Welcome!
Every day in small towns, college campuses, and big cities across the United States, thousands of religiously devout young people answer the call to service in their traditions to give back to their communities. We're a 501(c)3 nonprofit committed to creating exciting, effective ways to bring them together, to build and learn side by side.

The exec. director, Eboo Patel, was on NPR's Speaking of Faith tonight. It was a good discussion and a wonderful, reassuring thing to hear of such an organization. Rather than dwell on how different we are, and learn hate via ignorance, let kids engage each other's beliefs constructively.

Interfaith Youth Core - Home

“Arrested Development” is simply the best comedy on television, period. No qualifications.
Strike that. There is a qualification. Because last Thursday, it came out that Fox was cutting their season order down to a mere 13 episodes, and would not be picking up the back nine. When I heard this, I wept like a fat chick stuck home on prom night with only two Krispy Kreme donuts left to keep me company. And then on Friday, someone stole one of my donuts — word came out that the show’s run was more-or-less officially kaput. I wanted to go on a homicidal spree, unleashing the Furies on every Fox executive I could find, with a special gutting and flaying reserved for Rupert Murdoch and his old man balls.

Middle America's Development Is Arrested Review by Seth Freilich

Elsewhere Hollywood star CHARLIZE THERON forced movie bosses to change her costume design for forthcoming movie AEON FLUX - after deciding her character's original outfit was too revealing.

When Theron saw the superheroine's skimpy crime-fighting outfit of a bikini, thigh-high boots and shoulder pads, she decided to add trousers to the outfit.

The 29-year-old star admits, "When you're playing with aspects of sexuality, certain things have to be hidden. That's what my mother always used to tell me.

"I wanted to stay as true as possible to the original character, but didn't feel the need to go as far with the costume."

Charlize Theron is too pretty for this role. And too famous. I disagree with what she says above, not because I'm so male that I need to see Charlize Theron in as little clothing as possible, but because, to me, the visceral sexuality of the character is one of the things I remember the best. I recall very clearly that the negligible clothing mixed with the raw and angular animation, reinforced a character that expressed more the animal side of sex than the loving side. Truly, this was a woman who, if real, I wasn't certain I wanted to meet, naked or otherwise. She was intimidating, not least in the realm of sexuality.

I was concerned that Charlize was the wrong pick from the beginning, because as great an actress as she is, as gorgeous as she is, she lacks that aspect of intimidation... perhaps "too soft" is the description. There was always something impure associated with desire towards this character. I just don't get that from this incarnation. I'll withhold saying more until I've seen the movie, of course... perhaps I'll be proven wrong. -k]

Charlize Theron: Charlize Theron Aeon Flux - Linsay Lohan

Don't miss your chance to own a one-of-a-kind piece of celebrity memorabilia while helping fight hunger in America ! Sony VAIO teamed with some of today's hottest young Hollywood superstars and asked them to design their own unique, fashionable Sony VAIO FJ notebooks. Jessica Alba, Elijah Wood, Wilmer Valderrama and cool couple DJ AM and Nicole Richie joined in on the fun to create some great designs all in the name of charity.

[ Is it weird that Jessica Alba's is by FAR the most attractive one? Is it that she hired a design consultant where the other guys went looking for glitter and glue sticks? Really, just awful guys. Elijah, what the hell is that crap? -k]

VAIO FJ Series | Pimp my PC or Celebrities can't paint

"If it weren't for it, I think the chances of me having committing suicide would have been greater," he said. "Having a place where you can write those thoughts, get them out of your head. It can be very therapeutic."

But Suzanne's dad thinks otherwise.

"That's not pro-choice," Mike Gonzales said of the site. "That's brainwashing. And they are not being held responsible."

Responsibility? How the hell did he not know that his daughter had been thinking about suicide for two months? What the fuck kind of parenting is that?

We should throw his ass in jail for even suggesting that freedom of speech be so controlled that people can't express anything other than "normal" thoughts and behaviors. That just what the internet needs...to become fucking "Friends" from end to end.

-janelane, angrily

[ Agreed. I'm not saying there's no line at which speech becomes dangerous, but at the same time, parenting *is* hard. No one denies that. What parents should be doing is working and voting to establish a culture that makes their jobs easier to do right. That is not, emphasize *NOT*, the creation of new laws and new forms of censorship. -k]

CNN.com - Parents: Online newsgroup helped daughter commit suicide - Nov 10, 2005

Two NASA astronauts have figured out a way to create a real-life version of a "Star Wars" "tractor beam" to keep an asteroid from crashing into Earth.

By hovering nearby for perhaps a year, the astronauts say, the spacecraft's own gravity could minutely slow the asteroid's progress or speed it up, a process that 10 or 20 years later would cause the rogue rock to miss Earth by a comfortable margin.

[Uh, not *exactly* a tractor beam, but still an ok idea. -k]

A New Path for Asteroids

The unemployment insurance system is expensive and fails to create the right incentives. It's easy for people who don't need it to collect and lie on "looking for work" statements without seriously pursuing a job. It only exists for a short time period that is not taylored to individual circumstances.

Solution: Replace unemployment insurance with unemployment loans that must be repaid.

My second idea.

[ What do you do when people default? Put them in jail, i guess? Of course, that's 10 times as expensive as just giving them money, so that's not gonna work. I think the biggest problem with this is that the people who are likely to care about the difference between a loan and the current system aren't the ones gaming the system now. Those that are gaming the system, who have very little to lose probably, won't care about any penalty cheap enough to be applicable here.

I don't deny that some effort needs to be made to reduce cheating, but I'm playing devils advocate, i guess, to draw out more detail on this plan. -k]

Unemployment Loans | SinceSlicedBread.com

Fucking awesome. I had no idea there were water ducts over 800 feet down.

Cool exhibit.

New York Underground @ nationalgeographic.com

Google took a temporary retreat today in its plan to make available for free countless thousands of copyrighted books without the copyright holders' permissions. It's started displaying the contents of books from its Google Print book-scanning project --- but it's not showing the contents of copyrighted books.

Jesus H. Monkeyballs, shut the fuck up Preston Gralla. This dude's on a crusade as if Google's planning to post the full text of each book on a web page. There is simply NO FUCKING WAY someone's gonna reconstruct whole books out of this. And if they do figure out a way, *FINE* then we have a problem.

He's not even arguing that it's a misuse because they plan to profit off of someone elses work (although i think that's kind of a stretch of an argument in the first place). He's actually concerned that this is like a Napster for books where no one will ever have to buy anything ever again.

Totally asinine. Fuck the authors guild and the major publishers for the same reasons that I say Fuck RIAA and the MPAA. Rather than finding some common ground with new technology they want to cement the current business stucture for eternity. It won't fucking work, and the longer and harder you fight, the worse off EVERYONE IN THE WORLD is.

Networking Pipeline | Blog | Google Retreats In Book Scanning Project

He said the natural "arrogance" of second-term presidents is exacerbated by a fundamentalism under Bush that causes many of his supporters and those who work in his administration to believe that "I am right because I am close to God (and) anybody who disagrees with me is inherently wrong, and therefore inferior."

Carter acknowledged that both he and Bush proclaim their Christian faith as part of their governing philosophy, but the similarity ends there.

"I don't have any doubt that he is very sincere about his Christian faith," Carter said of Bush. "There are some differences in interpretation. ... I have a commitment to worship the Prince of Peace, not the prince of pre-emptive war. I believe that Christ taught us to give special attention to the plight of the poor."

Bush, he said, "has committed himself to extol the advantages of the rich."

Jimmy Carter drops some science, so to speak.

USATODAY.com - Breaking tradition, Carter rips Bush's policies