2067 MetaFilter comments by Witty (displaying 951 through 1000)

Remember the Dihydrogen Monoxide parody from a few years ago?

lethal if inhaled, causes severe burns in its gaseous state, and is the major component in acid rain...

Snopes does. Mefi does too.

In a reworking of a classic story, City Councillors in Orange County were about to debate the pressing issue of Dihydrogen Monoxide before realising that the dangerous chemical was, in fact, water.
comment posted at 4:52 PM on Mar-24-04

Mary had a little lamb, Its face looked like its tush. So when you looked at either end, You saw George Dubya Bush.
comment posted at 10:17 AM on Mar-24-04

major ongoing scandals - a list "there have been an amazing number of investigations of Republicans since Bush took office, some of which directly involve the White House." Is this, in fact, an unusually long roster of scandals as compared to the scandal tallies of past presidential administrations?
comment posted at 11:39 PM on Mar-23-04

Are You Ready To Be Heart-Broken? Sounding like the sprightly spawn of Radiohead, Coldplay and (yes) Queen, Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" is, imho, an enchantingly romantic song, lovely and over-ambitious in the tradition of, say, very early Aztec Camera, Ash or Travis. Thing is: their first album, "Fears and Hopes" (so appropriately named for those inured to pre-first-album-jitters) will be released in May and already I dread the disappointment I just know awaits me. Early promises in Pop music have so often been cruelly broken by follow-ups, "sloppy seconds", maturity, whatever, that I put to you that musical competence, technique and general "production savvy" are inimicable to good, dirty teenage songs such as Keane's. [Be sure to listen to the other three songs on the web site, although only the gist of the wonderful "Somewhere Only We Know" is offered. They're quite good!]
comment posted at 11:21 PM on Mar-22-04
comment posted at 12:03 AM on Mar-23-04

West Virginia: it's all relative: or is it? Looks like those hucksters of overpriced clothing at Abercrombie & Fitch have done it again. The spokesman for A & F claims to "love West Virginia". Oh well, it's not like they have much of a presence there anyway.
comment posted at 9:06 PM on Mar-22-04

Typekey. Centralized weblog comment identity authentication system. By Six Apart. Coming soon. [Is this good?]
comment posted at 4:45 AM on Mar-21-04
comment posted at 8:38 AM on Mar-21-04
comment posted at 9:03 AM on Mar-21-04
comment posted at 5:29 PM on Mar-21-04

Why I stopped going to baseball games. I was there for McGwire's 62nd homer, hugging my son afterwards and glad-handing everyone in sight. Although it was a special moment for us both, the luster is now gone, and we don't go to the ballpark anymore. Donald Fehr is one reason, who refuses budge from his latest contract to effectively address the steroid issue. Count me gone... but perhaps it's always been a dying sport.
comment posted at 1:09 AM on Mar-20-04
comment posted at 7:17 AM on Mar-20-04
comment posted at 6:10 PM on Mar-20-04

Vehicle to autonomous biped robot conversion for the Mini Cooper r50. I have no idea what this is all about but that doesn't bother me in the least. Amazing.
comment posted at 5:03 AM on Mar-17-04


Bush directing Homeland Security to Stage Photo-Ops? This article from next week's Time is in itself a well-detailed examination of the campaign strategies for both sides in the 2004 race, but some bloggers have caught a disturbing paragraph in the middle of the article: "As the Bush team sorts out its internal mechanics, it will press the advantage of incumbency. Administration sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the President in settings that might highlight the Administration's efforts to make the nation safer. The goal, they are being told, is to provide Bush with one homeland-security photo-op a month. "
comment posted at 1:02 AM on Mar-16-04

Bush/Cheney Poster Creator
Best use of web resources to reach the masses, or easiest.culture-jam.ever? You be the judge.
comment posted at 12:24 PM on Mar-10-04
comment posted at 1:40 PM on Mar-10-04
comment posted at 2:11 PM on Mar-10-04
comment posted at 8:03 PM on Mar-10-04


Bad news for American Taliban abstinence supporters... A survey commissioned by the CDC (I'm surprised the admin didn't bury this one) shows that "The Virginity Pledge" has an 88 percent failure rate. On average, pledgers do delay sex longer and have 'less' partners, and have 'statistically-insignificent' lower STD rate. Choose among Reuters story, New York Times story, Miami Herald, AP via MSNBC (can't find it at FoxNews or the New York Post yet). Let the spin begin: sex education advocates say: "See?", radio talk show host cries BS.
comment posted at 11:03 AM on Mar-10-04

