Poets Against the War At Sam Hamill's Poets Against the War, the story of the recent cancellation (link to Canada's Globe and Mail), by Laura Bush, of a Feb. 12 poetry symposium at the White House. From the G and M article: Stanley Kunitz, poet laureate 2000-01, told reporters, "I think there was a general feeling that the current administration is not really a friend of the poetic community and that its program of attacking Iraq is contrary to the humanitarian position that is at the centre of the poetic impulse."
Hamill is gathering contributions from poets around the world, including Pulitzer Prize-winners Yusef Komunyakaa and W.S. Merwin, National Book Award winner Marilyn Hacker, novelist Ursula K. Le Guin, and Adrienne Rich.
This post is not intended the fan the flames of 'War on Iraq: Yes or No', but to explore Kunitz's contention: Is there at the centre of the poetic impulse a particular type of humanitarianism? Is there a space for poets and poetry in political debate? Are poets the "unacknowledged legislators of the world"? [more inside]
posted by jokeefe at 9:06 PM PST - 35 comments

Ed Rosenthal found guilty. Is this man so harmful and dangerous to our society that he deserves a harsher sentence than child molesters?
posted by spazzm at 8:02 PM PST - 77 comments

The New Global Job Shift. The next round of globalization is sending upscale jobs offshore. They include basic research, chip design, engineering--even financial analysis.
posted by Ty Webb at 5:18 PM PST - 50 comments

The Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network Live in Washington or Oregon? Felt a little rumble recently (like I did)? Want to see if it was an earthquake? You can even check out the live seismographs, including some on Mt. St. Helens.
posted by doorsnake at 4:01 PM PST - 5 comments

Reach a higher state of being, in just four minutes.
posted by crunchland at 3:27 PM PST - 10 comments

It's been 2,000 years since the world has seen anything like this! As it says on the site: "In concept, The Holy Land ExperienceTM is an idea whose time has come . . . In quality of construction and theming, The Holy Land Experience compares favorably with some of the finest museums found anywhere in America. And in terms of Christ-honoring Christian venues, we believe it sets a new standard." I've never been, but you can bet I will be on my next trip to Orlando! (link via Mobtown Shank)
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 2:41 PM PST - 17 comments

Andrew Antone can't help falling in love... If, like me, you're tired of good looking, teen pop icons with salon coiffed hair and rock hard abs, but don't want to give up the illicit pleasures of horrendous teen pop, I humbly submit Andrew Antone, 15 year old icon to be, in an alternate universe where looks & talent are no obstacle to pop icon, fame & fortune. For added delight, I encourage you all to customize your desk with the free wallpapers.
posted by jonson at 1:58 PM PST - 62 comments

Reagan's Son... It took me all week to get around to reading this article from last Sunday's Times Magazine. I was astonished to discover no discussion of the story here. This strikes me as one of the most interesting recent pieces written about the president, and from the pen of a journalist who doesn't pull punches...NYT OpEd writer, Bill Keller. (NYT reg required)
posted by cyclopz at 1:53 PM PST - 11 comments

Happy Meals No Longer Bringing Smiles To McDonalds. Best news I've heard since December. And to bring Mom ("very important to us") back into the fold, McD may begin including Mom-toys with the HMs. No, no. More like...lip gloss, or sweepstakes entries for spa visits. Stuff that would tip any conscientious mother over into the crap-for-food camp.Other ideas? Fact is, EVERY McDonalds customer should be eating the happy meal. (last link possibly NSFW)
posted by luser at 1:09 PM PST - 23 comments

Hmm...this one looks genuine: I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH.... THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT MET NEITHER IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION.... I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE IN ACQUIRING OIL FUNDS THAT ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ....
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:23 PM PST - 16 comments

Shawn Fanning - Patron Saint of the Internet? Fed up with hackers, a flood of spam and lousy connections, a group of Roman Catholics have launched a search to determine the Patron Saint of the Internet. Actually, I vote for Danni Ashe. I can't wait to see what her miracles are like...
posted by mathis23 at 12:06 PM PST - 17 comments

Should FCC allow big media to get bigger? The FCC will soon rule on whether media megaboxes should be allowed to dominate a given market's radio, television, and print media simultaneously. They have already loosened restrictions on radio and the proliferation of Clear Channel has led to a 30% reduction in radio station ownership and, some believe, to the homogenization of popular music. Should the FCC eliminate the regulations preventing mega-media from monopolizing television and print media?
posted by answergrape at 11:37 AM PST - 28 comments

Portland Thai Restaurants Discovers Indentured Servitude
posted by amanda at 11:25 AM PST - 23 comments

So THAT'S what that sound is! This has been driving me crazy for weeks! Just when you thought that it couldn't get any louder in your nabe... Oh well, at least some people are enjoying it.
posted by ubi at 11:06 AM PST - 37 comments

Video game music is designed to heighten tension, and get you involved in the game, but it's come a long way from the days of Pong, now we have a single video game generating a 4 CD boxset & a greatest hits CD. Game Music Home, one of the first sites dedicated to gaming music is still preserved online. Now there's even a game music database and sites like GameMusic.com, VGMusic.com, etc specialize in selling video game soundtracks. Here's a brief timeline of video game music. Of course with original songs like "Taxi Drivers Must Die" (lyric), how long before we see a video game song on the Billboard charts?
posted by riffola at 10:25 AM PST - 38 comments

National Engineers Week begins February 16, and this year, students everywhere will be competing to design Future Cities or the ever popular egg drop devices for competitions all over the country. They also plan to profile 50 engineers in honor of their 50th anniversary, and welcome submissions. Did you ever participate in egg drops or other cool engineering projects while in school?
posted by madamjujujive at 9:44 AM PST - 18 comments

Let the celebrations begin! According to the Chinese calendar, tomorrow begins the year 4700. The festivals and superstitions surround the celebration for the new year are fascinating in China as well as Korea. Which animal year were you born in and do you follow the Chinese, Japanese, or Korean zodiac? Finally, the mathematics behind the calendar are truly fascinating.
posted by Plunge at 9:10 AM PST - 15 comments

Hearing deja vu? It's true, the crew of a few are the voice of a who or two.
posted by pedantic at 8:42 AM PST - 13 comments

Vaclav Havel is retiring as president of the Czech Republic this weekend. The former dissident and playwright-cum-politician is profiled in the Guardian, the Globe & Mail and Radio Prague's site; or you can browse the great man's website.
posted by plep at 8:41 AM PST - 12 comments

Bandlink CD Intelligence provides instant access to... tour dates, latest photos, news, video and chat community whenever you play a specially encoded CD in an internet-connected CD drive. But is that really all? "Go online any time and check to see how many people are listening to your CD, what songs they are listening to, and how long they are listening." As a marketing professional, I can see the value of it to business. But from the consumer perspective, the possible abuses are scary.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 8:21 AM PST - 4 comments

Dr. Mitch McGraw, famous scientist, is shrunk in a freak accident to the size of a flea and ends up in the hair of his assistant, Ted Preston. Some Friday fun for those of you stuck in the office.
posted by essexjan at 7:53 AM PST - 3 comments

High Tec Shadow Play 'In Rotterdam, Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer used two 7000 watt lamps to create 1200 square metres of projected images which were overlayed by the shadows of passer-by's. A computer based tracking system monitored the shadows. Once the shadows matched the projected image, a new image (or "scene") was triggered. ' An impressive (if extravagant) bit of public art (QuickTime)
posted by rolo at 7:45 AM PST - 15 comments

A War Crime or an Act of War?

