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May 31
According to Stanley Fish
, "Students can't write clean English sentences because they are not being taught what sentences are." The solution: make them invent their own language.
After a generation that privileged content to the exclusion of form, is the pendulum swinging back the other way?
posted by myl at 4:30 PM PST - 134 comments
WSJ - "FedEx's newfound enthusiasm for a frontline role
in the war on terror shows how the relationship between business and
government has changed in the past few years. In some cases, these changes are blurring the division between private commerce and public law enforcement."
"FedEx... has granted customs inspectors access to the company's database of international shipments, which includes the name and address of a shipper, the package's origin and its final destination. The databases also include credit-card information and other payment details that the government is not entitled to solicit outside of a criminal investigation. "Our guys just love it," says one senior customs official overseeing inspections at international courier companies." [
UPS, nor even the
USPS will provide this much assistance to the DHS without a warrant.]
"Two years ago, after intense lobbying by
FedEx of the Tennessee state legislature, the company was permitted to create a 10-man,
state-recognized police force. FedEx police wear plain clothes and can investigate all types of crimes, request search warrants and make arrests on FedEx property."
posted by pwb503 at 3:40 PM PST - 39 comments
A game of double bluff
The UK and EU are keeping the poorer nations exactly where they want them: beholden to their patrons. (George Monbiot in the Guardian.) See also
Oxfam's critique of the Doha round of
WTO talks.
posted by adamvasco at 3:10 PM PST - 3 comments
Clear Channel launches pirate radio station. Though the DJ braodcast his desire to see the defeat of corporate radio, WOXY, whose signal was bled into by this two-faced entity, discovered that the IP for the station's domain pointed to Clear Channel Communications.
Clear Channel even went so far as to ask for
donations.
posted by Pinwheel at 10:35 AM PST - 40 comments
Paul Krugman and Daniel Okrent get into a pissing match.
In his
final column as New York Times ombudsman, Okrent stated that Krugman, the New York Times columnist, "has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults." The paper gave the two of them some webspace to discuss the matter. The
result is catty and entertaining, but the tone is certainly more vicious than I'd expected. They really don't seem to like each other very much.
posted by Tin Man at 9:43 AM PST - 70 comments
Last Saturday afternoon, protesters used Nashville's public
Musica statue (which features nine bronze nude dancing figures) as the
backdrop for a
protest against such disparate issues as abortion, strip clubs, and homosexuality. Calling themselves the
Pure Life Revolution, the group describes itself as "a prayer and repentance movement on behalf of purity, justice, righteousness. We are a moral outcry for society." [MI]
posted by ChrisTN at 7:17 AM PST - 34 comments
May 30
RIP
Oscar Brown Jr. Truly one of the greats, a legendary singer, songwriter, playwright, poet and civil rights activist, the world of jazz has lost a major member of the family.
posted by bluedaniel at 10:38 PM PST - 7 comments
We kept changing the name. First it was the Total Quintessence Stomach Pumpers. Then the Temporal Worth High Steppers. Then The Motherfucker Creek Babyrapers. That was just a joke name. He was Rinky-Dink Steve the Tin Horn and I was Fast Lightning Cumquat. He was Teddy Boy Forever and I was Wild Blue Yonder. It kept changing names. Then it was the Total Modal Rounders. Then when we were stoned on pot and someone else, Steve Close maybe, said Holy Modal Rounders by mistake. We kept putting out different names and wait until someone starts calling us that then. When we got to Holy Modal Rounders, everyone decided by accumulation that we were the Holy Modal Rounders. That's the practical way to get named.The Story Of The Holy Modal Rounders. In 1965, they used the psychedelic in a lyric and channeled Charlie Poole. From 1999, Green Man reviews their
Too Much Fun!--&
Ink 19's take as well. From No Depression comes
Bohemian Rhapsody and from Richie Unterberger here's
an interview with Peter Stampfel and the liner notes he wrote for the CD re-issue of cult classic
The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders. In a related bonus, here you can find
Charlie Poole singing
Moving Day, a great song which I first heard by the Rounders.
posted by y2karl at 9:16 PM PST - 19 comments
Strand's roving gaze
"My work grew out of a response, first, to trying to understand the new developments in painting; second, a desire to express certain feelings I had about New York where I lived; third...I wanted to see if I could photograph people without their being aware of the camera."
