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Twenty-year sentence for selling two Oxycontin pills "I want to be a good person." said Johnson. "I wish I could have the chance to better myself and repay my debt to society. I want to go to college. ... It was just two little pills. ... This one time, please give me a chance. Please." A small town in Indiana doles out tough sentences and offers classes on the community's out of control drug problem.
comment posted at 11:45 AM on Feb-8-05
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Nothing is more damning than silence.
comment posted at 2:43 PM on Jan-30-05

Animated film based on a woodcut by M.C. Escher
comment posted at 7:29 PM on Jan-28-05

National Lampoon appears to be less than optimistic about the election in Iraq. Nevertheless, Bush seems to expect much of what's depicted in that satire, he manages to maintain higher hopes in the end. I'm sure Jim Henry would love to give a pre-election pep talk.
comment posted at 7:33 PM on Jan-28-05
comment posted at 8:14 PM on Jan-28-05

As Iraqis go to the polls on Jan. 30, it will be a daunting first exercise in democracy.
comment posted at 12:00 PM on Jan-26-05

Bring it trombONe! After watching this I am now wondering how fine a line there is between confidence and just being crazy. quicktime movie, some laughter may be required
comment posted at 9:57 PM on Jan-25-05
comment posted at 10:28 PM on Jan-25-05

As we saw last spring, Toronto's York University has limited the student's right to protest, here noted by Excalibur, York's largest student newspaper. The Toronto Star's article on last Thursday's peaceful anti-Bush protest complete with police intervention (video here, try this if that doesn't work) sparked a reaction by the York University Faculty Association. YUFA also remarked on the restriction of freedom of expression by York's administration. The administration has released two press releases so far, the first on the day of the protest, and the second to emphasize the students' responsibilities and limits. The protest has sparked plans of further protests and reports that the protest was misrepresented in the press. CUPE 3903 wrote an open letter to the administration criticizing their actions (PDF, p.11), and compared the situation to Berkeley's Free Speech Movement in the 60s.
comment posted at 10:22 PM on Jan-25-05

"The implant is designed to allow signals from the motor cortex to be collected, processed and analyzed, eventually producing an interface with a personal computer." It seems to work. Watch the video.
comment posted at 9:27 PM on Jan-19-05

Weatherman fired for on-air MLK day racial slur. I hope someone has video because I wouldn't mind seeing this dood go out like a sucka.
comment posted at 6:46 PM on Jan-17-05
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comment posted at 9:35 PM on Jan-17-05

The damage wrought by the construction of an American military base in the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon must rank as one of the most reckless acts of cultural vandalism in recent memory. And all the more so because it was unnecessary and avoidable... but given that it was, the US authorities were very aware of the warnings of archaeologists of the historic importance of the site. Yet, as a report by Dr John Curtis of the British Museum makes clear, they seem to have ignored the warnings. Dr Curtis claimed that in the early days after the war a military presence served a valuable purpose in preventing the site from being looted. But that, he said, did not stop "substantial" damage being done to the site afterwards not just to individual buildings such as the Ishtar Gate, "one of the most famous monuments from antiquity", but also on an estimated 300,000 square metres which had been flattened and covered in gravel, mostly imported from elsewhere. This was done to provide helicopter landing places and parking lots for heavy vehicles that should not have been allowed there in the first place...

Cultural vandalism. Months of war that ruined centuries of history. American graffiti.
comment posted at 1:51 AM on Jan-15-05
comment posted at 3:05 AM on Jan-15-05

When we started selling a device made for the sole purpose of beating children, we had no idea people would be upset!
comment posted at 5:02 AM on Jan-13-05
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comment posted at 10:34 AM on Jan-13-05

Boycott Bush's inauguration by not spending any money on inauguration day
comment posted at 3:36 AM on Jan-12-05
comment posted at 6:10 AM on Jan-12-05
comment posted at 2:05 AM on Jan-13-05

Animals!
comment posted at 1:05 AM on Jan-12-05
comment posted at 5:31 AM on Jan-12-05

