AMERICAN AIRLINES WILL CHARGE $15 FOR YOUR FIRST CHECKED BAG ...cut domestic flights and lay off workers as it grapples with record-high fuel prices. [AP]

WHISKEY GEEKS KEEP MOONSHINE TRADITION ALIVE Making moonshine has gone from a backwoods black art to a high-end hobby practiced by "whiskey geeks" with a taste for top-shelf hooch. [Wired]

BUFFET BACKS OBAMA That's Warren, not Jimmy. [Yahoo News]

THE GIANT POOL OF MONEY This American Life deconstructs the subprime mortgage crisis. An absolutely riveting account of how it all happened. Totally worth an hour of your time. Not to be missed. Download the podcast or listen online...[TAL]

OBAMA ROCKS PORTLAND 75,000 people at his rally... [WaPo]

OUR DAILY MEDS Bill Moyers interviews Melody Peterson about how drug companies market medication. Devastating, cut to the quick. [Bill Moyers' Journal]

THE CHANGE YOU DESERVE
Excellent Jon Stewart on the Repugs' "brand" problem...

CUTE YOUNG ASS Go ahead. Click on it. You know you want to. [SFW]

OBAMA FACES UPHILL BATTLE W. VIRGINIA

Obama Faces Racism in West Virginia - The funniest bloopers are right here
Dumbass redneck motherf**kers! And these are DEMOCRATS, fer cryin' out loud!

AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN Do it again. Do it again.
Mesmerizing screencast music video dedicated to Mac desktop functions.
Via Lifehacker

OBAMA IN 30 SECONDS Finalists in MoveOn's contest are [here] Via grow-a-brain

GLITTER AND DOOM Tom Waits holds a surreal press conference to announce his new tour. Via grow-a-brain

Related: Grow-a-Brain's depository of Tom Waits links.

STOP USING ANTIBACTERIAL SOAPS NOW These products have always been a problem for me. I think this blog post makes a decent case for steering clear, if you aren't already. Via Linkfilter

FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS Just want to do something special for all the Ladies of the World...

VINTAGE OCEANA Postcards and picture galleries. [Link] Thanks, Steven

QUOTE OF THE DAY

This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.

-Walt Whitman

WHY WON'T HILLARY CONCEDE? [HuffPo]

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS GAY MARRIAGE BAN More challenges loom [LAT] [Chicago Tribune] Via Reddit

THE DUMBING OF AMERICA Call Me a Snob, but Really, We're a Nation of Dunces. By Susan Jacoby [WaPo] Via Reddit

Glenn Gould - Bach - BWV 891 - Fugue

MACROECONOMICS BITCH SLAPS WHOLE FOODS "Shares of Whole Foods Market Inc. got crushed at the open Wednesday, down 12% as the market digested its latest quarterly results...Like Starbucks Corp. (SBUX: news), Whole Foods (WFMI: news) has seen growth in its same-store sales slowly erode as it tapped out its core market of upwardly mobile customers." [Market Watch] Thanks, Steven

the internet is not a truck, it is a series of tubes...

thanks, steven

EDWARDS WILL ENDORSE OBAMA [Political Radar]

REAL VS NOMINAL OIL PRICES 1861-2005 [Forbes] Thanks, Steven

FREAK OUT! Bill O'Reilly's recently rediscovered tantrum has been deservedly making the rounds. Don't miss the dance remix.

Colbert also has some fun with it.

AN UNINSURED DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE When Steve Kagen became a member of Congress, he declined health insurance coverage. Now he has a plan to provide it for everyone. [Scientific American]

AMY SEDARIS Interview [AV Club]

CHENEY ADDS RARE '64 KUWAIT TO OIL CELLAR [Onion Radio News]

TELEPHONIC SHEEP [Book of Joe]

FUEL FROM TRASH WILL POWER CALIFORNIA GARBAGE TRUCKS Well, 300 of them, anyway. Seems appropriate. [cleantechnica] Via Reddit

TINMAN STUDIO A website dedicated to the work of my friend, Dave Tinman Edgar. TreeMachines, Hmmwv Landscapes, The Leroux Gallery and multimedia, including electronic music compositions. Highly recommended. [Tinman Studio]

PACKAGING CHEMICALS FOUND IN BREASTMILK Chemicals found in food packaging and other products appear to be transferred by nursing mothers to their babies via breast milk, researchers have reported in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
[NutraIngredients news article]

DIRECT NOTE ACCESS "A technology that makes the impossible possible: for the first time in audio recording history you can identify and edit individual notes within polyphonic audio material. The unique access that Melodyne affords to pitch, timing, note lengths and other parameters of melodic notes will now also be afforded to individual notes within chords."