Three Roads Taken: The
Photographs of
Paul Strand.
more inside.
posted by matteo at 11:57 AM PST - 5 comments
An interesting interview
with
Varg Vikernes. Vikernes, as you may recall, is currently imprisoned for the 1993 murder of Øystein Aarseth (aka Euronymous), with whom he collaborated as bassist on Mayhem's incredible
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (cheesy vocals notwithstanding). It is also widely believed that he was responsible for the burning of
Norway's first stave church, which has since been
rebuilt. It is arguable whether Vikernes is most notable for the murder, the arson, his band
Burzum, his dedication to
Ásatrú, or perhaps his fanatical racism. While I find many of his opinions to be reprehensible, his obvious intelligence and the strength of his convictions make him a fascinating, if frequently repugnant, person.
The story of Vikernes and the
black metal scene he helped spawn is chronicled in
Lords of Chaos, which is a phenomenal read and is recommended even to those who are not interested in the music it focuses on.
posted by baphomet at 11:37 AM PST - 55 comments
If you're not Cheney's friend, be careful what you sell overseas
- While residing in Poland, British citizen Ali Manzarpour was arrested for the export of a
Berkut 360, a small kit plane manufactured in the United States, to Iran. The issues surrounding this application of American law overseas on foreign nationals notwithstanding, the US Department of Justice Attorney's office could not explain what sensitive technologies were in the plane, which could motivate the arrest. Coincidentally, Halliburton's use of a Cayman Islands subsidiary to
trade with Iran without restrictions remains
unresolved, and, with the help of the Department of State, the United States remains the
largest arms dealer in the world.
posted by AlexReynolds at 10:22 AM PST - 14 comments
Red State/Blue state France.
Les résultats département par département. Remarkable that the U.S. isn't the only country that's split down the geographic middle. No translation, but the picture speaks for itself.
posted by jfuller at 7:38 AM PST - 22 comments
"I am
Colonel Tom C. McKenney, You must know how to reach
Bobby Garwood. I directed an official mission to assassinate him behind enemy lines, because I believed what
they told me. Would you tell him that I will crawl on my hands and knees to beg his forgiveness?"
posted by drakepool at 7:35 AM PST - 22 comments
Capitalism and other kids stuff
Four UK based socialists produced this hour long documentary in which some of the problems of capitalism are presented in a simplified, kindergarten model. Tought provoking, incomplete but NOT derailing into bipartisan hate for a change ..an hour well spent IMHO.
You can also DL it with
Bittorrent program.. a good reason to install it (5 minutes ) and witness how a distributed cooperative program such as Bittorrent can do wonders.
posted by elpapacito at 7:02 AM PST - 25 comments
Sensacell
Modular Sensor Surface. Make sure to check out the Quicktime movie. You can turn your entire home into the Michael Jackson "Billie Jean" video!
posted by ColdChef at 6:38 AM PST - 7 comments
Rummage Through The Crevices
(Musical Curiosities, Obscurities and other Unearthed Treasures) is "a weekly community radio segment (Friday mornings, 2SER-FM, Sydney, Australia) devoted to offbeat and outsider music, less travelled paths of global pop, interesting re-issued treasures, music-sharing activists, notable and unusual online mp3 repositories, etc. This webloggy thing is its online companion."
posted by taz at 5:48 AM PST - 5 comments
Ultra scary puppets sing hymns of love
Via Boing Boing, the scariest tv show that I have ever seen in my life. The poor puppetry, the references to God, the organ sound it all comes together to burn into your brain. Children subjected to this will remember it forever. I think I may even have cold sweats about it in the night.
Its long but worth it. (Quicktime movie)
posted by ClanvidHorse at 2:59 AM PST - 56 comments
Soldiers of Christ
: "Have you ever switched your toothpaste brand, just for the fun of it?" Pastor Ted asks. Admit it, he insists. All the way home, you felt a "secret little thrill," as excited questions ran through your mind: "Will it make my teeth whiter? My breath fresher?" In this sharp article from Harpers Magazine,
Pastor Ted Haggard, head of
New Life Church and the
World Prayer Team, describes the delirious thrill of deciding upon which brand of worship is right for you. We also meet some of the members of his flock, including one lady with big, brown eyes, eyes with which she claims to have seen "gay sex demons." (A belief
more common than you might think.)
