drat fink

jihad review

"Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia"

or are you just happy to see me

"President Bush doesn't believe in polling---just ask his pollsters."

notochordata

"It isn't treason for a party out of power in wartime to talk about these matters. If anything, it's the Democrats' patriotic responsibility not just to hold up their end of the national dialogue over the war's means and ends, but to say where they want to take the country in peace. Yet now that they've capitulated on issues ranging from fuel-economy standards to gun control, the sum of a Democratic social vision these days often seems to have dwindled down to a prescription drug program for Medicare patients. For the party itself, however, nothing short of a spine transplant may do."

the stone-eaters

theres a parable in here somewhere.

intercontinental divide

"In most of the world, it is the Palestinian narrative of a dispossessed people that dominates. In the United States, however, the narrative that dominates is Israel’s: a democracy under constant siege. Europeans and other Palestinian partisans point to the fact that the Israel lobby in America is one of the strongest anywhere, and Jewish individuals and organizations give millions of dollars to political candidates in order to reward pro-Israel policies and punish those who support the Palestinians. Another reason, however, is the near-complete domination by pro-Israel partisans of the punditocracy discourse."

big hack attack

"CopVCia Site Hacked Down"

she blows me away

"A teenage girl's path to suicide bomber"
'Face Of Teen Girl Suicide Bomber"
"At 18, bomber became martyr and murderer"

look within

guess i cant let this krugman slide without comment. he makes it seem like all this was unclear until he had read brocks book. maybe he should be asking his own paper why they helped fuel the anti-clinton hysteria in the mainstream press. cursor has a nice cache of brock related links in the left hand column.

reposing rip(h)oste

simple voluntary action

left jab

"Note: CounterPunch will be on the road for the next week and will not be updating the website until March 31. But we leave you with a week's worth of extraordinary stories to keep you occupied in the meantime, ranging from a history of James Bond and a tribute to Tammy Wynette to Nobel laureate José Saramago on global capitalism and Edward Said on the ruins of the Oslo Accords. Plus, we offer you a special Easter Week reading treat: Wilhelm Reich on the last hours of Christ and Claud Cockburn on the "horror of it all"."

poker face

"Many years ago, when I was young and still in search of wisdom, I went on a pilgrimage to meet the man I thought was the wisest in the world. I came away wiser, though what I learned was what most pilgrims learn, which is that if you want to become wise you should not go on pilgrimages. I hadn't thought much about the pilgrimage, or the wise man, until the past few months, when a friend sent me a new book that brought it, and him, back to mind."

slouching to the right

today seems to be the day when the national media proclaim that the republicans are looking good for the '02 midterm elections. the democrats are confused while the repugs are focused and resolute. otherwise the focus remains on sharon's intransigence and more sabre-rattling towards uncle saddam. the washington post sure is ready to roll. lastly, this gallup poll takes our collective pulse. spin the numbers which ever way your political wind doth blow, everybody else does.

eggs over medium

"Fear & Favor is FAIR’s annual review of incidents that reflect the range of pressures on reporters to use something other than journalistic judgment in deciding what goes in the news and what gets left out. The year 2001 presented special challenges in this regard. The horrific September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the ensuing declaration by the Bush administration of an open-ended "war on terrorism," meant incredible pressure on the press corps to present U.S. actions and policy in the best light; incidents of outright censorship occurred, and even more self-censorship, as many outlets confused independent inquiry with a lack of patriotism."

skin flint

"The new delivery systems have also allowed major corporations to get a piece of the pie without getting too close to the product itself. While the dirty work of actually making the films is still largely done in the San Fernando Valley, major corporations like AT&T, General Motors and Marriott are sharing the profits by helping get the product to consumers. At the same time, a new generation of entrepreneurs — including dot-com techies and Ivy League business school grads — are bringing ambitious business strategies to the mix."

access and allies

"I asked Haass whether there is a doctrine emerging that is as broad as Kennan's containment. "I think there is," he said. "What you're seeing from this Administration is the emergence of a new principle or body of ideas—I'm not sure it constitutes a doctrine—about what you might call the limits of sovereignty. Sovereignty entails obligations. One is not to massacre your own people. Another is not to support terrorism in any way. If a government fails to meet these obligations, then it forfeits some of the normal advantages of sovereignty, including the right to be left alone inside your own territory. Other governments, including the United States, gain the right to intervene. In the case of terrorism, this can even lead to a right of preventive, or peremptory, self-defense. You essentially can act in anticipation if you have grounds to think it's a question of when, and not if, you're going to be attacked."

booknoted

"The most successful saga in postwar popular culture got off to a conscientious start after breakfast on a tropical morning in Jamaica early in 1952. Ian Fleming, forty-three years old and ten weeks away from his first and last marriage, knocked out about 2,000 words on his Imperial portable claiming (falsely) that he was just passing time while his bride elect, Anne Rothermere, painted landscapes in the garden. In fact Fleming had been planning to write a spy thriller for years and he kept up the regimen of2,000 daily words until, two months later, he was done, with Commander James Bond recovering from a near lethal attack on his testicles from Le Chiffre's carpet beater, Le Chiffre finished off by a Russian, Vesper Lynd dead by her own hand, and a major addition to the world's cultural and political furniture under way."

read ochre

"This small band of early Africans were, a group of scientists excavating the Blombos Cave site believes, thoroughly modern people, capable of abstract thought and probably language. Evidence from their settlement could have important implications for theories about the emergence of modern people."

stinging nettles

"In the gray, matter-of-fact bureaucratese so typical of a government document, the leaked "Israeli Art Student Papers" confirm what we have been saying in this space all along: that an underground apparatus of Israeli covert agents, centered in the southwestern US but extending nationwide, carried out extensive operations in the months prior to 9/11. Their targets were US government offices, including not only the Drug Enforcement Administration (as previously reported), but the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Protective Service, the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a host of other state and federal courthouses and other buildings, as well as military bases. There is no long any doubt about whether the spy ring existed. Now we are left with the nagging question: what was its purpose?"

pieces of hate

"Not Peace, But Piece. At issue is not peace, but piece, as in land and water. The Palestinian people are living on land taken by Israel in the 1967 war. Israel's claim to the land is promoted by a radical group of settlers and ultra-nationalists who insist on keeping the ever-expanding settlements. Since the Oslo Accords, Israel, under both Likud and Labor Prime Ministers, has cut and sliced the Territories into tiny pieces by building roads, fences, settlements, irrigation and water systems, and restricted areas in ways that undermine the political and economic viability of a future Palestinian state. The resulting bits and pieces of land amount to less than the state of Rhode Island. Broken up as it is, and with its water resources diverted for use by the Israeli settlements, it is not realistic to expect this territory to support over 3 million Palestinian people. The duplicity of negotiating "peace" while taking away more land has infuriated Palestinians for many years, and fomented radicalism."

empire state

"MOSCOW – As the Roman Empire spread two millenniums ago, maps had to be redrawn to reflect new realities. In similar fashion, the expansion of the British Empire kept cartographers at their drawing boards, reshaping territories from Southern Africa to India to Hong Kong.