But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story. ..

This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target.

And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas. (NYT)
posted by y2karl at 7:43 AM PST - 34 comments

Ever wondered what the Aurora Borealis sounds like? The northern (or southern) lights generate VLF radio waves as well as light. These sounds have been captured here as hundreds of free mp3 downloads, and they make amazing ambient soundtracks. Random clicks, whirrs, pops and whistles, direct from outer space. The site also features other "weather sounds" generated by lightning storms and such, and explains how you can get your hands on a VLF receiver to hear the sounds yourself.
posted by Jimbob at 7:24 AM PST - 12 comments

I'm a Poet and I know it? Recognizing appalling verse as a humorous, sometimes oddly affecting balm. Rick from the Young Ones TV show made a huge impact on the field But tributes and poetry, of course, make for wonderful bedfellows. Just ask Ethan Hawke. Sometimes, though, one can try too hard to get the yucks. But perhaps nothing inspires inspired verse like our feline friends.
posted by chandy72 at 7:18 AM PST - 27 comments

In these troubled times, we would all do well to remember the lesson of the Apasht. But you'll have a hard time finding this vanished Neolithic culture in any mainstream anthropology textbook. That's why these archives are such an invaluable resource.
posted by staggernation at 7:13 AM PST - 8 comments

Frivolous Fun for Friday (although not quite lighthearted…) As an avid Gorey fan, I couldn't pass up posting these interactive murder mysteries. Shockwave required.
posted by Fenriss at 6:51 AM PST - 5 comments

So What Happened After The Wise Man Discovered He Was Wearing The Red Hat? Don Steinberg's hilarious brainteaser aftermaths inevitably makes one wonder what happens after fairy-tale endings or the punchlines in jokes.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:34 AM PST - 20 comments

Skydive naked! This 4.1 MB mpeg is NSFW, but if you enjoyed madamjujujive's pianist post, you might like this too.
posted by homunculus at 12:21 AM PST - 19 comments

"everyone knows the consequences of killing three Americans" from the guy who hung out with the taleban - and one of the few who actually makes the right call on al queda: "But instead of just always knowing that it was a small Mickey Mouse outfit, now they made it into this huge global conspiracy, which it isn't. Which has created all kinds of problems in the Muslim world because we're sort of demonizing the wrong people. The bad guys are living in America and Saudi Arabia and Germany and the U.K.; they're not sitting in caves in Afghanistan." - say what you will about the guy, hes got b*lls that clank when he walks.
posted by specialk420 at 10:34 PM PST - 26 comments

A Brief History of Goosestepping. Shades of Busby Berkley perhaps? Or something much more sinister? To some, goosestepping is a fun and comical activity. But what about these guys?
posted by The Michael The at 8:52 PM PST - 8 comments

Is this legal? Supposedly they want you to loan money so they can do charitable fundraising for schools, not keep a cent, give all the profits to schools but still give you a minimum of 15% per annum return on your loan? They provide a legitimate volunteer community reference,Jim Hester, in the Calgary (Canada) Community (1,2). Yet he's no where to be found on the contact pages. He's mentioned in Better Business Bureau entry which surprisingly lists the company as a "FOR PROFIT" organization. It all just seems so strange. Does this trick investors into feeling they are investing for charity? Why does the website call themselves "Team Capital" while they advertise the volunteer efforts of "Team Education"? Why don't they list any of the schools they have helped or the projects they were involved with? Is this legitimate or a scam?
posted by abez at 8:13 PM PST - 7 comments

Jasmina's Joy of Bellydancing is a fantastic site that will make your head spin(.mov) with links to every aspect of the world's oldest dance. Maybe you just want to learn a cool party trick(.mov) or lose a few pounds(.mov). Whatever the reason, whether you're young or old, you too can learn. So make your harem pants and cook up some henna, but forget about the navel jewels. Need a little inspiration? Check out these great vintage galleries. Hurry up though because the 13th Annual Belly Dancer of the Universe competition is just weeks away! Questions? Ask the Gypsy.
posted by snez at 8:07 PM PST - 12 comments

How many different Starbucks outlets in North America have you been to? Less than 3,381? If so, this guy has you beat. See Winter's caffeine-propelled roadtrip stats and peruse his mind-numbing photo gallery.
Do not try this at home; you WILL end up looking like this.
posted by PrinceValium at 7:56 PM PST - 31 comments

The moon does not exist! This is no lie. Until recently, I, too, believed in the traditional, establishment view of the moon. But any thinking person, untainted by the biases imposed on us by the controlled media, will have no choice but to reach the conclusion I did once faced with the facts described in this account.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 7:53 PM PST - 25 comments

Ireland's road signs are notorious for getting travellers lost, but the Irish government has announced that it will finally do something about it.
posted by mcwetboy at 5:49 PM PST - 22 comments

How many of the world's top 100 sexiest women have tattoos?
posted by mediareport at 5:01 PM PST - 44 comments

Have you filled out your Arbitron Diary? Radio watchfrogs Arbitron more or less provide the nooses in which Conglomerations hang themselves with (or, switch formats from R&B to Country.) Perhaps your station is losing "ears" and you'd like to beat that system? First, don't play too much music. It gets in the way. Also, your morning show might want to adopt that old sawtooth sawhorse The Birthday Game! ("People perceive their chances of winning a substantial prize in the Birthday Game to be 1 in 365. Plus, most folks think of their birthday as lucky.") Diarists love it. If you're feeling especially sub-moral you should announce the wrong time to your listeners, a sneaky move deemed Time Warping (PDF) that in effect cuts a hole in the space-time collusion, not to mention your competitor's 'Drive-By' block. Arby's getting wise, though: The new-for-2003 The Portable People Meter, a snap-on privacy preventing prosthetic that records "invisible and inaudible" radio station cues removes that pesky Human Element from the diaries.
posted by neustile at 3:39 PM PST - 10 comments

Can't afford those expensive fertility treatments? Just beg for money on the internet! This childless couple has even set up a CafePress store to help bring in cash so they can try to have a baby. Childfree advocates react with expected disdain.
posted by beth at 3:38 PM PST - 13 comments

