MetaFilter

Al Gore claims the Bush administration is not helping America, but hurting it by focusing on all the wrong things. Gore:The administration is still not investing in local government training and infrastructures where they could make the biggest difference. The first responder community is still being shortchanged. In many cases, fire and police still don’t have the communications equipment to talk to each other. The CDC and local hospitals are still nowhere close to being ready for a biological weapons attack. The administration has still failed to address the fundamental disorganization and rivalries of our law enforcement, intelligence and investigative agencies. In particular, the critical FBI-CIA coordination, while finally improved at the top, still remains dysfunctional in the trenches. The constant violations of civil liberties promote the false impression that these violations are necessary in order to take every precaution against another terrorist attack. But the simple truth is that the vast majority of the violations have not benefited our security at all; to the contrary, they hurt our security.
comment posted at 4:17 AM on Nov-10-03
comment posted at 12:36 PM on Nov-10-03

The Beast of Bodmin. 'Photographs and even films had been taken of these beasts, but there has been little physical evidence to support the sightings. That was until recently when a 14-year-old boy discovered a skull with large fangs, in the River Fowey on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. '
'This is the story of how The Natural History Museum tracked down this beast... '
More at the British Big Cats Society.
comment posted at 4:33 AM on Nov-10-03

Private Jessica Lynch says "The military used me!" Lynch, now honorably discharged and with a book coming out, told Diane Sawyer in a "Primetime" interview to air Tuesday that the military lied to the press and used her for propaganda purposes. This was reported in May by Robert Scheer of the L.A. Times, who was called "unamerican" by Bill O'Reilly and personally called a liar by the Pentagon. Once more, we've been lied to by our government, but something tells me that the frogs ain't gonna march anytime soon.
comment posted at 9:56 AM on Nov-7-03

New nickels in 2004. Also, the mint is holding out the possibility of further changes after the Lewis and Clark designs are retired after 2005, so maybe they'll finally have the guts to use Felix Schlag's original design for the coin, with the oblique view of Monticello.
comment posted at 12:32 PM on Nov-6-03
comment posted at 12:51 PM on Nov-6-03

15 trends taking shape in logo design
comment posted at 10:35 AM on Nov-5-03

Wannabe Vegetarians Or Hypocritical Carnivores? Do you enjoy eating meat but hate the way it reaches your table? (More inside.)
comment posted at 9:11 AM on Nov-5-03

Hey, Linda. Thanks for all you've done! Linda Tripp gets a $600K settlement from Bush's Defense Department for having her privacy violated. Oh, sickening irony. via TPM
comment posted at 2:55 PM on Nov-4-03

Never Too Late? Descendants of the only European ever eaten in Fiji will get an apology next month from natives. (Another account, and a nice commentary.) We did cannibalism last April, but this is more about saying you're sorry. Is it worth apologizing, after 136 years?
comment posted at 6:30 AM on Oct-15-03

China Launches Manned Space Mission

Godspeed, Yang Liwei.
comment posted at 7:50 PM on Oct-14-03

Why does North Korea hate America? Warning: Quicktime video, and NSFW to boot. Anti-American propaganda video made by North Koreans, for North Koreans. Unintentionally funny, or sheer genius? You be the judge.
comment posted at 6:40 PM on Oct-13-03

Botanical Record-Breakers - learn about the world's most poisonous plants, the fastest growing, the most painful, the oldest, the ongoing debate about the largest, and much more. Also discussed is the rare coconut pearl - botanical jewel, or hoax?
comment posted at 11:48 PM on Oct-2-03

Boston Herald sports reporter outs himself in print and asks why people in the world of sports still have to hide. Frankly, I'm out because I can't come up with a single logical reason why I should have denied myself the right to live and work as openly and freely as everyone else. Nor should anyone find a reason why an openly gay athlete should be denied the right to play a team sport without fear of becoming a target of prejudice or physical harm. See Outsports for more info on the subject, and an interesting pro and con on whether gay baseball players should come out.
comment posted at 5:16 PM on Sep-30-03
comment posted at 4:26 PM on Oct-1-03
comment posted at 11:08 AM on Oct-2-03

