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The narwhal, often termed "The Unicorn of the Sea," has a really odd tusk. It's long, spiraled, and there's only one of 'em per animal. Its purpose has been disputed for ages, but at long last, it seems that the answer has been found. And it's pretty damn cool.
comment posted at 12:47 PM on Dec-13-05

A So-Called Atheist Manifesto. In this article the writer seems to forget that there's more to atheism than anti-Christianity, but fans of such rants might enjoy it. Those with more classical tastes might prefer Voltaire, who wanted to wipe out Religion altogether. Those who enjoy heat as much as light might like this rather polemic site, while those who prefer dispassionate intellectuality and/or agnosticism might go for Bertrand Russell.
comment posted at 6:58 AM on Dec-12-05
comment posted at 6:58 AM on Dec-12-05

This is why we can't have nice things. The man who edited the John Seigenthaler facts concerning the assassination of JFK & RFK in the Wikipedia has finally come clean. As a consequence of his actions, Seigenthaler wrote an editorial to USA Today, anonymous editors can no longer create pages in the Wikipedia (although they can still make edits), and the credibility of the project as a whole was placed into scrutiny. NY Times bugmenotlink
comment posted at 7:07 AM on Dec-12-05

Thinking about shaping a new fiberglass surfboard? Better get your blank quick... Clark Foam, the largest producer of polyurethane foam surfboard blanks for the last 40+ years has closed its doors due to environmental regulators.
comment posted at 9:18 AM on Dec-7-05
comment posted at 9:19 AM on Dec-7-05

Gay hating Ford exec led push for Roberts nomination, meanwhile..... The scandal [ see mefi 47306] lurches in new directions as antigay Ford exec caught "running secret meetings out of Ford's own offices in support of Bush's far-right Supreme Court nominees." The Ford / Nazi link is bad enough, and the leader of the largest branch of American Judaism has recently said, in a speech, "when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations", now a new Am. Judaic alliance to oppose ( viciously anti-gay ) Christian theocratic nationalism ?
comment posted at 4:43 PM on Dec-6-05
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comment posted at 9:35 AM on Dec-7-05
comment posted at 11:20 AM on Dec-7-05

This Site Cannot Exist! Recently I've been seeing a lot of crazy talk around the web regarding the possibility of a purely "community driven" website. And it is FIERCE -- running the gamut from here to here to here . And, although the ongoing discussion is interesting (and centered around the pontification of one person), I couldn't help but think, "What the Hell is wrong with these people?" Community-owned blogging/websites have been alive and well for years. For example: Kuro5hin, Slashdot, Linkfilter, Plastic, and a growing host of sites using community platforms like Drupal and Scoop. Heck, all they'd have to do is head on over to Google and type in the words "Community Weblog" to discover the answer to their queries. That's right. At the top of the page staring them in the face is the grand-daddy of all community Blogging -- the pioneer that started it all -- Metafilter.com!! Is community blogging possible? Come on! Long live the Big "M"!!
comment posted at 3:54 PM on Dec-6-05

"It is absurd to talk about a Judeo-Christian tradition".
I had been born in the United States but didn't know any English because none was spoken at home or in the streets. We were a solid enclave of some 600,000 Eastern European, Yiddish-speaking Jews. But I still remember one day that a missionary came to the door with what I still have my copy of: a Yiddish translation of the New Testament. There's a kind of grim joke in that, isn't there? In the mere existence of it.
Harold Bloom on religion in America, God smoking a cigar, and who really is the King of the Jews.
comment posted at 7:36 PM on Dec-4-05
comment posted at 7:49 PM on Dec-4-05

Economist Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, has long posited a controversial thesis that legalized abortion help reduced crime, by reducing unwanted children, prone to crime. However, a new paper argues that Levitt (& Donohue) made serious errors in their research. Properly analysed, abortion has no significant effect on crime. Levitt disagrees, of course.
comment posted at 8:33 PM on Dec-4-05

Al-Jazeera bites back. In 2003, following US pressure on the Emir of Qatar and claims of a secret meeting of House, Senate, Pentagon, and intelligence leaders who authorized the use of "all possible pressure" to silence the station, al-Jazeera fired its general manager, stopped referring to Iraqi insurgents as "the resistance", and banned the airing of hostage executions and the death of US soldiers. Today, following recent reports of George W. Bush planning an attack against al-Jazeera HQ in Qatar, and the US bribing of Iraqi reporters and news sources, al-Jazeera seems to have changed that policy by airing the video of 10 US Marines being killed in an improvised explosive device attack. (NSFW. Windows Media. Right click this link to save the video, or this link to stream it.) Is this change indicative of larger changes in Arab public opinion, or has the Emir of Qatar decided to push back?
comment posted at 8:50 PM on Dec-4-05

Hooded Progressivism: The secret reformist history of the Klu Klux Klan.

