Here’s a treat for you Meppers. It’s a full-length documentary about Wikileaks and the intrepid man of mystery, Mr. Assange. Confidence is low that this link will remain up forever, so enjoy it while you can.

You may not know this, but there is only one diving pool in the entire country of Japan. At least they use it efficiently.

Who knew that Chaplin was so politically motivated? This clip comes from The Great Dictator (1940). If the armband and moustache look vaguely Hitler-like, it’s intentional. Chaplin plays an autocrat for most of the movie, in addition to playing a doppleganger who switches places with him, in time to rally a fascist regime to nobler causes with this speech.

We could use him around these days.

I don’t know if this really qualifies as human news, but, nevertheless, here’s a recently discovered old gem. It’s Hunter Thompson interviewing Keith Richards in 1993.

As many of you know, it is our sworn duty here at the Mep Report, not only to report on the pressing human issues of our day, but of the Emu-related ones as well. It seems as if one of our flightless brethren escaped his confines in a Rhode Island farm and is currently AWOL. We wish him a safe journey while he’s on the lamb.

Hans Rosling and his team of statisticians organized an unfathomably huge swath of historical health statistics since the beginning of the 19th century. The results are eye-opening.

One of my favorite YouTube pages, TheraminTrees, recently released an addendum video to its series on Transactional Analysis. Here, the narrator is presenting the psychological basis for religious fundamentalism, and much of it comes from an implanted desire to chastise, scold, and belittle others.

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In the 19th century, British Economist Thomas Malthus, famously predicted that while societal food production can only grow numerically (due to limitations in technological development) population grows exponentially. He concluded that overpopulation would inevitably overburden and overwhelm our resources. And, he may be correct in that projection. But his premise of exponential population growth has taken a few hits recently:

I really don’t know how I missed out on the whole Paul is Dead, urban legend. But this piece sums it up rather nicely.

I’m sort of amazed that this video from 2007 hasn’t been more widely seen. Perhaps because the bombings that it discusses are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to US foreign policy incursions into other sovereign nations.