:: Monday, September 30, 2002 ::

New invention may make bikes faster.
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Mr. Clothespins, that's his name! That name again is Mr. Clothespins!
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The ozone hole split in two, and one of the halves is on the move.
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Hypocracy in Motion: Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein germs for warfare when he worked under Reagan. Now his old friends "bother the dickens" out of him. Its the oil, stupid. Spare us the phony, old-fashioned, gosh-darned Ned Flandersisms, Don... we've got your number.
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Trusssst usssss. IBM and Microsoft reject MySQL. Probably the greatest endorsement an open-source software movement can garner. Now only if Oracle would badmouth them, you'd know they're really a threat.
"With open-source, you're not going to get a platform that's as reliable or scalable or as secure as what you're going to get with a leading vendor," Tullis said.
Reliable? Microsoft??? Secure? IBM?? Give 'em hell MySQL.
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For the typeface-obsessed, Typeface Classification.
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It's been 30 years since Ziggy Stardust came down and joined us. Stop by and thank him.
"[Ziggy] .... was definitely a reaction to late '60s seriousness, and the real murky quality that rock was falling into. I think a bunch of us adopted the opposite stance. I remember at the time saying that rock must prostitute itself. And I'll stand by that.
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Disturbing homemade puppet movies at Ingredient X.
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Genndy Tartakovsky: The man behind Samurai Jack

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What's an Irish Traveller? What's Shelta?
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[Chronic Value Menu] Colonel Sanders must be rolling in his grave... rolling fat blunts that is!! Try going to a KFC drive-thru, and ordering some *ahem* extra biscuits wink, wink.
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The producers of the unbelievably cruel bumfights.com got arrested on felony charges.
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This page contains a Magician's Oath. I just took it.
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In 1958 the government speculated in a now-published document about how to run things effectively after a nuclear apocalypse.
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Paper plane purists: This is officially the best paper plane you can make (according to the institute of Physics) Yo to New Things.
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Bugsy Siegel, sociopath.
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Peru Congressman wants a gun duel. There are a few fascinating things in this very short article.
The satisfaction-demanding Eittel Ramos wants it on a beach. What a perfect place for the ultimate mano-a-mano showdown! I can almost hear the minor-keyed, reverb-drenched surf guitar soundtrack as they pace it off... All this because legislator David Waisman (David Waisman??? Peruvian gun dueler??? Gee, It just doesn't sound right.) called him a "coward". Well, Eittel, my friend, your deadly invitation alone proves that you're no stinkin' coward. Also, dig this snippet: "It is unclear if duels are legal in Peru." To whom is it unclear? The Annanova quirkies editor (excellent job title), or the entire legislative body of Peru, one of whom is going to get fired upon... in a duel... on a beach. All in all, a supurb story. I'm hungry for more.
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The Weekly Standard comes out against the 'anti-war left' in "The Fog of Peace"! The Onion polls the public on the same topic! Guess which one is the joke!
"It's clear to me that nothing short of war will stop Iraq from using its weapons."
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Wives, Waifs, and Wontons: Philadelphia Pictorials in the early 19th century.
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Robot finds another door in the great pyramid.
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Sen Robt. Byrd (D, WV): Bush's war plans are a cover-up.
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The U.S. reduced its terror alert level to 'Yellow' today. You can all come out of your basements, I think. I'm a bit confused... Does that mean that Air Marshals can stop beating up brown-skinned people on planes? Or does it mean we can focus more attention on a Bush regime oil war? Or did they lower it because they just raised it two weeks ago, and nothing happened? If they offer no proof to support the validity of their conclusions, shouldn't it be taken offline?
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The Beach Boys' Smile Sessions
"Fire" is the most notorious of this suite (perhaps more for the fire hats given to the session musicians than the actual music), and if Wilson could ever be said to have written acid music, this was it-- siren-like strings and a relentless, predatory bass-led rhythm.
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Scientists have discovered a crystal that remembers sounds.
Lithium niobate seems to store acoustic energy temporarily, rather like a compressed spring stores mechanical energy.
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Yahoo jumps into the video game market with a fee-based download games service.
Unfortunately, their prices are no better than Blockbusters ($4.95 for 3 days). No mention yet of the service on their games site.
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[When pigs fly!] (cheap shot, but I couldnt resist) High Altitude Rambos
"One of the marshals pulled a gun and brandished it at the passengers. The marshals loudly demanded that all passengers remain in their seats, and remain still. They barked a series of orders. No one should stand for any reason. Arms and legs should not extend into the aisles. No one should try to visit the restroom. The message could not have been clearer: anyone who disobeyed the marshals was in danger of being shot."