"Today the Federal Reserve is more likely to be the object of a Klan conspiracy theory than the source of its favored candidate for president. Today, for that matter, when a movie inspires people to create odd organizations and dress up in costume, they're more likely to end up at a convention devoted to Star Trek than a convention devoted to nominating a presidential candidate. A lot can change in 90 years. "

comment posted at 5:30 AM on Dec-4-05
comment posted at 8:41 PM on Dec-4-05

Are you in your early 40s? Do you resemble the God Apollo yet feel a certain dissastisfaction (like a splinter in your mind) toward photos of yourself? You are not alone: "I have enclosed below a series of pictures to show how the US government starting around 1994 went back in time with remote sensing and holographic radiation longitudinal emf and sound wave holographic energy beams as shown in the movie time tunnel to place different computer generated holographic archetypes of different Nordic, Celtic, and Aryan faces and other attributes around my body as if I were a microcosm of the center of the universe, Adam, and God, to change the genetic attributes, facial form, eye color, hair color, voice sound, and many other body attributes throughout my life year by year from my birth (1962, Jan 23 Midnight) to the present representing correlation's between the years in my life and the ages of evolution and history from the beginning of time to the present." [via Waxy]
comment posted at 10:41 PM on Dec-1-05

Orwell: Politics and the English Language. Some timely links in the fast changing world of instant communication. Alistair Cooke Needles the Jargonauts in Assessing the State of the English Language. The Electronic Revolution by William S. Burroughs. On Wittgenstein's Concept of a Language Game. The Economist Looking for a sign. John Zerzan Language: Origin and Meaning. Hakim Bey: Aimless Wandering: Chuang Tzu's Chaos Linguistics also Chaos Linguistics. The Language of Animals. John C Lilly on Interspecies Communication. Language Log: Natural language and artificial intelligence. Natural Language Processing AI News.
comment posted at 10:44 PM on Dec-1-05

Atlantic currents show signs of weakening, according to a new study from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. I just hope these findings don't provoke the nightmare scenario of a sequel.
comment posted at 11:10 PM on Dec-1-05

Computer Modeling of the large-scale tectonics associated with the Genesis flood...
comment posted at 9:16 PM on Nov-28-05

David Brin -- hoping to rescue modernity Quote: -- "... I have spoken before of the blatant -- and yet never-reported -- pattern shown by more than a hundred members of the United States Congress, appointing young cadets to the US Military Academies according to one criterion above all others -- their depth of religious zealotry. This infusion of young officers who believe in a coming apocalypse is discreetly worrisome at West Point and Annapolis, but it has already had newsworthy effects at the Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs. A town that is also now known as a main locus and training center for fanatics bent on dominating American civilization. (see) This coincidence... one of many that simply cannot be coincidence... should be tallied and noted. See also this in recent -- 11/26 -- news "... Among the steps already taken by the Pentagon that enhanced its domestic capabilities was the establishment after 9/11 of Northern Command, or Northcom, in Colorado Springs, to provide military forces to help in reacting to terrorist threats in the continental United States. Today, Northcom's intelligence centers in Colorado and Texas fuse reports from CIFA, the FBI and other U.S. agencies, and are staffed by 290 intelligence analysts. That is more than the roughly 200 analysts working for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and far more than those at the Department of Homeland Security...."
comment posted at 8:49 PM on Nov-28-05
comment posted at 9:02 PM on Nov-28-05

Talk To Action and Mother Jones mag team up for e-conference tomorrow: ...a day of thoughtful reflections on, and vigorous discussion of the role of religion and government -- as intended by the framers of the constitution, and the situation we face today. (MoJo's December issue is all about the role of religion and government, including this on Reconstructionists: A Nation Under God.) New and old media officially collaborating to highlight specific issues and futher debate--a first?
comment posted at 11:41 AM on Nov-28-05
comment posted at 12:14 PM on Nov-28-05
comment posted at 8:58 PM on Nov-28-05

The Day the Sea Came. The stories of six people caught up in last December's tsunami.

Maisara did not look back. She could hear an odd, ever-louder roar. But she never actually saw what she was running from. Only Anis, looking over her mother's left shoulder, beheld the oncoming water. "Mama, what is that?" the little girl kept yelling.

