The Bulwer-Lytton Awards for worst opening sentence in imaginary fiction are out.

Topless Speed Bandits -- the most viral film on the web. (NSFW) The Danish Road Safety Council launched their first ever viral campaign last November to reduce speeding. A fake news story + fun concept + topless Danes = the most watched viral video on the net.

New York Taxi Fare Finder (from gbam)

Don't. Drink. The. Coffee.

Playboy Archives Going Digital. (Link is SFW)

Time: Supporters Push Gore 2008.

Super Bowl 2007 Ads

Taking Group Rights Seriously: Multiracialism in Singapore

We could make BILLIONS.

Border's Bookstores: a "20% off one item" coupon good through 2/15.

Kimchi, Kalbi & Karaoke - Paper Magazine's Killer Guide to New York's Koreatown

Have things really changed for gay actors and actresses? (Hat tip to rm)

A NYC taxi driver returned a black bag carrying 31 diamond rings to a passenger who earlier had given him a 30-cent tip on an $11 ride.

Beautiful pictures of poisonous frogs

Time: 10 Questions for William Shatner

Gay Sheep Fearmongering from PETA turns out to be wrong. I still prefer this Greenpeace story.

Well, it sounds like a solid story until one reads the punch line. An Army officer who investigated possible abuse at Guantanamo Bay after some guards purportedly bragged about beating detainees found no evidence they mistreated the prisoners — although he did not interview any of the alleged victims.

Slate: Can Photographers be Plagiarists?

In Defense of Partisan Bickering

The Outsourced Parent: The hands-free, do-nothing, price-is-no-object guide to rearing a child from conception to college. But only in NYC. The rest of the country is outta luck.

Calm, Patient and Good-Humored (cpandgh) is a blog cowritten by Larry Foster, Corporate Vice President of Public Relations for Johnson & Johnson from 1957 to 1990, Bill Nielsen, Corporate VP of Public Affairs of Johnson & Johnson from 1990 through 2004 and Ray Jordan, the current Corporate VP of Public Affairs and Communications for Johnson & Johnson. (I'm sensing a recurring motif here....) The blog's title was coined by Arthur Page, VP and Director of AT&T in the 1930’s and 40’s. Page established the Page Principles, which are seven principle "laws" of PR management.

Biologist E. O. Wilson and author of "Sociobiology" wants religious communities to join in efforts to protect biodiversity. His new book, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, is aimed at evangelical Christians. There's an interview with him on Salon.com here. Ad-free text is here.

Non-Politics
Our solar system has nine twelve planets? Astronomers have drawn up a new way to define the word planet. This would mean adding three new planets to the Solar System, boosting the current tally of nine to 12. Astronomers are voting on the new definition in Prague this week.

Try to take over the world....: Scientists have repaired a mouse retina using stem cells.

FlickrLeech (Dialup users should skip this link)

Stephen Colbert makes a surprise appearance on The Daily Show to demand Jon Stewart apologize to Geraldo Rivera. (via sophiaserpentia)

Studies of the mental processes of chess grandmasters have revealed clues to how people become experts in other fields as well

The world’s first 3-D crop circle has appeared in an English field. (from lizziebelle)

The priciest places to park.

UK Independent: Seven days to green your life.


Politics
brelson posted a link to an essay from London’s Review of Books called “You are terrorists, we are virtuous” from left-wing Israeli poet Yitzhak Laor. It’s an interesting perspective into how the Israeli left feels about the war and the IDF.

Wimmin at War. How their support of the peace movement is changing the ideals of UK feminists.

The new Dominionist agenda? Public Stoning: Not Just for the Taliban Anymore

Sen. George Allen is in trouble for using a term for monkeys -- and a racial slur elsewhere in the world -- to ridicule a dark-skinned man at a campaign rally.

The days when former Presidents refused to comment on current policy are over. Bill Clinton on the politics of terror.

Userfriendly on the Reuters photo incident.

If only the IRS were this incompetent.... The U.S. government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong’s famous “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

quixotickitten linked to something fascinating. A billboard which says:

“Hi Steven,
Do I have your attention now?
I know all about her, you dirty, sneaky, immoral, unfaithful, poorly-endowed slimeball. Everything’s caught on tape.

Your (soon-to-be-ex)wife,
Emily

P.S. I paid for this Billboard using OUR joint bank account.”

The catch is... the same billboards are in both New York City (Midtown: 54th and Broadway and near Katz’ Deli: East Houston between Ludlow and Essex), and the Bronx (I-95 and Jerome Avenue) and LA (on Sunset Blvd). So this is almost definitely a viral marketing campaign. More here.

That Girl Emily’s blog is here. Amusingly enough, she’s been handing out flyers at Ground Zero and Penn Station with pictures of her husband that say “Lost Dog” for the last day or so. I’ll keep an eye out and see if I can snag one.

quixotickitten’s post has additional links. :)

“C is for Cookie”

jinwicked creates the comic “Crap I Drew On My Lunch Break” Very cool. :)

kiji_kat points out “The Crying Game: Despite a celebrated history, Native American Transgenders struggle in the modern world.”

Time: Best of 2005: Television. (BSG made #1: “Most of you probably think this entry has got to be a joke. The rest of you have actually watched the show.”)

25 Most Interesting Webcams of 2005

PopSci: 15 New Tech Concepts for 2006

The Health Care Blog

Wordspy is devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases.

MSNBC: The Year in Pictures 2005

Space Imaging

Via blinkytreefrog: Ruined Endings. (movie spoilers) and YesButNoButYes: Outrageous Firsts in Television History

Librivox is a project to record public domain literature and make it available for free in podcast and sound files.

Veteran character actors Vincent Schiavelli and Martin Vale have died. John Diebold also died yesterday.

The Needies. (Didn’t we all date someone exactly like this? The appeal fades pretty rapidly.)

Music Licensing and television show dvd’s. (Why WKRP will never be released on dvd.)

Cooking Times for all types of meat


Politics
A post in conservatism on Snoopgate: “Some myths about the recent wiretapping scandal.”

Juan Cole has posted the Top Ten Myths About Iraq in 2005. Comments below the post are also worth reading.

The next NYC Transit Strike should be on or about January 15, 2009. (That’s when the new contract will expire.)