"There were no terrorists on board. There was no threat of any kind. When the plane landed about half an hour later, Mr. Feuer was taken into custody. And then, shockingly, so was Dr. Rajcoomar. The air marshals grabbed the doctor from behind, handcuffed him and, for no good reason that anyone has been able to give, hauled him to an airport police station where he was thrown into a filthy cell."
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92-year-old woman gets 30-year mortgage
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More big brother bullshit courtesy of DC traffic enforcement. A network of radar cameras is capable of automatically catching you 'speed on green' through intersections. I've heard of them being used for red-light runners, but never for copless speeding tickets.
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Cap'n Bligh's coconut/cup/bowl inscribed with "The cup I eat my miserable allowance out of", goes on the block at Christies. Descendents of his mutineers, Fletcher Christian being the most well-known, still live on Pitcairn Island.
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Enjoy: Nirvana's "You Know You're Right". Thanks, Metafilter
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[Snapshots from the end of democracy] Texas police are asking stores to take fingerprints of all customers who pay by check under the auspices of a plan to reduce fraud.
The systems range from an inkless pad in which the chemical easily rubs off the skin, to an electronic sensor that compares a customer's print to a pre-scanned fingerprint, Crouch said. Another system involves a clear chemical that leaves a blue imprint when pressed onto a chemical-sensitive sticker that is usually placed onto the back of a check.
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A movie-by-movie history of the Godzilla suit, and the man inside the suit, Haru Nakijima.
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The German justice minister's comparison of President Bush to Adolf Hitler was "outrageous and inexplicable," an angry White House said yesterday. It was also spot-on accurate.
The article is titled 'Bush-Hitler comparison raises furor'. Get it? At least the German Justice Minister was actually elected to his position.
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This proves it- Chicago fans are worse than Philly's. Two shirtless guys (father and son) jumped on to the field at Comiskey Park and pummelled the first base coach (!)
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Want to know a way to fret a C for any one of 392 moods? Try the online guitar chord dictionary.
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Battle of the Planets!
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The American Bicycle Museum has tons of great pictures, including the 1960 Bowden Spaceliner, and the Schwinn Krates. Their collection is curiously missing the infamous bobo-ride, the Huffy Paydirt(boys)/Pink Thunder(girls), though...
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Silohome: "The most unique and secure real estate in the world." I don't know about that, but its certainly less aestetically intrusive than Aircraft Home (kudos for the "I-don't-give-a-shit-what-it-looks-like,-just-post-the-goddam-picture" marketing approach to this page. See what I'm talking about?)
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Those wacky Swedes... Northern europeans aren't known for their sense of humor, so this must be for real. A Swedish democrat wants porn broadcast all day on Saturdays to stimulate the populus into a freak-on that'll boost their falling population, and thus their economy.
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[For those about to rock] Everyone hates "Band Guy with a New Demo". A Brazilian rocker took it a step further by holding a DJ hostage at gunpoint until he got some radio play. I wonder if he danced around and did the 'wait wait wait, dude... listen to this part!' routine when it finally got played. He're's the gunman/rocker's site.
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[Censorship's ugly entrails] This doc contains the watchwords for an online filtering scheme, organized for your convenience into handy categories of no-no. Some of the inclusions are absurd: Druid? Funnel? Veda? These people are scary. Thanks, Bifurcated Rivets!
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Mutation gives sheep beautiful buttocks. All we need to do is to refine and package this fortunate tidbit of genetic technology, and the world will be full of some fine ass.
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Brain probe triggers out-of-body experiences
Out-of-body experiences can be induced by stimulating a part of the brain called the right angular gyrus, Swiss researchers have discovered. They think a dysfunction in this region could account for the experience of leaving and floating above the body reported by some surgical and psychiatric patients.
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From McSweeneys, 'The Best Jokes are Dangerous, an Interview with Kurt Vonnegut': Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
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[Bubblegum Marketing 101] A music critic from Pitchforkmedia went undercover and dishes on the music industry's use of Street Teams/eTeams (free labor of rabid teen fans) to grassroots-hype a song or album up the charts. This guy did it for the mall-punk outfit Avril Livigne.
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Love reading the stuff on the back of old postcards at flea markets? Here's one from Ocean Grove 1956 whose musings are as true today as almost 50 years ago. Someone should do an online museum of these things.
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Fugu: The world's most deadly feast.
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[God will fly down to pour the Gatorade on him] Some fantastic new stuff at the 'My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable' Get Your War On section.
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Jean Michel Basquiat
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There's a funny headline in the Washington Post that mentions the word "Science" and "Bush" in the same sentence. The implications are scary.
