaining website.
posted by owhydididoit at 2:33 PM PST - 12 comments

Two girls, three wheels, 10,000 miles travelled: their epic overland adventure from Bangkok to Brighton comes to a successful end. Previously discussed here. The two girls (women, really) and their pink tuk tuk arrived home in Brighton on September 3rd. Many were skeptical that they would be able to make it; at least one poster seemed to be putting down a monetary wager against their success. Perhaps now is the time to stand by that bet and donate some money to the charity they are raising money for? People interested in the details of their journey should check out their blog; more than just a log of their daily activities, they add some interesting details regarding the culture and history of some of the places they visited. They aren't the first to have made a ridiculously long journey in a tuk tuk; a german couple drove around Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe last year (although there were apparently some ferries involved). Tuk tuk appreciation appears to be wide-spread in England; a "motorised rickshaw service" recently started up with compressed natural gas vehicles.
posted by giantfist at 2:31 PM PST - 2 comments

"MP3 players should carry warnings that users risk damage to their hearing by having the volume too high, a deafness charity says." Also, for prescription glasses: "If you use these glasses to see things that are disturbing, you could become disturbed." Is this not the height of PC, Western stupidity?
posted by JPowers at 2:22 PM PST - 75 comments

Ice bubbles collected from core samples in Antarctica reveal the biggest rise in CO2 in 800,000 years.
posted by four panels at 2:20 PM PST - 32 comments

...The United States, whose costliest political and military adventures since 1950 have ended in failure, now must face the fact that the technology for confronting its power is rapidly becoming widespread and cheap. It is within the reach of not merely states but of relatively small groups of people. Destructive power is now virtually 'democratized.' If the challenges of producing a realistic concept of the world that confronts the mounting dangers and limits of military technology seriously are not resolved soon, recognizing that a decisive equality of military power is today in the process of being re-imposed, there is nothing more than wars and mankind’s eventual destruction to look forward to.

The Great Equalizer - Lessons From Iraq and Lebanon
By Gabriel Kolko, author of Century of War: Politics, Conflicts, and Society Since 1914,
The Age of War: The United States Confronts the World
and Another Century of War?
posted by y2karl at 2:17 PM PST - 20 comments

151 Changes to The Empire Strikes Back Frame by frame analysis of the original movie vs. the 2004 DVD. Mostly cleaning and sharpening, but also more self-censoring on Lucas' part. [via]
posted by cgs at 10:31 AM PST - 43 comments

Party Builder. The Democratic party launches a suite of tools to keep in touch with politically active friends, find events near you, raise money and more.
posted by empath at 10:04 AM PST - 18 comments

To hear Rupert Murdoch's newspaper The Australian tell it, "Science" is now tempering its claims about the urgency of Global Warming. Arts and Letters Daily goes even further, declaring a "Catastrophe Postponed" on its front page. But a closer look at the meager factual content of The Australian article (as opposed to the specious inferences and dramatic allusions to "leaked IPCC documents") suggests that, in fact, "Science" has just gotten more specific about its Global Warming claims, and the real situation remains as urgent as ever if we continue on our current track. Meanwhile, in tangentially related news, Chevron is reporting a massive new oil find in the Gulf of Mexico. Not to imply any kind of conspiracy here (since, you know, "Science" has proven that actual conspiracies are an urban myth).
posted by saulgoodman at 8:49 AM PST - 33 comments

Albania to get more corruption, and duct-tape expert-- ... As much as Ridge's security expertise, Berisha wants him to also bring to Albania his "success story" as Governor of Pennsylvania on education, the judiciary, information technology, agriculture and money laundering. ...
posted by amberglow at 7:02 AM PST - 17 comments

The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country's universities. Now that this former rogue nation has fallen in line, we can turn out attention to the real terrorist threat: Britain.
posted by thirteenkiller at 6:59 AM PST - 30 comments