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CITEL, an entity of the Organization of American States, is the main forum in the hemisphere in which the governments and the private sector meet to coordinate regional efforts to develop the Global Information Society according to the mandates of the General Assembly of the Organization and the mandates entrusted to it by Heads of State and Government at the Summits of the Americas.

No Democrats allowed.
comment posted at 5:33 PM on Apr-26-05

Don't catch all the West Wing Dialogue? Me either... The idea so offended my NPR supporting cum aging grad student sensibilities that I had to read why "Watching TV Makes You Smarter" (nyt, reg. req.). Am now completely sold on the argument for the Sleeper Curve.
comment posted at 1:04 PM on Apr-25-05

The London Review of Books lands on my doormat twice a month, and is packed with erudite and entertaining essays. But I suspect I am not the only subscriber who turns to the remarkable personals section first.
comment posted at 1:38 PM on Apr-24-05

Loose lips sink ships!!!1 (There be images, some quite big here) I suspect a lot of MeFi shares my obsession with propaganda (and propaganda-style) posters, both domestic and foreign, as well as the photoshops that the Something Awful or Fark crowds generate. CoolGov has a link today to the Office of the National National Counterintelligence Executive and their Anti-Espionage poster collection. Some are great, some are almost pure propaganda, and some show how obsessed with secrecy our government has become. That lead me to Google to look for posters on the *.gov and *.mil domains. Check out the posters for "Venemous Snakes of Afghanistan and Pakistan", or what the well dressed airmen is wearing (*note the "Essentials"), posters from the NOAA telling you that "lightning kills", the Code of Ethics for Government Officers and Employees, and this one telling GI's why smoking could kill them.
comment posted at 9:34 PM on Apr-18-05

Idaho House Resolution 29 WHEREAS, any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote "Nay" on this concurrent resolution are "FREAKIN' IDIOTS!" I wish all legislation were worded this way.
comment posted at 10:38 AM on Apr-15-05

Hot on the heels of the 'wet shave' it's the five minute shoe shine.
comment posted at 6:49 AM on Apr-6-05

It's All Pledge Drives Considered. This is Coordinated Fundraising Week, where stations pull Ken Jennings out of a hat and go for all the gimmicks in the book, while your favorite shows subtly change formats. All this, by the way, mainly to reach the so-called "Cheap 90" percent of people that listen but don't contribute. Because we couldn't do it without you!
comment posted at 6:53 AM on Apr-6-05

Watch as the GOP eats its own! Thrill as the media is fed more and more damaging info! Stare in Awe at the inside information calculated to get rid of him! Marvel at the downfall (and eventual Gingrichian comeback?) of Representative DeLay!
comment posted at 9:16 PM on Apr-5-05

Provacateur, Lunatic or Revolutionary? (great WashPost story) "Hello Everyone, my name's Andy. I killed a Police Officer in Red Bluff, California in a motion to bring attention to, and halt, the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country. Now I'm coming forward, to explain that this killing was also an action against corporate irresponsibility." Andrew Mickel, AKA Andrew McCrae - a student at Evergreen State College and former Army Ranger is charged with killing a police officer in Red Bluff, California. He freeley admits that he did it. His defense? He is starting the revolution! Mickel believes, as does the prosecution, that he isn't insane. He is also the "CEO" of Proud and Insolent Youth Incorporated
comment posted at 9:03 PM on Apr-5-05

How to wet shave
comment posted at 11:03 AM on Apr-4-05

The boxing day tsunami in Asia is said to have killed 3 times (3/4 of the way down the page) more women than men.
"Many of the losses are being tied to gender roles and styles--such as women's long hair, confining saris, extreme sense of modesty and selfless commitment to husbands and children--that hindered their ability to escape."
There have been reports of abuse (cache) and forced marriages in Refugee Camps as a consequence. Oxfam briefing note (.pdf) and summary.
via (previous tsunami threads)
comment posted at 10:59 AM on Apr-4-05

There is a house in New Orleans... A recent archeological excavation in the French Quarter reveals that a hotel called the "Rising Sun" operating in the early 1800s may have been the ruin of many a poor girl. Clues include suggestive newspaper ads from the period and artifacts such as "a large number of liquor bottles... Alongside... an unusually dense collection of rouge pots". [more...]
comment posted at 8:30 AM on Apr-4-05

U.S. Army Uniforms for Females. While searching for late 50's and early 60's formal wear I came across this gem.
comment posted at 9:11 PM on Apr-3-05

Play the logo game. If you have any doubts left about the ubiquity of advertising, this quiz should remove them. How many can you get, and in what categories?
comment posted at 11:34 AM on Apr-2-05

Today by far is my favorite holiday. It's the one day that webmasters get to be creative and do things that normally wouldn't fit with their sites general themes. For example, Google attempts a high tech way of quenching peoples thirsts, Wikipedia sells out to Britannica, a RFC is written on Morality, and much much more!
comment posted at 9:17 AM on Apr-1-05