Now, as the United States wages its war on terrorism in Afghan-istan – and deploys troops for the first time in the energy-rich regions of Central Asia and the Caucasus – the borders of a new American empire appear to be forming."

bench warrant

"March 22 — Having defeated President Bush’s appeals court nominee Charles Pickering, Senate Democrats are moving to block Bush from appointing other conservatives to the federal bench. But some are going further, saying that because Bush lacks a popular mandate, the Senate should take no action on any Bush nominee to a Supreme Court vacancy until after the 2004 presidential election."

winging it

"What would make an avid Clinton-hating attack journalist have a "road to Damascus" experience and cause him to completely change his point of view? Why would he denounce the A-list conservatives who made him, and instead ally himself to people close to Bill Clinton? All these questions and more are answered in David Brock's memoir Blinded By the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative."

beat the press

kennedy on klein on clinton

carter centered

"WASHINGTON, March 22 (AFP) - Jimmy Carter is planning a landmark first trip by a former US president to communist-ruled Cuba, and Friday slammed the 41-year-old US economic embargo on Havana as out of date."

on the seen

"WASHINGTON (March 22, 2002) - The Institute for Policy Studies today released an exhaustive study of public financing toward Enron's overseas expansion. IPS' new report, Enron's Pawns: How Public Institutions Bankrolled Enron's Globalization Game, explores how the now-fallen giant's rise to global prominence absolutely depended upon close financial relationships with U.S. agencies, the World Bank, and other government institutions. "It should be a national disgrace that the U.S. government was subsidizing Enron's far-flung and often harmful global operations," said John Cavanagh, Director of IPS."

free winnie

"Disney gets nabbed destroying documents amid a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over royalties from the world's most lovable -- and lucrative -- bear."

back to the future 2

"That leaves "1984's" most potent political tool: perpetual warfare. Just as Oceania was always at war with Eurasia or Eastasia -- who could keep track? -- the "war on terror," we are told, will continue indefinitely. Indefinitely is just another word for forever."

kurds away

"I'm intrigued by your end point because that's sort of where I'd start. In some ways, the reasons to worry about Iraq don't have much to do with 9/11. Whatever you've found about Ansar al-Islam (more on those charmers in a bit) probably doesn't amount to a smoking gun—except perhaps to some of the harder-line folks cheering on Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who've long since been sold on the need to get Saddam anyway. Even if everything said by the Kurdish prisoners with whom you spoke was true, there still would be very little to tie Saddam to the World Trade Center attacks. If someone's looking for casus belli with Iraq, for now at least, 9/11 isn't it."

farcoterrorist

"US officials say they have no intention of leading the US into deeper involvement in Colombia's vicious civil war, but, if approved, the aid would mark a major policy shift. Until now, US aid to Colombia has focused on fighting the drugs trade, but the new package would mean direct support for counter-insurgency operations against the guerrilla saboteurs."

gazprompt

"Almost unnoticed, the dynamics of the world energy market have changed dramatically since the terrorist attacks on America six months ago. Russia has suddenly emerged as the new oil superpower. So drag your eyes away from Washington for a moment, swivel round 180 degrees, and let's focus on the pepperpot towers of the Kremlin."

roy polloi

"Roy spent one night behind bars, but now her decision to pay a fine and thus avoid serving the full three-month sentence imposed by the high court is drawing criticism from some in India and Great Britain, who dismiss Roy as just another member of India's 'radical chic.' Roy, however, says she chose to pay the fine simply because remaining in prison would not have served any meaningful purpose. And she says she has no intention of allowing her critics to silence her."

wrong-listed

"It's not a blacklist, it is a wrong-list," he said. "We just think that these people are wrongheaded, unhelpful, and misguided. We live in a free country, so we have the right to debate and go back and forth with them. I am sure I am not going to make president Jimmy Carter shut up if I say that I don't agree with him." And he promised the list would grow. "We don't add them," he said cheerfully. "They add themselves."

protecting your rights

"WASHINGTON -- The Church of Scientology has managed to yank references to anti-Scientology websites from the Google search engine.

Citing the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Scientology lawyers are claiming that Google may no longer include anti-Scientology sites that allegedly infringe upon the church's intellectual property."

trilateral comissioners

everything is out of whack today. first, my aol account can sense its imminent demise and has started to freak out on me. it wont let me read my mail, it wont let me report the problem and it wont even let me sign off. if i alt-ctrl-del, it crashes my computer. i think at night when im asleep it sends out its sensors in my room and has detected the dsl modem on the chair a few feet away. this, in turn, set off all sorts of buzzers and whistles at aol headquarters (whose underground bunker is just down the block from our shadow governments). their spies at verizon confirm the transaction so they have no recourse but to sabatoge my machine; any fool will tell you that!

meanwhile, word on the street is that content does not want to be free. todays lesson is hotline scoop. just another sordid example of the world forcing me to do my own thinking (or, at least, that thing which approaches actual thinking).

heres more blah blah blah blah about content being less free.

without a punchline

"When that pain is caused by our government, we are channeled away from that empathy. The way we are educated and entertained keeps us from knowing about or understanding the pain of others in other parts of the world, and from understanding how our pleasure is connected to that pain of others. It is a combined intellectual, emotional, and moral failure -- a failure to know and to feel and to act."

the answer man

clinic v. the argument clinic

busy blogger

ethel gets busy today

desktop rot

Alas Poor Evolutionary Psychology: Unfairly Accused, Unjustly Condemned
The Book Of The Courtesans
marriage photo kitsch
dan kennedy
zen and the art of success

joint taskforce

"A single glass of wine will impair your driving more than smoking a joint. And under certain test conditions, the complex way alcohol and cannabis combine to affect driving behaviour suggests that someone who has taken both may drive less recklessly than a person who is simply drunk."

superstoreroom

"Koolhaas has suggested that to avoid "the Flagship syndrome: a megalomaniac accumulation of the obvious," Prada should create a series of "epicenters," or super-sized stores, each a distinct work of design. This seems sensible enough. A company that has based the aura of its brand on cutting-edge design might be well advised to think in terms of a cutting-edge environment. Alas, however, the first of these new stores, the Prada shop at 575 Broadway, in SoHo, is not a staggering reinvention of the retail environment, no matter what Koolhaas and his followers claim. The enormous new store, which cost somewhere in the neighborhood of forty million dollars, combines some hard-edged late modernism with some fancy technology (glass-enclosed dressing rooms that turn translucent at the touch of a button), and comes in a package that, like a lot of Koolhaas's work, mixes roughness with sleekness in a way that never manages to avoid seeming self-conscious. The architectural centerpiece is a set of zebrawood steps, like bleachers—what Koolhaas calls "the wave"—which descend from the street-level entry to the main selling floor, one level below. This creates both selling space and performing space, since the steps can be used as seating. But most of the time they are covered with shoes. What the wave does best is disguise the fact that most of this spectacular store is actually in the basement."

