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Food Fight - When the Food Workers Union stages an impromptu walkout at the U.N., the diplomats start looting for lunch and booze. Disgusting. Delegates and patronage employees show their civility by looting the cafeterias, stealing everything not nailed down. I will remember this the next time anybody proposes the UN as a solution to world problems. Swine.
comment posted at 7:46 AM on May-4-03
comment posted at 7:52 AM on May-4-03

The NY Times reports that music companies are considering some new anti-piracy measures of questionable legality. The ideas include a program to lock up user's computers, another to find and delete illegally downloaded files, and what amounts to a DoS attack on user's computers. There are some supporters of these possibly extralegal measures. Representative Howard Berman (D-CA) introduced a bill last year to provide the music industry with a "safe harbor from liability" when pursuing P2P traders. Should media companies be allowed to operate outside the law in their efforts to stop illegal downloads of their music?
comment posted at 3:42 PM on May-3-03

Red Dog Army: "Red Dogs line up along the edges of the art-world. They have many objectives... Their purpose is to put art into the hands of anyone who sees them and takes them home... They are distributed by a person or persons unknown, tracing movement in cities across the world. They inhabit their new environment sometimes for just a few minutes before being destroyed or taken in by a new art collector. Or they may remain for months, changing shape and being forced into compromising positions. Above all, they are always seen by someone. Their presence is noticed, noted and very red."

Take note, Antipodeans, and keep your eyes open; the red dog comes for you.
comment posted at 7:23 AM on May-3-03

Do you think that poetry is dead, too? Well, that's because everyone is busy getting their websites transformed into poetry by a neat script. [via boingboing.net]
comment posted at 7:35 AM on May-3-03

Putting you off your breakfast: A searchable bonanza of disturbing galleries of plastic food and drinks. Mad props! Find the pancake! Claes Oldenberg! [From the impressive Barnard Ltd. Store, via Linkfilter.]
comment posted at 5:10 AM on May-2-03

Welcome to 2003. A quiet Southern high school south of Atlanta once again holds seperate white and black proms. "I cried," said McCrary, who is black. "The black juniors said, 'Our prom is open to everyone. If you want to come, come.'"
comment posted at 1:09 AM on May-2-03

Boy pregnant with little brother. Well, sort of.
comment posted at 3:55 AM on May-2-03

The Magic Mirror of Life. An appreciation of the camera obscura.
comment posted at 6:17 AM on Apr-30-03

E-voting could counter apathy amongst the young on May 1st. Research published by HEDRA indicates that over half of young people would be more likely to vote if they could do so via the Internet. But is it secure and verifiable? They seem to have covered most of the bases. But the question remains, will voters trust such a system? Unfortunately, the discussion seems to have been prematurely terminated. Warning: pdfs!
comment posted at 1:26 AM on Apr-29-03
comment posted at 5:20 AM on Apr-30-03

Een woord: LOL!!!!!!!!!!
comment posted at 6:12 PM on Apr-27-03

Yippie. Denmark beats US in world cup hockey. We have not participated in the world cup since a 0-47 loss to Canada in 1949.
comment posted at 2:39 AM on Apr-28-03

WebCollage: Exterminate All Rational Thought --Neato (and sometimes beautiful) page refreshed every minute or so. Every image is clickable, too. It finds the images by feeding random words into various search engines, and pulling images (or sections of images) out of the pages returned.
A very cool surfing tool for when you're bored of your usual web haunts (mefi excluded, of course)
comment posted at 3:03 PM on Apr-25-03
comment posted at 3:13 PM on Apr-25-03

Is this your fetus? Are you the one I slept with? Remember when we discussed this before? Florida has now been forced by 4 plaintiffs and the ACLU to repeal the so-called Scarlet Letter law that forces women who are pregnant and giving children up for adoption to take out an ad local papers once a week for 4 weeks, stating her name and her sexual history in the last year, to let men know if they *might* be the father. Here is the ACLU legal brief. The details about the decision are in the first link. Thank god for the ACLU.
comment posted at 12:14 PM on Apr-25-03
comment posted at 12:15 PM on Apr-25-03

"Legislator to alter plan for anti-abortion statue" I'm pleased to see the bill's sponsor realized a statue of a fetus is a bit over the top....but why do it at all? (Especially in light of some budgetary problems we've had with education and other areas.) South Carolina: It's Not The Heat; It's The Stupidity. (more inside)
comment posted at 11:16 AM on Apr-25-03
comment posted at 2:42 PM on Apr-25-03