Who is this Pastor Ted, who speaks with the White House weekly? He writes books about "free market theology," he oversees the
World Prayer Center, and as head of the
National Association of Evangelicals, he leads the most powerful religious lobbying group in the United States.
posted by JHarris at 2:39 AM PST - 36 comments
Guerilla Girls...
behaving badly? I dont know whether this is the kind of thing that happens with any kind of group as time passes. All I know is that people are very upset and sad.
posted by semmi at 12:00 AM PST - 34 comments
May 29
Exotic Spotter
"The beauty of an exotic is felt most when they are spotted on the streets, side-by-side with regular cars. . .Unfortunately, spotting an exotic is a rare occurrence. That's why this site brings together hundreds of exotic sightings from all over the world."
[via mediareport posting on metachat]
posted by MLIS at 7:24 PM PST - 46 comments
Poetry magazines.
This online resource has material from numerous poetry magazines published in the UK. There are lots of interesting poems available through a uniform interface. Also present are editorials and illustrations. Well worth a look.
posted by mokey at 2:02 PM PST - 6 comments
Chutney Music
:"For these people, Chutney was more than just
music (
.asf files), it was their life, it was their culture. For a people twice removed from their native land, Chutney was their connection to the traditions they might have otherwise never known." [
via]
posted by dhruva at 2:40 AM PST - 6 comments
Cool Keys Radio.
A true labor of electric piano love that will undoubtedly sate the taste of even the most ardent lover of the instrument.
posted by melissa may at 2:28 AM PST - 6 comments
May 28
RIP Eddie Albert.
As Mr. Kimball might have said, he was an
actor . Well, not really an actor, but a war hero. He was awarded a Bronze star...well, it wasn't really bronze, more like a...anyway, for his efforts at
Tarawa. But maybe he was more of an
environmentalist...oh, anyway, dig into some
hotscakes and remember Mr. Douglas.
posted by Oriole Adams at 1:34 PM PST - 20 comments
Think you're in full control of your computer?
Think again.
Intel has just quietly added one of the necessary components of Microsoft's (and the TCG/TCPA's)
DRM
technology, Palladium, to the PC platform. Some say this is a move against
rampant Chinese software piracy,
others think it's a power grab by the
content producers. Left unchecked, content and software producers will
have the final say in how you use your computer,
fair use be damned.
posted by id at 1:27 PM PST - 55 comments
Darknet Blog
- Interesting articles about what is shaping technology today, and how the industry is playing nice with the government to legislate drm into our lives.
posted by sourbrew at 12:01 PM PST - 4 comments
Dirty goings-on in the magic kingdom. (QuickTime)
Amateur movies shot by Disney's professional furries
in Disneyworld show what happens on the grounds while Mickey isn't looking.
"...Many of the videos, I found out, were created for unofficial annual character banquets, where screening funny skits is part of a tradition of subtle acts of subversion among the members of Disneys undercompensated and overregulated workforce."
Probably sorta safe for work, but don't show it to Pooh aficionados.
[via Radar magazine via defamer]
posted by Silky Slim at 9:28 AM PST - 29 comments
How do you say "aunt"?
There was a
spirited thread a couple of years ago on the pop/soda/Coke division in our nation, but this survey is on the actual pronunciation of words. Ant? Ahnt? Aint? (My father used to say "bum" for "bomb" and "my-o-naiz" for "mayonnaise," and it drove me nuts. I also wondered why I didn't say it the same way.)
posted by ancientgower at 5:12 AM PST - 73 comments
The Crazy Frog / Axel F Song
(previously mentioned on the
Blue) is about to make history by being the first ringtone / pop music crossover to successfully invade the British charts. How successful? A little band named
Coldplay also have a new single out; as it stands,
Crazy Frog is outselling their effort by a factor of 4 to 1.
