Childhood Torture in Uganda. Alex Tien was just 11-years-old when he was abducted. . . . [H]is initiation involved being forced to hack a man to death and drink his blood -- a rebel tactic to brainwash, brutalise and dehumanise those they capture. Caution: Unpleasant photos inside. more inside

The Official Rules of Calvinball. IMPORTANT -- The following rules are subject to be changed, amended, or dismissed by any player(s) involved.

Twenty Years Without Justice. (Quicktime) "People were urinating and defecating in their clothes. They were begging to die." 20 years ago, Union Carbide caused a massive explosion in Bhopal, India, killing over 7,000 people. Amnesty International has renewed its call for justice.

Curious George: The Kettle. Do you give? The Salvation Army has begun its annual Christmas kettle fundraising drive across the US. Some gay-rights advocates protest the organization for their refusal to grant benefits to same-sex partners. (Others, with presumably less political motivations, have more direct methods.) more inside

NBC: US Soldier Murders Unarmed Prisoner in Falluja. A television pool report by U.S. network NBC says that a U.S. Marine shot dead an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in Falluja. via BoingBoing. more inside

Iraq Veterans Against the War. "When somebody else comes out and speaks, the average American hears him and goes, oh he’s just some college-educated tree-hugger that doesn’t really know what’s going on in the world. But when the average American hears a veteran . . . people listen, because this is somebody who has been on the ground, knows what the realities are, knows what these things mean." more inside

"the best sci-fi action requires you to think." Primer is exceedingly intriguing. It invites comparisons to Pi and Memento and (most appropriately) 2001. Confounding, obtuse, and stunningly enjoyable. more inside

Best Editorial Cartoonist EVER. Clay Bennett is the finest editorial cartoonist* working today. He has remarkable skill with icons, and his work always makes me smile. It doesn't hurt that he's a hell of an artist too. more inside

Give Up The Dough, Working People. With federal deficits already running amok, it is unclear how President Bush will pay for his second-term agenda, a potentially multitrillion-dollar smorgasbord that includes overhauling Social Security and revamping the tax system. more inside

The Death Page. Laurence Sterne's 1760 novel Tristram Shandy broke new ground in a number of ways, notably by using a page of solid black to indicate the death of Yorick. Posted today for no particular reason. more inside

Curious George: Sexism in "Grand Theft Auto" I can't decide whether or not to buy the new game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. But not for the reasons you might suspect. more inside

Coulter Confronted with Custard! Two men ran onstage and threw custard pies at conservative columnist Ann Coulter as she was giving a speech at the University of Arizona, hitting her in the shoulder, police said. more inside

Kalashnikov vodka. I swear I'm not making this up. "I've always wanted to improve and expand on the good name of my weapon by doing good things," he told Reuters Television. more inside

Dog Bites Shoots Man Take that, jerko!

<strike>Can't.</strike> CAN! We can. We will! more inside

You have bad taste in music! Who says soapbox oratory is dead? Hooray for this guy! His appearance at Christina Aguilera / Justin Timberlake is classic. He even tries to reason with fans of Linkin Park. (QuickTime) more inside

Frontier Psychiatrist (RealVideo) by The Avalanches may well be the best music video of all time. An old lady on the drums, a talking turtle, and a skeleton DJ. What more could one ask for?

Arundhati Roy: Public Power in the Age of Empire. Please watch this speech. (It begins at 8:25.) There may be no more urgent voice for the world to hear right now. "No government's condemnation of terrorism is credible if it cannot show itself to be open to change by nonviolent dissent. . . . Terrorism is a horrible thing. You could say that terrorism is the privatization of war. Terrorists are the free-marketeers of war. They're people who believe that the state does not have a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence."

Vote Jones! He's untainted and he enjoys roads! Besides, everyone likes pie.

Here we go again. I'm so sick of the UN always warning us about impending wars. When was the last time Hutus and Tutsis ever clashed with each other?