paper chaser

"This is one of the great puzzles of the modern workplace. Computer technology was supposed to replace paper. But that hasn't happened. Every country in the Western world uses more paper today, on a per-capita basis, than it did ten years ago. The consumption of uncoated free-sheet paper, for instance—the most common kind of office paper—rose almost fifteen per cent in the United States between 1995 and 2000. This is generally taken as evidence of how hard it is to eradicate old, wasteful habits and of how stubbornly resistant we are to the efficiencies offered by computerization. A number of cognitive psychologists and ergonomics experts, however, don't agree. Paper has persisted, they argue, for very good reasons: when it comes to performing certain kinds of cognitive tasks, paper has many advantages over computers. The dismay people feel at the sight of a messy desk—or the spectacle of air-traffic controllers tracking flights through notes scribbled on paper strips—arises from a fundamental confusion about the role that paper plays in our lives."

dressed for success

"The complete irrationality of violence has never been more clearly on display than in the Middle East this year, yet the grip of violence on the minds of Israeli and Palestinian leaders both could not be stronger. In America, meanwhile, we tell ourselves that our robust ''war on terrorism'' has gone well, yet the Israeli experience suggests how efficiently amoral terrorists are recruited out of the ruined pieces of nature that fall from ''overwhelming force.'' Israel's dilemma is a foretaste of America's: This great nation shall so wear out to naught."

no no noonan

"The hallmarks of the hero-worship style are a Manichaean moral sensibility, eloquent prose, and assertion rather than argument. This might seem like a harmless, even refreshing, counterpoint to the politics of personal destruction, which both parties now disdain as mindlessly partisan and corrosive to civic health. But Peggy Noonan's glorification of George W. Bush isn't a departure from the politics of personal destruction at all. It's the very same thing."

the comfortable way

"Mr. Chertoff’s toughness is exactly what’s needed as Enron and Andersen run for the hills. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Andersen executives have whined that the prosecutor is treating them like crime bosses. They seem to believe that because shredding documents wasn’t forbidden in the firm’s by-laws, they did nothing wrong. They are in for a rough education."

remember me

"Despite Saddam Hussein's biochemical assaults on Iranian troops and his own Kurdish population in the 1980s, his invasion of neighboring Kuwait in 1990, his repeated threats against Israel and the U.S., and his decades-long commitment to building a secret doomsday arsenal, he now poses little threat to the world, according to Halliday. Halliday proposes a nonviolent strategy for resolving tensions between America and Iraq. In addition to catastrophic consequences for the Iraqi people, he says, an invasion would create long-term problems for the United States in an already volatile region."

progressive reviewing

"Chomsky's newest book, 9-11, contains interviews he gave in the days following Sept. 11. In those interviews, Chomsky argues the unpopular position that the United States itself is a terrorist nation which supplies economic support and weaponry to some of the world's most hostile and repressive regimes in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. He notes that, not only has the United States both secretly and openly supported "terrorist" factions in Nicaragua, Columbia and Afghanistan, it also frequently and blatantly disregards international law. In 9-11, Chomsky asserts that war against Afghanistan in response to a terrorist attack violates United Nations guidelines. Under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, the United States should have sought action through the U.N. Security Council, a directive the Bush administration chose to ignore. Not only does Operation Enduring Freedom violate international law, it brings further destruction to an already war-ravaged, war-impoverished nation. As Chomsky foresaw in 9-11, "An attack in Afghanistan will probably kill a great many innocent civilians...in a country where millions are already on the verge of death from starvation. Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism."

dont think

"The Israeli public — partly by choice — is living with a complete information blackout with regard to the extent of the damage and death taking place only a few kilometres away from their homes. Maybe the public doesn't want to know, but the media has a responsibility, which it has shirked," he wrote."

"More than five months after the United States launched a war in Afghanistan, there is no truce between the media and the Pentagon, with journalists continuing to voice frustration at the military's control over information."

chicken hawks

"AVOT’s avowed purpose, according to Bennett, is to "take to task those groups and individuals who fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the war we are facing." Ah, but it may not be just a "misunderstanding" on the part of people like me – for example – who oppose a US policy of global intervention. A full-page ad taken out by AVOT in the New York Times denounced not only bin Laden & Co. but those Americans on the home front:

"Who are attempting to use this opportunity to promulgate their agenda of 'blame America first.' Both [internal and external] threats stem from either a hatred for the American ideals of freedom and equality or a misunderstanding of those ideals and their practice."

when we were young

"But it's not just the media who are to blame. According to Schalit, the American left, both scornful of the religious right and overly deferential to it, simply doesn't take this community seriously. When President Bush repeatedly invokes the word "evil," with obvious religious connotations, too many Americans, especially journalists and liberals afraid of insulting someone else's faith, don't bat an eye. As a result, the left fails both to understand the doctrine of the religious right, and to challenge it. To fully understand the religious right's worldview, Schalit suggests, might mean taking a hard look at the Bible. But rather than offering the left or the Democratic Party a method of counterattack, "America the Enchanted" is more of a wake-up call."

promises in the dark

One of seven children featured in the film "Promises" -- a strong bet to win the Academy Award for best documentary on Sunday night -- Moishe has never met a Palestinian. Still, he is convinced he can't stand them. Speaking directly to the camera, in his husky, high-pitched voice, he tells us he comes from the West Bank settlement called Beit-El, "a place where people who hate Arabs live."

compost me

"Last weekend the Cremation Association of North America's two-day seminar in Las Vegas concluded with a session called "It's Not Your Grandparents' Funeral." On the agenda, along with aesthetic choices such as Eternally Yours memorial paintings that blend the deceased's ashes into watercolors, were several "green" options. Celebration Forest in Idaho will plant and care for a memorial tree, and scatter the ashes around its trunk. A "nature preserve" cemetery in South Carolina buries actual bodies in an ecologically sound way. And people who love the ocean can choose artificial reefs."

old black water

"I thought, 'What in the world is going on here?"' Daniels said. "I went out to the northwest and it was solid black. And I went to the west to get off of it — out to 70 or 80 feet of water north of the Marquesas (Islands) — and it was still there. I came back in and turned north of Key West and it went north. (More than) halfway to Naples from Key West, it was black across the whole place."