I know, it's the Times, it's long, it's old news, but it's absolutely riveting. Great reporting by Barry Bearak, and for this you need a reporter, not a novelist, because you can't make this stuff up. Part 1 (printer-friendly), Part 2 (printer), Part 3 (printer), Part 4 (printer).
comment posted at 7:29 PM on Nov-27-05

And here is 'You Either Get It or You Don't:' Conversion Experiences and The Dr. Phil Show. Also on hand, are They Refused Jesus Too: A Biblical Paradigm in the Writing of Bob Dylan and Popular Music on Christianity in the United States: Christianity's Failure to Love. Taste, perhaps, A Potion too Strong?: Challenges in Translating the Religious Significance of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to Film. Or consider Curses and Catharsis in Red Sox Nation: Baseball and Ritual Violence in American Culture.
All are selections from The Journal Of Religion And Popular Culture.
comment posted at 7:33 PM on Nov-27-05

Faith based prisons... Can Gov. Jeb Bush's new drive to introduce God to the inmates make a difference, or was Jesus 'dying for our sins' not enough already? Is Jesus a solution or an excuse?

"Night has fallen. He has died now. A fly crawls over the still flesh. Of what use is it to me that this man suffered, If I am suffering now?" - Jorge Luis Borges
comment posted at 7:38 PM on Nov-27-05

A good film to watch BEFORE you bust out that turkey deep fryer for Thanksgiving tomorrow [12.7MB mpg file]. I've never eaten this delicacy nor seen one of these things used but after a moment's thought, it's not surprising just how dangerous they are. Be safe tomorrow, ye deep-fry eaters. [via Bifurcated Rivets]
comment posted at 10:57 PM on Nov-23-05
comment posted at 10:59 PM on Nov-23-05

Mating Leopard Slugs entwine - one of the untold wonders of the animal kingdom captured on video.... The BBC gets up close and personal with Life in the Undergrowth in their new wildlife documentary. A must see for any animal, insect or David Attenborough fan... (If the main vid link doesn't work for you try it from here - realplayer needed)
comment posted at 7:29 AM on Nov-23-05
comment posted at 7:30 AM on Nov-23-05

Ignorant hillbilly plays treason card STATEMENT FROM REP. GEOFF DAVIS ON SHAMEFUL DEMOCRATIC CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ 11/17/2005 - “An arbitrary call for the withdrawal of our troops serves only to embolden our enemies and makes meaningless the sacrifice of American men and women. The universal message I hear from our troops – from enlisted soldiers to West Point classmates of mine serving in the Middle East – is that we are making progress."
comment posted at 5:06 AM on Nov-18-05

How concerned should Americans be about the right-wing slant and use of the news for political purposes by a large broadcaster? No, not Fox, but Sinclair Broadcast Group, a company many had never heard of until the Nightline controversy discussed here. Setting aside bias, if they've subverted the rules as alleged, are they any better than this corporation, which was found unfit to be a broadcaster and stripped of its licenses?
comment posted at 10:14 PM on Nov-17-05

The top 30 facts about Chuck Norris
comment posted at 10:00 PM on Nov-17-05

He's young, telegenic, bilingual, a Harvard grad... and now André Boisclair, the youngest person ever elected to a seat in Quebec's National Assembly, is the new leader of the Parti Quebecois, the nationalist -- as in Quebec nationalist -- left-leaning party founded to take Canada's mostly french-speaking province out of the federation. Oh, and he's gay. And an admitted (former) cocaine user (although that might be a good thing.) Oh, and, according to the polls, the next Premier Ministre of Quebec.
comment posted at 9:20 PM on Nov-16-05

NPR: 'My Lobotomy'
In 1960, Howar Dully was a badly behaved 12-year-old. He was lobotomized with an icepick (as were hundreds of others) and talks about it on this radio show. See also.
comment posted at 9:27 PM on Nov-16-05

"Old Tom is the most famous of the Eden killer whales". The story of a pod of killer whales who enlisted the help of fishermen in NSW, Australia to hunt baleen whales. The pod would corral the whales, while Old Tom would tow the fishing boats out to sea by pulling the anchor ropes in his teeth. The reward? The fishermen left the whale overnight and the orcas got to eat the tongue. Alas, it seems Old Tom may have met his end when the covenant was broken and a fisherman named Logan tried to take the whale to shore before the feast. Tom tried to hold the boat back with the rope, but it broke a tooth which infected and led to his death. Tom's skeleton is now on display at the Eden Killer Whale Museum. His story inspired a young girl to become a biologist and investigate the story for herself.
comment posted at 9:29 PM on Nov-16-05

