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I, for one, welcome our cockroach robot overlords. (Be sure to check out the video.)
comment posted at 8:51 PM on Jan-30-05

What Star Wars SHOULD be. Because parody is GOOD.
comment posted at 11:54 AM on Jan-30-05

Iraq Votes
comment posted at 11:36 AM on Jan-30-05

Nothing is more damning than silence.
comment posted at 9:53 AM on Jan-30-05
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Jan-30-05

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can... (NSFW)
comment posted at 8:58 AM on Jan-29-05

Hey kids! Guess who's first cousins with our new Secretary of State? why, it's Vaginal Creme Davis! Juicy tidbits from the multitalented first cousin Ms. Rice would rather you not know about, and who wishes that Ms. Davis wouldn't mention to anyone. Very juicy, and NSFW probably. : >
comment posted at 8:28 PM on Jan-28-05

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 5:45 PM on Jan-26-05
comment posted at 6:19 PM on Jan-27-05

Four employees fired for refusing smoking test. This month, Weyco Inc., a Michigan based company in the health care industry, has gone forward with its plan to fire any employees that smokes cigarettes, even if it's done in their own homes. This is being done primarily to save money on health care. Weyco defends its position.
comment posted at 6:37 PM on Jan-25-05

Protest Warriors Clash • Gil Kobrin of the Protest Warriors went down "under a hail of black boots" belonging to anti-Bush peace activists. "It wasn't much of a contest. ProtestWarrior's contingent numbered 13, the other side in the hundreds. If they won any hearts and minds, no one said so." Meanwhile, DC activist group Anarchist Resistance issued their call to action: "There's nothing left to salvage in this empire that is the U.S. government. It's time to bring it down." AR is listed as a resouce by the Internet Liberation Front who Kos reported "hacked and defaced six Republican websites" yesterday. Some commentary on civil disobedience by Thoreau & ActUp.
comment posted at 10:22 AM on Jan-22-05
comment posted at 10:29 AM on Jan-22-05

The 50 Most Loathsome People of 2004 Funnier than The NYP 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers. And you're in it, to boot.
comment posted at 6:23 PM on Jan-20-05

Muppets Overtime via (MoFi) QT
comment posted at 7:41 PM on Jan-20-05

Carnivore, the gold standard for conspiracy theory, has apparently been mothballed. An interesting element of this is that Carnivore has been removed from service not because it is invasive of civil liberties, but rather because it has failed to perform against commercially-available monitoring technologies. Of course, since we do not know what those technologies *are*, it may be that they have built into them considerations of individual rights to privacy that Carnivore could not be altered to respect. However, given the drift of the US on matters of data privacy, this seems unlikely... So, what are the programmes that do it better than Carnivore? What do they have to offer that Carniviore doesn't, or is it just the ISPs are now offering information straight to the government? And does this mean that it is no longer fashionable to append long strings of exciting-sounding nouns to emails? (Apologies if this is old news to the more plugged-in - this report has only just been released under FOI)
comment posted at 9:11 PM on Jan-16-05

the stanford prison experiment ,first posted in Feb 2001, can now be compared to the actions of soldiers who have served in Abu Ghraib. It's an illustration of how one can get carried away with a role and not act as one would normally. No, not an excuse. Thank you Plep!
comment posted at 2:24 PM on Jan-15-05

Priate Radio Calling for inauguration protests CNN is reporting that a guerilla radio station is calling for massive protests of the inauguration of President George W. Bush. After some googling, I found a press release from WSQT on indymedia concerning the transmissions. It seems that they are somehow related to DAWNdc a local leftist activist organization. Here is how they are reacting to the sudden attention.
comment posted at 5:29 PM on Dec-23-04

Sharia recommended to Ontario government. A review of Mumtaz Ali's recommendation to permit legal arbitration by Islamic law has concluded in his cause's favour, recommending that sharia be allowed for family disputes and inheritance cases. Sharia may be joining Roman Catholic and Orthodox Jewish laws as religious law arbitration options, which is good. But women's groups are worried about the inherent discriminatory nature of sharia, which is bad.
comment posted at 6:24 PM on Dec-20-04
comment posted at 8:27 PM on Dec-20-04

Person of the Year. TIME magazine reveals their pick. Is anyone surprised?
comment posted at 8:43 AM on Dec-19-04
comment posted at 8:44 AM on Dec-19-04

Free iPod? I wonder if this is legit? Apparently if you signup for a "deal" like a credit card, the BMG cd club, Blockbuster online video rentals, etc, and also get 10 other people to signup as well they will send you a free 40gb photo iPod. Can the $500ish price tag really be offset by these deals? How is this possible?
comment posted at 8:40 AM on Dec-19-04

Predicting who'll benefit from anti-depressants From the study's abstract: "There are well-replicated, independent lines of evidence supporting a role for corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) in the pathophysiology of depression." The NY Times has a bit more readable explanation (reg-free link) of a recent investigation of into whether there is a genetic explanation for why some people get more from their drugs than others.
comment posted at 4:50 PM on Dec-19-04

Rumsfeld, shmumsfeld. Indiana Jones to the rescue in The Battle for Falluja. "Militarily, the battle of Falluja was an unqualified success," says Bing West, the former assistant defense secretary whose not-yet-published book will be turned into the fast-paced actioner.
comment posted at 12:42 PM on Dec-18-04
comment posted at 9:51 PM on Dec-18-04