Bush Picks New Homeland Protector Bush has chosen Judge Michael Chertoff to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security. The liberal Alliance For Justice concedes that Chertoff is "a talented attorney and an intelligent, committed public servant," but cites his role as counsel in the Whitewater investigation as a reason for caution. Other government watchers are somewhat chilled by the fact that Chertoff is the second Bush cabinet nominee to be connected to the torture scandal.
comment posted at 2:00 AM on Jan-12-05
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comment posted at 7:38 AM on Jan-12-05

Drummer Wanted: Must have reliable gear, play in the pocket and have good chops. Humans need not apply.
comment posted at 6:04 AM on Jan-10-05

H. David Dalquist, the inventor of the Bundt pan, has died. Did he even dream of the extensive potential uses of his product? About the logical extension of his invention?
comment posted at 3:38 PM on Jan-6-05

North Korea Issues Wartime Guidelines SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has ordered its citizens to be ready for a protracted war against the United States, issuing guidelines on evacuating to underground bunkers with weapons, food and portraits of leader Kim Jong Il.
comment posted at 12:39 PM on Jan-5-05

Kid Rock To Play Bush Inauguration ... The Bush Twins have invited Kid Rock to play their inauguration bash after their father is sworn in to a second term. Rock also played the Republican National Convention. This is a guy who stuck his head through an American flag at the Superbowl and has lyrics that say all women are whores and extol drug and alcohol abuse. (The link has actual lyrics from Rock, so if you are offended by cursing don't follow it.)
comment posted at 11:34 AM on Jan-4-05
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comment posted at 2:34 PM on Jan-4-05

Well, now what do we do with them? "The Bush administration is preparing plans for possible lifetime detention of suspected terrorists, including hundreds whom the government does not have enough evidence to charge in courts, The Washington Post reported Sunday.... As part of a solution, the Defense Department, which holds 500 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, plans to ask the U.S. Congress for $25 million to build a 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence, defense officials told the newspaper."
comment posted at 10:08 PM on Jan-1-05

Compare the death count from the tsunami to the deaths at the World Trade Center using graphs. Rob Cockerham took a break from his victimless pranks to help put things in perspective. Those without a giant monitor will have to do some horizontal scrolling.
comment posted at 1:56 PM on Dec-31-04
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comment posted at 3:44 PM on Dec-31-04

Our country is more humanitarian than YOURS is! No it's not. Yes it is. See? We donated more aid than you did. Well, we doubled our donation. So there. But yours are loans, not donations. Nuh uh. They're donations. Are not. Besides, we'll triple ours. And we'll send planes. You wouldn't. Watch us. Well then, we'll just octuple ours. Yeah? I bet you won't. I quadruple dog dare you. I hate you... you know that, right?
comment posted at 11:59 AM on Dec-31-04
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comment posted at 1:21 PM on Dec-31-04

Channel 101 - Democratic "television" on the web. Shows include The 'Bu (first episode in 3-D!!!), the bizarre Ringwald and Molly, Laser Fart, the much downloaded Kicked in the Nuts!, and many more. Some shows may be NSFW.
comment posted at 3:35 PM on Dec-30-04

"Massive misinformation" from Arab news networks such as Al-Jazeera is hampering the US effort in Iraq, Rumsfeld told the troops during his Christmas Eve visit to Mosul: "Everything we do here is harder because of television stations like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiyah." In remarks that were not quoted in the American press, the defense secretary went on to tell the troops, "We don't go out and hire journalists and propagandize and lie and put people on payroll so that they'll say what you want. We just don't do that and they do and that's happening" (which is itself meta-misinformation.) Meanwhile, the Pentagon's multimillion-dollar solution -- the CIA-funded Iraqi news network, Al-Iraqiya (featuring "Iraqi programs that make you laugh, cry, and learn") -- has become "an irrelevant mouthpiece for [coalition] propaganda" according to one of its own former correspondents, veteran news reporter Don North.
comment posted at 11:27 AM on Dec-30-04