MetaFilter

"On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive him at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. [...] Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago." Coral cache quicktime here.
comment posted at 8:19 AM on Nov-10-05

"A car riged [sic] with a VBIED [vehicle-borne improvised explosive device] blows up on bridge in Hit, Iraq." (Caution: contains audio with profanity.)
comment posted at 1:24 PM on Nov-9-05

Has the C.I.A. legally killed prisoners? Two years ago, Manadel al-Jamadi, a suspected Iraqi insurgent, walked into a Baghdad interrogation room. He was dead in 45 minutes, his head covered with a plastic bag, shackled in a crucifixion-like pose that led to his asphyxiation. U.S. authorities classified his death a homicide. His CIA interrogator has not been charged with a crime and continues to work for the agency. President Bush says "We do not torture." But if that’s true, then why is Vice President Cheney fighting to exempt CIA interrogators from a torture ban? And al-Jamadi? His case is stalled in the Alberto Gonzalez Justice Department, two years after soldiers posed for thumbs-up pictures next to his corpse.
comment posted at 11:04 AM on Nov-9-05
comment posted at 12:14 PM on Nov-9-05

For $1,800, ex-molester Rick Strawn will abduct your kid into an unregulated gulag. A harrowing piece of journalism from the rarely-glimpsed world of the teen punishment industry.
comment posted at 10:51 AM on Nov-9-05
comment posted at 11:26 AM on Nov-9-05

Does religion make people evil? A brief and well-balanced article by George Monbiot discussing the conclusions of this research paper.
comment posted at 12:20 PM on Nov-9-05

Free Visual Studio Express Is Microsoft suddenly feeling generous, or are they just trying to further improve market share? (It's the latter).
comment posted at 6:50 AM on Nov-9-05

Newsfilter: All eight ballod initiatives in the California special election fail. $250 million down the drain. Were they all bad measures, or were voters just showing their displeasure with those in power?
comment posted at 7:59 AM on Nov-9-05
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comment posted at 8:23 AM on Nov-9-05

Flying Spagetti Monster expelled from Kansas The Kansas School Board has decided that it knows much more about the origins of life than the combined intelligence of all the scientists on the planet, and that fiction can be taught as fact. But seriously, if you don't even understand the scientific method, what business do you have setting academic policy?
comment posted at 8:42 PM on Nov-8-05

[NewsFilter] It looks like President Bush finally found those chemical weapons he was looking for in Iraq. The only problem is, we were using them. In a new documentary called "Falluja: The Hidden Massacre," Italian TV network RAI accuses US forces of using white phosphorous -- an incendiary chemical, banned as an anti-personnel weapon by the Geneva conventions, that can be employed like napalm -- against Iraqi civilians in its massive raid on Falluja. Is RAI right, or just blowing smoke?
comment posted at 12:45 PM on Nov-8-05
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comment posted at 12:58 PM on Nov-8-05

We will act deliberately and decisively, and the cause of freedom will prevail. Now, watch this drive.
comment posted at 12:44 PM on Nov-8-05

European Wine Fighting For Survival
comment posted at 10:23 PM on Nov-7-05

Grokster shuts down after their Supreme Court defeat [pdf] this summer, Grokster has chosen to settle its case with MGM et al., admit to wrongdoing, and stop distributing its software. Their website now displays the message: "There are legal services for downloading music and movies. This service is not one of them.". Another victoy for Hollywood in the intellectual property war. Who's next?
comment posted at 2:39 PM on Nov-7-05

The FBI knows you're reading MetaFilter. [WashPost link]
comment posted at 12:45 PM on Nov-7-05
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comment posted at 2:06 PM on Nov-7-05

Dahlia Lithwick in Slate urges Democrats to grow a spine, and use the Alito hearings to provide the American public with some liberal talking points for a change. "If the Scalias, Thomases, Alitos, and Borks of the world had their way ... there would be no meaningful gun control. States could have official churches. Hard-fought federal worker, environmental, and civil rights protections would disintegrate. What you currently think of as the right to privacy would disappear. These are the questions Senate Democrats need to ask of Sam Alito: Should property rights trump individual rights? Should the right to privacy be interpreted as narrowly as the framers might have intended? Do you believe that a return to the morals and mores of two centuries ago is in the best interest of this nation?"
comment posted at 9:22 AM on Nov-7-05
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comment posted at 1:45 PM on Nov-7-05

Crap...or covert? It's no secret that America Online, while somehow maintaining a sizable user base, is not exactly well respected or well trusted. But is there in fact more to the company than meets the eye? (Or is this just a bunch of conspiracy theory rantamatazz?) Discuss.
comment posted at 1:17 AM on Nov-7-05
comment posted at 1:42 AM on Nov-7-05