Anything goes. A Libyan court began hearing an appeal by five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who face the death penalty for allegedly infecting 380 children with the AIDS virus, in spite of testimony from Luc Montaignier, the French doctor who first isolated the HIV virus, and Swiss and Italian colleagues, that the epidemic was due to a lack of hygiene. Tripoli has said that in exchange for the freedom of the nurses, it wants compensation equal to that paid by Libya to relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie plane bombing carried out by its secret service in 1988. (Yahoo/AFP news)
comment posted at 8:46 PM on Mar-30-05

"Freedom of speech does not exist, don't try to test it." Anarchist web portals Infoshop.org and flag.blackened.net are under investigation by the FBI. While site operators are under gag order and cannot discuss the specifics of the situation that prompted this action, they confirm that logged IPs have been handed over under threat of arrest and seizure. This is eerily familiar. Just how slippery has this particular slope become?
comment posted at 10:56 PM on Mar-29-05
comment posted at 11:52 PM on Mar-29-05

Brian Eno's next big thing?! Politics, it appears. Brian Eno, an outspoken opponent of Tony Blair's administration in Britain, has started up http://www.libdemthistime.org, encouraging prominent Brits to show their support for the Liberal Democrats. If that isn't enough, he's helping bankroll the father of a British soldier killed in Iraq to run against Tony Blair in his constituency, in the hope of unseating him. Could Labour win and Tony lose?
comment posted at 6:46 PM on Mar-29-05
comment posted at 7:02 PM on Mar-29-05
comment posted at 10:51 PM on Mar-29-05

A look at the US through China's eyes. The US has been critical of China's human rights practices for decades. In retaliation, China examines the US, and finds it comes up short in many ways. Instead of indulging itself in publishing the "human rights country report" to censure other countries unreasonably, the United States should reflect on its erroneous behavior on human rights and take its own human rights problems seriously. Summarized text in NYT
comment posted at 11:37 PM on Mar-28-05

Tired of accidentally catching a second or two of FOXNews? I personally don't have this problem but if FOXNews is driving you so nuts you just can't take it anymore, we now may have a solution for you. Not sure if (or how???) this little filter would actually work. I cannot wait for someone to do a detailed dissection online.
comment posted at 5:30 PM on Mar-26-05
comment posted at 8:14 PM on Mar-26-05

A Child's View of the Army "....Like every other boy he was going through the little green army men phase....Gabe is roughly five years old and very articulate. Thus it should have come as little surprise when he began having one army man in charge, and the rest start building something. "Sir, we're ready to build the rocket." " : Five year old Gabe explains - via stacked creamers and table bricabrac, at an IHOP breakfast - the ramifications of mindless subservience to authority.
comment posted at 5:43 PM on Mar-26-05

An evolutionary basis for altruism. These findings suggest that true altruism, far from being a maladaptation, may be the key to our species' success by providing the social glue that allowed our ancestors to form strong, resilient groups. Sharing isn't just caring, it's surviving.
comment posted at 6:33 AM on Mar-23-05

Kofi Annan has issued his recommendations for tackling poverty and promoting security and human rights, incorporating the greatest alterations to the UN and Security Council in history.
comment posted at 11:01 AM on Mar-21-05

The die is cast. The United States Senate votes for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil drilling.
comment posted at 2:31 PM on Mar-16-05

In an effort to undermine California's vehicle global warming law, the auto industry has been running an ad claiming today's vehicles are virtually emission free. The Union of Concerned Scientists says "poppycock on that!" and is seeking a FTC false-advertising investigation. Fortunately, no matter who's bullshooting, you can help wipe away the problem.
comment posted at 11:51 AM on Mar-16-05
comment posted at 4:49 PM on Mar-16-05

Rube would have been proud [6 mb AVI].
comment posted at 3:52 PM on Mar-11-05

Chris Barr is available on Thursday for the next two months. So what you ask? You can schedule things for Chris to do and view things he's done in the past. I especially enjoyed the "ask strange women to hold a sign saying I Like Spike" and "ask a bunch of random folks what is on their iPod." Can wait to see what he has to do next.
comment posted at 2:51 PM on Mar-11-05

Well, for a fact or two, The Beirut Wall Isn't Falling, Lebanon is not Ukraine and it is not democracy that's on the march in the Middle East. And while remembering all those arguments made 1,500 deaths ago--not to mention those so far uncounted but estimated at 100,000+ civilian deaths--let it be, all the while the Iraq War compels Pentagon to rethink Big-Picture Strategy, it is that American military intevention which makes America as a Revolutionary Force in the Middle East, according to some. Meanwhile, Kishore Mahbubani, author of Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World lists Five Strategic Mistakes the West has made which continue to destabilize the Islamic world. Along related lines, comes The Origins of al Qaeda’s Ideology: Implications for US Strategy. Sound bites, wishful thoughts and stage managed demonstrations aside, could it be something more thoughtful might be required? Say, like, Understanding Islamism ? (Now available in new slow acting convenient Word or pdf form) Say, Which War Is This Anyway ?
comment posted at 2:02 PM on Mar-11-05
comment posted at 6:40 PM on Mar-11-05

