drat fink

stratocaster

"It became an annual rite of my boyhood. Each spring, I'd anticipate the arrival of a package from a Long Island company called Strat-O-Matic, makers of a classic dice-based baseball simulation board game. Inside the mailing was the newly minted set of cards representing the real-life statistics of most every player to don a uniform the prior season."

pocket lining

"Afghanistan hopes to strike a deal later this month to build a $2bn pipeline through the country to take gas from energy-rich Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India."

"The World Bank, the United Nations (news - web sites) Development Program and the Asian Development Bank believe $10.2 billion is needed for the reconstruction of Afghanistan over five years, of which $4.9 billion will be needed within the next 30 months."

crimes and demeanors

"CANNES, France (Reuters) - Woody Allen rejected on Wednesday a call by American Jews to boycott France's Cannes film festival, saying that was the kind of protest the Nazis used before the Second World War."

territorial pissings

the nirvana wars

sterling sliver

"Star Wars" is like science fiction, but freed of the future. And yet it is America, all over: flaming, tumbling aircraft; huge enterprises collapsing before they're built; earnest, rich young princesses pretending to be democrats; a corrupt and inept Senate. As entertainment, it's full-speed sideways into a fun-house mirror, as Mr. Lucas's youthful aspiration is methodically replaced by an endless, brilliant, consumerized torrent of guns, gowns, clones and plastic figurines."

marketable commodity

fits of print

looks like the nytimes did away with their large super annoying ads within the text of their articles which appeared after the first paragraph so they were impossible to ignore. recently, i heard that the online venture was already turning a profit so it was just another case of whoring for dollars. meanwhile, i had started to read the articles in the printer friendly version which was ad free but apparently if you do that enough the times puts ads on that page too. ditto, for their "text only" version.

its almost enough to make me wish i didnt despise andrew sullivan.

keyed up

"The FBI set up a bogus computer security company named "Invita" in downtown Seattle and let it be known they needed hackers as consultants on computer security. In an elaborate scheme, FBI agents posing as Invita employees made phone and e-mail contact with Gorshkov and Ivanov, and offered them consulting work as Internet security experts."

"While demonstrating their hacker skills, the Russians also took time out to use an Internet connection to tap into their server in Russia. What they didn't realize was that the keystroke logging program was copying everything. FBI agents used those passwords to tap into the Russian server and copy what was there."

dope finds

antiquated but still relevant: The Consumers Union Report - Licit and Illicit Drugs from the DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy

color bind

"At George Washington Carver Elementary School, poll workers asserted that Newark police officers were standing near the entryway of the polling site, patting voters on the shoulders and telling them to "do the right thing." Darnell White, 32, a volunteer for Mr. Booker's campaign said the police threatened to arrest him when he complained."

standard oil

nothing terribly new in this screed about us oil imperialism but an illuminating read nonetheless especially in light of the failed venezuelan coup and our recent rapprochement with russia and todays un sanctions reversal for iraq. and it would seem the last two items are related as one of the prime beneficiaries of the sanctions overhaul is russia which according to the article had lost $700 million in business as a result of the sanctions.

sinicism

"What is not so well known across the left, not to mention elsewhere, is that this radical criticism of the limitations of a capitalist sponsored journalism is not a recent phenomenon. In fact, it dates back to the birth, at the beginning of the twentieth century, of both modern monopoly capitalism and modern commercial media, roughly one hundred years ago. Radical criticism of the press was an integral component of the many large social movements of the Progressive Era, which sought to resist the effects of accelerating capitalist development. It was a time of striking similarity to the present, mirroring in particular the corruption of democracy by political and economic elites whose control over the media strangles public awareness, debate, and activism. However, unlike today, radical criticism of capitalist journalism was a dominant theme on the left during the Progressive Era, particularly in the socialist, anarchist, and progressive press. This was the Golden Age of radical press criticism, and Upton Sinclair was at its epicenter."

bonjour tristesse

"In the late 1960s, Jean Seberg took more roles in Hollywood, most notably opposite Warren Beatty in "Lillith". She also became increasing active in left wing political groups. Her support for the anti-racist movement the Black Panthers, along with that of Jane Fonda, was well known. But such was Seberg's influence, esspecially in Europe, that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover considered her a genuine liability, and, in 1970 when she was seven months preganant, issued instructions that Seberg be "neutralised". Thus it was that a fake letter was "leaked" to the Hollywood gossip columns, suggesting that the father of the child was not Gary, but a member of the Black Panthers. The reaction so traumatised Seberg that she gave birth prematurely, and the child was stillborn. The next day Seberg called a press conference, where she presented shocked journalists with the body of her dead white child. The measure, though extreme, put an end to the rumours, but the FBI continued to hound Seberg until she eventually moved back to Paris."

refusenik

lauryn hills new album came out today. apparently its not commercial enough for corporate america which means it may only sell two or three million copies versus her last monster effort. what was she thinking? next youre going to tell me that mtv wont play her videos because she doesnt show enough skin. what kind of values is she trying to impart? is she some sort of pro-palestinian maoist rebel?

general occlusion

first of five part article on tom delay.

formula one

"The research reveals that while the built-up areas of the settlements constitute only 1.7% of the land in the West Bank, the municipal boundaries are over three times as large: 6.8%. Regional councils constitute an additional 35.1%. Thus, a total of 41.9% of the area in the West Bank is controlled by the settlements."

spare squares

"Splitting up the screen has slipped into movies and TV shows so deftly that almost no one has pointed out what a break it makes with the past. Except for a brief, astonishing moment in the late '60s, with movies like Richard Fleischer's "The Boston Strangler" and Norman Jewison's original version of "The Thomas Crown Affair" and, of course, "Woodstock," edited by the brilliant Thelma Schoonmaker (among others, including a then-unknown Martin Scorsese), the history of film has been a history of the single screen: one image, one shared moment in time. An artist once insisted to me that you couldn't have it otherwise; the moment you break up that screen, you destroy the illusion that allows you to carry off your audience."