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Yesterday, the Arar Commission released their report on the handling of the Maher Arar case, previously mentioned here or here. The findings are widely reported; Canada is self-flagellating for being complicit in the United States' abduction and torture of a Canadian citizen. As President Bush goes to Congress to lobby for the legal authority to abduct and torture anyone without a trial, Arar should consider himself lucky: although Canada didn't help him out for a year, the Canadian government and news media were aware of and interested in his confinement, which likely saved him from the worst tortures. As a famous legal scholar commented some 240 years ago, "To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government."
comment posted at 5:29 PM on Sep-19-06

JPG, an online/offline photo magazine "for photographers like us who fall somewhere in between the strict definitions of 'amateur' and 'professional,'" launches today. The impresario of JPG is Derek Powazek, the author of Design for Community, who has a long history of building interesting Web-based community sites, including the personal-storytelling site Fray.com (currently on hiatus). The co-founder of JPG, Powazek's wife Heather Champ, created the haunting Mirror Project.
comment posted at 12:55 AM on Sep-19-06
comment posted at 4:16 PM on Sep-19-06

James Frey, in his first interview since the whole I-sold-a-memoir-about-my-non-existent-life flap and extremely public Oprah smackdown. (previously mentioned in various posts)
comment posted at 7:57 PM on Sep-17-06

Members of Congress are thus on notice that minimum due process guarantees under customary international law must not be denied when Congress attempts to articulate what forms of procedure a military commission should adopt.... Such denials are war crimes.

Can a vote be a war crime?
comment posted at 5:15 PM on Sep-17-06
comment posted at 5:15 PM on Sep-17-06

"I'm not here for the Iraqis. I'm here for George Bush." How the reconstruction of Iraq was bungled by inexperienced staffers and officials who passed the GOP's loyalty test -- including their views on Roe v. Wade. A WashPost excerpt from Rajiv Chandrasekaran's new exposé Imperial Life in the Emerald City. (Corruption in Iraq previously discussed here.)
comment posted at 6:02 PM on Sep-16-06

Google Image Labler game You and a random partner try to pick tags for random images. If any tags match up, you both get points.
comment posted at 9:50 PM on Sep-14-06
comment posted at 10:00 PM on Sep-15-06

Barrack Obama is being urged by former political opponent Dan Hynes to run for president in '08 in a most eloquent open letter.
comment posted at 7:09 PM on Sep-14-06
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comment posted at 10:38 PM on Sep-15-06

It took 1291 days, rather than 102 minutes, but as of today the US death toll in Iraq has exceeded the number of lives lost during 9/11. Of course, on the Iraqi side, things are far worse.
comment posted at 2:42 AM on Sep-14-06
comment posted at 5:05 AM on Sep-14-06

Have you played Robotron today?
comment posted at 4:53 PM on Sep-12-06
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"The thing is, we're in Central London and we have to be really careful these days. I like your shots though... very nice." Dave Gorman's ever-so-slightly surreal Flickr adventure.
comment posted at 4:55 PM on Sep-12-06
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comment posted at 1:19 AM on Sep-14-06

Logically, the last thing you would think would help a person trapped in a persistent vegetative state is a nervous system is sleeping pill. Illogically, when you do, many of them wake up.
comment posted at 4:46 PM on Sep-12-06

$480 million gift from Canada to the Republican's election strategy: On April 7, the United States Court of International Trade ruled that the U.S. industry was entitled legally to no money (a final loss of many) in its ongoing dispute over Canadian softwood lumber. Prior to that, Minister David Emerson and Ambassador Frank McKenna were working to a deal where $1 billion of the $6 million collected would be given to the U.S. industry. Once the USCOIT ruled, however, a sweetheart deal continued along this vein, ignoring the fact that it wasn't American money to begin with, awarding approximately half of that $1 billion to industry and half directly to the White House, bypassing Congress' monetary controls, and with language that allows the current administration to spend it as they wish ("and other values") without oversight. Where will it end up, if this goes ahead?
comment posted at 11:10 PM on Sep-10-06

Slate's ongoing "Survivalist" series lays out the steps that you can take to prepare for the disasters threatening to snuff out civilization in general (and, apparently, New York City in particular). Find out how to survive nuclear terrorism, an earthquake, a skyscraper collapse, an electronic apocalypse, and global warming.
comment posted at 7:18 PM on Sep-10-06

GridWars 2 is superlative shooty thing for Windows; download here.
comment posted at 10:55 PM on Sep-7-06
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comment posted at 4:27 PM on Sep-8-06