DynCorp Disgrace "Middle-aged men having sex with 12- to 15-year-olds was too much for Ben Johnston, a hulking 6-foot-5-inch Texan, and more than a year ago he blew the whistle on his employer, DynCorp, a U.S. contracting company doing business in Bosnia..."
comment posted at 12:58 PM on Sep-24-03
comment posted at 1:59 PM on Sep-24-03

A Cautionary Tale: DNA Analysis of Alleged Extraterrestrial Biological Material: Anatomy of a Molecular Forensic Investigation .pdf file
::From The National Institute for Discovery Science via The Daily Grail::
[more inside]
comment posted at 11:08 AM on Sep-24-03

Massachusetts governor has new plan to get death penalty re-introduced. Romney claims that his science is so tight that guilt will be irrefutable. It's an interesting angle to take to change legislation. I do, however, wonder how science can irrefutably detect crooked cops.
comment posted at 10:54 AM on Sep-24-03
comment posted at 12:28 PM on Sep-25-03

Breaking the silence Last night ITV1 in the UK ran a documentary that is unlikely to be shown in the USA. It is by a respected journalist called John Pilger and amongst other tidbits it shows Colin Powell saying in 1991 that Iraq poses no threat and also Condoleeza Rice confirming the same thing. It also quotes some US officials that the current bunch who seem to be running US foreign policy were known during the administration of Bush senior as "the crazies". Plus much more.
comment posted at 11:30 AM on Sep-23-03

Video of Krugman on Media and Economics

If Bush said the earth is flat, of course Fox News would say "Yes, the earth is flat, and anyone who says different is unpatriotic." And mainstream media would have stories with the headline: "Shape of Earth: Views Differ; and would at most report that some Democrats say that it's round."

So said Paul Krugman during a recent interview in Boston with Chris Lydon, former host of NPR's 'The Connection.'
comment posted at 12:46 PM on Sep-22-03

Desperate Saddam Offers Americans Deal. Wait...no...move along...nothing to see here...move along please...
comment posted at 10:22 AM on Sep-22-03

Eight women and children killed by US bombing in Afghanistan. Nothing on CNN or BBC so far. An MSNBC/AP report describes the victims as "tribesmen", others described them only as "gypsies".
comment posted at 7:23 AM on Sep-21-03

Isabel Blog. WVEC in Hampton Roads, Virginia creates a blog for Hurricane Isabel, and allows users to submit content. Users respond with pictures and stories that are a lot more interesting than what the media has to report...
comment posted at 6:36 AM on Sep-19-03

Forget scholarships and pell grants, there's a new way to pay for college. For all the nubile college co-eds out there wondering how they are going to pay for their schooling with student aid being under-funded and costs increasing, strip clubs in Windsor, Ontario and in Detroit, Michigan are paying the way. The clubs will pay $1,500 to $2,000 in educational expenses per year to women or men who work three or four seven-hour shifts in their clubs. The money is on top of the $10 an hour that dancers are paid; in addition to cash they get from tips and private dances.

There's a catch though. In addition to jiggling more than their required class work, the dancers must also maintain a healthy, robust and voluptuous B average to receive the financial aid. Obviously this program is sexist in more ways than one, but Robert Katzman, owner of the clubs offering the program feels that "A girl who wants to better herself, who wants to progress, makes for a higher level entertainer."
comment posted at 8:41 PM on Sep-17-03

The Little Mermaid Explodes. This is only the latest in a long series of indignities suffered by Denmark's national symbol. Why are people so into this sort of thing?
comment posted at 7:28 AM on Sep-17-03