Hippos Roam Colombian Drug Lord's Abandoned Ranch.
posted by 111 at 3:24 PM PST - 23 comments

"We are male and female. We are artists, athletes, students, and business owners. We have depression, DID, PTSD, eating disorders, borderline personalities, bipolar disorder, or maybe no diagnosis at all. Some of us were abused, some were not. We are straight, bi, and gay. We come from all walks of life and can be any age. We are every single race or religion that you can possibly think of. Our common link is this: We are in pain. We self-injure. And we are not freaks". 29 days until March 1 - National Self-Injury Awareness Day.
posted by nthdegx at 3:03 PM PST - 42 comments

The critique of mass society has been one of the most powerful forces driving consumerism for more than 40 years. This is an article written by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter for This Magazine. They raise the question; if we all hate consumerism, how come we can't stop shopping? They say that consumerism is not based conformity, as seen in movies like Fight Club and American Beauty, but is based on distinction.
posted by Quartermass at 2:55 PM PST - 24 comments

Dr. Kraw's Guide to Better Living for Young Adults at Risk.
posted by holloway at 2:34 PM PST - 15 comments

The State of the Union & The Super Bowl: Two of the biggest television events of the year occurred at almost the same time in 2003, and from where I'm sitting, each seems about as relevant as the other. Both events are pageants of performance and strategy, featuring a lineup of carefully selected special guest stars, played to an audience that mostly supports one of two sides, whose preference is largely dependent on geographical and demographical influences.

So, now that both are over, for your continued entertainment, I present The Real State of the Union, as posited by the good folks of the Atlantic Monthly. If no more relevant than the other two, I hope this one's at least more enjoyable.
posted by grrarrgh00 at 1:22 PM PST - 12 comments

Bound For Victory? One of the trio of "Joe Millionaire" finalists has starred in dozens of kinky bondage and fetish films that feature her being handcuffed, gagged, hog-tied, and bound with duct tape, The Smoking Gun has learned (Disclaimer: While accompanying images contain no nudity or flagrant violence, viewer discretion might be indicated).
posted by LinusMines at 12:55 PM PST - 21 comments

The Met Museum has an online gallery exploring the work of Da Vinci. It allows you to zoom in and out on specific parts of a work thus enabling minute exploration. It's stuff like this that makes the web indispensable.
posted by Fat Buddha at 12:27 PM PST - 6 comments

national philistine is putting a very neccessary look at iraq and it's people - an american in iraq, the blog on the front page is one of the most humanizing things i've read in months.
.. part of the iraq peace team
posted by Peter H at 11:32 AM PST - 10 comments

The warm water ocean currents of the Gulf Stream are why London rarely gets snow yet Boston is fridged despite London being as far north as Montreal, Canada. New weather modeling research from Columbia University may turn this long-held belief on its head; London can thank the Rocky Mountains for its mild winters. Good news for the rest of Europe too in case the Gulf Stream stops due to Arctic melting.
posted by stbalbach at 11:00 AM PST - 22 comments

Don't believe in evolution? Don't get a recommendation. The Justice Department has been asked to look into the case of a Texas Tech biology professor who has made it clear that you won't get a recommendation from him if you believe in creationism. In his online notes to students, Dini writes "If you set up an appointment to discuss the writing of a letter of recommendation, I will ask you: 'How do you think the human species originated?' If you cannot truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer to this question, then you should not seek my recommendation for admittance to further education in the biomedical sciences." The Liberty Legal Institute, calls the policy "open religious bigotry." Texas Tech supports Lini, saying the decision on whether to recommend someone is a personal one. Clearly, it should be a professor's call on whether to give a student a recommendation or not, but did Lini make himself a target by laying out this criteria this way?
posted by Gilbert at 9:16 AM PST - 182 comments

Keep off the grass These days in London it's okay to smoke grass but not okay to walk on grass. Perhaps it's not all that surprising given that there's been a material breach. Any other current examples of civil liberties being eroded quite so outrageously where you live?
posted by skellum at 7:52 AM PST - 25 comments

The lady with the mystic smile - over the years, she's been stolen, lampooned, revered in song (mp3 file) and the subject of mystery and mania for many. Her visage has been been the inspiration for socks, cookie jars, bathtub toys and lots of kitsch and pop art. What's the secret to the world's long standing love affair with this lady?
posted by madamjujujive at 7:37 AM PST - 32 comments

Do Dogs Have History? For those of you who participated in this discussion a while back (I linked here to the discussion, but be warned the FPP link from that discussion is to a gruesome, sad picture), the author of this book review elucidates many of the reasons why some of us love dogs as much (if not more than?) people. via Robot Wisdom
posted by vito90 at 7:34 AM PST - 26 comments

Welcome to the Russian Wodehouse Society[more] Fellow admirers of the inimitable P. G. Wodehouse have created The Wodehouse Society, Wodehouse information, and The Everyman Wodehouse.
posted by hama7 at 7:13 AM PST - 14 comments

The greatest TV show you will probably never see: Aunty Jack, a ten-foot tall, boxing-glove wearing, motor-cycling, moustached cross-dresser, was the star of The Aunty Jack Show, which ran for thirteen episodes in 1972-73 on the Australian Broadcasting Commission TV network (and was the first show broadcast on Australian TV in colour). Many of the original episodes have been lost (but records of them exist). Re-release on video or DVD of the remaining episodes is tangled up in copyright issues. The 1974 album Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong was re-released on CD, and still seems to be available. It includes such classics as 'Fish Milkshakes' and 'Teenage Butcher' and the song 'Farewell Aunty Jack', which was a number 1 hit in Australia. Some samples can be found here. There were spinoffs from Aunty Jack, most notably the Norman Gunston Show, with Norman playing the prototypical terrrible interviewer and inspiring the much later Ali G, Dennis Pennis and many others. I was two years old when the series aired: Aunty Jack's threat at the end of each episode, that: 'If you don't watch next week, I'll rip your bloody arm off!' meant that I never, ever, missed it.
posted by chrisgregory at 5:02 AM PST - 33 comments

Jeff VanderMeer is not only a great author of weird sf, and a creator of the mysterious city of Ambergris, but has an alternative official site where he makes merciless fun of himself and the whole idea of author web pages. The site includes bad poetry, a secret subsite of the "webdesigner" Garry and a strange alien baby project, just for starters.....
posted by inkeri at 3:21 AM PST - 3 comments

Jesus H. Christ: That's H for Historical. A person of interest to several schools of inquiry, historical whereabouts unknown, somewhere between palimpsest and projection. You have your Jesus Seminar, for one. Earl Doherty asks Was there no historical Jesus? Mystae's The Jesus of History and Archeology is a bit more on the X files tip. A decidedly nonbeliever overview is Infidel.org's The Search for the Historical Jesus. And Gospel.Net provides Jesus of Nazareth in all gospels known to have been written within 200 years of Jesus' birth, a number considerably larger than the canonical four.
That should be enough for a start. Now go in peace and sin no more.
posted by y2karl at 3:01 AM PST - 26 comments

Vonnegut Weighs in on the State of the Union. As a writer and artist, have you noticed any difference between how the cultural leaders of the past and the cultural leaders of today view their responsibility to society?