I work as a cashier for my employer. My personal interests involve computers, software, etc. I have worked for them for 3 years. They are all quite 'dummies' when is comes to maintaining a healthy computer. One of their office/administrative computers crashed a few weeks ago. The very first thing I did was open the case, and blow some of the monster-dust-bunnies out. Got a can of compressed air and finished up the rest - voila! Just like new - almost! I had asked how often the PCs are shutdown, they said never??? In 3 years?! no way!?!? I explained the horrors what could occur by letting them run 24/7/365. My supervisor has asked if I would run some maintenance on the office computers. Total of about 8-12 desktop HP/Compaq PCs operating on XP Home and XP Pro on some. In preparation for my upcoing task, I'm looking for apps to install on my USB stick (512MB), I've already downloaded and installed the following portable apps to my stick: 1. "SIW - System Information for Windows." http://www.gtopala.com/ 2. "ClamWin Portable" http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/clamwin_portable Clamwin may be un-necessary, as they don't have internet access on these PCs. 3. "Firefox Portable" http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable If I am granted administrative access, I plan to install: 4. "CCleaner v1.32.345" http://www.ccleaner.com/download/ 5. "Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.4" http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html What other apps or portable-apps should I run?
comment posted at 2:59 AM on Sep-7-06

Meal Assembly ... a new trend in figuring out what's for dinner. You go to a professional kitchen and assemble any number of meals, then bring them home and freeze them. Like a salad bar, but more diverse. They provide all the ingredients and the basic recipes, and cut out the shopping, the leftover ingredients ... (and maybe the creativity?). The upside is low cost (as low as $3 a portion), and better portion control. Coming soon to a suburb near you.
comment posted at 2:51 AM on Sep-7-06

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.

comment posted at 7:22 PM on Sep-5-06

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!
comment posted at 6:35 PM on Sep-5-06
comment posted at 11:57 PM on Sep-5-06

A little more than a year after leaving New Orleans, I miss the culture of sophisticated drinking. Sure, maybe not on Bourbon Street, home of the sickly sweet hurricane and Hand Grenade. But you head off Bourbon and you can get a very pleasant Pimms cup at the Napoleon House. And just down the street is a military antiques store that was once the pharmacy where Antoine Amadie Peychaud invented the sazerac, which lays claims to being the word's oldest cocktail. Any good bartender in New Orleans will be able to make you one; finding a sazerac-capable bartender outside the city is almost impossible. Of course, just outside the French Quarter, in the Fairmont Hotel, is the Sazerac bar, but, surprisingly, their specialty is not the sazerac, but the favorite drink of Huey Long, the delicious Ramos Gin Fizz. Nearby, back in the Quarter, on an upper floor of the Pharmacy Museum, was the former home of the Museum of the American Cocktail -- now seemingly in transit after Katrina. At the opening, cocktail chef Dale Degroff served up his specialty -- pre-Prohibition cocktails, including a brandy crusta that still makes me weep from the pleasure of it. Sure, up here in Minneapolis we invented the cosmopolitan, but somehow a drink that's also become popular as a perfume doesn't have that same Crescent City je ne sais quoi.
comment posted at 6:33 AM on Sep-5-06

Almost 7 years after the release of his previous film Office Space, Mike Judge's Idiocracy is being all but abandoned by Fox. Despite favorable reviews and fan letters exhorting Fox to give the movie a chance, Idiocracy was released to seven cities on the 1st September with no promotion, no official release poster, no press screenings and a post-production budget so restrictive Judge had to ask fellow Austinite Robert Rodriguez to complete some effects shots for free. Is it because the film skewers Fox subsidiary Fox News (as well as advertisers like Starbucks and Costco) that Mike Judge is getting screwed (again)?
comment posted at 5:27 PM on Sep-5-06
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MySpace has announced that it intends to sell the music of nearly 3 million unsigned bands who use the service as an alternative to iTunes. If nothing else, at least Metafilter should see an end to these sorts of links.
comment posted at 7:12 PM on Sep-3-06

Living Without Ultimate Moral Responsibility. Is it desirable to live without the idea of free will as we normally understand it? Is it even possible? This interview with Galen Strawson explores these questions. Those who like something meatier may enjoy Derk Pereboom on the same subject (from the previously linked Determinism and Freedom Philosophy Website). Also of note: Susan Blackmore on living without free will.
comment posted at 9:44 PM on Sep-3-06

1K Project II. 1000 cars racing at the same time in Trackmania Sunrise [via waxy].
comment posted at 7:14 PM on Sep-3-06

The Lovecraft Collection. Scents inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos.
via Cheryl's Mewsings
comment posted at 3:47 AM on Sep-1-06
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comment posted at 5:45 AM on Sep-1-06

Google is now offering PDFs of public domain books. Okay, this is a direct lift from Boing Boing but I figured it was too juicy for Metafilter to miss. On my first search I found An Historical Account of the Discovery and Education of a Savage Man, E. M. Itard's account (translated) of his experiences with Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron. What else is there, MeFiers?
comment posted at 10:24 PM on Aug-29-06
comment posted at 12:12 AM on Aug-30-06