Unnanounced art in Home Depot. Artist Stefanie Nagorka has created sculptures in ten states in the last year, and aims to bring her work to Home Depots in all fifty in the coming 18 months. She uses materials, mainly concrete slabs and bricks, from the stores, assembles the sculptures in the aisle, snaps a picture for herself, and leave the rest there for customers to enjoy or puzzle over - and for the employees to disassemble and re-stock. I think I like it. (From this month's ReadyMade.)
comment posted at 1:23 AM on Sep-17-03
comment posted at 5:25 AM on Sep-17-03
comment posted at 6:57 AM on Sep-17-03
comment posted at 12:11 PM on Sep-17-03

Cute Girls Only - The only dating web site where they actually reject the ugly chics. via [linkswarm.com]
comment posted at 6:22 PM on Sep-16-03

Verisign modifies the infrastructure of the net to point back to themselves. Verisign has rigged all .com and .net mistyped domains to reroute to their branded search page. This makes them effectively the biggest cybersquatter on the net, and will make it impossible for most spam filters at the network level to operate as well as seriously complicating the lives of network administrators everywhere.
comment posted at 12:36 AM on Sep-16-03
comment posted at 5:19 PM on Sep-16-03
comment posted at 12:47 AM on Sep-19-03

"I promote using a bicycle instead of a motor vehicle because doing so is kind to the environment, good for the body, and good for the psyche." Ken Kifer, the author of the above statement and much other excellent advice will no longer be updating his lauded web page. Ken was killed while cycling last saturday night by a drunk driver who had been released from jail only 4 hours earlier. The suspect had been incarcerated for a separate drunk driving incident.
comment posted at 12:59 AM on Sep-16-03
comment posted at 6:32 AM on Sep-16-03
comment posted at 5:41 PM on Sep-16-03

In addition to being the documentation (from the winner's p.o.v.) of the Battle of Hastings, not to mention being the world's first comic strip, the Bayeux Tapestry is the inspiration behind the Historic Tale Construction Kit (note: Flash 6 required). Build your own medieval themed cartoons & email them to friends.
comment posted at 2:00 AM on Sep-16-03

Methamphetamine is now a WMD. Well, I guess we should've seen it coming. According to this Salon article, prosecutors across the country are now using the Patriot act to prosecute drug crimes, fraud, and anything involving a bomb. This means any of these people may be detained indefinitely without an attorney. I don't like trailing questions, but I would like to see some constructive and creative posts about what can be done to protest this. It's so blatantly unconstitutional, it's not funny anymore, and I for one am not willing to welcome our new overlords.
comment posted at 1:29 AM on Sep-15-03
comment posted at 7:48 AM on Sep-15-03

Metro Santa Cruz's 50 Reasons to Not Vote for Arnold for Governor

And no, none of the reasons are because of awful movies like Jingle All the Way or Junior. Real reasons like the fact that he's a chauvinist, his father was a Nazi, he used to run the President's Council on Fitness and now admits to using steroids to win bodybuilding competitions, he has no plan on how to fix the state's budget issues just that he's gonna clean house. Or the fact that he made up the story about gang raping a black woman for the Oui interview back in 77' (think about that, he lied about participating in a gang rape, that's pretty demented behaviour). Interesting reading and damned scary if this is the next governor of the 5th or 6th largest economy in the world.
comment posted at 3:05 PM on Sep-10-03

Bear prowls Montana neighborhood. Climbs tree. Animal Control. Tranquilizers. Trampoline. Hilarity ensues . . .
comment posted at 2:13 PM on Sep-10-03

Scandinavia in shock Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh has been repeatedly stabbed in an attack in a Stockholm department store.
comment posted at 12:10 PM on Sep-10-03
comment posted at 12:55 PM on Sep-10-03
comment posted at 1:52 PM on Sep-10-03
comment posted at 2:22 PM on Sep-10-03
comment posted at 2:32 PM on Sep-10-03
comment posted at 3:12 PM on Sep-10-03