rube kinkade

"Kinkade has parlayed his fame into an entire country-cottage industry of Kinkade-licensed products, as seen on QVC -- home furnishings, La-Z-Boy chairs and sofas, wallpaper, linens, china, stationery sets, Hallmark greeting cards and so on. Kinkade has also recently co-authored a novel. The Village at Hiddenbrooke bills itself as the culmination of Kinkade's vision: an actual manifestation of the quaint cottages, charming gazebos and inspiring landscapes in his artwork."

river prattle

east river info site via ftrain

wo pop poops

"Before the century ends, the number of humans likely will start to shrink, reckons James Chamie, director of the United Nation's population division. That will be a "momentous" reversal in direction."

seeing things

"Now, however, a geologist, an archaeologist, a chemist and a toxicologist have teamed up to produce a wealth of evidence suggesting the ancients had it exactly right. The region's underlying rocks turn out to be composed of oily limestone fractured by two hidden faults that cross exactly under the ruined temple, creating a path by which petrochemical fumes could rise to the surface to help induce visions."

il lucci

"Last November Frank Carlucci, chairman of the Carlyle Group, spoke to a conference on national security sponsored by the Pentagon and the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank where he sits on the board of directors. His topic, "Employing the Instruments of National Power in a Complex Environment," was a perfect metaphor for Carlucci's career, which has taken him from the CIA to the highest ranks of the defense and national security establishment and, finally, to the top of one of the world's largest private equity funds. "

mountain retreat

"LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - In the first major Inca find in four decades, Peruvian and British explorers say they have discovered a hidden city, perched on an Andean hilltop, that may have sheltered stalwarts of South America's legendary empire as they made a last stand against Spanish conquerors."

wham!

"It is also clear that some elements of your existing defence programme contravene both of the treaties your government and your party have sabotaged. The genetically engineered fungus you have developed for aerial spraying in Colombia plainly qualifies as a non-lethal biological weapon. And, because your strategic aims in that country extend beyond the simple eradication of drugs to the elimination of the leftwing rebel forces, the chemical sprays you have been using in the regions they control have also clearly been deployed as weapons, much as Agent Orange was in Vietnam. Your military laboratories have been developing a new range of genetically engineered "materials-eating bacteria", designed to destroy runways, engines and the radar-blocking coatings of warplanes. Though they do not directly affect humans, you would be hard-put to deny that these are biological weapons."

clowning around

"As long as one clown is oppressed, no man is free."

zip it up

does your profile match your zip?

not blogworthy

ufo breakfast
the magnificient melting object

newsoleum

"Make no mistake, however, Wall Street is applying great pressure on networks to find better business models for their news divisions. And many analysts and shareholders flatly consider the network news business as practiced by CBS and ABC — without affiliated cable networks — a poor one."

hunan globetrotters

"Mr. Menzies also described how, on his home computer and with a commercial software package called Starry Night, he reconstructed the Chinese celestial navigation system and traced what he thinks is the epic round-the-world voyage of Zheng He from March 1421 to October 1423. The Chinese, he concluded, explored the coasts of Africa, South America and Australia and sailed into the Caribbean and the Sea of Cortez, off what is now Baja California."

ciAnthrax

"A Newsnight investigation raised the possibility that there was a secret CIA project to investigate methods of sending anthrax through the mail which went madly out of control."

steel determination

"Brussels is planning to hit imports from key states targeted by the Republicans in this year's mid-term elections in revenge for President Bush's decision to slap heavy tariffs on European steel producers."

rebel yell

while gilligans island may be a better fit for presidential parodies, the dukes of hazzard has some interesting possibilities. i was thinking that el presidente would make a good roscoe p. coltrane. cheney would have little trouble with the boss hog role. maybe powell could give enos some new perspective. rove makes a nice cletus. but then, who to be the dukes? i guess bill and al would have to fit the bill (so much for our anti-heroes) with the moonshine representing degenerate hollywood values and all the evil that came out of the sixties. (cant you see gore preening that the character luke duke was based on him? except he would think he was the blond one.) and theres already an uncle jessie jackson. would that leave daisy to hillary or monica?

or are the dukes actually the conservatives? after all, they are draped in the flag of the confederacy. is moonshine oil, as in duke energy? damn those lawmen! deregulate now! the fat cats are big government. bo and luke work as george and jeb, which makes uncle jessie, obviously, pappy bush. and condi = daisy (cutters). is cooter rummy or rove? clinton would make an excellent sheriff. maybe ted kennedy could be boss hog. and is there a better bunch of bumbling deputies than al gore, tom daschle and dick gephardt? decide for yourself.

(next week, we take a startling look behind the catchers mask at the hidden truths as revealed to us from the results of the yankees versus diamondbacks 2001 world series. does it spell doom for us all? stay tuned!)

remaking artifice

"While some may be alarmed at the prospect of a director tampering with his original works, if Spielberg is determined to revisit his past films in this fashion, then it's clear that he has a tremendous amount of work cut out for him. Luckily, we're here to help him. Because if you can't provide free assistance to billionaire film directors, then who can you help?"

the good book

1911 encyclopedia britannica online

nimby

a recap from a century of american imperial excess

barbarians at the box office

am hollywood cheatsheet: whos more talented mary-kate or ashley? another conan movie? are you more conflicted than ben affleck?

ANWiRed

"About ANWR: The Times recently had an eye-opening article confirming something I had been hearing myself, that oil companies are not behind the push for drilling there — indeed, they are notably unexcited by the prospect. Studies by the U.S. Geological Survey suggest why: Arctic oil is so expensive to get at that it's barely worth extracting at current market prices. For energy companies it's the rest of the Bush energy plan, which would give them about $35 billion in tax breaks and subsidies, that really matters."

preoccupied territory

"But the fighting now, whether in Afghanistan or the occupied territories or in Iraq or elsewhere in the future, is or will be in distant parts. It is being prosecuted, as far as Americans are concerned, by a professional and not a conscript army. It is being directed, in Washington, by a secretive government, one which even neglected to properly inform its own party, let alone the opposition, about the setting up of a shadow administration in case a terrorist attack destroyed the real one. The strategy is being shaped by a small inner group who offer no logical connection, to take the prime example, between the campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida and a possible invasion of Iraq, while denying all connection between American support for the Sharon government and the disaffection of the Arab world."

tub of goo

google news adds a search option.

fried love

"He has Scotty Reston's sweeping wall map in his office in the Times' Washington bureau -- with the Soviet Union as still the most prominent piece of the map -- but he goes out of his way to disavow any similarities in their roles. Reston, whose column ran in the Times at the height of the Cold War, facilitated a conversation at the grandest levels; Reston was a Washington aristocrat. Whereas Tom Friedman, in his columnist job for seven years now, is, as he tells it, just your basic Everyman."

