NationStates An online nation simulation game. You create your own country, fashioned after your own political ideals, and care for its people. Either that or you deliberately torture them. It's really up to you. Created by the author of Jennifer Government, Max Barry. more inside

Create your own conspiracy theory. Or try the Warner Bros. option, the pull-down menus, or the Internet Conspiracy Generator. Or, lastly, the George W. Bush Conspiracy Generator.

Everything you ever wanted to know about filthy chavs. I've decided these people are the British equivalent of everyone in my hometown.

Things People Said. Sometimes ordinary people can be drop dead funny. I personally like the tourist ones.

Whale explodes on Taiwan street. (Warning: sort of gross.)

Bill Gates attempts to save the world...again. "...a "payment at risk" system...would mean the senders of e-mail would pay a fee if their mail was rejected as spam. The system would not deter genuine e-mailers, such as friends and relatives, who would be confident their mail would be accepted." [Via Neil Gaiman's blog] more inside

Curious George: A Cry for Help Coders needed, hi.

Celebrate Chinese New Year the authentic American way. How will you celebrate the Year of the Monkey? Some traditional ideas, ideas for kids, fortune cookies, and a background on the Chinese calendar. Gong Xi Fa Cai! more inside

How to Dance Properly.

Everything related to names you can imagine. Links to the 100 least popular baby names, 10 dog breeds with most misleading names, the many names of Wilmington, NC, and so many more.

Curious, George: webradio Having got our Freevo unit up and running, we've now convinced it to play webradio. What recommendations do people have for good broadcasts/stations? I'll try any style of music. (Hey, now I can hear all those NPR interviews everyone talks about.)

The Bush post I can't resist. Laura Bush admits George W. didn't write that poem.

Reading this thread on mefi about copyright infringement on the web. We've heard of at least one other case of this recently on MoFi - Mil Millington's site was used, unattributed, by the Mail on Sunday. Now retroCRUSH has had an article quite obviously ripped off by The Daily Star. When a (presumably) large newspaper thinks they have the right to say "You can't copyright anything on the internet," what chance do we have of protecting what we say here?

A German chamber pot museum explains a little about the humble thunder mug. Consider the mighty chamber pot and the benefits it offered our recent ancestors. Here are some lovely (and utilitarian) examples of this relic of our unplumbed past.

Bush's faith-based social initiatives not as good as they look on paper. We discovered recently that Bush's prison counselling program, InnerChange, is less successful than he claims due to some careful statistical fudging. In 2001, Bush signed an executive order for federal funding of faith-based social programs. What benefits can we take from a privatised, non-secular social welfare program? Is it true that his programs encourage discrimination?

Gay, anti-Vietnam and pro-choice demonstrations are being removed from video footage of the Washington Mall. There seems to be a trend towards editing history at the moment (see my last post). Here's an older article about rewriting history textbooks to "reflect multicultural values".

Yoko Ono ego over-inflates even further. Yoko has edited herself into some of John Lennon's pre-Ono videos on the new Best of John Lennon DVD. Guh. (Via Fox News.)

Party at Wendell's! Who's going?

Monkey Lander! Flash Friday, late of course.

Next year is the Year of the Monkey. Which is, of course, why the Japanese are making monkey soap.