Ye Olde Graphics Shoppe. We hope you will find something here to your liking. You will notice some changes and additions and a new look. We have decided to simplify things rather than have nonsense pages.....too many really :-)) We have a NEW Graphics Assistant Lady Belle ho has added some terrific new dusting graphics and page sets for you to enjoy.
comment posted at 7:11 PM on Nov-6-05
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comment posted at 8:06 PM on Nov-6-05

Mana "China" Nishiura, drummer for Shonen Knife & DMBQ, died on Friday afternoon. "It is with a deep sadness in my heart, that I must announce the passing of Mana "China" Nishiura. She was tragically killed in a three-vehicle accident near the Delaware Memorial Bridge yesterday (November 4) shortly before 1 p.m., after the Econoline van carrying her band, DMBQ, had crossed the bridge from New Jersey near Carneys Point in Salem County. A Mitsubishi Eclipse clipped the van's left rear fender. The van spun out of control, and careened over a barrier on the ramp to Route 40. Mana was ejected from the van and she died at the scene." A bit more about Shonen Knife.
comment posted at 4:48 PM on Nov-6-05

Neil Diamond on MySpace "I sang Cracklin Rosie at Kareoke last week and was then inited[sic] to a threesome. Thanks Neil. Your songs are magical." Neil Diamond has 9981 friends.
comment posted at 7:23 PM on Nov-6-05

Newsfilter: The NYTimes is reporting that the Democrats forced Congress into a closed session last week (previous MeFi discussion here) because of a recently declassified memo citing concerns by intelligence agencies over the source of information used to justify the Iraq war. Turns out the White House had been informed their source couldn't be trusted to tell the truth and were probably fabricating evidence. Knowing this, the Bush administration still presented the stories as absolute truth. The memo was apparently ignored. Of course, the administration has ignored important memos before.
This new evidence probably invalidates the conclusions (pdf) drawn by the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on the Intelligence Community's pre-war work on Iraq.
comment posted at 8:45 PM on Nov-5-05
comment posted at 2:25 AM on Nov-6-05

Why Paris Is Burning Officially, the French state doesn't recognize minorities, only citizens of France, all of them equal under the law. But that republican ideal has seemed especially hollow over the past week as the children of impoverished, largely Muslim immigrants from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa fought running battles with police throughout the banlieues, or suburbs, to the east and north of the French capital...
comment posted at 1:00 AM on Nov-6-05
comment posted at 10:41 AM on Nov-6-05

By the way...Americans may have eaten mad cow.
comment posted at 11:16 PM on Nov-4-05
comment posted at 2:10 AM on Nov-6-05

Decades of dumping chemical arms leave a risky legacy The Army now admits that it secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste - either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of scuttled vessels. These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off at least 11 states - six on the East Coast, two on the Gulf Coast, California, Hawaii and Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.
comment posted at 12:03 AM on Nov-5-05

Looking for detailed flight info? This site takes airplane flight tracking to air traffic control levels. Be sure to check out the complete airport status and the facinating flight movies.
comment posted at 6:51 PM on Nov-4-05
comment posted at 11:24 PM on Nov-4-05

“Matthew Limon, the gay man at the center of a Kansas law struck down by the state Supreme Court, was freed late Thursday night, but his ordeal may not be over.
comment posted at 4:57 PM on Nov-4-05
comment posted at 6:15 PM on Nov-4-05

Click and hold the red square.
comment posted at 3:25 PM on Nov-4-05

Cheyney the Torturer? According to Dan Froomkin today, Lawrence Wilkerson (former chief of staff to the secretary of state) said that he had uncovered a "visible audit trail" tracing the practice of prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers directly back to Vice President Cheney's office.
comment posted at 12:33 PM on Nov-4-05

Protect your banana! Careful now. Don't bruise it!
comment posted at 2:36 AM on Nov-4-05

A explicit Right to Privacy Amendment? Dan Savage asks: why can't we have one?--...Here we are, decades after Griswold, and social conservatives and liberals are constantly arguing about whether or not the right to privacy, which is a popular right (naturally enough), and one to which most Americans believe they're entitled, is actually a right to which Americans are entitled, constitutionally-speaking. ... It affects all aspects of our lives-- from sexuality to procreation to speech to property to employment to housing, so isn't it time?
Europe has one, in the European Convention on Human Rights : Article 8-the right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence. ...Article 8 offers general protection for a person’s private and family life, home and correspondence from arbitrary interference by the State. This right affects a large number of areas of life ranging from surveillance to sexual identity - it is framed extremely broadly. However, the right to respect for these aspects of privacy under Article 8 is qualified. ...
comment posted at 10:31 PM on Nov-3-05