The Bush administration has begun a broad restructuring of the scientific advisory committees that guide federal policy in areas such as patients' rights and public health, eliminating some committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views and in other cases replacing members with handpicked choices.
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Oh man, not again. Add Ohio to the intellectual backwaters of the world. Logic-impaired senator Santorum's (R, PA) amendment to inspire debate against evolution got passed in Ohio.
That timing makes Ohio the first place for evolution opponents to use the Santorum amendment - named for its author, Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania - to bolster their argument that students should also be taught alternatives to evolution, or at least be told that such concepts exist.
Here's the sentence that gets me:
The language suggested that when teaching "controversial" scientific topics, schools should help students "understand the full range of scientific views."
So now creationism is a scientific view?
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Ah politics...Autumn is here, and the streets and airwaves are lousy with these jokers. The Republicans never fail to disappoint in their mistreatment of everyone but their big business pals, and the Democrats are no picnic either, but leave it to the cranks in the Libertarian Party for the real outermost-fringes-of-sanity hijinx.
"Since I could not say what I believed, I thought I would show what I believed ... Copeland, who won the party's nomination in the March primary, angered some Libertarian leaders earlier this year when he discussed his belief of the Druid religion in an interview with OC Weekly and had his photo taken in his Druid robes."
They almost make Ashcroft seem like a reasonable guy...
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I hope that the chiefs are counting Saddam's weapons supercomputing power into their military logistics planning. Its been almost two years since the article was written. Time for a whole lotta Playstation stockpiling, especially with the summer price cut.
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Online Banned Books page courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania
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SpaceAgePopAGoGo has a huge catalog of online album covers from the 50's and 60's. This is the source for Les Baxter covers. While you're in a vintage LP cover art appreciation mood, don't miss Jim Flora's illustration work. Mambo for Cats is my favorite, although I'm not particularly a fan of either mambos or cats.
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The Kryptos sculpture (ded. October 1990) in the CIA's courtyard (doesn't 'The CIA's Courtyard' sound like a rejected Clancey novel title?) has yet to be hacked. The last I heard, a computer scientist, Jim Gillogly nailed the first sections, but the sculptor used a shifting cypher that keeps potential crackers guessing (or more likely, brute-forcing keys). If you'd like to try it yourself, a transcription of the sculpture's code is here. It'll be tough. It was designed to be unsolvable.
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The Mozilla guys are full of furious wrath these days. If you're using a Netscape browser, browse to about:mozilla. IE users get a blue screen (what else?). From the Easter Egg database at EggHeaven. More cool eggs at the popup-ridden eeggs.com.
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Poll says Americans support the unelected Bush regime/Oil Industry war plans for Iraq.
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An excellent article on the corruption that permeates US/Mexico border patrol operations from NPR- A great source whose radio capacities are being threatened by backward fundamentalist Christian conglomerates.
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Some fantastic adaptations of vintage WWII propaganda posters to communicate a more modern message.. Thanks, memepool.
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Alex Chiu's Immortality Device . How will you look after you've used Alex's amazing device? Glad you asked, mister! You'll look like the red guy on this page.
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Take a virtual tour of the Bill Gates estate. Nice, but no batcave to speak of.
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Al Gore: Democracy is being threatened by media conglomerates.
"The FCC proposal to eliminate all of the restrictions on highly concentrated ownership of multiple news outlets is a dire threat to the survival of democracy in the United States of America," Gore said. The FCC is investigating the merit of keeping its regulations in place regarding how many television and radio stations any one individual or corporation can own in any given media market. The current limit is three. "They are not asking for comments on why the limits should be removed," Gore said, "they're asking for comments why they shouldn't be removed."
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Subliminal World: The World's Premier Web Site for the appraisal of Manipulative and Semi Subliminal Advertising
Possibly the worst web design and navigation ever committed to HTML, but some interesting scans of 'subliminal advertising', if you can get to them.
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Levi's trousers protect your testicles. The most blog-ready headline I've seen in months.
The trousers will be introduced next year in the UK under the company's "Dockers" brand and could cost as much as £100 a pair. The phone pockets are lined with a special material, which tailors say will prevent radiation from phones reaching the skin.
I'm glad that Levi's is putting their 'tailors' to work analyzing the radio-reductive properties of their 'special materials'. Better than no one, I guess.
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Just read that the mighty Mr. T. is going to be in one of those Christian Apocolypse End Times flicks... Aw, T., Why'd you have to go out like that?
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[Me Muchacho, You Muchacha] Juan Garcia Esquivel!