People, this is serious. Prepare for some major league irritation to descend upon us. The success of this single will only spawn a legion of imitators, and that can only lead to the dark side. As
Malcolm McLaren, ex Sex Pistols manager puts it: "Listen to this song and you can hear the death knell of the traditional music industry."
posted by LondonYank at 2:19 AM PST - 40 comments
Lust Films
is like a witty indie movie with full-on sex -- the hardcore video equivalent to Nerve, Fleshbot, and Sex in the City. Porn plots have never been so...watchable! Extremely NSFW, especially the trailers.
posted by NickDouglas at 1:07 AM PST - 33 comments
Scattered Leaves
In the early decades of the 20th century, a Cleveland book collector named
Otto Ege removed the pages from 50 medieval manuscript books, divided the pages among 40 boxes, and sold the boxes around the world. Now the University of Saskatchewan
plans to digitally
remake the book.
posted by dhruva at 12:18 AM PST - 32 comments
May 27
Orson Scott Card
on
The Riots of The Faithful:
So Newsweek prints an uncorroborated allegation about American interrogators flushing Qurans down the toilet in order to get fanatical Muslim prisoners to talk, and there's rioting and death all over the Muslim world. There are several lessons to be learned from this incident, some trivial, some quite important...
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:28 PM PST - 103 comments
You got owned
... an entertaining study of life's little mishaps on video. Some you've seen, some you may not have. (wmv)
posted by crunchland at 5:18 PM PST - 33 comments
The mystery of the beeping house is haunting me. I've been following this thread on the "General Chit Chat" section of the TiVo Community for two weeks now and no one has been able to figure out WHAT is beeping in this
guy's house. We have the some of the greatest minds on the internet offering theories and so far nothing has panned out. He's pulled the power on the place. He's checked every smoke and CO2 detector... all to no avail. And this dude's house has been beeping every minute, every day, for ONE YEAR. His neighborhood had a blackout, and the beep persisted.
ONE YEAR!
It's gotten so absurd that at least 8 of the people in the discussion are planning to GO to the dude's house this weekend and annihilate the beep, once and for all. They've even bought "beep finding" equipment. They are the "beepbusters."
posted by neilkod at 4:03 PM PST - 58 comments
Two-thirds agreement, friend or foe?
Condoleezza Rice had an informal interview with an NPR reporter this week. During the talk the interviewer brought up U.S. pop culture. He stated that some of the reasons why Bin Laden attacked the U.S. was because of its (our) Pornographic culture, children being out of control, women having too much power. Condi seemed to only protest the complaint of women having too much power. What does she believe in? The way the question was responded to makes me unsettled more about this administration, as impossible as I thought this was possible. The portion is 3:35 minutes in.
posted by MrLint at 3:35 PM PST - 17 comments
Window Standpoint.
If you've ever wondered what international sound artists see and hear when they're at home, staring out of their pokey apartment windows and watching the world go by, then this is the site for you.
posted by nylon at 2:03 PM PST - 7 comments
(As any Mets geek might say when talking to Mike & the Mad Dog: First time [MeFi] poster, long time reader)Underestimating the Fog...No, not crochety ol'
McNamara's take on the situation in
Iraq. Rather, it's an astonishing (if only partial)
recanting [.pdf] by the patron saint of
statheads,
seamheads, and
rotogeeks everywhere,
Bill James. Like his namesake, James is a
radical empiricist, the Jedi master who defined
sabermetrics (his coinage) as "the search for
objective knowledge about
baseball."
Over the past several decades, James' influence has been enormous. After
Michael Lewis famously detailed the saber-success of Billy Beane's Oakland A's, Sabermetric-leaning analysts have made their way into the scouting ranks and GM's offices of a
growing number of major league ballclubs. From the halls of
academia [.pdf] to
newspapers and
Cable personalities, even the
NFL and
NBA are on board!
posted by ericbop at 10:01 AM PST - 22 comments
"And the 'Soldier Kicking Asshat of the Month' award goes to..."
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R - San Diego), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who stripped a bipartisan-approved amendment out of the defense budget which would have given America's 1.1 million reservists the ability to pay $75 a month / $233 per family for healthcare insurance. Hunter claimed that the extra cost would blow the DoD's budget. The cost? About $770 million a year over five years... approximately .0018% of the yearly defense budget, or about 2/3rds the cost of a single stealth bomber.