profusion cuisine

"It was Adam Smith who identified what turned out to be the central ethical fault line in Enron. The corporation, he wrote in The Wealth of Nations, was an inherently corrupting business form. The problem was the separation of ownership from control. In partnerships and sole proprietorships, the forms he preferred, the owners ran the business. In contrast, managers hired by the owner-stockholders ran the corporation. And the owners were too busy to monitor how their money was spent by the managers. So managers were institutionally liable to what Smith called "negligence" and "profusion." Negligence, because the business was not the consuming dedication of their lives, as it is for partners and sole proprietors; it was merely a job. Profusion, because they could reward themselves by lavishing other people's money, which spends so much easier than our own, on fine dinners, handsome equipages, and all manner of other frippery—and disguise their profusion as business expenses. Smith's distrust of the corporation had empirical backing in the disgraceful behavior of the East India Company, the Enron of his day, a monument to negligence and profusion."

the chronically aggrieved

"If you've ever given money to an environmental organization, if you support the movement's agenda, then you're probably part of a grand conspiracy that's degrading life in America. Worse yet, you might even be a terrorist, or at least an accomplice. At least that's what Nick Nichols seems to think."

photoshoppers

"Our focus at MSNBC.com is now on playing to the strengths unique to our medium by adding value to still images with in-depth captions and tightly edited audio/video components. Our goal is to use new technology so effectively that it fades into the background as the story is the reader focus."

copy that

"Copyright-holding corporations are pushing new laws and computer-crippling technologies in their war on piracy. But can anything keep geeks from copying the music and movies they crave?"

dead or alive

"Equally embarrassing to the government have been reports over the past five months that were recently confirmed by a December 23, 2001 Baltimore Sun article by reporter Scott Shane. The article revealed that Fort Detrick scientists had harvested bacteria from the dead bodies of persons "accidentally infected" with anthrax. Several former Army researchers who are now retired and live in Florida, including Bill Walter who to reporter Shane, have reported that at least three people affiliated with Fort Detrick who died from anthrax had their cadavers harvested so as to assist in the development of a new virulent anthrax strain. Army officials dispute these reports and say that harvesting was never performed at Fort Detrick. However, the same officials admit that accidental anthrax deaths did occur at the facility."

slate chalkboard

"At this point, the mystery of "Who Is Robert Klingler?" swells to include "Who Is Robert Klingler-Desai?" and "Who Is RDesai3109@aol.com?" not to mention, "Are They the Same Person?"

play for today

famous natl geo afghan girl is found 16 yrs later.

boarding passes

"Washington --- Six months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Immigration and Naturalization Service mailed out notices that two of the hijackers had been approved for student visas."

aliason

whew. had dinner with the parents last night at the new restaurant. growing up it was always my mother that seemed unstable but since my dad "retired" he has completely gone over the edge, at least after hes emptied a few glasses. now sure, the edge hes gone past was dull to begin with, but someones got to reel him in when hes knocking on the window of the restaurant and waving at the passersby. if anyone needs to borrow them, theyre available for weddings, bar mitzvahs or ribbon cutting ceremonies. price list available upon request.

smile for the camera

"It's Electronic Media's first-ever survey of Washington's media inner circle naming the best and worst talk show guests. We spoke to more than a dozen TV news professionals who book, produce, host and follow the Washington-centric TV shows that do the most to define the country's political talking points."

more where that came from

so, as far as i can tell, we are harboring biological terrorists, using chemical weapons and preparing our assault mini-nukes while the government engages in disinformation and torture-by-proxy?. then, we are militarily engaged in the most places weve ever been, for the longest time (since vietnam), and we are threatening to go into even more. and this all with a military that was deemed woefully unprepared (for war without end) by the current raiders-in-chief during the last election cycle. (more links to come, yeah right)

the lost world

"During this period of long sleepless nights, I sometimes wish I could believe in ghosts. I turn and toss in bed and imagine being able to send the ghosts of all the dead children, Israeli and Palestinian, to haunt Mr. Sharon and Mr. Arafat. I imagine that I am able to assemble these innocents around the beds of the two leaders; two men, both more than 70 years old, each a prisoner of the other, each at the mercy of the other. Each ready to act every day exactly as the enemy foresees, to throw more fuel on the flames, to spill yet more blood."

are you ready for some football?

"SEOUL, South Korea -- Two French-made, portable land-to-air missiles will be deployed outside South Korean stadiums during World Cup games to prevent possible terror attacks.

Military jets will patrol the skies over the stadiums during the tournament, Air Force spokesman 1st Lt. Kim Ki-ho said Monday. The Air Force will make sure jets noise does not affect matches, he said.

The security plans are the latest in a series of measures being planned by South Korea officials to safeguard their portion of the tournament, to be played from May 31 to June 30.

Five French special police force members arrived in Seoul on Monday for five days of joint training with their South Korean counterparts that will include hostage rescue operations.

South Korean police will make a return visit to the French special police forces headquarters near Paris next month. France was host to the 1998 World Cup.

The U.S. team will play its three first-round matches in South Korea. South Korea has set up an anti-terrorism unit and imposed no-fly zones for non-Air Force planes over World Cup stadiums and nuclear power plants during the tournament."

the company line

"Tim then asked Condi about VP Cheney's mission to twelve Middle East and Arab countries. Condi admitted that Iraq will be a major topic of conversation -- and claimed that President Bush has made no decisions about Iraq before launching into a tirade about Iraq's unacceptable behavior.

With the Middle East on fire, said Tim, it's not plausible to mount an attack on Iraq anyway. Condi claimed that the Israel-Palestine dynamic is independent, and the status quo in Iraq is unacceptable."

"1. Reject any linkage between the present Arab war on Israel and the coming American war on Iraq's dictator. Saddam Hussein's game is to get pan-Arab support by embracing Palestinian terrorists; he has awarded over 60 "martyrdom" checks of about $10,000 each to the families of suicide bombers."

coke adds life

"All this leaves Coke a bit dazed. The old corporate strategy -- Here's your Coke. Now drink up!'' -- is no longer viable. When Douglas Daft took over as C.E.O. from Ivester two years ago, he understood that they couldn't put their feet up in Atlanta anymore and watch as Coke Classic romped across the globe. The new approach is something more akin to ''How may we surround you with a broad range of products, one of which may happen to catch your fancy?''

and by 'we' i mean 'someone else'

"House Majority Whip Tom DeLay is unfazed by negative remarks Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, made about him and Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, after they criticized Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle for his complaints and questions about the war on terrorism.

Mr. Kerry, a prospective presidential candidate, said of the two Republican leaders: "One of the lessions I learned in Vietnam, a war they did not have to endure, those who try to stifle the vibrancy of our democracy and shield policies from scrutiny behind a false cloak of patriotism miss the real value of what our troops defend and how we best defend our troops. We will ask questions, and we will defend our democracy."