Responsibility to which society? To Nazi Germany? To the Stalinist Soviet Union? What about responsibility to humanity in general? And leaders in what particular cultural activity? I guess you mean the fine arts. I hope you mean the fine arts. ... Anybody practicing the fine art of composing music, no matter how cynical or greedy or scared, still can't help serving all humanity. Music makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it. Even military bands, although I am a pacifist, always cheer me up.
posted by crasspastor at 2:51 AM PST - 80 comments

Does the eBay fun ever stop? Apparently not. Sometimes, auctions like these are even more hilarious than The Onion. Sometimes.
posted by cinematique at 11:52 PM PST - 26 comments

Amusing Op-Ed piece on this year's Anti-Drug Superbowl ad "But this has got to be good news for some. Infertility clinics are in for a big surprise with this one. Forget all those expensive, painful procedures. Simply grab some weed, and boom-boom!" [NORML article]
posted by skallas at 8:34 PM PST - 53 comments

Decoding Anti-Europeanism In America: Although European anti-Americanism focuses on one country, with one government and one foreign policy (the U.S.), growing American (i.e. U.S.) anti-Europeanism seems to conflate dozens of separate and disparate countries, governments and foreign policies into one abstract entity, "Europe", which doesn't really exist as such. Or exists just as much as "America", North and South, Central and Carribean does. So what the hell is up? What terrible confusion of categories is clogging up Western political communications? [More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:57 PM PST - 77 comments

At D.C. protests, a few hundred thousand go missing - "Like most young Americans, I've been trained to think of protests and demonstrations as something shameful and vaguely embarrassing-something one outgrows, like Journey albums, or those hour-long showers you took when you were eleven and twelve." Stinging dead-on reportage about the media's coverage of the anti-war movement, from Matt Taibbi.
posted by GriffX at 5:27 PM PST - 66 comments

An Edinburgh man got back from holiday to find his car had gone missing. It hadn't been stolen. It had been moved by the local council because it was obstructing some drain and hadn't bothered to tell him. How far can local government authority really go in matters of personal property? [more]
posted by feelinglistless at 4:05 PM PST - 36 comments

A list of articles by former weapons inspector Richard Spertzel on current inspections. Also former weapons inspector Bill Tierney says Saddam has nukes and the French sabotaged U.N. WMD searches.
posted by Ron at 3:51 PM PST - 25 comments

Fixin'to Die after all these years Woodstock-era protest singer Country Joe McDonald still keeps an active pulse on today's events on his website. One of what eventually came to be perhaps his most famous song, the "I-Feel-Like-Fixin'-to-Die rag" has taken new life in light of current events, which is quite simple to deduct: just substitute all the Vietnam references with "Iraq" and there you have it - as many people have been happy to do by submitting their own lyrics versions to the site, somehow confirming that the world actually hasn't changed much in that respect 30 years after Vietnam...
posted by betobeto at 2:25 PM PST - 7 comments

Is The U.S. Is Looking for an Excuse To Fight?? From AlterNet .
posted by frisky biscuits at 2:04 PM PST - 41 comments

Future of Sky Scrapers? Is this the future of sky scrapers, or are they now irrelevant with the current threats that are presented? Would you work in this building?
posted by npost at 1:59 PM PST - 15 comments

Large scale ballistic fingerprinting of guns doubtful. The California Attorney General's Office has said that large scale ballistic fingerprinting of all weapons is not yet practical. Ballistic fingerprinting spawned much discussion earlier on MeFi. I couldn't find the complete report online yet.
posted by stevefromsparks at 1:41 PM PST - 5 comments

Athina Roussel picked up an estimated $2.7 billion in cash, homes, companies, art, shares, a private jet She will inherit a further $2 billion on her 21st birthday That's right, she is the richest teenager on the planet...
posted by bureaustyle at 1:37 PM PST - 34 comments

Computer user suffers "eThrombosis" People who spend many hours every day sitting in front of a computer could be at risk of developing deep vein thrombosis - the potentially fatal blood clots. Go get a sandwich.
posted by semmi at 12:52 PM PST - 12 comments

Ancient Egyptian Wisdom for the Internet by Anna Mancini.
posted by steef at 11:43 AM PST - 29 comments

Dan Savage takes on the Rolling Stone "bug chasing"/HIV+ gay sex story in his column today, and lambastes one of his favorite sacred cows, Gay Men's Health Crisis and other outreach groups that seem to have a lackadaisical attitude towards their clients' risky behavior. He's written about this before, in the case of Seth Watkins, an HIV+ sex education worker who admitted in the NYTimes he has unprotected casual sex at clubs. Does any of this coverage increase awareness of the still-plenty-big threat of HIV, or does it just make gay men look bad? Respectful discussion within...?
posted by serafinapekkala at 10:59 AM PST - 42 comments

"i am arogon, son of alfred." it's nothing shocking to hear that europe is being flooded with asian-made bootlegs of the two towers. but who would have thought the sub-titled translations would prove so hilariously incorrect and occasionally inappropriate?
posted by grabbingsand at 10:35 AM PST - 37 comments

No Time For Cold Feet In the land of 10,000 lakes... 10,000 people dig for $10,000 buried in the snow. The 117th Saint Paul Winter Carnival is under way -- it's day 11 of the medallion hunt and it hasn't been found yet! The modern medallion is made of translucent blue lucite and is approximately two inches in diameter and one-half inch thick. It's hidden somewhere (on public land) in Ramsey County, which covers over 140 square miles. Here are this year's clues. Who says Minnesota isn't fun in January? Past medallion locations!
posted by loopy at 10:11 AM PST - 5 comments

Gay porn legend Jeff Stryker releases a country album. It's true! The site provides links to several mp3 samples, but don't miss the brilliant "Pop You In The Pooper!".
posted by adrober at 9:15 AM PST - 22 comments

Celebrity Nudity Database [via Anil] I'm not usually one to accredit websites to the whim of the Almighty, but in this case, one has to wonder. The site bills itself as "the most comprehensive reference for celebrity nudity on the Internet" with "reviews of over 12,000 nude scenes -- updated daily". This is work-safe; it's not porn.
posted by jdroth at 8:58 AM PST - 11 comments