Survey finds support for restricting Muslim-Americans' freedoms Nearly one in two Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict civil liberties for Muslim-Americans, according to a nationwide Cornell University poll on terrorism fears. The survey also found respondents who identified themselves as highly religious supported restrictions on Muslim-Americans more strongly than those less religious. Curtailing civil liberties for Muslim-Americans also was supported more by Republicans than Democrats, the survey found. The amount of attention paid to TV news also had a bearing on how strongly a respondent favored restrictions
comment posted at 12:56 PM on Dec-18-04

Scott Peterson is going to die. This is a whole bucket of worms because he was convicted of killing a fetus.
comment posted at 5:35 PM on Dec-13-04

Ring vs. finger...finger loses "When Marine Lance Cpl. David Battle learned he'd either have to sacrifice his ring finger or the wedding band he wore, he told doctors at a field hospital in Iraq to cut off the finger." Incredibly romantic or incredibly retarded? You decide...
comment posted at 2:26 PM on Dec-12-04

Your distinguished panel chooses Fortune Magazine's 25 best product designs of 2004.
comment posted at 2:19 PM on Dec-12-04

Who are today's Maccabees? Fundamentalists fighting a secular culture? Or as our president states in his Hanukkah message, our brave soldiers in Iraq? Or is it the Iraqis themselves, rebelling against an invading and occupying force? Or is it the white supremacists? The enduring power of a symbol of resistance and its many and incompatible uses--all in time for Hanukkah.
comment posted at 1:55 PM on Dec-12-04
comment posted at 5:32 PM on Dec-12-04
comment posted at 6:55 PM on Dec-12-04

You are where you live. (Click "Zip Code Lookup" in lower right.)
comment posted at 7:37 AM on Dec-12-04

The new War of the Worlds movie will premiere in June '05. Based on H.G. Wells book, (e-text), the story terrified thousands of American radio listeners and caused a panic on October 30, 1938. That night, a series of increasingly alarming breaking news reports (narrated by a young Orson Welles) about an invading force of Martians interrupted the Mercury Theater show on WABC radio in NYC. Welles had announced at the start of the hour that he was reading a story, but most of the audience tuned in late and thought it was all real. More information can be found here and here. Wav files of the original broadcast can be downloaded (or purchased) from here. "They're bombing New Jersey!": Check out a picture of the NYTimes front page and full text of the article they ran the next day. War of the Worlds has been made into several films, including this one from 1953.
comment posted at 5:54 PM on Dec-11-04

1 million U.S. troops have gone to war The data also show that one out of every three of those service members has gone more than once. The Pentagon says more than 5,500 servicemen have deserted since the war started in Iraq. Few experts are surprised to hear that a recent army survey discovered that half the soldiers were not planning to re-enlist. Experts are divided over how stretched America’s military really is. But they agree that another conflict would put the military in overdrive. Another war would require a shift to a “no-kidding wartime posture in which everybody who could shoot was given a rifle and sent to the front,” according to John Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org. - US Army plagued by desertion and plunging morale.
comment posted at 12:51 PM on Dec-11-04
comment posted at 11:37 PM on Dec-11-04
comment posted at 7:29 AM on Dec-12-04
comment posted at 1:03 PM on Dec-12-04

This Page Intentionally Left Blank. You just figure someone had to do it. In fact, it appears to be catching on all over.
comment posted at 9:48 PM on Dec-10-04

Canada's "Brain Drain" has been a growing concern among Canadians for a number of years. There are a number of reports (PDF) indicating that an increasing number of "highly skilled graduates in fields such as health, engineering and natural and applied sciences" have been heading south for work. There are guides to assist, first hand accounts, and even profiles of people who have left.
comment posted at 10:06 AM on Dec-10-04
comment posted at 11:46 AM on Dec-10-04
comment posted at 2:35 PM on Dec-10-04

The ever-gracious Ann Coulter on why Canada is "lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent." A foreigner's (can anyone figure out where from?) incisive media-mash highlighting some [more] nauseating drivel from rockstars of the far right. (via wonkette)
comment posted at 10:59 PM on Dec-9-04
comment posted at 10:40 AM on Dec-10-04

Jews against Israel.
comment posted at 9:31 PM on Dec-8-04
comment posted at 9:59 PM on Dec-8-04
comment posted at 10:09 PM on Dec-8-04
comment posted at 10:45 PM on Dec-8-04

For anyone who still believes "reality" shows are legit, Time magazine's Joel Stein has the scoop in the LA Times (free reg. required) of "unscripted" programs with "real" people following carefully-written plots. He's even obtained a smoking gun: a Queer Eye script (.pdf) in which "every moment is planned in advance, including a few specific lines for the straight guy to deliver." The Osbournes features canned sound effects and phony reaction shots. Every scene in The Simple Life is so scripted, its producers stopped calling it a reality program, preferring the odd "soft-scripted show" euphemism. In short, the entire genre is a rather transparent fraud.
comment posted at 2:29 PM on Dec-5-04

Hustler's magazine's anticipated expose of closeted congressman David Dreier (R – California) hits newsstands today. Raw Story reports that the article “offers a handful of new details not previously reported, including a charge that high-level California Republicans have been aware of (and sanctioned) Dreier’s gay lifestyle for many years.” The article recounts how Dreier’s gay life was exposed earlier this summer by blogACTIVE.com, RAW STORY, and then picked up by L.A. Weekly (previously discussed here, here, and here). Dreier was targeted because he had repeatedly voted against gay rights measures – all the while keeping his alleged partner on his office payroll. Hustler gave permission to blogACTIVE and RAW STORY to excerpt parts of the article. The full article is only available in the print edition of the magazine.
comment posted at 10:49 AM on Dec-3-04