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Zanta: The Movie. If you live or work in downtown Toronto, you've seen him. Shirtless, wearing a Santa hat, and most likely doing pushups, he's David "Zanta" Zancai, and one of the city's most enigmatic characters.
posted by Robot Johnny at 7:52 AM - 36 comments

Ever wondered what the Devil has on his iPod? These people think they have a good idea (my favorite). Though it has long been believed that there is evil lurking somewhere in music, disagreement among half-wit experts causes some tension now and again. PBS sheds some light on the subject.
posted by Pecinpah at 7:44 AM - 34 comments

Evolution just won't go away. New evidence suggests the development of the human embryo mirrors our species' course of evolution. This guy seems to be stirring up all kinds of trouble these days. It makes me wonder: does this new information help determine the quality of being human? From the link: "Another supposed vagary produced by the abortion issue is the question as to when the embryo or fetus becomes human. Rivers Singleton, Jr. states in his article in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, that, for some, conception defines the point of being human, whereas, for others, various periods of development suffice to 'distinguish human from non-humans.'"
posted by narwhal at 6:53 AM - 39 comments

Oliver Stone's World Trade Center movie trailer is released. Some say it's too intense. Previously discussed here. (various QT video formats)
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:42 AM - 154 comments

The Eternal Value of Privacy excellent article by Bruce Schneier.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 4:58 AM - 12 comments

Fantazy Land Alexandria, Egypt. [coral] The worst theme park in the world?
posted by tellurian at 2:53 AM - 32 comments

Many images (large pageload) from platinumfmd [via]
posted by peacay at 12:51 AM - 25 comments

updated red state/blue state map of America with recent poll results in place. Bush still (alarmingly) holding down Utah, Idaho & Wyoming, otherwise, not so great...
posted by jonson at 12:32 AM - 53 comments

1 DEPLOY GUNS AND BADGES. Josh Bolten's Five Point Plan is in full effect. "It'll be more guys with guns and badges," said a proponent of the plan. "Think of the visuals. The President can go down and meet with the new recruits. He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an ATV."
posted by scalefree at 9:48 PM - 39 comments

Indicted! No, not him. Today the "most prestigious and recognized plaintiff law firm in the United States" was indicted (.pdf) on federal charges of obstruction of justice, perjury, bribery, and fraud.
posted by brain_drain at 7:57 PM - 20 comments

Newsfilter: Cure for cancers 'in five years'.
posted by dash_slot- at 4:58 PM - 70 comments

"It's Al-Qaida!" I yelled. "We had a heads-up!" In an exclusive AlterNet interview, Judith Miller says (and her then-editor Steve Engelberg corroborates) that in July 2001 an intelligence source (maybe Richard Clarke?) told her about an intercepted communication between two Al Qaida operatives that were disappointed that the US hadn't responded more seriously to the October 2000 attack against the USS Cole. "And one Al Qaida operative was overheard saying to the other, 'Don't worry; we're planning something so big now that the U.S. will have to respond.'"
posted by kirkaracha at 4:55 PM - 21 comments

New York City has been trying to revamp its street furniture for nearly a decade and last Fall, deals were struck between a British architecture firm and a Spanish outdoor firm in a 1 billion dollar deal. Recently the designs for public toilets, bus stop shelters, and (my favorite) a modernized clean newsstand were released.
posted by mathowie at 3:09 PM - 65 comments

"...this clip of a Japanese show called Gaki No Tsukai stands out not for what it includes, but for what it lacks - talking and screaming. It takes place in a studio made up like a library, with the participants (including Kickboxing champion Ernesto Hoost) stifling their laughter, screams of pain and retching noises, just like any student did in their own junior high school library." [youtube video, text shamelessly lifted from wfmu]
posted by Armitage Shanks at 2:54 PM - 25 comments

"And And God created man, for because I have blessed him. And Noah begat Methuselah three wives of it, and to thee nothing but dust shalt say, This is evil continually." What happens when you put a million monkeys at a million typewriters? You get the Markov Bible! After a million years, that is.
posted by tweak at 2:53 PM - 17 comments

Guerilla Gardening is a movement to make public spaces more attractive, by planting in derelict or unattractive public ground. Founder Richard Reynolds has enlisted the help of people similarly dedicated to beautifying public space in UK urban areas, and the movement has inspired other groups. For people who don't want to dig holes in the ground or get their hands messy, there are instructions for seed-and-run scenarios. Apparently, even the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are in on the act.
posted by darsh at 2:22 PM - 11 comments

Why not mashup Google maps and NOAA's digital forecast database? Enter a zip code, a city name, or just point and click on a map (continental US and Hawaii only, alas). A 5 day forecast will appear at the bottom of the screen (including some cheesy little pictures illustrating, like rain and fog, just in case you forget what they look like).
posted by jasper411 at 2:00 PM - 20 comments

You can't write anything honest, only fairy tales." "This administration," Bob Graham, the former Senator and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told me, "does not seek the truth as a basis for its judgments, but tries to use intelligence to validate judgments it has already made."