Print life! Forget this photo-realism nonsense. Scientists have modified ink-jet printers to print living cells. Like many innovations in sci-tech, I find this scary and fascinating at the same time.
posted by pinto at 8:57 AM PST - 9 comments

Hobbyist records video from the POV of a model rocket via microwave downlink. The videos may be getting slammed with traffic right now, but the essential geeky construction photos are here. via macintouch
posted by machaus at 8:49 AM PST - 11 comments

"GoogleSynth uses the Google Image Search thingy to randomly grab two images as the 'input' and 'target' images for the algorithm. Once it has two images it applies the algorithm with the parameters set by the user and produces a new image based on them. The results vary wildly, often the output is a total mess, but it creates some cool looking stuff now and then (depending on your definition of 'cool')." (For Windows and Mac OSX.)
posted by Dean King at 8:40 AM PST - 5 comments

'The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis is one of the most significant and controversial representations of traditional American Indian culture ever produced. Issued in a limited edition from 1907-1930, the publication continues to exert a major influence on the image of Indians in popular culture ... Featured here are all of the published photogravure images including over 1500 illustrations bound in the text volumes, along with over 700 portfolio plates. ' All that and a great links page too.
The Curtis Collection is also worth a look.
posted by plep at 8:21 AM PST - 26 comments

God did it? I'm not usually one to accredit daily occurrences to the whim of the Almighty, but in this case, one has to wonder. A young man is thrown from his vehicle in a rollover crash, ejected, and saves himself from impact by catching the telephone lines 25 feet overhead.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 8:20 AM PST - 101 comments

Doctor brands woman's uterus with his alma mater's initials during surgery. And if doubt the claim, you can watch a video of the operation.
posted by Pinwheel at 7:43 AM PST - 63 comments

At the Wallow of the Military Order of the Carabao, our nation's military leaders smoke Cuban cigars, sing racist songs about Filipinos, and suck up to the defense industry.
posted by xowie at 6:49 AM PST - 13 comments

"Leave a message, or accompany this bassline." Concerto for Voicemail #1.
posted by staggernation at 5:56 AM PST - 7 comments

Japanese Emoticons (*^_^*)
posted by hama7 at 4:48 AM PST - 28 comments

Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg are full of bright ideas: see, for example the telematic table, apartment ('a virtual city of memory palaces, an online experiment in do-it-yourself concrete poetry'), bewitched.com, and the WonderWalker - a would-be on-line, global wunderkammer...
posted by misteraitch at 1:51 AM PST - 3 comments

The, er, Spanish protest song comes of age, sort of: When bad oil spills happen to evil but otoparasitical Spanish pop songs in a crap video, but in a nice way, I say Hey Hah! Or rather: Aserejé! [Flash for the first link; Real for the third; both in Spanish. FRIENDLY WARNING: Do not click on the third link if you're not yet addicted to Las Ketchup.]
posted by Carlos Quevedo at 1:45 AM PST - 2 comments

It's like Cliff's Notes for Hamlet, but in song form: here's John Wesley Harding's take on the Shakespeare classic. A sure help to any struggling college literature student. (mp3 download)
posted by UKnowForKids at 11:07 PM PST - 13 comments

Ever wondered how the smart people create those weird ♥ √ ⊄ ⊗ characters on MeFi and in other places? Wonder no more. Brought to you via MeFi's own riffola, who has a simplified version of his own.
posted by dg at 9:10 PM PST - 62 comments

The Kerguelen Islands, you say? This guy wanted to go there. This guy went. Him too. And this poor fellow just wants to be a part of it all. What's the attraction? Though not much may have happened there, there are some stunning views. But I think it's the cabbage.
posted by ursus_comiter at 8:49 PM PST - 10 comments

Shop. Destroy. Rule. "We sell. You conquer."
posted by quonsar at 8:40 PM PST - 29 comments

The State of the Union address. "Yet there is power -- wonder-working power"
posted by four panels at 7:10 PM PST - 176 comments

Dobby the House Elf and Russian President Vladimir Putin -- Separated At Birth?
posted by Vidiot at 3:28 PM PST - 10 comments

Justice for Consumers "The owners of the KaZaA file-sharing network are suing the movie and recording industries, claiming that they don't understand the digital age and are monopolizing entertainment." Quote from article by Associated Press. I don't about you but I'm sick and tired of big businesses writing all the new laws in this country. Now maybe the people can get some justice for a change.
posted by tljenson at 3:13 PM PST - 21 comments

The State of the Energy: Ahead of rumors Bush is set to propose a hydrogen fuel plan, fuel cell producer stocks jump. In the event of an Iraqi war, the oil fields there will be siezed to prevent their drestruction and Colin Powell says the US will hold them "in trust".
posted by raaka at 2:06 PM PST - 41 comments

I'm mo' "meta" than you! This USA Today puff piece is claiming that "meta" is the new "cool." What are your thoughts on this? Do any of you use "meta" in conversation or writing without a noun following it? (when you're not referring to the abbreviation for MetaTalk, obviously...)
posted by popvulture at 2:00 PM PST - 64 comments

Obesity may not be unhealthy after all A careful survey of medical literature reveals that the conventional wisdom about the health risks of fat is a grotesque distortion of a far more complicated story. Indeed, subject to exceptions for the most extreme cases, it's not at all clear that being overweight is an independent health risk of any kind, let alone something that kills hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. [The New Republic online, free reg. required]
posted by tippiedog at 1:21 PM PST - 24 comments

Torture by Art. 'Bauhaus artists such as Kandinsky, Klee and Itten, as well as the surrealist film-maker Luis Bunuel and his friend Salvador Dali, were said to be the inspiration behind a series of secret cells and torture centres built in Barcelona and elsewhere '. Maybe there is a future for those Turner Prize winners after all.
posted by rolo at 12:54 PM PST - 26 comments

Syphilis, a Killer Who We Are Still Trying to Solve Did Columbus import or export Syphilis in the New World? Do we really know whom to blame for syphilis? An interesting thought on this, The Columbus & Evolution theories of syphilis. The evolution theory is that it is related to Yaws, a nonvenereal tropical disease of the skin, is the most primitive of all diseases. Please start at the bottom of page 4.
Knowledge of the past may prepare us for our future.
posted by thomcatspike at 12:40 PM PST - 9 comments

Open Content Network "The Open Content Network is a collaborative effort to help deliver large, freely-downloadable content using peer-to-peer technology. The network is essentially a huge "virtual web server" that links together thousands of computers for the purpose of helping out over-burdoned web sites. Using various web browser plug-ins, users can download open source and public domain software, movies, and music at incredibly fast speeds from this global, distributed network." (via boing boing)
posted by owillis at 12:27 PM PST - 6 comments