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Online Stereo views, including one of the Amorphophallus Titanum, the stinkiest flower in the world.
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Alarmingly Strange Stories!
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A Year of Loss: Reexamining Civil Liberties since September 11: Another article on the Bush/Ashcroft war on the Civil Liberties of American Citizens. This one goes so far as to make recommendations (pdf).
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New VR Cigarette vending machines make you prove you're at least 18. If you're not, they bring 'your mama' into it...
If either one shows the customer is underage, the salesclerk appears on the screen and delivers a stern message: "I'm sorry, but I can't sell you smokes if you're under 18. Now go home before I call your mama."
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The airlines' privacy-invasion system, CAPPS, is months behind schedule.
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Buzz Aldrin punches moon conspiracy theorist
Detectives are investigating a complaint that retired astronaut Edwin ``Buzz'' Aldrin punched a man in the face after being asked to swear on a Bible that he'd been to the moon.
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Even more problems with Florida voting.
Gov. Jeb Bush ordered polls statewide to stay open an additional two hours to handle unhappy voters - but some refused and closed at 7 p.m. as scheduled. At one precinct, residents said poll workers refused to reopen the doors and shouted profanities at would-be voters.
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Fantastic roadsigns at 3BP.com.
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Indian man becomes famous for reciting Bollywood songs backwards. Why the hell didn't I think of that?
"I have always wanted to do things differently. I could achieve this expertise only after I had practised up to 12 hours every day for 4 years."
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Overview of Changes to Legal Rights: How the Bush/Ashcroft regime is affecting your fundamental legal rights. Courtesy of Magnetbox.
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Ground Zero Theme Park: A comment on the crass commercialism and empty flag-waving surrounding the anniversary of 9/11.
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ABC News put US Customs to the test, shipping and carrying 15 lbs. of depleted uranium across borders, and didn't get caught once. Customs is angry about having their ineptitude shown.
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Following a link on Metafilter, I found an interesting challenge on the James Randi Educational Foundation:
At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The prize is in the form of negotiable bonds held in a special investment account. The JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place. All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant.
JREF is proud that no religious/spiritual/paranormal/occult types have gotten rich yet.
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Wireless cartography: Creating visual maps of wireless networks.
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Prison Bitch Name Generator
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[Conspiracy Alert Vol IV] My man David Icke has some tales to tell. He hips us to the usual mind control, reptilian master-race, pyramid, Illuminati "truth". Why has the CIA not stopped him!? Where the hell are my tax dollars going?
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The Mystery Box... and oohhh what a mystery it is! The same genius built a miniature song playing automatic flute with fully robotic lungs and all.
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Build your own record cutting lathe on the ultracheap.
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Some can adhere objects to their bodies... Not many can defy gravity!
Sticky guy or the genuine article? Not only is Miroslaw a levitational genius... he's a damned nice guy. He's even willing to help NASA out:
Miroslaw has prepared lectures and training exercises, that he is willing to give to astronauts, that can actually help with the effects felt after staying in space for a longer time. "With the right mind body attitude anyone can feel better," Miroslaw says. He thinks that this could save NASA millions of dollars, not to mention what this could do the health of the astronauts
Miroslaw's pictures page is essential.
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Tijuana Bibles: The ancestors of Mad Magazine. Our pal Quinn has scanned in a few dozen in his fantastic online collection.
Tijuana Bibles were pornographic tracts popular in America before the advent of mass-market full-color glossy wank-fodder such as Playboy. A typical bible consisted of eight stapled comic-strip frames portraying characters and celebrities (eg. John Dillinger, Popeye, Disney characters) in wildly sodomistic situations. Many could be considered grossly racist, sexist, and otherwise wholly "politically incorrect." Browser discretion is advised.
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Another whale knocked a fisherman off the deck of a boat, killing him.
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An "expert" says that 'Willy' should be killed. Yeah.. but they say that about all the child stars.
Keiko has turned up in a Norwegian fjord, six weeks after he was returned to the wild from his pen in Iceland.
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A list of every known surviving GG-1: the meanest-designed non-steam train engine. Double check it against this roster, or this one. Drive it in forward or reverse. It's got two fronts. This one's for sale, if you've got the time and space for a fixer-upper.
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China blocks access to Google. In a free-speech hammering move that Ashcroft would be proud of, China closes the lid on the dissident search engine.
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No space trip for N'Sync. While I'm of course all choked up about the dancing man-puppet not being able to go on his 20 Million dollar joyride, I'm really happy for the lucky cargo bundle that will be taking his place.
"Bass will be replaced on the ride by a container packed with space-station supplies weighing about the same as him."
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