In an interview on CNN's "Saturday Edition with Jonathan Karl," Mr. DeLay, Texas Republican, said: "The last I remember, Sen. John Kerry was against the war in Vietnam, even though he served in it, and went around the country undermining the military overseas in trying to fight this war and giving aid to those that were trying to run the war from Washington, D.C."

Mr. DeLay added: "If we had had the leadership of a George W. Bush back in the Vietnam War days, we probably would not have lost that war. We would have gone in and won it. We would have given our soldiers the kinds of weapons that they needed. We would not have the rules of engagement that the liberals put on them. We would have allowed them to win the war."

eye in the sky

"The nation's cell phone service providers will soon know exactly where every one of their customers is, at all times, and privacy rights groups are asking what they plan to do with the information."

back of the line

"Why Disney went after Letterman and snubbed Koppel: Inside the tizzy over the future of TV news"

watered down beers

"If they are angry, as millions clearly are, it's because they have seen those promises betrayed by U.S. policy. Despite President Bush's insistence that America's enemies resent its liberties, most critics of the U.S. don't actually object to America's stated values. Instead, they point to U.S. unilateralism in the face of international laws, widening wealth disparities, crackdowns on immigrants and human rights violations--most recently in Guantanamo Bay. The anger comes not only from the facts of each case but also from a clear perception of false advertising. In other words, America's problem is not with its brand--which could scarcely be stronger--but with its product."

marked green

"Back then some Greens said, "there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans." This was campaign rhetoric -- broadstroked political shorthand. It meant that the Democratic Leadership Committee/Brothel had compromised the former party of the people into an almost unrecognizable shambles. But most Naderites understood that the Democrats were the far lesser of two evils. We knew that Gore would appoint better judges and less insane cabinet members. We knew that Gore would at least maintain a casual relationship with the Bill of Rights."

a real american hero

"Eventually, I somehow became typed as a variety show writer and wrote many a special or series in that dying genre, thereby hastening its demise. Most of them were for the legendary Sid and Marty Krofft and included the infamous Pink Lady and Jeff, which toplined two Japanese ladies who spoke almost no English, and a series with the Bay City Rollers, who spoke English but were no more intelligible.

I also started writing cartoon shows: Scooby Doo, Plastic Man, Thundarr the Barbarian, The Trollkins, ABC Weekend Special, CBS Storybreak, Rickety Rocket, Superman: The Animated Series and many others. I story-edited Richie Rich for a couple of years, wrote the pilots for Dungeons & Dragons, The Wuzzles and a few series from which I removed my name. Somewhere in there, I wrote That's Incredible! for three years and a whole lotta material for stand-up comedians."

alternetting a profit

"I have never been enthusiastic about Alternet's charging of a usurious 50 percent fee for the articles it resells. But until now, Alternet has been the only game in town. It has had near monopoly status as a syndication agency for a particular niche of "alternative" news. But, as with other monopolies, Alternet has grown fat in abusing its position in a manner that now causes more harm than good."

bombshell brownies

whats with the ny times and wa post running these photos on their homepages? they seem awfully fond of using terror porn from the mideast conflict, although the times crops this photo for a less revealing portrait of grief. are they trying to sell policy with a mix of titilation and fear?

no look pass

"The ANWR debate is a “smokescreen,” said Tyson Slocum, energy project research director at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader.

He said “it’s a brilliant strategy” to keep scrutiny away from other industry-friendly sections of the GOP-drafted energy bill passed by the House last August and the Democratic bill now being debated by the Senate."

light touch

"Are you the sort of person who believes in conspiracies--the Trilateral Commission secretly runs the world, that sort of thing? Well, then, here's a company for you. The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C., buyout firm, is one of the nation's largest defense contractors. It has billions of dollars at its disposal and employs a few important people. Maybe you've heard of them: former Secretary of State Jim Baker, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, and former White House budget director Dick Darman. Wait, we're just getting warmed up. William Kennard, who recently headed the FCC, and Arthur Levitt, who just left the SEC, also work for Carlyle. As do former British Prime Minister John Major and former Philippines President Fidel Ramos. Let's see, are we forgetting anyone? Oh, right, former President George Herbert Walker Bush is on the payroll too."

inside out

"When Brokaw, Jennings and Rather retire, it is a perfect time for these corporations to decide their newscasts are no longer worth it," said Ken Bode, a former NBC correspondent who teaches at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. "Unless something dramatic happens, inevitably, the network newscasts are gone."

pick of the litter

"From an election reform standpoint the news from California was all good, and one development -- the decision of San Francisco voters to create an instant runoff voting system -- is particularly important."

strictly gonzo

"It was announced in the US yesterday that Jim Henson Television has partnered with producers Team Todd and Fox Broadcasting Company to develop a new Muppet series that will feature a new crop of characters in addition to Kermit, Miss Piggy and other longstanding members of Henson's fuzzy troupe."

man with the plan

"Since Sept. 11, Friedman has demonstrated an admirable knack for making friends of his enemies and enemies of his friends. He has long been tolerated in the Arab world because he condemns Israeli settlement building and because he exposed Israel's culpability in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. For the same reasons, the Israeli and American Jewish right-wing detested him as a traitor, calling him "anti-Zionist." Some right-wing Jewish leaders have suggested he shouldn't be invited to speak to Jewish audiences, because he's an enemy of the Jewish people. But these days, Friedman's criticism of Arab regimes and Yasser Arafat has endeared him to Israelis and American Jews and cost him in the Arab world."

tributary of light

"The World Trade Center: Before, During, & After"

find your own damn links

cursor
hotline
buzzflash
counterpunch
commondreams

suffer little children

"When he returned to Israel in 1962 his wife Margalit was killed in a traffic accident. Sharon describes this event with honorable restraint—precisely the same restraint with which he later describes the death of his beloved son Gur, who was killed at the age of eleven when another boy shot him unintentionally with a rifle that was in Sharon's house. But touching as they are, even these two tales require the corrections to be found in Benziman's book. Sharon ascribes his wife's accident to the fact that the car she was driving, which they had brought back from England, had right-wheel drive. But, according to Benziman, many of Sharon's acquaintances believe his wife committed suicide in the accident after discovering that Sharon was conducting an affair with her younger sister Lily, who, shortly after her death, became Sharon's wife and the mother of his children. Moreover, after his son's death Sharon was vengeful toward the boy who had shot Gur, accusing him of intentionally killing him. The boy and his mother, the widow of a pilot, were forced to leave their house, which was near Sharon's."

cataclysm

theres that

a cat
a hat

i do not want to be a cat in a hat

not that cat
not that hat

no hat
no cat

thats that

apres le deluge, meow

five per scent blew

the same question
the same words
overheard
still absurd

run and take it
well astray (dig deeper)
out of your hide and speak
away

is it really love
or just an alibi
an excuse to cry

OUT!