Open Source Media^TM: Gathering shedloads of [mostly right-wing] bloggers together under one umbrella, that is supposed to encourage advertisers to buy space, and us to click through, right? I, for one, welcome our new citizen journalists. Just like the old ones...? Wonder if they've heard of Open Source Media Project?
comment posted at 9:38 PM on Nov-16-05

Bodies still being found in NOLA You know, it's hard to imagine anything worse than coming back to your home in New Orleans and finding it completely destroyed. But, tonight, as you're about to hear, there is something worse, much worse. Dozens of families have returned to what is left of their homes and found, lying amidst the mold and the wreckage, a body, forgotten, abandoned. Maybe it's their mother or their grandmother, sometimes even their missing child. More Here
comment posted at 9:51 PM on Nov-16-05

Mainstream Media to American Democracy: Drop Dead! Brad Friedman ask alarming questions about the complete lack of attention which has been paid to the GAO report on electronic voting technology (PDF link) released more than a month ago, which confirms what security experts have been saying for years: these systems are vulnerable to multiple independent attacks targeting system and network vulnerabilities, access controls, hardware controls, and overall management practices. If you're short of time, at least read Rep. Waxman's fact sheet summary.

Ultimately, there is no real security on these machines; the report shows that overturning election results would not be at all difficult for even a single moderately skilled attacker. And now Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are wondering if American Democracy has died an electronic death in the wake of massive discrepancies between final pre-election opinion polls and the results of several citizen initiatives designed to reform Ohio's electoral processes.
comment posted at 10:04 PM on Nov-16-05

Mainstream former federal judge speaks out
Former CNN talking head and Texas federal judge Catherin Crier speaks out in defense of the courts, and mainstream america... if Ms. Crier is now the left - how far to the right have we drifted?
comment posted at 7:51 AM on Nov-16-05
comment posted at 7:53 AM on Nov-16-05

The US Fed wants the Yellowstone Grizzly Bears taken off the list of threatened species. (No, not those Grizzlies, heh.) Through very serious recovery efforts the Grizzly bear population in the area around Yellowstone National Park is being considered "recovered", such that they can be removed from the protection of the endangered species act. Some fear that this move doesn't address the issue of where the bears actually live, though it needs to be pointed out that hunting and killing bears in the Park is prohibited. Some are celebrating this as a great move by the DoI. Some of America's friends overseas don't appear to be any too happy about this. The proposal only covers those bears in and around Yellowstone, but the Grizzly recovery in other areas remains slowed by illegal killing, and stupidity. Can we call this a success for the Endangered Species Act? Or is the ESA itself endangered? Of course, this post wouldn't be complete without the headcase who blames environmentalists for keeping him from baiting the bears.
comment posted at 8:31 PM on Nov-15-05

Operation Barbarella - from the London Review of Books, a review of Jane Fonda’s War: A Political Biography of an Anti-war Icon by Mary Hershberger.
So, what is the story behind Jane Fonda? You will find few people so reviled among macho warrior types. Back in the Depressingly Christian Private School (DCPS) that I went to, to hear some of the things she had been accused of you'd have thought she was the Whore of Babylon herself.
The truly interesting thing about this article isn't the discussion of the reality of Fonda's anti-war protesting measured against the myth, but as an illustration of the kind of pass-it-along info, whose truth is a matter of almost-scriptural faith, that serves as the conventional wisdom concerning the Left in the ill-educated backwaters that compose so much of our nation. This kind of thing is the political equivilent of the story of the midget who hanged himself on the set of The Wizard of Oz.
Additional reading: the Snopes page on Jane Fonda.
Via Linkfilter.
comment posted at 10:19 PM on Nov-13-05

The nkondi are the most powerful of the nkisi. They were used to identify and hunt down unknown wrongdoers such as thieves, and people who were believed to cause sickness or death by occult means. They were also used to punish people who swore false oaths and villages which broke treaties. To inspire the nkondi to action, it was both invoked and provoked. Invocations, in bloodthirsty language, encouraged it to punish the guilty party. It would also be provoked by having gunpowder exploded in front of it, and having nails hammered into it. These fantastic Congo nail fetish figures are just one small, wonderful part of the impressive collection of images you can view at the content-rich, gratifyingly obsessive Rand African Art, a site stuffed with nice large photos, lots of lovely, lovely links, and all sorts of intriguing nooks and crannies inviting exploration.
comment posted at 6:29 AM on Nov-13-05

ASPO-USA Denver Conference Report. Views on Peak Oil from a wide range of panelists in Colorado this week, including the mayor of Denver "who has joined that brave but small band of honest and courageous politicians willing to go anywhere near the issue of peak oil".
comment posted at 6:37 AM on Nov-13-05