Robert Scheer on the so far non-existant Iraqi WMDs. If the President went to war without real evidence of a threat would this be considered an impeachable offense as Scheer suggests? What's Ken Starr been up to lately?
comment posted at 11:08 AM on Apr-25-03
comment posted at 12:07 PM on Apr-25-03

Get your Armageddon on. North Korea admits vast nuclear weapon program.
comment posted at 3:38 PM on Apr-24-03

Student kills principal, self at school. "A heavily armed 14-year-old boy shot and killed his school principal inside a crowded junior high cafeteria Thursday morning, then killed himself, authorities said. " I'm finding nothing else about this other than the AP story. I'm curious what they mean by "heavily armed."
comment posted at 1:22 PM on Apr-24-03
comment posted at 1:49 PM on Apr-24-03
comment posted at 2:08 PM on Apr-24-03
comment posted at 2:20 PM on Apr-24-03
comment posted at 10:24 AM on Apr-25-03
comment posted at 11:37 AM on Apr-25-03

Come to the Quiet Party. No loud music, no yelling, no cell phones and one designated area where there is no talking AT ALL!!
comment posted at 12:51 PM on Apr-24-03

Dog Survives Car Crash, Gunshot, Freezer... My dog, on the other hand, wets herself when I raise my voice.
comment posted at 8:33 AM on Apr-24-03
comment posted at 9:09 AM on Apr-24-03
comment posted at 10:11 AM on Apr-24-03

"Illegal combatants" in the 13-15 age bracket (being held by the U.S. at Guantanamo)
comment posted at 1:07 PM on Apr-24-03

An interesting modern take on an ancient artform.
comment posted at 4:45 PM on Apr-23-03

BookShare is a napster-like service that relies on volunteers to share e-books with as many people as possible, and it's completely legal. The reason? Thanks to a special carve-out in copyright law which states "if such copies ... are reproduced or distributed in specialized formats exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities."
comment posted at 4:48 PM on Apr-23-03

Jules is a thief. The fact that "all the embedded reporters were doing it" does not make it right. Presumably the US soldiers who were overseeing the embedded reporters knew of this kind of cultural theft -- more than likely, many were a party to it themselves. I'm sending him an email to remind him of that fact, and I will also contact his bosses, urging disciplinary action.
comment posted at 5:14 PM on Apr-23-03
comment posted at 8:09 PM on Apr-23-03

Trent Lott: The Sequel, in which Conference Committee Chairman Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) gives an interview to AP in which he blames the recent Catholic Church scandals on a cultural tolerance of consensual "deviance"; i.e. homosexuality [more inside].
comment posted at 9:22 AM on Apr-23-03

Bush vs. Science. George Bush's religion-based, restrictive policies on stem cell research continues to stunt medical research that could help millions of Americans. He is hindering research that could help treat and possibly cure Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, spinal cord injuries, and heart disease. We are told that America is supposed to unite behind our troops. Shouldn't we be united behind our scientists, who are fighting battles against crippling, cruel diseases that bring suffering and death to millions of Americans?
comment posted at 2:14 PM on Apr-22-03

America has discovered a new beer, one that seems right for a country facing bad times. More than just a beer for white trash or 50s suburbanites, this fine product has entered the cultural lexicon.
comment posted at 7:22 PM on Apr-21-03

A Special Kind of Poverty This great article appeared in yesterday's Washington Post Sunday Magazine. Its subject: the trials and tribulations of the poor seeking treatment for their infertility. I don't think I have to list the whole raft of issues this subject raises. As touching as it is thought-provoking.
comment posted at 11:30 AM on Apr-21-03
comment posted at 11:54 AM on Apr-21-03
comment posted at 11:55 AM on Apr-21-03
comment posted at 12:19 PM on Apr-21-03
comment posted at 2:42 PM on Apr-21-03

So who really did save Private Jessica? An interesting backside to military propaganda.
comment posted at 9:14 AM on Apr-21-03
comment posted at 9:23 AM on Apr-21-03
comment posted at 10:05 AM on Apr-21-03
comment posted at 10:50 AM on Apr-21-03
comment posted at 9:14 AM on Apr-22-03