February 27, 2005
Scofflaws!
British crime masterminds Richard Smith and Luke Bateman plan a coast to coast crime spree breaking as many dumb laws as they can. (via Boing Boing)
February 25, 2005
Disturbing Image of the Day
A delayed reaction to Matrix Revolutions.
One nation, under [insert here]
Although I doubt the main themes are foreign to Memphilter regulars, I found this essay on the spritual beliefs of the founding fathers (from the Nation via Arts & Letters Daily) to be especially well-argued (and timely, given our impending theocracy).
February 22, 2005
Another reason why Bush's appointment of judges is destroying the fabric of counterculture society
Court Rejects Appeal on Sex Toy Sales Ban
February 17, 2005
Meanwhile, in Space...
NASA Ames research scientists Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke announced yesterday that they are submitting a paper for peer review to the journal Nature which contends that something is alive and farting on Mars. As you may have noticed in the burners on your stove, Methane gas is so reactive that it never sticks around for long in its pure form. Its presence en mass in a planteary atmosphere means that it is somehow being continually replenished. As you may have noticed the morning after a chili cookoff, living things are a major source of free atmospheric methane. Lots of inhospitable places have abiogenic methane, but what caught Stoker and Lemke's attention was this result from the ESA's Mars Express orbiter, which discovered that concentrations of water on Mars were accompanied by increased methane in the atmosphere. Coupling the Mars Express and Opportunity rover data with their earthbound study of extremophiles in Spain led them to a thrilling conclusion.
And of course, it wouldn't be a Meanwhile, in Space... post without the obligitory Saturnian money shot!
February 16, 2005
You're missing the cookoff!!!
Over on the Snapped sidebar are pics from the annual Superbowl Chili Cookoff, a sacred tradition among Memphilterians. If you click through to my account on Flickr, you will see more pics from the cookoff, including a portrait of the winner.
February 10, 2005
The Case of the Barbed Wire Bomb, or, More Great Publicity for Memphis
in June, 2002, Shelby County Medical Examiner O. C. Smith was found wrapped in barbed wire with a motion-sensitive bomb wrapped around his neck. He claimed that an unknown assailant, perhaps the same one who had left two bombs in the stairwell close to his office a few weeks before, had thrown lye in his face, beat him up, wrapped him in barbed wire, and told him not to move or he would explode. "Welcome to Death Row," the alleged assailant said, perhaps a reference to the case of Philip Workman, a death row inmate whose conviction was secured with the help of Smith's testimony. Other, more conspiratorially minded individuals, immediately connected the bizzare incident to the mysterious deaths of a several microbiologists, including Dr. Don Riely, whose car was found on the Hernando de Soto bridge in Memphis and whose body Smith had recently examined, thus earning Smith a spot on several 9/11 timelines on the theory that the deaths and barbed wire bomb intimidation were somehow related to the still-unsolved anthrax attacks of September, 2001.
But wait, it gets weirder. Detectives working on the case believe that Smtih staged the attack himself, and his trial is currently underway in our fair city.
More on this creme de la weird story as it develops.
February 03, 2005
Badass of the Day
Richard Kral
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