"I spent 30 years at the CIA," said one former official, "and no one was ever interested in knowing whether I was a Republican or a Democrat. That changed with this administration. Now you have loyalty tests."
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 1:47 PM - 39 comments

Information. One of ten random flash thingys from the 10 ways project.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:00 PM - 26 comments

Blue Security shuts down It was just a few days ago that Blue Security was beating their chest, straight off a 'victory' over spammers. Now though, the company is conceding defeat.
posted by puke & cry at 11:58 AM - 49 comments

They're on NPR? They're in the New York Times? (archived here as a .pdf). I guess it's no wonder - I can't go into half of the rooms at work without hearing them. And they took in $45 million last year singing "Yummy, Yummy"? Yes, i'm talking about The Wiggles, a pop-culture bitch-slap gift from Australia that has apparently kicked Barney's ass. That doesn't mean that they aren't open to some well-deserved satire.
posted by scblackman at 11:41 AM - 44 comments

Email used to be the ultimate application of the Internet, and there are still some interesting artifacts of that left behind today: As a source of randomness Email Roulette (which we've seen before) is my favorite application of email. TPC Remote Printing Service, a free mail-to-fax gateway, is pretty useful in a pinch and is something of an Old Internet institution with a history predating the web. Nearly as venerable is the more frivolous Internet Pizza Server from the days when the very idea of making a purchase over the Internet was funny, and the idea of browsing the web via email didn't seem so peculiar as it does today.
posted by majick at 10:30 AM - 12 comments

Amazon S3, now for the masses. Amazon S3 has been discussed previously, but several user-facing services have appeared in the last few weeks that allow ordinary non-programmer end users to take advantage of it. One of the most useful of these appears to be Jungle Disk, a free front-end (free beer!) that lets you use S3 as a webdav-mounted disk drive. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and there's GPL code available (free speech!) that lets other people develop alternative compatible front-ends.
posted by dmd at 9:53 AM - 29 comments

NewsFilter: Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the chapel, teh gay menace strikes again. The GOP-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee backs the Constitutional amendment to prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages. In a fractious hearing, Republican chairman Arlen Specter shouted "Good riddance!" when Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) walked out. Laura Bush recently advised her party's candidates not to campaign on this issue and to handle it with "great sensitivity." Maybe next time.
posted by digaman at 9:29 AM - 91 comments

"If only" is the frustrated utopian refrain of Oliver Ressler and David Thorne's absurdly dysfunctional URL addresses collectively titled "Boom!".
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:26 AM - 11 comments

Flash flood! A New Orleans Times Picayune flash animation of exactly how, and where, and when the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas flooded during Hurricane Katrina. Here's the accompanying article. Even as a local, I had no idea how weak the levee systems were. And apparently still are. Here's some more info from a local grassroots group fighting for better levee protection.
posted by ab3 at 8:21 AM - 18 comments

U.S. Marines "overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood", according to Rep. Murtha (D - Pa.), whose previous comments regarding the "unwinnable" nature of the Iraq conflict drew retaliation and accusations of treason from the GOP and associates. From reports verified by the military, troops "shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl", despite initial reports that officially claimed a firefight had killed Iraqi civilians. Some have suggested this incident echoes the My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War.
posted by Mr. Six at 8:18 AM - 160 comments

The 10 Worst Corporatioins of 2005 Listed alphabetically, here are the 10 Worst Corporations of 2005 and brief lowlights of the activities that earned them a place on the list
posted by usedwigs at 8:17 AM - 36 comments

Music from Morrisania: Dr. Mark Naison, urban historian at Fordham University and principal investigator of the Bronx African-American history project, leads a musical tour of one South Bronx neighborhood from the 1950s to the present, describing how hot summers, open windows and a fertile mixing of ethnic groups influenced landmarks in American musical history -- from Tito Puente to "Watermelon Man" to KRS-One.
posted by Miko at 8:04 AM - 8 comments

Hilarious website showing one mans passion for drawing conservative themed art. The real gems are in the archive. My personal favorites include "Team W" and these creepy Reagan ghost ones [1] [2]. Don't forget his epic comic The Patriot.
posted by DougieZero1982 at 7:57 AM - 57 comments

1. Make a remix featuring whale sounds.
2. Save a whale.
3. Get discovered for your remixing skills.
4. Profit! The Whale Remix Project.
posted by ashbury at 6:12 AM - 10 comments

Homosexual climbs Mount Everest, despite handicap of being gay
posted by jonson at 12:24 AM - 62 comments

Please, allow me to introduce you to Detroit Techno. Artist Derrick May once described it as "George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator." Despite being virtually unknown in the United States, this genre has achieved global popularity. Noteworthy artists include Carl Craig, Sean Deason, Stacey Pullen, Jeff Mills, Underground Resistance, DJ Assault, Moodymann, and Kevin Saunderson (among others). From May 27th-29th the city of Detroit will launch a huge electronic music festival . It isn't something you see everyday in the U.S., so check it out. Here are some o t h e r links.
posted by j-urb at 11:52 PM - 45 comments