BE IT RESOLVED, That the citizens of the State of Washington do hereby proclaim that Tim Eyman is a Horse's Ass. Tim Eyman, previously discussed on MeFi, is now the subject of Washington State Initiative 831. This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is democracy in action.
posted by josephtate at 12:18 PM PST - 20 comments

Inattention blindness has been documented in a study of drivers using cell phones. Back when the driving-while-yakking phenomenon first started growing, I told friends I could always tell if the driver of the car ahead of me was on a cell phone: They had a certain style of stupid driving that I couldn't quite describe but I always knew it when I saw it. Now a team of researchers has pinpointed it; they also effectively debunk "you're just as distracted talking to someone in the car"-type analogies. The question remains, now that we know what's wrong with this practice, what do we do about it?
posted by soyjoy at 11:45 AM PST - 82 comments

Freedomads.org is sponsoring a contest that challenges visitors to create video, print, or audio ads that "inspire people with an advertisement for freedom." How would you sell freedom?
posted by pjdoland at 11:39 AM PST - 22 comments

plain talk about small pox
tired of scare stories being spread by some about - WMDs - ?? an excellent article here.
posted by specialk420 at 11:32 AM PST - 1 comments

A Doomed planet orbiting a distant star has been located. No, not Krypton. The planet is going to be consumed by the star soon, but astronomers are not going to wait up for it.
posted by kaemaril at 10:28 AM PST - 7 comments

CSS on Demand allows users to set several preferences for how they want to see your site, rather than just using one of your themes via a switcher. Kind of like Matt lets you do here.
Perl. Free. Try it out.
posted by Su at 9:17 AM PST - 15 comments

17 years ago today, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all seven aboard. I share this primarily as I recall this being the first where-were-you-when of my childhood. So where were you?
posted by xmutex at 9:01 AM PST - 161 comments

The First State of the Union Address - Here is President George Washington's State of the Union Address from January 8, 1790. Have things really changed that much in 213 years?
posted by Argyle at 8:34 AM PST - 15 comments

Steven Harris is a freelance photographer based in Beijing, China, and on occasion in his hometown, Boston. Steven looks for the essence of a place, the spirit of a people, and the heart of a complex story. Incredible pictures from China, Mongolia, Gaudi and elsewhere. Enjoy...
posted by Shike at 8:22 AM PST - 6 comments

Arundhati Roy on the war. This is the text of a speech Arundhati gave at Santa Fe last September. I have not seen it on MeFi before. Hence, I thought it would still be of interest. TWe have talked about her before here- 1, 2, 3. It is a long speech! So, read it when you have the time.
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy at 7:37 AM PST - 11 comments

As American As Apple Pie What Exactly? What food is truly American? Professor Louis Grivetti, of the University of California at Davis, provides a set of excellent, discussion-settling answers, packed with reliable and curious facts. (Be sure to click on the fascinating "Did You Know?" links at the bottom of each of the 10 classic American food groups.) How many Europeans know, for instance, that tomatoes, potatoes, corn, peppers, artichokes and lima beans all came from America? Not much supposedly ancestral Mediterranean cooking could get by without tomatoes, potatoes and peppers...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:31 AM PST - 44 comments

"When you're holding the moon for ransom, you value the stability of an application..." - The marketing genius of the Apple Switch campaign combined with the religious zealotry of the Linux overlords. My understanding was that this was originally slated to run during the superbowl, but was pulled at the last second due to the racy references to fembots.
posted by jdaura at 11:13 PM PST - 26 comments

Ah, the world cries out for an updated Jonathan website. The Abominable Lesbian Vampire Cappuccino Bar in Cyberspace has withered on the vine, links almost all dead--damn, I should've copied that tab!--but some of the music's not firing blanks. The Jonathan Richman Project only posted one issue of their xerox zine--jeez, remember zines? Mail art? Man, those were the days--but they're nice enough to print Lester Bangs 1976 Creem diss of the Twerp King At The Summit. God, I remember reading that Bangs piece new and running out and buying The Modern Lovers, trusting as I did in his taste or maybe just his gonzo stylings? Little did I know...(inside)
posted by y2karl at 11:04 PM PST - 32 comments

"I did not escape from you but I did what I was supposed to do and you should be very proud of me." The love life of 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah.
posted by shoos at 10:39 PM PST - 10 comments

HUD money for poor now earmarked for religious buildings. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, says "The 'faith-based initiative' was bad enough, but now Bush wants taxpayers to foot the bill for church expansion projects. This policy is outrageous as well as patently unconstitutional; it is bound to spark litigation." [ACLU article here]
posted by skallas at 10:24 PM PST - 26 comments

He humps things. He humps lots of things. And other people hump things too. (via Memepool)
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:32 PM PST - 21 comments

Found Magazine is worth a look. It documents the detrital scraps of our modern lives, found in gutters, break-room bulletin boards and under car windshields. All pieces are reader submitted, and some are of suspect authenticity. Sublime, simply sublime... PS. Page me later
posted by cadastral at 9:29 PM PST - 11 comments

There is Naked Flute Girl, Add Four Inches to Your Penis Now. 21st-century cultural-commentary bebop? Mark Morford of the SF Gate writes an entire column composed of nothing but copy from e-mail spam ads culled from his own inbox. Ignoring the depression that I recognize half of it, reading it out loud is virtually art-house hypnotic.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 8:58 PM PST - 29 comments

The number of health-related deaths in the United States in 2000 was over 1 million. The United States spends $13.6BN per year on ALL medical research. For $100BN-$200BN could we save 110,000 more people each year from health-related deaths? High end estimates of homelessness put the number around 3.5 million in the United States. For $30,000 each (100B/3.5M) we could house, feed and provide vocational training for every homeless person. Alternatively, we could provide $2,500 per year for insurance to each person without health care.
posted by PigAlien at 8:39 PM PST - 38 comments

Who Is Frank Chu? A Craigslister put up an interview with various SF residents, and Frank Chu himself. For people not from the Bay Area, Frank Chu has been a downtown fixture for some time -- notable for his silent protest of bizarre space-crimes committed by ex-presidents.
posted by hammurderer at 5:43 PM PST - 13 comments

An interactive food storage calculator comes in pretty handy when you'd rather have a little in the basement for a rainy day-but you have no idea how to get started. [More Inside]
posted by silusGROK at 4:45 PM PST - 23 comments

Ed Rosenthal - medical marijuana activist and one of the world's leading experts in cannabis cultivation - is currently facing a mandatory 20 year-to-life sentence in California court for operating a city grow-op. Not only was he obeying state law, but the City of Oakland requested his help. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer has already thrown out all possible defenses of this kind and is currently pursuing a gag order to stifle media and public outrage.
Forget, for a moment, that 3 out of 4 Americans are in favor of legalizing cannabis for medicinal purposes. What is the purpose of voter initiatives and statewide legislation if the federal government and judicial system are willing to completely ignore the decisions of state and local government?
posted by BirdD0g at 4:17 PM PST - 33 comments