This will revolutionize music recording. Mark my words. [Celemony]

Via Wohba! via Tinselman

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo A grammatically correct sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs. [Wikipedia]

GAS TAX HOLIDAY? FAIL! More than 200 economists, including four Nobel prize winners, signed a letter rejecting proposals by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain to offer a summertime gas-tax holiday. [Bloomberg] Via REddit

THE SLIP New Nine Inch nails album available for free download. [NIN]

A PSYCHEDELIC 'PROBLEM CHILD' COMES FULL CIRCLE LSD regaining its medical/psychiatric cred in the wake of the death of its inventor. [NYT]

THE ALL-WHITE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM by Frank Rich

There is not just a double standard for black and white politicians at play in too much of the news media and political establishment, but there is also a glaring double standard for our political parties. The Clintons and Mr. Obama are always held accountable for their racial stands, as they should be, but the elephant in the room of our politics is rarely acknowledged: In the 21st century, the so-called party of Lincoln does not have a single African-American among its collective 247 senators and representatives in Washington.

[NYT] Via BLOG

BUSH A WAR CRIMINAL Op-Eds are now discussing how Bush admitted to approving torture. So what more do we need now to arrest him?

WHINING ABOUT GAS PRICES Yeah, it sucks that we suddenly have to pay much more for gas. Just remember, Americans, that our gas has been artificially cheap for decades. Across most of the EU, gas is $8/gallon. So, suck on that Hummers! [So cheap it hurts]

DC MADAM COMMITS SUICIDE MURDERED? Police say it was a suicide, but Deborah Jeane Palfrey predicted she would be "suicided" if ever taken into custody. Via HuffPo

Related: List of whistle-blowers who allegedly committed suicide.
Wired: How Would You Make a Murder Look Like a Suicide?

Via Reddit

Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Powell, Tenet, Rice and Yoo have all committed war crimes punishable by life in prison, death, or impeachment. Or so says this blog compelling and damning blog post Veryu interesting collection of links on the subject. And what about Rumsfeld and Addington?

HILLARY IS REALLY WINNING...NOT [Political Cartoons] Via Reddit

THE NEXT SLUMS? As abandoned McMansions decay in the wake of subprime foreclosures, crime spikes in the suburbs...[The Atlantic] Via Reddit

THE UPSIDE OF AN OIL SHORTAGE The death of suburban sprawl...[Business Week]

DEBUNKING ASTROLOGY "For several decades, researchers tracked more than 2,000 people - most of them born within minutes of each other. According to astrology, the subject should have had very similar traits...Researchers looked at more than 100 different characteristics, including occupation, anxiety levels, marital status, aggressiveness, sociability, IQ levels and ability in art, sport, mathematics and reading - all of which astrologers claim can be gauged from birth charts." [Telegraph]

THE BANKSY PARADOX 7 sides of the world's most infamous street artist. [WebUrbanist] Via Digg

DID CHINA HACK THE US GOVT? "FBI Fears Chinese Hackers and/or Government Agents Have Back Door Into US Government & Military Computer Networks." [above top secret] Via MeFi

Related articles at [Popular Mechanics] [Slashdot] [Overclock]

THE FACE OF A LIAR How can we tell who’s lying, who’s not? New research out of Stephen Porter’s Forensic Psychology Lab at Dalhousie University determines the face will betray the deceiver’s true emotion, but not in the stereotypical ways we think. [Science Daily]

TOKYO BICYCLE PARKING TOWER Awesome! [YouTube] Thanks, Steven!

THINK! CITY Affordable electric car coming to US in '09 [Think! City] Via Reddit

WHY BOTHER? Looking for a few good reasons to go green. By Michael Pollan

For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we're living our lives suggests we're not really serious about changing -- something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do.

[NY Times Magazine]

GREENSPAN ADMITS IRAQ WAS ABOUT OIL as deaths put at 1.2 million. [The Observer]

AIRLINES TO CHARGE TO SECOND BAG Reportedly to offset rising gas prices. [NYT]

As Bill Maher recently said in his New Rules, "Airlines should just get it over with and start putting passengers in the cargo hold. Let's face it: you've already taken away the leg room, the food, the pillows,...the only thing left is to tag us, load us on to the conveyor belt, and let us fight over who gets to sleep on the bag of mail."

FIRE AND WATER Outstanding American Routes today featuring the Meters, the Nevilles and Herbie Hancock

HOW TO RESEARCH AN UNKNOWN ONLINE RETAILER So you just spotted that gizmo you've been lusting for at unbeatable price, but the only problem is it's for sale at an online retailer you've never heard of. How do you know if they're trustworthy? Consumerist reader "Gigantic Robotic Penguin" (don't let the name turn you off) has put together a comprehensive guide to evaluating unknown online retailers. Get started snooping, inside... [Consumerist] Via Linkfilter