Pre-9/11, Bush Deprioritized Counter-terrorism and Targeted It For Cuts The Bush handlers would try to paint Kerry as weak on defense and intelligence, yet it was the GOP that in fact cut budgets for intelligence.
comment posted at 4:03 PM on Mar-9-04

METABLAST: Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries vs. MetaFilter.
comment posted at 3:22 PM on Mar-9-04
comment posted at 3:30 PM on Mar-9-04
comment posted at 3:30 PM on Mar-9-04

Dish Network drops Viacom. Dish Network dropped Viacom-distributed channels last night, and CBS channels in 16 metropolitan areas. I can't see how alienating 1.6 million subscribers is going to be good for business, no matter what it does to their bottom line.
comment posted at 12:08 PM on Mar-9-04

Bush's flip flops Bad mouth Kerry? Look who truly speaks out of both sides of his smirking head. Compare and contrast in 500 words. Spelling counts.
comment posted at 2:58 PM on Mar-8-04
comment posted at 3:37 PM on Mar-8-04



The Deal. Why is Washington going easy on Pakistan's nuclear black marketers and supporting the pardon of Abdul Qadeer Khan? According to Seymour Hersh, it's in exchange for Pervez Musharraf allowing U.S. troops into Pakistan to hunt for Osama bin Laden. [Via The Argus.]
comment posted at 1:26 PM on Mar-1-04

World's most stubborn man dies. Fell in yard, insisted he was fine.
comment posted at 10:30 AM on Feb-27-04

The Cat With Hands : disturbing and clever short film for your friday entertainment (6 Mb *.mov, via k10k).
comment posted at 6:06 PM on Feb-26-04

Bush calls for same-sex marriage-ban amendment Pres. Bush called for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage today, blaming "activist judges", the Massachusettes Supreme Court, and the mayor of San Francisco, among others, for attempting "to change the most fundamental institution of civilization."

How this call for an amendment plays out remains to be seen, but Bush is taking a strong stance on this issue, in what some see as another 'big headline' proposal during the election season. What will this mean for the civil rights of homosexuals in this country? And how will voters react in November?
comment posted at 11:31 AM on Feb-24-04

You gave your life to the military, you voted Republican for many years, you say you served in the Pentagon right up to the outbreak of war. What does it feel like to be out now, publicly denouncing your old bosses?

Know what it feels like? It feels like duty. That’s what it feels like. I’ve thought about it many times. You know, I spent 20 years working for something that — at least under this administration — turned out to be something I wasn’t working for. I mean, these people have total disrespect for the Constitution. We swear an oath, military officers and NCOs alike swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. These people have no respect for the Constitution. The Congress was misled, it was lied to. At a very minimum that is a subversion of the Constitution. A pre-emptive war based on what we knew was not a pressing need is not what this country stands for.

LA Weekly interviewsLt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, retired, Pentagon insider present at the creation. Skeletons from the closet tumble.
comment posted at 11:43 PM on Feb-23-04

CNN In Feb. 8, 2002 I posted a link hoping Arnie's movie career would keep him too busy to become governor. Twenty-one months later he took office, (obviously I was being tongue-in-cheek, I had no idea it would actually happen). It seems he has his sights set pretty high.
comment posted at 5:16 PM on Feb-22-04

Papers, please! On March 22, the Supreme Court will hear a case that will answer whether or not citizens have to provide identification whenever police demand it.
comment posted at 1:02 PM on Feb-18-04
comment posted at 1:09 PM on Feb-18-04
comment posted at 1:29 PM on Feb-18-04
comment posted at 1:54 PM on Feb-18-04
comment posted at 1:55 PM on Feb-18-04
comment posted at 2:32 PM on Feb-18-04
comment posted at 8:43 AM on Feb-20-04

CNN reports Dean to suspend campaign.
comment posted at 8:12 AM on Feb-18-04
comment posted at 8:30 AM on Feb-18-04
comment posted at 8:49 AM on Feb-18-04
comment posted at 9:04 AM on Feb-18-04

Software innovation is dead. I have to agree that there hasn't been anything truly exciting coming out of the software community as of late, at least anything that is going to change the way we do things like e-mail and P2P did.
comment posted at 7:15 AM on Feb-9-04

Electronic music buffs cite Radiohead's Kid A as their best work. How many know that Idioteque, arguably the stand-out track owes a debt to Paul Lansky, sampling as it does Lansky's Mild Und Leise [mp3 file], a track composed in 1973 on an IBM 360/91 mainframe. I didn't. Should you find your interest piqued, you might want to read an interview with Lansky. If that was then, this is now: The excellent music video to Zeal [Quicktime] by Plaid, which, although a very different beast, is an excellent indicator of how far electronic music has come. [Probably NSFW].
comment posted at 6:35 AM on Feb-9-04

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