If you are lucky enough to have access to the New York Times Historical Backfile database, you may notice some gaps in coverage. Rather than the usual culprits, the gaps are themselves historic:
Aug 10 – Nov 5 1978 (Pressman’s Strike)
Sep 17 – Oct 10 1965 (Newspaper Guild strike
Dec 9 1962 – Mar 31 1963 (ITU strike)
Dec 12 – Dec 28 1958 (Delivers’ strike)
Nov 30 – Dec 8 1953 (Photo-engravers’ strike)
No Sunday issues until April 21, 1861.

An insane anti-pornography group (co-founded by Ed Meese, no less) claims it wants to use against pornography the same strategy that succeeded in extracting settlement money from the tobacco industry. Because all the best science is certain of its conclusions before it starts. And Big Tobacco sure isn’t around anymore. Their chief scientist‘s Ph.D. is in communications, after all; not anything too troublesome, like, say, biochem.

A press release from CD Erotic announcing audio porn "in which women tell erotic stories." At least one of their readers has a distinctly Antipodean accent. The feature that pushed this press release into the (barely) post-worthy column: the name of CD Erotic’s press contact.

I read Budget Living from time to time, and end up finding many items that have previously popped up in the blogosphere, and many interesting looking web links that I then have to laboriously type in. It makes one wish there was a good profit model for an online magazine.
That Forties Guy
Soda Pop Stop
Chico Hot Springs
Global Food Company
Maine Goodies
Hometown Favorites
MexGrocer
Scandinavian Spice
Daily Candy
Instant Living

A thin film to pixelize your tv, which is cool since the other pixelizers are big, bulky plastic items. I just need to figure out how to DIY such an item.

A short backgrounder on Lorem Ipsum, plus its sibling Etaoin Shrdlu.

I’ve had a fascination with the Mad Monk for many years now, probably entirely due to (the interestingly appropriately named for the current context) Boney M‘s hit song (minor hit most place; huge radio hit in Moscow, ID, where I lived at the time). Best when it’s back-to-back with "Night Flight to Venus" (but I’m a big fan of the back-to-back song tradition).

The chief of the prostate research center of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences wants Russia to be a civilized country with a view on the future and with correct views on erotica.
Naturally, then, he opens a museum whose marquee exhibit is Rasputin’s penis. "Having this exhibit, we can stop envying America, where Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis is now kept. … it cannot stand comparison to our organ of 30 centimeters." Yes, that’s right: the whole cold war was about penis envy.
Update: others have previously claimed to possess the organ in question (or at least bits thereof), so one might need substantial provenance before taking the exhibit at face value.

Nurses found guilty of infecting almost 400 children with HIV in buh-wacky court case that has movie of the week written all over it (Lifetime if it weren’t in Libya).

Tiny walking robot made from DNA. We are so living in the future.