A televised snooker 147 is the big deal for snooker professionals. The first was by Canadian Cliff Thorburn. The fastest was by Ronnie O'Sullivan. The luckiest goes to John Higgins. Also by Kirk Stevens, Mark Williams, Stephen Hendry, and Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie.
posted by parki at 9:24 PM - 49 comments

The Comic Book Bondage Cover of the Day - Massive archive of... well, it's pretty self-explanatory.
posted by dobbs at 8:24 PM - 21 comments

The final chromosome in the human genome has been sequenced. The Human Genome Project has completed sequencing Chromosome 1 and has published its work in Nature here. If you're impatient, here's a sneak preview..
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 7:45 PM - 32 comments

The Australian cigarette health warnings have pretty much filtered down to every retail packet that's bought now. They're pretty gruesome and some smoking acquaintances cover them up with stickers. I thought I'd have a look around and see what other countries warnings were like. None of them were pulling any punches except for Uruguay.
posted by tellurian at 7:21 PM - 117 comments

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1861-1960. Foreign Relations volumes contain documents from Presidential libraries, Departments of State and Defense, National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, Agency for International Development, and other foreign affairs agencies as well as the private papers of individuals involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy. In general, the editors choose documentation that illuminates policy formulation and major aspects and repercussions of its execution. This enormous collection of documents is now available online at the University of Wisconsin. Example: Kennan's Long Telegram, February 22, 1946. Some additional volumes are also available online from the State Department. Via Curt Cardwell, on H-DIPLO.
posted by russilwvong at 6:34 PM - 7 comments

Big, big list of links to YouTube's treasure chest of 80's music videos. Of course, there's good stuff, bad stuff, rare stuff and funny stuff.
posted by davebush at 6:08 PM - 76 comments

"many far-left thinkers believe the white power structure that controls America is bad, so a drastic change is needed." O'Reilly continued: "According to the lefty zealots, the white Christians who hold power must be swept out by a new multicultural tide, a rainbow coalition, if you will."
_{Then there's John Gibson's call for more white babies}
posted by delmoi at 5:50 PM - 112 comments

Northwestern University has suspended its girl's soccer team indefinitely, stemming from hazing photos surfacing online. The photos seem tame when compared with some other disgusting incidents. Does the punishment fit the crime?
posted by T.D. Strange at 3:29 PM - 67 comments

How to copy records.
posted by 31d1 at 3:23 PM - 23 comments

Bonofilter: Yesterday, May 16, U2 front-man Bono was a guest "editor" for the UK newspaper The Independent. Called the "RED Edition," half of this issue's proceeds went "to help fight HIV and AIDS among women and children in Africa." Highlights included US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice offering her take on "The Ten Best Musical Works" and an interview with Eddie Izzard on immigration in Europe. Is there a downside to celebrity editing, or is it a win-win-win for Bono, The Independent, and some people in need?
posted by bardic at 3:06 PM - 32 comments

Loving v. Missouri: In February, Olivia Shelltrack and Fondrey Loving were denied an occupancy permit because they have three children and are not married. "This ordinance is outdated. We are a family," says Shelltrack, 31. "There's a mom, there's a dad, there's three children. We are a family." Whether Shelltrack, a stay-at-home mom, and Loving, 33, who works for a payroll-administration company, are married "should not be anybody's business, if I pay my taxes, if I'm able to buy the house," she says.
posted by dash_slot- at 2:36 PM - 48 comments

The days of needing to remember several telephone numbers, numerous VOIP or instant message identities and other points of contact for our social and professional networks are over.
posted by airguitar at 2:26 PM - 20 comments

What happens when an ignoramus reads the Good Book? Slate's David Plotz reads the Bible for the first time as an adult. "My goal is pretty simple. I want to find out what happens when an ignorant person actually reads the book on which his religion is based." The first two installments.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:20 PM - 48 comments

The Great Flydini. Old, brilliant Steve Martin bit from the tonight show. [prev]
posted by sluglicker at 12:19 PM - 29 comments

Find your celebrity dopelganger. MyHeritage is another site that uses face recognition on photos you upload, but the slick interface in this demo matches you up with one of 3,200 celebrities from the past two centuries which you (supposedly) resemble. You can upload photos with multiple people in them as well, and it will identify all the faces in the shot. I can't vouch for accuracy, but it is entertaining. [Registration required. Try username: metafilter@metafilter.com; pass: metafilter. The site does not appear to save photos that you have uploaded as part of the demo.]
posted by blahblahblah at 11:02 AM - 108 comments

Researchers discover that lactic acid is more than just a byproduct. According to George A. Brooks, "lactate is the link between oxidative and glycolytic, or anaerobic, metabolism." You can read the abstract of the paper at the American Journal of Physiology - Endocrinology and Metabolism.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:40 AM - 19 comments

Wired article about the hardware/technology the NSA is allegedly using at AT&T's San Franscisco switching office to eavesdrop on our internet communications. The Electronic Freedom Foundation is suing AT&T over it. The administration doesn't want that to happen. Previous MeFi|Related ACLU case
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 10:02 AM - 35 comments