good grief, my stomach hurts
too many peanuts and charlie browns

animal planet

megafauna and creature features

ajudged newsworthy

"Judge says amateur news gatherers on public access TV have same rights as professionals"

sanguine efforts

"It's over. What do you want, blood?"

jail baiting

"When Arundhati Roy woke up at 5.30am this morning in Tihar prison, New Delhi, it must have struck her that reality was proving stranger than any fiction. Over the past week terrible communal violence in India has claimed hundreds of lives while the forces of law and order stood by. This has now been juxtaposed with the spectacle of a diminutive, softly spoken novelist being sent to one of the country's most notorious prisons to uphold what the supreme court called the "glory of the law" because she dared to criticise it. Images of what constitutes the law in modern India absurdly collide."

future cia assets

"Will the riots in Gujarat spread to Jaipur? The odds, according to Jaipur’s bookmakers, are between 1:4 and 1:6. Seventy bookies have been arrested in Jaipur for offering bets on the communal riots. And the police say that this isn’t all they were doing. The bookies were also spreading rumours so that an atmosphere of uncertainty prevailed in the city-and more bets came in."

safire when ready

"With the roundheeled Michael Powell steering the Federal Communications Commission toward terminal fecklessness; with the redoubtable Joel Klein succeeded at Justice's antitrust division by an assortment of wimps; and with appeals courts approving the concentration of media power as if nothing had changed since President Taft's day, the checks and balances made possible by diverse competition are being eradicated.

The longtime anti-business coloration of liberals reduces their ability to take on the convergence con. It is for conservatives to ask ourselves: Since when is bigness goodness?"

steel will

"Bush's measures are new taxes on American consumers -- approaching $1 billion annually just on purchasers of cars and trucks -- and are purely political measures. Think of them as an $8 billion contribution coerced from manufacturers and consumers of steel products, for the benefit of about six Republican congressional candidates in steel-producing districts, and for Bush's reelection campaign."

deficit spending

study of headlines about marijuana study highlights deficit in mentalities. we are absolutely positive that these findings are conclusively inconclusive. wait, what was i talking about again?

green machine

ang lee goes from bruce lee to stan lee with his next movie.

gone fishin'

"The Left Bank Cafe is for sale. The Left Bank has a rich history and holds an important place in the Downeast community. The Left Bank is an institution that has brought world class music, international cuisine, and a warm cafe atmosphere to the far reaches of Maine's rugged coast."

master classes

american masters series

monitor merrymaking

"The publisher of The Tyndall Report, a newsletter that monitors television news, discusses his organization's NewsHour- commissioned study of cable news network content." via pbs cablenews report

dab-aholics

"The Big Secret might, however, be that the highest levels of the Bush Administration knew during the summer of 2001 that the largest bankruptcy in history was imminent? Or it might be that Enron and the White House were working closely with the Taliban only weeks before the Sept. 11 attack. Was a deal in Afghanistan part of a desperate last-ditch "end run" to bail out Enron? Here's a tip for Congressional investigators and federal prosecutors: Start by looking at the India deal. Closely."

why-fi

"March 5, 2002 | You'd think there'd be enough laptop-toting yuppies around to fill a Starbucks in San Francisco. It's been months since the chain equipped 50 of its stores in the area with high-speed wireless Internet access. But a tour of both Starbucks and independent coffeehouses served by the separate Surf and Sip Network uncovers a disheartening trend: Even at the spacious Brickhouse Café, newly renovated in the heart of Multimedia Gulch, I'm the only one logged on to a high-speed connection that costs hundreds of dollars a month to operate."

live evil

"Why the "War on Terror" Won't Work"

forever hold your peace

"Today, despite the criticism Lott and Davis have received, several pundits are keeping up the attack. Here's what pundit Robert Novak said on CNN's "Crossfire" Friday:

"Barbara Krull sends me an e-mail saying, 'It is patriotic to debate foreign policy, especially when we have troops on the ground whose lives depend on our making sound policy.' Barbara, it was people like you who undermined our forces in the Vietnam War and brought Communist tyranny to a country that doesn't deserve it."

spring in your steps

"The Producers » Mel Brooks's classic musical spoof of the Nazi era is to be staged in Berlin"

iraq and a hardplace

"After a year of bitter infighting, the Bush Administration remains sharply divided about Iraq. There is widespread agreement that Saddam Hussein must be overthrown, but no agreement about how to get it done. The President has given his feuding agencies a deadline of April 15th to come up with a "coagulated plan," as one senior State Department official put it, for ending the regime. The President is expecting to meet that month with Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, whose support for the Iraqi operation is considered essential."

rising tide

shipman and stephanopoulos to replace sam and cokie on sunday morning chatfest.

stargazers

"According to a group of scientists for whom the term "wildly optimistic dreamers" is virtually a job description, it will indeed be very difficult to travel to other stars, and nobody in either the public or private sector is about to try it any time soon. But as the researchers see it, the challenge is not insurmountable, it requires no defiance of the laws of physics, so why not have fun and start thinking about it now?"

save ferris

"This website has one simple aim: to save Nightline, one of the last vestiges of quality in America's broadcast news industry, from being removed from its 11:35pm ET time slot."

the infotainer

"In the intervening 45 years the wardrobe and lingo have changed some, and the relative power of various players has shifted. But as a benchmark of modern cultural history, ''Sweet Smell'' is more like the end of a beginning than the beginning of any end. Since the film's release, the infotainment-industrial complex grew exponentially from post-vaudeville germination to the all-subsuming 500-channel efflorescence of global media-movie-music conglomerates; gossip columns and crypto-gossip columns began appearing in more and more magazines and newspapers, including this one; celebrity became both indiscriminately fungible and a genuine national obsession; murky symbioses between journalists and publicists grew more widespread and entrenched; and a sneering, clued-in, ''Sweet Smell'' cynicism about the quid pro quo bargains for fame and success became the standard American take. Hunsecker and Falco are monsters, but they're also pioneers, founding fathers of the world we inhabit now."

df/am

how bin laden got away
why bin laden used saudi hijackers
media notes
transporting nuclear waste
david brocks dramatic turn from right to left

ill take manhattan

"For a few harrowing weeks last fall, a group of U.S. officials believed that the worst nightmare of their lives—something even more horrific than 9/11—was about to come true. In October an intelligence alert went out to a small number of government agencies, including the Energy Department's top-secret Nuclear Emergency Search Team, based in Nevada. The report said that terrorists were thought to have obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon from the Russian arsenal and planned to smuggle it into New York City."

super soaker

"Call off the dogs please. I surrender. I apologize. I am chastened and will never use "hot tub"and "Marin County" in the same sentence again. Though you yourself in "Reader's Forum" recognized that others have used the "hot tub" analogy, I shouldn't have done it."

time sluts

abc has a new comedy about network executives called Wednesday 9:30/8:30 Central

rules of engagement

"If Carp's evaluation is correct, it seems that when a President is - as President Bush is now - forced to deal with a politically divided government, the quality of his judicial appointees may markedly increase. Automatic confirmation may be not a luxury, but a threat; it tends to send the political hacks and ideologues onto the bench, and keep the better jurists off."

zoned in

"Atlanta is at the forefront of a widespread movement to update zoning codes. The theories that propelled some of the codes stem from before the Eisenhower administration, at a time when the advent of the car became the single most important factor influencing land-use policy.