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:41 AM PST - 31 comments
Your mother was right.
You can go blind from doing that. Federal health officials are examining rare reports of blindness among some men using the impotence drugs
Viagra and Cialis. Since it doesn't actually do anything,
Enzyte should still be safe.
posted by hipnerd at 8:33 AM PST - 20 comments
The U.S. removes the nuclear brakes
Under the cloak of secrecy imparted by use of military code names, the American administration has been taking a big - and dangerous - step that will lead to the transformation of the nuclear bomb into a legitimate weapon for waging war.
Ever since the terror attack of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has gradually done away with all the nuclear brakes that characterized American policy during the Cold War. No longer are nuclear bombs considered "the weapon of last resort." No longer is the nuclear bomb the ultimate means of deterrence against nuclear powers, which the United States would never be the first to employ.
In the era of a single, ruthless superpower, whose leadership intends to shape the world according to its own forceful world view, nuclear weapons have become a attractive instrument for waging wars, even against enemies that do not possess nuclear arms.
posted by mk1gti at 7:25 AM PST - 96 comments
AskGod.com
Forget Jeeves. For $25 a month, you can soon call a googling "angel" from your mobile phone with
questions. According to the
press release (pdf): "Soon, with the coming of Ask God, the prayers of all the data-starved will be answered
and the prophecy of information on-demand will be fulfilled." In a country caught in the grips of religious mania, is this smart marketing or tone deaf? And with the web increasingly on our phones already, who's going to pay for this?
posted by CunningLinguist at 4:45 AM PST - 87 comments
May 26
Micromovie awards 2005 -
the mission: produce a 90-second movie filmed entirely on a mobile phone (dubbing of better quality audio permitted). Dozens of films are available here for viewing.
Sponsored, or course, by a major phone manufacturer. Don't let that distract you from the cute little films, though)
posted by Jimbob at 7:31 PM PST - 3 comments
I just want to spread the immense joy of
Winamp TV, which is a route to all kinds of Filipino servers playing all your favourite copyrighted television material commercial-free 24/7 but it's OK because I'm not linking to those servers directly no sir.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 3:27 PM PST - 87 comments
Despite efforts to stop
phishing and
pharming, they have continued to become more pervasive. While some
tools,
organizations and
lawmakers are helping combat the problem, they have done little to curb these activities. Cellphones, Yahoo IM and AIM were all recently hit by new types of attacks. The AIM attack was more sophisticated than previous versions and combined phishing with a worm that installed software that allows the attacker to potentially take over the comprimised machine. To complicate problems further, a vast majority of these scams take place in locations that make it difficult if not impossible to prosecute the operators.
Because of this, I was delighted to read about
hackers that are defacing phishing sites. While this is not legal either, it was some what satisfying to find out these asshats were getting a taste of there own medicine. Do any of you think a penny should be wasted persuing these hackers? If not, what are the legal implications in allowing hackers to attack some sites and not others?
posted by Mr_Zero at 12:06 PM PST - 17 comments
MLB's All Porn Mustache Team
Cue: Funky bassline and Wa-Wa guitar.
Is it just me or does Jeff Kent's 'stache (bottom of the page in the honorable mentions section) look like more peach fuzz than manly man style?
Who did they miss?
posted by fenriq at 10:07 AM PST - 30 comments
Dracula Blogged:
Bram Stoker's vampire novel, published by its own calendar. According to the site description:
Individual pieces of the novel will appear on the calendar dates indicated in the text, starting with Jonathan Harker's May 3rd Bistriz journal entry, and finishing up with November 6 and the final Note.
Be sure to check the comments, which are full of interesting tidbits about the novel, Stoker, Transylvania and historical accuracy (or innacuracy, as the case may be).
posted by LeeJay at 12:04 AM PST - 14 comments
May 25
Nature starts a weblog about the flu pandemic.
Now the virus is in coastal cities on both sides of South America. It hit Europe two weeks ago, ripping through Paris in just 11 days. In the French capital alone, there were 2.5 million cases and 50,000 dead. That's par for the course infection rate 25% and mortality 2%, similar to the 1918 pandemic. Extrapolate these numbers, and we're going to have o 