Respected arts reporter David D'Arcy has been dumped by NPR apparently in response to complaints by MoMA, who were unhappy with his recent coverage of the controversy surrounding Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally. (D'Arcy's previous report here.) The portrait was stolen by the Nazis in 1939; since 1997 it has been on loan to MoMA from the Leopold Collection. The concerns and controversy surrounding the Nazis' looting of art, of course, continue to be thorny issues.
comment posted at 2:31 PM on Mar-11-05

Roommates. (NSFW) I don't know how this has been overlooked. I also found this funny.
comment posted at 12:51 PM on Mar-7-05
comment posted at 12:56 PM on Mar-7-05

Self-proclaimed best band of all time.
comment posted at 3:54 PM on Mar-6-05

Teens in Israel need to find a new hobby: Incoming recruits to Israel's Defense Forces (Tzahal) who divulge playing Dungeons & Dragons are being flagged with low security clearance and psychological disorders. New guidelines are in place that limit D&D hobbyists from being considered for sensitive army positions such as Sayeret Mat'Kal, one of the most elite designations of Tzahal. Why does the IDF believe the game is so dangerous?: "These people have a tendency to be influenced by external factors which could cloud their judgment, a military official says. "They may be detached from reality or have a weak personality – elements which lower a person's security clearance, allowing them to serve in the army, but not in sensitive positions." Many find this policy inexplicable, and are turning to humor to aleviate the ridiculousness.
comment posted at 12:26 PM on Mar-6-05

Sovereign nations import prescription drugs from Canada. The latest loophole in the Canadian drugs saga: if you can't figure out a way to get your state to buy them, get Native Americans to import them for you. (Just make sure that they are, in fact, Indians.)
comment posted at 9:42 AM on Mar-6-05

Former University of Pennsylvania professor and head of Penn's Head Injury Research Center Tracy McIntosh, a Fulbright scholar, and renowned researcher plead no contest in December to possession of a controlled substance and the sexual assault of a 25 year-old Penn student. Judge Rayford Means sentenced him to a year of house arrest and 12 years' probation, as the Judge had "factored in McIntosh's important work with stroke victims and brain injuries."

Tracy McIntosh is too important for prison.
comment posted at 8:44 PM on Mar-5-05
comment posted at 9:39 PM on Mar-5-05
comment posted at 9:31 AM on Mar-6-05
comment posted at 1:03 PM on Mar-6-05

Rescued Italian hostage shot by US army in Baghdad There was a Metafilter thread about this incident here earlier today. It's not there now. Who took it down, and why?
comment posted at 12:31 PM on Mar-5-05

Think your Prox Card system is secure? Guess again. Some Sophomores at Olin College reverse-engineered the prox card system on campus and built their own reader. Rumor has it they have a spoofer (self-contained copier/transmitter) too, but nothing on the site about it.
comment posted at 12:34 PM on Mar-5-05

Intermittently hilarious soundboard-based prank calls
comment posted at 12:14 PM on Mar-5-05

Daisy Duke Needs A Blogger! Yeeee-Hah. Put your pedal to the metal to see how fast you can apply for the ultimate dream job: getting paid $100,000 to watch the high-flying, stump-yanking muscle of the #1 rated car in TV and film history - The General Lee '69 Dodge Charger on THE DUKES OF HAZZARD! Watch the Dukes of Hazzard every night and blog about it, and you could be a 6 figure blogger!
comment posted at 12:43 AM on Mar-5-05

In the market for a George W. Bush bust? That's what I figured. Luckily, you have some choices. And if you're little Bush head gets lonely, you could get Lincoln, Washington, Quayle (if you don't mind stealing), and the rest of the gang to join him. Just make sure you have a couple thousand to spare.
comment posted at 12:55 AM on Mar-5-05

Are Blogs to Blame? Tom Regan, Associate Editor of the Christian Science monitor wrote an interesting piece referencing the latest findings of the Feb 2005 Harris Poll showing that more and more Americans (64%) *still* think that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al-Qaida. Tom's piece proposes that too many Americans are getting their "news" from sources -- including blogs -- that are tainted with right-wing opinion. Tom proposes that blogs share a large responsibility for confusing readers and blurring the lines between news and opinion. On this same topic, last week Editorial Cartoonist Ted Rall wrote an Op/Ed piece last week on blogs that primarily talks about the dangers of the right-wing blogger "lynch mob." Does the sphere of right-wing blogs far outweigh the sphere of influence of left-wing blogs? And is this something that is worrisome? Are blogs a danger to further polarizing public opinion? What do you think?
comment posted at 2:05 PM on Mar-4-05