"The postwar planning initiatives had a real blossoming of the notion of separation of land uses and were responding to the car, which was the new thing that everyone was really excited by," Dobbins said.

"The tried and true, centuries-old sets of relations between people and their buildings were ignored," Dobbins said. "Zoning ordinances actually encouraged and induced this phenomenum of a building sitting in a sea of asphalt, accessible by car."

Times have changed."

polished apple

museum of the city of new york

fair play

whats the plan

Pathways in American Planning History: A Thematic Chronology

critical thinking

"March 1, 2002 | As Democrats launch their first criticisms of the Bush administration's war policies, several Republicans and conservative pundits have launched an all-out attack designed to frame virtually any criticism of the war on terrorism as illegitimate."

chalk talk

"The tempest began at the end of September, when Bill O'Reilly invited Mr. Al-Arian on his Fox News show and virtually accused him of being a terrorist. People here in Tampa were horrified to learn of a terrorist in their midst and flooded the university with complaints and a few threats. (Florida has the most pious death threats: a couple of them invoked God and one ended by saying "God Bless!")"

art linkladder

"why google loves weblogs"

al-enron

"No matter which direction the Central Asia natural gas would eventually flow, Enron would profit. Should it go south towards ships waiting on the Pakistan coast, it would be still only a few hundred miles at sea to Dabhol. The trip from the Mediterranean would be farther (and thus more expensive for Enron to buy gas), but it was also the least likely route to be constructed. Estimated costs were almost $1 billion more than the route through Afghanistan, and engineering plans had not even started. No, the only practical route for the Caspian Sea gas was through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the border of India. All that was lacking was the political will to make it happen."

nuclear ward

"Execution of the classified "Continuity of Operations Plan" resulted not from the Cold War threat of intercontinental missiles, the scenario rehearsed for decades, but from heightened fears that the al Qaeda terrorist network might somehow obtain a portable nuclear weapon, according to three officials with firsthand knowledge. U.S. intelligence has no specific knowledge of such a weapon, they said, but the risk is thought great enough to justify the shadow government's disruption and expense."


"A bipartisan commission, headed by Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler, concluded that the United States should be spending some $3 billion per year over the next ten years to help Russia control its nuclear weapons and weapon-grade nuclear materials. Rather than spend less than one percent of the current defense budget on dramatically curtailing the potential spread of nuclear weapons and materials to terrorists or unfriendly regimes, the Bush administration is trying to save money in this area. It is spending only one-third of the proposed amount to help Russia safeguard its nuclear weapons and materials and find alternative work for nuclear physicists a woefully inadequate amount if we are truly attempting to quell nuclear proliferation."

me and my shadow

"There's a lesson here that goes well beyond the impact of oil drilling on caribou. Deceptive advertising pervades the administration's effort to sell the nation on its drill-and-burn energy strategy. In fact, those of us following this issue can't see why people made such a fuss about the Pentagon's plan to disseminate false information. How would that differ from current policy?"

knight of the bumblebees

"Koppel Is the Odd Man Out as ABC Woos Letterman"

degree of difficulty

"But Stanley Milgram believed he had solved the problem, or at least made substantial empirical progress, through an ingenious experiment. Milgram (1967) asked "starters," supposedly "randomly" chosen people from psychologically distant locations like Kansas or Nebraska, to send a folder through the mail to a target person in places like Cambridge, Massachusetts or Boston. The starters were given information about the target person and written instructions to send the folder through the mail to someone they knew on a first-name basis who would be more likely to know the target. That person was to send the folder on to someone even closer. Returned tracer postcards tracked the progress of each chain."

probably meets possibly

"WASHINGTON — Radioactive fallout from Cold War nuclear weapons tests across the globe probably caused at least 15,000 cancer deaths in U.S. residents born after 1951, according to data from an unreleased federal study. The study, coupled with findings from previous government investigations, suggests that 20,000 non-fatal cancers — and possibly many more — also can be tied to fallout from aboveground weapons tests."

hedging your bets

"Liberals love to shower Soros with respect, ignoring his Wall Street background, because his motives are so obviously honorable, and the money he is spending so clearly is going to "good" causes. But his life raises some troubling questions about the autonomy of capital in the era of globalization. Make enough money, and you don't have to obey anyone's rules."

battle criers

"The good news is that to beat the Republicans, the Democrats don't have to fight like them. They simply need to remember how to fight like Democrats. The first step is to stop worrying about how their words and actions will play in the establishment media. Bad press is frequently the sign that you're doing something right. If they're serious about beating back Bush, Democrats need to start pulling on all the levers of power available to them, and to stop shrinking away from sounding partisan when the cause is just. Standing up for your Senate leader when he has been attacked is a form of partisanship that the average American can admire. Voters can grasp the moral difference between investigating a politician's private life and investigating how an administration managed to lose $4 trillion of surplus. American voters understand that Enron is no Whitewater."

file under...

"According to the editors, the current thrown-together look of the Web site will soon be tweaked as a long-overdue plan to spruce up its layout is now in an advanced stage. In the coming months and years, Debkafile intends to expand into more fields and languages; increase its specialized staff of reporters, editors, and analysts; and further build its customized base of individual and corporate clients who are willing to pay to receive the publication's reporting, in more detail, before anyone else."

pestilence

"DeWitt's organization has filed suit in US federal court on behalf of 10,000 Ecuadorian peasant farmers and Amazonian Indians charging Lombardi's company with torture, infanticide and wrongful death for its role in the aerial spraying of highly toxic pesticides in the Amazonian jungle, along the border of Ecuador and Colombia. DynCorp's chances of squirming out the suit were dealt a crushing blow in January when federal judge Richard Roberts denied the company's motion to dismiss the case on grounds that their work in Colombia involved matters of national security."

international style

"These cold war assumptions, both ideological and power-political, will have to be dispensed with if we are to develop some means of controlling armed conflict. It is also evident that the US has failed, and will inevitably fail, to impose a new world order (of any kind) by unilateral force, however much power relations are skewed in its favour at present, and even if it is backed by an (inevitably shortlived) alliance. The international system will remain multilateral and its regulation will depend on the ability of several major units to agree with one another, even though one of these states enjoys military predominance."

winning smile

i was busy watching stories of the ancient nefertiti while a modern version was reveling in her own golden moment.