Dodge Magazine #1; "Dodge is devoted to anyone with a passion for graphic design, and an open minded approach to new forms of visual communication."
Dodge Magazine #2; "The assignment for this issue was simple. Create a piece based on, or motivated by the theme of 'lost and found'".
posted by hama7 at 4:00 PM PST - 11 comments

The future of music retail... will be nothing like this. Echo Networks, a Los Angeles based "digital venture", in partnership with Best Buy, Tower, Wherehouse, Virgin & FYE, has launched an instore downloadable purchase initiative whose chances of failure are only exceeded by the extreme vagueness surrounding the announcement. For more, read the news article at CNET.
posted by jonson at 3:06 PM PST - 14 comments

"Shock and Awe" is the concept behind the Pentagon's planned, "Hiroshima like" attack on Baghdad. "Carpet bombing" was the concept's name in the old days, and was responsible for 125,000 civilian deaths in Dresden. Precision carpet bombing - condonable strategy?
posted by RichLyon at 2:45 PM PST - 100 comments

Puzzle that makes you weep softly and twitch. Cryptic crosswords are mostly unappreciated on US shores, but those who have learned to seek them out have struck upon perhaps the best wordplay puzzles ever. Instead of rewarding a solver's grasp of trivia, cryptics are truly a battle of wits in which each clue is a riddle that plays by a few simple rules. Part of the riddle is a straight definition of the final word; the rest is subtly disguised wordplay. It's hard to know just why these haven't caught on — it may be that the most readily available ones, such as those in Harper's or The Atlantic, are extra-tricky affairs that cater toward expert solvers. But online, there are plenty of puzzles suitable for those interested in giving cryptics a whirl, including this gem, written for a 12-year-old audience.
posted by blueshammer at 2:18 PM PST - 37 comments

In response to the Tardblog, Dave Barry starts his own. Ha ha! Kidding. I love Dave, really. However I'm not sure if its actually him. I think its actually Harry Anderson of Night Court fame. via fark
posted by Stan Chin at 2:08 PM PST - 12 comments

Not really a game, but is scary/funny: This is a projection of the most likely outcome of a new war in the Gulf. I used sophisticated temporal algorithms and historical semiotic analysis to achieve an accuracy rating of 99.999%. It's the mother of all Flash games.
posted by samelborp at 11:07 AM PST - 31 comments

go raiders just dont move to my city!
posted by specialk420 at 10:54 AM PST - 72 comments

The Home for Life Project, designed by Roger Dean, will appeal to anyone who dreams of living in Hobbiton. The earth sheltered homes are made of gunnite and are simple to construct, and the curvilinear architecture of the interiors is based on Dean's research into the psychological responses to spaces of children. I really want to check one of these out someday. (Previously mentioned here.)
posted by homunculus at 10:08 AM PST - 32 comments

State of the Union Drinking Game! With this handy little game I might actually sit through the entire State of the Union speech. Take one drink every time the camera pans to a Democratic presidential hopeful. Take three drinks for every Supreme Court Justice that's asleep. via Instapundit
posted by vito90 at 8:50 AM PST - 4 comments

Why were the Super Bowl ads so dull? Was it lack of money, lack of creativity, or something else?
posted by fred_ashmore at 8:31 AM PST - 80 comments

Tax credits for buying an SUV? Who would have thought that you could write off that new Hummer H2?
posted by djseafood at 8:19 AM PST - 29 comments

US buys up Iraqi oil to stave off crisis Buy now. Own later. Is this odd or what?
posted by Postroad at 7:43 AM PST - 14 comments

Whither Sarsi? How come it's so dang hard to find Web sites on my favorite soft drink from the Phillipines, the "sarsaparilla from Manila"? Why does the bottling concern say so very, very little about the delectable syrup with the "distinctive Filipino taste."? It has its partisans (none so fervent as this fellow) and its detractors, but nary an official site. What gives?
posted by adamgreenfield at 2:03 AM PST - 18 comments

Kaliningrad is the name of the little dot between Poland and Lithuania which lights up when you select "Russia" in the Axis Applet. It turns out to be a Special Economic Zone entirely surrounded by newly-minted EU members.

But before it was gobbled up by Russia in the wake of World War II, it was named Konigsberg. Founded in 1255 by Ottocar II (Not related to the Ottokars of Syldavia) of Bohemia, Konigsberg was the inspiration for the problem of the 7 Bridges and the name of two famous warships.
posted by hob at 10:33 PM PST - 24 comments

"Exploring The Waste Land" is one of those sites that defines for me what the Internet should be. It utilizes the medium of the webpage to produce a result - an incredibly useful annotation of T. S. Eliot's masterpiece The Waste Land - that wouldn't work well at all on the printed page. [more inside]
posted by UKnowForKids at 6:56 PM PST - 35 comments

China is drying up and blowing to California. Right now, tonight. Sorry, no 2008 Beijing Olympics, east Asia n'exist plus. Here's satellite pix of some of the 20 Chinese megastorms that have already occurred this baby century from NASA and NOAA and NASA again and a Google search returning zillions of other links, for fellow regressives who wouldn't ordinarily hang out at CommonDreams.org. (initial link from robotwisdom)
posted by jfuller at 3:53 PM PST - 21 comments

From one of the most underrated performers on the 1960's came one of the most mysterious records of all time, which inspired not only a movie but an answer record from none other than Bob Dylan. Greil Marcus devotes a chunk of a book(ostensibly about Dylan) to "Ode," where he makes connections between it and Bonnie & Clyde, released around the same time. Someone once said that "Ode To Billy Joe" sounded ancient the day it came out and that may be some part of it's appeal. I remeber hearing the song on oldies stations as a kid and even then being drawn into the mystery of it. I listened to it as I typed this post and I'm still plumbing it's depths today.
posted by jonmc at 3:46 PM PST - 38 comments

The Battle of Blair Mountain. Do you know the origin of the phrase "Redneck? In 1921, in West Virginia, after brutally corrupt regional law had employed thug tactics including false imprisonment, seizure of property, and murder (or simply "disappearance") upon the local mine workers to discourage labour Unions from forming, an army of nearly 13,000 workers took to the streets, meeting up with the forces of the murderous sherrif at an area known as Blair Mountain. [More Inside]
posted by jonson at 2:49 PM PST - 19 comments

Schroedinger's Lunchbox Quantom physics on an empty stomach is probably a mistake.
posted by konolia at 1:41 PM PST - 16 comments

