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White House: Bush misstated report on Iraq A senior White House official acknowledged Saturday night that the 1998 report did not say what Bush claimed. 'What happened was, we formed our own conclusions based on the report ,' The photograph in question was not U.N. intelligence imaging but simply a picture from a commercial satellite imaging company Did he think no one would notice?
posted by bas67 at 10:21 PM PST - 32 comments

Hell Bank Notes are a chinese funeral custom of burning paper money in specialized cemetary ovens for use in the afterlife (Some even feature US Presidents JFK and LBJ). I have heard of instances where entire paper houses or cars are burned in tribute. Find out more about contemporary chinese funeral practices, such as funerary music like Mei Hua Ts'ao (Plum Blossoms) [3 meg mp3] and personal insightful interviews. What unique funeral practices have you witnessed or participated in?
posted by Stan Chin at 8:57 PM PST - 33 comments

Stop Street Spam! Roadsides and telephone poles are full of the crap. Matt's link (and the double post) reminded me of something happening in the Austin area. Someone is spray painting "SPAM" over the herbalife and other signs [or painting over or cutting off the phone numbers]. Austin is also recruiting citizens [pdf]to root up these signs. Does your neighborhood have too many of these signs? I'm getting some spray paint and becoming a sign shark..
posted by birdherder at 12:19 PM PST - 31 comments

Top 10 NFL games to watch. Time magazine pick this season's 10 "can't miss" games. ESPN's First...and 10 goes to 11. Sports Illustrated's "must-see" list picks the top game each week. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha at 11:27 AM PST - 21 comments

First Vote. In May, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jane Eisner invented an interesting new concept: First Vote. It's not an organization, it's not a corporation, it's not a club -- First Vote is a concept. Eisner attributes low turnount in part to a societal lack of recognition and congratuations on the occasion of an 18-year-old's first vote. Syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne picked up the idea and ran with it, offering a refined proposal for change in an August column. Is First Vote on the right track to improving youth voting? What will you do to support First Vote this November?
posted by waldo at 11:05 AM PST - 37 comments

This is the history of the WTC I've been waiting to read. The Height of Ambition, from tomorrows NYT Magazine, collects all the strings that I haven't been able to tie together myself.
posted by djacobs at 9:49 AM PST - 17 comments

A Tale of Two Cities: Chicago and New York This exhibition of more than 150 black-and-white photographs represents a cross-section of the thousands of significant buildings that are protected by local landmark designation in Chicago and New York City. The story of how this came to pass is both as similar and as different as the cities themselves.
posted by vacapinta at 9:41 AM PST - 3 comments

Drug War Roundup IV. An athlete who refused a drug test was stripped of her awards. She plays bridge. American Indians who honed their skills tracking drug smugglers recently trained Baltic border guards in the hopes of preventing nuclear weapon proliferation. Another chapter was written in the ongoing "is ecstasy all that dangerous?" debate. Salvatore Gravano is on his way back to prison for running an ecstasy ring. Nevada is edging closer to legalizing up to three ounces of marijuana, to the disdain of Bush's Drug Policy director and Nevada's biggest police group. A Canadian right wing party and cops came out against their government's recent pro-legalization report. I see a pattern, but maybe it's just the pudding.
posted by raaka at 5:31 AM PST - 30 comments

Television celebrates its 75th anniversary today. Invented by a 14 year-old boy in Utah by the name of Philo T. Farnsworth, the first TV images as we know them were transmitted 75 years ago today. Hard to believe that our most pervasive modern media is still really in its infancy. What changes will our personal video delivery infrastructure undergo over the next 75 years, I wonder?
posted by johnnyace at 4:25 AM PST - 30 comments

Farscape Cancelled! One of the best sci-fi shows on TV is going to be cancelled. There's a petition up to save it.
posted by nyxxxx at 2:46 AM PST - 47 comments