A 32,000 year old etching on an ivory mammoth tusk is linked to the constellation Orion which may have been used as a primitive "pregnancy calendar" designed to estimate when a pregnant woman will give birth. The oldest known drawing of a star pattern, it was created by the mysterious Aurignacian people about whom we know next to nothing save that they moved into Europe from the east supplanting the indigenous Neanderthals.
posted by stbalbach at 11:09 AM PST - 17 comments

Today's Big Championship -- Oh...was there some game or something in San Diego.
posted by fpatrick at 10:19 AM PST - 17 comments

Why we are all Venetians now Witold Rybczynski talks about the changing functions of cities, urban planning and reuse, and the tourism industry where "the urban experience has become a new product of cities."
posted by kliuless at 9:28 AM PST - 12 comments

Some of them look like the spawn of Devil; others, however, resemble fruit-shaped fridge magnets or a beautiful jewel from Ancient Egypt, and some are so bizarre they simply defy any description. You can also think of them as natural Rorschach inkblots (consider this, this, this and this) or even Moore/Gibbons' Rorschach (compare). Those are some of Poul Beckmann's 128 hi-res, magnified, close-up studio pics of beetles, complete with binomial nomenclature and the critters' origins. via Clifford Pickover's weirdlog, RealityCarnival
posted by 111 at 12:43 AM PST - 24 comments

Museum-Security is a community site for museum professionals I recently stumbled across. I post because museums always struck me as pristine temples, and the site's matter of fact discussions and lists of property theft presented a dose of fascinating reality to an underbelly I'd never considered.
posted by rudyfink at 12:29 AM PST - 11 comments

Mickey Mouse attempts suicide and fights the Nazis. Minnie Mouse goes wild at National Lampoon, while Donald Duck has a drug problem. Read about a 1970s porn film, a series of underground comics, the missing black centaur in Fantasia, and all the other cultural history that Disney doesn't want you to see.
posted by jonp72 at 11:12 PM PST - 26 comments

"Documenting the orgasm": An interview with Annie Sprinkle : "I have a vision for the future where all the necessary sex education will be available for everyone; there will be no more need for abortion, no more sexually transmitted diseases. No one will ever go hungry for sex because there will be sex kitchens all over town serving sex instead of soup."
posted by troutfishing at 10:42 PM PST - 30 comments

The Sun is Shining in the Sky. Music video as advertising, to great effect.
posted by the fire you left me at 6:50 PM PST - 41 comments

The Hollywood Walk of Fame gives Suzanne Somers (of "Three's Company" and ThighMaster fame) her own star. Did you know that there's a fee to get a star? $15,000 is the going price of being having a star, evidently.
posted by msacheson at 6:08 PM PST - 14 comments

I knew it! Norway, Cameroon and Laos are in sinister cahoots! [Java, more from the creator]
posted by Pretty_Generic at 4:40 PM PST - 10 comments

Nike Shox NZ: "And he's off like a bull with gas." [Quick Time video]
posted by hama7 at 3:33 PM PST - 35 comments

Back in the good old days, before The Privacy - Nightmare,
before the deep thinkers went missing in action, before The Permissions Crisis, before the Team Leaders took over with their earth-gobbling death machines and our consciences were drugged into submission, Nigerian security chiefs offered their German counterparts sage advice on combating black magic. And nobody ever spied on the birds!

Except for the Conservative Midwest, where people had other interests, Americans spent their spare time happily perusing ECHO - The EPA's Enforcement and Compliance History Online, freely offering their comments on federal regulations at Regulations.gov, and reading stimulating independent content like The Talking Blogroll Blues, ... [more inside]
posted by sheauga at 2:43 PM PST - 8 comments

Everybody Loves Potato Chips! But not everyone is a fan of your nationally available tripe; for the true connoisseur, regional "estate" chips are where it's at. From the delicious, slightly vinegary "Utz Carolina Style Barbecue", to the St. Louis hot sauce flavored "Old Vienna Red Hot Riplets"; from the straightforward pleasures of Tim's Cascade Style Cracked Peppercorn to the more exotic temptations of Route 11's Mama Zuma's Revenge, these "micro-fryeries" will never threaten Frito Lay for America's spare change, but for those lucky enough to travel the U.S., they are a welcome taste of local flavor. The truly tempted can scratch that itch via the miracle of e-commerce, but don't expect them to get to your house in time for the Superbowl. Any other favorites out there to keep an eye out for?
posted by jonson at 1:49 PM PST - 37 comments

Love or fight is a little animation by Boris Hoppek, and while visiting, don't miss his bimbo sculptures. Then, take a quick spin over to Noodle Town to meet the residents. And if you haven't yet overdosed on cute, visit the 10 second flash animations at itching hands...these quirky little primitives and stick figures seem to be quite the rage among illustrators.
posted by madamjujujive at 1:47 PM PST - 5 comments

Were from the UN and we're here to help! Question: If you're a UN Weapons Inspector and a man jumps into your vehicle screaming "Save me! Save me!" clutching notebooks to his chest what do you do? The answer is simple, you turn him over to the Iraqi authorities who now claim to have "no information on the incident." This ought to foster more cooperation from Iraqi scientists...good work Blix and Co.
posted by RevGreg at 12:54 PM PST - 54 comments

Microsoft = Megatarget. A new worm is rapidly spreading across the Internet, functioning like a massive DDOS attack and crippling ISPs in South Korea. It's host? Microsoft SQL server. (Get yor fix on, then reboot!) What impact will it have over here, I wonder...
posted by insomnia_lj at 11:42 AM PST - 63 comments

O wad some Power the giftie gie us -To see oursels as ithers see us! Put on your Sporrans and join me for a wee dram and a bite of Haggis, as Scotland celebrates its national bard ,William Mcgonagal. Oops , i mean Robert Burns.
posted by sgt.serenity at 11:34 AM PST - 16 comments

"My daughter can't be bulimic. I don't diet. We don't talk about calories or fat or weight loss. Much of our family life centres around food. Look at my job as a restaurant critic!" Joanne Kates is the restaurant critic for the Globe and Mail; her daughter suffered from anorexia. Today, the Globe published their story in their own words.
posted by mcwetboy at 11:10 AM PST - 8 comments

Online SF Short Fiction. It's good and it's free. Sci-Fiction is the biggest name in the online field, publishing many big name authors (This week's story is by Octavia E. Butler for instance) and winning several awards. (Also check out Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction while you're there). But there are more sources for good online SF: The Infinite Matrix, Strange Horizons and Infinity Plus (reprints) for instance. And let's not forget that all the print magazines have put their Nebula nominees online (though Analog's stories are coming up as 404s). Let the reading commence!
posted by rainking at 11:06 AM PST - 7 comments

Thanks to global warming we are in deep shit. Biologist Gerry Kuzyk was hiking with his wife in the remote reaches of the Yukon when he caught the putrid scent of caribou dung wafting through the chill air. Then he saw it -- the biggest pile of animal droppings he